Off-Broadway

Review: ‘The Beast in the Jungle’ at Vineyard Theatre

An imaginative, lyrical, and bittersweet stage adaptation of Henry James’ heartbreaking novella of 1903, The Beast in the Jungle reunites the celebrated team of John Kander (music), David Thompson...

Review: ‘Unexpected Joy’ at The York Theatre Company

Though gynocentric themes featuring lead roles for women are a welcome new trend in contemporary theater, there’s little new or unexpected in Unexpected Joy, an original musical by Bill Russell (book...

Review: ‘It Came from Beyond’ at St. Luke’s Theatre

Mid-century aficionados and other interested earthlings can take a time-traveling trip back to the ‘50s at St. Luke’s Theatre with the Off-Broadway premiere of It Came from Beyond, a silly musical...

Review: ‘The Seafarer’ at Irish Repertory Theatre

Mystic realism and metaphor meet the Irish gift of gab and a dire predilection for alcohol in Conor McPherson’s The Seafarer, a disturbingly dark and devilish comedy about lost souls, drunken...

Previewing ‘Stepchild, A New Musical’ in the Rough Draft Festival at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center: An Interview with David James Boyd, Chad Kessler, and Kim Weild

As part of LaGuardia Performing Arts Center’s Rough Draft Festival, IRT Theater and TGF 12 Productions have teamed up for a workshop presentation of Stepchild, A New Musical, inspired by the popular...

Review: ‘Children of a Lesser God’ at Studio 54

When Mark Medoff‘s award-winning play Children of a Lesser God premiered on Broadway in 1980, followed by the highly-lauded film adaptation in 1986, it provided groundbreaking insights into the need...

Review: ‘Wicked Frozen’ at St. Luke’s Theatre

What do you get when you cross the super-popular hits Wicked and Frozen with a Boston accent? The laugh-out-loud musical parody Wicked Frozen, presented by John Lant and making its Off-Broadway debut...

Review: ‘Dogs of Rwanda’ at Urban Stages

In Dogs of Rwanda, now making its Off-Broadway debut at Urban Stages, playwright Sean Christopher Lewis revisits the horrors of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and the scars they left – both physical and...

Review: ‘Admissions’ at Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater

A new twist on the old adage attributed to former Philadelphia Police Chief and Mayor Frank Rizzo, “A liberal is a conservative who hasn’t been mugged yet,” Lincoln Center Theater’s production of...

Review: ‘All the Ways to Say I Love You’ on Audible

If you love the New York stage and its stars, but can’t make it to the theater in person to see a live performance, Audible, a subsidiary of Amazon and the world’s largest purveyor of audiobooks,...

Review: ‘Rap Guide to Consciousness’ at SoHo Playhouse

Do you ever wonder about the nature of awareness and the mechanics of perception? Luckily for us, Baba Brinkman does, and returns to SoHo Playhouse with his well-conceived and brilliantly entertaining...

An Interview with Award-Winning Actor Dan Hodge: Making his Off-Broadway Debut in the New York Premiere of ‘Dogs of Rwanda’

Just concluding his comic roles in the Walnut Street Theatre’s national touring production of Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery, with its final performances this week in California,...

Review: ‘The Amateurs’ at Vineyard Theatre

The latest work by Pulitzer Prize-finalist Jordan Harrison, The Amateurs, now making its world premiere at Vineyard Theatre, is a profound and witty meta-theatrical meditation on the purpose of art...

Review: ‘Brilliant Traces’ at The WorkShop Theater

Through the hand of fate, two lonely and damaged strangers have been brought together in an isolated cabin in the Alaskan wilderness, each suffering the effects of familial trauma, the devastation of...

Review: ‘Frankenstein’ at St. Luke’s Theatre

Marking the bicentennial of Mary Shelley’s classic horror novel of 1818, Frankenstein, a new musical with book, music, and lyrics by Eric B. Sirota, focuses less on the monster and more on the man...

Review: ‘The Chekhov Dreams’ at Theatre Row

Whether you love the works of Russian playwright Anton Chekhov or hate them, you can’t help but enjoy The Chekhov Dreams, a dark and witty world-premiere rom-com by John McKinney. Presented at Theatre...

