Vinny DePonto (Photo: Jeff Lorch) Mindplay By Julia Polinsky There are two kinds of people: those who are willing to be enchanted by magic shows, and those who are all about figuring it out. Whether or not enchantment works for you, spending 90 minutes with Vinny DePonto’s Mindplay will be a delight. DePonto delivers patter…
Bill Irwin, Thomas Middleditch, Amber Gray, Jessica Hecht, Chelsea Yakura-Kurtz (Photo: Jeremy Daniel) Eureka Day By Julia Polinsky Funny/not funny, and timely as hell, Eureka Day pokes hard at the vaccination debate. Manhattan Theatre Club, known for producing plays that deal with difficult subjects, somehow makes even the thorniest controversies deeply entertaining. They have done…
Cult of Love ensemble (Photo: Joan Marcus) Cult of Love By Fern Siegel Cult of Love is appropriately named. The cult is religion — and “love” translates as control. The searing holiday family dramedy, now on Broadway at the Hayes Theater, begins with a loud, overly long Christmas carol. But the gaiety feels forced; the…
Tony Tino, Casey Shuler, Drew Bastian, Andrew Rothenberg, Stephen Michael Spencer, Leenya Rideout, Jonathan Judge – Russo (Photo: Ashley Garrett) Music City By Julia Polinsky Bedlam’s Music City, a country-western musical featuring the songs of million-selling songwriter JT Harding, is as warm-hearted and feel-good as a Hallmark Christmas movie. Even if you don’t particularly like…
The company of Swept Away (Photo: Emilio Madrid) Swept Away By Julia Polinsky Swept Away is a standout entry in the grim-but-entertaining Fall 2024 Broadway season. It’s a solid tell-don’t-show work, in which a narrator talks to the audience to tell a story, at least partly in flashback (book by John Logan). Michael Mayer’s direction…
Katie Brayben, Christian Borle (Photo: Matthew Murphy) Tammy Faye By Fern Siegel For anyone familiar with the evangelical scandals of the 1980s, Tammy and Jim Bakker, Jerry Falwell and Jimmy Swaggart are familiar names. The latter two preached fire and brimstone — and their demonizing of liberals and feminists was their calling card. Hell hath…
Megan Hilty, Jennifer Simard (Photo: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman) Death Becomes Her By Marc Miller “Musical Comedy Revitalized,” goes the subtitle for Death Becomes Her, and by thunder, that’s what it delivers. The new musical at the Lunt-Fontanne, adapted from Robert Zemeckis’ dark 1992 film satire on the pursuit of youth and beauty, is…
Helen J Shen, Darren Criss (Photo: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman) Maybe Happy Ending By Julia Polinsky Maybe Happy Ending, now on Broadway at the Belasco Theatre, looks great, sounds great, has splendid performances and touches the heart as it explores what it means to be human. Or to love. Or both. It has real…
Peter Gallagher, Julianna Margulies. (Photo: Joan Marcus) Left on Tenth By Fern Siegel Memoirs can be self-serving or enlightening. If the author is funny, rueful and aware of personal ironies, they can be both. That’s the case with Delia Ephron (“You’ve Got Mail”), the Hollywood screenwriter/novelist who penned a best-selling 2022 memoir. She addressed her…
Robert Downey, Jr(Photo: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman) McNeal By Deirdre Donovan Ayad Akhtar’s McNeal, a new play about artificial intelligence, is likely to please some theatergoers and leave others with deeply furrowed brows. Under the direction of Bartlett Sher, and starring Academy Award-winning actor Robert Downey, Jr., the drama investigates how authors use AI…