The Holiday Guys: What Fun!!

"The Holiday Guys" in Happy Merry Hanu-Mas - Mark Kudisch and Jeffrey Denman shine in a forget your troubles holiday show at the York Theater . . . Read More

Amy Herzog explores the tricky terrain of memory

The Great God Pan - Amy Herzog's new one acter is essentially a relationship story complicated by the effect of repressed childhood memories. It's semsotove;u deve;p[ed though not quite as satisfying as her previous plays . . . Read More

5 Fun Off-Broadway shows. . .

What Rhymes with America - Melissa James Gibsn's plays are all buoyed by dialogue that reflects a truly original voice and her latest is no exception. . . . Read More






Working - With jobs increasingly tight and relegated to robots, the songs in this new version of Studs Terkel's 1974 book have a new kind of poignancy . . . Read More
 








13 Things About Ed Carpolotti - Penny Fuller stars in the musical based on a Jeffrey Hatcher' play. . .
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Restoration Comedy - if Amy Freed, in collapsing the two plays, loses some structural elements, she doubly drives home the bawdy wit and humor. . . . Read More

The "Al Pacino Show" finally opens officially

Glengarry Glen Ross - This production of David Mamet's once ground breaking play breaks no new ground, but it remains worth seeing for more than its super star casting. . . Read More

75-- and still Broadway worthy

Golden Boy - a Prequel.   about the  hottest    new play on  Broadway  on  its  75th birthday. -- . .

an odd-ball but entertainment new solo show

Ingenious Nature - written and performed by Baba Brinkman, this is a hard to categorize show, but however you bill it, it’s a one of a kind r theatre piece . . . Read More

As always-- the best theater is OFF Broadway

 Golden Age - A night at the opera but Terrence McNally keeps you backstage . . . Read More





A Civil War Christmas For theater goers looking for holiday fare that's intellectually nourishing, Paula Vogel's unique Christmas story with music offers a satisfyingly tasty and enlightening entertainment . . . Read More



Bad Jews - a precious little gem by Joshua Herman at Roundabout's black box theater. . . . Read More

Graeter's Ice Cream: The real star of Dead Accounts

Dead Accounts - Theresa Rebeck's you can/can't go home agan tragi-comedy is likely to make you wish Graeter's would open an ice cream chain in Manhattan

A Kosher Story with Universal appeal. . .

My Name is Asher Lev - You don't have to be Jewish to relate to Asher Le's conflict of reconciling his allegiance to and comfort in his ultra orthodox upbringing and his need to fulfill his extraordinary gift as an artist. . . . Read More

Curtainup'.com in London

The Dark Earth and the Light Sky - Richard Eyre directs Nick Dear’s biographical play about the Edwardian poet Edward Thomas who started writing poetry in 1914 and who died in 1917 in the First World War. . . . Read More


Sweet Smell of Success - It’s sadly easy to see why success eluded the show on Broadway; one can only hope for the sake of the hardworking team behind this latest incarnation that the title is a little more apt this time. . . . Read More

People Nicholas Hytner directs Alan Benett's assuredly and the performances are outstanding. - . . . Read More

Uncle Vanya - This production yawns from the first interminable act. . . . Read More

A winning revival of Augustw Wilson's Pulitzer Prize Winner

The Piano Lesson  - the 1990 Pulitzer Prize–winning drama by August Wilson, that is now having a stirring revival at the Signature Theater. . . . Read More

We review Cusi Crum's new play

Radiance - not Labrynth Theater Company's usual dramatically gritty play, but a worthy dramatic consideration of how the dark side of man’s nature was able to forever change the course of human destiny. . . .

A mercifully quick death for The Performers

The Perfomers - To an early grave-- closing 11/18 , 7 days after it opened . . . Read More

A thriller that fails to thrill

The Good Mother - Gretchen Mol is compellingas the title character. If only the play she's in were more compelling. . . . Read More

At last, a substantial new musical

Giant - In a season dominated by musical revivals, a new musical that more than lives up to its title, has finally opened . . . Read More

My candidate for the best theatrical bargain around

Disgraced - Ayad Akhtar may see his reputation as a playwright soar by this gripping, unsettling play that shows us how easy it is for well-educated, socially sophisticated, politically savvy people to loose their cool and their sense of perspective when it comes to matters concerning religious beliefs, social standing, and cultural identity

Hwang's play better now than the original

Golden Child - Whether you've seen it before or not, Golden Child at the Signature is a golden opportunity to catch two hours of solid, entertaining theater. . . .

My candidate for the most fun new/old show

the Mystery of Edwin Drood - It's more mischievous than mysterious, but it offers, a couple of wonderfully undemanding hours of entertainment in the grand old tradition of the English music hall. . . . Read More

My candidate for most unnecessary new play

The Perfomers - Blessed as this new comedy is with a first-class cast, the insipid story with its desperate to titillate porn film background simply isn't the edgy, Broadway worthy comedy it aims to be — unless you adjust H. L. Mencken's famous quote to "you can't go wrong underestimating the taste of Broadway theater goers." . . . Read More

Chekhov's first play well worth seeing

Ivanov Though even the cleverest and most Chekhov savvy director can't transform Ivanov from being a duckling among Chekhov's swans, Classic Stage has given its production the swan treatment. . . . Read More

A whale-sized man is hard to look at-- or away from

The Whale - Samuel D. Hunter's touching yet repellent, sad but also funny new play, with a riveting performance by Shuler Hensley . . . Read More

Movie & Masterpiece stars Make The Heiress new again

The Heiress - while we've had a plethora of revivals, this one makes a strong case for not relegating the well-made genre — at least not the one with solid literary roots — to the theatrical dustbin. At close to three hours, this revival flies by, more satisfyingly than a lot of today's stylishly trim ninety-minute plays . . . Read More

A Connecticut musical that could be Browadway bound. . .

