Areas We Cover
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New York
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Off-Broadway Review: OUR CLASS (Fisher Fishman Space at BAM, the Brooklyn Academy of Music)
STAGED AT AN EMOTIONAL DISTANCE, OUR CLASS IS A HARROWING REMINDER OF ONGOING ANTISEMITISM At a recent viewing of Joshua Harmon’s Broadway play Prayer for the French Republic, French Jews no longer feel safe with the overt antisemitism in Paris and ultimately ask themselves, “Why do they hate us?” In Our Class by Tadeusz SŠ‚obodzianek…
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Recommended Off-Off-Broadway: BATHHOUSE.PPTX (The Flea)
Directed by Obie-winner Chay Yew, the world-premiere of BATHHOUSE.PPTX by Jesús I. Valles is coming to The Flea March 19-April 22, 2024. BATHHOUSE.PPTX is an epic new play that follows Presenter, a gay Latino student, whose PowerPoint presentation on the history of cleanliness and bathing quickly starts to burst at the seams with appearances from the ghosts…
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Highly Recommended Broadway: CABARET AT THE KIT KAT KLUB (starring Eddie Redmayne at the August Wilson Theatre)
ADVANCE WARNING: THIS CABARET WILL BE THE HOTTEST TICKET ON BROADWAY I saw this production in London, so prepare yourself for the most emotionally raw production of Cabaret you will ever see as Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club — starring Eddie Redmayne as ‘The Emcee’ and Gayle Rankin as the toast of Mayfair ‘Sally…
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Off-Broadway Review: CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (Phoenix Theatre Ensemble at the Gural Theatre)
THIS SHOW ISN’T A CRIME, BUT IT SOMETIMES FEELS LIKE PUNISHMENT Following his return from a decade in exile in Siberia as a dissenter against the Romanov order, Fyodor Dostoevsky intended his second novel, written as much to pay off gambling debts as to share a story, to be called The Drunkards. It would depict how…
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Recommended Event: HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY PROGRAM (Interviews with NYC Show Creators at NY Public Library for the Performing Arts)
On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27 from 1:30 to 3:30, National Jewish Theater Foundation President Arnold Mittelman will interview creators of current NYC shows Harmony, Our Class and Here There Are Blueberries. — several of this season’s plays & musicals that combat hate and antisemitism. The free public program takes place from 1:30-3:00 pm and illuminates how theater…
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Off-Broadway Review: DEAD BRAINS: A PSYCHOSEXUAL THRILLER (Feverdream Lounge at Baker Falls)
DEAD MEAT There is a notion floating around that critics get pleasure from bashing shows. I can’t speak for everyone, but it’s been my experience that most reviewers love the theater. Personally, I want every production I see to be good, to work, to have something: energy, theatricality, artistry, to be interesting, deep, funny, moving….
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Off-Broadway Review: PUSHKIN “EUGENE ONEGIN” IN OUR OWN WORDS (Krymov Lab NYC)
The death of childhood is the beginning of poetry. — Andrei Tarkovsky “This is a children’s show,” informed the Krymov Lab NYC stage manager after showing us where we could hang up our coats, “so please pick a child and take it with you into the theater.” She gestured towards an alcove full of “children”…
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Cabaret Review: PIECES: NEW MUSICAL SELECTIONS (Richard C. Walter at Chelsea Table + Stage)
It’s hard to compose for modern musicals and not fall for pop-tunes or Sondheim’s classic songs to be safe; Theatre is made of trials and errors, you keep reworking ingredients until you get the perfect sauce, your sauce. Composer and lyricist Richard C. Walter is very busy doing that. With Pieces: New Musical Selections, presented last…
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Broadway Spring Opening: LEMPICKA (Longacre Theatre)
A SWEEPING MUSICAL PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN WHO CHANGED ART AND CULTURE FOREVER Lempicka, the musical about the Polish artist Tamara de Lempicka, will begin performances at Broadway‘s Longacre Theatre on Tuesday, March 19, 2024, ahead of an official opening night on Sunday, April 14 (info here, tickets here). Amber Iman, Beth Leavel, Andrew Samonsky…
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Off-Broadway Review: ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE: HOW SHAKESPEARE INVENTED THE VILLAIN (Patrick Page at DR2)
WICKED GOOD THEATER Patrick Page was exposed to Shakespeare as a toddler in the mid-sixties; since then he seems to have been deeply feeling, researching, analyzing and performing every word the Bard wrote. All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain, his solo show at the DR2 Theater, written by him and directed…
