Public Theater

Off-Broadway Review: “Hell’s Kitchen” at the Public’s Newman Theater (Closed Sunday, January 7, 2024 and Opens on Broadway Saturday, April 20, 2024)

December 26, 2023 | hell's kitchen, Off-Broadway > | "Hell's Kitchen", Aaron Nicholas Patterson, Alicia Keys, Badia Farha, Brandon Victor Dixon, Camille A. Brown, Chad Carstarphen, Chloe Davis, Chris Lee, Crystal Monee Hall, Danny Maly (Production Stage Manager), David Guzman, Dede Ayite (Costume Design), Desmond Sean Ellington, Donna Vivino, Foresight Theatrical (General Management), Gareth Owen (Sound Design), Gianna Harris, Jackie Leon, Jade Milan, Jakeim Hart, Joan Marcus, Joseph Verlezza, Kecia Lewis-Evans, Kristoffer Diaz, Lamont Walker II, Maleah Joi Moon, Mariand Torres, Mia Neal (hair and wig design), Michael Greif, Natasha Katz (Lighting Design), Newman Theater, Nico DeJesus, Niki Saludez, Onyxx Noel, Oscar Whitney Jr., Peter Nigrini (Projection Design), Public Theater, Raechelle Manalo, Reid Clarke, Robert Brill (Scenic Design), Sarah Parker, Shoshana Bean, Susan Oliveras, Theatre Reviews, Theatre Reviews Limited, Timothy L. Edwards, Vanessa Ferguson, William Roberson

Immediately after the first number in the new musical “Hell’s Kitchen” which is a loosely based auto biographical story about musician Alicia Keys growing up and coming of age during the late nineties in the New York City neighborhood which the show is named after, you get the feeling this might be headed to Broadway. That assumption would be right…

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Off-Broadway Review: “A Raisin in the Sun” at the Public Theater’s Newman Theater (Closed on Sunday, November 20, 2022)

November 14, 2022 | a man of, back the future, black no, Off-Broadway, on that day, public theater, the old man > | "A Raisin in the Sun", Almeria Campbell, Andie Burns, Bjorn Dupaty, Calvin Dutton, Camden McKinnon, Christopher Marquis Lindsay, Clarissa Marie Ligon, costume design by Karen Perry, David Roberts, fight and intimacy direction by Teniece Divya Johnson, Francois Battiste, hair and wig design by Nikiya Mathis, Jesse Pennington, Joan Marcus, John Clay III, lighting design by Alex Jainchill, Lorraine Hansberry, Mandi Masden, Mister Fitzgerald, movement direction by Rickey Tripp, N’yomi Stewart, Paige Gilbert, Perri Gaffney, Prop management by Claire M. Kavanah, Public Theater, Robert O'Hara, scenic design by Clint Ramos, Skyler Gallun, sound design by Elisheba Ittoop, sound system design by Will Pickens, The Newman Theater, Theatre Reviews Limited, Tonya Pinkins, Toussaint Battiste, Vann Dukes, video design by Brittany Bland

Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” debuted on Broadway in 1959 and appeared in London’s West End five months later. The musical adaptation “Raisin” won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 1973 and the play had two Broadway revivals in 2004 and 2014. This powerful and ground-breaking story of a financially strapped Chicago South Side Black extended family’s…

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Off-Broadway Review: The Public Theater and National Black Theatre (NBT) Production of “Fat Ham” at the Public’s Anspacher Theater (Closed Sunday, July 31, 2022)

June 29, 2022 | a christmas carol, black no, hamlet, LGBTQ+, Off-Broadway, public, public theater > | "Fat Ham", Adrianna Mitchell, Alexandria Brienne Lewis, Anspacher Theater, Benja Kay Thomas, Billy Eugene Jones, Calvin Leon Smith, Choreography by Darrell Moultrie, Chris Herbie Holland, Costume design by Dominique Fawn Hill, David Roberts, Fight direction by Lisa Kopitsky, Hair and wig design by Earon Nealey, Illusions design by Skylar Fox, James iJames, Jereme Kyle serves as the Production Stage Manager, Joan Marcus, Lighting design by Stacey Derosier, Marcel Spears, Marquis D. Gibson, Matthew Elijah Webb, National Black Theatre, NBT, Nikki Crawford, Prop management by Claire M. Kavanah, Public Theater, RJ Foster, Ryan Kane serves as the Stage Manager, Saheem Ali, Scenic design by Maruti Evans, Sound design by Mikaal Sulaiman, Tanesha Gary, Theatre Reviews Limited

