New York City's New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players (NYGASP) will perform a full production of Utopia, Limited for the very first time. (The company presented "concert" versions of the piece…
Lewin's nautical epiphany has now resulted in a show called Going Bacharach: The Songs of an Icon. It opens tonight (following a handful of preview performances) at The Marjorie S. Deane Lit…
In 2021, Rick Pender finished work on The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia, a hefty labor of love that weighed in at 652 pages. Published by Rowman & Littlefield, it included detailed informati…
Aficionados of musical theatre continue to revere composer/lyricist Cole Porter (1891-1964) as a force for wit and romantic passion in show songs. And rightly so. Porter wrote"in whole or in…
If the name Helen Morgan means anything to people today, it's likely for three salient things. First, there's her captured-for-posterity portrayal of mixed-race singer Julie LaVerne in the J…
The creative collaboration between lyricist Richard Maltby Jr. and composer David Shire has lasted well over 60 years and is still in motion, making other musical-theatre teamings seem like …
Beyond Ridiculous: Making Gay Theatre with Charles Busch in 1980s New York, the new study by Kenneth Elliott, touches on things that many readers will be curious about. Certainly, anyone int…
However, it's not until the second act that the play generates many laughs. Here, the tables turn on Jim. Gloria, returning to Kingston, has gained self-assurance from her escapades in the s…
If the show seems at times to be a bit of a mess, it's an often entertaining and always lively one, thanks in good part to members of the acting ensemble, most of whom play multiple roles. P…
This current New York City revival, directed by Aimée Fortier, shifts the focus largely away from Jimmy and onto Alison (Elizabeth Scopel). Critics have described this character as passive,…
The subject matter of "Chasing the River" is, of course, viable, but the play is not as nuanced and insightful as one would hope"nor is it particularly gripping. Sometimes the action feels s…
Hoyle has brought his most recent play, "Border People," to New York City in a production directed by Nicole A. Watson. It's a work dedicated to people who dwell along borders of various sor…
"Really Really Gorgeous" has an often-amusing absurdist and surrealistic sensibility. Plot turns take on the illogical quality that exists in dreams or in kids' games of "Let's pretend." For…
The play succeeds in large part because it begins in the aftermath of a school shooting. There are a few bits of dialogue describing the terror of the incident itself, but there is no onstag…
The production is unapologetically irreverent. At the beginning, we see a masked Greek chorus wearing long robes, shuffling ever-so-slowly around the stage of the Center at West Park (the sa…
The framing device is not a completely elegant solution to the problem, but it gets the job done. Gilbert gets knocked out cold while examining the contents of the trunk. While incapacitated…
All else aside, writes William J. Mann, the actor was "a voice in the wilderness warning about the celebrity culture he spied coming down the tracks." The post Marlon Brando: Hollywood's Com…
The York Theatre Company's new revue, "Anything Can Happen in the Theater: The Musical World of Maury Yeston," reminds us not to take for granted the talents of this vibrant composer/lyricis…
Now, New Yorkers who know the film (and who love it, hate it or partly love it and partly hate it) have a chance to see a streamlined (at 95 minutes) musical-theatrical spoof of the film, ca…
Stephen Brown's "Everything Is Super Great" is a small, unpretentious play about an American family in crisis. That is not a novel theme, of course, but "Everything" rises gracefully to the …
One day, reaching for this book will be a good way to revisit the escapades of the Trump presidency -- and to be glad that they're over. The post Weighty Matters, Light Verse: John Lithgow I…
Migdalia Cruz's "Fur" (presented by Boundless Theatre Company at Next Door @NYTW) has the sensibility of a folk tale, the coherency of a fever dream, and the trappings of a horror movie. It'…
What this team of artists has created is a serious piece of storytelling that is also a glorious treat for the eyes and ears. If you've figured that the show will just be a guy narrating a s…
The play's title comes from Carew's character. The "hope hypothesis" is the notion that, in our current environment, people have universally given up hope. Consequently, they are either atte…
The play's dynamic"with the two brothers trying to stay in sync even as they find themselves polar opposites in nearly all areas of their lives"seems at points to make the play a kind of clu…