Friday, November 21, 2025
The title no joke. Richard Thomas and Stewart Lee’s “Jerry Springer – The Opera” is a raucous parody of many things, but most of all opera. Librettos make for dull reading, but this 90% unprintable one is laugh out-loud. It has taken over a decade for “Jerry Springer” to brawl its way to a NYC stage, but The New Group more than makes up for it with John Rando’s wild production. Thomas (music, lyrics) and Lee (book, additional lyrics) didn’t have to look hard for commonalities between “Jerry Springer and “opera”. Act I is the taping of Jerry’s (Terrence Mann’s) show.
Reviews
Music: Rossini’s ‘Semiramide’ at the Metropolitan Opera House
Along with Rossini’s “Barber of Seville”, the Met in recent seasons has sucessfully presented his lesser known “L'italiana in Algeri”, “La Cenerentola” (“Cinderella”), “La donna del lago” (“Lady of the Lake”), and “William Tell”. Now after 25 years, his “Semiramide” returns to the repertory. For reasons other than Maurizio Benini and the Met Orchestra's spunky playing of the opera's Overture, soprano Angela Meade’s gallant singing of the serial killer Babylonian queen, mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong's beautiful duets with Meade about their complicated relationship and tenor Javier Camarena’s star turn as the love-struck Prince Idreno, the production also provided an up-close look at
Finding Fellini at the Series of One Festival, La Mama
Finding Fellini is a theatrical ode to risk takers, big dreamers and delicious hedonism. It’s a mighty memoir about one woman, Megan Metrikin, who leaves the brutality of Apartheid South Africa in search of her muse –Federico Fellini, in Rome. You slip down the rabbit hole with her and emerge into a wonderland of palpable sensuality, exploration and adventure. It’s a wild, obsessive, funny, filmic experience about the power of art to lift you out of any political or emotional doldrums. Her fascination with Fellini starts when her father joins the censor board in SA with the sole purpose of being
Theatre Review: Blessed Unrest’s Platonov, or a Play with No Name
Platonov, or A Play with No Name, was Chekhov’s first large-scale drama, with an unabridged running time of about five hours. Chekhov himself never considered the work finished, and yet playwright Laura Wickens manages to reimagine a cohesive 100 minute translation of the play, delicately modernizing the banter while maintaining the unhinged histrionics of the original playwright’s early writing. Wickens’ version catenates the paths of the female characters, paring away the father figures save Platonov himself. “Working with this text was sort of like reviewing Deleted Scenes at the end of a movie and then remaking your own,” says Wickens. “Platonov,
Theater Review: ‘The Boys From Syracuse’ at Theatre Row’s Lion Theatre
This (almost) all male cast of “The Boys From Syracuse” are more effervescent than a fountain of Moët, more energized than the peloton at the Tour de France and more versatile than a bobby pin. They aren’t just reviving an old 1938 George Abbott, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart classic; they seem to be jump starting a Cadillac Sixty Special. So much gorgeous style wrapped up in a sleek vintage frame. Director and choreographer, Jonathan Cerullo has created an exceptional explosion of craft, timing and talent. His staging is inspired. It’s like watching a Broadway hit contained in a cupboard or
Whipped Cream
'Whipped Cream,' American Ballet Theatre Metropolitan Opera House Snapshot Review: Must See Patricia Contino, Reviewer Applauding the scenery is an accepted theatre tradition. Like the standing ovation, it is now automatic, and institutionalized. Occasionally, downtown venues like HERE and LaMama permit post-curtain looks without touching. The closest one can get at the Metropolitan Opera House are at designated display areas. American Ballet Theatre goers enchanted by Alexi Ratmansky "Whipped Cream" -- the highlight and hit of their 2017 Spring/Summer season -- found designer Mark Ryden\'s cuddly creations for the deliberately off-center ballet on tee shirts, stickers, expensive prints that sold
The Thing With Feathers
The Thing With Feathers The Barrow Group Theatre Snapshot Review: Creepy, Persuasive, Uneven Marc Miller, Reviewer Treacherous business, social media. Is that kind voice at the other end really who he says he is? Is he hiding something? Will a casual online encounter have unexpected consequences? Such everyday 21st century ruminations permeate The Thing with Feathers, Scott Organ’s creepy little drama premiering at the Barrow Group. The title alludes to Emily Dickinson, of course, and Emily Dickinson is where it begins, with Anna (Alexa Shae Niziak), a clever, restless, Internet-savvy teen, chatting remotely about Dickinson’s poetry with Eric (Zachary Booth), her new online friend. He’s
Let Me Cook for You
Let Me Cook for You Theaterlab Snapshot Review: Completely Engaging Jacquelyn Claire, Reviewer Theaterlab presents “Let me cook for you” - an exquisitely intimate dinner party play. Only twelve audience members are given the opportunity to “dine” with Orietta Crispino as she sates your hunger with a masterful memoir. It’s one of those truly unique New York theatrical moments that you want to witness. Orietta is making us dinner. Along with celery, peppers and marinated tofu you’ll get to savor the delicious ingredients of foreign accents, past desires, impossible hungers, horoscopes, myths, numerology and blemished beauty. She carves up her past in bite size
The Trial of Faith
The Trial of Faith Hudson Guild Theatre Snapshot Review: Intense Theatrical Battle Jacquelyn Claire, Reviewer It’s a fitting time to draw inspiration from the life story of Joan of Arc to explore themes of dysfunctional patriarchy, the futility of war and strong female warriors who would rather submit to being burnt at the stake than to denounce their beliefs. It’s an intense theatrical battle as ‘Joan of Arc’ takes on the English at Orléans and the Bishop of Beauvais, Pierre Cauchon, at her rigged ecclesiastical court trial, after being captured. The salacious segments of her story are told through music, dance and drama. We’re
The Orchestra
The Orchestra Now Performs Hermann and Korngold Carnegie Hall Snapshot Review: Must See Patricia Contino, Reviewer "Star Wars Night" is not only a mainstay of MLB and NHL Many major symphony orchestras know that film music is an easy sell, and John Williams' iconic fanfare was part of the orchestra now (TŌN)'s opening season concert at Carnegie Hall. The difference was hearing it played alongside Erich Wolfgang Korngold's opening theme for 1942's "King's Row.” Discovering Williams' inspiration from a Ronald Reagan film served as a precursor to Korngold's” Symphony in F-Sharp,” part of a program conducted by TŌN's music director Leon Botstein celebrating glorious