World Goes `Round, The
Florida Studio Theater - Gompertz

The World Goes ’Round—devoted to the music and lyrics of Kinder and Ebb—is matched in devotion to their performance by the stars and band at Florida Studio Theater to begin its summer season. New FST Associate Artist Ben Liebert pays tribute to the show’s famous directors and choreographers marked by impressive stamps of his own in both positions.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
June 2024
Here There are Blueberries
New York Theater Workshop

The audience at the New York Theater Workshop is greeted with a camera on a stand positioned before a backdrop with a giant logo for Leica Cameras. Pleasant upbeat music from the 1930s and 40s plays in the background. After the lights have lowered, there is a drumroll, reminiscent of the one heard in the beginning of Cabaret (ominous foreshadowing) and two smiling actors enter to describe the revolution by Leica’s portable, affordable product.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
May 2024
Rhinestone Cowgirls: Legendary Ladies of Country Music
Florida Studio Theater - Goldstein Cabaret

Rhinestone Cowgirls is a lively revue of American Country Music and celebration of women artists who developed it. At Florida Studio Theater, three songstresses unite for a second summer, this time to both solo and harmonize major country music songs from the last century to today. There’s little scripted speech but many projections that explain or attribute progress in genre and major singers’ styles.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
May 2024
Br!nk! Br!efs!
Brink! Briefs!
Baumgartner Center for Dance

For the past 10 years, the end of each season at Milwaukee’s Renaissance Theaterworks has meant another edition of the Br!NK! New Play Festival. Renaissance, the city’s only women-led theater company, sponsors the festival each year. The theater company administrators invite Midwestern women playwrights to submit their work for consideration. Two playwrights are selected each season to receive the Br!NK! Residency Award — the opportunity to develop and advance their scripts during a week-long workshop with a director, cast and dramaturg.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
May 2024
Hell's Kitchen
Shubert Theater

Before anything else is said about Hell's Kitchen, praise must be heaped on this amazing cast. Maleah Joi Moon is simply spectacular as Ali, the seventeen year old girl who struggles with her mother, falls in love with the boy who seems all wrong for her, and discovers her love for music with an elder virtuoso. The combination of love and tension is perfect between Ali and her mom, Jersey (Shoshana Bean). Bean is basically in the background until she rocks out to surprise and thrill the audience- yes, standing ovation!

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
May 2024
Moulin Rouge
Marcus Performing Arts Center: Uihlein Hall

The Johnson Financial Group Broadway Series at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts concludes its 2023-24 season with a bang. No, this is not a reference to the confetti-spewing walking stick owned by the impresario in Moulin Rouge! The Musical now playing in Milwaukee for a two-week run. It is a reference to the most sumptuous, over-the-top musical to visit here this season – and the only show in the current season that is staying beyond its typical, one-week run.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
May 2024
Escape from Peligro Island
Milwaukee Youth Arts Center - Goodman Hall

Live theater takes an immersive twist with, Escape from Peligro Island, the final production in First Stage’s current season. This play is as vast as one’s imagination, as theatergoers are allowed to vote (more on this later) on various aspects of the play’s presentation. In a brief talkback after the play, a cast member noted that there are some 1,200 variations on what direction the play will follow.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
May 2024
Cabaret
August Wilson Theater

When Cabaret, the musical based on Christopher Isherwood’s “Berlin Stories” and I Am a Camera, John Van Druten’s straight-play adaptation, opened on Broadway in 1966, it was considered shocking but would probably be seen as tame today. Harold Prince’s original staging of the nightclub numbers was sleazy but charming, letting the audience feel loose, relaxed, and entertained. Then the introduction of swatiskas and the growing menace of Nazism in the second act came as a brutal shock.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
May 2024
Cabaret
August Wilson Theater

Cabaret is a difficult show, especially considering what's going on in the world, and our country in particular. It takes place in a carnival atmosphere, at first silly and jolly; the audience gets some real laughs, and the extreme vulgarity just helps to convince us that this has nothing to do with us, not really. But the cabaret turns into a nightmare, and we're all stuck in it.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
May 2024
Uncle Vanya
Lincoln Center - Vivian Beaumont Theater

