129 stories by "Joseph Pisano"
As Frank-N-Furter, Luke Evans amply fills the towering platform heels of Tim Curry, who originated the role on stage and, much more indelibly, that supreme silver screen. To put it as delica…
Renowned theatrical spoilsport Bertolt Brecht decried the stupefying effect of catharsis. By contrast, the new Broadway offering The Fear of 13 revels in it. Adapting liberally from British …
John Kelly in a scene from Beth Henley and Martha Clarke's "Bughouse" at the Vineyard Theatre (Photo credit: Carol Rosegg) Chicagoans Nathan and Kiyoko Lerner shared an inspired life: she tr…
In persistently hopeful defiance of its heavy subject matter, the show strives for lightness. That's largely achieved thanks to Radcliffe's affability, which also swiftly inoculates the audi…
Not quite as old as its title suggests, "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" premiered off and then on Broadway in 2005. The Tony Award-winning musical wears that age well in a reviv…
Director Anne Kauffman, who impressively guided the play's Off Broadway premiere a decade ago, returns to do the same for its Broadway debut. With Michael Almereyda's cinematic adaptation ha…
With its big, if economical, imagination, "Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)" also seemingly contains a metropolis of non-digital humanity, thanks, in particular, to Tony Gayle's …
Reunited with Chenoweth for the first time since "Wicked," Schwartz once again benefits tremendously from a genuine member of Broadway royalty who, roughly two decades ago, as the original G…
Seriously, using a childhood favorite to throw existential dread into the increasingly lined faces of Gen-Xers isn't a bad idea. At times, it's even brilliant. By respectively casting the no…
Despite its noble-hearted objective to discourage random acts of violence (well, at least among the working class), Punch suffers from "A Clockwork Orange" problem. Jacob (Will Harrison) is …
There's a palpably tragic tension between Edgar and Mira, which the play's quartet of writers--Sherry Stregack Lutken, Lisa Helmi Johanson, Morgan Morse, and David M. Lutken--naturally let d…
At the beginning of his eponymous Broadway foray, "Jeff Ross: Take a Banana for the Ride," the self-styled insult comic promises a catharsis, which seems like an obvious setup to soon mock t…
Portraying the eponymous Izzy--or Isabelle per the formal preference of a long-ago teacher--the charismatic Smart earns our rapt attention throughout the play, though she cannot begin to ove…
"Stranger Things: The First Shadow" concludes with a Netflix joke that, besides being pretty funny, also represents a bit of chest-thumping for the play's outsized number of developers who m…
Time passes slowly during "Grief Camp" as a bunch of adolescent characters and the audience watching them struggle collectively to figure out the point of being there. Playwright Eliya Smith…
But, top-notch as all of that is, the musical's unmitigated highlight is the Broadway newcomer Rogers as Betty Boop. While the character's trademark look and mannerisms certainly contour Rog…
With one exception, however, Marber's cast of notable wisecrackers treats Mamet's punchy dialogue solely like punchlines, even when they're face down on the canvas. As Shelley "The Machine" …
Despite its predictable overarching plot, "Sumo," produced jointly by the Ma-Yi Theater Company and La Jolla Playhouse, is never boring. Partly, that's because, as Mitsuo, Shih is villainous…
With the same preternatural gusto she brought to "Wicked" and "If/Then," Idina Menzel is back on Broadway in "Redwood" to, once again, confront musicalized trauma, this time as Jesse, a midd…
Marjan Neshat as Marjan  the teacher in a scene from the Roundabout Theatre Company production of Sanaz Toossi's "English" at the Todd Haimes Theatre (Photo credit: Joan Marcus) Language …
It's the play's best scene, an astounding mix of incredible absurdity and, for all the Zoom veterans out there, undeniable believability, especially with everyone talking and typing past…
Great in entirely predictable ways, especially its rich musical orchestrations and arrangements from jazz genius Branford Marsalis (he's assisted by Tony Award- winner Daryl Waters), "A Wond…
While incorporating the film's most memorable lines and story beats into their book, Bob Martin and the late Thomas Meehan also excised what they could to make room for composer Matthew Skla…
Essentially a cri de coeur, "Vladimir" desperately wants to answer affirmatively; however, Sheffer forthrightly acknowledges that it's a dangerously knotty road to yes, requiring Raisa (Raya…
In a theatrical era when "full-length" works often fail to exceed 90 minutes, the English playwright Jez Butterworth dares to dubiously dramatize for approximately twice that span. His previ…
