Off-Broadway Theater Reviews

BWW Review: WINNIE THE POOH: THE NEW MUSICAL STAGE ADAPTATION at The Hundred Acre Wood Theatre at Theatre Row
by Cindy Sibilsky - November 15, 2021

Winnie the Pooh: The New Musical Stage Adaptation is magical, sweet as honey, and full of humor. It's a wholesome, delightful, enchanting piece of theatre for the young and young at heart to celebrate the seasons, friendships, adventures, and the wonders of the imagination....

BWW Review: TAMMANY HALL at SoHo Playhouse
by Cindy Sibilsky - November 08, 2021

Tammany Hall is an immersive theatrical time machine that transports the audience to New York Election Night in 1929. The setting is Club Huron, the actual Tammany Hall clubhouse that is now SoHo Playhouse, where performers portraying real historical characters guide attendees through 15 rooms as sc...

BWW Review: ONLY AN OCTAVE APART at St. Ann's Warehouse
by Cindy Sibilsky - October 02, 2021

The combined talents of Bond and Costanzo compliment and increase the level of artistry and ability in each other. There’s a perfect balance and harmony between them. Both performers can comfortably transition from hysterical comedy to heartfelt emotions, make you laugh one moment and cry the next, ...

BWW Review: Transcendence Theatre's 'Broadway Under the Stars' Celebrates 10 Years with a 'Road-Trip!'
by Christina Mancuso - August 11, 2021

There’s something truly extraordinary that happens when you step onto the grounds of Jack London State Historic Park.  It’s not just any park.  You are whisked away into a magical land of beauty, passion, exuberance -- and immersed in spellbinding talent that is known as the Transcendence Theatre fa...

BWW Review: STATIC is a Compelling Virtual Two-Hander Presented for East to Edinburgh by 59E59 Theaters
by Marina Kennedy - July 16, 2021

We viewed Static, presented by Golden Lights.  The compelling two-hander features the talents of Daniel Amedee and Conor Kelly O’Brien.  The two performers also created the show.  It is directed by Michael Pillot. It is part of the festival presented by 59E59 Theaters to celebrate East to Edinburgh ...

BWW Review: A THOUSAND WAYS (PART ONE): A PHONE CALL & (PART TWO): AN ENCOUNTER at The Public Theater
by Cindy Sibilsky - June 29, 2021

In 600 Highwaymen’s A Thousand Ways (Part One: A Phone Call) and (Part Two): An Encounter, you and a stranger are the show. Through a series of seemingly impersonal questions with an unknown person, these intimate encounters force you to examine your emotions and how connections, or lack thereof, du...

Irish Rep Announces Summer 2021 Performances on Screen Featuring GHOSTING, THE CORDELIA DREAM and More
by Chloe Rabinowitz - June 08, 2021

 Irish Repertory Theatre announced today three Performance on Screen digital productions for their Summer 2021 season. Ghosting, by Anne O’Riordan and Jamie Beamish and directed for streaming by Jamie Beamish, will premiere on Tuesday June 22, 2021. The production, starring Anne O’Riordan, will run ...

BWW Review: PERSOU Pursues Eternal Spring at The Cell Theatre
by Cindy Sibilsky - June 01, 2021

One Whale Tale's Persou transforms The Cell Theatre in Chelsea into the Temple of Aphrodite and invites audiences into a sensual, immersive experience celebrating the beauty and bounty of spring. The interactive theatrical event is extended through June 12th....

BWW Review: FRAGMENTS, A LIVE AUDIO STORY is a Quiet, Yet Richly Introspective Experience
by David Clarke - May 07, 2021

It’s been a long road since March 2020, but the world is healing and Mandie Rapoza’s performance art piece, FRAGMENTS, A LIVE AUDIO STORY, is a welcomed and much needed breath of fresh air in a world where in-person art has been almost completely dormant....

BWW Review: SOCIAL! THE SOCIAL DISTANCE DANCE CLUB at Park Avenue Armory
by Cindy Sibilsky - April 19, 2021

David Byrne is no stranger to creating theatre, quirky immersive experiences, or ushering people to the dance floor. So perhaps it's fitting that he's acting as a Pied Piper for a return to all three in SOCIAL! The Social Distance Dance Club at Park Avenue Armory....

BWW Review: A Beloved New York Stage Actor Recalls Six Decades of Theatre in JOHN CULLUM: AN ACCIDENTAL STAR
by Michael Dale - April 12, 2021

The first time I saw John Cullum live on stage his fingers were clutched to a window frame of designer Robin Wagner's art deco luxury liner, playing the maniacally flamboyant theatre producer Oscar Jaffe attempting to board a moving train in his Tony-winning turn in ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY....

BWW Review: Broadway's John Cullum Delights in Streamed AN ACCIDENTAL STAR
by Roy Berko - April 11, 2021

This and other personal tales are the core of John Cullum: An Accidental Star. Stories about the golden days of the American musical and his friendships with the likes of Richard Burton, Robert Goulet, and Julie Andrews, told in his home-style manner, is interspersed with songs from shows in which h...

