NEW YORK, NY; March 24, 2022—Shaina Taub’s passion and earnestness are brilliantly exhilarating and exhausting in the musical Suffs at the Public Theater, continuously from the opening number straight through the following 2-3/4 hours. A sung-through musical about the suffrage movement and passage of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote, Taub is …
BROOKLYN, NY; March 6, 2020—Riva is probably right — she usually is: No one would dare cough or sneeze in a theater right now. You’d be stared down and tsk-tsk’ed right up the coronavirus-disinfected aisle. But it’s a tense, respectful, hold-in-your-stomach quiet we’ve experienced in theaters the last few weeks, the kind of quiet that …
We are in for a bracing year of serious-minded theater in New York City if the first two offerings of the 2017-2018 season at the Signature and Atlantic theater companies are any indication. The searing Fucking A, by Suzan-Lori Parks at the Signature, one of two “riffs” by Parks on The Scarlet Letter, dates to …
Marie & Rosetta is a stirring and often rousing musical biography of the life of gospel popularizer (and rock and roll predecessor) Sister Rosetta Tharpe. The work focuses on Tharpe’s relationship with her protégé Marie Knight, who Tharpe pulled from Mahalia Jackson’s backup choir and with whom she performed for three years. Kecia Lewis and …
Through June 7, 2015 Athol Fugard’s “The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek” at the Signature Theater is, as most of Fugard’s plays are, about apartheid in South Africa. It is also, as most of his plays are, about the struggle between any two sides — when it comes to divisions over race, class, and economic …
Dying For It Atlantic Theater Company – Linda Gross Theater Through January 18, 2015 Every Brilliant Thing Barrow Street Theater Through March 29, 2015 The common thread here is suicide, with both pieces evidence humor and great empathy. “Dying For It” is a more conventional play, and a true ensemble-driven farce about suicide, at that. …
Atlantic Theater Company Stage 2 Through February 15, 2015 Great writing, excellent acting, and highly unpleasant to sit through (intentionally so, which I suppose makes that a compliment). Famous playwright father David (Reed Birney) and aspiring actress daughter Ella (Betty Gilpin) tear each other apart while drinking, snorting, and waiting for the reviews of Ella’s …
nightmayer 