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Theater Preview: WINTER’S BENCH (24th Street Theatre)
IF THIS TREE COULD TALK Anne Gee Byrd listens for a voice from the past in Mike Kenny’s lyrical world premiere Trees talk to each other. Really. Scientists have discovered that beneath our feet, trees use vast underground networks to communicate and share resources. But what if a tree decided to strike up a conversation…
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Off-Broadway Review: THE REAL IVANOV (Initiative Productions / New York)
IVANOV GETS THE SHORT END Chekhov’s despair survives the cuts, but the production struggles to connect the pieces It is difficult to make depression theatrically vivid when its essential symptoms are misery, inertia, and the absence of purpose rather than anything visually dramatic. That is the particular challenge of Chekhov’s Ivanov, and I have already…
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Theater Review: RHINOCEROS (American Repertory Theater / Cambridge, MA)
THE RHINOCEROSES ARE AMONG US; HERE COMES THE CRASH A.R.T.’s chillingly funny absurdist classic asks what happens when everyone else joins the herd Since its 1959 debut, Eugène Ionesco’s famed Rhinoceros has likely felt chillingly topical to every generation that has encountered it. Writing about American Repertory Theater’s new production from that angle may seem…
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Broadway Opening: THE IMAGINARY INVALID (Roundabout Theatre Company)
THE DOCTOR WILL SEE YOU NOW, WHETHER YOU NEED ONE OR NOT Bill Irwin makes a house call on Molière There are hypochondriacs, and then there is Argan, the gloriously self-absorbed “professional patient” at the center of Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid. This fall, Tony winner Bill Irwin returns to Broadway, and to a playwright particularly…
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Theater Review: THE 17TH ANNUAL LIVING NEWSPAPER FESTIVAL (Jackalope Theatre Company)
GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS Five headlines become five new plays, with one terrific entry leading the edition Jackalope Theatre Company’s 17th Annual Living Newspaper Festival, currently being performed at the Jackalope Theatre in the Broadway Armory, is an anthology show. Conceived as a discovery showcase for writing talent, the festival comprises five new plays. The…
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Theater Preview: TARTUFFE (REMIXED) (Marylebone Theatre / London)
TARTUFFE GETS A REMIX Mark Rylance meets Molière in a Nigerian-Jamaican reimagining of the classic comedy Molière is getting quite the makeover in London this fall. Oscar and Olivier Award winner Mark Rylance stars as Pastor Terrance Blake in the world premiere of Tartuffe (Remixed), Darren Raymond’s new adaptation of the 17th-century comedy, opening 4…
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Theater Preview: HANGMEN (by Martin McDonagh / Long Beach Playhouse)
HANG ON TO YOUR SEATS Gallows humor meets murder and mystery in Martin McDonagh’s wicked comedy I saw this play on Broadway and it rocked my world! Fun, intrigue, mystery and some jolts that only Martin McDonagh can provide. So I’m particularly excited that Long Beach Playhouse is bringing McDonagh’s Hangmen to its intimate Studio…
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Opera Review: MEROLA GRAND FINALE (War Memorial Opera House / San Francisco)
A FINALE WITH A BRIGHT FUTURE Merola’s newest generation of opera artists brings plenty of promise to the War Memorial Opera House The Merola Opera Program’s 2026 Summer Festival came to a celebratory close with its annual Merola Grand Finale at the War Memorial Opera House. Conducted by William Long and directed with aplomb by…
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Off-Broadway Preview: TOC TOC (Repertorio Español)
KNOCK, KNOCK. WHO’S THERE? TOC TOC. Six strangers, one missing psychiatrist, and a waiting room full of compulsions Six patients walk into a psychiatrist’s waiting room. No, that’s not the setup for a joke—although in Laurent Baffie’s international hit comedy TOC TOC, it certainly becomes one. Repertorio Español brings the play to New York in…
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Off-Broadway Review: THE BATHROOM ATTENDANT (SparkPlug Productions / 124 Bank Street Theater)
A THRILLER THAT TAKES A WHILE TO FLUSH OUT A perfectly matched cast and Andrew Block’s resourceful staging eventually ignite Tom Kelly’s pitch-black thriller, but the promised comedy rarely surfaces No, The Bathroom Attendant doesn’t take place in a public bathroom. The title refers to how far into indigence its protagonist has fallen—a condition made…
