Phylicia Rashad and cast photos by Joan Marcus By Arney Rosenblat There is no more perfect place than the open-air Delacorte Theater in Central Park with its woodland backdrop and Belvedere Castle turret to set the mood for Shakespeare’s Fairyland in Midsummer Night’s Dream where director Lear deBessonet has chosen to explore with…
Photos by Julieta Cervantes By Ron Cohen First published nearly seven decades ago, George Orwell’s novel of a totalitarian dystopia, 1984, can still chill your bones with its depiction of things that may come – and may have already arrived on our doorstep: the dumbing-down and mechanization of language; evocation of mass…
Namir Smallwood And Karen Pittman. Photos By Jeremy Daniel. By Ron Cohen The words come at you like machine-gun fire in Dominique Morisseau’s Pipeline, and they are piercing, powerful and well-aimed. Morisseau has in her sight two deeply complex targets: the corroding educational pipeline with its failing inner city public schools and the…
Ben Curtis, Kathleen Huber, Julie Campbell, and Jacques Mitchell (© Russ Rowland) by Deirdre Donovan Plays about gun shootings seem to be the rage on New York stages nowadays. Moss Dewey becomes the latest playwright to try his hand with this hot-button topic in his Crusade of Connor Stephens. Directed by Moss,…
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…
Katy Sullivan and Victor Williams by Deirdre Donovan Martyna Majok’s Cost of Living at New York City Center Stage 1 isn’t light entertainment. But, as directed by Jo Bonney, this bi-plotted play can be an eye-opener for understanding how persons with physical disabilities cope with life. Under the aegis of Manhattan Theatre…
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…
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…
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…