Paola Bellu

CHERRIES WITH A FEW PITS Anton Chekhov’s final play, The Cherry Orchard, is a masterwork of dramatic irony. It was written in 1903 as a dark comedy but it was always more akin to a tragedy, especially with the original Stanislavski’s direction full of psychological realism and emotional truth. A new wild version, written &…

FIERCE CRAIC A really enjoyable, light-hearted, raucous comedy just opened at The Irish Repertory Theatre: the world premiere of Irishtown by Ciara Elizabeth Smyth, directed by Nicola Murphy Dubey. In a building on the outskirts of Dublin, The Irishtown Players, three actors, a playwright and a director, are rehearsing a new play, a sexual assault…

Brecht once said, “In the dark times, will there also be singing? Yes, there will be singing. About the dark times.” This must have been the inspiration for A Mother, a truly amusing collection of heartfelt life snippets by writer Neena Beber, co-conceived with actress Jessica Hecht, now playing at Baryshnikov Arts. It is not…

LIFE IS LIKE A CARTON OF EGGS; YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO GET UNTIL YOU CRACK ONE OPEN How do we cope with the loss of control in a crisis? Imagine two couples (one from Manhattan, the other from Los Angeles) that meet for an idyllic winter vacation in a secluded cabin Upstate…

URINE FOR A GOOD TIME SO, MIND YOUR PEES AND QUEUES It’s the perfect time for a Urinetown revival. Twenty-four years after its successful Broadway debut, City Center’s Encores! returns with a rousing production. This satirical musical takes place in a dystopian future where a severe water shortage has led to a draconian system of…

RUNNING FOR ONE’S LIFE Under the vision of Founder and Artistic Director Susan Feldman, St. Ann’s Warehouse – one of the most eclectic and vibrant venues in New York – is now presenting another cutting-edge production, the North American premiere of Iranian writer and director Amir Reza Koohestani’s play Blind Runner, a moving hymn to freedom. Performed…

A SPARKLING, SPIRITED PIRATES The Pirates of Penzance is a spirited lampoon of Victorian morality, skewering its pretensions and hypocrisies while also poking fun at the lackluster operas and ballets that dominated English stages from 1871 to 1896. The legendary duo of William S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, celebrated as the quintessential librettist-composer partnership of…

A letter is a blessing, a great and all-too-rare privilege that can turn a private moment into an exalted experience. – Alexandra Stoddard The holidays have faded into memory, and the bitter chill of winter days have settled in. But fear not — when the frost bites, the theatre offers warmth, and somewhere out there,…

A MAGIQUE CARPET RIDE Do you need an escape from suffocating daily life? In Bushwick, across the street from Théâtre XIV, home to the best burlesque shows in the city, artistic director Austin McCormick has opened a smaller cozy party crib to stage Cocktail Magique, with the help of Zane Pihlström, an exceptionally talented costume…

THERE’S A NEW GYPSY IN TOWN AND SHE’S STUNNING In the 1920s, Rose Thompson Hovick steamrolled her way through vaudeville and lived vicariously through her reluctant young daughters, Louise and June, forcing them to act, sing, and dance to feed the family and her narcissism. Rose was one of the original “momagers,” a full-blown dictator…

PUT YOUR LIFE AND TRUST INTO THE HANDS OF LIFE AND TRUST There is a daunting immersive theater experience in Manhattan’s Financial District that is also somehow prophetic. The location, 69 Beaver Street, is already scary at night, surrounded as it is by empty, dark urban canyons; the address is one of the side entrances…

GET READY TO CRACK SOME NUTS WIDE OPEN Christmas can be very sexy if you step into the sumptuous world of Théâtre XIV in trendy Bushwick, and catch Company XIV’s neo-Baroque classic Nutcracker Rouge. Naughty, sensual, lavish, this decadent extravaganza is the perfect welcome to the holiday season, and certainly not family oriented so leave…

PREPARE TO BE SWEPT AWAY What happens when we are faced with extreme necessity? The 1884 tragic wreck of the yacht Mignonette was a cause célèbre in late 19th-century Britain, but not because a crew of four were stranded off the Cape of Good Hope on the South African coast; it was the devastating outcome…

A GENERATIONAL GAP AND A PLAYWRITING GAP As a result of the #MeToo movement, there has been much brought to light about women working in America. But here’s a note to the younger generations about life for women in the 80s: if you were homosexual, you were considered a pervert and treated as such; when…