The title of Donja R. Love’s play “one in two,” currently running in The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre at The Pershing Square Signature Center, is reflective of the alarming 2016 study released by the CDC, which projected that “one in two Black gay and bisexual men will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime.” Trapped in a stark white…
Bedlam is back, creating all the bedlam needed to lift “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller to a new level, making it one of the most exciting and poignant productions of this classic play to hit New York stages. The chaos begins when you enter the theater. You are seated in the waiting area on various wooden chairs that surround an…
Veteran actors of screen, stage, and television Harry Hamlin and Stefanie Powers do their best to bring Joshua Ravetch’s “One November Yankee” to the stage at 59E59 Theaters on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Despite their heroic efforts, Ravitch’s script lacks the sophistication and strength to match the formidable skills of the cast. The three stories that make up “One November…
Loss looms large over four Texas residents in Stephen Brown’s “Everything Is Super Great” currently running at 59E59 Theaters. Nineteen-year-old Tommy (a sullen and hapless Will Sarratt) has lost his father, his brother, and he’s “not really allowed inside of an Applebee’s ever again.” Tommy’s mother Anne (a bellicose and overwhelmed Marcia Debonis) has lost her friends, her husband, one…
Successful entrepreneurs like Harry (an overzealous but hypersensitive Raúl Esparza) typically attempt to guard their “art” from “commerce” for as long as possible. They feel frightened by the prospect of commercial success overwhelming their sense of artistic integrity. At least that is Harry’s point of view in Theresa Rebeck’s “Seared” currently running in the Susan & Ronald Frankel Theater at…
There are times during Harvey Fierstein’s performance in his “Bella Bella,” currently playing at Manhattan Theatre Club’s New York City Center Stage I, that the audience is convinced – sans dress, sans hat, sans props – that he is the iconic social activist “Battling Bella.” When Mr. Fierstein channels Bella’s admonitions about the “voice of the people” superseding the importance…
Once again playwright Richard Nelson has gathered another family around the colloquial table to observe their trials and tribulations as they conquer another day of survival in Rhinebeck, New York. This time around it is “The Michaels” who are the subjects of this intimate study of human behavior. The revelations evolve almost in real time as friends and family convene…
A three-month-old infant named Chris looks up from his stroller at his thirty-something mother (Hannah Cabell) as she makes an appointment with his pediatrician for the next day at 11:15. Chris has twisted himself and possibly hurt his back after his big stuffed toy carrot hits him in the eye. Chris’s back injury isn’t the worst of his or his…
There is no denying that a retrospect on of the life of Albert Einstein and the development of his renowned Theory of Relativity would be compelling and extremely interesting. To present this study in the form of musical theatre is a challenging and difficult task that requires a keen intellectual and creative perspective. The discerning approach to this undertaking used…
Layers of discord populate the story line of Anthony Black’s adaptation of Yann Martel’s short story “The Time I Heard the Private Donald J. Rankin String Concerto with One Discordant Violin, by the American Composer John Morton.” The short story appeared in Martel’s 2004 “The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios.” Reviewer Christopher Priest in the “The Guardian” called it “the…