Paulanne Simmons

Years ago, all a magician needed was a top hat and a live rabbit. Magic has come a long way. Jamie Allan’s Amaze uses props, videos, projections and cell phones to do exactly what the title of his show predicts. But Allan does much more than simply overwhelm the audience with slights of hand and…

BIG GOSPEL ON LITTLE ISLAND Greek religion and Christianity had very different views on the nature of God and salvation, but the current revival of The Gospel at Colonus still manages to turn Little Island into a Pentecostal revival meeting. The show is based on an adaptation of Robert Fitgerald’s version of Sophocles’ Oedipus at…

A PLATE OF MASHED SMASH Let me be clear. I never saw the television series Smash. I know nothing about the series other than that it focused on a community theater working on a show about the life of Marilyn Monroe. So I had no expectations when I arrived at the Imperial Theatre to see…

AUDRA MCDONALD GIVES US A POWERFUL MAMA ROSE BUT IS IT A SUITABLE INTERPRETATION? Gypsy is a great show. Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim wrote a justly iconic score, and Arthur Laurents’ book is one of his best. Ever since Ethel Merman opened the show with “I Have a Dream” back in 1959, various divas…

THE BEST HOLIDAY GIFT ISN’T UNDER THE TREE, IT’S ELF AT THE MARQUIS Elf, the charming story of Buddy, the orphan who crawled into Santa’s sack one Christmas Eve and was raised at the North Pole, surrounded by Santa and his elves, has been delighting young and old since 2003, first as a film and…

DEATH BECOMES HER IS NOT FOR PURITANS OR VICTORIAN GRANDMOTHERS. BUT HOW MANY OF THEM ARE AROUND TODAY? Death Becomes Her, the new musical based on the eponymous 1992 black comedy/fantasy and gay cult classic, starring Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn, is boisterous, loud and crass. It’s filled with tasteless one-liners and bawdy slapstick. And…

There’s an eponymous and ominous presence onstage at New York City Center Stage I. You can’t see him. But his evil, autocratic and tyrannical nature permeates every scene in Erika Sheffer’s riveting play, Vladimir, from the moment we see a drunk Boris Yeltsin resign to the play’s tragic ending. That man, of course, is Vladimir…

FORBIDDEN PLEASURES Even the most avid theatergoers may not realize how much about Broadway there is to have fun with until they see Forbidden Broadway, the decades-old Off-Broadway musical parody created, written and directed by Gerard Alessandrini. The newest show, Merrily We Stole a Song, is no exception. JENNY LEE STERN, CHRIS COLLINS-PISANO and DANNY…

FOR THE ROOMMATE, IT’S ULTIMATELY ABOUT THE CASTMATES Take a big dose of Grace and Frankie, add a bit of Arsenic and Old Lace, and top it off with the magnificent Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone and you’ve got Jen Silverman’s The Roommate, a two-hander helmed by Jack O’Brien which opened last night at the…