Reviews

Kimberly Akimbo, the new musical which premiered tonight at the Atlantic Theater Company, does not carry itself with the weight David Lindsay-Abaire’s book and lyrics, and Jeanine Tesori’s music, hold. The offbeat anti-comedy glides along like an awkward teen at the New Jersey ice-skating rink its characters hang around, but make no mistake: this is a momentous work of theatre, exquisitely performed by a stellar cast of talent, known and new.

This production of Michael R. Jackson's A Strange Loop Woolly Mammoth comes after the show’s much-lauded off-Broadway production in the summer of 2019, produced by Playwrights Horizons and Page 73 Productions. The D.C. production of A Strange Loop was announced in March of 2020, right before the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered theatre across America, and right before Jackson’s won 2020’s Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the show. Woolly Mammoth isn’t known for producing musicals, yet it makes sense for A Strange Loop to be staged here. The musical has more in common with Woolly Mammoth’s past productions of experimental Black plays (like Fairview or An Octoroon) than the reworkings of classic musicals typically seen in D.C. theatre.

It appears that one of the major vibes, if you will, of post-quarantine theatre is tension, in particular claustrophobic, interpersonal tension that builds between people stuck in a small space or a single room. This mood permeates recent plays including Pass Over, Dana H, Is This A Room, Last of the Love Letters, The Fever, and now, Sylvia Khoury’s Selling Kabul at Playwrights Horizons. Of course, these plays all or mostly pre-date the pandemic, and yet after so much time being stuck inside, they feel different, more intense and real than ever before. The notion of a single-room play is nothing new, but now, after many of us have been living single-room lives, they have a newfound relevancy and relatability. They haunt us in ways that feel familiar. 

Where the show truly shines is with the fantastic company that director Jerry Zaks has assembled. Rob McClure is a theatrical force to be reckoned with. Seamlessly transitioning back and forth between Daniel and Doubtfire, McClure is giving a career defining performance that would surely make Robin Williams proud. The lovely Jenn Gambatese as Miranda and their on-stage children Analise Scarpaci as Lydia (terrific), Jake Ryan Flynn as Christopher (enthusiastic), and Avery Sell as Natalie (adorable) make up the Hillard clan. A Broadway review of Mrs. Doubtfire.

Clyde's is now in performance at the Hayes Theatre on 44th Street in New York City. A Broadway review of Lynn Nottage's latest play at Second Stage Theater.

Lauren Yee’s The Great Leap, now at Bethesda’s Round House Theatre and streaming online, offers one potent exploration of these questions. Yee’s answer—which is vividly brought to life in this production—is to reconfigure Chinese history into a story between parents and children, mapping painful histories of nations onto the painful histories of family. In this so-called “socio-political fable,” allegory and memory are intertwined to both delightful and calamitous effect.

Diana, The Musical opened tonight at the Longacre Theatre on West 48th Street here in New York City. Our Chief Critic Juan A. Ramirez went and reviewed the new production starring Jeanna de Waal.

Alice Childress had a lot to say about being a Black woman working in theatre in 1955, and channeled those righteously indignant observations into Trouble in Mind, which finally opened Broadway earlier tonight. The work had been scheduled to transfer from its successful original off-Broadway run, but Childress would not make the cuts producers felt would smooth out the play’s open-faced callout of systemic racism, and the production was canceled. The story of how the play finally made it to the Great White Way is a bittersweet triumph that says more about our culture than about the work itself, and Roundabout Theatre Company is ensuring that we know it, announcing it before performances and noting it in all of its advertisements. The play’s insights, and the fact they remain as relevant now as they were over 60 years ago, are equally more about the context than the material. Directed by Charles Randolph-Wright without the red-blooded urgency it calls for, it is more of a respectful replica of a time capsule than an authentic relic itself. A review of Trouble in Mind on Broadway.

