Caleb Eberhardt and Susannah Flood (Photo: Monique Carboni) The Comeuppance By Deirdre Donovan Some plays demand reflection; others ask that you place yourself in their frame-of-mind. With Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ provocative new play, The Comeuppance, you must do both. Directed by Eric Ting, this unsettling new drama invites theatergoers to take a close look at…
Ruthie Anne Miles (Photo: Joan Marcus) Light in the Piazza By Deirdre Donovan The new Encores! concert staging of the 2005 musical The Light in the Piazza breezed in and out of New York City Center in June, leaving audiences enchanted. Directed by Chay Yew, and starring the incomparable Ruthie Ann Miles as Margaret…
Constantine Maroulis (Photo by Joan Marcus) Rock and Roll Man By Cammy Paglia The excellent Off-Broadway musical Rock and Roll Man tells the devastating tale of legendary Alan Freed (impeccably played by Constantine Maroulis), the innovative DJ destroyed by J. Edgar Hoover (Bob Aria) in a corset and a woman’s wig….
Aisha Jackson, Morgan Whitley, Briga Heelan, Ashley Chiu, Gabrielle Beckford and Lauren Zakrin (Photo: Matthew Murphy) Once Upon A One More Time By Fern Siegel Betty Friedan is having a moment. And it’s on Broadway. Her book The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963, bravely challenged patriarchal orthodoxies about women, which deemed marriage, children…
Sophia Anne Caruso, Alyssa Emily Marvin, Millicent Simmonds (Photo: MurphyMade, 2023) Grey House Hokum and Horror mix uneasily in this eerie play By David Schultz Playwright Levi Holloway has a lot to unpack in this dense, psychological horror-infused tale. As directed by Joe Mantello, the familiar supernatural tropes are laid out in the outset. The…
Jay O. Sanders, William Jackson Harper, and Eric Berryman in Primary Trust (Photo:Joan Marcus) Primary Trust By Cammy Paglia It isn’t that often that a theater critic can take in an audience’s reaction to the play at hand and also be engrossed in the performance as well. “Primary Trust” makes both…
Hiran Abeysekera (Photo: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman) Life of Pi By David Schultz Based on the Booker Prize-wining novel by Yann Martel, this unique tale has been given new life on stage. Playwright Lolita Chakrabarti has channeled all the inherent mystical magic of the book into a totally engrossing visual pageant. Directed…
(L-R) Laura Linney, Jessica Hecht (Photo: Jeremy Daniel) Summer, 1976 By Fern Siegel Even short-lived friendships can stay with us for a lifetime. That’s the premise behind Summer, 1976, now at the Samuel Friedman Theater. It stars two veteran stage actors — Tony-nominated Jessica Hecht and Laura Linney — at the top of…
Marcel Spears and Billy Eugene Jones in Fat Ham. (Photo: Joan Marcus) Fat Ham By Deirdre Donovan Those theatergoers who have hungered for a spicy new take on Shakespeare’s Hamlet need look no further than James Ijames’ comic tragedy, Fat Ham, at the American Airlines Theatre. Directed by Saheem Ali, it is both a…
Ben Rappaport, Sean Hayes (Photo: Joan Marcus) Goodnight, Oscar By Fern Siegel Oscar Levant is not a name well known today — but from the 1930s to the 1960s, his caustic wit and piano virtuosity were legendary. “There is a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased that line,” he quipped….