Bitch, bitch, bitch. Get ready for some first-class moaning and complaining from the characters in Uncle Vanya. Fortunately, the actors involved are so uniformly excellent, talent wins out over the gloom.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
April 2024
Suffs
Music Box Theater

If there's any doubt as to how much an appreciative audience can lift up a show, go see Suffs. Not only was there applause in the theater, but also whooping for joy, and long, sustained clapping, rarely heard in an adult presentation.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
May 2024
Enemy of the People, An
Milwaukee Youth Arts Center

Although it has been more than 130 years since Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen wrote his indictment of democracy, An Enemy of the People, it remains as timeless as ever. A troupe of advanced high school actors at Milwaukee’s First Stage recently staged a highly competent rendering of this play (as adapted by Arthur Miller).

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
May 2024
Patriots
Ethel Barrymore Theater

Peter Morgan’s Patriots at the Ethel Barrymore, is Russian to its core and offers an insightful and chilling depiction of the current state of that country. In plays like Frost/Nixon and The Audience, and the Netflix series “The Crown,” Morgan has skillfully laid out complex political and social currents in America and Great Britain.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
May 2024
Uncle Vanya
Lincoln Center - Vivian Beaumont Theater

Lila Neugebauer’s laugh-filled, all-star revival of Anton Chekhov’s classic Uncle Vanya, at Lincoln Center’s cavernous Vivian Beaumont Theater, removes the play from its original setting of the pre-Revolutionary Russian countryside and places it in a non-specific, presumably American 2024. (Mimi Lein’s set appears to be somewhere in the rural heartland. The characters play jazz on a turntable. Costume designer Kaye Voyce has clothed them in casual modern dress.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
May 2024
Mary Jane
Samuel J. Friedman Theater

Amy Herzog provides us with a shattering and heartfelt portrayal of motherhood in Manhattan Theater Club’s revival of her 2017 play Mary Jane, now at the Samuel J. Friedman. Mary Jane, played Rachel McAdams in an impressive Broadway debut, faces a seemingly insurmountable challenge. She has been left by her spouse, but she does not dwell on her misfortune. Her only child Alex suffers from a laundry list of illnesses, rendering him unable to talk, breath or sit up on his own at age two.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
May 2024
Mother Play
Hayes Theater

At the start of Paula Vogel’s Mother Play, presented by Second Stage at the Hayes Theater, I thought, “Oh no, not another monster mother drama!” The opening of this semi-autobiographical memory work seems similar to classics such as The Glass Menagerie and Long Day’s Journey Into Night, both of which Mother Play star Jessica Lange has headlined on Broadway.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
May 2024
Great Gatsby, The
Broadway Theater

I don't remember Jeremy Jordan's voice being this rich, but in The Great Gatsby, he totally nails every number, and that's what keeps this show together. Based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel, everything revolves around a gang of people who really just aren't very nice. Their lives are filled with drinking, partying, and focusing on how much money they have. Jay Gatsby's saving grace is that he really does love his old flame, Daisy Buchanan (Eva Noblezada), and he'll do anything to get her back. But on closer viewing, is this really love, or is it obsession?

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
April 2024
Treasurer, The
Next Act Theater

A strained mother-son relationship forms the core of this engaging play by Max Posner, which is the final offering in the current season at Next Act Theatre. In a particularly strong season of offerings at Next Act, The Treasurer is among the best productions it has offered in 2023-24.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2024
Heart of Rock and Roll, The
James Earl Jones Theater

“Oh my God! It’s cardboard,” exclaims one of the characters in The Heart of Rock and Roll, the latest jukebox musical to hit Broadway, now at the James Earl Jones after a run at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego. He’s describing the packaging business the main character wants to succeed in, but he could be giving a summation of the plot and the show itself. Employing songs recorded by Huey Lewis and the News and a sitcom-level book by Jonathan A.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
April 2024
Sally & Tom
Public Theater