Paradise Square represents many firsts in the theater industry’s recovery from the pandemic shutdown. It’s the first production to reopen the Nederlander Theatre — a pillar of the Loop theater district — and the first pre-Broadway run of a major new work in Chicago. When it transfers to New York City’s Barrymore Theatre, where it’s slated to begin previews in February of next year, it will be among one of the first new musicals to open on Broadway. A review of the new pre-broadway tryout.

Erika Dickerson-Despenza, the writer of Cullud Wattah, a magnificent new play which just opened at the Public Theater, calls herself a ‘cultural-memory worker.’ I’d usually bristle at the self-proclaimed title, so vague in its implications, but anyone who can follow the stunning shadow/land—the first installment in her epic 10-play “Katrina cycle,” released as an audio production by the Public earlier this year—with a work of such breathtaking beauty can do just about anything, including convincing me of their title. Because, while Dickerson-Despenza is a playwright of the once-in-a-generation kind, these two works assert her mastery at combining the intimate family histories of classic memory plays with the political sharpness of an agile social worker. A review of cullud wattah at the Public Theater.

Our Chief Critic Juan A. Ramirez reviews Is This A Room on Broadway, which is now in performances at the Lyceum Theatre on West 45th Street in New York City, conceived and directed by Tina Satter.

Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord is an exuberant release of a show, a total joy to behold. Wong unfolds her tale of a ragtag group of quarantined volunteers who sewed thousands of masks with boundless, chaotic energy. But the show, which opened tonight at New York Theatre Workshop, also never loses sight of an essential fact: none of this should have been necessary. 

Winnie the Pooh is now in performance at the newly renamed Hundred Acre Wood Theatre at Theatre Row in New York City.

There is a whopping cast of twelve in Fairycakes, Douglas Carter Beane’s new sendup of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and other assorted fairy tales, which just opened at the Greenwich House Theater. Its stage is of a large enough size, but it buckles under the weight of Beane’s bloated design: twelve performers, some playing multiple roles, struggling to find a spare minute with which to make an impression, and tools to help them.

A review of the Broadway production of Caroline, or Change starring Sharon D Clarke which is in performance at Studio 54 on West 54th Street in New York City.

We first see Walter reprimanding his students for being distracted in class. Soon enough, however, he realizes he is just as distracted with his own life. Walter, played admirably by David Hyde Pierce, is a widowed economic professor whose spark is in danger of going out. In The Visitor, a new musical based on the 2007 film of the same name which premiered at the Public Theater, he rekindles that flame thanks to the discovery of two strangers who have set up camp in his unused Manhattan apartment. With music and lyrics by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, and a book by Yorkey and Kwame Kwei-Armah, it is a story which attempts to bridge the gap between an established American and the two undocumented immigrants he finds. Whether it closes that same divide between its intentions and its results is a question the work seems to have left answered back during the film’s premiere. The Visitor is now in performance at the Public Theater through December 5, 2021.

Morning Sun starring Blair Brown, Edie Falco, and Marin Ireland is now in performance at Manhattan Theatre Club at New York City Center through December 19, 2021.

Assassins is now in performance at Classic Stage Company in New York City. A review by Joey Sims.

Nollywood Dreams is a simple, delightful play in which a young woman wishes to break into Nigeria’s film industry (known as Nollywood) as it booms in the ‘90s. Written by Jocelyn Bioh with wit and well-observed attention to characterization, it is not much more than that. In its premiere production at MCC Theater, though, performed by a lovable cast, it doesn’t have to be. A review by Juan A. Ramirez.

In that same spirit, Trevor, an agreeable new musical about a gay teen’s 1981 life, which just had its New York premiere at Stage 42, goes through the motions of the typical teen dramedy, likely inspiring younger audience members without risking anything in the process. With Dan Collins’ charming, if trite, book and lyrics, and Julianne Wick Davis’ forgettable music, it is much like the Instagram infographics which have recently taken the place of genuine activism: a telegraphed signal of virtue without much commitment.

