Oliver!
Broadway Theater Center - Cabot Theater

Skylight Music Theater ties a bow around the holiday season with an early theatrical gift: a joyous, eye-popping production of Oliver!. This production warms your heart even as it tickles your funny bone with colorful characters, a fantastic backdrop and a memorable score.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
November 2024
Swept Away
Longacre Theater

The temptation to come up with disastrous voyage metaphors when evaluating Swept Away, the new musical at the Longacre after runs at Berkeley Rep and Arena Stage, is great. The folk-rock tuner employing the music of The Avett Brothers mainly from their album “Mignonette,” even at a relatively short, intermissionless 90 minutes, is a difficult slog.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
November 2024
Elf: The Musical
Marquis Theater

The revival of Elf the Musical at the Marquis has no greater goal than to provide two-and-a-half hours of jolly Yuletide cheer and succeeds with “Sparklejollytwinklejingley” joy, to quote one of Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin’s clever songs. Based on the 2003 film comedy starring Will Farrell, this production staged by Philip Wm. McKinley is a stripped-down, speedy version of Casey Nicholaw’s original which played Broadway in 2010 and again in 2012. Thomas Meehan and Bob Martin’s sharp book remains a giddy delight, smart enough for both kids and adults.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
November 2024
Beautiful: The Carole King Musical
Florida State University for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

Beautiful as a musical biography of Carole King is basically a jukebox musical, but in Asolo Rep’s version it becomes a scenic extravaganza. Its directors spare no technical effects, especially lighting on various levels and tiers of rectangles that contain scenes or parts of scenes. In every way, it’s a treat for the eyes as well as the ears.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
November 2024
Wonderful World, A: The Louis Armstrong Musical
Studio 54

What a wonderful show. A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical at Studio 54 after engagements and workshops in Miami, New Orleans, and Chicago, is an absorbing, dazzling musical focusing on the life of the titular beloved jazz icon. James Monroe Iglehart masterfully embodies the great Satchmo, precisely imitating his signature rumbling growl and conveying the enveloping warmth of his performance style as well as his roiling inner conflicts.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
November 2024
We Live in Cairo
New York Theater Workshop

We Live in Cairo at New York Theater Workshop has ambitions beyond escapism and succeeds. Set during the volatile period in Egypt between 2010 and 2014, Cairo focuses on six young activists revolting against Hosni Mubarak’s autocratic government and the extremist regime of Mohammed Morsi which followed. The book and score by The Lazours (brothers Daniel and Patrick Lazour) combine Egyptian-influenced music with the complexity of political idealism clashing with harsh reality.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
November 2024
Big Gay Jamboree, The
Orpheum Theater

The Big Gay Jamboree at the Orpheum Theatre traverses the territory from simplistic parody to clever satire. Jamboree doesn’t settle for easy laughs based on stereotypes. The razor sharp book by lead actress Marla Mindelle and Jonathan Parks-Ramage and the songs by Mindelle and Philip Drennen mercilessly skewer musical theater tropes past and present as well as a plethora of pop culture targets from the “Real Housewives” franchise to the Upright Citizen Brigade comedy troupe to Mindelle’s own Titanique musical.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
November 2024
Curious Savage, The
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Cook Theater

Ethel is “The Curious Savage” who has been sent to a mental institution by her awful stepchildren because she wants to give away the considerable fortune she has inherited. But not to them. She’s hidden her bonds with the intention of enriching needy and worthy people. Will she meet some in her new situation? And what will be the result?

Despite Ethel Savage’s likability, quickly and firmly established in Calee Gardner’s performance here, her fate and the rest of the plot come over as banal. John Patrick’s play, set in 1950s, is indeed dated.  

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
November 2024
Maybe Happy Ending
Belasco Theater

The almost-human robot is a familiar protagonist in science fiction and social-commentary narratives. Karel Capek’s RUR, Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Klara and the Sun” and “Never Let Me Go,” Ian McEwan’s “Machines Like Me,” and Ray Bradbury’s “The Electric Grandmother” are just a few of the texts exploring the themes of artificial beings taking on human emotions and coping with obsolescence. The enchanting but hardly innovative new musical Maybe Happy Ending at the Belasco, after runs in South Korea and Atlanta, features a similar plot.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
November 2024
Drag: The Musical
New World Stages

