Editor
Julia Polinsky wrote, directed, produced, and starred in her first play when she was 7 years old. She’s been paying a lot of attention to theater ever since.
Mark Jacoby, Sean Hudock, Sophia Blum, Seamus Mulcahy, Carey van Driest Vilna by Julia Polinsky Vilna! An Eastern European capital of Jewish culture, “owned” in turn by Lithuania, Germany, Poland… In the 1930s, Vilna was home to 80,000 Jewish residents, and their schools, university, theatres, concert halls, galleries, all gone in just a…
Steve Rosen and David Rossmer The Other Josh Cohen by Julia Polinsky That NYC rite of passage — the break-in — sets up just how pathetic, geeky, and miserable is Josh Cohen’s life. (“Only the Beginning”) Before the house lights go down, even before everyone’s seated, a thief breaks into Josh’s apartment (terrific…
Daniel Petzold and Peggy J. Scott in . Photo by Rana Faure. Switzerland by Julia Polinsky Switzerland has a simple plot, in which reclusive writer Patricia Highsmith (Peggy J. Scott), who lives in Switzerland, gets a visit from Edward Ridgeway (Daniel Petzold), a feckless young man sent by her publisher to persuade her to sign…
Betty and the Belrays by Julia Polinsky William Electric Black’s Betty and the Belrays takes place in Detroit, in 1963. The Motown sound is hot and getting hotter – on black radio stations. Betty Belarosky, (Paulina Breeze), a perky blonde teen with a serious love for the music of black girl groups…
M. Martine Allard, Ron Lucas, Anita Welch, Tony Perry, Amy Jo Phillips photo by Pia Hasa Ain’t Misbehavin’ The Fats Waller Musical Show by Julia Polinsky Ain’t Misbehavin’: say those words, and Fats Waller’s oversize personality and terrific songs leap to mind. The African-American stride pianist, hamming it up in his derby hat,…
Jessica Fontana, Ann Harada, Lilli Cooper, Santino Fontana, Vishal Vaidya by Julia Polinsky Lyrics & Lyricists at the 92nd Street Y has long been the gold standard for celebrations of the American songbook. They’re lovely anthology shows: a couple of hours of superb (mostly) songs, sung by terrific (mostly) singers, backed by…
Photo by Bjorn Bolinder Review by Julia Polinsky Broken Box Mime Theater has crafted an evening of terrific stories out of nothing but their bodies, their mime-mask faces, and a couple of boxes. Even if the prospect of an evening of mime, mime, and more mime makes you cringe, give it a chance and go…
John Noble photos by Shirin Tinati by Julia Polinsky Ensemble for the Romantic Century creates extraordinary staged readings/theatrical multimedia concerts of chamber music, melding multiple art forms into good drama – most of the time. Maestro may be the least successful of the ensemble’s excursions into that fusion of arts and artists…
Waiting for Godot in Yiddish (Vartn Af Godot) by Julia Polinsky So, nu? You never secretly suspected that, all along, Godot was really a comedy about a couple of confused, irritated alte kockers who have zero idea what’s going on? Well, you could have, because the New Yiddish Rep’s…
By Julia Polinsky Brian Katz’s adaptation of Mother Night is, by turns, a labor of love, a time-blending story centered on the consequences of WWII, and a mess. It shrieks of being the product of years of careful study and involvement with the Vonnegut book. The problem is: the Vonnegut book. The…