Review: ‘[PORTO]’ at WP Theater

Now in its impressive Off-Broadway premiere at WP Theater in association with New Georges, following a critically-acclaimed run in the 2017 Exponential Festival at The Bushwick Starr (co-presenter of...

Fifteen Top Theater Picks for Valentine’s Day in NYC

If you’re in New York City for Valentine’s Day and planning to celebrate your love of the stage, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher Nicole Hertvik and Senior Reviewer Deb Miller have some suggestions for a...

‘Women’s Voices Theater Festival’ and ‘Winterfest’ Present New Works in NYC from January through March

New York City is ringing in the New Year with a full slate of new works presented in January, February, and March, including a one-day event with the Dramatists Guild Foundation in support of the...

‘Einstein!’ Returns to Under St. Marks Theatre

Sew and Sew Productions and the Horse Trade Theater Group present the return of Jack Fry’s highly-acclaimed Einstein! to New York City in January. Playing again at Under St. Marks Theatre, where it...

In the Moment: Interview with Stage Manager Paul D. Michnewicz

One of the questions I often receive from theater-goers surrounds the mystery of what a stage manager does for a live theater production. The stage manager is rarely seen, and doesn’t seem to have a...

Review: ‘Where Has Tommy Flowers Gone?’ at The WorkShop Theater

One of the early, less-familiar works by Tony Award-winning playwright and librettist Terrence McNally (famed for his highly-acclaimed Love! Valour! Compassion!, Master Class, Kiss of the Spider...

Review: ‘Who’s Holiday!’ at Westside Theatre

If your fond childhood memories include Dr. Seuss The Grinch, his dog Max, and a Ville filled with Whos You might like a sequel from 40 years hence Though if you’re a Grinch, too, you might take...

Review: ‘Office Hour’ at The Public

The playwright Julia Cho now has Office Hour on at the Public Theatre, but she has been a steady and welcome contributor to the contemporary scene for some time. Works of hers have been produced at...

Review: ‘Harry Clarke’ at Vineyard Theatre

At the core of all great theater is the art of great storytelling. Harry Clarke, a solo show with a compelling story told by a riveting actor in a tour-de-force performance, is just that. Now in its...

Review: ‘What We’re Up Against’ at WP Theater

Office politics, gender-based inequality in the workplace, and self-damning outbursts of flagrant misogyny fuel the flames of Theresa Rebeck’s razor-sharp feminist comedy What We’re Up Against, making...

Review: ‘The Fight’ at The Storm Theatre Company in New York

Reviewed by Steve Weinstein Stephen Sondheim had it nearly right in his lyrics to “I’m Still Here.” First, you’re a legend, then you’re camp, then you become an icon. As the Founding Mothers of the...

Review: ‘Lonely Planet’ at Keen Company

The setting of Lonely Planet is a “map store on the oldest street in an American city.” I assume the playwright, Stephen Dietz, wrote that into the program to let us know that what we are about to...

Review: ‘Red Roses, Green Gold’ at Minetta Lane Theatre

Calling all Dead Heads! The classic songs of your favorite band have been reincarnated for the stage at Minetta Lane Theatre, in a new jukebox musical Red Roses, Green Gold, directed by Rachel Klein...

Review: ‘This One’s for the Girls’ at St. Luke’s Theatre

Sociological research project meets PPT lecture meets jukebox musical in Professor and Playwright Dorothy Marcic’s This One’s for the Girls, produced by William Franzblau at St. Luke’s Theatre. Based...

Review: ‘Fire’ by Chatillion Stage Company at Theatre 54 at Shetler Studios and Theatres

On March 25, 1911, fire raged through the 8th to 10th floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory by Washington Square Park. In less than 20 minutes, it claimed the lives of 146 people, mostly teenaged...

Fringe Encore Series 2017 Review: ‘Turbulence!’ at SoHo Playhouse

Musical-comedy improv troupe Robot Teammate has landed in New York with an energetic hour of silly sci-fi fun in Turbulence!, now performing at SoHo Playhouse for the final week of this year’s...

Review: ‘The Home Place’ at Irish Repertory Theatre

Brian Friel’s play, The Home Place, has taken its time to find its way to New York, where it arrived in good hands at the newly renovated Irish Repertory Theatre off Broadway. The play premiered in...

