Shane O’Regan in Private Peaceful.(c) Ahron R. Foster Private Peaceful By Ron Cohen The senseless destruction and horrors of war – and in this particular case, World War I, the catastrophe erroneously labeled “the war to end all wars” — have been well documented. But when the focus is narrowed down to show…
Larry Bull, Chris Henry Coffey, Ted Deasy, Roderick Hill, and Janie Brookshire By Marc Miller Lillian Hellman herself wasn’t satisfied with Days to Come. “I wanted to say too much,” she later philosophized, and the Mint Theater Company’s revival of her early labor drama, a one-week flop in 1936, backs her up. As…
Kevin Zak and Jennifer Blood (center) Brennan Caldwell and Morgan Weed. Photo: Jenny Anderson By Fern Siegel Musicals geared to millennials, such as Dear Evan Hansen and Be More Chill — are becoming increasingly popular as that target audience puts theater on its to-do list. (Tony winner Avenue Q kicked…
Andrus Nichols Arney Rosenblat Hurry and try to catch The Saintliness of Margery Kempe at the Duke before it closes August 26 to enjoy the memoir of a would-be reality star, Medieval style The Saintliness of Margery Kempe is based on the apparently incredible life of the 14th Century English mystic Margery Kempe…
google Oliver! By Edward Lieberman At first blush, there is nothing about Charles Dickens’ famous novel that one would think lends itself to musical treatment: unlike Annie (which coincidentally originated at the Goodspeed), wherein the heroine is an orphan adopted by a kindhearted billionaire and all is rosy (“The Sun Will Come Out…
Photos by Maria Baranova By Eugene Paul Let’s say that the musical Be More Chill now playing to sold out houses at its Off-Broadway Pershing Square Signature Center moved to the Palace Theatre, 1743 seats on Broadway, and sold out there for a year. That’s 517,088 tickets. Let’s fantasize, let’s sell…
Ian Lessiter photos by Carol Rosegg by Arney Rosenblat Pushkin is a compelling, true-to-life historical blank verse play imagined and implemented by the creative playwright Jonathan Leaf that will both fascinate and spur the researcher in you to find out more about the man who is known as the Father of modern Russian…
Bonnie Milligan as Pamela (center) with Tanya Haglund, Samantha Pollino, Ari Groover and Amber Ardolino photos by Joan Marcus by Deirdre Donovan You don’t have to know a lick about Elizabethan times or the American rock band the Go Go’s to enjoy the new jukebox musical Head Over Heels, which opened at the…
By Ron Cohen In The House that Will Not Stand, Marcus Gardley delves into one of the many perverse chapters in the insidious annals of slavery: the sale by France of the Louisiana Territory to the United States in the early 19th Century. It meant that the African-Americans living in New Orleans…
Stephen Payne, Josh Charles, Armie Hammer and Paul Schneider in Straight White Men at the Helen Hayes Theater, New York. Photo: Joan Marcus Straight White Men By Eugene Paul What in hell? Oh. Provocation. Getting us, the audience, off on the wrong foot with that yowling souped up caterwauling. And that curtain? Entirely…