Reviews Archives

  • The Violin

                              By Eugene Paul Playwright Dan McCormick is having a valuable production of his play, The Violin, under splendidly sympathetic direction by Joseph Discher in an uncommonly atmospheric setting by Harry Feiner. Giovanni’s Tailor Shop. You can’t take your eyes off Gio’s musty, cluttered old tailor shop.  Illuminating designer Harry Feiner has made…

  • Small World

    Mark Shanahan (Walt Disney) and Stephen D’Ambrose (Igor Stravinsky)I               Photo by Carol Rosegg                                                    By Eugene Paul Theater going is a joy unto itself, ramified by the thread of “Is this the one?” constantly running behind every visit even as each theater work has its separate world of creativity displayed for us to weigh,…

  • For Peter Pan on her 70th birthday

    Kathleen Chalfant (© Joan Marcus)                              By Edward Medina No amount of pixie dust can make this emotionally laden Peter Pan take flight. Two time Pulitzer Prize finalist and Tony Award nominee author Sarah Ruhl wrote For Peter Pan as a gift to her actress mother Kathleen Kehoe Ruhl who, in real life, joyously played…

  • Fucking A

                                   By Ron Cohen The leading character is named Hester, she is a single mom, and she does tote the letter “A” on her persona. Suzan-Lori Parks’ Fucking A was, as the playwright has frequently said, inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s mid-19th Century novel, The Scarlet Letter. But beyond these salient facts, the play bears…

  • On the Shore of the Wide World

    C.J. Wilson and Mary McCann star in Simon Stephens’s On the Shore of the Wide World, directed by Neil Pepe, at Atlantic Theater Company.  (© Ahron R. Foster)                                                        By Ron Cohen “it’s really difficult, isn’t it?… Just, the whole business of, you know, being alive. Very complicated,” says a loquacious cab driver toward the close…

  • Charolais

                            by Marc Miller Noni Stapleton, and this is meant as a compliment, makes a great cow. As the title character of the one-woman show she wrote, Charolais, a headstrong French heifer on an Irish farm, Stapleton sashays around the barn and pasture, sniffs, moves her head and body in uncannily bovine ways, and cheers…

  • Prince of Broadway

    Chuck Cooper delivers powerful performances in “Prince of Broadway,” with old favorites such as “If I Were a Rich Man” from “Fiddler on the Roof.” (Matthew Murphy)                             by Eugene Paul When does the Prince of Broadway become the King of Broadway?  He’s 89 years old and working on his next theatre project. …

  • The Suitcase under the Bed

    Sarah Nicole Deaver & A.J. Shively. Photo by Richard Termine.                                                   By Marc Miller The Mint Theater Company thinks very highly of Teresa Deevy—“undoubtedly the most brilliant playwright whose work I will ever have the privilege of re-introducing to the world,” writes artistic director Jonathan Bank in his program notes. Maybe, but the brilliance…

  • Curvy Widow

    Nancy Opel           photos by Mathew Murphy                                                                          by Julia Polinsky Bobby Goldman’s Curvy Widow tells the story of a fifty-ish widow’s search for sex after marriage in an enjoyable, sweetly sexual musical that won’t challenge your attention span, with a cast of seasoned pros, and terrific production values. The story is a simple…

  • Michael Moore on Broadway-The Terms of My Surrender

    Michael Moore                                                                    (© Joan Marcus)                                                by Julia Polinsky Regardless of what you think of his opinions, Michael Moore can really tell a story that touches the heart. If you thought that The Terms of My Surrender would be all politics, politics, politics and no heart, think again. From the moment he enters…