EVERYTHING’S FINE, BUT WHAT IF WE ALSO HAD BEEN AFRAID? Starting out as a parody of Edward Albee's Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Kate Scelsa's Everyone's Fine with Virginia Woolf is…
A REY OF SUNSHINE ENDS UP CLOUDY Director Chay Yew mounts a spectacular production of Luis Alfaro's Oedipus El Rey, a reworking of Sophocles' tragedy set in the Barrio of present-day Los Ang…
FULL MEASURE More often than not, stagings of Shakespeare plays turn into dull, tedious exercises. The reasons for this vary but the one problem that always seems present is the lack of an a…
UNDER INSPECTION Michael Urie pops and sparkles as Ivan Alexandreyevich Hlestakov, a foppish but penniless out-of-work clerk who gets mistaken for the Czar's inspector by the corrupt officia…
ROOM TO GROW In a way Scott McPherson's Marvin's Room is a perfect play. It's like a well-ordered house, comfortable, professionally decorated, where everything works. The story is straightf…
STET OFFENSIVE After watching Kim Davies' inspired S&M play Smoke, about two young people connecting in the kitchen of a house in which a sex party is in progress, I became an instant…
RADIANT THEATER In Philip Ridley's brilliant black satire Radiant Vermin, a seemingly nice, average twenty-something couple with an infant, tells us of the horrible things they did to get th…
A BRILLIANT TRIFLE Watching members of the Stephen Joseph Theatre perform Alan Ayckbourn's Confusions under the playwright's helmsmanship, I found myself mentally comparing the troupe to a t…
MINDING THE BODY When the lights come up on Body: Anatomies of Being, the nine cast members walk out and stand at the foot of the stage facing the audience, all of them naked save one, who i…
WILLIAMS ASCENDING Irene Glezos delivers a lovely, stirring performance as Lady in Austin Pendleton's staging of Tennessee Williams' masterpiece Orpheus Descending. A force of nature, Lady s…
THE EFFECT OF GREAT THEATER In Lucy Prebble's captivating two-act, The Effect, crisply directed by David Cromer, 20-somethings Connie (Susannah Flood) and Tristan (Carter Hudson) meet as tes…
ALL TOO HUMAN Stephen Karam's remarkable new play The Humans begins with Erik Blake (the excellent Reed Birney) standing on the upper level of a shabby, half-dark basement/ground-floor tenem…
PHONYÂ PONY TALE There exists a type of small theater production in which a lack of resources"material ones and, sometimes, those less tangible"is made up for by the show's intimacy and in…
LET’S GET PHYSICS ALL For parents who recall Professor Julius Sumner Miller's television programs with nostalgia, who wish the Science Channel had more science shows, and for whom qual…
BURIED BETWEEN THE LINES In Scott Elliott's surefooted staging of Sam Shepard's imperfect Buried Child, watching Ed Harris sitting on a raggedy couch under an old blanket in front of a littl…
HE AND SHE AND ME The performers' abundant charm can't overcome the script's shortcoming in I and You, Lauren Gunderson's tedious comedic drama about two high schoolers attempting a class pr…
AÂ MAIL-ORDER BRIDE I guess it's my own fault, but when I read about The Golden Bride, a Yiddish operetta from 1923 that was lost in the 40s, found in the 80s, and is now enjoying its firs…
OUR CHRISTMAS TOWN Under Dan Wackerman's superb direction, Peccadillo Theater Company's A Wilder Christmas, comprised of two Thornton Wilder one-acts"The Long Christmas Dinner and Pullman Ca…
OUR ANIMAL FELLOWS The always energized and entertaining Bedlam theater company opens their current season with New York Animals, Steven Sater's musical play about New York City life in the …
NEITHER NORA Nora, Ingmar Bergman's adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, centers on its titular character, a beautiful young wife and mother, whose cozy life at her husband's bosom i…
LOVIN’ LA VIDA LOCA Daphne Rubin-Vega delivers a riveting performance in Empanada Loca, a sinewy one-woman show written and directed by Aaron Mark. Inspired by the legend of Sweeney To…
A CERTAIN FUTURITY César Alvarez's fascinating musical Futurity begins with Mr. Alvarez and Sammy Tunis taking the stage as themselves, greeting the audience, engaging in improvised b…
ANTIGONE AND JULIETTE In Anne Carson's crisp new translation of Sophkles' Antigone, the great Juliette Binoche embodies the title character, a young woman who breaks the law under penalty of…
HAM INÂ BED At the beginning of Hamlet in Bed, when its author and co-star Michael Laurence comes up to the standup microphone at the front of the stage, I can't help wanting him to succee…
ON GOLDEN PONDLING In her perfect little one-woman show Pondling, Genevieve Hulme-Beaman is captivating as Madeleine, a little girl who lives with her older brother on her grandfather's farm…