Interested in writing for us? With Curtainup's editor and critic in chief currently sidelined from theatergoing due to an accident, our need for some additional theater loving, insightful backups is urgent. However, able new reviewers are welcome to stay with us on a regular basis. . . so check out our Guidelines and then get back to us with details about yourself at esommer@pipeline.com
Sea Wall/A Life on Broadway - It would be nice to see these linked monologues by Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge in an intimate setting. In stead, the actors' star power have now brought it for a limited run to the even larger Hudson Theater on Broadway Read
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Moulin Rouge! The Musical - a brightly wrapped, intricately decorated package with little inside. It's racy, sometimes vulgar, and always indifferent to historical context and narrative logic. This makes it just the right stuff for the Trump eraRead
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Beetlejuice -
Like the movie, the musical has been cast with artists who are first-rate clowns. . . . Read
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Tootsie - To paraphrase Al Jolson's famous song, Toot, toot,Tootsie, hello! Read
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Hadestown - the most original new musical on Broadway takes us to hell and back to a soaring musical score. Read
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Oklahoma! - Daniel Fish's new look at the musical that launched the golden age of musicals. . .the ear hugging tunes are still there, but with a far less sunny interpretation. . . Read
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King Kong - closing 8/18! The iconic four-footed super hero is musicalized, and the beast once again upstages the beauty. . . Read
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Pretty Woman -Closing 8/18! another movie hit sings and dances to Broadway, this one with an essentially sleazy pair turned into fairy tale romantic lovers. . . Read
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Mean Girls - Another teen audience targeted movie now sing and dances on Broadway Read
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Frozen - A visually rich production that keeps us wide-eyed and on tenterhooks for more than two hours, even when we know how things are going to end. . . Read
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Come From Away - Its uplift message has helped this fact-based musical fly from Canada to Broadway. . . Read
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Dear Evan Hansen - A small musical's big heart and big on talent cast is now a welcome addition to the Broadway musical scene. . . Read
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Measure for Measure and Native Son -
Descriptive Excerpt: Richard Wright and William Shakespeare are justly praised for their depth and breadth of thought; I wish that in the zeal to focus them on single concepts, these productions didn't reduce their works as much as they do. Read
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Rinse, Repeat - in Domenica Feraud's debut play a dysfunctional family collides with an illness almost impossible to overcome, and one that is shrouded in shame and dishonesty. Alhough the play lackins the originality to achieve its dramatic potential, it is impossible not to be moved by this painful case history of one young woman's struggle with her illness. . .Read
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Love Nöel: The Songs and Letters of Nöel Coward -
In a delightful 90-minute salute to "The Master, Nöel Coward," cabaret favorites Steve Ross and KT Sullivan winnow through a melange of letters and songs to illuminate the man, his friends and his era. As described in this two-hander, he was, "a Renaissance Man who just happened to live in the 20th Century" and Ross and Sullivan are here to celebrate an entire aura of glamour and sophistication . . . Read
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#Date Me: An OkCupid Experiment -
A comedic and complicated view of online dating through one woman’s real lens. While the attention to that detail in both the script and the performance is the most endearing part of the production, it certainly makes a case for the online dating cynic who may not be looking to have their mind changed just yet. . . .Read
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Summer Shorts-Series A -
Although the theme of death that threads through each play might seem incongruous with the sunny days of summer, this memento mori triptych does offer something better than sunshine: a penetrating gaze into the human condition from three different authors. Read
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Little Gem- Extended to 9/08! Elaine Murphy guides her fictional characters through the play with a prescribed sentimentality but it rings true to life in a very engaging way. The progression of time for them is charged by their irrepressible honesty and through unapologetically personal feelings, many of which are consigned to overlap the needs and longing of the other. Read
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Broadway Bounty Hunter - Closing 8/18/19 The chance to see Annie Golden in her fiercely ridiculous (or ridiculously fierce) pursuit of justice is a bounty worth hunting all by itself. Read
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Two's A Crowd -with astute veteran comedian Rita Rudner as writer and co-star, you get a laugh-filled couple of hours but a predictable rollout of familiar one-liners and a sit-com plot. . Read
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The Rolling Stone - Chris Urch's powerful play derives much of this powers from the excellent performances of the actors, especially Blankson-Wood, Edwards and James Udom Read
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Life Sucks -
Chekhov would probably be delighted with Aaron Posner's updated version of Uncle Vanya.
