Writer
Deb cut her teeth in the dark of a Broadway house, watching everything the marquees had to offer long before she ever wrote a word about it. That early addiction turned into a career: over a decade as a Voter, Nominator, and Judge for the Barrymore Awards for Excellence in Theatre, and an active seat in the Outer Critics Circle — the kind of behind-the-curtain access most theater writers only dream about. Her byline has traveled as much as she has. Stints living in Amsterdam, London, and Venice gave her a front-row seat to theater scenes far beyond Broadway, and she’s written and lectured on the arts internationally ever since. She’s held lead writer roles at Stage Magazine, Phindie, DC Theater Arts, and Central Voice — proof that her opinions on a production are backed by decades of watching, judging, and writing about the craft.
In 1999, the musical revue Our Sinatra, conceived, created, and performed by Eric Comstock, Christopher Gines, and Hilary Kole, made its debut at the Algonquin Hotel’s historic Oak Room. It transferred to Off-Broadway, has played two national tours, numerous regional runs, and many nightclub engagements. The popular show has now returned to the NYC stage with a…
After winning multiple awards and selling out shows in Sydney and Melbourne, London’s West End, and the Edinburgh Fringe, Garry Starr: Classic Penguins is now making its US debut at Off-Broadway’s Studio Seaview. The super-wacky, rapid-fire, no-holds-barred solo comedy, written and performed by Australian native Damien Warren-Smith, takes us on a literary adventure like no…
Theater lovers can catch up on their reading and revisit some of their favorite works and NYC landmarks with two recently released books. One is a two-play volume that concludes a series of twelve critically acclaimed award-winning Off-Broadway productions; the other is a new murder mystery by an industry artist, centered on the 1975 Broadway…
Anton Chekhov’s four-act drama Ivanov took him only ten days to write. First performed in 1887, the play was not well received, but the author successfully revised it as a tragicomedy about despair, and it was restaged in 1889. . Initiative Productions’ The Real Ivanov, the original, 1887 play adapted and directed by Laura Strausfeld,…
Following its debut in 1996, and its ill-received New York premiere at Lincoln Center in 1997, An American Daughter, by Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winner Wendy Wasserstein, has returned to the NYC stage. Presented by La Femme Theatre Productions – a company dedicated to plays written by and focused on women – this first…
Could you ever imagine a world without men, in which males have mysteriously died en masse and become extinct, the patriarchy is gone, and women are in charge? Playwright Melissa Maney does, in her feminist sci-fi absurdist dark comedy Hungry Women. The play is now in its world premiere engagement at SoHo Playhouse, following its…
If AI could guide you through the most important decisions of your life, would you be happy and willing to listen? That’s the premise of the new play Disruption by Andrew Stein, now playing a limited Off-Broadway engagement at Pershing Square Signature Center. It’s a momentous question for our current times, with the ever-encroaching presence…
The Black Mirror Experience is making its US debut for a limited engagement at The Shed. Inspired by the hit British TV series Black Mirror, the experience combines AI, virtual reality, and digital spaces with movement through actual rooms and galleries. It doesn’t require any previous knowledge of the show.
If you number among the people who find that math can be challenging for anyone of any age or gender identity, the new production of That Math Show will make you see the subject in a whole new light. Created and performed by “mathemagician” Dr. Arthur Benjamin and presented by The Science Theater Company in…
Now in a limitedengagement at the Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC), the new musical Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo was inspired by the obscure story of the real-life 17th-century Sicilian apothecary and proto-feminist anti-hero Giulia Tofana.