Birds of North America is now in performance at the Mosaic Theater Company through November 21, 2021.

The astonishing new thriller Dana H. opened tonight at the Lyceum Theatre on Broadway, our review.

More than 17 months after COVID-19 forced theatres around the country to cancel performances, Papermill Playhouse is back and rocking it to the rafters with a vibrant revival of Jason Robert Brown’s Songs for a New World. “Songs for a Thousand Cabarets” could be the alternative title for this revue-like collection of ardent musical theatre-pop-soliloquies given its popularity with soloists and cabaret artists. Those artists include stars as varied as Karen Akers, Betty Buckley, Audra McDonald, and Shoshana Bean―not to mention hundreds of thousands of aspirants around the world. Having grown up belting the original cast recording with my musical theatre friends as we skipped to rehearsal, I have always loved the show. But going into this Mark S. Hoebee directed production, I found myself wondering, “How does the full show of stand-alone solos, duets, and quartets stack up 26 years after its premiere?” As led by the sensational Carolee Carmello, as brilliantly as it did back in 1995.

You have to feel bad for the sole character in The Fever, Wallace Shawn’s 1990 monologue which just opened in a new production starring Lili Taylor at the Audible Theatre at Minetta Lane Theatre. The only thing worse than spending a night with your head in a porcelain bowl is doing so with a troubled mind, terminally regretful of every single thing you did to wind up here. Maybe you even start thinking about the state of the world, paralleling your own face-down demise to larger, global themes. The difference between such nights and this one-act performance, though, is that one is usually content to grab the toothpaste and move on.

A review of The Lehman Trilogy on Broadway, by Stefano Massini and adapted by Ben Power, which is now in performance at the Nederlander Theatre on West 41st Street in New York City.

A Broadway review of Thoughts of a Colored Man, a new play by Keenan Scott II and directed by Steve H. Broadnax III and is now in performance at the John Golden Theatre on West 45th Street in New York City.

When I walked into the Tony Kiser Theatre on Sunday, I was greeted by a bluish-grey set with a desk downstage and a bench upstage, muted colored mountains traced the wings. Over the next 90 minutes, an intricate play about long distance companionship, and origami, glowingly unfolded itself. This new play, Letters of Suresh, by Rajiv Joseph opened tonight at Second Stage Theatre. The play starts with Melody, a Japanese-Korean woman who’s great-uncle (who she never met) recently passed away. Melody recently returned to Seattle from his funeral in Nagasaki with her great-uncle's only possessions: A box of letters from a man named Suresh. Melody writes a letter to Suresh informing him of her great-uncle's passing and to ask him if he would like his letters back. As the play continues, we learn more about the author of these letters and the relationship between Suresh and Melody’s great-uncle, Father Mitsuo Hashimoto.

A review of the new Broadway comedy Chicken & Biscuits which is now in performance at the Circle in the Square Theatre on West 50th Street in New York City.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson is intimately familiar with Lackawanna Blues, his play which opened Thursday night at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, and not just because he based it on his own upbringing. The one-man ode to the woman who raised him premiered at the Public in 2001, was adapted by HBO in 2005, and has been performed here and there since. And yet, his eyes throughout the show reflect more than a glimmer of the bright lights of Broadway—they spark with the joy of generations and cultures finally expressing themselves on the largest stage in the country.

Juan A. Ramirez reviews Six The Musical, which opened on Broadway tonight and currently plays at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre in New York City.

Walking into the atrium for The Geffen Playhouse’s The Enigmatist, you are greeted by clumps of audience members peering at clues around the room, trying to solve puzzles before entering the auditorium. These are merely an amuse-bouche for David Kwong’s feast of puzzle, wit, and illusion that will commence shortly. There are ushers at hand to help out with hints, but almost everyone seemed game to get to the solutions on their own. Upon entering the Geffen’s intimate Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater, one notices that the room has been transformed from a traditional theater space to a paneled room that is reminiscent of an old pub, or a vintage study. The walls are lined with knickknacks that appear random, but on closer inspection make up a series of secret codes that exist solely for the audience’s decoding pleasure. 

