Christiana Clark and the cast of Flex (Photo: Marc J. Franklin) Flex By Julia Polinsky In Candrice Jones’s marvelous Flex, on the stage at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi Newhouse theater, it’s 1997. The WNBA has just become a reality. Five teenage girls in Plainnole, Arkansas, are drilling, passing, shooting baskets. Sharpen your senses;…
Juliet Stevenson (Photo: Stephanie Berger) The Doctor By Deirdre Donovan Of all the productions that have arrived in New York this summer, The Doctor may well be the most memorable. Written and directed by Robert Icke, and starring the superb Juliet Stevenson, this play invites theatergoers to take a fresh and clear-eyed look at…
Marie Mullen (Photo: Carol Rosegg) The Saviour By Julia Polinsky Who saves whom? And from what? Mothers tend to say that there are some topics unsuitable for polite conversation. In The Saviour, Deirdre Kinahan’s marvelous play currently running at the Irish Repertory Theater, the formidable Maire hits on most of them, chiefly religion and sex….
Kelli O Hara and Brian d Arcy James (Photo Credit: Ahron R. Foster) Days of Wine and Roses By David Schultz This haunting chamber musical is perfectly suited for composer Adam Guettel (Floyd Collins, The Light in the Piazza). The complex contrapuntal stylistic music is Guettel s signature calling card. Sweet, simple melodic…
Caleb Eberhardt and Susannah Flood (Photo: Monique Carboni) The Comeuppance By Deirdre Donovan Some plays demand reflection; others ask that you place yourself in their frame-of-mind. With Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ provocative new play, The Comeuppance, you must do both. Directed by Eric Ting, this unsettling new drama invites theatergoers to take a close look at…
Ruthie Anne Miles (Photo: Joan Marcus) Light in the Piazza By Deirdre Donovan The new Encores! concert staging of the 2005 musical The Light in the Piazza breezed in and out of New York City Center in June, leaving audiences enchanted. Directed by Chay Yew, and starring the incomparable Ruthie Ann Miles as Margaret…
Constantine Maroulis (Photo by Joan Marcus) Rock and Roll Man By Cammy Paglia The excellent Off-Broadway musical Rock and Roll Man tells the devastating tale of legendary Alan Freed (impeccably played by Constantine Maroulis), the innovative DJ destroyed by J. Edgar Hoover (Bob Aria) in a corset and a woman’s wig….
Jay O. Sanders, William Jackson Harper, and Eric Berryman in Primary Trust (Photo:Joan Marcus) Primary Trust By Cammy Paglia It isn’t that often that a theater critic can take in an audience’s reaction to the play at hand and also be engrossed in the performance as well. “Primary Trust” makes both…
Sasha Diamond, Shannon Tyo, Sky Smith in Regretfully, So the Birds Are. (Photo: Chelcie Parry) Regretfully, So the Birds Are By Julia Polinsky Julia Izumi’s Regretfully, So the Birds Are turns cliches on their heads while poking hilarious fun at them. Considering that play’s premise comes straight out of a tabloid headline —…
The cast of Dear World at Encores! (Photo: Joan Marcus) Dear World By David Schultz The Encores! Spring season started in earnest with this brief look back on composer Jerry Herman’s rare misstep. This book-troubled tuner had a shockingly brief three month run circa 1969. Coming on the heels of his two blockbuster musicals,…