2012: excavation review

[featured image caption: Grand Central Terminal circa 1935-1941. Crop of image from NY Municipal Archives.]

So when I say almost every day that I’m off to the theatre, some may doubt me. I present here events, listed by date, that required me to enter through a door into a theatre for a live performance or discussion on stage or a performance captured on film or an exhibit gallery. A simple attempt to track 2012 performance adventures in NYC and other locales, including repeat visits to the same production.

Only a fraction of events on this list ended up as a formal review or written musings of any kind. Through June 2012 (as in prior years), receipt of a press ticket always resulted in a review. In late June I became a Drama Desk nominator, seeing all offerings on Broadway and most offerings (beyond workshops) off and off-off Broadway with tickets provided by the productions, tasked with my small committee of colleagues to generate the ballot on which the full Drama Desk membership will vote upon for the Drama Desk awards for the 2012 season. Sometimes I’m moved (and have brain space) to write up some reactions to some among the sea of shows I experience as a Nominator. I continue to write a review for any press ticket I receive for shows outside Drama Desk purview.

A playwright pal said to me recently of my gluttony: “Sometimes you can have too much cake.” I laugh at that truth as much as I resist that possibility.

What a year. Let us review.

January

(1/2) Dramatists Guild Academy: Solo Actor Round Table (Anna Deavere Smith, Lisa Kron, Sarah Jones, Mike Daisey at Playwrights Horizons)
(1/3) Stick Fly (Cort Theatre)
(1/4) How the World Began (Playwrights Horizons)
(1/6) Marilyn Maye and Billy Stritch (Metropolitan Room)
(1/7) Outside People (Vineyard)
(1/7) Chimera (Under the Radar at HERE)
(1/10) What All Schoolchildren Learn (Young Playwrights Conference, Cherry Lane)
(1/12) Young Kids Hard Time (screening, 30 Rock)
(1/15) Sontag Reborn (Under the Radar at Public)
(1/17) Outside People (Vineyard)
(1/19) Gob Squad’s Kitchen (Public)
(1/20) Lady and the Peddler and Gimpel (La MaMa)
(1/21) Menders (Flux Theatre Ensemble, Judson Gym)
(1/22) Wit (MTC)
(1/24) Porgy and Bess (Richard Rodgers)
(1/25) Gob Squard’s Kitchen (Public)
(1/26) Dramatists Guild Duologue: Annie Baker and Dan LeFranc (DG Frederick Loewe Room)
(1/27) Close Up Space (MTC)
(1/28) Yosemite (Rattlestick)
(1/29) Created Equal (Red Fern)
(1/31) Sondheim on Hammerstein (Paley Center)

February

(2/1) Inadmissible (Canal Street)
(2/2) These Seven Sicknesses (Flea)
(2/4) Psycho Therapy (Cherry Lane)
(2/7) Leap and the Net Will Appear (reading, Cherry Lane)
(2/14) The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent G (Theatre Row, Beckett)
(2/15) The Broken Heart (Duke on 42nd)
(2/16) The Way of Water (Lark reading)
(2/19) Assistance (Playwrights Horizons)
(2/20) Remembrance (reading, Pearl Studios)
(2/22) Rutherford and Son (Mint)
(2/28) Tribes (Barrow Street)
(2/29) Their Eyes Were Watching God (radio play reading Greene Space)

