Thom Geier

The tone is set by Patina Miller (Sister Act), who brings a feline slinkiness to the Leading Player that can turn outright catty when the troupe seems to stray too far from the supposed script. Matthew James Thomas (Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark) displays a bashful, aw-shucks charm in the title role, and Charlotte D'Amboise vamps playfully as his scheming stepmom. But the unlikely showstopper is 66-year-old SCTV alum Andrea Martin...Dangling high above the stage, she embodies this utterly delightful revival's big-top message: No matter our age, we need never outgrow the capacity for wonder. Jazz hands, though, are strictly optional. A

...the Tony-winning Good Wife star acts out a streamlined version of the drama, playing nearly all of the characters himself...The result is mesmerizing theater, aided enormously by Natasha Chivers' lighting and Fergus O'Hare's creepy horror-movie sound design. But as conceived by Cumming with co-directors John Tiffany (Once) and Andrew Goldberg (The Bomb-itty of Errors), it's also less a true revival of Macbeth than a wickedly clever riff on themes from Macbeth...Indeed, the stunt-like nature of the production sometimes muffles the play's emotional impact-we wind up feeling more for Cumming as a performer than we do for the characters he portrays...But what a tour-de-force performance it is. B+

First mounted in 1983, Kessler's three-man drama remains a vibrant exploration of masculinity and the challenge of forming and maintaining family connections. And Sullivan, by design and happy accident, has assembled a cast that manages to strike the tricky balance of playing the allegory with hard-earned authenticity. They make this simple story feel both real and somehow larger than life. A-

At its best, the new Broadway show - produced and scripted by Gordy himself - plays like a theme night on an all-star season of American Idol, packing in nearly 60 songs from a wide swath of the label's most recognizable artists. But between the energetic musical performances, backed by a tight 18-piece orchestra and boasting spirited choreography by Patirica Wilcox and Warren Adams, the cast is left to grapple with Berry's frankly amateurish book.

The wonder begins with the witty and hyper-literate score by Australian songwriter Tim Minchin, who has crafted several potential earworms...A word about Matilda: Milly Shapiro, a bright-eyed girl who conveys a fine sense of spunk and righteous indignation, played the title role admirably at the performance I attended. But I have no idea why Shapiro alternates with three other girls - Sophia Gennusa, Oona, Laurence, and Bailey Ryon - since the part seems significantly less demanding than the dance-heavy lead in Billy Elliot...Even gold-star students fall short of perfection, and the same is true of Matilda...On the other hand, even when you fail to pick up a well-turned phrase or eye-rolling pun, you will probably find yourself responding like a just-tucked-in child at bedtime.

Whenever Porter is on stage, though, he elevates a musical that might otherwise seem like a club-ready mash-up of La Cage aux Folles, The Full Monty, Billy Elliot, and Cabaret. Porter displays remarkable vocal versatility, making showstoppers out of three very different but equally catchy Lauper tunes: the disco song 'Sex Is in the Heel,' the affecting ballad 'I'm Not My Father's Son,' and the Whitney Houston-like anthem 'Hold Me in Your Heart.' Thanks to Porter's star-making turn, Kinky Boots delivers some pumps-up kicks. B+

Greenberg's entire first act is a slog, bogged down with dreary exposition and the introduction of far too many quirky but uninteresting characters. (Sean Mathias' listless direction does the script no favors.) It's telling that the supporting player who makes the strongest impression is Vito Vincent, who plays Holly's adoptive feline companion, Cat (Vito shares the role with Montie and Moo). There are too many scenes that just sit there, failing to delight and robbing the play of any semblance of narrative momentum. At one point, Smith's Fred even reads aloud from his journal: 'Time continues to pass without meaning.' Amen, brother.

Taylor, who often plays snarky WASPs on TV shows like Two and a Half Men, looks almost unrecognizable with her high white perm (dubbed 'Republican hair') and Texas drawl ('I wudn't drinkin' for nothin''). She may be a workmanlike playwright, but as a performer she commands the stage with authority as big as Texas itself. No wonder they call it the Lone Star State.

