Matthew Wexler

Cilento delivers on his promise. His staging faithfully pays homage to the choreographer’s work through a relevant lens for a new generation. For anyone looking to tap their toes and clap their jazz hands at a Broadway show, Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ delivers.

Despite their anchoring performances, The Seagull/Woodstock, NY doesn’t always soar but instead hovers at a pace that occasionally needs propulsion.

Set in the couple’s San Fernando Valley tract home and showcasing a breadth of Sultan’s real-life family film stills and photographs projected on scenic designer Michael Yeargan’s avocado-colored walls, Pictures From Home stumbles down memory lane rather than strolls, punctuated by three nuanced performances that challenge the meaning and value of family.

Arison, who's appeared for nine seasons on NBC's 'The Blacklist,' leans into movement director Kitty Winter's stylized pedestrian choreography, with a shape-shifting ensemble breathing life into the world of the play. But like the shepherd in Aesop's The Boy Who Cried Wolf, he wrenches to reach the emotional heights required of the text. Crocodile tears have diluted the audience's emotional capacity by the time the real ones flow. Barney George's scenic and costume design, though simple, serve the story, enhanced by William Simpson's projection designs. Tabla artist Salar Nader, along with the ensemble's use of singing bowls and percussive schwirrbogen, creates blankets of sound to envelop the action. But it's Sirakian's performance as young Hassan and Sohrab (Hassan's son) in Act II that emotionally tethers The Kite Runner to the audience. Sirakian, making his Broadway debut, exudes wide-eyed innocence and an uncompromising fortitude as Hassan - without question - defends his best friend and later his family

While I can’t deny many will find the brutal honesty of A Strange Loop provocative, its success lies in the delicate balance of specificity and universality. Usher’s journey loops more like a spirograph than the neat circumference of a circle. Like all our lives, it intersects at the most inopportune moments, kicking up fears and inadequacies we thought buried long ago. And that’s not so strange, after all.