Photo by Joan Marcus The Cradle Will Rock By Eugene Paul The Cool, attractive, more an homage than a fiery presentation of Blitzstein’s original fury. There’s a story that, in 1937, when Kurt Weill saw The Cradle Will Rock, he is rumored to have said to a friend, “Have you seen my…
Isabelle Huppert The Mother By David Schultz French playwright Florian Zeller (The Father, The Mother, and forthcoming The Son) has attempted the same magic that made The Father such a heart wrenching theatrical experience a few seasons ago. Frank Langella perfectly captured the emotional disarray of a man on the precipice of…
Andrea Burns Smart Blonde By Ron Cohen “Beloved Star of Stage and Screen.” Probably no one deserved the accolade more than Judy Holliday, whose innate intelligence, vulnerability and womanliness gave depth and magnetism to the dumb — or at least flighty — blonde persona that marked most of her roles. She catapulted…
Mark Jacoby, Sean Hudock, Sophia Blum, Seamus Mulcahy, Carey van Driest Vilna by Julia Polinsky Vilna! An Eastern European capital of Jewish culture, “owned” in turn by Lithuania, Germany, Poland… In the 1930s, Vilna was home to 80,000 Jewish residents, and their schools, university, theatres, concert halls, galleries, all gone in just a…
Surely Goodness and Mercy By Ron Cohen As her title suggests, Chisa Hutchinson has written a lovely blessing of a play in Surely, Goodness and Mercy. For those not up on the Old Testament, the title is taken from the final lines of Psalm 23 of David: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow…
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…
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…
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…