March

(3/1) Hand to God (EST)
(3/2) Painting Churches (Keen Company)
(3/3) Heathens (Theater for the New City)
(3/4) Hot Lunch Apostles (La MaMa)
(3/5) Eternal Equinox (59E59)
(3/8) Assignment China (Harvardwood at NYIT)
(3/9) The Homosexuals (reading, Primary Stages)
(3/10) O’Neill Early Plays (St. Ann’s Warehouse)
(3/11) The Lady from Dubuque (Signature)
(3/12) Nothing is Forever: A New Song Cycle (Connelly)
(3/12) Alan Schmuchler / Jessie Mueller (Joe’s Pub)
(3/13) The Maids (Red Bull)
(3/15) Court-Martial at Fort Devens (New Federal Theatre)
(3/18) The Agony and the Ecstacy of Steve Jobs (Public)
(3/19) Him (Soho Playhouse)
(3/20) Terese Genecco (Iridium)
(3/21) Casablanca (TCM 70th anniversary screening)
(3/22) Strangers, Babies (reading, Lark, HotInk)
(3/23) Colleen McHugh (The Duplex)
(3/23) The Big Meal (Playwrights Horizons)
(3/24) DNA (reading, Lark, HotInk)
(3/24) PEN translation panel (Lark, HotInk)
(3/24) 4000 Miles (LCT)
(3/25) GATZ (public)
(3/26) Grace and Elizabeth (reading, Lark, HotInk)
(3/29) End of the Rainbow (Belasco)
(3/30) TIPA Dickens readings (St. Malachey’s, Fritz Weaver, Frances Sternhagen, Alan Richman)
(3/31) An Iliad (New York Theatre Workshop)
(3/31) Out of Iceland (Walkerspace)

April

(4/3) Now. Here. This. (Vineyard)
(4/4) Gregory Charles (Cafe Carlyle)
(4/5) Massacre (Rattlestick)
(4/6) Morini Strad (Primary Stages, 59E59)
(4/10) The Lyons (Cort)
(4/11) You Better Sit Down (Flea)
(4/12) Barb Jungr (The Metropolitan Room)
(4/14) The Best Man (Gerold Shoenfeld)
(4/15) In Masks Outrageous and Austere (Culture Project)
(4/16) A Song at Twilight (reading, The Acting Company)
(4/17) Peter and the Starcatcher (Brooks Atkinson)
(4/18) Porgy and Bess (Richard Rodgers)
(4/18) The Way of Water (reading, Lark, Studio Retreat)
(4/19) Colleen McHugh (The Duplex)
(4/20) Clybourne Park (Walter Kerr)
(4/21) My Sinatra (Sofia’s Hotel Edison)
(4/22) Festen (St. Ann’s Warehouse)
(4/23) A Cavalcade of Coward (performance, screening, reading, Paley Center)
(4/24) The City Club (Minetta Lane)
(4/25) Betwixt Them Made (reading, MFA thesis play, 4th Street Theatre)
(4/25) Leap of Faith (St. James)
(4/26) One Man Two Guvnors (Music Box)
(4/28) Eavesdropping on Dreams (Cherry Lane Studio)

May

(5/2) Grace Cosgrove (Metropolitan Room)
(5/3) Desperately Seeking the Exit (Triple Crown Underground)
(5/6) Take What is Yours (59E59)
(5/6) 2012 Lucille Lortel Awards (Skirball Center)
(5/7) Success on Broadway: The Un-Broadway Way (panel, Creative Week)
(5/8) A Streetcar Named Desire (Broadhurst Theatre)
(5/9) Cock (Duke on 42nd Street)
(5/11) The Astonished Heart (Coward on Film, Screening, Walter Reade)
(5/12) The Standbys (screening, Paley Center)
(5/12) Early History of Fire (Acorn Theatre)
(5/13) February House (Public Theater)
(5/14) The Legacy Project: Pioneering Women Producers (symposium, CUNY Graduate Center)
(5/15) The Landing (developmental lab, Vineyard Theatre)
(5/18) Profanity (reading, Soho Rep Studio at Robert Moss Theatre)
(5/18) Title and Deed (Signature)
(5/19) Darling Companion (screening, Paris)
(5/22) May StoryCode Forum (featuring Sleep No More, FSLC)
(5/24) Taylor Mac: Sleep Fast! We Need the Pillow! (Manhattan JCC)
(5/27) Rapture, Blister, Burn (Playwrights Horizons)
(5/29) Tribes (Barrow Street Theatre)
(5/30) Medieval Play (Signature Theatre)
(5/31) Industry Talk: Literary Directors and Managers (Signature Griffin Jewel Box)

