Strange Loop, A
Lyceum Theater

Though a critical and audience smash when it played a limited run at Playwrights Horizons in 2019 and subsequently won every award going including the Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical, I never thought Michael R. Jackson’s A Strange Loop would make it to Broadway. With such credentials, a Main Stem transfer would normally follow, but Jackson’s inventive autobiographical work focuses on a black, gay, plus-sized aspiring theater writer working on a show about a black, gay, plus-sized aspiring theater writer working on a…etc.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
April 2022
Knoxville
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

Thanks to music and song, the story fictionalized by James Agee about his father’s death and how it affected him and family is more than a pastiche of various ways of dramatizing it. Still, the brand new-musical Knoxville has a number of dramatic antecedents.  Happily, they’re mixed well in Frank Galati’s script and his direction of it.

“Knoxville” is a grand opening song that introduces the city in 1915 and a lot of townspeople who will figure in the play. It is a Tennessee equivalent of Grovers Corner in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2022
Live at the Purple Lounge
Beverly Hills Playhouse

The five female writers of Live at the Purple Lounge, the new comedy which just opened at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, are all members of Crimson Square’s Writers’s Lab. Each has written a short play set in the green room of the Purple Lounge comedy club, with a different female comic taking central stage. One of the writers, Elisabeth Tsubota, also directed the play, making for a heavy dose of feminist theater.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
April 2022
Take Me Out
Hayes Theater

The current production of Take Me Out is a tale of two terrific Jesses; Fire and Ice. Jesse Williams, as baseball ace Darren Lemming, never lets us see him sweat. Even though this is his first play, the actor, widely recognized from his role on the hit show "Grey's Anatomy," has worked hard to make sure he's learned the technique needed to carry this show. He took voice lessons, personal training, breath work, and physical therapy. And there is no doubt, Williams is fit.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
April 2022
Relentless
Goodman Theater

The chamber at Theater Wit where this Timeline Theater play premiered just three months ago is so small that you could fit at least four of them into the Goodman Theater's Owen auditorium, making it lucky indeed that its Loop-district hosts found themselves with an empty slot on their calendar and proposed its occupation by the show that the Tribune's Chris Jones declared ready for its own miniseries on Netflix.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
April 2022
Island, The
Broadway Theater Center - Studio Theater

After viewing The Island in a virtual production last year, this reviewer was more than curious to see how reactions differed when seeing the same production live, in a theater. Milwaukee theatergoers have that chance with this production by Milwaukee Chamber Theater, now staged live in the intimate Studio Theater, a 200-seat space that follows the “black box” formula.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2022
Little Prince, The
Broadway Theater

Imagine two aspects of Cirque du Soleil — lyrical acrobatic dancing and twisty aerial work — set against evocative, colorful costumes, lighting, and projections and telling the semi-beloved story of The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s durable fable of an ingenuous alien boy learning the ways of mankind.

David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed:
April 2022
Birthday Candles
American Airlines Theater

Is it too great a pun to say that Debra Messing is incandescent in Birthday Candles? She is, by turns, an adorable teenager, a loving mother, a devoted sweetheart, a deceived wife…and then, the circle begins again. Because this play is a circle of our lives, and if it isn’t exactly what we’ve personally experienced, it’s close enough. Laughs and tears are in close proximity.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
April 2022
Legend of Georgia McBride, The
Florida Studio Theater - Gompertz

Casey, an Elvis impersonator, can’t attract customers to Eddie’s bar-nightclub in a tanky, though beachy, Florida town. Too bad because Casey’s overdrawn at the bank, his old friend but now landlord needs the rent, his loved wife’s revealed she’s pregnant, and Eddie’s just fired him.  Miss Tracy Mills, a drag diva, enters extravagantly to fill the bill for Eddie. Since her young co-star Rexy is drinking too much, Miss Tracy solicits Casey to fit the bill, teaching him how to become the play’s titled legend.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2022
Twelfth Night
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Cook Theater

“If music be the food of love, play on*—the best known line of Twelfth Night — couldn’t be more appropriate for Director Jonathan Epstein’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s deliciously sweet and tart comedy. Daniel Levy’s original music enlivens throughout, whether sung or used for underscoring and scene transitions. How lovely to have a cast of singing and instrumentalist student actors!

