by R. Pikser In the early 1960s Martin Duberman culled historical records of both Blacks and whites. With this information, he wrote a play about the Black experience in the United States: In White America. His selection of materials and how he arranged them, made those records live. It must have been gratifying,…
Betsy Morgan, Barbara Walsh, and Caissie Levy . Photo Credit: Joan Marcus By Michall Jeffers There is real brilliance in Michael John LaChiusa’s First Daughter Suite, but it’s not always easy to take. For anyone who’s been enmeshed in a difficult mother/daughter scenario, for anyone who shares a sisterhood that teeters between love and rivalry,…
by Eugene Paul Sixty plus Mattie (Susan Pellegrino) all adither, frightened delight on her face, waves ditherishly out the huge windows at someone, then skitters off. Seventy plus Norton (Ray Baker) comes down the front stairs, looks around, darts into the living room and climbs to his favorite spot up the library…
If you like neat, tidy plays that lay out everything in an easy to digest manner, with a comfortable resolution, don’t go to this play. If you relish seeing a play that strikes out for unknown territories, that disturbs and provokes in equal measure then make a beeline to the play in question. This wide-ranging…
Photo: Getty Images By Michall Jeffers Trip of Love is a recreation, through music, of a particular moment in the history of our country. When the audience enters the theater, the very walls throb with psychedelic images of mushrooms and ephemera, all done in neon shades of blue, purple, red, and pink. The…
by Marc Miller When Dames at Sea was announced for the Broadway stage, the main worry was: Would bigger be better? The formerly off-Broadway musical by George Haimsohn and Robin Miller (book and lyrics) and Jim Wise (music), a 1968 hit that first got Bernadette Peters noticed, satirizes the large Warner Brothers Busby…
Robert Cuccioli as Mayer Rothschild by Eugene Paul In a rich and moving reworking of the well remembered Bock/Harnick musical, The Rothschilds, new ground has been plowed which gives book writer Sherman Yellen reason to make positive changes in his original book, the astounding story of that family, baring the bite that was carefully…
Joey LePage and Jessica Dean star in Luke Landric Leonard and Peter Stopschinski’s Welcome to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, directed by Leonard for Monk Parrots at 59E59 Theaters. (© Maria Baranova) by Eugene Paul Frequently – too frequently – it is instructive that, in order to attempt to get a handle on what…
Ella Briggs, Duke Lafoon and the cast Photo Credit: Diane Sobolewski By Ed Lieberman Christmas came early to the Goodspeed Opera House this year, in the form of a new production of A Wonderful Life, the Sheldon Harnick (book and lyrics)/Joe Raposo (music) adaptation of the iconic Frank Capra holiday film, It’s a Wonderful Life, which…
By Ed Lieberman One of the truly ground breaking Broadway musicals of all time in a gorgeous must-see production. WBT has another hit on its hands! The “Cotton Blossom” riverboat has steamed its way north to the Hudson and anchored in Elmsford for a three month layover. Cap’n Andy and crew are putting on…