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New York Off-Broadway

You Are Dead. You Are Here A super timely play at HERE- Read More

3 Kinds of Exile - The monologue which raises the curtain on John Guare's exploration of three Eastern Europeans' immigrant experiences is less a play than an anecdote. Martin Moran is a fine anecdotist. The same is true for the John Guare and Omar Sangare in the dualogue that follows. Though Mr. Guare does tie each piece to his title, the pleasures and effectiveness of its parts don't really add up to a truly satisfying whole . . Read More

Venice - I've seen my share of Shakespeare plays at the Public Theater. But but never as a rap and hip hop driven musical. This very loose take on Othello now at the Public's Anspacher is a far cry from Liev Schreiber's riveting Iago also seen at the Public's Anspacher, though a dozen years ago. Like that production, this one will rank high on my list of most memorable shows. Eric Rosen's book locates his Othello-inspired characters in a war-torn Venice some time in the near future. Composer Matt Sax has managed to marry the pulsating beat of hip-hop, rock and quieter more traditional musical theater melodies plus his and Rosen's rap-infused lyrics had me rethink my lack of enthusiasm for hip-hop. . . . Read More

Gibraltar - Given up on reading James Joyce's Ulysses? Well, take heart. Patrick Fitzgerald has taken on the formidable task of adapting this literary juggernaut into a two-character play that scratches beneath the surface of Leopold and Molly Bloom's inglorious marriage and turns it into a life-affirming theater portrait. Read More

Marathon of One Act Plays (Series C) - another Marathon series to conclude this year's offerings Read More

The Silver Cord - Mrs. Phelps in Sidney Howard's 1926 play is far from a stereotypical cartoon. This mother is pathologically possessive, taking mother love for her two sons dangerously over the top. . .Read More

Reasons to Be Happy - Neil LaBute devotees will find plenty of reasons to be happy that he's re-visiting the messy lives of two working class couples in an anywhere USA suburb. . .Read More

Cornelius - J.B. Priestley's play about a British import company's obsolescence in the face of a changing business practices and the Great Depression, is a highlight of this year's Brits Off-Broadway Festival. Like An Inspector Calls, it was written for Sir Ralph Richardson but the play does not need a world renowned star to bring fresh life to the play's title character, one of the partners of the firm in its death throes. . Read More

A Picture of Autumn - The Denham family of Winton Manor in N.C. Hunter's play might bring to mind the Crawleys of Downton Abbey three decades later and considerably poorer. England has struggled through industrialization, growing cities, and the rising labor class. . . Read More

Sontag: Reborn - Not having any preconceived ideas regarding Susan Sontag's literary prominence, either as a novelist, theorist, essayist et al, or more specifically the mystique that presumably surrounded her, this presentation affected me as a rather presumptuous assumption that her journal jottings have the stuff/heft of dramatic literature. . . Read More

The Tutors - Erica Lipez's new play gets an "A" for its smart dialogue and acting and "C" for its somewhat fuzzy plot. It's a fine ice-breaker for the Second Stage Theatre Uptown Festival 2013. . . Read More

Good Television - Rob MacLachlan's script is compelling, fast and humorous. But at times motives and decisions are opaque, and MacLchlan doesn't venture all the way into the depths of reality's morality . . . Read More

Far From Heaven - The changes between the show's trial run at Williamstown and its arrival at Playwrights Horizon while not enormous, are substantial enough to make my second viewing a more emotionally compelling and generally engaging experience. . . Read More

New York-Broadway

Pippin - The Big Tony Winner, with Best Musical Revivial just one of its awards . . Read More

The Trip to Bountiful -. Cicely Tyson nabbed a Best Actress TonyExtended for an additional 8 weeks, to Sept.1st!. . . Read More

The Assembled Parties - Two parties, two decades apart, at which those assembled in a spacious Central Park West apartment to rejoice in the Amen moment when life's complicated times can be forgotten long enough for all to enjoy a dinner in a mood of joyous togetherness Extended yet again to 7/28. . Read More

The Nance -Nathan Lane allows us to see into the heart-breaking core of a disconsolate man who is compelled to endure the slings and arrows of an unforgiving society, . . Read More

Matilda: The Musical - The very, very British musical has landed on Broadway with all its deliciously scary snap, crackle and pop in place. . Read More

Kinky Boots - Best New Musical Tony winner. . . Read More

Links to reviews of all currently running shows. . . features archive. . .review archive. . .news. . . Broadway Listings. . . Off-Broadway Listings. . . film & tv . . . June Cabaret Nights column

London

Hard Feelings - It is remarkable how untouched this group of English graduates from Oxford are by the riots happening on their doorstep in Brixton, London, in Doug Lucie's 1981 play. . . Read More

Rutherford and SonNorthern Broadsides' production stars its Artistic Director Barrie Rutted as the brutal patriarch of the glassworks now set in Halifax, Yorkshire. This has been translated for this production from playwright Githa Sowerby's home in the north east but the family set up is recognisable everywhere. Read More

Midsummer Night's Dream - Dominic Dromgoole directs a new production at Shakespeare's Globe on the South Bank starring Michelle Terry in the dual roles of Hippolyta and Titania and John Light as her consort, Theseus and Oberon. . Read More

Chimerica - Lucy Kirkwood's play satisfies at many levels. Political ideas are discussed, facts given about business and pollution, Chinese population policy and the crackdown by the Chinese police against information supplied to Western journalists shown, while never letting go of the search for the man with the shopping bags who stopped the tanks. It's also very exciting visually. . . Read More

Disgraced - Ayab Akhtar's Pulitzer winner comes to London -. . . Read More

More Review Links: New & Noteworthy . . . London Theaters. . . Fringe Theaters

Berkshires

On the Town - Barrington Stage Company's salute to the great American Broadway musical tradition is a stunning production. Its soaring and, at times, almost operatic score by Leonard Bernstein with book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, beats its way onto the stage in a lusty, good natured throb of acrobatic dancing, double entendres and romantic longing played against the backdrop of the always wakeful and pulsating New York City . . . Read More

Heroes - This is a sweet and sadly funny observation of what we all must come to if we live long enough. With a nod to the existential absurdist view of human haplessness, the play is not an intellectual incursion into the deepest psychic motivation but, rather, a celebration of the human spirit. . . Read More

For details about all the season's shows at all major area venues see our Berkshires Main Page .

New Jersey
Happy - an unsettling but absorbing play. . . Read More

The Little Mermaid - Whatever were the major issues that plagued the stage version of the popular 1989 cartoon feature when it first opened on Broadway in 2008 seem to have been mainly and commendably resolved in this newly conceived staging at the Paper Mill Playhouse. . . Read More

The Playboy of the Western World -It's roundup time for all the playboys and playgirls to attend the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey's splendid production of John Millington Synge's rollicking and rueful play . . Read More

New & Noteworthy
NJ Theaters

California

The Scottsoboro Boys - Kander and Ebb's last musical collaboration comes to Los Angeles Read More

New & Noteworthy

Connecticut/Hudson Valley

New & Noteworthy

Washington - DC

Anything Goes- The national tour of the Roundabout's Tony-winning and audience-pleasing production is docked at Washington's Kennedy Center until July 7 th. . .

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