Ronald Peet Photos Monique Carboni “Daddy” A Melodrama By David Schultz Well at least the gorgeous full-length pool looks inviting. Set designer Matt Saunders has created a whopper of an eye candy environment. Set in the outdoor environs of a swanky Bel Air, Los Angeles mansion the pool in question beckons invitingly. With…
Seawall/A Life by Arney Rosenblat Academy Award nominee Jake Gyllenhaal and Tony Award nominee Tom Sturridge made their Public Theater debuts in an unforgettable and incredibly intimate evening of theater. Sturridge in his third collaboration with Tony and Olivier Award winner Simon Stephens (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night) performs…
Debra Jo Rupp photos by Joan Marcus The Cake By Ron Cohen When a Colorado baker refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, the controversy went all the way to the Supreme Court. In her play The Cake, being given its New York premiere Off-Broadway by Manhattan Theatre Club, Bekah…
Jamal Brathwaite (left), Amy Frances Quint (center) and Kevin Haver (right) photos by Maria Baranova), Twelfth Night: Frog and Peach R. Pikser The intimacy of a black box theater brings audiences close to the performers; the spare space requires use of the imagination by directors, performers, and audience. One can…
Daniel Petzold and Peggy J. Scott in . Photo by Rana Faure. Switzerland by Julia Polinsky Switzerland has a simple plot, in which reclusive writer Patricia Highsmith (Peggy J. Scott), who lives in Switzerland, gets a visit from Edward Ridgeway (Daniel Petzold), a feckless young man sent by her publisher to persuade her to sign…
Emma Geer and Nick LaMedica By Marc Miller The Mint Theater Company does well by Elizabeth Baker’s antique, but it’s hard not to feel you’re being lectured to. Elizabeth Baker’s The Price of Thomas Scott is an interesting little antique with a curious morality. The Mint Theater Company’s initial offering in its…
Christopher Sutton Photos Andrew Evan Cohen by Deirdre Donovan Peter Filichia’s God Shows Up is a heaven-sent comedy that gives us a fresh perspective on God in the new millennial. Directed by Christopher Scott, and with a terrific acting ensemble, it’s a drama that theatergoers of all religions—or no religion—can enjoy….
Richard Topol and Cassie Beck photos by Joan Marcus by Deirdre Donovan Misogynist? Madman? Genius? The Swedish-writer August Strindberg was all of these, and then some. Born on January 22, 1849 on the islet of Riddarholmen in Stockholm, Strindberg became—in the admiring words of Eugene O’Neil—the “most modern of moderns” when it…
David Ganly and Niall Buggy (back) Photos by Patrick Redmond On Blueberry Hill By Ron Cohen On Blueberry Hill is a testament to the power of acting that’s both skilled and inspired. This Irish drama, in a production from Ireland’s award-winning Fishamble theater company, is basically two interlocking monologues, each of…
Marin Ireland Photo Credit: Ahron R. Foster Blue Ridge By Ron Cohen Alison, the central character in emerging playwright Abby Rosebrock’s heartfelt if somewhat muddled drama Blue Ridge, is a high school English teacher who can get really angry. How angry? When the school principal who’s also her lover does her wrong…