BY MICHAEL MUSTO | One-person shows are among my least favorite types of theater because they can verge on glorified lectures instead of real drama. Without various characters popping up to act out scenes as they occur, the one-person show usually resorts to an actor simply looking out at the audience and telling you about […]
BY MICHAEL MUSTO | Anyone craving a straightforward modern interpretation of William Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet should get themselves to a nunnery instead. Fat Ham—James Ijames’ Pulitzer-winning new play, which has come to Broadway after a run produced by the Public Theater and National Black Theatre—is much more ambitious than that. Using the basic plot themes […]
UPDATE! Originally announced as a limited run ending May 28, performances will continue through June 25. See the end of this article for ticket purchase info. BY SCOTT STIFFLER | History hidden, faded, and somehow still here is just part of what awaits when a fact-spouting chatterbox with a direct if fleeting connection to fame […]
BY MICHAEL MUSTO | Whenever a show opens on Broadway, you can bet all your assets that it’s either a revival or it’s based on a known title, so it seems like a revival. Broadway has become so expensive and risky for producers that familiarity has long become their best friend, and they routinely rely […]
The enduringly entertaining Pandora Boxx has done much to distinguish herself besides having the distinction of competing on the sophomore season of a little show called RuPaul’s Drag Race. Since then, the Season 2 contestant has returned to RPDR as a Season 1 and 6 All Stars competitor—all the while, racking up credits as an […]
BY TRAV S.D. | There is no adjective, certainly none in English anyway, to describe the emotions stirred up by Cabaret in Captivity: Songs and Sketches Written in Terezin, presented by Untitled Theater Company No. 61 (UTC61) as part of the National Jewish Theater Foundation’s Holocaust Theater Initiative. “Bittersweet” doesn’t cover it, for “bitter” won’t do […]
BY TRAV S.D. | For almost 40 years Epstein and Hassan (Steve Krantz and Naima Hassan) formed a romantic and artistic partnership which saw them through a series of two-person shows, bookings in variety settings like burlesque bills and launch parties, as well as their own podcasts and radio programs. Billing themselves as “The Black […]
BY MICHAEL MUSTO | Can a photo elicit multiple narratives, if taken out of context? That’s just one of the themes infusing Pictures From Home, an intermissionless, one hour 45-minute family play by Sharr White based on the photo memoir by late photographer Larry Sultan. Other themes that turn up involve damaging interfamilial dynamics, the […]
BY CHARLES BATTERSBY | Over the last decade the “Sick Lit” genre of young adult fiction has grown in popularity. Tragic tales of teenagers with terminal illnesses have filled stages, pages, and movie screens, but Kimberly Akimbo has a clever twist: Its teenage heroine has a rare aging disease, and she looks like a woman […]
BY MICHAEL MUSTO | In The Collaboration—written by the quadruple Oscar-nominated Anthony McCarten—Andy Warhol’s real-life, 1984 creative partnership with Jean-Michel Basquiat is played out as a battle (and sort of ultimate romance) between two polar opposites of the art world. Warhol (played by Paul Bettany) is calculated and surfacy, but feels his star has somewhat faded […]