June

(6/3) Murder in the First (59E59)
(6/4) Group Theatre 75th Anniversary (symposium, CUNY Graduate Center)
(6/5) Revisiting Wildfire (ArcLight Theatre)
(6/6) Slow Girl (Tow Theatre, Lincoln Center)
(6/7) Big Excellent 20th Reunion (Theatre 80)
(6/8) We Play For The Gods (Cherry Lane)
(6/9) 3C (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater)
(6/9) The Hunchback Variations (59E59)
(6/12) Venus in Fur (Lyceum Theatre)
(6/13) The Iceman Cometh (Goodman Theatre, Chicago)
(6/14) My Kind of Town (TimeLine Theatre, Chicago)
(6/14) Crooked (Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, Chicago)
(6/15) Tigers Be Still (Theater Wit, Chicago)
(6/16) A Work of Art [reading, by Elaine Romero] (Goodman Theatre, Chicago)
(6/16) Eastland (Lookingglass Theatre, Chicago)
(6/18) The Bad and the Better (Peter Jay Sharp)
(6/19) Uncle Vanya (Soho Rep)
(6/21) A Star is Born (Walter Reade Theatre)
(6/21) The Etiquette of Death (La MaMa)
(6/28) That Play: A Solo Macbeth (Stage Left Studio)
(6/28) Broadway Ballyhoo (Feinstein’s)
(6/29) Tiny Dynamite (59E59)
(6/30) As You Like It (Shakespeare in the Park, Delacorte)

July

(7/1) Love Goes to Press (Mint)
(7/1) Slow Girl (Tow, LCT)
(7/2) Closer Then Ever (York)
(7/4) Funny Face (screening, Film Forum)
(7/5) 3C (Rattlestick)
(7/6) 7th Monarch (Acorn)
(7/7) Triassic Park (Soho Playhouse)
(7/8) Potted Potter (Little Shubert)
(7/8) Cock (Duke on 42nd Street)
(7/9) Colleen McHugh (Birdland)
(7/10) The Common Pursuit (Laura Pels)
(7/11) Harvey (Studio 54)
(7/12) Empire (Spiegelworld)
(7/13) Nymph Errant (Clurman, Theatre Row)
(7/14) To Rome With Love (Lincoln Plaza Cinema)
(7/18) Take What is Yours (Living Theatre, Underground Zero Festival)
(7/22) Dog Fight (Second Stage)
(7/22) Probation (Repertorio Espanol)
(7/23) Marjorie Morningstar (screening, Walter Reade)
(7/24) Everything About School, Almost (Tada!)
(7/24) Black Milk (13th Street Theatre)
(7/25) The Apocalyptic Road Show (Ice Factory Festival, New Ohio Theatre)
(7/27) Old Jews Telling Jokes (Westside Theatre)
(7/29) New Girl in Town (Irish Rep)
(7/30) Fried Chicken and Latkes (Actors Temple Theatre)
(7/31) This Time (screening, Magno Review 2)

August

(8/2) The Girl of the Golden West (Ice Factory Festival, New Ohio Theatre)
(8/3) Shalom Dammit (Roy Arias Theater Center)
(8/4) The Last Smoker in America (Westside Theatre Upstairs)
(8/5) My Mind is Like an Open Meadow (59E59)
(8/5) Bullet for Adolf (New World Stages)
(8/6) Warrior Class (2nd Stage Uptown)
(8/8) Into the Woods (Shakespeare in the Park, Delacorte)
(8/9) Soul Doctor (NYTW)
(8/10) Richard III (Public Theater)
(8/14) Harrison: TX (59E59)
(8/15) skippyjon jones (Lucille Lortel)
(8/15) Act Before You Speak (Flea)
(8/16) Bronte (Actors Temple)
(8/17) Bring It On: The Musical (St. James)
(8/18) Two Rooms (Lion Theatre, Theatre Row)
(8/19) Foote Screening: The Traveling Lady (Paley Center)
(8/19) Summer Shorts A (59E59)
(8/19) Summer Shorts B (59E59)
(8/21) Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (Sargent Theater)
(8/23) David Brenner (Metropolitan Room)
(8/25) Fazzino Ride (on a bus in midtown Manhattan)
(8/26) Foote Screening: Old Man (Paley Center)

