THE HANGOVER REPORT – Basil Twist’s genre-busting SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE returns, triumphantly

What’s the most compelling dance performance currently playing in town? Well, I’d place my bet on singular visual artist Basil Twist’s gorgeously handcrafted Symphonie Fantastique at HERE Arts Center. The thing is, … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Lynn Nottage’s minimalist MLIMA’S TALE is a haunting, unexpected parable

Last night, I caught Lynn Nottage’s haunting parable of a play Mlima’s Tale at the Public Theater. Ms. Nottage’s latest is an unexpected departure from the meaty naturalistic dramas that have … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Patch of Blue’s WE LIVE BY THE SEA is a visceral, uncomfortable portrait of teenage autism

Each year, I look forward to Brits Off Broadway, 59E59 Theater’s wonderful spring festival which brings the best of the UK’s fringe theater scene to New York. The festival got off … Continue Reading →

VIEWPOINTS – An unexpected PYGMALION-fest: A sterling MY FAIR LADY and a penetrating Bedlam treatment

Perhaps inadvertently, New York has been having quite a mini-Pygmalion festival this winter. It started a few weeks ago with two very different one-act operatic adaptations (one by Donizetti, the other by … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – The new musical MISS YOU LIKE HELL is earnest and topical, but not yet fully-formed

I recently had a chance to catch Quiara Alegría Hudes and Erin McKeown’s earnest new musical Miss You Like Hell at the Public Theater. The musical tells the story of a fraught mother-daughter relationship. … Continue Reading →

VIEWPOINTS – Shakespeare in Brooklyn: KING LEAR at BAM and THE WINTER’S TALE at TFANA

Two of this winter’s most high profile productions of Shakespeare plays were not to be found in Manhattan, but rather in Brooklyn. Indeed, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s anticipated staging of King … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – The Broadway revival of CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD is dated, albeit urgently performed

This week saw the opening of the first Broadway revival of Mark Medoff’s 1980 play Children of a Lesser God at Studio 54. So how has the play held up? Well, the … Continue Reading →

VIEWPOINTS – The kids aren’t alright: Vox Motus’s FLIGHT and Lindsey Ferrentino’s THIS FLAT EARTH

A recent crop of shows in the past month or so have curiously depicted kids under severe duress. Alex Lubischer’s play Bobbie Clearly and the Bengsons’ musical The Lucky Ones both feature communities coping … Continue Reading →

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Rodgers and Hammerstein’s CAROUSEL is richly and rewardingly revived on Broadway

One of the most formative theater experiences for me as a young theatergoer was experiencing, as a teenager, Nicholas Hytner’s transporting 1994 National Theatre revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel on … Continue Reading →

VIEWPOINTS – Tolstoy onstage, unexpectedly: Gob Squad’s WAR AND PEACE and Eifman’s ANNA KARENINA

Tolstoy’s works are undisputed masterworks of world literature. Two novels in particular, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are towering achievements, panoramic works that are at once intense psychological portraits. Over the last … Continue Reading →