Serious political and socio-economic themes have always been an acceptable genre for playwrights in the contemporary theater landscape but more recently this subject matter is becoming a more prevalent subject matter in musical theater. Shining examples of this art form are the mega musical hits such as “Hair,” “Rent,” and “Les Miserable” that manage to find the perfect balance between…
Falling somewhere between a cheap Penny Dreadful and a horrific Sci-Fi B-movie, Michael Paul Wirsch’s “The Curse of the Babywoman” (hereafter “The Curse”) has found its way onto the stage of the Lower East Side’s Teatro SEA as part of FringeNYC 2016. The residents of Shrubtown live in fear of the hoard of shapeless, formless babies who haunt the woods…
There is really nothing fresh in the new play “Pucker Up and Blow” by Daniel Reitz, being presented as part of the N.Y. International Fringe Festival. It is vulgar, exploitive, offensive, contains full frontal nudity and is a play within a play, mirroring the play being performed. So what’s new? It has certainly all been seen and done before, on…
“Tywanza Kibwe Diop Sanders was 26 years old when he returned to his Father in Heaven. A poet and entrepreneur, he died while reaching to save his Aunt Susie. Just a few hours before his death, his last Instagram post was a meme with a quote from Jackie Robinson. It read, ‘A life is not important except in the impact…
In Britton Buttrill’s “Scratching,” four characters who seem to have no interest in “climbing up and scratching” their ways to “start something new” appear stuck in a Sisyphean loop with no hope of purifying their karma. Estranged brothers Christian (Karsten Otto) and Adrian (Tyler Gardella) spent their early years watching their abusive father beat their collusive mother. Christian left their…
The rapid fire repartee that bounces back and forth faster than the ping pong balls that fly through the air is the source of energy in “ChipandGus, the remarkable two-hander one act play presented as part of the N.Y. International Fringe Festival. It is a sort of a contemporary Gin Game on steroids with two unlikely characters in an unusual,…
Stu Napolitano (played with a charmed angst by Philip Cruise) owns his own towing business and still lives at home with his abusive father and collusive mother. Stu drops everything and dashes home to administer insulin to his diabetic father whenever his incompetent mother calls. Stu’s dreary – and troubled – life gets interrupted by the return of his brother…
A woman is sitting on a bench. A man walks by and notices her sitting there alone. They silently flirt, coyly and innocently, until the man decides to sit on the bench next to her and attempt to have a conversation. When the silence is broken, this dramatic presentation shatters and falls apart. This unfortunately is the dilemma the new…
“Their relative ineffectiveness, however, is reflective of larger forces that combined over many decades to make blacks in the city all but invisible. And by now, the truth is that the black community has few genuinely influential advocates in San Francisco’s centers of power, the business community, and at City Hall.” – Amy Alexander, “The Atlantic” Following fifteen minutes of…
“The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.” – William Shakespeare, “Hamlet,” Act II, Scene 2. If a play has no playwright, is it a play? If a playwright’s play is entitled “Anonymous, Anonymous,” is he or she really a playwright? When is any play finished? When it has a working title? When the playwright fulfills…