Chatillion Stage Company’s “Tech Support,” currently running at 59E59 Theaters, begins with the play’s protagonist Pamela Stark (Margot White) frantically pacing around in her West Village well-appointed apartment as she remains on hold waiting for tech support for her malfunctioning printer. Pamela deals in antique books and when she finally reaches tech support, she tells Chip, “I need to pack…
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…
Necromancy does not fare well in Esteban R. Alvarez III’s “Just Outside the Door” which just ended its three-performance run at the Broadway Bound Theatre Festival. The play’s protagonist is Robert (a troubled yet charming Danny Bryck) the desperate grandson who kidnaps his dying Abuela (a feisty and funny Debra Cardona) in order to save her, but must learn to…
To celebrate its third year of presenting an LGBTQ+ opera in the month of June – and the 50th Anniversary of the Riots at Greenwich Village’s Stonewall Inn – the New York City Opera commissioned the opera “Stonewall” currently running at The Rose Theater in Jazz at Lincoln Center for five performances through Friday June 28, 2019. The one act…
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…
Charlotte and Doug Walker’s son Kai will be home from prison in three months to begin his court remanded probation. Kai is a white university student athlete who was convicted of raping a black female student behind a dumpster at the school and is half-way through his six-month sentence. Kai’s transgression has shaken the Walker’s world and rent any sense…
“I am gender queer, Ma. Look it up.” – Jolene Lee to Her Mother Trisha The LGBTQ+ communities have undergone significant and healthy upheaval since Elise Forier Edie developed “The Pink Unicorn” in 2011 at The Blue Mountain Center in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State. Although the playwright has attempted to update the script, its present incarnation currently…
Poet-playwright Aziza Barnes puts many ingredients into their script blender to whip up a “comedic look” at the lives of Octavia (Paige Gilbert), Imani (Alfie Fuller), and June (Antoinette Crowe-Legacy, three twenty something black women living in New York City – a city where black lives seem not to matter and where, for that reason, it has become difficult for…
“Every place I went felt the same. Cept . . . Until I got to Drew. Everybody didn’t like me but I had . . . I had space to let me be. Now everybody looking at me like, ‘Blackeye, probation, Yup, that’s what you get.’” – Pharus to ‘AJ’ After a successful and extended run at Manhattan Theatre Club’s…
In the appropriately titled play “The Waiting Game” by Charles Gershman, what quickly becomes apparent to the audience is that everyone in the play is waiting for something. Sam is in a coma from a drug overdose, waiting to wake up, die while in the coma or have someone terminate his life by pulling the plug. His husband Paolo is…