Jonathan Groff & Aaron Lazar photos by Joan Marcus by Julia Polonsky Bravo to all the artists involved in re-imagining and updating William Finn’s A New Brain for Encores! Off-Center. The endlessly talented James Lapine not only co-authored A New Brain, but directs this production, with gusto and brio and smashing style. Encores! Off Center productions, which are effectively staged…
Jesse Eisenberg, Kunal Nayyar, Annapurna Sriram, Erin Darke and Michael Zegen Photo credit: Monique Carboni By David Schultz Actor Jesse Eisenberg makes it easy to detest his character onstage in his latest play at The New Group. This talented, intense actor seems to be drawn to essay unsavory people that in real life you would…
Chris Noth and Zach Grenier in DOCTOR FAUSTUS. … Joan Marcus by Deirdre Donovan Christopher Marlowe’s warhorse Doctor Faustus gets new legs at the Classical Stage Company this season. As adapted by David Bridel and Andrei Belgrader, who also directs, it may lose some of its grandeur but gains a lot of levity and comic bite with its…
Francesca Carpanini as Miranda and Sam Waterston as Prospero in a scene from “The Tempest” at the Delacorte Theater (Photo credit: Joan Marcus) by Michall Jeffers It was only fitting that the sky was threatening; it had been raining hard all day, and everyone wondered if the show would go on. It did, of course;…
by Eugene Paul Well, it’s like this: those qualms playwright Bruce Norris is suggesting are not just yours after seeing the Playbill cover but the quaking anxieties that palpitate through Chris (absolutely wonderful Jeremy Shamos) in an award worthy performance as he and his new bride Kristy (stunning Sarah Goldberg) begin their leery explorations with…
Ever After at Paper Mill Playhouse; Photo by Jerry Dalia; Margo Seibert (Danielle) and James Snyder (Henry). by David Schultz Paper Mill Playhouse is currently presenting the world premiere of a new musical based on the 1989 film. Fairy tale musicals have been around a very long time, and this new riff on the fairy…
Taylor Mac (Photo: Hollis King) Prosperous Fools By Deirdre Donovan In Prosperous Fools, playwright-provocateur Taylor Mac lobs a glitter bomb straight at the glitterati, skewering the pomp, pretension, and performative philanthropy of the nonprofit gala circuit. Loosely riffing on Molière’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme and staged with gleeful excess by director Darko Tresnjak, this biting new…
By Glenn Giron From go it’s realized that this will not be your ordinary play. You’re handed a headset and taught how to use it and funny, unorthodox, pre show announcements are expressed to you through your new little toy. You sit there excited like a kid waiting for a 4D show at an amusement park…
Tom Coppola as James and Amber Mason as Sarah by Ed Lieberman The Armonk Players are staging a timely story at Whippoorwill Hall: Time Stands Still, a Tony Award nominated play by Donald Margulies that tells what is now a familiar tale of the ravages of war, but from a slightly different perspective, and addresses some…
Thomas Sadoski and Amanda Seyfried (Photo credit: Joan Marcus) By David Schultz The initial moments of this new play holds some promise. A man stumbles out of a bedroom and fumbles around in the dim light, searching for a drink. He is awkward, out of his element, not in his own apartment, and clearly embarrassed by what…