New York

ANY WAY IS THE BEST WAY: JUST FIND YOUR WAY TO WHICH WAY TO THE STAGE Lick this play, lick its playwright Ana Nogueira, its director Mike Donahue, its cast and designers, and while you’re at it, lick MCC for this first-rate production. Ignore the Idina Menzel pre-show showtunes blasted so loudly that conversations were…

PLENTY OF RAINBOW BUT LITTLE COLOR In feminist Ntozake Shange‘s 1976 “choreopoem” (a term coined by the late playwright), the experiences of Black women in America are transformed into poetry, music, and choreography. Seven ladies in rainbow colors (Lady in Blue, Lady in Green, etc.) tell stories about joyful sexual awakening, but also about rape;…

NOT ONLY SHOULD THESE ACTORS BE ON BROADWAY, THEY CAN BE HEARD ON BROADWAY The faces of the actors featured in J.M. Synge’s two one-act plays at the reputable Irish Repertory Theatre are a delight to watch. With Artistic Director Charlotte Moore at the helm, her cast brings to life the rarely seen The Tinker’s…

AS  ¡AMERICANO! AS APPLE PIE The Merriam-Webster dictionary (remember dictionaries?) lists two definitions for the word dreamer. The first is simply “one that dreams.” The second definition is “a person living in the United States without legal status who arrived as the child of someone who did not have the documentation required for legal entry…

FINALLY IN THE LOOP A Strange Loop, the new Broadway musical that currently towers above the rest, is a Brilliant show. With book, music and lyrics by Michael R. Jackson, this Brilliant show is also a Personal show. And a Troubling show. And a Pulitzer Prize-winning show. And a Thoughtful show. And a Silly show….

WALTZING AROUND AUNT SUSAN Aunt Susan & Her Tennessee Waltz by Toby Armour is one play in two acts that feels more like two, one-act plays on the same bill. The acts have little in common, other than being dramatizations of two early champions of Women’s Suffrage – Susan B. Anthony and Carrie Chapman Catt….

FUNNY, HOW IT KINDA WORKS On the Internet exists a theater-centered, YouTube channel called “Staged Right”. And there’s an episode on Staged Right called Fanny & Barbra and the Legacy of Funny Girl. This thirty-minute documentary explores the real Fanny Brice, how the original stage production of Funny Girl came to be and how the…

SINS I FELL FOR YOU Mae West, the sage and sybarite from Brooklyn, used to say, “Let joy be unrefined,” a point of view that also suits Austin McCormick, artistic director and choreographer of Company XIV. His latest extravaganza, the delightfully ribald Seven Sins, slathers us in the boisterous risk-taking revelry he’s known for: bare…

DON’T DOUBT IT; THIS SHOW’S ON FIRE Third time’s a charm. After a few preview performances, this $17 million musical, adapted from the hit film of the same name, shut down with all of Broadway due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Nineteen months later, as theater slowly began to reopen, Mrs. Doubtfire resumed previews in late…

TASTY BIRTHDAY CAKE NEEDS MORE LAYERS In playwright Noah Haidle’s new play Birthday Candles, currently running at the American Airlines Theatre, television star Debra Messing ages before our very eyes. When she first enters the stage, Ms. Messing is 17. Then she’s 18. Then she’s 38. We know that because it is in the dialogue….

THE MINUTES WILL LEAVE YOU SLACK-JAWED AND SPEECHLESS Superbly civic, the vast council chamber created by set designer David Zinn reeks of rectitude. Filling the stage at Studio 54 is a coffered arched ceiling with hanging strips of fluorescent lights. In the hallway outside this imposing space is a bulletin board with children’s art, while…

NOT SO LITTLE ANYMORE Once upon a time there was an aviator. One day, the aviator’s plane crash landed in the Sahara Desert. The aviator survived but his plane was damaged. After landing, the aviator soon met a little prince from another planet — a planet so small it only held a rose, some shrubs,…

GLORIOUS LANGUAGE AND A KISS TO REMEMBER Cyrano de Bergerac may be the most romantic, tragic love story to withstand the test of time. (Romeo & Juliet drops in comparison.) Written in 1897, Edmond Rostand’s classic play follows the unrequited love of Cyrano (James McAvoy) for his childhood friend, Roxane (Evelyn Miller). At the end…

PUT YOURSELF IN HARMONY‘S WAY I can’t remember the last time I have been so entranced with a new musical. And while Harmony may be having its New York premiere in the Off-Broadway house that brought us the Yiddish version of Fiddler on the Roof, I’ll eat my kishkes if this winner doesn’t go to…

PLAY BALL! Get your popcorn and peanuts and Cracker Jack. Grab your Empires pennant and Empires cap and maybe your Empires team jacket. Then head on down to the ballpark or, in this case, the Helen Hayes Theater on Broadway. For inside is now housed a locker room, a dugout, a field of dreams and…

TINA IS A HEAD-TURNER Two elements are vital to creating a hit bio-musical: great songs and a powerful life story. Tina, The Tina Turner Musical delivers both. Whereas some biographies required that book writers “punch-up” the drama, the true life story of the woman born Anna-Mae Bullock needs no exaggeration as it recounts how a…

IT’S SUITE TO BE BACK AT THE PLAZA A night at the Plaza? With Hollywood royalty? I’m in, how about you? Thus we find three serio-comic tales of love, loss and betrayal all taking place in Suite 719 of New York City’s famed Plaza Hotel. Set in Manhattan of 1968/1969, Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite is…