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2022
Ain't Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations
Marcus Performing Arts Center

From the streets of Detroit to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations traces an amazing ride to success for The Temptations, one of the building blocks in Motown’s empire. The musical group’s name proves ironic over the course of this delectably organized show, which does indeed show the temptations that the group member fall prey to over the years. Remarkably, 2022 marks the 60th anniversary for this soulful group.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
April 2022
Molly Sweeney
Chopin Theater

The debate over corrective measures for disabilities didn't just begin with cochlear implants or gender-reassignments. As long ago as 1994, Brian Friel—after reading Oliver Sacks's account of a man's recovery from lifelong vision loss—wrote a play exploring the epistemological repercussions engendered thereby.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
April 2022
Plaza Suite
Hudson Theater

“Adorable!” The word rang throughout the theater during this old comedy chestnut, mainly for leading lady Sarah Jessica Parker, who, even through the most dire scenes, is perky and..well, adorable. Her real-life husband, Matthew Broderick, not so much. But he’s won two Tonys and has a great theater following, so his low-energy persona apparently works well for him.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
April 2022
It's Just Like Coming to Church: Welcome to the Church of YOU
Black Ensemble Theater

Don't be fooled by the title. The Gospel of Jackie Taylor is not constructed on Old Rugged Crosses, Poor Wayfaring Strangers, or Walks Through Lonesome Valleys. To be sure, there's a collection box at the entrance, but money doesn't grant you a VIP pass. On the contrary, the word most often repeated in the score's song lyrics is "LOVE"—not erotic objectification, but the kind arising from acceptance of one's self, without which there can be no love for other creatures, mortal or divine.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
April 2022
MJ: The Musical
Neil Simon Theater

Two new Broadway productions offer boatloads of entertainment but skirt around serious examination of their subjects. That’s perfectly okay; neither the revival of Plaza Suite, nor MJ: The Musical, the jukebox-bio musical of the late King of Pop, are meant to be anything more than a lighthearted night out. Yet they hint ever so slightly at the darker issues lurking just beneath their jolly surfaces. 

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
March 2022
On Sugarland
New York Theater Workshop

The offstage war in On Sugarland, Aleshea Harris’s poetic and riveting new play at New York Theater Workshop, is unnamed. It could be the Persian Gulf War or the conflict in Afghanistan. It could even be the one in Vietnam, except apparently there is no draft to force young people into harm’s way since the characters both living and dead have been recruited rather than forced to serve. But the war is ongoing and disproportionately preys on communities of color, like the titular one.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
March 2022
Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney, A
Odyssey Theater

Walt Disney hoists himself by his own petard in A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay about the Death of Walt Disney, the Lucas Hnath play now in a West Coast premiere at the Odyssey Theater. First done off-Broadway five years ago, the clever, sardonic drama has a set-up and style all its own.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
March 2022
Last Train to Nibroc
St. Christopher's Episcopal Church

Acacia Theater, Milwaukee’s Christian faith-based theater company, presents a tiny gem of a play in Arlene Hutton’s Last Train to Nibroc. Set in late December in 1940, the tale begins as two strangers are seated together on a crowded eastbound train from Los Angeles. He is Raleigh, a washed-out serviceman (still in uniform) who dreams of visiting the bright lights of New York City. She is May, clever and sweet, who is returning home from a Christmas visit to her serviceman boyfriend that did not end well.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
March 2022
Indecent
Milwaukee Chamber Theater - Cabot Theater

The Tony-nominated playIndecent, by Paula Vogel, comes vividly to life in Milwaukee’s perfect space for it: the Cabot Theater, a glorious recreation of Europe’s old-style “jewel box” theaters, created by a local philanthropist for Skylight Music Theater and Milwaukee Chamber Theater. It is the latter troupe that is offering a spine-tingling and gorgeously presented version of this play, and it is a not-to-be-missed addition to the spring theatrical season.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
March 2022
Broadway in Black
Westcoast Black Theater Troupe - Donelly Theatre

A revised version of versatile Nate Jacobs’s compilation of Broadway Music and Lyrics by, about, and featuring blacks in performance, “Broadway in Black” is heavier on recent black creations. But how blacks came to The Great White Way, especially with Shuffle Along, is clearly explained between demonstrations. Lavishly costumed and choreographed, performers don’t suffer compared with Broadway’s today. WBTT’s hold up so well that audiences may wonder at their enviable energy—all so physically close on WBTT’s new polished-floor stage.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
March 2022
Trayf
Geffen Playhouse - Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater

