Darren Pettie, Jonathan Hadary, Derek Smith, James Carpinello and Jonny Orsini by Eugene Paul In this occasion of Arthur Miller’s celebratory 2015 season—100 years since his birth – Miller plays are in evidence all around town in a range from his stunning Off Broadway Yiddish production of Death of a Salesman to his…
John Benjamin Hickey and Patrick Breen By David Schultz When a play seeks to uncover a specific demographic while trying to be all-inclusive to everyone it can be difficult to pull off successfully. Playwright Peter Parnell expertly sets up a classic scenario on the travails of gay parenthood. The reality of gay men accessible…
Cherry Jones and television actor David Aaron Baker photos by Joan Marcus By Julia Polinsky At the beginning of Dear Elizabeth, Sarah Ruhl’s play inspired by the correspondence between poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, two people, sitting at separate desks, read, in pools of light. A Stage Manager (Peggy Noonan) sometimes comments,…
By Michall Jeffers There’s a great line in the movie Mississippi Burning: You marry the first boy who makes you laugh. It’s no secret that laughter is a great aphrodisiac. How else can it be explained that in pulling out all the stops to make the audience laugh, stand- up comedian Colin Quinn comes across as…
Kimberly Jenna Simon photos by Miro Magloire By R. Pikser The TuTu Trilogy is composed of three vignettes, each of which takes place in a backstage situation; two are in a rented rehearsal studio, one backstage after a performance. Author Richard Curtis is not so much exploring his situations as he is commenting…
By Eugene Paul If you’re going to find yourself in a nursing home – oops – an adult living facility, who wouldn’t want to take over the whole, pleasant space we see if all you had to do was make yourself poisonous to anyone designated to share those desirable quarters in upscale…
Kristine Nielsen, Tom Phelan Photos: Joan Marcus by Michall Jeffers Every now and then a play comes along that’s so specific, people either love it or hate it. This season, we have HIR. Burning topics of the day are pushed to the extreme; the audience either roars with laughter, or sits in bewildered silence….
by R. Pikser In the early 1960s Martin Duberman culled historical records of both Blacks and whites. With this information, he wrote a play about the Black experience in the United States: In White America. His selection of materials and how he arranged them, made those records live. It must have been gratifying,…
If you like neat, tidy plays that lay out everything in an easy to digest manner, with a comfortable resolution, don’t go to this play. If you relish seeing a play that strikes out for unknown territories, that disturbs and provokes in equal measure then make a beeline to the play in question. This wide-ranging…
by Eugene Paul Sixty plus Mattie (Susan Pellegrino) all adither, frightened delight on her face, waves ditherishly out the huge windows at someone, then skitters off. Seventy plus Norton (Ray Baker) comes down the front stairs, looks around, darts into the living room and climbs to his favorite spot up the library…