Things are going as well as they can as Juicy (a pensive, smart, and gay Marcel Spears who is thicc, beautiful, and lonely) and his cousin and oldest friend Tio (a relaxed and clever Chris Herbie Holland who is a stoner) set up for what appears to be his mother’s wedding reception at her house in North Carolina. Earlier in…

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Off-Broadway Review: “Mlima’s Tale” at the Public’s Martinson Hall

April 20, 2018 | Off-Broadway, public > | Africa, Chris Walker, Cookie Jordan, Darron L. West, Ito Aghayere, Ivory, Jennifer Moeller, Jo Bonney, Joan Marcus, Jojo Gonzalez, Justin Hicks, Kenya, Kevin Mambo, Lap Chi Chu, Lynn Nottage, Mlima's Tale, Public Theater, Riccardo Hernandez, Sahr Ngaujah, The Public Theater, Thomas Schall

“I’m Mlima of the Great Plains. Eldest of my clan. I was tracked for many days, taken by a poison arrow. Why are there so many of you?! Mumbi? Koko? Do you hear me?” Mighty Mlima, “Kenya’s most famous elephant,” – the old, large elephant “with extraordinary tusks” – is murdered for those tusks by the Somali poachers Raman and…

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Off-Broadway Review: “Miss You Like Hell” Redefines Redemption at the Public’s Newman Theater

After seeing her estranged daughter’s “veiled suicide threat” on her “anonymous” blog, Beatriz (the irrepressible Daphne Rubin-Vega) drives her truck “like a bat out of hell” from California to Philadelphia to take her daughter Olivia (the deeply reflective Gizel Jiménez) on a seven-day road trip. After some mild mid-adolescent protestations, Olivia – sixteen – agrees to the trip hoping, perhaps,…

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Off-Broadway Review: “Kings” at the Public Theater’s LuEsther Hall

March 12, 2018 | Off-Broadway, public, public theater, the florida man broadway, the nap > | "Kings", Anna Louizos, Aya Cash, CJ LaRoche, Eisa Davis, Gillian Jacobs, Jason Lyons, Joan Marcus, Lindsay Jones, LuEsther Hall, Paul Tazewell, Public Theater, Sarah Burgess, The Public Theater, Thomas Kail, Zach Grenier

If there was any doubt about the monumental influence of lobbyists on Members of Congress in Washington, D.C., that uncertainty was dispelled quickly after the tragic murder of seventeen students and faculty at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on Wednesday February 14, 2018. Barely had the nations bereavement process begun before the NRA and the massive “I…

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Off-Broadway Review: “Measure for Measure” at the Public’s LuEsther Theater

“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” – Luke 6:38 William Shakespeare’s plays have been abridged, modernized, and retold in every conceivable fashion. As the time for curtain approaches for “Measure…

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Broadway Review: “Sweat” Evaporates Quickly at Studio 54

March 27, 2017 | Broadway > | Alison Wright, Carlo Alban, James Colby, Johanna Day, John Earl Jelks, Kate Whoriskey, Khris Davis, Lance Coadie Williams, Lynn Nottage, Michelle Wilson, Public Theater, Reading PA, Strikes, Studio 54, Sweat, Unions, Will Pullen

“Sweat,” currently running on Broadway at Studio 54, seems to be a play about not what it is assumed to be about. It is not about post-election politics. It is not about the history of factory closings in America’s rust belt or the pandemic of brokenness in American cities. “Sweat” is about human brokenness, the kind of brokenness that results…

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