The plot of Drag: The Musical is as thin as a spaghetti strap, yet the show is a crazy hoot and worth enduring a cliche or two. The exposition is delivered in a voice-over by producer Liza Minnelli accompanied by the gorgeous video design of Aaron Rhyne. Two rival drag clubs are faced with bankruptcy and eviction unless the performers can pull up their brassieres and pile up their hairdos to overcome the shuttering of their beloved establishments. The Fish Tank is headlined by Alexis Gilmore (Nick Adams), whose management skills don’t equal his pizzazz and flair.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
November 2024
Waitress
Florida Studio Theater - Gompertz

It’s the performances that make Waitress a tasty treat at Florida Studio Theatre’s Gompertz. The plot centers on Jenna, leading baker and server for Joe’s  Pie Diner. She (versatile Kaitlyn Davidson) longs to leave husband Earl (James David Larson, fully conveying Earl’s abusive taking of her earnings and insisting Jenna not share love with anyone but him). Unfortunately, he impregnates her and she wants neither a child nor abortion.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
November 2024
Romeo + Juliet
Circle in the Square

Sam Gold’s sexy, rock-infused production of Romeo + Juliet is messy and unwieldy but succeeds in tearing our hearts out. Like Gold’s previous Broadway Shakespearean outings—his hodgepodge King Lear with Glenda Jackson and his jumbled Macbeth with Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga— his R + J is messy, but there is a method to its scattered madness.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
November 2024
Left on Tenth
James Earl Jones Theater

Delia Ephron’s memoir “Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life” is a moving, heartbreaking account of the author’s reclaiming love and life after losing a beloved husband, finding a second amour, being diagnosed with leukemia and cancer, and dealing with endless phone prompts with Verizon. It’s funny, moving, and joyful. However, the material does not translate well from the page to the stage in Ephron’s theater adaptation now at the James Earl Jones. Perhaps it would have worked better on film since many of the scenes are so brief, some lasting only a few seconds.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
November 2024
Hold On to Me Darling
Lucille Lortel Theater

Originally presented at the Atlantic Theater Company in 2016, Kenneth Lonergan’s Hold On to Me Darling focuses on self-centered country-western superstar Strings McCrane, struggling to find happiness in the aftermath of his censorious mother’s death. Lonergan’s nearly three-hour comedy-drama never drags in Neil Pepe’s solid-steel production (Pepe also directed the previous Atlantic staging). Adam Driver manages to make Strings sympathetic even though the character is constantly making impulsive decisions and leaving emotional wreckage in his glamorous wake.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
October 2024
Vladimir
City Center - Stage 1

Manhattan Theater Club offers a piercing drama on an Off-Broadway stage at City Center’s Stage I. Erika Sheffer’s Vladimir may evoke comparisons to last season’s Patriots, Peter Morgan’s harrowing drama of the rise of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and the downfall of oligarch Boris Berezovsky. But, unlike Morgan’s penetrating portrait of Russian power struggles, Sheffer keeps Putin off-stage and makes her title character a menacing, unseen monster.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
October 2024
McNeal
Lincoln Center - Vivian Beaumont Theater

I love Robert Downey, Jr. He's one of my favorite actors; I try to see everything he does. But this show, McNeal, is just a major disappointment. I didn't like it, I didn't understand it, and I was just plain bored for much of it. I’m guessing many in the audience left before the show was over.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
October 2024
Sunset Boulevard
St. James Theater

Nicole Scherzinger is the toast of Broadway! Her star turn as Norma Desmond in this latest production of Sunset Boulevard is nothing short of brilliant, astounding, gorgeous. With her amazing talent and beauty, it's astonishing that more people don't know her name.

The roles she's had up to now reflect the long and winding road that even the most gifted performers must take to reach the top.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
October 2024
Our Town
Barrymore Theatetr

Our Town has been touted as "The Great American Play." It show us not only what our country is but also what our country used to be. We used to have neighbors, not just people who lived near us. There was a politeness, a respect for each other. I remember my parents calling people they'd known for quite awhile Mr. or Mrs. or Dr. And children never called adults by their first names ever.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
October 2024
In the Canyon
Broadway Theater Center - Studio Theater

The Constructivist’s fall season begins with a dystopian reality as portrayed in In the Canyon, an unnerving but occasionally humorous play by Calamity West. In her director’s notes, artistic director Jaimelyn Gray confesses that as soon as she read the script, she knew it was right for the Constructivists, a theater company known for its dark humor and bleak landscapes. After all, who else would debut with a play called, Gruesome Playground Injuries?

