By EDWARD RUBIN Billed as “A Penetrating Portrayal of A Queer Giant,” performance artist John Kelly’s explosive gay-themed show Underneath The Skin, – bolstered by actor/dancers Hucklefaery, Estado Flotante and John Williams Watkins, each playing multiple characters, a slew of videos, (one featuring Lola as Gertrude Stein), lots of song and dance, oodles of simulated […]
By EDWARD RUBIN You Will Get Sick, currently playing Off-Broadway at the Laura Pels Theatre in New York City through Sunday, December 11, is the most riveting and mind-stretching play that I have seen this season. The reason being is that you really have to pay close attention to know where you are at any […]
By EDWARD RUBIN What is it to become a word? To become or even create an emotion that doesn’t exist…at least not yet. How much power does the artist have to convince and make believe? The awesome power to make one believe. How much potential does movement theatre actually have? In this world? Now. These […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) When the musical Mrs. Doubtfire was preparing to open in 2020, the show became a victim of the forced lockdown of all theaters in New York. When COVID restrictions were relaxed and it finally opened in December of 2021 at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, producers had hoped the […]
Between the years 1848 and 1851 over four thousand Irish females took passage on ships from Ireland to Australia under the Orphan Emigration Scheme, established by Earl Grey. This action had the effect of relieving many of the workhouses and poorhouses of Ireland (already full to the brim with people seeking respite from the ravages […]
By EDWARD RUBIN MCC Theater’s production of Which Way To The Stage running through Saturday, May 28, at the Robert W. Wilson Theater Space at 511 West 52nd Street in Manhattan, is one of the most enjoyable plays that I saw this season. Not only has the play been extended a week – my very hope […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) It’s taken 25 years for Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman to birth their baby, but Harmony: A New Musical, with direction and choreography by Warren Carlyle, is proof of the time-worn adage, “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” This time, the Off-Broadway production presented […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Times have been very busy both together and separately for the composing team of composer Ricky Ian Gordon and librettist Michael Korie. The team had worked previously on the opera The Grapes of Wrath, which premiered in 2007 and was later revised and expanded in 2010. In […]
By EDWARD RUBIN Kimberly Akimbo, the newly penned musical with book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire (Rabbit Hole, Shrek the Musical) and music by Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home, Caroline, or Change) is the most loving, loveliest, and poignant theatrical experience of the year. Starring the invincible Victoria Clark, whose every performance is pure gold (she […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Crittic (“Steppin’ Out“) Tovah Feldshuh had described herself as a “transformational” actor. Among her previous outings in one-woman shows were Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (“Golda’s Balcony“) and hotel magnate Leona Helmsley in a play (‘The Queen of Mean“) and a cabaret show (“Tovah is Leona!“). She also played Supreme […]