Robert Kahn

Austin Winsberg's slapstick book makes hash of every dating cliche we've heard...The breezy if plain score is by young composers Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner, who've written for Disney...[Levi's] got pipes, and 'First Date' is a nice vehicle for the lanky actor, who mugs his way through a handshake-turned-awkward-fistbump, and other well-done comedic moments. Rodriguez is compelling and believable as the wounded, sometimes claw-bearing serial dater who hasn't quite given up on love...'First Date' doesn't boast the most memorable score or original story, but you'll still walk out feeling as if you've gotten lucky. That's thanks to the charismatic stars, who display a comfort and ease with their fictional counterparts that you usually only see in couples married 20 years.

These people all have magic to do, and over the course of two and a half hours, they deliver in relentless, surprising and cathartic ways. This revival, choreographed by Chet Walker 'in the style' of original director Bob Fosse, is Fosse by way of the Flying Wallendas...Miller makes for a charismatic guide as the Leading Player, locking eyes with audience members throughout the evening...My advice is to judge this 'Pippin' based on how it makes you feel, once you've separated that from all the delightful noise. It left me ecstatic and spent, and feeling like it's time to attend trapeze school.

The comic timing we've come to associate with the Tony-nominated Baldwin is on grand display...Foster's shady Treat vacillates between menacing and childlike; at any point, you fear he may knife Harold, or hug him...Sturridge is phenomenal as Phillip, the type of fellow we'd think of today as falling somewhere on the autistic spectrum, though such classifications likely weren't part of Kessler's vernacular back in the day. His Phillip inhabits the tiny confines of the row house like a cat, leaping lithely from sofa to stairs to windowsill (the appropriately glum set is by John Lee Beatty).

'Motown,' which clocks in at nearly three hours with intermission, is a greatest hits collection of music and a treasure trove of history...Like so many collections, it would benefit from some considerable paring down. I'd have preferred fewer of those awesome songs, with more of them performed in full. The actors (among them, the fine Valisia LeKae as Diana Ross and Bryan Terrell Clark as Marvin Gaye) do a swell job of not imitating the artists they're charged with portraying, instead infusing roles with their own individual charms. More nettlesome is the story, not that most people will care, since audiences will flock to 'Motown' on the goodwill of its name alone.

If you're going to stage a musical about fathers and sons, expectations and disappointment, you couldn't ask for more promising shepherds than rock icon Cyndi Lauper and four-time Tony winner Harvey Fierstein. Separately, each has created some of the more affirming material in the self-acceptance canon (think 'True Colors,' and 'La Cage aux Folles'). What the duo has conjured together in 'Kinky Boots,' which has just opened at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, is a vibrant, if choppy tale about carving your own identity, with bold, brassy music that delivers on its promise, and a story that, like so much from this genre, is often predictable.

The biggest challenge faced by 'Lucky Guy' might be the conundrum of its title. Ephron originally called her script 'Stories About McAlary,' and McAlary's widow was reportedly apprehensive of the change, at least before sitting in on a rehearsal. McAlary's time was brief, but it seems as if it was filled with the love, camaraderie and success many spend lifetimes twice as long trying to achieve. All things considered, you could say he was pretty lucky.

It’s cliche to say it, but Taylor becomes Ann Richards, mostly thanks to her witty script, and with a nice assist from costume designer Julie Weiss, who’s clothed her in a white, all-business jacket and skirt, with a sparkling Lone Star brooch. The transformation is all the more remarkable for the fact that Taylor only once met Richards, when they were briefly introduced at New York’s Le Cirque in 2004 by the columnist Liz Smith.

Metcalf's Juliana is two different women: the first, a businesslike medical researcher-turned-pharmaceutical rep; the second, a disintegrating mother distancing herself from reality. Juliana's fear about her health manifests as anger and sarcasm, and is particularly potent in scenes like one where she bites the head off her doctor for not allowing her to smoke in her office ... which is inside a hospital. Anyone can get sick, but is it the truly brilliant people who have the most trouble when control over their bodies is wrenched away? Metcalf makes us feel her fear.