TRAYF (Yiddish for forbidden or impure food) is an intimate drama about two friends whose intense religious and personal bonds are strained to the breaking point by the pull of the secular world. The two friends are Zalmy (Ilan Eskenazi) and Shmuel (Ben Hirschhorn), teenagers who belong to the Chabad community in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, circa 1991.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
March 2022
Lady from the Sea, The
Court Theater

The question of What Women Want was answered long ago (by Shakespeare,no less) and the merits of Marriage For Convenience have grown more equivocal with the waning of 19th century Romanticism—all of which should render the arguments in Ibsen's fable of a "settled" wife reconsidering her options accessible to playgoers in 2022.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
March 2022
Sons of Hollywood
Windy City Playhouse

If you google video clips of the seminal 1925 film “Ben-Hur,” you already know Ramon Novarro was every bit as hot as his publicity claimed, and if you've read the tell-all book “Hollywood Babylon,” you already know the tabloid gossip surrounding his unseemly death. If you're wise to the making of sausage and movies, however, you also know that there's a broken heart for every carefully cultivated palm tree on Sunset Boulevard.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
March 2022
Lehman Trilogy, The
Ahmanson Theater

The Lehman Trilogy is a portrait of a rich, powerful Jewish family that put its stamp on New York for several generations. It is also a capitalist fable, an examination of the American Dream, a tragedy of epic proportions… and an inspired piece of theater.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
March 2022
My Way: A Musical Tribute to Frank Sinatra
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Stackner Cabaret

It has been 24 years since crooner Frank Sinatra passed from this Earth. During his heyday, he rarely strayed from gossip columns, headlines, and microphones. And now his music lives on. The Milwaukee Repertory Theater pays loving tribute to Sinatra’s life in My Way: A Musical Tribute to Frank Sinatra .

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
March 2022
Intimate Apparel
Lincoln Center - Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater

Intimate Apparel is the story of Esther (Kearstin Piper Brown), an African American who has come to New York City hoping to find more job opportunities and a better life for herself. She loves her work, sewing beautiful underclothing for upscale women. But her personal life is a disaster. She's in her late 30's and has no husband, no children, and no prospects. The one male with whom she has formed a bond is strictly forbidden fruit. He's Mr. Marks (Arnold Livingston Gels), the orthodox Jew who sells Esther her fabrics.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
March 2022
Plaza Suite
Hudson Theater

Two new Broadway productions offer boatloads of entertainment but skirt around serious examination of their subjects. That’s perfectly okay; neither Plaza Suite, Neil Simon’s 1968 trio of comic one-acts set in the titular hotel, nor MJ, the jukebox-bio musical of Michael Jackson, are meant to be anything more than a lighthearted night out. Yet both hint ever so slightly at the darker issues lurking just beneath their jolly surfaces. 

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
March 2022
As You Like It
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Quadracci Powerhouse

Poor Shakespeare. Contemporary theater companies will never leave his work alone. One cannot count the number of “timely” updates to his 400-year-old plays over the years. Now Milwaukee Repertory Theater gives us an As You Like It that’s all dolled up in the groovy, psychedelic 1960s. Furthermore, a great deal of the story is now told in song, with more than 20 Beatles tunes added to spice things up.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
February 2022
Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, The
Goodman Theater

When Mary Zimmerman's athletic-acrobatic-abstract exhibition made its debut in 1993, nobody knew what to make of an evening of kinetic display allegedly based on the aesthetic, scientific, and metaphysical precepts/contemplations of the Renaissance Man who defined the term. Was this multi-disciplinary mosaic to be viewed as dance, accompanied by words instead of music à la Martha Graham? Was it an "acting-out" game (Simon says "light reflects off solid objects")? Were we supposed to focus on the dazzling gymnastics or the explanations of their purpose?

