Vince Gatton’s Alexandria is this year’s winner of the Sanguine Theatre Company’s Project Playwright. Alexandria was selected from over 430 submissions and turned into a fully produced play in New York. It did not disappoint. Alexandria is the third play I’ve seen produced through Project Playwright and I commend Sanguine’s innovative program and the effort […]
Four-person plays with two couples typically include a few familiar elements: Jealousy. An affair. Unspoken conflict. A past relationship between characters no longer romantically involved. And of course, there’s usually a catalyst that brings all the issues to the surface. But what makes Donald Margulies’s masterful Time Stands Still so unique is that, while it incorporates all the […]
Little League: A Smart Play Little League, written by Jack Spagnola, is a quirky play that mostly takes place in the stands of a little league field. It is a lighthearted exploration of the lives of four protagonists whose problems do not extend too far beyond childhood pet emergencies or pre-college breakups. But it is a touching […]
I’m a big fan of Antony Raymond whom I consider one of the city’s rising star playwrights. He creates rich unique characters with clear voices. As tensions and emotions inevitably build throughout his plays, the characters are primed to clash with each other. That said, the plot of his latest play, Apartment 301, feels undeveloped […]
Jessica, a play written by Patrick Vermillion, showing at the IRT Theater brings science fiction and artificial intelligence to the stage. But an overly ambition script falls short in execution as too many plot points must be explained in unnecessarily complicated detail, such as the minutia of implausible technological advancements As a result, it is […]
Dear Eleanor, written and directed by Estelle Girard Parks, premiered for one night only at the Kraine Theater. It billed itself as a murder mystery halfway between an Agatha Christie novel and Neil Simon’s Murder by Death. Unfortunately, it lacked the cleverness and intrigue of a Christie novel and the wit of a Simon play. […]
Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche pined after her and she rejected his multiple proposals of marriage. She was the muse for German-language Poet Rainer Maria Rilke who fell in love with her and she remained his confidante for life. She was one of the first female psychoanalysts having convinced Sigmund Freud to accept her into his inner […]
KYLE is a dark comedy directed by Emily Owens and inspired by both playwright and actor Hollis James’s own battle with drug addiction. Occurring almost entirely in the messy living room of Jack (Nat Cassidy), the play chronicles his foray into cocaine use as the hold of addiction consumes his life. The play opens when […]
When something about a play doesn’t work, and perhaps more importantly – its run time exceeds 2.5 hours – one’s thoughts naturally tend towards the existential. What does it all mean? Why am I here? Loose Ends unfortunately struggles to be relevant to modern playgoers as its message has been muddled in the almost 40 […]
The Summoning, by Charlotte Ahlin, is an ambitious slapstick three-person play with comedic moments that never quite becomes more than the sum of its parts. From the moment I sat in my seat and saw a giant pentagram chalked on the stage floor, I really wanted to like this play. As a fan of science […]
Lawrence Dial’s latest play, DANNYKRISDONNAVERONICA should come with a warning: If you are contemplating having children, spending 90 minutes…
In the Room, a new play at showing at Alchemical Theater Laboratory, written by Lawrence Dial and directed by Adam Knight, aims to expose the uncomfortable and unresolved. This play takes place over several successive weeks of a writing workshop for aspiring playwrights. As the weeks progress, the six aspiring writers and their teacher reveal […]
Maggie’s Little Theater, a community theater located in Queens, NY, is in its ninth season at St. Margaret Parish Hall. It presents two musical productions a year, and educates participants in all aspects of stage production. This year, it presented the classic Guys and Dolls, a musical about the affable gambler Nathan Detroit (Alan Perkins) […]
Heraclitus famously opined that you can never step in the same river twice. If he spent more time attending theater than stepping into rivers, he may have said you can never attend the same improv show twice. On the Spot, an improvisational performance at the Broadway Comedy Club, produced by Nathan Armstrong and directed by […]
In an election year that has redefined crazy, at least the stage provides some refuge from politics. Well, at least until I found out I was seeing Primary. Et tu, theater? Et tu? Primary, written by Gracie Gardner and directed by Alex Keegan, won the annual Project Playwright Competition, where scenes from a handful of […]
Part of the mission statement for the Seventeenth Annual Midtown International Theatre Festival is to “offer a safe environment to develop innovative theatre.” Held at the WorkShop Theater’s Main Stage and Jewel Box Theaters, the festival featured over thirty performances. The productions are typically about a half hour, and many even shorter than that, which […]
When it’s February in New York City but nearly sixty degrees outside, the creators of the FRIGID New York Festival may need to rethink its name. Now in its tenth year, the festival offers 30 different shows over three weeks. The festival continues to allow emerging artists to showcase their work. Julia Sun wrote and […]
Please allow me to cut to the chase. Antony Raymond’s Yeah, I Met This Girl . . . is a gem of a play with fantastic layered writing and an outstanding cast of actors. Go see it. The above recommendation felt necessary because, at first glance, the premise may seem worn, familiar and uninspiring (after […]
When someone comes into my office and shuts the door behind him or speaks in a hushed tone, there are only a few topics that are about to be discussed: pregnancy, death, marriage, or someone is quitting or getting fired. When seeing a play about a family drama, it’s hard not to immediately round up […]
Spoiler Alert: Puffs, Or: Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic is a parody of Harry Potter. If you have avoided learning the major plot details of Harry Potter, congratulations, you are like a unicorn who made it to December 25 without hearing any Christmas music! Be aware that this […]
Relationships are hard to pull off in life and on the stage. So is comedy. Dating: Adults Embracing Failure (“DAEF”) is unfortunately only a superficial exploration of both. Although the premise is clever in its simplicity, the show fails both as a comedic venture and also as an examination of relationships. DAEF is a two-person show […]
Early in the first act of the musical Dames at Sea, cast members scurry around the stage as they practice for a dress rehearsal of “Dames at Sea”, which is to premier that very night. Even indoors, warm lights fill the stage with a yellow glow as if somehow the sun can shine just as […]