Gregory Bernard

A WOMAN OF INDEPENDENT MEANS A once-scandalous play receives a glorious revival, with a captivating leading lady and a first-rate ensemble Playwright Cicely Hamilton distrusted convention, challenged inherited assumptions, and refused to mistake tradition for truth, which may explain why her play Phyl was originally banned and branded “scandalous!” Hamilton died in 1952 at the…

ELEVEN PERFORMERS, ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES A production so enchanting it wins over this skeptic The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which recently opened at The Public Theater, is a cross between Come From Away and Sting’s The Last Ship, though this story unfolds in a Cornish fishing village on the coast of Great Britain. An ensemble…

THE PEN IS MIGHTIER Duncan Sheik’s seductive score elevates a sumptuous but emotionally uneven musical Reminiscent of the immersive experience of the most recent revival of Cabaret, which transformed the entire August Wilson Theatre into the Kit Kat Klub, Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen similarly turns the main space within the Culture Club into “The Night…

THE COST OF CONVICTION Marilu Henner and Shannon Purser face off in a provocative debate that takes too long to get started Matthew Freeman’s new play, The Ask, now running at Off-Broadway’s Theater 555, begins with a seemingly straightforward encounter: Greta (Marilu Henner), a longtime donor to the ACLU, is meeting with Tanner (Shannon Purser),…

A GHOST OF A CHANCE TO KEEP YOUR COOL An inventive binaural ghost story gets under your skin—and into your ears—with unsettling intimacy Written and directed by Jamie Armitage in collaboration with sound designers Ben and Max Ringham, A Ghost in Your Ear at Audible Theater’s Minetta Lane Theatre offers a ghost story literally in…

THE ART OF CREATION, THE PAIN OF LONGING Mfoniso Udofia’s inventive new play finds extraordinary theatrical expression in a woman’s struggle with motherhood, grief, and self-forgiveness The world premiere of creation stories and all the important importants at Lincoln Center Theater begins with a nightmare. Haunted by the Raffia, a Nigerian earth spirit of creation,…

A FAMILY AFFAIR, WITH LOVE AND RESERVATIONS Ryan J. Haddad’s affectionate tribute to his uncle celebrates the power of theater, though its homespun approach limits its emotional impact Good Time Charlie, which opened tonight at The Public Theater, is a loving tribute from playwright Ryan J. Haddad to his uncle Charlie, an older gay man…

FRANKLY, IT’S A SLAM An outrageous Afro-Latin hip-hop reinvention of Anne Frank goes gleefully where you can’t believe it dares to go Wait, what? Slam Frank, which opened at the Orpheum Theatre on October 4, is an “Anne-Frank Afro-Latin Hip-Hop Musical”? Its logo is the silhouette of a young girl wearing the yellow Jewish star,…

AN AMERICAN STORY GETS A NEW LIFE Lynn Nottage, John Legend, Whitney White, and Adrienne Warren take on a story that has been provoking America for nearly a century Some source material arrives onstage carrying more baggage than most shows acquire in a lifetime. Imitation of Life has had nearly a century to accumulate its…

THE PICTURES WE CANNOT LOOK AWAY FROM Moisés Kaufman investigates what an album of Nazi photographs can tell us about the people smiling inside them I’ll see anything Moisés Kaufman puts onstage. From The Laramie Project onward, he has been one of our most adventurous theater makers, particularly when working with documentary material. He knows…

ABE AMONG THE GRAVES Death of Classical takes “Lincoln in the Bardo” where it was practically begging to go: the cemetery Talk about knowing your venue. Before the Metropolitan Opera unveils Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek’s Lincoln in the Bardo on October 19, Death of Classical is taking this ghost-filled new opera out for a…

THE DOCTOR WILL SEE YOU NOW, WHETHER YOU NEED ONE OR NOT Bill Irwin makes a house call on Molière There are hypochondriacs, and then there is Argan, the gloriously self-absorbed “professional patient” at the center of Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid. This fall, Tony winner Bill Irwin returns to Broadway, and to a playwright particularly…