Thursday, April 25, 2024
Chasing the New White Whale is an homage to Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and explores the nature of deadly obsessions. In this play our Captain Ahab is Robbie Foerster – a New England fisherman chasing the “dragon”. Playwright Michael Gorman lost his older brother, a commercial fisherman, to a heroin overdose and this is the tragic wound that drives the creation of this brave work. This play has a literary quality about it in that the text is dense and like Melville’s work is not afraid to use a range of genres and theatrical styles to tell its tale. Where
Month: November 2018
THE PROM on Broadway at the Longacre Theatre
The Prom, now playing at the Longacre Theatre, might just be the show that single-handedly puts the Broadway back into Broadway musicals. With rare yet notable exceptions, most of them Tony winners -- Fun Home, Hamilton, Come From Away, The Band’s Visit and Dear Evan Hansen (the latter of which The Prom is a close cousin of but the cheerier, more bubbly sort) -- most musicals being produced today are based on branded properties: film or book adaptations, jukebox creations where the songs are guaranteed to be memorable hits (they already are) or pop culture icons (Spiderman: Turn Off The
My Name Is Gideon: I’m Probably Going To Die, Eventually
Gideon Irving is one of my all time favorite theater makers and I am always a little giddy with anticipation when he announces a new show. I have had the pleasure of seeing him perform in a variety of apartments across NYC and in two theaters –the experience is always unforgettable. I also like to bring friends to see his shows who have never seen his particular brand of genius kookiness and spend half the show watching them discovering him. You can literally see their inner child awaken from a long sleep and start to come up for breath. This
Rebirth of Rabbit Foot
During my early years in Catholic Grammar School I was the only white kid to be seen. As a child from 5 to 13 years old one doesn't spend much time considering race. At least I didn't as a white person. I never really felt much different, never felt left out and I'm still in contact with many of the other students. All and all it was great experience and I didn't realize until later in life how much that experience helped me when considering the plight that people of color experience on a daily basis. I consider myself to
My Birthday at Theaterlab
My Birthday is a glorious occasion to celebrate the clown. Michaela Lind, has developed a delightful clowning framework to explore the complexities of the ritual of birthday parties and how unmet expectations around these events gives a “tragic” clown a lot of material. It is a heartbreaking and heartwarming interrogation of our need for friends and family at key moments of our lives. It’s a charming, playful and earnest little gem. Lind follows in the strong female clowning tradition that started in Greece in the 7th Century with the Dorian Mime troupes. We see female clown prowess in Medieval England as
Fancy DuCan’s Country Cabaret at The Duplex
A star is born! Fancy Ducan –can, can, can! Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit -I feel a cult classic coming on. This is comedy cabaret nirvana. You’re in send up country, you know you are here to holler and hoot as Fancy brings us a southern belle-rina full of home spun wisdom soaked in naughty innuendo. Then she opens her mouth and Bette Midler comes out and Barbara Streisand and Dolly Parton. Fancy (Jennette Cronk) has a foghorn – a powerful instrument that could lure sailors from their ships, that should launch No.1 singles, cleanse cobwebs
BATSU! Delves Into Virtual Reality and Worldwide Comedy Domination
Improvisational comedy holds a very special place in my heart. I first got my taste of improvisation at the age of 13 when I started performing with my high school comedy troupe. We would have improvisational competitions against other high schools. Improvisation is the basis of everything for me. It's the art of conversation. Life is improvisation. We definitely don't plan out every interaction we experience with others. All of life is sort of fly by night much like an improv comedy show. The pinnacle of that experience is BATSU!. BATSU! means punishment. Which is the game here at BATSU!, a
Wild Goose Dreams at The Public Theater
In Hansol Jung’s tender, poignant and humorously human Wild Goose Dreams, The Public Theater’s entire third floor space is transformed into a the city of Seoul, South Korea (the inventive and imaginative design is credited to Public and Broadway veteran, Clint Ramos) through a vibrant visual plethora of candy-colored campaigns and neon notifications with a small sampling of blown-up family photos scattered between. This manic mosaic sets the chaotic tone of a modern world where various sights and sound bites compete for attention -- though that only creates a feeling of deeper isolation amidst all the noise. But the eye-bruising visual
‘The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui’ at Classic Stage Company
What does cauliflower resemble? Fossilized flowers? Dead algae? Brain tissue? Perhaps Bertolt Brecht had these and others in mind creating a "Cauliflower War" as the cataclysmic event of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, his deliberately unfunny lampooning of Adolph Hitler. Brecht's protest play is now at the Classic Stage Company with a mesmerizing Raúl Esparza in the title role in John Doyle's uneven production. Brecht's inspiration for his 1941 play was Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator. Released one year before Arturo UI's premiere, Chaplin's intentionally funny film sends-up both Hitler and Mussolini. (Chaplin not only resembled Hitler, they were born days apart.) Unlike The
The Chinese Lady at Theatre Row
The Chinese Lady is a shattering story of how our western culture’s scopophilia leads us to make “freaks” of those who are different to ourselves. Our obsessive voyeurism does not lead to understanding of others but rather a desire to possess, command and sometimes destroy the objects of our incessant gaze. This is one of the most original, thought-provoking and necessary works I have ever seen. It is a production that excels on every single level – text, direction, performance and design. I am still haunted by the brilliance of the insights, the emotionality unleashed in the spaces between words