Top New York Theater News
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What happens to a political play that's three decades old? Can it keep its emotional charge, or does it wither when its social relevance fades?... More >>
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The theater is a swindle, an exercise in sham. Every play operates on principles of treachery: Flimsy set pieces substitute for solid spaces;... More >>
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Who knew Supreme Court justices have such complicated, libidinous inner lives? Anthony Kennedy muses on adults-only car washes. Sandra Day... More >>
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The ardor animating the latest Romeo and Juliet seems less the marriage of true minds than the commingling of hot bods. In David Leveaux's... More >>
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Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s Life and Times: Episodes 4.5 and 5—at this year’s Crossing the Line Festival—are the newest... More >>
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What homeless diva recently threatened to commit suicide if her rich patrons didn't cough up $20 million by the end of the year? That's... More >>
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It's unusual to review a show after only seeing about a tenth of it. But All the Faces of the Moon, master monologist Mike Daisey's epic new... More >>
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Playwright Will Power rolls with the puchesIn 1969, during his exile from boxing, Muhammad Ali starred in a Broadway musical, Buck White. A tuneful spoof of the black power movement, the... More >>
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Horton Foote began writing The Old Friends in 1963 or '64, as a sort of sequel to his early play, Only the Heart. Between '64 and Foote's death... More >>
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Is it tragic that tens of millions of people's entire conception of Gilbert & Sullivan comes from a minute or so of silliness on a Simpsons... More >>
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An agreeably minor comedy in both scope and key, Ethan Coen's Women or Nothing opens with a surefire farcical premise and then, to its credit,... More >>
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Actor-director-playwright Regina Taylor's quasi-experimental stop. reset. (Signature Theatre) takes place in the offices of the awkwardly named... More >>
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Being from Western Massachusetts myself, I was excited to sample The Hill Town Plays, Lucy Thurber's cycle of five dramas set amid the hamlets... More >>
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Ever had a friend whom you both love and love to hate? One who feels like a parasite sucking at your soul, but whom you can't cut loose, because,... More >>
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Despite its title, The Machine isn't really about Deep Blue, the supercomputer that famously beat chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov in 1997. As... More >>
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Richard Nelson says farewell to the Apples with Regular Singing
Not a lot happens in the Apple Family plays. In each of Richard Nelson's four dramas, the Apples (three sisters, one brother, an uncle, a... More >>
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The Amoralists check in at a haunted hotel
An Italian guy, a gay guy, a black guy, and a girl show up in Savannah looking for action. If that sounds like the setup for a bad joke, it... More >>
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NAATCO's production is worth getting up for, listening to
Some specifics, of course, have staled since 1935: the idea of Soviet Russia as a society ours should emulate, or that a premarital pregnancy... More >>
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Ken Urban'sThe Awake begins with a disorienting swirl of scene shifts. Malcolm (Andy Phelan) prepares to visit his mother (Dee Nelson), who later... More >>
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In the theater, the age-old fantasy of a happy marriage between art and science has given us some truly great plays about the lives of... More >>
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Shakespeare gets a fresh update, complete with Slurpees and pot.Four ladies, four dudes, some wacky clowns, and lots of wordplay—sounds like a foolproof formula for Shakespearean comedy, right? In the... More >>
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Untitled Theater Company’s workshop production of Money Lab explores one of the quintessential cocktail party dilemmas—the... More >>
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Last weekend kicked off the 17th year of the New York International Fringe Festival (aka FringeNYC), which runs through August 25. As with any... More >>
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First Date is a new and aggressively stupid Broadway musical that follows a young man and woman through a blind dinner-date. Even its lone... More >>
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How does this sound: Whitney Houston stars in Precious: a one-woman musical based on the TV show Intervention, with music by Diane Warren, from... More >>
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How will the expansion of the American family influence the domestic drama—that most durable and venerable of genres? Will our stages still... More >>
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Two guys and a piano seek whodunit
Who killed Arthur Whitney, the successful New England novelist who knew everyone's secrets—and used them in his books? Why doesn't anyone... More >>
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A sanitized Beatles tribute could use "Help!"
Let It Be, a new concert-style "celebration" of the Beatles and their ubiquitous music—which you would hardly think needs more... More >>
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Wallace Shawn is a dangerous man. If he confronted you in some darkened alley you might feel more inclined to giggle than cower, but don't let... More >>
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Nobody Loves You, the musical comedy now running at Second Stage, is the theatrical equivalent of the watermelon martini: jokey, overly sweet,... More >>
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Storyville is a portrait of the New Orleans red light district sometimes credited as the birthplace of jazz, in the days before the federal... More >>
From the Print Edition
The Film Society Can't Quite Make the Leap From Past to Present
What happens to a political play that's three decades old? Can it keep its emotional charge, or does it wither when its social relevance fades? You may be asking these… More >>
Blame It on Magritte
You might assume that the Photoshop fantasias of our age would make the visual conundrums of René Magritte's pre-war paintings feel quaint. Certainly the beguiling originality of his fractured figures… More >>
Deceptive Practices: The Glass Menagerie's Poignant Con Game
The theater is a swindle, an exercise in sham. Every play operates on principles of treachery: Flimsy set pieces substitute for solid spaces; people assume names and accents other than… More >>
Not What Happened: A Meditation on Truth and Historical Accuracy
Provocations don't come much gentler than Ain Gordon's Not What Happened, which concluded a brief run at BAM's Next Wave Festival. A meditation on truth and historical accuracy, directed by… More >>
Arguendo Is Full of Supremely Naughty Charm
Who knew Supreme Court justices have such complicated, libidinous inner lives? Anthony Kennedy muses on adults-only car washes. Sandra Day O'Connor contemplates pornographic videos. Antonin Scalia obsesses over nude opera.… More >>
Tragic Lovers Get Teenage Kicks in Romeo and Juliet Revival
The ardor animating the latest Romeo and Juliet seems less the marriage of true minds than the commingling of hot bods. In David Leveaux's revival at Broadway's Richard Rodgers, Orlando… More >>
The Propeller Group Take on the Art World's Celebrity Fixation
"Are celebrities the new art stars?" asked a Newsweek cover story in July. A few months later, certain windy developments (or popcorn farts) that passed for world-shaking events on TMZ… More >>
Q&A: Mario Alberto Zambrano on Taking the Leap From Dancer to Novelist With Lotería
The game Lotería can best be described as a Mexican version of bingo, but instead of numbers, each card bears a striking image, such as beautiful sea goddess La Sirena… More >>
Nature Theater of Oklahoma's Latest Movingly Illustrates a Sexual Awakening
Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s Life and Times: Episodes 4.5 and 5—at this year’s Crossing the Line Festival—are the newest installments in an epic performance depicting the life story of Kristin… More >>
Anna Nicole: A Cautionary Tale Against Gigantic Breast Implants
What homeless diva recently threatened to commit suicide if her rich patrons didn't cough up $20 million by the end of the year? That's right—the New York City Opera. So… More >>