September

(9/2) Cougar the Musical (St. Luke’s)
(9/2) Forbidden Broadway (47th Street Theatre)
(9/4) Welcome to Kutsher’s: The Last Catskills Resort (JCC in Manhattan)
(9/6) Chaplin (Barrymore Theatre)
(9/7) Mary Broome (Mint Theater)
(9/8) Us (Lion Theatre, Theatre Row)
(9/9) Fly Me to the Moon (59E59)
(9/10) NT LIVE: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Skirball Center)
(9/11) The Train Driver (Signature)
(9/12) The Fabulous Dorsey Brothers (59E59)
(9/14) Strange Tales of Liaozhai (HERE)
(9/15) Dreamgirls (133rd Street Arts Center)
(9/16) The Jungle Book (Peter Jay Sharp)
(9/16) Job (The Flea)
(9/17) The Exonerated (Culture Project)
(9/18) Heartless (Signature)
(9/19) Helen of Troy (La MaMa)
(9/19) If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet (Laura Pels)
(9/20) Detroit (Playwrights Horizons)
(9/21) Red-Handed Otter (Cherry Lane)
(9/22) An Enemy of the People (MTC Friedman Theatre)
(9/23) Through the Yellow Hour (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater)
(9/25) The Spook Show (Canal Park Playhouse)
(9/26) Marry Me a Little (Clurman, Theatre Row)
(9/27) Red Dog Howls (New York Theatre Workshop)
(9/28) Ten Chimneys (Theatre at St. Clemens)
(9/29) Luz (La MaMa)
(9/30) The Lombardi Case (The Living Room)

October

(10/1) Through the Yellow Hour (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater)
(10/2) Grace (Cort Theatre)
(10/4) Martha Swope: In Rehearsal (exhibit, NYPL Performing Arts)
(10/4) North (59E59)
(10/5) Otello dress rehearsal (Metropolitan Opera)
(10/5) Lovers (Beckett Theatre, Theatre Row)
(10/6) The Old Man and the Old Moon (Judson Gym)
(10/6) God of Vengeance (TGB Theatre)
(10/7) Broke Wide Open (45th Street Theatre)
(10/9) Him (59E59)
(10/10) Cyrano (American Airlines)
(10/11) Barbara: Back to Brooklyn (Barclays Center)
(10/12) Hello Gorgeous! A Salute to the Streisand Songbook (Kaye Playhouse)
(10/13) Don’t Go Gentle (Lucielle Lortel)
(10/13) The Freedom of the City (Irish Rep)
(10/14) Harper Regan (Altantic Theater Company)
(10/14) Spring’s Awakening (Marvell Rep at TBG Theatre)
(10/15) 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche (Soho Playhouse)
(10/16) The Best of Everything (HERE)
(10/17) Falling (Minetta Lane)
(10/17) The Other Josh Cohen (Soho Playhouse)
(10/18) Heresy (Flea)
(10/18) I Hate F*cking Mexicans (Flea)
(10/19) Katharine Hepburn: Dressed for Stage and Screen (exhibit, NYPL for the Performing Arts)
(10/20) NT Live: Last of the Haussmans (BAM)
(10/20) Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 (Ars Nova)
(10/21) Wild With Happy (Public)
(10/21) Hold These Truths (Epic Theatre 14th Street Y)
(10/22) Christine Ebersole and Michael Riedel (NYPL Performing Arts)
(10/22) In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel (New World Stages)
(10/23) Tatzu Nishi:Discovering Columbus (Columbus Circle installation)
(10/23) In the Summer Pavilion (59E59)
(10/24) Modern Terrorism (Second Stage)
(10/25) Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Booth Theatre)
(10/26) LMDA collaboration event: the art of feedback (HERE Arts Center)
(10/26) Dispatches from (A)mended America (Epic theatre 14th Street Y)
(10/27) The Heiress (Walter Kerr Theatre)