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
October 2024
She Loves Me
Saber Center for the Performing Arts

There couldn’t be a sweeter introduction to fall’s spiced latte season than the sentimental musical, She Loves Me. Forte Theatre Company makes She Loves Me its first offering in the show’s fifth season. As directed by Randall Dodge, Forte’s artistic director, the show maintains all the elements that have turned this show into a cult classic over the years. She Loves Me first opened on Broadway in 1963, and it became a hit revival in 2016.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
October 2024
Roommate, The
Booth Theater

The Roommate tells us "Being bad never felt so good." Uh oh. In this production, it just isn't really true. We came, as I think most of the audience had, to experience two splendid actresses working together. Mia Farrow is shy, quiet, and inexperienced Sharon. Patti LuPone is Robyn, the loud, angry woman who arrives to share the big empty house where Sharon lives. If you can't figure out most of what follows next, you have sat at home too long.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
October 2024
Acts of Peace: A Journey Through One Acts
St. Christopher's Episcopal Church - Norvill Commons

A series of one-acts opens the fall season at Acacia Theater Company. Acacia performs in the lower level of a church in leafy River Hills, WI. Despite what one may imagine a “church basement” looks like, this handsome space has been refitted nicely with an impressive stage, lighting, seating and sound to bring the audience in close proximity to the actors. It is a black box theater equal to many of the “professional” performing arts space around town.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
October 2024
McNeal
Lincoln Center Theater - Vivian Beaumont Theater

Ayad Akhtar’s McNeal starring Oscar winner Robert Downey, Jr. at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater certainly looks impressive in Bartlett Sher’s dazzling, special-effects-laden production. Akhtar’s script deals with a narcissistic, Nobel Prize-winning novelist facing his own mortality and the encroaching dangers of artificial intelligence. Sher stuns us with a sleek, futuristic staging. The time is “the very near future” when three of the top volumes on the New York Times best-seller list are authored by AI.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
October 2024
Beacon, The
Irish Repertory Theater

Nancy Harris’s The Beacon, making its North American debut at Irish Repertory Theater, is a little too well-crafted for its own good. The plot-heavy melodrama crowds in too many themes, ideas, and relationships and collapses under its own weight. We’ve got the feminist, independent artist angle represented by Beiv, an iron-willed painter (Kate Mulgrew in a bravura performance) struggling with a deep, dark secret.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
October 2024
Counter, The
Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center - Laura Pels Theater

In The Counter, now at Roundabout Theater Company’s Laura Pels space, playwright Meghan Kennedy, director David Cromer and a loving, small cast have breathed new life into a reliable trope. In an upstate New York diner (beautifully designed with realistic detail by Walt Spangler) two lonely souls reach out to each other. How many times have we heard that one before? But the author, Anthony Edwards as misanthropic regular customer Paul and Susannah Flood as empathic waitress Katie cook up a satisfying meal of comfort food.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
October 2024
Yellow Face
Todd Haimes Theater

At the Roundabout Theatre Company’s Broadway house, the Todd Haimes, Leigh Silverman skillfully directs David Henry Hwang’s Yellow Face, a smart farce taking on political correctness, racial identity, media frenzy, and theatrical and journalistic conventions. The play has taken on richer depths and subtler ironies since it was presented Off-Broadway at the Public Theater in 2007. A clever mixing of fact and fiction, Yellow Face skewers every participant in our raging cultural wars, including the author himself.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
October 2024
Good Bones
Public Theater

James Ijames’s Good Bones at the Public Theater also takes on the importance of community and largely succeeds in exploring the conflict between gentrification and besieged minority neighborhoods. His basic concept is sound, with several fiery clashes between his quartet of characters, representing different interests as the forces of change and social inequity threaten an African-American urban district.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
October 2024
Our Town
Barrymore Theater

Kenny Leon’s starry revival of Thornton Wilder’s classic 1938 portrait of everyday life, Our Town, features a diverse, multiethnic cast but doesn’t hit you over the head with a message of inclusion or “wokeness.” Susan Miller took on that theme with her own adaptation of the play, called It’s Our Town, Too, which incorporates gay couples into Wilder’s Grovers’ Corners.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
October 2024
Dirty Laundry
WP Theater

The cast list for Mathilde Dratwa’s Dirty Laundry at the WP (Women’s Project) Theater, gave me pause. Three female characters are listed as Blue, Red, and Green. The remaining personae are Me, My Dad, and Another Woman. This generic designation on the single-sheet program (a full program is available digitally) struck me as potentially pretentious. But once the play started, the mysterious names made some sense, and Dratwa’s moving, clever work unfolded, skillfully and compassionately depicting the messy, difficult business of family relations.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
October 2024
Waitress: The Musical
Broadway Theater Center - Cabot Theater

One of Milwaukee’s best-known theater companies, Skylight Music Theater, opens its 65th season in one of the city’s most beautiful venues, the Broadway Theatre Center. Their inaugural production, Waitress: The Musical, opened October 4 and continues until nearly the end of October.

