Off-Broadway Archives

  • Heartbreak House

    Derek Smith, Raphael Nash Thompson, Karen Ziemba, Tom Hewitt, Lenny Wolpe, Kimberly Immanuel, Jeff Hiller, and Alison Fraser, Photo Credit CAROL ROSEGG                                              by Deirdre Donovan Gingold Theatrical Group’s ambitious new production of George Bernard Shaw’s Heartbreak House takes the harlequinade and adds an original framing device that colors it with a World War…

  • Agnes

    John Edgar Barker (Charlie), left, Mykal Monroe (Elle), Hiram Delgado (Ronan) and Laura Ramadei (June) [Photos: Carol Rosegg]                                                 By Barry Bassis Agnes, unlike the 1985 Broadway hit Agnes of God, does not have a person named Agnes. Instead, Agnes is a hurricane that is about to strike the area of New York City where…

  • Private Peaceful

    Shane O’Regan in Private Peaceful.(c) Ahron R. Foster Private Peaceful                                           By Ron Cohen The senseless destruction and horrors of war – and in this particular case, World War I, the catastrophe erroneously labeled “the war to end all wars” — have been well documented. But when the focus is narrowed down to show…

  • Days to Come

    Larry Bull, Chris Henry Coffey, Ted Deasy, Roderick Hill, and Janie Brookshire                          By Marc Miller Lillian Hellman herself wasn’t satisfied with Days to Come. “I wanted to say too much,” she later philosophized, and the Mint Theater Company’s revival of her early labor drama, a one-week flop in 1936, backs her up. As…

  • Neurosis

    Kevin Zak and Jennifer Blood (center) Brennan Caldwell and Morgan Weed. Photo: Jenny Anderson                                                   By Fern Siegel     Musicals geared to millennials, such as Dear Evan Hansen and Be More Chill — are becoming increasingly popular as that target audience puts theater on its to-do list. (Tony winner Avenue Q kicked…

  • The Saintliness of Margery Kempe

    Andrus Nichols                         Arney Rosenblat   Hurry and try to catch The Saintliness of Margery Kempe at the Duke before it closes August 26 to enjoy the memoir of a would-be reality star, Medieval style The Saintliness of Margery Kempe is based on the apparently incredible life of the 14th Century English mystic Margery Kempe…

  • Oliver!

    google   Oliver!                                 By Edward Lieberman At first blush, there is nothing about Charles Dickens’ famous novel that one would think lends itself to musical treatment: unlike Annie (which coincidentally originated at the Goodspeed), wherein the heroine is an orphan adopted by a kindhearted billionaire and all is rosy (“The Sun Will Come Out…

  • Be More Chill

                         Photos by Maria Baranova                                                                       By Eugene Paul   Let’s say that the musical Be More Chill now playing to sold out houses at its Off-Broadway Pershing Square Signature Center moved to the Palace Theatre, 1743 seats on Broadway, and sold out there for a year.  That’s 517,088 tickets.  Let’s fantasize, let’s sell…

  • Pushkin- A Life Played Out

    Ian Lessiter                          photos by Carol Rosegg                                by Arney Rosenblat Pushkin is a compelling, true-to-life historical blank verse play imagined and implemented by the creative playwright Jonathan Leaf that will both fascinate and spur the researcher in you to find out more about the man who is known as the Father of modern Russian…

  • The House That Will Not Stand

                                          By Ron Cohen In The House that Will Not Stand, Marcus Gardley delves into one of the many perverse chapters in the insidious annals of slavery: the sale by France of the Louisiana Territory to the United States in the early 19th Century. It meant that the African-Americans living in New Orleans…