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New York
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Off-Broadway Review: COCKTAIL MAGIQUE (Company XIV in Bushwick)
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…
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Dance Review: THE HARD NUT (Mark Morris Dance at BAM)
Mark Morris Dance Group‘s The Hard Nut made its U.S. debut at Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1991. Thirty-three years later, Mark Morris’s reinterpretation of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker is back at BAM, featuring live music by the MMDG Music Ensemble directed by Colin Fowler, and Brooklyn Music School and Brooklyn Technical High School’s The…
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Concert Review: MERRY & BRIGHT WITH JESSICA VOSK (New York Pops at Carnegie Hall)
WHO COULD VOSK FOR ANYTHING MORE? I can think of no better way to celebrate the holidays than at Carnegie Hall with The New York Pops’ Merry and Bright, featuring Jessica Vosk (Wicked, Fiddler on the Roof, Finding Neverland and soon to join Broadway’s Hell’s Kitchen) and the chorus of Judith Clurman’s Essential Voices USA. Steven…
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Broadway Review: GYPSY (Audra McDonald, Majestic Theatre)
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…
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Broadway Review: GYPSY (Audra McDonald, Majestic Theatre)
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…
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Theater Review: A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (The Streetcar Project Tour in LA, NY, SF, DC & more — Highly Recommended)
NOW, THERE’S OH SO MUCH MORE TO DESIRE Since struggle for power among the classes is one of the main themes in Tennessee Williams’ still-shocking A Streetcar Named Desire, it makes perfect sense that director and co-creator Nick Westrate would choose to update the Pulitzer Prize winner for modern times. But wait til you hear…
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Highly Recommended Cabaret: MARILYN MAYE (Holiday Shows at Birdland Jazz Club in New York)
YES, YOU MAYE Adore, adore, adore her. You have to believe me — at 96, the great Marilyn Maye simply enchants, and holds the room in the palm of her hand. Very, very few cabaret performers have this ability (my top three are Eartha Kitt, Elaine Stritch and Ms. Maye). She recently had a sold-out…
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Concert / Film Review: THE PHILIP GLASS ENSEMBLE: POWAQQATSI (Town Hall in New York)
A STUNNING COLLABORATION OF FILM AND MUSIC I saw a special gem at the Town Hall last Monday, a viewing of Godfrey Reggio’s Powaqqatsi with its celebrated score – created by Philip Glass, who was in the house, and performed live by The Philip Glass Ensemble. The non-narrative film is the second of the Reggio/Glass…
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Dance Review: DEAR LORD, MAKE ME BEAUTIFUL (World Premiere by Kyle Abraham at Park Avenue Armory)
IT IS, INDEED, BEAUTIFUL Wavering graphics of kaleidoscopic greenery paint the Park Avenue Armory, transforming the space into a trippy, mystifying woodland. Kyle Abraham, choreographer and dancer in Dear Lord, Make Me Beautiful, runs around the stage’s perimeter in an expansive circle. His energetic speed embodies that of a child who has escaped the clutches…
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Dance Review: A VERY SW!NG OUT HOLIDAY (The Joyce)
HAVE YOURSELF A SW!NGIN’ LITTLE XMAS Nimble and percussive feet, wild windmill arms, and bright brilliant smiles are abundant and infectious throughout A Very Sw!ng Out Holiday, running until December 15 at The Joyce. Created by Caleb Teicher with a collection of collaborators known as Braintrust, and produced by Joyce Theater Productions, the spirit-infusing event…
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Off-Broadway Review: LIFE AND TRUST (Emursive in Conwell Tower, Manhattan’s Financial District)
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…
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Dance Review: COMPLEXIONS CONTEMPORARY BALLET 30TH CELEBRATION (Program B at The Joyce)
I’M NOT SAYING I’M OUT FOR BLOOD, BUT FOR CRYING OUT LOUD… As four spry dancers emerged through the hazy illumination, I wanted to believe their forms could transport me into their dusty hollow desert. Howling winds paired with the sparse plucking of guitar strings by Chief Adujah surged through The Joyce, cultivating an eerie,…
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Off-Broadway Review: THE BLOOD QUILT (Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center)
A QUILT BLANKETED BY PREDICTABLE STITCHING Quilts always intrigued me; for millennia, women took scraps of fabric from discarded items and made quilts to be used for warmth or decorative purposes. Most of us had one made by a Grandma or a Great Aunt: they stored the patches of material until they had enough to…
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Broadway Review: DEATH BECOMES HER (Lunt-Fontanne)
DEATH BECOMES HER BECOMES BROADWAY I had opposite opinions this week between the opening of the film version of Wicked and the new Broadway musical comedy Death Becomes Her. Wicked outsoared the Broadway version; the movie gave me more heart, warmth, and laughs than I ever got from the original (still running since October of…
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Off-Broadway Review: NUTCRACKER ROUGE (Company XIV)
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…
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Broadway Review: ELF: THE MUSICAL (Marquis Theatre)
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…
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Theater Review: HEXEN: AN ANCESTRAL WITCH PLAY (Tour at El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood)
CONFRONTING THE CURSE It is a signal accomplishment to produce 70 minutes of solo theater which are all the things Hexen manages to be: solemn, playful, enchanting, insightful, and finally, deeply moving. I first encountered Dreya Weber, the sole performer of Hexen (“witches” in German) at the bar before the show. When an exceedingly quirky…
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Concert Review: ONE NIGHT ONLY: AN EVENING WITH MAX VON ESSEN (New York Pops at Carnegie Hall)
MAX VON ESSEN HAS A KNOCKOUT CARNEGIE HALL DEBUT Max von Essen is no spring chicken, having made his Broadway debut in the 2000 revival of Jesus Christ Superstar. Nevertheless, when he bounced onto the stage at Carnegie Hall with The NY Pops orchestra for One Night Only: An Evening with Max von Essen on…
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Broadway Review: SWEPT AWAY (Longacre Theatre)
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…
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Dance Review: COMPLEXIONS CONTEMPORARY BALLET 30TH CELEBRATION (Program A at The Joyce)
As the curtain rises on Complexions Contemporary Ballet, I am greeted by five gorgeously toned, leggy dancers with sinewy rippling musculature arranged in a staggered line. Their bodies, racehorse-like vessels glowing under harsh spotlights, denoting a company of acute physical bravado. Last night began a two-week celebration of its 30th Anniversary Season — a repertoire…
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