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Fiddler On the Roof -
The not to be missed Yiddish version of the golden era's most perfect musical is now uptown. . . Read
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Fiddler on the Roof The show will move uptown to Stage 42 from 2/11/19; opening 2/21/19 -
The National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene's (NYTF)
excellent Yiddish production of Fiddler on the Roof as directed by Joel Grey makes us fall in love with Tevye, his wife, Golde, and his three daughters all over again. Read
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The Hunchback of Notre Dame St Paul's churchyard in Covent Garden forms the backdrop to this open air, promenade version of Hugo's classic tome
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Bitter Wheat David Mamet's new play about a movie mogul sexual predator stars John Malkovich. "It rips the pashmina off the suppurating wound that is show business." was the tagline .
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Waitress -
Broadway hit musical comedy Waitress brings pies to London . . .
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9 to 5
- Dolly Parton's musical about sexism in the workplace comes to London . . . .
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Thriller Live The show which features Michael Jackson's music celebrates its 10th year . . . .
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Witness for the Prosecution Agatha Christie's novel is dramatized in the magnificent setting of a 1920s Edwardian Baroque council chamberwith exciting director Lucy Bailey in charge. . . .
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The Lehman Trilogy- a look at the origins of the bank which failed spectacularly in 2008, with a British star cast and Sam Mendes as director . . .
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Moby Dick - Rehearsed - Even with the Theatricum's considerable playmaking resources and expertise, it's an underwhelming end to an epic tale. Kudos certainly to the Theatricum for taking us out to sea. Would that the waters were smoother. Read
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Topdog/Underdog - Suzan-Lori Parks' Pulitzer Prize winning play at Shakespeare Company in Lenox Read
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Fall Springs - this musical's
story is politically pointed and the acting and music campy enough to make for what is probably the most entertaining evening about hydro fracking that anyone could ever imagine.
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Before the Meeting -
Williamstown Theatre Festival's premiere at the intimate Nikos Stage, is a 70-80 minute visit with four addicts prior to their daily 12-step meeting in a church basement. Read
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What We May Be - Kathleen Clark's play is a backstage drama, quite literally whenever the stage wings are exposed. Read
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Ghosts -
Uma Thurman's willowy and repressed Mrs. Helene Alving is the centerpiece of Williamstown Theatre Festival's production og Henrik Ibsen's late 19th century radical examination of Norwegian mores Read
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If I Forget - Steven Levenson family comedy /drama gets its third Curtainup review . . .Read
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Working: A Musical -
This terrific production of the musical based on Studs' Turkel's book
, is filled with insights into our country's labor force who are the ones who drive its engine. Without them, what would we do? Read
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The Skin Of Our Teeth -For a play that requires lots of scenery chewing, The Skin of Our Teeth has sadly lost much of its bite. . . Read More
Twelfth Night -
The prolific master came to be known as The Bard of Avon. If the theater company that bears his name keeps up the pace, of its opening production, one day we might call him The The Netflix of Lenox.Read
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BREAKING NEWS Check out our London review of Six and Broadway listings for details about what to expect when it comes to Broadway next year. . .WNET-TV's Channel 13 again is presenting Theater Close-Ups — 3 plays flmed during their Off-Broadway runs: School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls on 8/16 at 9pm; the Hunter Theater Project's inaugural production of Uncle Vanya on 8/ 23 at 9pm; the Roundabout's On the Exhale on 8/16 at 10:15pm .
Just think of those shocks you've got/ And those knocks you've got/ And those blues you've got/ From that news you've got/ And those pains you've got/ (If any brains you've got). . ./ 'Cause Franklin knows/ Anything goes.
—Cole Porter lyric quoted in Thomas Friedman's 3/06/09 New York Times column The Trump Musical: 'Anything Goes'. You gotta crawl around in another man's skin 'fore you can really know him
—Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mckingbird