It was fitting that I had to brave a superstorm to get to the theatre to see Sun & Sea, an opera about the impending climate disaster at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. After a critically acclaimed run in Europe, the piece has made its way to the shores of America. “Sun & Sea” plays its final performance at BAM on September 26. Following that, it will embark on a nationwide tour including stops in Philadelphia, Bentonville, AR, and Los Angeles.

A review of A Commercial Jingle For Regina Comet which is currently playing at the DR2 Theatre on East 15th Street in New York City through November 14, 2021.

The Getty Villa, a Los Angeles museum of Greek and Roman antiquities, is not the first location one might think of when mounting a musical tribute to Liza Minnelli. When that musical, however, is based on Aristophanes’ Lysistrata and set in an amphitheater against the backdrop of an ancient Roman villa, everything falls into place. 

Critic Juan A. Ramirez reviews Dear Evan Hansen, the film adaptation of the musical which will hit theatres on September 24.

Kyle Turner reviews xXPonyBoyDerekXx, a new theatrical experience on OnlyFans from Brooklyn-based playwright Gage Tarlton and The Misfits Theatre Company.

Situated in the McKittrick’s Club Car, a dark and hazy locale with dim lights and alcohol flowing, guests are sat at tables with half a dozen or so chairs and might I add some delicious popcorn at Speakeasy Magick. Our review.

On paper, The Memory of Water seems like a sombre affair, it follows three sisters as they are reunited for their mother’s funeral and examines their relationships with each other and with their significant others. Currently playing at the Hampstead Theatre through October 16.

Juan A. Ramirez reviews "The Last of the Love Letters” which plays through September 26 at the Linda Gross Theater at the Atlantic Theater Company on 20th Street in New York City.

Arturo Luís Soria’s Ni Mi Madre plays at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater through September 19. Our review for Theatrely.

Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu's PASS OVER is now open on Broadway at the August Wilson Theatre. Read Juan A. Ramirez's review for Theatrely now.

A theatrical review of playwright Liza Birkenmeier and director Katie Brook’s Islander, currently playing at the HERE Arts Center through September 4, 2021.

I had not seen a micro-play before this afternoon, but let me tell you, after experiencing the sextet of micro-plays at Theatre for One: Here is Future at Brookfield Properties’ Manhattan West Plaza, I can confidently say I’m a micro-play stan.

Max Harwood stars as Jamie New in Everybody's Talking About Jamie film which lands on Amazon on September 17. Juan A. Ramirez reviews for Theatrely.

Following a world premiere on the West End earlier in May produced by Sonia Friedman, TheaterWorks Hartford has taken this new ambitious drama and produced a rather incredible US Premiere of Amy Berryman's Walden. One of the most thrilling and satisfying nights at the theatre that I have had the pleasure of attending in a very long time — this is one of those performances that will be with you for many days. 

Juan A. Ramirez reviews Jocelyn Bioh's adaptation of The Merry Wives of Windsor currently playing at the Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park — a celebratino of the joyful pan-African spirit.

A response to Shakespeare’s King Lear, Marina Carr’s The Cordelia Dream, making its North American debut with the Irish Repertory Theatre in New York City, a woman revisits her strained relationship with a man after experiencing a chilling dream about King Lear and his daughter, Cordelia. 

Tennessee Williams’s The Two Character Play at the Hampstead Theatre ow follows a pair of actor siblings as they attempt to perform a play after the rest of their cast and crew abandoned them in a theatre in the middle of nowhere. What follows is an incredibly meta performance where actor and character become indistinguishable from each other. 

On a deeper note, I Hate It Here from the Goodman Theatre admits that so many horrible things in the world remain unchanged. The show does not suggest things will get better. Yet, if we take a moment to admit how bad things are, maybe we can find some common, solid ground. And that’s a start.

