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New York
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Cabaret Review: LORNA LUFT (In Residence at The Laurie Beechman Theatre)
LORNA LUFT LETS LOOSE LUSTILY AND WITH LOVE A veteran performer pushes through rough patches with grit, gratitude, and plenty of show-biz heart There’s plenty of energy and goodwill going back and forth between performer and audience when singer Lorna Luft takes the stage. Those who’ve followed her over the decades know that the trouper…
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Off-Broadway Review: THE PAPARAZZI (AMT Theater)
EXTRA! EXTRA! SING ALL ABOUT IT A musical about paparazzi culture delivers energy and tunes but could stand to sharpen its storytelling Brogan Nelson, Jack Rasmussen The new musical The Paparazzi, now playing at AMT Theater, takes aim at celebrity gossip culture with a story about ambition, scandal, and the price of chasing headlines. To…
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Off-Broadway Review: ZACK (Mint Theater Company)
EDWARDIAN ANXIETIES, COMEDIC COMFORT A rediscovered British comedy reminds us that decency—not money or status— may be the most radical virtue of all When the news of war grows terrifying, a trip back to the 1920s can be reassuring: if people got through that bloody era, we should be able to cope with ours. And…
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Off-Broadway Review: BUGHOUSE (Vineyard Theatre on East 15th St)
COME FOR THE PROJECTIONS, STAY FOR THE… PROJECTIONS (AND HAVE AN EDIBLE) A dazzling design team conjures Henry Darger’s imagination while the script drifts somewhere offstage I suppose when Martha Clarke proposes an idea for a theater production at this point in her illustrious career, the powers that be must grant her every blessing: no…
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Off-Broadway Review: ANTIGONE (THIS PLAY I READ IN HIGH SCHOOL) (The Public Theater)
ANCIENT MYTH, MODERN BODY POLITIC A classical tragedy is boldly reframed through a contemporary moral crisis, giving Antigone’s defiance startling new urgency Celia Keenan-Bolger, Haley Wong, and Susannah Perkins Within The Public Theater, opening the newly renamed Barbaralee Theater (formerly the Anspacher), is Anna Ziegler’s powerful new play Antigone (This Play I Read in High…
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Cabaret & Theater Review: GREY ARIAS (The Flea)
OPERA, DRAG, AND THE POLITICS IN BETWEEN Adrienne Truscott and Le Gateau Chocolat gleefully explore identity, allyship, and the “grey areas” where ideology and performance collide Grey Arias burst onto the The Flea Theater stage like a theatrical meteor from another planet, leaving jaws dropping and eyebrows arching even among those already braced for the…
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Off-Broadway Review: MARCEL ON THE TRAIN (Classic Stage Company)
SILENT RESISTANCE A wartime journey inspired by Marcel Marceau’s resistance work becomes an overlong and uneven theatrical ride Marcel Marceau was not only a mime; he was one of the most famous French performers of his time. But he was born Marcel Mangel, to a Jewish family in Strasbourg. His father was a kosher butcher…
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Off-Broadway Review: THE RESERVOIR (Atlantic Theater Company)
A RESERVOIR OF JOKES— AND NOT MUCH DEPTH An intriguing premise about addiction and fading memory gets diluted by a steady stream of punchlines If you’ve ever put a puzzle together or tried to fix a broken piece of pottery, you’re well prepared for The Reservoir, the new play by Jake Brasch making its Off-Broadway…
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Off-Broadway Review: SPARE PARTS (Theater Row)
SPARE PARTS, FULLY LOADED QUESTIONS Glass’s brainy biotech thriller delivers ideas, surprises, and genuine theatrical punch Jonny-James Kajoba, Rob McClure, Matt Walker and Michael Genet I suppose lots of VPs of Research at biotech companies dream of writing plays that get first-class productions in New York. The same could be said for Senior Lecturers at…
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Cabaret Review: BILLY JOEL SONGBOOK (Tony DeSare at Birdland Theater)
PIANO MAN BY PROXY Tony DeSare salutes Billy Joel with polish, power, and plenty of affection Special thanks go to Billy Joel for changing the career path of the terrifically talented Tony DeSare. The program, Tony DeSare’s Billy Joel Songbook, is an audience-pleasing set that has DeSare honoring Joel’s songs with gusto—one formidable singer-pianist saluting…
