New York

UPCOMING STAR-FILLED ONE-NIGHT-ONLY LIVESTREAM EVENTS TO BENEFIT THE ACTORS FUND Broadway’s Best Shows is about to launch the weekly one-night-only “Spotlight On Plays” series beginning this Thursday, May 7, 2020 to benefit The Actors Fund. These one-night-only events will be livestreamed each subsequent Thursday on The Actors Fund YouTube channel and Broadway’s Best Shows’  YouTube and…

EVERYTHING IS HAPPY INDEED In Jesse Eisenberg’s very funny and poignant one-act Happy Talk the excellent Susan Sarandon plays Lorraine, an amateur actress whose rosy, self-serving delusions lead to tragic consequences. We first meet Lorraine when she arrives late to her suburban home from rehearsal; she’s playing the part of Bloody Mary in a production…

SO WHAT’S NOT TO LIKE? As Shakespeare said, “Good wine needs no bush.” Thus, there is no need to add to what New Yorkers have already discovered, that no matter how many productions of Fiddler on the Roof you’ve sat through, you ain’t seen nothing yet until you’ve seen it in Yiddish, until you’ve heard…

TOOT-TOOT-TOOTSIE, HELLO! I’m here to sing the praises of all those musical comedy freaks who have been jonesing for a contemporary musical that will bring back, in some new form, the golden age of Broadway musicals, because one has come their way. You know the kind I mean. Each song, complete with entrancing melody and…

SEND IN THE CLOWNS A bloody war is ended. The bodies pile up. Who will clean up the mess? What to do? What to do? Oh, yes. Send in the clowns. On this note, Taylor Mac, the certified genius whose A 24-Decade History of Popular Music was the most dazzling, mesmerizing, audacious, life-changing theater experience…

SOC ON THIS Perhaps one of the reasons Socrates has become a god-like figure in the world of philosophy is that we know very little about the actual man who existed during the dawn of writing. He kept no diaries and wrote no treatises, yet philosophies attributed to the classical Greek thinker — Socratic Method,  Socratic…

PRETTY HURTS SO GOOD The title of Tori Sampson’s If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka is a sly retort to Beyoncé’s 2013 song “Pretty Hurts,” both of which lament the negative impacts of rigid, Eurocentric beauty standards on young women — especially young black women. Beyoncé is not the only iconically beautiful woman…

BLONDE, YES: SMART? WELL… It’s tempting, if unfair, to compare Willy Holtzman’s Smart Blonde to the 1963 Broadway musical Funny Girl: both use flashback to frame the biographies of young Jewish girls from New York City who defy expectations and become superstars, with all the highs and lows that accompany it. However, Funny Girl’s tale…

DON’T MIES IT In Mies Julie, Yaël Farber’s contemporary adaptation of August Strindberg’s 1889 play Miss Julie, Farber swaps out Strindberg’s Swedish estate for a prosperous farm in the barren South African desert. Playing through March 10 at Classic Stage Company, Strindberg’s examination of class structure takes a backseat to themes of racial stratification and…

DANCING AROUND DEATH “I thought we might show more decorum by keeping our long miserable mistake to ourselves,” Alice tells Edgar after he expresses his intention to celebrate their silver wedding anniversary. “Oh come, Alice!” responds the aging artillery captain. “We’ve had fun. Now and then. And soon it will all be over. We’ll be…

CALL ME UNDERWHELMED For City Center’s 75th anniversary season, Encores! has revived a show from its second year, Call Me Madam  — only the second show it has ever repeated. Irving Berlin’s 1950 star vehicle for Ethel Merman was a smash hit for Encores! in 1995 as a concert starring Tyne Daly (the recording of which…

HITS THE SPOT As someone who has logged many hours crawling up 10th Avenue in a Megabus, the bright purple-and-white Y2K-esque signage of Yotel has always been intriguing landmark. Since I am not a European tourist, I thought I would never have the opportunity to experience whatever wonders lay beyond its blocky bubble letters and…

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY CLONES It’s hard to react to the details of this show with anything but resigned bemusement. So, while some of what I’m about to say may sound like I hated Wicked Clone, let me be clear: It’s top-to-bottom insane, and I loved every minute of it. (Well, every minute might be…

A BITTER PILL TO SWALLOW It is said that every playwright’s first play needs to be about themselves before they are able to move onto more expansive material. This maxim seems to hold true for Clea DeCrane’s Bitter Greens, now playing at 59E59, which covers the well-trod territory of privileged post-collegiate angst with skill, if…

CASTE ASIDE Todd Solondz, one of the most profound filmmakers working today (Happiness, Welcome to the Dollhouse), begins his first play Emma and Max  — which he also directs — with a scene right out of a Todd Solondz movie: An affluent white couple, Brooke and Jay, sit uncomfortable and tense in their living room opposite…