Off-Broadway

In a Bumper Year, Four New American Plays Won Obies; Eight More Were Strong Contenders

The plays are the thing

Songs of Disco and Dictators

Former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne on Imelda Marcos and the bubble of power

Announcing the Winners of the 2013 Village Voice Obie Awards

The 58th Annual Village Voice Obie Awards, celebrating achievement in the Off-Broadway and off-off Broadway theater, were given out at a ceremony tonight at Webster Hall. The awards ceremony was co-hosted by Jessica Hecht and Jeremy Shamos. The awards were presented by Bobby Cannavale, Tracee Chimo, ... More >>

Bull: Revolving Toreador

Mike Bartlett turns downsizing into a blood sport

Kinky Boots Kicks Up Some Familiar High Heels; Buyer and Cellar Prowls Barbra's Mall

Shop talk

The Loud New Musical Matilda Turns Dahl Into Dull

A Scan of Ann

As Texas governor Ann Richards, Holland Taylor rules

THE SOCIAL ARTIST

Jesse Eisenberg is 
ready to chat

Carson Kressley Joins NEWSical! He'll Pay Homage To Rachel Maddow!

Emmy-winning Carson Kressley joins the cast of off Broadway's topical revue NEWSical The Musical for four weeks only, from February 6th - March 3rd. The popular (and highly fashionable) TV personality just gave me a queer eyeful--and earful--of what's in store. Hi, Carson. Congrats! Is this your f ... More >>

Get To Know the "Literally Psychedelic" Sounds of Jagjagjuwar's Foxygen

For Foxygen -- the songwriting duo of Sam France and Jonathan Rado -- 2012 was a year rife with experimentation, sound explorations and a ton of time logged either on their computers or at the studio. Though the feather-haired pair has been writing songs together since the age of 14, Foxygen release ... More >>

Dusty Springfield Was More Complex Than You Think

I told you yesterday about Forever Dusty, starring Kirsten Holly Smith (pictured below) as the immortal singer and activist Dusty Springfield. Well, if you were wishin' and hopin' for more about the late, great singer, here's what Smith has to say about what makes her a fascinating subject for a 90 ... More >>

AdA (Author Directing Author) Has a Gimmick for You

Plays from Neil LaBute and Marco Calvani at La MaMa

Lewis Black: Romney's So White He Makes Dubya Look Jamaican!

The comedian kvetches about Mitt and Obama—but cops to being hopeful

Give 'Em the Dickens: A Harsh Message for Republicans

Delving inside a Simon Callow book

Susan Tyrrell Told Me: "I'm Basically A C-Word"

I just found the very first interview I did with late, great actress Susan Tyrrell. It was in 1981, for Soho Weekly News (two years before the Details one I've been running excerpts from.) Tyrrell had just gone into the off-Broadway play A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking. She spoke of t ... More >>

15 American Plays It'd Be Great to See Revived

The unusual suspects

OBIES 2012: What Off-Broadway Needs Now

We asked Off- and Off-Off theatermakers what they feel the scene is missing

The Living Theatre Continues Struggle to Keep Its Home

The longstanding alternative theater company yet to meet emergency fundraising goal

The Lyons Goes Cort-ing

Nicky Silver and Linda Lavin make the move uptown

Once: Czech Your Eire

A musical's transfer tests Broadway's sense of values

Of Montreal

Blood Knot: Of Place and Race

Fugard's classic inaugurates a new theatrical meeting ground

Look Back in Anger: Surly to Bed

John Osborne's British classic faces an American audience again

Why I Hate Theater! Appalling!

