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 a limited Off-Broadway engagement now at Theatre Row, Mint Theater Company presents a powerful production of the 1911 feminist play PHYL, by English actress, playwright, journalist, and suffragist Cecily Hamilton. PHYL was scheduled to make its debut at Oxford in 1913 but was banned for its scandalous content. Although it was never published, luckily,…
Melis Aker’s new play, Fish, an over-the-top, wild and dangerous coming-of-age dark comedy, is now in a limited engagement for its world premiere at WP Theater. A co-production with Signature Theatre Company, Fish is set in London in 2016 (the year of the Brexit vote). The play follows the story of seventeen-year-old Karya (Yasmin Ranz-Lind)…
English author Charles Dickens’ semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel, David Copperfield, is now the subject of a new musical adaptation, COPPERFIELD! The New Musical. Written by Jeffrey Scharf (book, music, and lyrics), COPPERFIELD! is playing a limited Off-Broadway engagement at The Duke on 42nd Street. The complex, chock-full two-act show details the adventures in the titular character’s life…
The Bald Soprano, the landmark absurdist drama in eleven scenes, is now being presented for a limited engagement at The Sheen Center for Thought and Culture by The Resident Acting Company. That company evolved out of The Pearl Theatre Company, which, in 2011, was the last professional company to produce The Bald Soprano in New…
Should a teacher serve as an inspiration for a student’s life outside the classroom? Or are there boundaries? TOSOS (The Other Side of Silence) NYC’s oldest and longest continuously producing LGBTQIA+ theater company, continues to honor its mission with its latest show, Burning Leaves, by Tom Rowan. The production combines humor, honesty, and compassion to…
The profoundly felt connection between Neo-Expressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and actor, director, and writer Roger Guenveur Smith is the basis of the outstanding solo show In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Created and performed by the multi-award-winning Smith, it’s now playing a limited engagement at New York Theatre Workshop, where it had a critically acclaimed sold-out run in…
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,…