After examining the reverberations of the Lincoln assassination in The America Play and Topdog/Underdog, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks returns to American history to focus on its impact across racial and generational lines. In Sally & Tom, her clever play-within-a-play now at the Public Theater, Parks takes on the enigmatic relationship between Sally Hemmings and the man who enslaved and perhaps loved her, Thomas Jefferson. Hemmings became the future third President’s mistress when she was only 14 and he was 40.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
April 2024
Water for Elephants
Imperial Theater

Unlike Broadway’s new take on The Great Gatsby, which turns a great book into a disappointing musical, Water for Elephants takes a lesser-known novel by Sara Gruen (which served as the basis for the 2011 film) and turns it into a magnificent tuner. This fun, energetic and moving show at the Imperial is not as ambitious as Fitzgerald’s source material, but it stays true to its intent.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
April 2024
The Great Gatsby
Broadway Theater

If you’ve never read “The Great Gatsby” you will probably enjoy the new musical version now at the Broadway Theater after a run at New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse. If you have read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic examination of the American Dream and romantic disillusion, you will sense something missing. Book-author Kit Kerrigan’s Cliff Notes adaptation dumbs down Fitzgerald’s complex treatment of the title character’s vain search for perfection and happiness through the ostentatious display of wealth.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
April 2024
Tina: The Tina Turner Musical
Marcus Performing Arts Center: Uihlean Hall

Considering the nearly sold-out house for the touring production of Tina, the Tina Turner Musical , one might have expected the show producers to issue a disclaimer. Probably no one in the audience was ready for the show’s amount of onstage violence. The first act in particular seems like a long road of abuse (lasting about 1 hour, 45 minutes). Much of the abuse is directed at Anna Mae Bullock – the teenager who rose to fame as Tina Turner.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2024
Marvin Gaye: Prince of Soul
Donelly Theater

Like an encyclopedic entry for the late musical marvel, Marvin Gaye: Prince of Soul is principally a musical review embellished with biographic scenes at WBTT. Because of the excellent singing, onstage band, and choreography, the production greatly enlivens the script. It glorifies Gaye but gives short shift and time to the follies of the second part of his life. This makes the show seem mainly a tribute.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2024
Wiz, The
Marquis Theater

There are a few bumps on the yellow brick road in the new revival of The Wiz at the Marquis Theater, but this shiny new rendition of the Tony-winning 1974 African-American retelling of L. Frank Baum’s beloved fantasy classic is a roof-raising crowd pleaser. Starting with the positive, the cast is full of exquisite triple threats who can sing, dance, and act their way into your hearts and make you believe all the magical elements of the story though you’ve heard them a thousand times before.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
April 2024
Cher Show, The
Hobby Center

I don't think I have seen so many smiling faces at Houston's Hobby Center since the last time I attended a Mamma Mia! production there. The audience was comfortably seated at the outset of The Cher Show (directed by Casey Hushion), but fans would be on their feet and dancing in the aisles by show's end. The opening number, "If I Could Turn Back Time," offers a question that would be superbly answered throughout this show, which seemed to do exactly that for all the devoted fans assembled.

David Dow Bentley
Date Reviewed:
April 2024
Teeth
Playwrights Horizons

Teeth, Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons, is another musical about female empowerment, but it takes a decidedly different tact. Rather than employing historical survey,  Teeth bites into the horror genre and tears off a satirical, darkly hilarious tale.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
April 2024
Suffs
Music Box Theater

When it opened Off-Broadway at the Public Theater for a relatively short run in 2022, Suffs, Shaina Taub’s sweeping musical history of the women’s suffrage movement, got lost in the shuffle of the end-of-the-season, theater-award-deadline madness. There were also several cancelled performances due to COVID infections among the cast. As a result, this promising show was shunted aside.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
April 2024
Legally Blonde
Class Act Theater

In the year 2001 author, Amanda Brown, published her novel, “Legally Blonde,” based, in part, on her own experiences as a blonde at Stanford Law School. The film rights were quickly captured, and in July of that year the romantic comedy, starring Reese Witherspoon, opened to popular acclaim. It was a box office hit just 2 months before the infamous events of September 11th shook the nation and the world.