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Off-Broadway Review: OUR HOUSE (TOSOS at A.R.T./New York Theatres)
ACTIVISM, FAMILY, AND A BACKYARD BATTLE The new play at TOSOS revisits the legacy of ACT UP and the uneasy quiet that followed CJ DiOrio & Nancy Slusser TOSOS, New York City’s oldest producing queer theater company—debuting in 1974—presents the world premiere of Our House by Barry Boehm. Set in Iowa in 2014, the year…
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Off-Broadway Review: BURNOUT PARADISE (Astor Place Theatre)
FULL SPEED AHEAD Pony Cam turns burnout, chaos, and cardio into delirious theater Dominic Weintraub, Claire Bird, Hugo Williams, William Strom Are you, perhaps, missing the wild energy of Blue Man Group at the Astor Place Theatre? Good news: it has been replaced with something just as unconventional. Welcome Burnout Paradise, the theatrical event that…
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Off-Broadway Review: CHINESE REPUBLICANS (Roundabout Theatre Company)
A POWER LUNCH WITH KNIVES UNDER THE TABLE Ambition, rivalry, and assimilation simmer in Alex Lin’s sharp corporate comedy There are ordinary lunches, and then there are Chinese Republicans lunches, the subject of a new play by Alex Lin, directed by Chay Yew at Roundabout Theatre Company’s Laura Pels Theatre. In it, four high-achieving Chinese-American…
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Cabaret Review: JOHN PIZZARELLI TRIO (Album Release “Dear Mr. Bennett” at Birdland)
A BENNETT SONGBOOK WITH PIZZARELLI SWING The singer-guitarist and his trio offer solid entertainment and a nostalgic stroll through a legend’s songbook There may not be many things you can count on in the world, but you can always depend on John Pizzarelli to deliver quality performances with quality material—and a few laughs along the…
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Off-Broadway Review: PETITE ROUGE (Company XIV at Théâtre XIV in Bushwick, Brooklyn)
A FAIRY TALE REBORN IN HEELS, CORSETS, AND CANDLELIGHT Little Red gets very bad — and very fabulous — in Company XIV’s Petite Rouge PhillVonAwesome In its twentieth anniversary season, Company XIV unveils Petite Rouge (from Charles Perrault’s 1697 Le Petit Chaperon Rouge) and allows the classic fable of Little Red Riding Hood to frolic…
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Cabaret Review: OUR SINATRA: A MUSIC CELEBRATION (25th Anniversary Production at 54 Below)
A SINATRA SONGBOOK REVUE RETURNS WITH STYLE, SWING, AND STAYING POWER The revue recalling the repertoire of “Ol’ Blue Eyes” is a song-stuffed, sure-fire success (again) So, who doesn’t love an anniversary as a reason for celebration? How about a show with that very word in its title—Our Sinatra: A Musical Celebration. The entertainment industry…
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Off-Broadway Review: MEAT SUIT, OR THE SHITSHOW OF MOTHERHOOD (Second Stage Theater)
AFTER BIRTH Meat Suit is a carnival of motherhood that mistakes provocation for revelation Meat Suit, or the Shitshow of Motherhood, a Second Stage Theater production which opened last night at the Pershing Square Signature Center, dares its audience to linger in a clownish carnival of motherhood while serving up the glaringly obvious. Written and…
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Off-Broadway Review: THE DINOSAURS (Playwrights Horizons)
A RECOVERY GROUP WHERE LITTLE IS REVEALED AND LESS IS RESOLVED Superb performances anchor a script that withholds more than it delivers In the 1980s, film snobs treated TV like it had crashed the gala in sweatpants. In the 1990s, vinyl purists and digital nerds debated as if civilization hinged on compression. Theatre is the…
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Cabaret Review: LINDA EDER: PLAY IT FORWARD (54 Below)
A FAMILY AFFAIR AT 54 BELOW Linda Eder shines, with a promising assist from Jake Wildhorn; like mother like son — both likeable Casual and confident, a smiling Linda Eder strode onto the stage on February 9 at the venue where she’s a regular—54 Below—welcomed extra warmly by her fervent fans. The publicity for this…
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Cabaret Review: MARTIN BONVENTRE (Swingin’ in a New Dimension Album Release, The Beechman)
A SWING SET WITH PROMISE AND PATCHES Martin Bonventre’s energetic debut mixes strong musicianship with uneven vocal control Martin Bonventre sang a line in his act that was unintentionally relevant on the very last night of January, when the temperature in New York City had plunged to a punishingly low number. The song in question…
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