OFF-BROADWAY THEATER REVIEWS

Say what you will about ANYTHING GOES and KISS, ME KATE, but for this musical theatre lover, there's no finer Cole Porter score than the one he whipped up for the 1929 hit, Fifty Million Frenchmen....

You might call John Kevin Jones the 'resident author' of East 4th Street's 1832 landmark Merchant's House Museum, though not in the traditional sense....

'If you want to know what's wrong with this country, go ask a jazz musician.'  Jaymes Jorsling's new play (A)loft Modulation is a lot like jazz.  Some sections are scintillating, magical and transporting while others are elongated and incongruous.  Patience, however, will reward those who travel ...

Imagine if Henry Higgins had wanted Eliza to end up with Freddy all along and you'll get a sense of where George Bernard Shaw was heading with his 1898 comedy of political maneuvering, Caesar and Cleopatra, which premiered over a dozen years before his more enduring classic, PYGMALION....

Even the most jaded New York playgoers who may start feeling a bit blasé about entering a theatre and seeing a large pool of water on the stage (Jeremy O. Harris' DADDY and Lucas Hnath's RED SPEEDO are two recent examples) will undoubtedly be intrigued by the sumptuous display of aquatic symbolism ...

There are times, perhaps if you know someone studying theatre at a liberal arts college, when one may be invited to attend a student-written play about how hip it is to be culturally-aware twentysomething intellectuals struggling to make it in the big city. The kind of play where introverted women c...

'This is a work in progress,' co-author Alix Sobler advised the Minetta Lane Theatre audience before a press performance of the autobiographical solo play, MARGARET TRUDEAU: CERTAIN WOMAN OF AN AGE....

59E59 Theaters is now presenting the NYC premiere of Michael Tucker's Fern Hill, splendidly directed by Nadia Tass. It is an authentic tale about the ups and downs of marital relationships and people's individual concerns about aging. Funny, heartfelt, and spirited, the current production features a...

After his triumphant, Tony-award winning revival of OKLAHOMA!, Daniel Fish had a lot to live up to when he announced he would be directing an adaptation of WHITE NOISE. To raise the stakes, he is also the author of the piece, which he described as 'freely adapted from the Don DeLillo novel.'...

NOVENAS FOR A LOST HOSPITAL, directed by Daniella Topol, is an interactive evening held in three locations that pays tribute to St. Vincent's. Tony Award-nominated and four-time Obie-winning actress Kathleen Chalfant (ANGELS IN AMERICA, WIT) stars as Saint Elizabeth Seton, the first American saint, ...

The king is dead, and the women who were rivals for his affection suddenly realize he wasn't anything worth fighting over. Okay, then... dance break!...

As ALL THE RAGE begins, warm stage light casts shadows across a simple set: a lamp, a globe, a long table, and a pair of blackboard maps. From this apt academic environment we get schooled in emotional geography by writer/storyteller Martin Moran. This timely revival of his award-winning 2013 perfor...

A bit over 400 years ago, a white Englishman named William Shakespeare scripted a play based on a story by a white Italian known as Cinthio about a Moorish general serving in the Venetian army, who is regarded as an outsider by his white colleagues because of his skin color....

Luisa Omielan is the first British comedian to ever receive a BAFTA Breakthrough Award for comedy. Currently making her U.S. debut at Soho Playhouse in her one-woman show, GOD IS A WOMAN, she was also nominated two years in a row for Best Comedy Show at the Melbourne International Festival....

'Only Yesterday' written by Bob Stevens and directed by Carol Dunne is an enthralling show now being performed at 59E59 Theaters through September 29. It brings together two of the Beatles, Paul McCartney and John Lennon in an imaging of a night they spent together stranded in a motel by a hurricane...

Step aside, Joseph; your amazing technicolor dreamcoat has some serious competition. When Harriet Powers' beautiful bible quilt appears onstage in QUILTING THE SUN, it's an applause-generating showstopper for a play where common threads of dreams, rituals, faith and family are stitched together agai...

When the lights go up on Lois Robbins' solo piece, L.O.V.E.R., the playwright/performer is demonstrating how, at age three, she would give herself orgasms by straddling her legs around the corner of her family's washing machine....

The NYC Off-Broadway premiere of Tech Support is currently on stage at 59E59 Theaters through September 21. Produced by Chatillion Stage Company, it is written and directed by Debra Whitfield. This clever and wonderfully performed romantic comedy offers a stark contrast between our modern age and ti...

Sure, it's a bit early in the game, but what might turn out to be the funniest scene to hit New York stages in this young theatre season occurs at the end of the first act in Jonathan Spector's sharp and empathetic social commentary, EUREKA DAY....

While the name Walt Disney will certainly be familiar to all those arriving at the Delacorte for Public Works' stage adaptation of the 1997 animated musical feature Hercules, hopefully a good deal of them will leave Central Park remembering the name Lear deBessonet....

The whole of Contact High from Theater 511 is greater than the sum of its parts, which is a good thing in light of this show's plethora of moving parts within its kaleidoscopic plot. The result is a timely coming-of-age pop-rock musical that tells a lyrical and satirical story of drug addiction, the...

One of the tightest ensembles of actors you're apt to see applying their craft on a New York stage these days is the quartet of youngsters portraying siblings aged 5-12 in Bess Wohl's engrossing drama of childhood memories, Make Believe....

In Patience, Daniel (Joshua Gitta) is a former prodigy who is now the world's #1 professional solitaire player. He's also going through a millennial 'mid-life' crisis. Young, black, talented, and restless, he inhabits a solo space in a game/sport that values reactions not reflections, shuffling betw...

'They're out of control,' an exasperated Bradley Dean cries out in a plea of victimization. 'Can you believe they tried to destroy my new housing project?' And from there you can pretty much predict where the plot of Jim Steinman's wildly oddball and frequently hilarious Bat Out of Hell is going....

Like most things in New York City, one can judge the quality of something by how long it's been around. From restaurants to boutiques to shows, the power is in popularity and perseverance. Going strong on stage in NYC since 2007, the Gazillion Bubble Show has proven it has both, plus a little someth...