Duke on 42nd

Off-Broadway Review: “The Saintliness of Margery Kempe” at The Duke on 42nd Street

Margery Kempe was an English Christian Mystic during the 14th and 15th centuries who was tried for heresy multiple times but never convicted. During the late Middle Ages, the task of interpreting the Bible and God was restricted to ordained priests but interpretation through the senses and body became the dominion of woman mystics. Kempe’s autobiography is the first written…

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Off-Broadway Review: “The Last Word” at the New York Musical Festival at the Duke on 42nd Street

Brett Sullivan’s “The Last Word” is a delightful new musical with a great deal to offer. Mr. Sullivan and his creative team have carefully thought through a musical that features an outstanding cast, a fully developed story with a clear dramatic arc, and an engaging theme that readily connects to the audience. “The Last Word” is one of the few…

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Off-Broadway Review: “Lisa and Leonardo” Goes into a Tailspin at the New York Musical Festival at the Duke on 42nd Street

Never has a musical been so at war with itself than is “Lisa and Leonardo,” the new musical that finished its run at the New York Musical Festival on Thursday July 28, 2016. It is difficult to know how a talented and experienced creative team could create a musical that in almost two and a half hours’ time fails to…

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Off-Broadway Review: “ICON” at the New York Musical Festival at the Duke on 42nd Street

A tiny foreign nation, a people’s princess, a gay prince, an arranged marriage, a scandal, a revolution, and a fire that destroys lovers’ hopes and dreams certainly makes interesting material for good old-fashioned musical theater. “Perfect,” the opening number of the new musical “Icon,” is derivative of Kander and Ebb in style and tempo and explodes onto the stage to…

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Off-Broadway Review: “A Better Place” at the Duke on 42nd Street

The current offering from The Director’s Company at the Duke on 42nd Street is a world premiere penned by Australian playwright Wendy Beckett entitled “A Better Place.” It turns out to be an urban synonym for the old suburban aphorism “the grass is always greener.” Only in this case, rather than a healthier lawn, it is a larger apartment in…

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Preview: Performances for “A Better Place” Begin on Wednesday, May 4

Rehearsals began the week of March 31st for the world premiere limited engagement of “A Better Place,” a new work by playwright Wendy Beckett (“Anaïs Nin: One of Her Lives,” “A Charity Case”) and directed by Evan Bergman (“Jericho”), beginning performances Wednesday, May 4 and opening Sunday, May 15 at The Duke on 42nd Street, a NEW 42ND STREET® project…

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“Informed Consent” at Primary Stages at the Duke on 42nd (Closed Sunday September 13, 2015)

“A comprehensive movement toward informed consent began after World War II with the 1947 Nuremberg trials. In these war trials, it was revealed that physicians conducted abhorrent medical research experiments on concentration camp prisoners. The research included human experimentation with germ warfare, freezing individuals to learn what temperature kills individuals most effectively, and many more horrifying research trials.” (Encyclopedia of…

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“Lives of the Saints” at Primary Stages at the Duke on 42nd Street (Closed Friday March 27, 2015)

March 4, 2015 | 42nd street, Off-Broadway > | Tags: ,

“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” Attributed to Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud’s iconic phrase might be an apt descriptor for David Ives’ “Lives of the Saints” currently running at Primary Stages at the Duke on 42nd Street. When Mr. Ives tackles the vicissitudes of the human condition (tackles the lives of the saints) as he does in the satisfying…

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“My Mother Has 4 Noses” at The Duke (Closed Sunday May 4, 2014)

February 23, 2014 | Off-Broadway > | Tags:

Despite the early protestation of playwright Jonatha Brooke, the aft end of the title of her “My Mother Has 4 Noses” is a trope; indeed, ‘4 noses’ is a well-developed and quite brilliant extended metaphor for not only the four seasons of the life of Brooke’s mother Darren Stone (“Stoney”) Nelson; the short phrase is also a metaphor for Stoney’s…

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“Bronx Bombers” at Primary Stages at the Duke (Closed October 19, 2013)

October 8, 2013 | Off-Broadway, persuasion > | Tags: ,

“The ghosts of baseball past serve up a feast for the soul in Eric Simonson’s BRONX BOMBERS!” Reggie Jackson (Francois Battiste) in Eric Simonson’s “Bronx Bombers” is spot on: much of his bombastic rhetoric in the meeting in a hotel room in the Boston Sheraton in 1977 with Yogi Berra, Thuman Munson, and Billy Martin is “a metaphor.” Indeed, Mr….

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