VIEWPOINTS – BAM’s Next Wave Festival continues with two stimulating international productions: 32 RUE VANDENBRANDEN & BARBER SHOP CHRONICLES

In recent weeks, BAM’s Next Wave Festival continued robustly with two stimulating, stirringly-staged international productions at the Harvey Theater. First we have Gabriela Carrizo and Franck Chartier’s 32 rue Vandenbranden (RECOMMENDED), … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Will Eno depicts the totality of life in THE UNDERLYING CHRIS, the playwright’s most conventional work to date

Currently running Off-Broadway at the Tony Kiser Theater is Second Stage Theater’s production of The Underlying Chris by Will Eno. In many ways, Mr. Eno is American playwriting’s contemporary response to … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – TFANA’s meticulous staging of María Irene Fornés’s FEFU AND HER FRIENDS does the audacious, scantly-seen modern classic proud

This past weekend at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn, I had the exciting opportunity to finally catch a live performance of the seminal, scantly-seen Fefu and Her Friends by Cuba American playwright María … Continue Reading →

VIEWPOINTS – Three flawed but fascinating Off-Broadway musicals this fall and early winter: CYRANO, EINSTEIN’S DREAMS, and BROADBEND, ARKANSAS

This fall and early winter, I encountered a trio of fascinating if flawed Off-Broadway musicals, the product of three consistently intriguing theater companies – The New Group, Prospect Theater Company, and Transport … Continue Reading →

VIEWPOINTS – Signature Theatre Company continues to uphold the legacy of American playwriting via fine revivals of Anna Deavere Smith’s FIRES IN THE MIRROR and Horton Foote’s THE YOUNG MAN FROM ATLANTA

Off-Broadway’s Signature Theatre Company continues to serve an important function in New York’s crowded theater scene. That is, to serve as a space to celebrate and uphold the legacy of … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – City Center’s gala production of EVITA is musically ravishing, led by Solea Pfeiffer’s star-making performance

This afternoon, I caught one of the final performances of New York City Center’s gala production of Evita, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Tony-winning 1979 musical about Eva Peron, Argentina’s … Continue Reading →

VIEWPOINTS – Strange coincidence: The stage adaptations of Édouard Louis’s THE END OF EDDY & HISTORY OF VIOLENCE take up residence in Brooklyn

Matthew Lopez’s The Inheritance isn’t the only play in town theatricalizing the gay experience. In a strange coincidence and an unprecedented collaboration between two of Brooklyn’s top performing arts institutions – the Brooklyn Academy … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – No rest for the weary: The provocative, unabashedly personal BLACK EXHIBITION finds playwright (and actor) Jeremy O. Harris working overtime

As they say, there’s no rest for the weary, as exemplified by playwright Jeremy O. Harris’s uniquely busy fall. One of the unlikeliest sensations of the Broadway season thus far … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – FORBIDDEN BROADWAY: THE NEXT GENERATION is inspired parody, and one of the most consistently hilarious entries in the long-lived series

This past weekend at the Triad Theatre, I caught the latest in a long line of entries in Gerard Alessandrini’s revered and invaluable Forbidden Broadway series, this one entitled “The Next Generation”. … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – THE GREAT TAMER, Dimitris Papaioannou’s surreal, slow-burning visual symphony, mesmerizes at BAM

Last night at the Howard Gilman Opera House, the highly regarded Greek auteur Dimitris Papaioannou made his BAM debut with The Great Tamer, another smashing offering at this year’s Next Wave Festival. … Continue Reading →