David Hyde Pierce By Michall Jeffers David Hyde Pierce is lovable. There’s a vulnerability and a wry humor that’s totally endearing; from the moment he steps on stage, the audience is with him. This proves to be almost a liability as the play progresses. The show opens with Pierce, as Nate Martin, delivering a…
Elizabeth Van Dyke By R. Pikser Not only important history but breathtaking performances A theatrical biography could be tedious, but Laurence Holder’s 20 year old piece about the life of Zora Neale Hurston, mounted again in celebration of the 125th anniversary of her birth, is stunning. As narrated by Ms. Hurston at…
Jimoon Cole, Nilaja Sun and cast photos by Russ Rowland By Ron Cohen A provocative and slimmed down adaptation of Ibsen’s drama of civic corruption vibrates with timely relevance “People who don’t vote should be arrested and charged with evasion of duty,” says a character early on in Public Enemy. It’s…
Photo Credit: Jeff Farkash by Julia Polinsky Wandering Bark’s speed-dating pace cuts Ibsen’s problem play down to a 90-minute, high-concept version. Clickbait-worthy headlines on the promotional material (“Hedda Tesman (nee Gabler) has everything, but wants none of it.”), and those parentheses around her name: these clues, among others, send you all kinds…
Phillip James Brannon I Joan Marcus Nat Turner in Jerusalem By Ron Cohen A powerful play and a discomfiting depiction of the malaise bred by slavery on the American soul. The hot buttons of racism get pushed with poetic fervor and chilling contemporary resonance in Nathan Alan Davis’s Nat Turner in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem of…
Hershey Felder photo courtesy of Hershey Felder Presents By Eugene Paul Maybe consummate master of words William Shakespeare wondered if music be the food of love, but Leonard Bernstein, master of music knew that music is love. And God. And all. At least in Hershey Felder’s richly emotional, deeply moving solo drama in…
Rebeckah Brockman photos by Russ_Rowland by Deirdre Donovan “Dear Miss Littlewood, Along with this letter comes a play, the first I have written. I wonder if you would read it through and send it back to me because no matter what sort of theatrical atrocity it might be, it isn’t valueless as…
Lucian Potts and Tim Kang photos by Joan Marcus by Michall Jeffers Food, family, and frustration are the ties that bind us The aubergine of the title is the shiny purple vegetable we call “eggplant.” It’s a gift to Ray (Tim Kang), a troubled chef who reluctantly agrees to take his father (Stephen Park)…
Pictured L to R: Matthew DeCapua, Lou Liberatore, Stephen Bradbury, Nick Plakias, Jenny Strassburg, David Marantz. Photo credit: Carol Rosegg. A Class Act R. Pikser A Class Act shows the behind the scenes struggles within and between two groups of lawyers, one group in the employ of a chemical company, the…
By Rachel Goddard It’s no secret that in today’s times the media (as we so often like to call the all-powerful bearer of bad news) picks and chooses what events they want us to know about. Looking through history, this is not a new pattern. Stories go untold and widespread tragedies are forgotten,…