Tag: New Group

Theatre: The New Group presents ‘Good for Otto’ at the Pershing Square Signature Center

by Patricia Contino - 0
Rileigh McDonald, Charlotte Hope, Ed Harris (back) in David Rabe’s Good for Otto, directed by Scott Elliott. Photo credit: Monique Carboni.

Non-spoiler alert: the title character never appears in David Rabe's "Good for Otto", making its New York premiere onstage at the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre at the Pershing Square Signature Center.  Unlike Harvey the rabbit, the beloved pet hamster really exists.  His well-being is one of several crises in Rabe's passionate exploration of mental health providers and patients.  Like the subject matter, there are no easy solutions.  Such long-term perimeters limit the play's message that even its accomplished cast cannot answer in three hours. Rabe returns to his familiar theme of the extended family created by circumstance. Drs. Michaels (Ed

Theatre: The New Group presents ‘Jerry Springer – The Opera’ at The Pershing Square Signature Center

by Patricia Contino - 0
L-R: Will Swenson, Terrence Mann in “Jerry Springer – The Opera,” a production from The New Group, in a limited Off-Broadway engagement at The Pershing Square Signature Center Jan 23 – Mar 11, 2018. PHOTO CREDIT: Monique Carboni / www.thenewgroup.org

  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.

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