David Zayas Photo © David Zayas Jr. by Edward Medina Chemistry is key in any play detailing the perils and pitfalls of human relations and relationships. There must be a synergy of character, style, and purpose to make all our foibles seem real and viable in a dramatic form. Devil of Choice is a…
Eboni Booth, Dina Shihabi, Purva Bedi, Lucy Taylor (kneeling), Ikechukwu Ufomadu, Ellen Maddow and Camila Canó-Flaviá by Julia Polinsky Everything you need to know about Dance Nation can be found out by reading the Author’s Note in the playbill, in which Barron claims to be writing about women, ambition, and desire, then goes…
Pamela J. Gray & Stephanie Roth Haberle photos by Carol Rosegg By Ron Cohen Deathbed dramas with expiring ladies seem to be thing this spring. Right on the heels of the superb revival of Edward Albee’s Three Tall Woman comes the brilliant Woman and Scarecrow by Marina Carr, being given an exhilarating production…
(l-r) Kristine Nielsen, Rachel Nicks, Robert Sella, Nicholas Podany, and Jenn Harris. Photo by T. Charles Erickson Turning Off The Morning News By David Schultz Hard to believe it’s been six years since Christopher Durang hit paydirt with his Tony Award Winning play Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. McCarter Theater’s World Premiere…
Christian Borle photos by Joan Marcus Me and My Girl by Julia Polinsky New York City is thick with exceptionally talented actors, the kind who can buff up a topnotch performance with only 10 days of rehearsal – the norm for Encores!. What a luxury, for director/choreographer Warren Carlyle — Encores! demands…
Sahr Ngaujah Photo: Joan Marcus Mlima’s Tale By Fern Siegel Lynn Nottage explores the cruel backdrop to the secret ivory trade. Though the elephant ivory trade was banned in Africa in 1990, hoping to protect the species, the regulations were and are routinely violated. Even game-park rangers trying to preserve elephants are often…
Photos by Joan Marcus Light Shining in Buckinghamshire By Ron Cohen In Caryl Churchill’s Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, we’re taken back to England in the middle of the 17th Century. It’s a country torn with strife, civil war is afoot, another war is in the making (this one against Ireland); long-term…
JUAN FRANCISCO VILLA, DANIEL K. ISAAC photos by Maria Baranova By Ron Cohen In November 1944, William Inge, then a culture reporter and critic for a St. Louis newspaper, invited an emerging St. Louis-bred playwright by the name of Tennessee Williams to his apartment for an interview. The reason for the interview: Williams’ new…
Matthew Broderick Photos by Carol Rosegg By Ron Cohen It’s a thick, beefy Irish stew of a play, Conor McPherson’s The Seafarer, saturated in alcohol and – as you might expect in a McPherson opus — spookily seasoned with the supernatural. Originally produced in London in 2006 and then mounted on Broadway in 2007, it…
Nathan Darrow, Marin Ireland Photo: Carol Rosegg By Fern Siegel The dichotomy of human nature — the sacred and profane — fascinated Tennessee Williams, who routinely employed elements of Southern Gothic to explore dysfunctional people ruined by inner demons. Such themes are evident in Summer and Smoke, now at the Classic Stage Company,…