The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in 1914 had cataclysmic results — Austro-Hungary declared war on Serbia — and unleashed the carnage known as WWI. The assassination was carried out by 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip, aided by fellow nationalists and members of the Black Hand. In Archduke, a dark absurdist comedy by Rajiv Joseph, now Off-Broadway at…
Initiative sweeps through four tumultuous years in a nowhere town on the California coast, where seven teenagers cling to one another as they stumble into friendship, first love, and the aching question of who they’re allowed to become. Guided with tender, clear-eyed direction by Emma Rosa Went, Else Went’s sprawling five-hour epic at The Public…
The pretty young woman is erotically drawn to the sexy young stud, but for plot reasons she’s committed to the much less attractive older man, and after a tryst with the young hottie, remains so. Surprise, it’s three musicals! Fanny (1954), in which Harold Rome, whose usual demographic was working-class New York Jews, proved he…
Signature Theatre launches its newest residency with Heather Christian’s Oratorio for Living Things, an immersive, in-the-round explosion of sound and spirit that bridges science, memory, and cosmic wonder. Under the direction of Lee Sunday Evans, the celebrated ensemble—many returning from the Ars Nova premiere—creates a theatrical universe where the human and the celestial hum in…
Sometimes, less is more. Theater aficionados know George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion as the inspiration for the Lerner and Loewe musical “My Fair Lady.” What’s less known is that Shaw based his work on a Greek myth. An artist prays for his marble sculpture to turn into a real woman — and Aphrodite grants his wish….
The highly regarded Irish theatre company, Druid, has returned to New York City with a limited run of Samuel Beckett’s Theatre of the Absurd classic, Endgame. In a rare coincidence, Beckett’s more famous Waiting for Godot is currently running on Broadway with a starry cast, drawing in huge crowds. This Off-Broadway play at the Irish…
If the words “climate-change thriller” make you wonder if you’ve heard wrong, you haven’t. Kyoto, now at the Mitzi E. Newhouse in a stylish, nearly-immersive production that makes great use of their almost-theater-in-the-round stage, is indeed thrilling—at times. Even if just thinking about climate change makes you want to nap, you likely won’t. That’s partly…
The issues of power and rule in Shakespeare’s Richard II, now playing at the Astor Place Theatre, feel painfully present and even prophetic. They are expressed urgently by Red Bull’s riveting revival, featuring a charismatic Michael Urie in the title role. Richard’s story (set in 1398) is both a compelling and a complicated one. In…
“Do you think it’s worth it to be here?” That is only one of the many probing, painful questions posed in Queens, Martyna Majok’s lacerating 2018 drama about immigrant women in crisis, now playing in an updated version at Manhattan Theatre Club. Set in the basement of a boarding house in Queens, the play gives…
André De Shields presides over Tartuffe with a velvet-gloved authority that turns Molière’s satire into something intimate, hypnotic, and deliciously treacherous. Staged in the lavish library of House of the Redeemer, this candlelit production unfolds just feet from its audience, making hypocrisy feel both timeless—and uncomfortably close. Long before Tartuffe became a staple of the…