K.T. Sullivan Photos by Seth Cashman by Deirdre Donovan Fans of Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz recently were treated to a smorgasbord of their songs at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall on June 20th, courtesy of the Mabel Mercer Foundation. Hosted by the luminous KT Sullivan, who now serves as the…
By Ron Cohen Scott McPherson’s Marvin’s Room is a crazy quilt of familial attachments and tensions, deep sickness and the fulfilling nature of caring for one another. It’s threaded together with laughs, lots of them, softening the pain of its depictions of physical debilitation and mental instability. An off-Broadway hit in the early…
by Deirdre Donovan Scott Siegel returned to Town Hall on June 19th to host his signature series, “Broadway by the Year.” Presenting Big Names like Alice Ripley, Christiane Noll, and Brandon Uranowitz plus a few rising stars, the event was next-to-perfect. Now in its 17th year, “Broadway by the Year” (BBTY) has…
George Morfogen Jean Lichty Korinne Tetlow and Larry Bull By Arney Rosenblat The Traveling Lady by Horton Foote is a poignant story of longing and remorse set in a rural 1950’s Texas town. On the surface, the lives portrayed may appear remote to the in-your-face tell-all lifestyle of the typical Manhattan dweller,…
By Eugene Paul When you’re invited early to the performance in order to brave the bowels of Mistress Overdone’s bordello to get to your seat – you’re meant to stare at the deliberately malodorous collection of treasured objects therein, from a wall art five foot penis to a less endowed masked…
by Julia Polinsky So often, words are open to interpretation. In the best possible way, interpreting almost every word spoken makes Lauren Yee’s In A Word deeply engrossing, a surprise in a play so short. Usually, “80 minutes no intermission” is code for “we know it needs work, but don’t want…
By Ron Cohen Phrase of the day is deus ex machina. Don’t bother clicking on or getting out your dictionary. Borrowed from the Greek, it translates literally as “god from the machine” and has evolved into a dramaturgic term referring to an unexpected or surprising – maybe even illogical — turn of plot that…
by Deirdre Donovan The American loser gets his day in Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins. Sondheim’s 1990 vaudeville musical features two centuries of villains who have tried to kill the U. S. President. Some succeeded, others didn’t. But one thing was believed by all these historical reprobates, and dramatized by the Proprietor in the show’s opening…
By Ron Cohen The foreboding set establishes the mood immediately. A grimy wall of grey stone broken by half-circle windows, looking out into impenetrable darkness, surrounds the playing area. Dotting the playing area are spikes of misshapen metal. Some of them look like long-dead trees. The play Terezin, written and directed by Nicholas…
By Arney Rosenblat When Zero Mostel starred in Rhinoceros on Broadway, a critic remarked how realistic he was as a human being in the 1st Act- Drama Desk winner Jim Brochu, who both wrote and performs Zero Hour, seemingly channels the roaring bellowing rhinoceros Sam “Zero”Mostel, a complex man that used humor…