November

(11/1) Annie (Palace Theatre)
(11/2) House for Sale (Duke on 42nd Street)
(11/3) Disgraced (LCT Tow)
(11/4) Checkers (Vineyard Theatre)
(11/4) Coney (The New Ohio)
(11/5) Blood Potato (Clurman Theatre Row)
(11/6) A Twist of Water (59E59)
(11/7) The Golden Land (Baruch Performing Arts Center)
(11/7) A Summer Day (Cherry Lane)
(11/8) Ring a Ding Ding (New Victory)
(11/8) Sorry (Public Theater)
(11/9) March Madness (Abingdon Theatre)
(11/9) Die: Roll to Proceed (La MaMa)
(11/10) The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Roundabout Studio 54)
(11/10) Sowa’s Red Gravy (Castillo Theatre)
(11/11) Bad Jews (Roundabout Steinberg Center)
(11/13) The Whale (Playwrights Horizons)
(11/16) Evanston, Which Is Over There: A Tale of Men and Women in the Modern World (Curious Branch @ Side Project, Chicago)
(11/19) Twenty-Seventh Man (Public Theater)
(11/20) Emotional Creature (Linney Signature Theatre)
(11/21) Scandalous (Neil Simon Theatre)
(11/21) The Piano Lesson (Signature)
(11/22) A Christmas Story (Lunt Fontanne)
(11/23) Skin Tight (59E59)
(11/24) Inner Voices (30th Street Theatre)
(11/24) Golden Child (Signature)
(11/25) Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (LCT Newhouse)
(11/25) Giant (Public Theater)
(11/26) Dead Accounts (Music Box)
(11/27) Murder Ballad (MTC City Center)
(11/28) Figaro (Pearl Theatre)
(11/28) A Celebration of Harold Pinter (Irish Rep)
(11/29) Mies Julie (St. Anns Warehouse)
(11/30) The Velveteen Rabbit (DR2 Theatre)
(11/30) Ivanov (Classic Stage Company)

December

(12/1) A Civil War Christmas (New York Theatre Workshop)
(12/1) We Are Proud to Present (Soho Rep)
(12/2) Radiance (Bank Street Theatre)
(12/2) Ingenious Nature (Soho Playhouse)
(12/3) The Good Mother (Theatre Row Acorn)
(12/4) Promised Land (screening, AMC Lincoln Square)
(12/5) My Name is Asher Lev (Westside Theatre)
(12/5) Naked Holidays (Roy Arias Stage IV)
(12/6) Katharine Hepburn: Dressed for Stage and Screen (exhibit, NYPL for the Performing Arts)
(12/6) The Outgoing Tide (59E59)
(12/7) 13 Things About Ed Carpolotti (59E59)
(12/8) Circus Oz (New Victory Theatre)
(12/8) Volpone (Lucille Lortel)
(12/9) Working (59E59)
(12/11) The Anarchist (Golden Theatre)
(12/12) Golden Age (MTC at City Center)
(12/12) Golden Boy (Belasco Theatre)
(12/13) Cinderella (Joffrey Ballet, Florence Gould Hall Theatre)
(12/14) How 2 B a New Yorker
(12/15) What Rhymes with America (ATC Linda Gross Theater)
(12/15) A Chanukah Carol (New World Stages)
(12/16) Let’s Kill Grandmother This Christmas (Theatre at St. Clements)
(12/16) Glengarry Glen Ross (Shoenfeld Theatre)
(12/17) Forever Dusty (New World Stages)
(12/18) It’s A Wonderful Life (Irish Rep Studio)
(12/19) The Last Seder (Theatre Three)
(12/20) Bare (New World Stages)
(12/21) Butt-Cracker Suite (HERE)
(12/22) The Great God Pan (Playwrights Horizons)
(12/22) P.S. Jones and the Frozen City (New Ohio Theatre)
(12/23) Restoration Comedy (Flea Theatre)
(12/25) The Sound of Music (screening, Walter Reade Theatre)
(12/26) Zelda at the Oasis (St. Luke’s Theatre)
(12/26) The Songs I Love So Well (Irish Rep)
(12/27) The Holiday Guys in Happy Merry Hanu-Mas (Theatre at St. Peters)
(12/29) Lincoln (screening, AMC Lincoln Square 13)