by Deirdre Donovan This rock star pianist was a guest performer of New York’s recent event. “Clear, beautiful, and musical.” That winking weather forecast in the October 20th program for the Lyric Chamber Music Society of New York breathed with brilliance as virtuoso pianist Konstantin Soukovetski took the stage with his personal arrangements of…
Alex Sharp with (from l.) Mercedes Herrero, Richard Hollis and Jocelyn Bioh. Photos by Joan Marcus By Eugene Paul The play has not begun and already you are uneasy; the stage is a huge black box, even the raked floor is black, all walls and floor overlaid with a precise, white grid. Lighted bench…
by Deirdre Donovan Years before Mario Fratti and Maury Yeston’s collaborated on the Broadway musical Nine, Fratti had already done its theatrical spadework with his Six Passionate Women, written in 1977. Like Nine, this earlier venture is a thinly-veiled study of Italian film maker Federico Fellini. And though it doesn’t have the gorgeous music…
Phoebe Leonard, Larry Phillips, Peter Buck Dettman, Ryan Dusek by Eugene Paul Stephen Dowd, yes, THE famous Stephen Dowd, has just finished hanging his famous #28 shirt, expensively framed, on the wall of the shitty little apartment he is sharing with his two brothers, Paul the Grouch and Kevin the idiot. After all, he…
Megan Mullally and Nathan Lane by Michall Jeffers The answer is Nathan Lane. The question is what’s the best reason to see It’s Only A Play. This nearly sold out smash hit is playing to full houses chocked with appreciative theater goers. Just as trumpeted, the laughs never stop. Director Jack O’Brien has done…
David Newer photos by Lisa Silberman. by Deirdre Donovan An actor turned substitute teacher makes the grade with his new autobiographical solo show at the 2014 Unified Solo Theatre Festival. The 2014 United Solo Theatre Festival turns five this fall and has over 130 productions criss-crossing the boards at Theater Row (September 18 through November…
Kristine Nielsen, Rose Byrne, James Earl Jones photos by Joan Marcus by Michall Jeffers The year is 1936, deep in the Great Depression. But you’d never know it from the cheery attitude of the multi-generational Sycamore family in the current production of You Can’t Take It With You. Director Scott Ellis has taken this…
Bradley’s duet, She and Him, etc. – last dance on the program. Dancers Katherine Sprudzs and Joseph Wamp. photo by Nan Melville by R. Pikser The excellent idea behind the STEPS workshop performance series is to give young choreographers a chance to look at their new works, to get feedback, and to allow young…
Photo by Carol Rosegg by Eugene Paul His name is Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and hers is Melissa Gardner. They’re rich, American bluebloods, A.R. Gurney’s names and identities for his two characters, but that’s as may be, because the instant Mia Farrow and Brian Dennehy come on, that is it, that’s who they really…
Benjamin Sheff and Carman Napier in Next to Normal (photo by Bella Muccari) by Eric Grunin If you saw Alice Ripley give the performance of a lifetime in Next to Normal, you might wonder if the tremendous impact of the show wasn’t perhaps dependent on having such a force of nature for its power….