David Dow Bentley
Date Reviewed:
April 2024
Ibsen's Ghost
59E59 Theaters

Playwright, performer, and drag legend Charles Busch is back and Henrik Ibsen’s got him. This may seem like an unlikely pairing, but Ibsen’s Ghost, Busch’s latest parody-romp ranks with his funniest efforts. Previously Busch has written delightfully campy send-ups of Hollywood movies and lavish costume spectacles with himself as the leading lady, inspired by the likes of Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, and Audrey Hepburn.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
April 2024
Outsiders, The
Bernard B. Jacobs

In her classic YA novel “The Outsiders,” SE Hinton’s teenage protagonist Ponyboy Curtis explains the difference between “tough” and “tuff”: “Tough and tuff are two different words. Tough is the same as rough; tuff means cool, sharp— like a tuff-looking Mustang or a tuff record. In our neighborhood both are compliments.” In the new musical version of The Outsiders, now at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theater after a run at the La Jolla Playhouse, the creative team is trying for “tuff,” but the results are “tough” as in “rough.”

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
April 2024
Troubadour
Florida Studio Theater - Gompertz

The new musical drama Troubadour doesn’t refer to any French medieval lyric poet or to a minstrel. Now designating singer-writer or recording artist, the word “troubadour” fits both a Southern American father and son in that titled show at Florida Studio Theater. Will they both contribute to country music?  If not, why? If so, how? 

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2024
Fish
410 West 42 Street

Like Henrik Ibsen, contemporary playwright Kia Corthron addresses social issues with precision, compassion and boldness.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
April 2024
Enemy of the People, An
Circle in the Square

 In Sam Gold’s electrifying revival of Henrik Ibsen’s classic social drama An Enemy of the People, Jeremy Strong of “Succession” fame as the idealistic Dr.Thomas Stockman tells his daughter Petra (a sterling Victoria Pedretti) that they should consider moving from 19th century Norway to the US since the persecution they have been experiencing wouldn’t happen there. This optimistic line is greeted with hearty skeptical laughter by the audience at Circle in the Square. This response shows that Ibsen’s play is as relevant now as when it premiered in 1882. 

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
April 2024
The Who's Tommy
Nederlander Theater

Technology and the political zeitgeist have caught up with The Who’s Tommy, rendering the rock opera even more timely than during its initial release. The new revival, at the Nederlander after a hit run in Chicago, is a dazzling spectacle, a combination thrill ride, rock concert and social commentary with a breakout performance by super soulful and sexy newcomer Ali Louis Bourzgui in the title role.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
April 2024
Romeo and Juliet
Florida State University for the Performing Arts - Cook Theater

It took me a while to figure out who’s who and where from and going to and why in FSU/Asolo Conservatory’s new staging of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.  Director Jonathan Epstein has put the story of the ill-fated lovers into two Acts of mostly rising action played by sexually nontraditional actors  impersonating a number of roles in textual nontraditional  sexes. The essential plot remains the same.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2024
Water for Elephants
Imperial Theater

If you choose "the road," you have to be prepared for a rough ride. This is the lesson learned by Jacob Jankowski (Grant Gustin), a young almost veterinarian in the new Broadway musical Water for Elephants. Jacob has nothing. In the thick of the Depression, his parents have been killed in a car crash, and the bank  has seized his home. He jumps on a circus train, going who knows where.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
March 2024
Ally, The
Public Theater

Like the current Broadway revival of Doubt, Itamar Moses’s new play The Ally at the Public Theater, offers no comfortable, clear-cut resolutions to the difficult questions it poses. It also presents varying and articulate responses to its central question and allows the audience to decide the best outcome—if any.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
March 2024
Doubt
Roundabout Theater - Todd Haimes Theater

It’s hard to believe it’s been 20 years since Doubt: A Parable first appeared Off-Broadway at Manhattan Theater Club and then transferred to Broadway winning the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics, NY Drama Critics Awards and the Pulitzer Prize. John Patrick Shanley’s compact and powerful morality play pitting a determined nun against a charismatic priest she suspects of sexual misconduct still shakes and shatters. Scott Ellis’s revival for Roundabout Theater Company is as sturdy and upsetting as Doug Hughes’ original and Shanley’s self-directed 2008 film version.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
March 2024

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