David Ganly and Niall Buggy (back) Photos by Patrick Redmond On Blueberry Hill By Ron Cohen On Blueberry Hill is a testament to the power of acting that’s both skilled and inspired. This Irish drama, in a production from Ireland’s award-winning Fishamble theater company, is basically two interlocking monologues, each of…
Jeff Daniels photos by Julieta Cervantes To Kill a Mockingbird By Ron Cohen Aaron Sorkin has done a monumental job in transplanting Harper Lee’s revered novel To Kill a Mockingbird into dramatic form. And it’s being performed in an emotion-grabbing production that helps elevate an extraordinary Broadway season for straight plays to even…
John Noble photos by Shirin Tinati by Julia Polinsky Ensemble for the Romantic Century creates extraordinary staged readings/theatrical multimedia concerts of chamber music, melding multiple art forms into good drama – most of the time. Maestro may be the least successful of the ensemble’s excursions into that fusion of arts and artists…
Nicholas J. Ashe, J. Quinton Johnson, Jeremy Pope, Caleb Eberhardt ,John Clay III Photos by Matthew Murphy , By Ron Cohen In 1968, the writings of Lorraine Hansberry were adapted into a posthumous play entitled To Be Young, Gifted and Black. The title, later shaped into a song by Nina Simone, became…
Marin Ireland Photo Credit: Ahron R. Foster Blue Ridge By Ron Cohen Alison, the central character in emerging playwright Abby Rosebrock’s heartfelt if somewhat muddled drama Blue Ridge, is a high school English teacher who can get really angry. How angry? When the school principal who’s also her lover does her wrong…
Waiting for Godot in Yiddish (Vartn Af Godot) by Julia Polinsky So, nu? You never secretly suspected that, all along, Godot was really a comedy about a couple of confused, irritated alte kockers who have zero idea what’s going on? Well, you could have, because the New Yiddish Rep’s…
Stephanie J Block in The Cher Show. Photograph: Joan Marcus By Eugene Paul Three Chers for the Cher Show, Hip, Hip Hooray, Hip, Hip Hooray, Hip Hip Hooray! Because that’s how many Chers it takes to play the phenomenon, scculpted, molded, and twenty-five years younger than the seventy-two she is inhabiting. She…
Elaine May photos by Brigitte Lacombe by Deirdre Donovan Kenneth Lonergan’s 1999 play, The Waverly Gallery, is in revival at the John Golden Theatre with a top-notch cast. Starring the legendary Elaine May, and directed by Lila Neugebauer (making her Broadway debut), it is a poignant portrait of an octogenarian suffering from Alzheimer’s disease…
Photo credit Dan Norman By Jeanne Lieberman Forget the singing Santa’s and athletic elves, this simple direct-to-the-heart production will eclipse any other Christmas show and should be a perennial for Christmas, Easter and/or anytime your faith in humanity needs healing. ALL is Calm, as presented by the Theater Latte Da at the Sheen Center,…
Bryan Cranston. Photo: Jan Versweyveld By Fern Siegel Sometimes, the past is prologue. That’s especially true when it comes to the power of media and technology. It can be a force for good or evil, as Howard Beale, the United Broadcasting System’s TV anchor, makes clear in the riveting drama…