Brian Freal's bleak take on love

Lovers - For the many fans of Brian Friel, the playwright often referred to as Ireland's Chekhov, seeing this rarely produced work in the format true to Friel's intention is a not to be missed opportunity. . . . Read More

Adam Rapp's newst not for the faint hearted

Through the Yellow Hour - In keeping with the relentlessly grim and ravenously graphic oeuvre that defines many of Adam Rapp’s plays, this is also a startling and extremely visceral response to the timely and topical political-social upheavals and uprisings in the Middle East. It is Rapp’s most politically charged play.

Best political play on Broadway is an old one

An Enemy of The People - this production has successfully brought Ibsen's 1882 muckraking drama into the 21st Century. . . . Read More

Terrific new Hedda & Chruchill lite a

Hedda Gabler -Sheridan Smith’s tightly drawn complex anti-heroine, smiling her increasingly uncomfortable smiles . . . Read More


Love and Information -This thoroughly entertaining new collection is Caryl Churchill at her most quirky and accessible. . . . Read More

Good acting but failed play

Red Dog Howls - It's hard to imagine this history based drama without Kathleen Chalfant to charm you with her spot-on accent, and wry humor and ultimately bring tears to your eyes with her unimaginably horrendous memory of the Armenian genocide turning her into victim and sinner . . . . Read More

Hopping from scene to scene. with Caryl Churchill

Love and Information -This thoroughly entertaining new collection is Caryl Churchill at her most quirky and accessible. . . . Read More

Jake Gyllenhaal: Now on stage AND on screen. . .

If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet - If the question this title asks is how to improve the way we live, Nick Payn's answer seems to be that it may just be best to start looking at problems right in your own home . . . Read More

Scrib Thomas Bradshaw,+ 22 "Bats" + The Bible

Job - Thomas Bradshaw doesn’t shy away from graphic depictions of sex, violence, and depravity and in his new play, Job, such inclinations have met a natural partner. . . . Read More

2 classic fresh as ever in London

Hindle Wakes -This vibrant staging proves Stanley Houghton's play is far from a museum piece, with its radical examination of sexual and class politics still feeling fresh today. . . . Read More


The Magic Flute - Nicholas Hytner's 1988 much revived production of Mozart's opera t is as accessible and popular as ever . . . Read More

See it in London now-- in NYC soon

Choir Boy - A fine new play byTarell Alvin McCraney now in London, and headed for New York . . . Read More

4 cCaracters in Search of the Lost American Dream

Detroit - A skilled cast and expert production values make this Pulitzer Prize finalist worth seeing even though it's too extreme finale shortchanges the theme of the American Dream in free fall . . . Read More

Oliver Twist Lite in New Jersey

Oliver Twist - Neil Bartlett's zealously streamlined, if slightly trivialized, but also entirely admirable version of Dickens. . . Read More

A bouncy tribute to Jimmy & Tommy Dorsey

The Anderson Twins Play the Fabulous Dorseys - This bouncy tribute to the big band era's famous bandleaders Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey by two 25-year-olds, themselves brothers, is a sure-fire antidote to gloom and doom about the Great Recession's assault on the American Dream . . . Read More

CurtainupNewLinks: Curtainup completes its Philly Fringe coverage

CurtainupNewLinks: Curtainup completes its Philly Fringe coverage: Philade...

Curtainup completes its Philly Fringe coverage

Philadelphia Live Arts Festival + Philly Fringe Report - :  Latest additions:. .Ivona: Princess of Burgundia . . .Red Eye to Havre de Grace. . .Zero Cost House Read More

Wrestling play pulls its punches in DC

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity - In his Pulitzer Prize runner up play about the wrestling world Kristoffer Diaz wrestles with big themes . . . Read Mor

Athol Fugard shines on both Coasts

The Blue Iris - This new Athol Fugard play at the Fountain Theater is exquisite. Every moment ripples tellingly through multiple layers of character, South Africa's torturous history, and Fugard's sense of his own career . . . Read More

Kathryn Osenlund continues her Philly Fringe Sampling

Philadelphia Live Arts Festival + Philly Fringe Report - : Bang . . .Barbie Blended: A Pop Rockin’. . .Chomsky vs Buckley, 1969. . . Othello, Desdemona & Iago Walk Into a Bar.. .Ivona: Princess of Burgundia . .. Read More

Upstair/downstairs intrigue right on 43rd Street

Mary Broome - Allan Monkhouse's 1911 comedy at the Mint explores upstairs/downstairs and father/son relationships . . . Read More

A new Star is born in Chaplin, the musical. . .

Chaplin - a smartly staged homage to Charlie Chaplin buoyed by Rob McClure's brilliant star turn . . . Read More

Athol Fugard not resting on his laurels

The Train Driver - That Athol Fugard, South Africa’s venerable, highly lauded playwright, is a helluva storyteller is re-affirmed the eighty-year-old’s more recent and arguably best plays . . . Read More

Octogenarian playwright still going strong

The Train Driver - That Athol Fugard, South Africa’s venerable, highly lauded playwright, is a helluva storyteller is re-affirmed the eihty-year-old’s more recent and arguably best plays . . . Read More

A devised play in London

Morning - this is devised by the Young Company of the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith and the Junges Theater Basel, like much of this type of theatre it is in the play making, the excitement of joining in that is the journey rather than in the finished product . . . . Read More

Time to fringe in Philly

Philadelphia Live Arts Festival + Philly Fringe Report - a sampling of this year's Fringe offerings . . . Read More

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CurtainupNewLinks: Sam Shepard's new puzzle play

CurtainupNewLinks: Sam Shepard's new puzzle play: Heartl...

Sam Shepard's new puzzle play

Heartless - Sam Shepard may be at the point in life where he's eligible for social security, but don't count on his having settled into easy, entertainment mode. Heartless may not be his best play— surely you can't expect a busy double tasker (actor as well as playwright) to hit home runs every time or to change his modus operandi — dark, enigmatic explorations of dysfunctional families. . . . Read More