Waitress is, in many senses, a “small” musical. It deals with family and work relationships in a certain small town. But Waitresshas always attempted to be something bigger, too.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
October 2024
Safety Not Guaranteed
Brooklyn Academy of Music - Harvey Theater

It took a while, but Safety Not Guaranteed, the new musical based on the 2012 indie cult film now playing at BAM’s Harvey Theater, gradually grew on me. By the end of its intermissionless hour and 45 minutes, I was rooting for its quirky characters to find resolution and/or romance. Nick Blaemire’s book, based on Derek Connolly’s screenplay, is initially too slick for its own good with one-liners and weird traits substituting for character development.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
October 2024
Yellow Face
Todd Haimes Theater

Yellow Face is not going to delight every member of the audience. I loved it; my companion, not so much. It is, at heart, a political piece, dealing with identity, loyalty, and how we see ourselves and others. The bright center revolves around the teamwork of two excellent actors, performing a dance of friendship, enmity, and confusion. 

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
October 2024
Off the Charts
Florida Studio Theater - Court Cabaret

Jukebox favorites that scored “Off the Charts” of Billboard Magazine from 1958 to beyond the end of the 20th Century show the development of Pop Music. Four vocalists, often fast-moving, and a dramatic pianist pack all into the “Off the Charts” show at Florida Studio Theatre’s Court Cabaret. They do so in excellent costumes and make-up. The women’s also symbolize the historical import of Hair.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
October 2024
Three Tall Persian Women
Elayne P. Bernstein Theater

 It has been a year since the death of Nasrin’s (Niousha Noor) husband. An enlarged photo of him is displayed on an easel in a Laguna Hill, California home compactly and effectively designed by Obid Akbari. It is traditional that on the first anniversary family and friends gather to celebrate a life.

The playwright of Three Tall Persian Women, Awni Abdi-Bahri, who plays the daughter Goinar, is asleep on a pullout sofa in front of a studio piano. She wakes in a cluttered space in her underwear interrupted by her mother Nasrin (Niousha Noor).

Charles Giuliano
Date Reviewed:
September 2024
Hills of California, The
Broadhurst Theater

Estranged siblings gather at the bedside of a dying parent. Crushed dreams have an inextricable hold on the family. A dying town symbolizes those dashed hopes. The most charismatic character delivers an amazingly self-aware monologue summing up everyone’s problems including her own.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
October 2024
Once Upon a Mattress
Hudson Theater

Once Upon a Mattress is a total joy, and wow, do we need this in these troubled times. The stand-out, of course, is the glorious Sutton Foster, as Princess Winnifred. She can do it all: sing, dance, and whenever she steps onstage, she brings a thousand watts of energy and joy. As with all brilliant performers, you can feel the air in the theater become uplifted whenever she appears.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
September 2024
Ghost of John McCain
SoHo Playhouse

While Forbidden Broadway has been merrily chugging along for over 40 years, the musical satire genre has not had many other successful offerings, particularly of the political variety. Perhaps it’s because our current political landscape is so ridiculous (the eating of cats and dogs is now a big issue) that parody would seem redundant.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
September 2024
Forbidden Broadway: Merrily We Stole a Song
Theater 555

Musical theater conventions past, present and future come in for a riotous ribbing in the latest edition of Gerard Alessandrini’s perennial parody revue Forbidden Broadway. This one’s subtitled “Merrily We Stole a Song,” and it ties in with the recent revival of Merrily We Roll Along which originally opened the same year as the first Forbidden show, 1982. This latest edition was initially announced to open on Broadway (a first for the series) at the Hayes Theater.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
September 2024
Table 17
Robert Wilson MCC Theater

In recent years, the romantic comedy genre has had several hits on screen, but few on stage. The musical version of “Pretty Woman” and the original First Date had short runs. Defying this trend, Douglas Lyons’s non-musical Table 17 at MCC Theater’s Off-Broadway space is currently packing in audiences and might make the leap to a commercial run. Lyons’s only previous Broadway playwriting credit is the sitcom-ish Chicken and Biscuits, but Table 17 is a deeper and more satisfying dish.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
September 2024
Roommate, The
Booth Theater

The Roommate, Jen Silverman’s slight two-character comedy at the Booth, begins in an unusual way. After the house lights have dimmed, the play’s stars Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone enter. Their names and a photo of them are projected on Bob Crowley’s sprawling farmhouse set. They acknowledge the audience’s applause, exit, and then re-enter in character to start the show.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
September 2024

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