As you descend the stairs into Bond 45’s cellar, you are immediately handed a rather delicious craft cocktail (the first of five) and shown to your seats for an unforgettable evening of burlesque and belting at Speakeasy: Times Square

In E. Dale Smith’s new one-act play Fruma-Sarah (Waiting in the Wings), Jackie Hoffman stars as Ariana Russo, an embittered actor playing the ghost Fruma-Sarah in a community theatre production of Fiddler on the Roof.

Madeline Sayet’s one-woman filmed show Where We Belong, now streaming through Washington D.C.’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and Folger Shakespeare Library. Over the course of 80 minutes, Sayet gracefully explores the places she has tried to reclaim as her own—Shakespeare’s words, her Mohegan identity, her ancestors—and ultimately asks why we need to belong somewhere at all.

Theatrely made the trip out to Cape Cod to catch opening night of Little Shop of Horrors at the Cape Playhouse...and boy are we glad we did.

The Importance of Being Earnest, currently playing at Berkshire Theatre Group’s Unicorn Theatre in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, is pretty marvelous. Oscar Wilde’s witty comedic masterpiece begins BTG’s summer season and marks the company’s and this critic’s first indoor theatrical experience in many, many months. 

Directed by BT McNicholl, the hilarious musical comedy is the perfect production to introduce patrons back to in-person performances with Spamalot at Ogunquit Playhouse.

"Sloppy Bonnie: A Roadkill Musical for the Modern Chick" is streaming now through July 15 from No Puppet Co.

George Street Playhouse's final virtual production knocks it out of the park with Terrence McNally's "It's Only A Play"

See what our chief critic thought of IN THE HEIGHTS which hits theaters and HBO Max starting June 11.

A new filmed adaptation of her 2017 Bushwick Starr “musical seance”, ANIMAL WISDOM is co-produced by the American Conservatory Theater and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.

Emma Stone and Emma Thompson star in "Cruella" which is currently in theatres and streaming on Disney+.

"Persou" is currently running at The Cell Theatre in Chelsea until June 12th.

If hiding vegetables in your child’s macaroni and cheese were a musical, it would be The Door You Never Saw Before: A Choosical Musical at the Geffen Playhouse. This interactive musical written by Matt Schatz is the latest offering in the Geffen’s Stayhouse series of performances via Zoom.

Jacob Rivera reviews “This American Wife” for Theatrely.

We sent our chief critic to one of the first indoor performances in the city, see what he thought of "Lilies" - currently playing at The Theatre Center Off-Broadway.

Tony winner Susan Stroman directs a talented cast including Anna Chlumsky, David Corenswet, Stephen Kunken and more in Anna Ziegler's "Photograph 51" on chemist Rosalind Franklin.

Back on the road touring the UK, this new production is celebrating its 30th year wowing audience since its premiere in 1988.

Game night has officially begun! It’s puzzles galore in The Geffen Playhouse’s latest virtual offering Inside The Box, by magician and puzzler extraordinaire David Kwong.

Arden and Mays make a dynamic duet of the material, and that’s enough to warm the coldest heart.

Never has the saying “The Show Must Go On!” rang truer than with opening night of A Chorus Line now playing at the Cape Playhouse until August 3rd.

Get your tissues folks, and prepare for a realistic look at life, love, and loss. Writer Calvin Trillin’s About Alice takes a look at a grieving husband, Calvin (played by Jeffrey Bean) as he reminisces about the unforgettable times he had with his wife, Alice (played by Carrie Paff).

Harmon, no stranger to Boston audiences–Bad Jews and Significant Other–has struck gold with his latest play, unpacking what exactly it means to be a white liberal in today’s society.

Becky Mode’s hilarious "Fully Committed" now steaming through April 11 from George Street Playhouse starring Maulik Pancholy.