Like Brick, who gulps liquor until he hears 'that little click in my head that makes me peaceful,' this production tosses back many an intoxicating individual moment without ever quite clicking. B

Julianna is a perfect fit for Laurie Metcalf, a Steppenwolf Theatre veteran best known for her Emmy-winning work on Roseanne. Still lithe in a slim black skirt and jacket with a black and white top (the costumes are by David Zinn), Metcalf radiates a brusque intelligence and mordant wit with occasional flashes of raw and childlike vulnerability. Hers is a mesmerizing performance

Norbert Leo Butz is no stranger to playing shady characters...In Dead Accounts, Theresa Rebeck's engaging but unsatisfying new dramedy, he brings a fast-talking charm to a New York banker named Jack who suddenly shows up at his parents' suburban Cincinnati home with suspicious stacks of cash...With the exception of Jack, though, the characters are as thin as old dish towels. Holmes, effortlessly sympathetic in an underwritten role as a dithering thirtysomething, tears into a populist rant against banks and flirts playfully with Jack's still-in-Ohio high school pal Phil (Josh Hamilton)...The first act of Dead Accounts plays like a claustrophobically staged TV pilot...But Act 2 is like the second episode of a 13-show season, ending on a mini-catharsis as modest as a churchgoing Midwesterner. A full season (or further re-writing) might have allowed Rebeck to flesh out her promising setup, but this wisp of a show pays steep penalties for premature withdrawal. B–

Director Moisés Kaufman's crisp, first-rate production finds an admirable complexity in Ruth and Augustus Goetz' 1947 drama, based on the Henry James novel Washington Square. In her Broadway debut, Chastain conveys social discomfort and awkwardness without veering into caricature. In the second act, as her mouse of a character gradually learns to roar, the uniquely American arc of this tragedy comes into sharper focus.

It's been exactly 50 years since Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? first brayed its way onto Broadway, but Edward Albee's four-person drama has lost none of its searing psychological power over the years...Letts, better known as the playwright behind the Pulitzer winner August: Osage County, brings a fresh approach to the usually much quieter role of George...Morton's may be the most sympathetic Martha ever to appear on stage — her implosion in the play's final scenes is devastating on multiple levels...it is Letts and Morton who put their stamp on the play — and just about manage to eclipse the memory of the fine Broadway revival starring Bill Irwin and Kathleen Turner just seven years ago.

Director Dexter Bullard keeps the action moving fluidly. Unfortunately, he also keeps Beowulf Boritt's turntable set in nearly constant motion as well — audiences might consider popping Dramamine for all the random rotation of the wicker furniture representing both Steve and Sara's as well as Sam's apartments. Perhaps, despite all of Wright's jabs at believers, this is the surest evidence of an unseen God at work in the universe.

Early in Act 2 of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, the genetically altered villain Green Goblin (Patrick Page) sings, 'I'm a $65 million circus tragedy - actually, more like 75.' Yes, that's a wink-wink nod to the show's notorious crawl to opening night following months of delays, budget overruns, cast injuries, and the exit of original director and co-creator Julie Taymor. So how does the retooled Broadway production fare? It gets full marks for spectacle - Daniel Ezralow's aerial choreography and George Tsypin's sets deserve a curtain call all their own - but only partial credit as musical theater.

The unevenness of Cromer's direction is most pronounced in the first act, which is dominated by Artie, Bananas, and Bunny. The second act perks to life with the introduction with a farcical fleet of new characters, many of them played by scene-stealing stand-outs: relative newcomer Christopher Abbott as the Shaughnessys' increasingly deranged Vietnam-bound son, Ronnie (the role Stiller once played); Alison Pill (Milk) as the delightfully daffy deaf actress Corrinna Stroller, a vision in a white dress; and Thomas Sadoski (reasons to be pretty) as the neighborhood boy-turned-Hollywood hot shot whose coattails Artie unrealistically hopes to ride to fame. Yet overall, this production of The House of Blue Leaves is not unlike one of Artie's wannabe hit tunes: The notes are there, and the enthusiasm, but it never quite finds its rhythm.

At the heart of the new production, directed by Joel Grey and George C. Wolfe, is a subtle and superb performance by Joe Mantello...This is not a great play, to be honest. There is too much speechifying by characters who are too easily interchangeable. But as a chronicle of a historical moment, The Normal Heart still packs a serious emotional wallop.

