It is difficult to believe that it has been a year since the death of Stephen Sondheim, one of the most prolific American composer and lyricists in the history of musical theatre. New York has certainly paid tribute to this theatrical icon by continuing to produce revivals of several shows from his vast repertoire, including the present production of “Merrily…
In “Tambo & Bones,” currently running at Playwrights Horizons, playwright Dave Harris (“Summertime,” “Patricide”) gives the audience a minstrel show with three variety acts whose timeframes span more than two centuries. Endmen Tambo (W. Tré Davis) and Bones (Tyler Fauntleroy) appear as humans in olios one and two performing for white audiences, and they appear as robots, themselves, and their…
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…
Abby Rosebrock introduces an interesting mélange of broken characters in her new play “Blue Ridge” currently running at Atlantic Theater Company’s Linda Gross Theater. She drops these six disparate “recovering” personalities into the vortex of a Christian halfway house in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina. Pastor Hern (a cagey but caring Chris Stack) and his partner Grace…
“There have been, and will be again, many destructions of [humankind] arising out of many causes; the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes.” – Plato (“Timaeus”) Rinne Groff has created an engaging extended metaphor based on the 1911 fire that destroyed the iconic Dreamland on Coney…
If you are in the mood for insult comedy that claims to take the important topic of women and weight seriously – but does not – then Lisa Lampanelli’s “Stuffed,” currently enjoying a revival at the Westside Theatre Downstairs, might be a show to put on your “must-see” list. However, if you think making jokes about the color of Michael…
The brutality of war – any war – leaves its mark on the communities war leaves behind: on the land and on the people who inhabit the land. The soldiers in the fictional South American country featured in Martin Zimmerman’s “Seven Spots on the Sun,” currently playing at Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, leave a palm-print on a wooden plank before they…