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
February 2022
On the Other Hand, We're Happy
Matrix Theater

On the Other Hand, We’re Happy was written by the Welsh playwright Daf James and first made a splash at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.  Now Rogue Machine has mounted the American premiere of the play and we are all the better for it.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
February 2022
Gem of the Ocean
Goodman Theater

The theater playbill for Gem of the Ocean informs us that our setting is the industrial outskirts of Pittsburgh in 1904, where street talk hints at labor tensions in the nearby steel mills, recently rendered volatile by the suicide of a factory worker accused of stealing a bucket of nails.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
February 2022
Relentless
Theater Wit

The scholarly history of African immigrants in North America is all too often restricted to the topics of slavery (abolished by white men in 1863) and civil-rights unrest (attendant on anti-war protests in the 1960s)—myopic views reinforcing popular stereotypes of a rootless minority awaiting rescue by their betters. The lingering prevalence of this narrow focus is why every minute of Tyla Abercrumbie's long-anticipated play, Relentless, arrives accompanied by tacit fanfares heralding its divergence from the same shopworn narratives.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
February 2022
Black No More
Pershing Square Signature Center

The African-American experience in different decades of the 20th Century is explored with ingenuity and passion in two new Off-Broadway musicals. Both feature eclectic and captivating scores, but whereas the operatic Intimate Apparel succeeds in telling a relatable story, Black No More, produced by The New Group at the Pershing Square Signature Center, pushes too hard to make its valid points. A rap-hip-hop stage adaptation of George S. Schuyler’s 1931 satiric novel, Black No More imagines a machine that transforms black people into whites.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
February 2022
Music Man, The
Winter Garden Theater

The question on every theater fan’s mind for two years has been: Will the highly anticipated revival of The Music Man, Meredith Willson’s beloved 1957 tribute to chicanery, Americana, and apple pie, be worth all the hype? The production, helmed by the magic-touch showman Jerry Zaks (the Bette Midler Hello, Dolly!) and starring two of Broadway’s most charismatic, Tony-winning stars, Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster, was slated to open just before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down theaters around the world.

David Sheward
Date Reviewed:
February 2022
Learned Ladies, The
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Cook Theater

For the 400th anniversary of the birth of the Western World’s foremost author of dramatic comedy, FSU/Asolo Conservatory not only provides a verse-filled comedic treat but a visual one, as well. The Learned Ladies of Moliere’s play exemplify both as they act to dominate family and anyone who’d join or even serve them. Since learning, especially use of language, is their weapon, isn’t it fitting that Moliere’s French alexandrines be well translated to English iambic pentameter lines that their antagonists won’t be able to use against them? Or will they? 

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
February 2022
It's Alive, IT'S ALIVE!
Odyssey Theater

The outrageous performance artist, John Fleck, is back with another stage piece of his, It’s Alive, IT’S ALIVE!. The show is raising hell at the Odyssey for a month-long run, directed by Fleck’s longtime collaborator, David Schweizer.  Fleck is joined onstage by two supporting actors, Kyle G. Fuller and Tomoko Karina, and a musical duo, John Snow (bass) and Scott Roberts (keyboard). Together these partners in theatrical crime poke fun at a slew of targets: The Virus, the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, Trump, Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, and much, much more.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
February 2022
Detained
Fountain Theater

Immigration detention, the shame of America, is the subject of Detained the brave and shocking docudrama which is in a world-premiere run at the Fountain Theater.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
February 2022
Garden of the Finzi-Continis, The
Museum of Jewish Heritage - Edmond J. Safra Hall

Despite countless closings, postponements, cancellations, empty seats, Covid interventions, and the annoying requirement of having to wear a mask, present proof of a vaccination with a valid government issued photo ID, and go through a security check, even before you enter the theater, New York City’s theater scene appears to be chugging along, surprisingly so, with an abundance of better-than-usual fare.

Edward Rubin
Date Reviewed:
February 2022
Power of Sail
Geffen Playhouse - Gil Cates Theater

Harvard professor Charles Nichols (the estimable Bryan Cranston) opens a can of worms when he invites a notorious white nationalist to speak at an annual lecture series. Nichols, a firm believer in the 1st Amendment, thinks that everyone has a right to speak his mind, even if he’s a racist and an anti-Semite.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
February 2022
Laughing Matters (Variant 6)
Florida Studio Theater - Court Cabaret

Newest edition of Florida Studio Theatre’s musical, comedic Laughing Matters highlights Pandemic-induced Paranoia regarding political and cultural issues. Local to national, they include boisterous responses to mandates and various means of distancing from physical problems. In song and sketches, Sarasota and Florida issues like over-development get skewered along with national ones like pollution and inflation. 

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
February 2022

Pages