Read my column now or see the musical later

Lysistrata Jones Is Greece, The Musical

A new Broadway show gives Aristophanes some hoop dreams

A Seasonally Adjusted Ghost Story

To improve New York theater could take a Dickens of an update

Kissing Sid James

Little Lord's Babes in Toyland

Iron Curtain Gets Good Marx for Silliness

A new “musical Commie-dy” could make both Reds and Red-staters feel less blue

Burning Brings You Incest, Anal Sex, and ... Some Farts

The New Group stages Thomas Bradshaw's new provocation

Venus in Fur: Hugh Dancy and Nina Arianda Take S&M Uptown

David Ives's play makes its Broadway transfer

Venus In Fur On Broadway: My Review

​When Nina Arianda entered the stage last year in the off-Broadway production of David Ives's Venus In Fur, playing Vanda, a frazzled yet manipulative actress who's late for an audition, it was almost like she was actually auditioning for all of us. This was our first glimpse of the brand new ... More >>

The Lyons Offers Glints of Silver

Linda Lavin breaks the dysfunctional-family pattern at the Vineyard

EYE OF THE TIGER LILLIES

Cinderella becomes a crack whore

Piggish Hollywood on Trial in Exhibit A Prince of Swine

My Near Brush With Broadway Immortality

​Rent has returned to off-Broadway, as I noted in my review the other day. And that reminds me that in one of the original versions of the show's song "La Vie Boheme"--a bouncy chronicling of the people and things that have inspired bohemian culture--composer Jonathan Larson included my name! ... More >>

Zach Braff Summers on 43rd with All New People

Second Stage mounts the actor's new comedy

Michael Greif, Director, and Angela Wendt, Costume Designer, Revisit Rent

Joan Marcus​Since 1996, the musical Rent has entered the musical theater pantheon, won a Pulitzer, and been praised, parodied, and panned (when it made its way to the screen). Now, three years after the show closed its Broadway run after 12 years in 2008, a revival is in previews at New World ... More >>

Tom Aldredge (1928-2011); Consummate Supporting Actor

Tom Aldredge​I did not realize the extent to which Tom Aldredge was a hero of mine till the news of his death on Friday, July 22, of lymphoma, at age 83, made me look back on his half century of performances, Off-Broadway and on, which brought me several important realizations: I realize that, des ... More >>

Good Times, Bad Times

Four critics on the theaters they most like attending. And the ones not so much.

Whose Avant-Garde?

On the occasion of the 56th Annual Obie Awards, we ask theater-makers their view of today’s—and tomorrow’s—experimental theater

Tomorrow: Our 10 Best Pre-Theater Prix-Fixe Restaurants

flickr/Kevin LabiancoWhere to eat in this maze of lights? Well, for starters, not the ESPN Zone.​ Mark your calendars, because Monday the 16th marks the 56th annual Obie Awards, celebrating the best of Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway theater. Here at Fork in the Road, we especially like d ... More >>

The People in the Picture—That's Shoah Biz!

Yiddish theater meets Holocaust meets Broadway tuner at Studio 54

What's Wrong With Broadway? It's Not Just Spider-Man!

Bono's Peter Parker isn't the only thing that's crashing and boring

Show Biz Is The Worst! Hear Me Out

​ Yes, I know that every breathing creature on earth dreams of a life in show biz, but trust me: It's hell in a handbasket. Once you enter into "the biz," there's no stability, zero security, and incomplete satisfaction. Unlike most professions, the life of an actor is a job-by-job existenc ... More >>

Josephine Baker Brings Her Bananas to the Stage

​ At the Mik Cire men's fashion show at Lincoln Center, I enjoyed not only the clothes, but the whole scene that happens in the waiting area, where everyone's mwahing each other in between enjoying the free wine bar and frappuccino samples. (I got three, plus an organic candle that moisturize ... More >>

Ellen Stewart (1919-2011)

Remembering the woman who helped invent downtown theater

Ellen Stewart, La MaMa Founder, Has Died at Age 91

Ellen Stewart at La MaMa in 1991 (Jonathan Slaff)​Ellen Stewart, 91, universally known as La Mama and acclaimed as one of the formidable figures who shaped the Off-Off-Broadway theater movement, died peacefully in her sleep on Wednesday night. The founder and guiding spirit of Café La MaMa, l ... More >>

Edward Albee, Judith Malina, and the Soul of Off-Broadway

The reopening of the Provincetown Playhouse helps theater (and a critic) look both backward and onward

Inspector Sands Slips Into Hysteria

The young London company makes its U.S. debut