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  Theatre in Review: The Lights Are On (New Light Theater Project/Embeleco Unlimited at Theatre Row)
Playwright Owen Panettieri wants to have his pie and eat it, too. In the case of The Lights Are On, the pie is poisoned. Or maybe not; who can say? Reality is a slippery thing in this psychological thriller, which ...
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Theatre in Review: Salesman (Yangtze Repertory Theatre/Connelly Theater)
Sometimes a playwright blindsides you, so slyly is he laying the groundwork for a transcendent moment. Jeremy Tiang's new play is about the famous 1983 Beijing production of Death of a Salesman, a key cultural and political ...
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Theatre in Review: Melissa Etheridge: My Window (Circle in the Square)
"Sometimes I think I'm so dramatic," Melissa Etheridge muses at the top of her almost-one-woman show. Actually, "affable" is more like it: Armed with a dry wit and a knack for self-deprecation, she guides us, genially, through the ...
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Theatre in Review: Infinite Life (Atlantic Theater Company)
This will be brief, as the production closes this weekend before moving on to the National Theatre in London. I was bumped from an earlier performance by a case of COVID in the cast and rescheduling is always arduous at this time of year ...
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Theatre in Review: The Refuge Plays (Roundabout Theatre Company/Laura Pels Theatre)
Playwright Nathan Alan Davis can't help swinging for the fences; he is an inherently ambitious artist. His previous New York production, Nat Turner in Jerusalem, wrestled mightily with the title character, his violent acts ...
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Theatre in Review: (pray) (Ars Nova/National Black Theatre at Greenwich House)
Even the unchurched might enjoy dropping in at (pray), which, billed as "a sacred offering," offers a unique, nondenominational contemplation of faith and Black history. In all its surface particulars, it is a true Sunday ...
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Theatre in Review: Jaja's African Hair Braiding (Manhattan Theatre Club/Samuel J. Friedman Theatre)
"Well, thank you, ladies. I feel like I moved in for the day." So says one of the customers at the title establishment of Jocelyn Bioh's latest play, and you're likely to share the feeling if you make an appointment at the ...
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Theatre in Review: Purlie Victorious (Music Box Theatre)
Purlie Victorious is that rarest of things, a farce about race relations in America, and why not? In the view of the playwright, the late, great Ossie Davis, race relations in America are a farce. Subtitled A ...
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Theatre in Review: Golden Rainbow (York Theatre Company/Theatre at St. Jean's)
Show fans who have been yearning for the good old days of fun-bad musicals shouldn't miss this 1960s artifact, a star vehicle that had a decent run and then vanished, living on only in myth and legend. Time was when Broadway was loaded ...
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Theatre in Review: Doppelganger (Park Avenue Armory)
I write with some hesitation about this music-theatre performance piece, being not especially well-versed in classical music or the high-concept work of director Claus Guth. Yet Doppelganger is so stunningly designed ...
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Theatre in Review: Dig (Primary Stages 59E59)
Is there something in the air? Our playwrights -- some of them, anyway - are suddenly focusing on the deep unease underlining life in the American heartland. The just-opened Swing State, set in rural Wisconsin, takes on climate ...
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Theatre in Review: Mary Gets Hers (The Playwright's Realm)
If you've been looking for a lighthearted romp among medieval anchorites, Mary Gets Hers is just the thing. Still, even the play's stoutest enthusiasts must be aware that they are targeting a necessarily limited audience.
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Theatre in Review: Swing State (Audible Theater at Minetta Lane Theatre)
The best thing about Swing State is that it exists at all; at a time when so many younger playwrights are consumed with personal identity issues, Rebecca Gilman takes the long view, daring to wonder if the human ...
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Theatre in Review: Job (Soho Playhouse)
The playwright Max Wolf Friedlich doesn't waste time; Job begins with Loyd, a therapist, at bay in his office, staring at a young woman holding a gun. It's an attention-getter, all right; the play ends with a twist ...
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Theatre in Review: 9 Kinds of Silence (Playco/PS122CC)
Abhishek Majumdar's new play takes place in a kind of all-purpose hell, which, in a way, is the problem with it. It's a concrete bunker near the seaside, the floor covered with sand, with plastic where the windows should be. We ...
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Theatre in Review: Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors (New World Stages)
The spirit of Charles Ludlam lives again in this brand-new travesty of everyone's favorite creature of the night. I confess to attending Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors with a certain skepticism, wondering if anyone could ...
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Theatre in Review: No Good Things Dwell in the Flesh (ART/New York Theatres)
In her new play, Christina Masciotti places a captivating character at center stage, then leaves her stranded, dramatically speaking. The title of No Good Things Dwell in the Flesh -- an apparent allusion to St. Paul' ...
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Theatre in Review: The Lieutenant (York Theatre Company/Theatre at St. Jean's)
For the latest entry in its Musicals in Mufti series, York Theatre Company has taken a deep dive into the murky depths of musical theatre history, bringing back a fascinating cultural artifact. Is there a musical theatre fan not ...
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Theatre in Review: The Tempest (New York Shakespeare Festival/Delacorte Theater)
The isle is full of magic, along with a faint hint of sadness, in this musical production that bids farewell to the Delacorte Theater in its current form. (It is closing for an eighteen-month renovation; next summer, we must contend with ...
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Theatre in Review: How to Steal an Election (York Theatre Co./Theatre at St. Jean's)
In How to Steal an Election, Calvin Coolidge sings. I'm not sure how I feel about that.
First, the good news: In another sign of life returning to normal, York Theatre Company has brought back its popular Musicals in ...
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