A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder - Merry. Melodious. Macabre. Three little words that aptly describe the delicious new musical treat at Hartford Stage. . . . Read More

You won't go broke seeing Sowa's Red Gravy

Sowa’s Red Gravy - These are colorful characters indeed. And they are played by a versatile ensemble cast, dressed in dazzling costumes, complete with feathers and flowing scarves. Wilson’s African-influenced dancing and David D. Wright’s Djembe playing accentuate many of the stories. . .

Philadelphia premiere review

The Exit Interview - William Missouri Downs applies a Brecht-inspired distancing approach to brazen scattershot comedy in the National New Play Network rolling world premiere. Pieces of story collide with extraneous elements and with an array of seriously intended underlying messages. Yet a distinctly non-Brechtian suspense hangs over everything in the ever-present threat of a gunman on the loose . .

Philadelphia premier review

The Exit Interview - William Missouri Downs applies a Brecht-inspired distancing approach to brazen scattershot comedy in the National New Play Network rolling world premiere. Pieces of story collide with extraneous elements and with an array of seriously intended underlying messages. Yet a distinctly non-Brechtian suspense hangs over everything in the ever-present threat of a gunman on the loose . .

For escapist fun, see The Other Josh Cohen

The Other Josh Cohen - When baseball manager Leo Durocher coined his famous "nice guys finish last" back in 1938 he wasn't thinking of nice nebbishes like Josh Cohen for whom Valentine's Day is the unhappiest day of the year. This endearing little musical the nice guys finish last idiom an enjoyable everyman musical twist . . . Read More Our Review.

Norwegian playwright premieres in West Village

A Summer Day - I was a bit startled to read in the program that John Fosse is considered one of the worlds finest contemporary playwrights, as I'd never heard of him before. I'm a little closer to understanding this pronouncement after experiencing the bracingly haunting, if also pretentiously spare play . . .

theater goers invited to odd "open house"

House for Sale - The Transport group mission to explore the work of major American writers has produced a variety of hits. While this stage adaptation of Jontthan Franzen's essay is more miss than hit, it doesn't miss for lack of theatrical chutzpa. . . . Read More

Terrorism could be but isn't funny. . .

Modern Terrorism, or They Who Want To Kill Us and How We Learn To Love Them -The plot of Jon Ken's play is as awkwardly convoluted as its unwieldy title. . . . Read More

Tolstoy to an electro pop beat. . .

Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 - Even if you aren't an opera fan, you will become enamored with the spectacle of this full-scale production of painstakingly high quality. . . . Read More

A painful story, well dramatized in DC

Our Class - thought-provoking theatre, exceptionally well directed and performed, with a resonance that continues long after the lights go down.. . . Read More

A bravura Michal Cristofer in new off-Broadway play

Don’t Go Gentle - Read More In Stephen Belber's new play the father faced with what Dylan Thomas so beautifully described as the not so gentle descent into the good night, is a 72-year-old retired Buffalo Judge coming face to face with the fallout of both his successful career and domestic failures. .

An exciting Brial Friel from the Irish Rep

The Freedom of the City - The Irish Repertory Theater's gripping and moving performance of Brian Friel’s 1973 play . . . Read More

Another up and coming Brit fnds an American home

Harper Regan - In Simon Stephen's play, the title character's "disappearance" takes the audience on a journey with a woman whose normal behavior mechanism cracks . . . Read More

The Footr playwriting legacy continues

Him - Daisy Foote's character in her sister's dark family drama brings to mind the famous "I'm mourning for my life" comment of Chekhov's Masha . . . Read More

Our London critic's been a busy bee. . .

Here are   links our busy London Lizzie's  latest postings 

Our Boys - Television and film stars Arthur Darvill , Laurence Fox and Matthew Lewis are in a revival of Jonathan Lewis’ 1993 play set in the Queen Elizabeth Military Hospital in Woolwich in 1984 where the British army would treat its sick. Some were wounded in conflicts, some in the Faulklands, other victims in Northern Ireland or of bombings on the mainland as well as army personnel or their families needing medical intervention. . . . Read More


The Enquirer - Directors and Editors, Vicky Featherstone and John Tiffany with author Andrew O’Hagan have the imagination and skill to have turned this mass of words into exciting theatre as they explore the theme of “how British journalism has fallen so low?” . . . Read More

Fireface - Marius von Mayenburg’s early non-compromising study of two German teenagers in a dysfunctional family whose dysfunctional behaviour spills into outside society with terrible consequences. . . . Read More



Berenice> Alan Hollinghurst’s blank verse translation makes Racine accessible as opposed to those interminable speeches in French . . . Read More







Paul Merton's Out of My Head -Paul Merton’s strength is working off script, something difficult to recreate on the West End staged . . . ead More

Broadway takes a look at faith. . .

Grace - You never know what to expect from Craig Wright. In Grace he uses the familiarity with absolute evangelical theory gained while earning Masters of Divinity degreeto explore competing theories as to the meaning of life and man's place in the universe.. . . Read More