Off-Broadway Archives

  • Small World

    Mark Shanahan (Walt Disney) and Stephen D’Ambrose (Igor Stravinsky)I               Photo by Carol Rosegg                                                    By Eugene Paul Theater going is a joy unto itself, ramified by the thread of “Is this the one?” constantly running behind every visit even as each theater work has its separate world of creativity displayed for us to weigh,…

  • For Peter Pan on her 70th birthday

    Kathleen Chalfant (© Joan Marcus)                              By Edward Medina No amount of pixie dust can make this emotionally laden Peter Pan take flight. Two time Pulitzer Prize finalist and Tony Award nominee author Sarah Ruhl wrote For Peter Pan as a gift to her actress mother Kathleen Kehoe Ruhl who, in real life, joyously played…

  • Fucking A

                                   By Ron Cohen The leading character is named Hester, she is a single mom, and she does tote the letter “A” on her persona. Suzan-Lori Parks’ Fucking A was, as the playwright has frequently said, inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s mid-19th Century novel, The Scarlet Letter. But beyond these salient facts, the play bears…

  • On the Shore of the Wide World

    C.J. Wilson and Mary McCann star in Simon Stephens’s On the Shore of the Wide World, directed by Neil Pepe, at Atlantic Theater Company.  (© Ahron R. Foster)                                                        By Ron Cohen “it’s really difficult, isn’t it?… Just, the whole business of, you know, being alive. Very complicated,” says a loquacious cab driver toward the close…

  • Charolais

                            by Marc Miller Noni Stapleton, and this is meant as a compliment, makes a great cow. As the title character of the one-woman show she wrote, Charolais, a headstrong French heifer on an Irish farm, Stapleton sashays around the barn and pasture, sniffs, moves her head and body in uncannily bovine ways, and cheers…

  • The Suitcase under the Bed

    Sarah Nicole Deaver & A.J. Shively. Photo by Richard Termine.                                                   By Marc Miller The Mint Theater Company thinks very highly of Teresa Deevy—“undoubtedly the most brilliant playwright whose work I will ever have the privilege of re-introducing to the world,” writes artistic director Jonathan Bank in his program notes. Maybe, but the brilliance…

  • Curvy Widow

    Nancy Opel           photos by Mathew Murphy                                                                          by Julia Polinsky Bobby Goldman’s Curvy Widow tells the story of a fifty-ish widow’s search for sex after marriage in an enjoyable, sweetly sexual musical that won’t challenge your attention span, with a cast of seasoned pros, and terrific production values. The story is a simple…

  • Woody Sez – The Life and Music of Woody Guthrie

    David Lutken                                by Deirdre Donovan “Unless we do hear the work songs, war songs, love songs and dance songs of all the people everywhere, we are most apt to lose the peace, and this world right along with it.”  That is a line from Woody Sez: The Life and Music of Woody…

  • Really Rosie at Encores! Off-Center

    Taylor Caldwell            photos by Joan Marcus                                                                       by Julia Polinsky Encores! Off-Center did a kids show? From the 70s? You could be pardoned for having visions of Sesame Street-level cuteness, updated with a multicultural cast with sass and attitude and pink feather boas. Well, that’s pretty much what you’d get, and it’s just…

  • Lili Marlene

     Count Wilhelm (Clint Hromsco) and Kabarett Headliner Rosie Penn (Amy Londyn)                        by Julia Polinsky If you like junior high drama-club level musical theater, you’ll love Write Act Repertory Theater’s production of Michael Antin’s Lili Marlene, currently running at St. Luke’s, on 46th Street, Tuesdays through the October. The show has all the…