Currently running at Theatre Row, Ma-Yi Theater Company’s “Felix Starro” launches the Company’s 30th Anniversary Season. The musical is based on Filipino-American writer Lysley Tenorio’s short story of the same name that appeared in his 2012 collection “Monstress” in which “a famous Filipino faith healer and his grandson Junior conduct an illicit business in San Francisco, though each has his…
The nature-nurture psychological debate and the predestined-free will theological debate collide in Bess Wohl’s “Make Believe” currently running at Second Stage’s Tony Kiser Theater, resulting in the brave and somewhat disturbing exploration of the blurred boundaries between what is perceived to be real life and what is perceived to be make-believe. The playwright raises several enduring questions, including whether there…
Performances of a new off-Broadway play begin with previews, advance through opening night and reviews, and settle into a run of some indeterminate length depending on original projections of success and extensions, finally closing leaving the play’s actors and creative team in the beginnings of yet another post-closing bereavement process. But what of the play itself? Did the run of…
David: Lenore, your new off-Broadway show “The Exes” officially opens on Thursday August 15th at Theatre Row. That’s getting close! What are your thoughts and feelings as the opening approaches? Lenore: I’m thrilled. For the first time in my creative life, I’m truly enjoying this experience, from start to finish. Even with all the bumps that we’ve encountered along the…
Over the period of a year, three generations of Irish women share their stories ad seriatim while in a medical office waiting room. Amber (a spitfire Lauren O’Leary) rehearses her life from taking her beau Paul to a wedding, to his abandoning her after discovering she is pregnant with his child. Amber’s “ma” Lorraine (a pensive and seemingly broken Brenda…
“Dropping Gumballs on Luke Wilson” a new play by Rob Ackerman is based on the actual making of an ill-fated television commercial by AT&T that discredits the cell phone coverage of rival Verizon’s network. In that commercial, actor Luke Wilson (a convincing Jonathan Sale) stands in front of a Verizon network map covered with red dots to represent their coverage…
Irish Rep’s “The Plough and the Stars” (1926) closes after the Sunday June 22nd performance. Part of the Sean O’Casey Cycle (the Dublin Trilogy) at Irish Repertory Theatre, the groundbreaking play ran in repertory with O’Casey’s “The Shadow of a Gunman” (1923) and “Juno and the Paycock” (1924) and was the company’s debut production in 1988. Artistic Director Charlotte Moore…
Last season, two off-Broadway plays – “Daddy” and “Slave Play” (both by Jeremy O. Harris) – highlighted significant issues about the self-identity of young black gay and queer men and raised rich and enduring questions about the role of family, friends, culture, and “indifferent yet fetishizing white gays” in that process of discovery. This season, Michael R. Jackson’s original musical…
After a successful run in 2008 of the musical “Enter Laughing,” the revised version of the original “So Long 174th Street” which was a Broadway flop in 1976, The York Theatre Company has revived that production to kick off their 50th Anniversary season. The book by Joseph Stein, and music and lyrics by Stan Daniels, with additional material by Stuart…
With a nod (intentional/unintentional) to the genre of disillusioned youth represented by Kenneth Lonergan’s 1996 “This Is Our Youth,” Carla Ching’s “Nomad Motel” currently running at Atlantic Theater Company Stage 2 dives headlong into the lives of a triangle of vagabond California youth yearning to belatedly separate and individuate from adults who have been less than successful in providing safe…