“The Gin Game,” experiencing its third run on Broadway, was Donald L. Colburn’s first play premiering in 1976. The well-received play managed to garner him The Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1978 after the successful run on The Great White Way starring Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy. What became evident from that original production was that in order for this…
Two men – one older, one younger – cross paths in the former Pennsylvania Train Station from 1963 until 1966. The older Joseph Lanzarone (Clyde Baldo) teaches American and British Literature at Xavier High School. The younger Paul Abbot (Matthew Pilieci) works on the crew contracted to demolish the iconic train station and is an amateur photographer. Each holds a…
The new musical “Trip of Love,” now playing at the 42nd St Theater, pays homage to some of the unforgettable hits of the sixties. It would be better described as a musical revue that is extremely well choreographed with lavish costumes and extravagant sets that together create an opulent psychedelic collage. It is neither thought provoking, nor particularly well structured,…
After the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, 127,000 Japanese-Americans were forced to abandon their homes and businesses and – throughout World War II – relocate to ten concentration camps scattered across the interior of the United States. This remains one of the most flagrant violations of civil liberties in American history – all initiated by President Franklin…
“If I ever hope to learn anything about myself and the things around me, I’ve got to stand completely on my own. That’s why I can’t stay here with you any longer.” (Nora to Torvald) Ingmar Berman’s “Nora,” the retelling (a reduction really) of Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House,” is enjoying its English-language New York debut Off-Broadway at the iconic…
A long list of adaptations including those by Tennessee Williams (“The Notebook of Trigorin”), Emily Mann (“A Seagull in the Hamptons”), and Regina Taylor (“Drowning Crow”) have payed homage to Anton Chekhov’s 1986 “The Seagull” by retelling the story of the dysfunctional Russian family in a variety of creative ways. “Songbird,” currently running at 59E59 Theaters, continues the retelling tradition…
“Into each life some rain must fall/But too much is falling in mine/Into each heart some tears must fall/ But some day the sun will shine.” (Ella Fitzgerald and the Ink Spots) “But into every life a little rain must fall.” (Queen) That unwelcome “rain” falls unexpectedly into the lives of the characters of Mark Gerrard’s scintillating new play in…
There is no fourth wall in Mark Thomas’s award-winning “Cuckooed” and there is no attempt to suspend disbelief. The standup, actor, journalist’s solo performance raises important questions about corporate deception, government collusion, and personal betrayal but is it theatre? It certainly is a solid university-caliber lecture that engages the audience and challenges the status quo. Perhaps what makes it more…
There have been a plethora of Beatles tributes on and off Broadway in the recent past but none honors the Beatles songbook better than “Lennon Through A Glass Onion” currently running at the Union Square Theatre. Conceived and Performed by John R. Waters, this complex and engaging musical focuses on the music of John Lennon through a “peeling back of…
Manhattan Theatre Club rolls out a kinder, gentle, more cerebral “Fool for Love” at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre with bruises more internal and spiritual than external and physical. Self-discovery on a dualistic battlefield is, after all, more cerebral though the wounds no less severe and long-lasting. True seekers often wrestle with demons in the desert and it is in…