After 50 Years, Elaine May Returns to Broadway
[Originally published in The Clyde Fitch Report, October 26, 2018.] After a half-century absence, Elaine May has returned to Broadway, only to fade away before our eyes. Each beat of […]
Film Review: A Problematic Stage ‘Funny Girl’ To Appear on Screens World Wide
Funny Girl is a late 20th-century show built on the bones of the singular performer Barbra Streisand. This musical with a grand set list that has moved into the […]
As Joan of Arc’s Mother, Glenn Close Sears Your Soul
[Originally published in The Clyde Fitch Report, October 17, 2018.] As Isabelle Arc, Glenn Close is a no-nonsense, straight-talking, country woman. She speaks to us from France in the early […]
‘Travisville’ Explores Race, Urban Renewal and Generational Divide
[Original published in Theater Pizzazz, October 15, 2018.] What happens when private business interests align with public interests, and public servants determine to destroy existing communities for commercial gain? There […]
She’s Bernhardt, She’s Hamlet, and She Wears the Pants
[Originally published in The Clyde Fitch Report, September 26, 2018.] A search for an absent father and finding solace on the stage are both captured beautifully in Teresa Rebeck’s new play Bernhardt/Hamlet. […]
Political Machines, Private Lives: Facing the Truth of ‘The True’
[Originally published in The Clyde Fitch Report, September 21, 2018.] The spine of Sharr White’s new play The True, produced Off-Broadway by The New Group, is the whir of a sewing machine. It’s the […]
Harvard and Yale Make Cantata Out of Regatta for the Fourth Time
[article as originally published in Theater Pizzazz, September 19, 2018.] The show starts on the stairs at 54 Below. Twice in the past few weeks, these aural pre-shows have been somber […]
Pointed Political Parallels in an Off-Broadway ‘Henry VI’
[Original published in The Clyde Fitch Report, August 23, 2018.] In Stephen Brown-Fried’s elegant new two-part adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry VItrilogy for Off-Broadway’s National Asian American Theatre Company (NAATCO), we don’t have to reach […]
The Maria Irene Fornes Play Marathon We Need Right Now
[Original published in The Clyde Fitch Report, August 21, 2018.] On Mon., Aug. 27, a 12-hour marathon of staged readings at Public Theater will celebrate the life and work of Cuban-born playwright […]
Garcia Channels Bennett: “It’s All About the Material”
[Original published in Theater Pizzazz, August 18, 2018.] The first show empties out, and a rapt audience of cabaret enthusiasts files into 54 Below for a late-night show featuring Eric […]
‘Pretty Woman: The Musical’ Is So Unpretty
[Original published in The Clyde Fitch Report, August 17, 2018.] There’s a moment early in the first act of Pretty Woman: The Musical — adapted by the late Garry Marshall and J.F. Lawton […]
‘Be More Chill’ is Infectious Joy On Stage And Off
[Published in Theater Pizzazz, August 10, 2018.] You will hear, see, and feel the future of musical theater in the Joe Iconis and Joe Tracz creation Be More Chill, now at The […]
Marcus Gardley Constructs ‘The House That Will Not Stand’
[Original published in The Clyde Fitch Report, July 31, 2018.] In Marcus Gardley’s The House That Will Not Stand at New York Theatre Workshop, eight characters — seven women of color and […]
Destruction and Rebirth in Coney Island
[Originally published in TDF Stages, July 17, 2018.] How Superstorm Sandy changed the trajectory of Fire in Dreamland Playwright Rinne Groff is obsessed with the obsessed, whether it’s an inventor’s […]
In ‘Mary Page Marlowe,’ Six Actors Create One (Un-) Exceptional Woman
[Original published in The Clyde Fitch Report, July 12, 2018.] Six actors and a fake baby in sequential performances dramatize one woman’s life journey in Tracy Letts’ Mary Page Marlowe at Second Stage’s […]
Vivian Reed Performs Her Story to a Lena Horne Set List
[article as originally published in Theater Pizzazz, July 4, 2018.] We assembled to celebrate, with Broadway Baby and cabaret veteran Vivian Reed, what would have been Lena Horne’s 101st birthday. Some […]