BWW Review: Lupita Nyong'o and Juan Castano Are Bilingual Lovers in The Public's Radio Drama ROMEO Y JULIETA
by Michael Dale - March 28, 2021

The visuals may be left to the listener's imagination in The Public Theater's new audio play, but what lands on the ear takes Joseph Papp's revolutionary concept a bit further....

BWW Review: Patrick Page Leads a Sumptuous Ensemble in Shakespeare@'s Radio Drama JULIUS CAESAR
by Michael Dale - March 02, 2021

Even if Americans weren't recently subjected to the horror of violent deaths and the attempted murder of elected officials inside the U.S. Capitol Building, the issue of representatives desiring the right to carry firearms in congress would be enough to bring new relevance to William Shakespeare's d...

BWW Review: On Edge, Online: Spin Cycle and JCS Theater Company's ADJUST THE PROCEDURE Exposes Real College Crises, Virtually
by Derek McCracken - February 21, 2021

Health efficacy and academic bureaucracy clash in ADJUST THE PROCEDURE, a timely pandemic play about a group of deans and directors at an NYC college who meet to disclose, debate and deny a rash of compounding crises....

BWW Review: Theatre Artists Adapt To A Drastically Changed World as The Seeing Place Presents Liz Duffy Adams' DOG ACT
by Michael Dale - February 06, 2021

The Seeing Place Theater offers a futuristic glimpse of artists adapting to a changed culture in Liz Duffy Adams’ 2004 absurdity, DOG ACT....

BWW Review: Bill Irwin's ON BECKETT / IN SCREEN Takes A Clown's-Eye View Of The Modernist's Words
by Michael Dale - November 22, 2020

'I am not a Beckett scholar,' Bill Irwin advises viewers at the outset. 'Mine is an actor's relationship to this language. By which I mean the deep knowledge that comes from committing words to memory, and speaking them to audiences.'...

BWW Review: The Seeing Place Addresses Increasingly Relevant Issues With Jane Martin's 1994 Pulitzer Finalist KEELY AND DU
by Michael Dale - November 05, 2020

For the first time in twelve years, Americans were being served by a president who fully supported The Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision when the pseudonymed playwright Jane Martin's 1994 Pulitzer finalist KEELY AND DU premiered....

BWW Review: Trump-Era Liberals Are All At Sea In Anne Washburn's SHIPWRECK
by Michael Dale - October 28, 2020

While not exactly a moment of déjà vu, I did feel a sense of the familiar while listening to director Saheem Ali's new podcast production of Anne Washburn's provocative play of Trump-era liberal ideology, SHIPWRECK, subtitled 'a History Play about 2017'. It was followed almost immediately by an inte...

BWW Review: A satisfyingly eerie FAR AWAY at PTP/NYC
by Joe Lombardi - October 17, 2020

A good creepy play can get under the viewer’s skin.  Caryl Churchill’s Far Away is one such piece.  The setting is a “familiar country, over the period of several decades.”  While the country may be familiar, the goings on are most certainly not.  A sense of dread, foreboding and discomfort hook you...

BWW Review: Timely sarcasm drips darkly in DON'T EXAGGERATE (DESIRE AND ABUSE) from PTP/NYC
by Joe Lombardi - October 03, 2020

PTP/NYC is known for producing politically aware plays.  They present theatrically complex and thought-provoking works of contemporary social and cultural relevance.  For their abbreviated season this year, they are streaming four productions over four weeks.  The second one, Don't Exaggerate (desir...

BWW Review: David Hargreaves Stars in Shakespeare@'s Enchanting Radio Drama Production of THE TEMPEST
by Michael Dale - October 05, 2020

After an impressive inaugural production of HAMLET in the atmospheric surroundings of Jersey City's Grace Church Van Vorst, Artistic Director Sean Hagerty's Shakespeare@, like so many theatre companies around the country, was suddenly placed in the position rethinking its immediate future....

BWW Review: Richard Nelson Closes Out His Pandemic Trilogy With INCIDENTAL MOMENTS OF THE DAY
by Michael Dale - September 18, 2020

When playwright/director Richard Nelson introduced Public Theater audiences to a family of Rhinebeck, New York residents by the surname Apple, he referred to his creation as a 'disposable play.' Well, it's been nearly ten years and, thankfully, he hasn't disposed of the Apples yet....

BWW Review: Saheem Ali Reinvents Shakespeare In The Park With An Audio RICHARD II That Stresses Color Consciousness
by Michael Dale - July 19, 2020

'What does it mean to have a Black man who is deemed unfit to rule and what does it mean to have a Black woman take his place?'...

BWW Review: Richard Nelson Continues His Rhinebeck Panorama with AND SO WE COME FORTH: THE APPLE FAMILY: A DINNER ON ZOOM
by Michael Dale - July 04, 2020

'I was lying in the bath last night. And it just occurred to me, I all of a sudden realized: I have not touched another human being for over three months.'...