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Dance Review: MONSTER MOURNING (Weena Pauly and Katie Workum at Kestrel’s in Brooklyn)
MONSTER MOURNING, HOME OF FRIENDSHIP Weena Pauly and Katie Workum aim to highlight the essence of their friendship in a minimalistic form of postmodern dance-theatre. Like children following their natural inclination to play and explore movement, they start with skipping across the bare studio, followed by loud stomping, to introduce their story. Throughout the piece, we see…
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Theater Announcement PARADE (North American Tour Launches January 2025)
Easily one of the best Broadway productions ever, the revival of Parade, winner of the 2023 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical and Grammy Award nominee for Best Musical Theater Album, is launching a North American Tour in January 2025. The production will run technical rehearsals and have its first public performances at Proctors Theatre…
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Theater Review: FORMIDABLE! (Aznavour 100th Anniversary World Tour at Town Hall in New York)
AZNAVOUR IS YOUNG AGAIN Charles Aznavour hoped to be still singing before audiences on his 100th birthday. Unfortunately, he died in 2018 at the age of 94. But Jules Grison is celebrating Aznavour’s 100th birthday in grand style, starring in Formidable! Aznavour 100th Anniversary World Tour. Produced and directed by Gil Marsalla, the man behind…
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Broadway Review: PRAYER FOR THE FRENCH REPUBLIC (Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre)
“ARE WE SAFE?” In a world that foolishly brought back authoritarian regimes and fascist rhetoric, as if they didn’t do enough damage to humanity in the past, it is always wise to keep history in mind and “never forget” the atrocities we have committed. With Prayer for the French Republic, on Broadway at the Samuel…
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Off-Broadway Review: VOLCANO (St. Ann’s Warehouse, Brooklyn)
Written, directed and choreographed by Luke Murphy from Ireland, Volcano — at St. Anne’s Warehouse as part of Under the Radar Festival — is a dance/theatre production you will not forget. Not only because it is presented as four episodes, each 45 minutes long, a very unusual format, but for the fluidity of its movements,…
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Theater Review: THE WIZ (Pre-Broadway Tour)
I WISH I COULD SAY “NO BAD NEWS” BUT… The large opening night audience at the San Diego Civic Theatre last night seemed to be having a good time watching the the musical revival of The Wiz, in town through Sunday before a pre-Broadway national tour (the show opens March 29 at the Marriott Marquis)….
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Highly Recommended Concerts: SAMORA PINDERHUGHES LIVE (tour at UCLA, NY’s Winter Jazzfest and more)
Composer, pianist, vocalist, filmmaker, and multidisciplinary artist Samora Pinderhughes will take his acclaimed performances to select cities across the U.S., including a date at New York’s Winter Jazzfest on January 12. The multidisciplinary artist will also kick off the 2024 lineup at UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance, bringing a combination of new and…
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Highly Recommended Album: HERE WE ARE (Original Cast Recording from Concord Theatricals)
The Original Cast Recording of Here We Are, the new musical from David Ives and Stephen Sondheim, was recorded earlier this week at Power Station at BerkleeNYC and will be released by Concord Theatricals Recordings in spring 2024. And I couldn’t be happier because, if for no other reason, the long exit music was one of Sondheim’s most stellar works….
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Highly Recommended Off-Broadway: DEAD OUTLAW (New Musical by David Yazbek and Itamar Moses at Minetta Lane)
DEAD OUTLAW A NEW MUSICAL FROM THE TONY AWARD ®-WINNING TEAM BEHIND THE BAND’S VISIT Elmer McCurdy was an ambitious, turn-of-the-20th-century outlaw whose death at the hands of a Western posse ended a life of failed crime and alcoholism and began a brilliant career as a mummified side-show attraction that travelled the USA for decades. By the…
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Broadway Review: PRAYER FOR THE FRENCH REPUBLIC (Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre)
Prayer is a surge of the heart, it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy. – St. Therese of Lisieux When I saw Manhattan Theatre Club‘s 2022 NY City Center production of Joshua Harmon’s Prayer for the French Republic, it seemed to…


















