129 stories by "Joseph Pisano"
Many comic artists have noted that great humor often comes from great tragedy, though, inevitably, sometimes the latter overwhelms the former, and all you're left with is a lot of indignatio…
In Kate Tarker's satiric "Thunderbodies," America is a relentlessly strange place, where people spout nonsense, act without reason, and are led by the narcissistic man-baby they've elected p…
Along with excerpts from Godot and a couple of Beckett's novels, Irwin relies heavily on several "arcane" prose pieces from a collection Beckett dubbed "Texts for Nothing." Irwin was first i…
What our mothers owe us - and what we owe them - is at the heart of Leenya Rideout's one-woman autobiographical show, "Wild Abandon." In it, the prodigiously accomplished singer, songwriter,…
In Craig Lucas's "I Was Most Alive with You," two down-on-their-luck television writers mine recent personal tragedy for their latest project, hoping, with the Book of Job as their inspirati…
Unfortunately, Worsham's efforts just confirm the play's central problem: only the relationship between June and Charlie has any real depth. As for the rest of the characters, although McMul…
In telling the rest of this shattering story, the creators of Comfort Women, inexplicably, rely heavily on musical theater conventions that result in wrongheaded, if not downright offensive,…
But when things slow down a bit, especially during the musical interludes and longer dramatic pieces, Petosa's eight performers -- four lead (Christine Hamel; Jake Murphy; Harrison Bryan; an…
Shakespearean spoofs are almost as old as Shakespeare himself, dating back to at least the Restoration period. Although the vast majority has faded into history, there are still some real st…
Unfortunately, O'Reilly's heavy reliance on the production team is also indicative of a significant problem: the play is repetitive. Despite finding new, and often lovely, poetic ways to con…
There's a brilliant play buried somewhere in Caryl Churchill's "Light Shining in Buckinghamshire," a bottom-up historical epic about the English Civil War that the acclaimed British writer d…
To be sure, there are examples of talented playwrights who have also been able to tread the boards without tripping over their feet, or tongues. Harold Pinter, Noël Coward, Tracy Letts: t…
Devised collaboratively by Patch of Blue, a London-based theater company, the play also benefits from a talented supporting cast. Alexandra Simonet makes Hannah's caretaker fatigue evident b…
But, unfortunately, Ferrentino squanders this intriguing setup, getting lost in existential musings that end up being nowhere near as complicated as her subject matter. The first signs of tr…
It's impossible to discuss the history of modern Irish drama without reference to William Butler Yeats, Lady Gregory, and John Millington Synge, who, at the beginning of the last century, he…
Just in time for Easter, TACT/The Actors Company Theatre has adapted and combined two Christmas-themed Damon Runyon short stories into the seasonally inappropriate, but nonetheless very …
In the semi-autobiographical "Terminus," part of a seven-play cycle set in the fictional town of Attapulgus, Georgia, playwright Gabriel Jason Dean unleashes this intriguing Southern Gothic …
This comedy/drama/fitful musical also suffers from major tonal challenges, as it strains to push all of our emotional buttons. It's a shame, because the cast gives it their all. Particularly…
And that's essentially the problem with "A Kind Shot." Clocking in at 75 minutes, the "performance" feels more like a motivational speech than a theatrical event. It's well-meaning and well-…
Another irony is that while Fury is kind of a bore, another character is not. Yeah, you guessed it. Him. When the president (David O. Friedman) appears in Fury's bedroom like the Ghost of Ch…
Daniel LLewelyn-Williams in "A Regular Little Houdini" (Photo credit: Sheri Bankes) In 1905, the chief constable of the Newport, South Wales, police department declaimed the "impenetrability…
Serving as both narrator and protagonist, Harris portrays Blue, a runaway slave who crossed the Sabine River from Louisiana to Texas in search of his elusive freedom. To tell us everything t…
Adhering admirably to its cultural mission, Kairos Italy Theater is treating downtown audiences to a double-bill of smartly written Italian one-acts, each exploring the contentious topic of …
In their new rock musical "Billy and the Killers," lyricist/librettist Jim Shankman and composer Peter Stopschinski channel Nicholas Ray, David Lynch, Elvis Presley, and Dashiell Hammett to …
With "What We're Up Against," Theresa Rebeck looks back a quarter century to a time when gender inequality in the workplace was a real problem. Oh, wait…yep, unfortunately, if Rebeck's scr…
