William Shakespeare

Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival Shubert Theatre Review: “Much Ado About Nothing” (Closed Sunday, August 7, 2022)

Under director Matt Pfeiffer’s helm, Akeem Davis (Benedick) and Brett Ashley Robinson (Beatrice) and the cast of “Much Ado About Nothing” bring Shakespeare’s late comedy (1598 or shortly thereafter) to a welcomed level of excellence at Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival 2022. This is a “Much Ado” not to be missed. In this pleasing production, Don Pedro (a likeable and energetic Lindsay…

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Off-Broadway Review: “Macbeth” at the Lynn F. Angelson Theater at Classic Stage Company

There has always been a curiosity and appreciation for bold attempts at new interpretations or the reimagining of the classics and it seems there have been endless attempts on putting a new spin on more than one of these masterworks. There appears to be one more paradigm of this artistic endeavor in the Classic Stage Company’s new production of “Macbeth”…

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Off-Broadway Review: Red Bull Theater’s “American Moor” at Cherry Lane Theatre

Keith Hamilton Cobb has been on an urgent mission, crisscrossing the United States since 2013 performing his “American Moor.” Mr. Cobb’s almost-one-man-show is a trope, here an extended metaphor, for the pressing need for dialogue around the systemic racism and other “false securities that our society rests on” (Rachel Elizabeth Cargle). Keith Hamilton Cobb makes it clear that unless we…

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Off-Broadway Review: “Desperate Measures” at New World Stages

After its previous three-time extended sold out run at the York Theatre Company, “Desperate Measures” is back Off-Broadway and the antics of rabble-rousing Johnny Blood are as bodacious and bawdy as ever. Although billed as being “loosely based” on the classic Shakespearian comedy, “Desperate Measures,” currently playing at New World Stages, has the “guts” of “Measure for Measure” with the…

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Off-Broadway Review: “Twelfth Night, Or What You Will” at Classic Stage Company

A visit to Classic Stage Company for the current production of “Twelfth Night” is almost like a case of Déjà vu: one could be watching the Company’s previous production of “As You Like it” which closed on October 22nd. The formula for both new productions of the Shakespeare classics involve adding music and singing, the same configuration of the theater…

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Off-Broadway Review: “Desperate Measures” at the York Theatre Company

Although billed as being “loosely based” on the classic Shakespearian comedy, “Desperate Measures,” currently playing at the York Theatre Company, has the “guts” of “Measure for Measure” with the charm and appeal of a traditional Broadway musical. Peter Kellogg and David Friedman are to be commended for achieving this feat and bringing this clever retelling to the stage. Somewhere out…

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Off-Broadway Review: “Measure for Measure” at the Public’s LuEsther Theater

“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” – Luke 6:38 William Shakespeare’s plays have been abridged, modernized, and retold in every conceivable fashion. As the time for curtain approaches for “Measure…

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Off-Broadway Review: “As You Like It” Pleases the Palate at Classic Stage Company

William Shakespeare’s romantic “Christian” comedy “As You Like It,” currently running at Classic Stage Company, is on the surface a play that has offered appreciative audiences over the centuries more than a sufficient supply of gender-bending antics, mistaken identity, banishment from court, trysts in forests, and unlikely pairs “tying the knot” at play’s end. It’s comedic flair, roster of songs,…

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