Jeff Croiter

Off-Broadway Review: The New Group’s “Black No More” at The Pershing Square Signature Center (Closed Sunday, February 27, 2022)

A clue in in the “New York Times” crossword puzzle on Tuesday, February 15th was “Prefix with futurism.” The correct answer: ‘Afrofuturism,’ defined as “a cultural aesthetic that combines science-fiction, history and fantasy to explore the African-American experience and aims to connect those from the black diaspora with their forgotten African ancestry.” In 1931, George S. Schuyler explores the Afrofuturism literary…

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Off-Broadway Review: The New Group’s “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice” in The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre at The Pershing Square Signature Center

The question that remains in my mind is why anyone would attempt to create a musical based on the dated 1969 motion picture “BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE?” Granted the meant to be comedy written by Paul Mazursky and Larry Tucker for the big screen ventured into uncharted territory with infidelity, the sexual revolution and wife swapping making…

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Off-Broadway Review: The New Group’s “Cyrano” at the Daryl Roth Theatre

Edmond Rostrand’s play “Cyrano de Bergerac,” written in verse in 1897 is one of, if not the most tragic love story of all time. It introduced the word ‘panache’ into the English language and Cyrano himself remarks about his own “panache” in the play. This of course refers to his skillful swordplay, exquisite poetry, adroit musicianship and finally the hallmark…

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Off-Broadway Review: “Happy Talk” at the New Group at Pershing Square Signature Center’s Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre

Happy talk – the type of verbal communication, replete with counterfeit smiles, that too often serves as a replacement for authentic connection between individuals – cascades across the stage at the New Group’s world premiere of Jesse Eisenberg’s “Happy Talk” at the New Group at Pershing Square Signature Center’s Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre. Lorraine (a broken and dangerous Susan…

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Off-Broadway Review: “The Other Josh Cohen” at the Westside Theatre/Downstairs

“The Other Josh Cohen,” currently running at the Westside Theatre/Downstairs, has been bemoaning the hapless and lackluster life of Josh Cohen (Steve Rosen) through his Doppelganger narrator Josh (David Rossmer) since October 2012. That’s a long time to celebrate having one’s apartment robbed of everything, rehearsing one’s dysfunctional family, recounting a string of failed romantic relationships, and resolving the mystery…

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Off-Broadway Review: “Smokey Joe’s Café” at Stage 42

“Faded pictures in my scrapbook/Just thought I’d take one more look/And recall when we were all/In the neighborhood.” – “Neighborhood” The revival of Grammy-Award-Winning “Smokey Joe’s Cafe: The Songs of Leiber & Stoller,” having headed south from its recent engagement at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine, has landed at Stage 42 in New York City to positive notices from the…

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Off-Broadway Review: “Tiny Beautiful Things” at the Public Theater’s Newman Theater

Watching “Tiny Beautiful Things” at The Public’s Newman Theater can be described as experiencing the vicissitudes of the human experience through the kaleidoscopic lens of sheer redemptive grace. The broken hearted, the beaten down, the bereft, and the “just broken” send their questions on coping, overcoming, and raging against all forms of the “dying of the light” to “Sugar” (Nia…

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Off-Broadway Review: “The Whirligig” at the Pershing Square Signature Center’s Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre

“And the wheel goes round and round./And the flame in our souls will never burn out./And the wheel, and the wheel goes round.” – Rosanne Cash, “Wheel” Under the brooding branches that overarch Derek McLane’s visually stunning set that “goes round,” Julie’s (played with sumptuous death-dodging life by Grace Van Patten) life coalesces into a gripping surreal reality in Hamish…

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Off-Broadway Review: “All the Fine Boys” at The New Group at the Pershing Square Signature Center’s Ford Foundation Studio Theatre

Under the ruse of “receiving consent” from a minor, pedophile Joe (played with a remorseless arrogance by Joe Tippett) plays out an erotic asphyxiation fantasy with fourteen-year-old Jenny (played with a delusional naiveté by Abigale Breslin) in the basement of his suburban South Carolina home after “abducting” her from her home earlier. It does not matter whether Jenny got into…

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