Before the curtain even rose on American Utopia playing at the historic Emerson Colonial Theatre, the sounds of birds and thunderstorms filled the space - I knew we were in for a unique night.

Loosely based on the movie of the same title from 2000, the musical follows two rival high schools on their way to Nationals for competitive cheerleading.

Critic Juan A. Ramirez explores Stacy Osei-Kuffour's world premiere play "Animals", part of Williamstown Theatre Festival's Audible season.

The LA-based playhouse has seemed to find the perfect formula for pandemic theatre after their recent productions of "The Present" and "Inside The Box".

Hi, Are You Single?, from Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in association with IAMA Theatre Company, is the perfect vehicle for Haddad to take us along his romantic journey in what is one of the most touching and poignant pieces of theatre this critic has seen throughout quarantine. 

Everything old is new again...that saying rings truer than ever in Cherry Docs now playing at The Rockwell.

SpeakEasy Stage Company opens their 29th season with Tarell Alvin McCraney’s coming-of-age drama Choir Boy.

Your favorite mystery-filled board game has come to life in a hilarious new play. Clue: On Stage opened last night at the Cape Playhouse here in Dennis, Massachusetts.

The Cape Playhouse closes their 93rd season with one of Broadway’s most successful comedic thrillers of all time.

It is not everyday that Dolly Parton premieres a new musical here in Boston, so the buzz around Dolly Parton’s Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol, now playing at the Emerson Colonial Theatre, has been the talk of the town.

Theresa Rebeck’s landmark one-woman show Bad Dates has been deliciously translated to the virtual screen as part of George Street Playhouse digital season.

Things are getting a little Freaky up in Beverly, MA. We are talking about Freaky Friday, a new musical now playing at North Shore Music Theatre until July 21st.

Oh bless the Lord, live theatre is certainly back. Sitting through quarantine over the past few months and often dreaming of what my first show back would be, I did not think Godspell in an open-air tent ever crossed my mind.

The Lyric Stage Company opened their 45th season with the cult-classic, Little Shop of Horrors, which continues to delight audiences of all ages.

We are all in the belly of the whale, er should I say the Loeb Drama Center here in Cambridge.

Check out Lara and Kobi's review of Moulin Rouge now playing at the Emerson Colonial in Boston.

Curtain up…or down..or should I say up for Noises Off now playing at the Cape Playhouse until August 17th.

“Life is good eh...even in Dublin” - well I would say life is great right here on Cape Cod! Of course that line comes from Once, the 2012 Tony Winning Best Musical now playing at the Cape Playhouse.

I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun at an opera.

It has been three days since I attended Pass Over at SpeakEasy Stage Company, and the powerful images of this new drama are still stirring inside my head.

Being a huge rom com and overall Julia Roberts fan, I was so excited to see Pretty Woman, the new musical that just opened at the Nederlander Theater here in New York.

Often, an efficacious story is one that is veiled in a series of satirical jokes. Such describes the brilliance behind Second City’s She The People at the Huntington Theatre Company.

I have said it time and time again, college theatre in Boston is continuing to create some of the most experimental and thought-provoking productions we have in the city.

As echoed in the opening number, SIX, now playing at the American Repertory Theater, is truly one of a kind.

As we approach one year of staying at home because of the pandemic it can be hard to see the wonder and amazement in the everyday things around us. Magician Dan White has tried–and succeeded–to bring back that sense of excitement in his virtual magic show The Magician Online.

With the current state of the world, live theatre starting to come back is like a hope-filled, sweet dream come true, just like Sleepless: a Musical Romance.

Written by Bess Wohl and beautifully directed by SpeakEasy regular M. Bevin O’Gara, Small Mouth Sounds brilliantly redefines silence not as a barrier, but rather a catalyst for introspective knowledge.

The Arlekin Players Theatre’s interactive performance proves that digital, distanced theatre can be a compelling medium. In fact, it’s a medium with incredibly high stakes.