Thursday, May 16, 2024
Lovers of avant-garde, cutting-edge performing arts in tune with the current pulse rejoice! The Public Theater’s annual theater festival, Under the Radar, is back after a hiatus since its 2020 edition. This year brought some of the most exciting creators making new work locally, nationally, and globally. This year’s UTR Festival sprawled out across various venues beyond the Public’s Astor Place home, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), The New York Public Library, and La MaMa, to name those I visited. My final show was a homecoming to Joe’s Pub for New York cabaret artist Salty Brine’s monstrously fun
Reviews
Quinn’s Quixotic, Quagmire & Laughs At The Lucille Lortel Theater
PHOTOS BY: MONIQUE CARBON Colin Quinn has been a New York City mainstay for over 35 years. He’s remembered as far back as the mid-nineties when he was the co-host and announcer for MTV’s trivia show, “Remote Control”. I can still hear Colin’s voice in my head right now introducing the show's host, the late Ken Ober, “The Quiz Master of ’72 Whooping Cough Lane”. Many will also remember his iconic “I’m Going Back To Brooklyn” parody. There is also, of course, his very memorable stint as SNL’s News Correspondent in the early 2000s. He’s been at the forefront of comedy
“Afghanistan is Not Funny” — Soho Playhouse
The Soho Playhouse is an artistic institution in New York that punches well-above its weight in the theatre world. Much of this rests on the Fringe Encore Series, which brings some of the best fringe work from around the world to its stage. With “Afghanistan is Not Funny,” it has scored again. Henry Nayler's one-actor show has won more awards than many shows have had performances, and Nayler himself has won at Edinburgh 3 times. And they were well-deserved, every one of them. Like most one-actor shows, Afghanistan is Not Funny relies on the personal adventures of the playwright. Back in
75 Years Later Death Of A Salesman Still Kills
Photo D.B Frick On November 16th, 2022 I went to see Arthur Miller's, "Death of a Salesman", at the Hudson Theater on 44th St. This was my first live Broadway show since I saw Martin McDonagh's, "Hangmen", on March 12th, 2020-- the day the pandemic sent Broadway into a tailspin, bringing the fabled area of NYC to its knees. So much has happened in almost three years, and I'm so happy for the opportunity to give you a little feedback on this new production of a classic. There isn't much that hasn't already been said about this show. Despite that, here
Madeline Sayet’s WHERE WE BELONG at the Public Theater
Theatre-maker Madeline Sayet straddles many identities that often contrast and sometimes conflict. She's half Mohegan (on her mother's side) and half Jewish (on her father's side). Sayet is also an actress/director and an academic who found joy and solace in escaping through Shakespeare. But she can't shake the painful scars of colonialism that haunts her people's present and flavors their future, where erasure is imminent if the next generation doesn't keep the Mohegan language and traditions alive. It's a heavy burden for a young woman searching for her place in this world and a sense of belonging. In her solo show,
FC Bergman’s 300 el x 50 el x 30 el at BAM Next Wave
How does one describe the foreboding feeling of the calm before the storm? What might you witness if you peeked into the homes of a small community before a raging tempest transpired? In the US and Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) premiere of 300 el x 50 el x 30 el by the daring, provocative Belgian theatre company FC Bergman, you don’t have to guess. Instead, you are granted fly-on-the-wall access to the private moments of ordinary people with quirky and bizarre habits, blissfully unaware of the storm brewing. The Harvey Theater at BAM Strong is transformed into a quaint European
What Kind of Woman — the cell theatre
Every actor, writer or musician starts out with a side hustle to make ends meet. In the case of actor and playwright Abbe Tanenbaum, it was organizing people's apartments. While working with one client, she found twenty letters from women in the pre-Roe era seeking abortion services from her client. These letters and her client's past inspired this show. With that as a foundation, this could have been less pleasant than watching a 1950s Soviet propaganda film about periodontal disease. The ease with which it could have turned preachy, maudlin or just plain tedious is obvious. Tanenbaum skillfully avoided these dangers
Public Works’ Musical Adaptation of “As You Like It”: Free Shakespeare in the Park
The 60th anniversary of The Public Theater's Free Shakespeare in the Park series was memorable. It opened with risk and ended with a reward. The first of the two productions for summer 2022 was Richard III, directed by Robert O'Hara and starring Danai Gurira in the title role. It seemed to be the summer of Richard III, and the choices made by The Public's version and other productions worldwide (notably in Canada and the UK) were the source of many conversations, press articles, and hot debates. In contrast, it's hard to imagine anything but praise for the delightful, exuberant modern musical
The Butcher Boy: A New Musical at Irish Repertory Theatre
Adaptations are tricky. The best ones manage to cover the key points and honor the tone of the source material without getting bogged down by too many narrative details. These elements must also work well with the tools of the chosen medium. The Butcher Boy, a new musical now playing at Irish Repertory Theatre, achieves the benchmarks of a solid, imaginative adaptation, despite the oddball choice of transforming Patrick McCabe’s acclaimed 1992 novel about a schoolboy’s descent into mischief, madness and murder as the world around him collapses in a small Irish town in the 1960s. The Butcher Boy features a
Theatre4the People and the Matthew Corozine Studio present ‘Under the Dragon’s Tail’ by Isaac Byrne
Real experts like E. M. Forester and Virginia Woolf knew what reviewers go out of their way explaining in wordy detail: there is no such thing as a simple plot. Like offline real life, a scripted tale's truths and lies depend on the teller. Playwright and director Isaac Byrne takes four familiar plotlines and tweaks them anew in Under the Dragon's Tail, four short plays performed by superbly talented members of Theatre 4the People (t4tp) at Matthew Corozine Studio Theatre. Snakes are modern-day descendants of dragons. Ophiology is the scientific study of snakes and an appropriate title for the first play on the