Reviews Archives

  • PHYL

    In a limited Off-Broadway engagement now at Theatre Row, Mint Theater Company presents a powerful production of the 1911 feminist play PHYL, by English actress, playwright, journalist, and suffragist Cecily Hamilton. PHYL was scheduled to make its debut at Oxford in 1913 but was banned for its scandalous content. Although it was never published, luckily,…

  • Fish

    Melis Aker’s new play, Fish, an over-the-top, wild and dangerous coming-of-age dark comedy, is now in a limited engagement for its world premiere at WP Theater. A co-production with Signature Theatre Company, Fish is set in London in 2016 (the year of the Brexit vote). The play follows the story of seventeen-year-old Karya (Yasmin Ranz-Lind)…

  • COPPERFIELD! The New Musical

    English author Charles Dickens’ semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel, David Copperfield, is now the subject of a new musical adaptation, COPPERFIELD! The New Musical. Written by Jeffrey Scharf (book, music, and lyrics), COPPERFIELD! is playing a limited Off-Broadway engagement at The Duke on 42nd Street. The complex, chock-full two-act show details the adventures in the titular character’s life…

  • MIDNIGHT

    A new, original musical is currently ticking away at the Daryl Roth Theatre. With Todrick Hall at the helm as writer, composer, lyricist, director, choreographer and star, MIDNIGHT  is an ambitious theatrical undertaking generating plenty of buzz. But does it all come together? This complex piece of theatre follows 12 characters whose lives intersect despite…

  • The Bald Soprano

    The Bald Soprano, the landmark absurdist drama in eleven scenes, is now being presented for a limited engagement at The Sheen Center for Thought and Culture by The Resident Acting Company. That company evolved out of The Pearl Theatre Company, which, in 2011, was the last professional company to produce The Bald Soprano in New…

  • Degenerates

    Playwright Else Went has a runaway hit on her hands: Degenerates, now at Playwrights Horizons. With two extensions and an almost sold-out run, this show seems to have hit a nerve with a particular demographic. The play involves an online community of ‘incel’ men whose visceral hatred of women is commingled with a self-loathing which…

  • Good Time Charlie

    Ryan Haddad, known for writing solo memoirs as plays, has expanded his theatrical landscape to include his own family. In this case, he offers a tribute to his gay uncle in Good Time Charlie, now off-Broadway at the Public Theater. This is a loving portrait of Charlie, a man forced by time, parents and circumstance…

  • Kramer/Fauci

    Daniel Fish directed this, so I’d expect to hate it. But Kramer/Fauci, at St. Ann’s Warehouse, turns out to be a bracing staging of a notable hour of broadcast history. The Fish eccentricities do accumulate, but they’re less baffling than usual, and even, in one large instance, justifiable. That hour happened on CSPAN, on Nov….

  • Burning Leaves

    Should a teacher serve as an inspiration for a student’s life outside the classroom? Or are there boundaries? TOSOS (The Other Side of Silence) NYC’s oldest and longest continuously producing LGBTQIA+ theater company, continues to honor its mission with its latest show, Burning Leaves, by Tom Rowan. The production combines humor, honesty, and compassion to…