Off-Broadway Archives

  • Daddy – A Melodrama

     Ronald Peet      Photos Monique Carboni “Daddy”  A Melodrama                                 By David Schultz Well at least the gorgeous full-length pool looks inviting. Set designer Matt Saunders has created a whopper of an eye candy environment. Set in the outdoor environs of a swanky Bel Air, Los Angeles mansion the pool in question beckons invitingly. With…

  • The Cake

    Debra Jo Rupp                              photos by Joan Marcus The Cake                        By Ron Cohen When a Colorado baker refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, the controversy went all the way to the Supreme Court. In her play The Cake, being given its New York premiere Off-Broadway by Manhattan Theatre Club, Bekah…

  • Merrily We Roll Along

    Manu Narayan, Emily Young, Brittany Bradford, and Ben Steinfeld             photos by Joan Marcus   Merrily We Roll Along                     By David Schultz Both loved and reviled in equal measure, this problematic musical is once again attempting the impossible. The original production (as every theater aficionado knows) shuttered in 1981, after a mere 16 performances…

  • Twelfth Night – Frog and Peach

    Jamal Brathwaite (left), Amy Frances Quint (center) and Kevin Haver (right)      photos by Maria Baranova),   Twelfth Night: Frog and Peach                       R. Pikser   The intimacy of a black box theater brings audiences close to the performers; the spare space requires use of the imagination by directors, performers, and audience.   One can…

  • Switzerland

    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…

  • The Price of Thomas Scott

    Emma Geer and Nick LaMedica                                      By Marc Miller The Mint Theater Company does well by Elizabeth Baker’s antique, but it’s hard not to feel you’re being lectured to. Elizabeth Baker’s The Price of Thomas Scott is an interesting little antique with a curious morality. The Mint Theater Company’s initial offering in its…

  • God Shows Up

      Christopher Sutton                         Photos Andrew Evan Cohen                            by Deirdre Donovan Peter Filichia’s God Shows Up is a heaven-sent comedy that gives us a fresh perspective on God in the new millennial.  Directed by Christopher Scott, and with a terrific acting ensemble, it’s a drama that theatergoers of all religions—or no religion—can enjoy….

  • Ain’t Misbehavin’ The Fats Waller Musical Show

    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,…

  • Betty and the Belrays

      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…