An Interview with Erik Ransom on the Development of His New Play ‘Civil Blood (The Resurrection of Romeo)’

Just back from a production of his musical GRINDR: The Opera in Florida, Erik Ransom organized a private developmental reading of his latest work Civil Blood (The Resurrection of Romeo) for an...

Fringe Encore Series 2017 Review: ‘Kafka and Son’ at SoHo Playhouse

In November 1919, the 36-year-old Modernist writer Franz Kafka wrote a searing 45-page letter to his domineering father Hermann, dissecting his tyrannical attitude and lifelong emotional abuse. That...

In the Moment: ‘The Mistress Cycle’ at Creative Cauldron

Illuminating what has been in the shadows, or usually whispered about, Creative Cauldron has provided a delicately rendered musical about the harsh realities women have faced over the centuries when...

Fringe Encore Series 2017 Review: ‘6 Guitars’ at SoHo Playhouse

Despite the hiatus of FringeNYC in 2017, SoHo Playhouse is presenting a full line-up for its 12th annual Fringe Encore Series in September and October, giving New York audiences a chance to see a...

Review: ‘A Clockwork Orange’ at New World Stages

Ranked among the greatest novels of the 20th century, A Clockwork Orange – British author Anthony Burgess’s alarming vision of a dystopian future fueled by ultra-violence, hyper-sexuality, and...

A Recap of The 2017 New York Innovative Theatre Awards at the Gerald W. Lynch Theatre

It was a night filled with excitement, laughs, and unbridled passion for indie theater as the New York Innovative Theatre Foundation celebrated the outstanding achievements of Off-Off-Broadway for its...

Review: ‘Bernstein on Broadway’ at The Kennedy Center

It was a glorious evening for Leonard Bernstein and musical theater fans at The Kennedy Center. It was the exceptional, one-night-only opening to the worldwide celebration of Leonard Bernstein’s...

Review: ‘For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday’ at Playwrights Horizons

Sarah Ruhl is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and a Tony Award nominee. Playwrights Horizons has played host to two of her many play — Stage Kiss and Dead Man’s Cell Phone. Her other works have won...

‘No Ransom To Be Paid’ at Pangea: An Update on ‘GRINDR: The Opera’ and More with Erik Ransom

Featured this summer in producer Ed Miller’s No Ransom To Be Paid four-part series at Pangea, the presented works of writer/composer/musician/actor Erik Ransom include songs from More Than All the...

Review: ‘A Never-Ending Line’ at The Players Theatre

Conceived by Composer and Director Jaime Lozano as a loving tribute to the women in his life and his matriarchal upbringing, A Never-Ending Line, produced by Maribel Escobosa, Martha Orendain, and...

Review: ‘Lili Marlene’ at St. Luke’s Theatre

Taking its name from the romantic wartime ballad famously recorded by Marlene Dietrich in 1945, and which, in its earlier German and English versions, had become uniquely popular with both Nazi and...

Review: ‘Gruff!’ at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre

Part of the first Summer Family Theater Festival at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre, Gruff!, a co-presentation by Vital Theatre Company and Doppelskope, is everything that great children’s theater should...

Review: ‘A Real Boy’ at 59E59 Theaters

In the world premiere of A Real Boy, presented by Ivy Theatre Company in association with Athena Theatre at 59E59, playwright Stephen Kaplan significantly reimagines Italian writer Carlo Collodi’s...

Review: ‘Georama’ at the New York Musical Festival

The rise and fall of the largely forgotten 19th-century American artist John Banvard is the subject of Georama, an irresistible bio-musical by West Hyler (book) and Matt Schazt (book, music, and...

Review: ‘New York – The Melting Pot’ at Soulpepper on 42nd Street

The first in Soulpepper Theatre Company’s three-part musical celebration of the history of diversity in New York – The Melting Pot pays tribute to Lower Manhattan, from Battery Park to Chelsea....

Review: ‘Night Tide’ at the New York Musical Festival

Ancient sea lore meets Sixties beach party in Night Tide, a new musical parody by Taylor Tash (book and lyrics) and Nathania Wibowo (music), based on Curtis Harrington’s 1961 B-movie thriller of the...

Review: ‘Alligator Pie’ at Soulpepper on 42nd Street

Adapted from the verses of beloved children’s book author and poet Dennis Lee – known to generations of fans as “Canada’s Father Goose” – Soulpepper Theatre Company’s ensemble-devised Alligator Pie,...