Kevin Vavasseur

IT DOESN’T JUST FLOAT, IT SOARS New York City Center’s Encores! describes itself,   “This series of concert stagings revisits the archives of American musical theater. Centered around The Encores! Orchestra, these revivals are produced with limited runs and rehearsal schedules, spotlighting the vocal talents of star-studded ensembles.” And, boy, does it ever in its current…

A SLINGSHOT IN THE DARK Poor King David. What a life. If the blonde-haired King of Israel isn’t being duped by the local townspeople to fight Goliath, he’s embarrassing himself at a cocktail party at King Saul’s palace. If he isn’t making war against other desert people, he’s cutting backroom deals with the enemy of…

COME HOME In the lovely Broadway revival of writer Samm-Art Williams’ Tony-nominated play Home, an African-American man named Cephus Miles contemplates life or, more to the point, his life. Sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of his farmhouse, with an expanse of cornfields reaching to the North Carolina sky just behind him,…

LA COMEDIA DE THE COMEDY OF ERRORS Full disclosure, I don’t speak Spanish. Oh, I’ve picked up a few phrases over the years and still remember a bit of what Mr. Sanchez taught us in high school but for all intents and purposes, I am not bilingual. Luckily, that proved to not be much of…

SOMETHING WONDERFUL IS COOKING IN HELL’S KITCHEN What else can be said about Alicia Keys‘  new Broadway musical Hell’s Kitchen, that its recent thirteen Tony Award nominations, including one for Best Musical, haven’t already said (or implied)? Currently running at the Shubert Theatre and presented by multiple producing entities including The Public Theatre – the show…

HOW GOOD YOU GOT IT There’s an old saying that goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But is “fixing” always a bad thing? What if that fix is not about correcting what’s wrong but more about deepening, exploring, and re-emphasizing what’s right? The creative team behind the current Broadway revival of the ’70s…

Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one. ’•  Voltaire The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines parable as,   “…a usually short, fictitious story that illustrates a moral attitude or a religious principle”. This same resource defines doubt as, “…to call into question the truth of; to be uncertain”. So celebrated playwright John Patrick Shanley certainly…

PERICLES AT CLASSIC STAGE: A CLASSIC STAGING OF PERICLES Pericles by William Shakespeare is not a drama. Or comedy. It’s a Romance. A lovely romance that touches upon incest, forced prostitution, abduction by pirates, a murderous foster mother, a widowed young king, a shipwreck, famine, mental illness (arguably), grief, separation and  beheadings for not being able…

A STICKY SCRIPT Bees, those often annoying little creatures who have a knack for showing up at just the right time to ruin any number of outdoor activities, serve an important function. Namely, pollination — an act that is vital for our survival as human beings. So, like it or not, we need bees. However,…

TAKING REFUGE IN THEATER Where does one find refuge? Is it somewhere in this physical world or on the spiritual plane? Or is there some intersectional vortex where the two meet and handily co-exist? Possibly in a hand-hewn house with no address, maybe off the grid and deep in the Illinois woods? In Nathan Alan…

DRAC-OOH-LA-LA Beware ladies and gentlemen and every other gender expression currently walking the planet.   There’s a new Dracula in town and he is HAWT! Looking much more like a young Dolph Lundgren than an old Bela Lugosi, the tall, blonde, Aryan ideal at the center of Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors  is on the prowl for…

A VICTORY LAUGH Purlie Victorious, written by the late Ossie Davis, is a brilliant, funny, moving play that premiered on Broadway in 1961, with Mr. Davis in the title role. The initial production was a hit that ran for 261 performances before touring nationally (the 1970 musicalized version, Purlie, largely utilizing Davis’s play, ran for…