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Theater Review: HEROES OF THE FOURTH TURNING (Catharsis Theatre Collective / Broadwater Black Box / Los Angeles)
RIGHT, LEFT AND NO WAY OUT Faith, politics and generational divides collide in a provocative portrait of an America at war with itself Will Arbery’s haunting Pulitzer Prize finalist Heroes of the Fourth Turning, now playing at The Broadwater by Catharsis Theatre Collective, speaks to the heart of a country at war with itself, offering…
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Theater Review: MAMMA MIA! (Transcendence Theatre Co. / Broadway Under the Stars / Sonoma)
MAMMA MIA! WHAT A NIGHT A terrific cast and irresistible ABBA score turn Sonoma’s Field of Dreams into a joyous summer dance party Several Broadway stars have escaped New York’s scorching heat to show up on the bucolic Sonoma stage under the stars in Transcendence Theatre Company’s Mamma Mia! They are part of a sensational…
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Theater Review: KIMBERLY AKIMBO (Theatre Palisades / Odyssey Theatre / West LA)
AGING GRACELESSLY A superb cast can’t keep David Lindsay-Abaire’s dark comedy from showing its age in a production that never finds its pulse There’s a very good reason Kimberly Akimbo became a better musical than it is a play. David Lindsay-Abaire’s original dark comedy, now revived by Theatre Palisades at the Odyssey Theatre, has a…
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Regional Theater Preview: FORBIDDEN! (Plays of Wilton / The Foundry / Wilton Manors, FL)
OUT OF THE CLOSET, OUT OF THE ARCHIVES Silenced after two performances in 1922, a remarkably progressive Dutch drama finally receives its U.S. premiere A play that scandalized Rotterdam in 1922 is finally getting its American premiere more than a century later. Written by Dutch novelist and playwright Jo M. van Ijssel de Schepper-Becker (pronouned…
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Off-Broadway Review: CAT COHEN: BROAD STROKES (Lucille Lortel Theatre)
CAT COHEN HAS A STROKE! …OF COMIC GENIUS She turns a terrifying brush with mortality into a deliriously funny celebration of vanity, glamour and making absolutely everything about herself Only Cat Cohen can turn a sudden, life-threatening neurological event into an evening in which the audience laughs almost continuously and springs to its feet in…
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Opera Preview: A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT (Opera Montana in Bozeman and Missoula)
HOOK, LINE AND SINGER For the 50th anniversary of Norman Maclean’s beloved story, the river runs all the way to the opera stage “There was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.” Few sentences evoke Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It quite so perfectly. Published in 1976, his semi-autobiographical tale of two brothers,…
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Theater Review: ARSENIC AND OLD LACE (Coronado Playhouse / Coronado / San Diego)
HOME SWEET HOME-ICIDE Joseph Kesselring’s dark comedy classic still delivers its lethal dose of laughs Joseph Kesselring’s Arsenic and Old Lace, now revived by Coronado Playhouse, was a sensation when it opened on Broadway in 1941, running for more than 1,400 performances. Eighty-five years later, done as a period piece, most of the humor holds…
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Event Preview: GEORGE CHAKIRIS & CAROL LAWRENCE REMEMBER WEST SIDE STORY (Palm Springs Cultural Center)
SOMEWHERE IN PALM SPRINGS Broadway’s original Maria and the film’s Bernardo reunite to share two sides of West Side Story history George Chakiris and Carol Lawrence share an unusual piece of West Side Story history. She was there when the musical first opened on Broadway in 1957, creating the role of Maria. He became Bernardo…
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Theater Review: ANATOMY OF A SUICIDE (The Metal Shop Performance Lab and JunkHeart / Redtwist Theatre / Chicago)
DYING TO BREAK THE CYCLE Three generations speak across time in a harrowing, beautifully orchestrated exploration of trauma and inheritance To a theatre-lover, going to a first production from a theatre company is like being on a blind date. You don’t know what to expect. You’re slightly nervous, slightly apprehensive, slightly excited, but most of…
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Broadway Preview: 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU
10 THINGS WE LOVE ABOUT THIS ALREADY The popular teen comedy heads to Broadway with Carly Rae Jepsen supplying the tunes Padua High is back in session. 10 Things I Hate About You, the 1999 teen comedy that introduced a generation to Kat Stratford, Patrick Verona—and Heath Ledger singing his way across a set of…
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