You need look no further than Patina Miller, a natural and dynamic performer who proves there's a genuine virtue in the old phrase 'force of habit.' Even when she's tamed her curly 'do behind a long black robe and veil, she brings an irresistible energy to this crowd-pleasing show.

Theater can be like magic. You can take an assemblage of wire, wood, and mesh — and convince people without a shred of doubt that it is a horse. And not just any horse, but Joey, the beloved half thoroughbred who is the heart and soul of the imaginative, moving new Broadway drama War Horse. First produced at the National Theatre of Great Britain in 2007, the play centers on a gawky British teen named Albert (Seth Numrich) who enlists during World War I hoping to find Joey after his drunken lout of a father (Boris McGiver) sells the steed to the British army. (Steven Spielberg's film version is due in theaters this December.)

Jerry Mitchell's choreography is also a bit of a grab-bag - a little kick-line here, a little Fosse there - though it's consistently both energetic and spirited. In fact, the entire cast (which also includes Tom Wopat as Frank Abagnale Sr.) seems to be working very hard to put over the material. Under the direction of Jack O'Brien, though, Catch Me If You Can moves mostly in fits and starts. The first act ends abruptly, without a big production number, and throwaway songs like '(Our) Family Tree' with Brenda and her parents tend to stop the show in its tracks. In the end, you have a rooting interest in both Frank and his cohorts on stage. You want them to get away with just about anything. But the creators of Catch Me If You Can have rigged the game against them. What should have been a fun lark of a story seems almost stodgy, like your grandmother's idea of a good time.

In fact, it's hard to unravel where Finch ends and Radcliffe begins, so thoroughly do the two seem to be entwined in this triumphant performance. On the surface, the British actor - with his squat, compact body and somewhat pasty complexion - seems an unlikely leading man. Though he has a stronger singing voice than Broderick and a limber, go-for-it approach to director Rob Ashford's exhaustingly acrobatic choreography, he's not a natural, effortless triple threat. But like Finch, he seems to be tapping into an almost bottomless reserve of willpower and determination to claim his place in the spotlight of a big-budget Broadway musical. Your eyes keep being drawn to him, even if he always lets you see him sweat.

The nylon-thin plot is mostly an excuse to set up the classic tunes on the soundtrack. As fans of Glee know by now, there's a certain pleasure in the truly unlikely segue. It's natural for Tick to begin 'Say a Little Prayer' seated at the mirror: 'The moment I wake up, before I put on my makeup...' But you can imagine the narrative lengths to which the creators must go to introduce Jimmy Webb's 'MacArthur Park,' which memorably begins: 'Someone left the cake out in the rain.' Needless to say, the show is campier than a tentful of Boy Scouts (working on their choreography merit badge). And there's a dance-party atmosphere that helps compensate for the show's plot implausibilities and clunkier moments. Among the three leads, Adams seems the most solid and comfortably over the top as a bratty young provocateur. Sheldon is not the strongest singer, but brings some touching pathos to his role as the aging diva. The weakest element is Swenson, who seems a bit ill at ease as Tick/Mitzi (and the actor's shaky accent often seems closer to Eton than Australia).

Memorably played by Frances McDormand with a potent mix of prickly aggression and bruised-feeling withdrawal, Margaret is a middle-aged woman in South Boston's Lower End. At the start of the play, she is fired from the dollar store where she works due to her perpetual tardiness — she's usually late because of a grown daughter with serious development issues still living at home. This is a woman who has made serious sacrifices in her life — as the events of this remarkable and timely new play make clear.

This is one excruciating, headache-inducing evening of theater — and a long one at that.

The sugarplummy supporting cast includes Cheers veteran George Wendt (as a wizened, wisecracking Santa), a nicely sarcastic Amy Spanger (as Buddy's unlikely and underdeveloped love interest), and a strong-voiced Matthew Gumley (as Buddy's much younger half-brother). Elf is a modest show with modest charms, but director-choreographer Casey Nicholaw keeps the production humming along, particularly in the fleeter second act. One can imagine the show having a second life in high schools and regional theaters (visions of licensing fees will no doubt be dancing in the creators' heads). For now, though, Buddy and his pals seem very much at home on Broadway.