With the concept of “winter” an increasing memory, here is overview of all that’s coming to New York stages this spring!
All tagged Theatre for a New Audience
FEATURE: Top 10 of 2019
By my count, I’ve attended 234 performances of theatre, dance, music, opera, and cabaret during 2019. Out of a field that large, it’s hard to pick just ten, but nevertheless, here are my top ten (ok, eleven) favorite shows I saw in 2019.
FEATURE: 2019 Fall Season Preview
The city that never sleeps also boasts a theatre scene that never sleeps. With the summer now behind us, this is an overview of all that’s coming to New York stages this fall (spoiler alert: it’s a lot).
"Frankie and Johnny" closing a month early; "Beautiful" will close on October 27th and "Waitress" will close on January 5th; Jeremy O. Harris' "Slave Play" will play a 17 week run at the Golden Theatre; Robert Schenkkan's "The Great Society" will play a 12 week run at Broadway's Vivian Beaumont Theatre; starry productions of "Little Shop of Horrors" slated for Off-Broadway and Pasadena Playhouse; cast announced for Ivo van Hove's upcoming "West Side Story"; "Fairview" extends to August 11th; "What the Constitution Means to Me" recoups; Jack Viertel will retire as artistic director of the annual Encores! at City Center; Paul McCartney has written a musical adaptation of "It's a Wonderful Life"; RIPHugh Southern, former executive director of TDF and co-conceiver of the TKTS booth in 1973
REVIEW: An athletic and thrilling “Julius Caesar” at Theatre for a New Audience in Brooklyn
Theatre for a New Audience in Brooklyn presents a new nondescript production of Shakespeare’s “The Tragedy of Julius Caesar” featuring an athletic use of choreographed movement to summon the emotional charge created by crowd and battle scenes, elevating and sustaining the intensity of the political drama. “Julius Caesar” is hard to get right; TFANA pulls it off with this well-acted, smartly staged, deeply engaging, and flat-out thrilling production.
REVIEW: Shakespeare goes West in “Desperate Measures”
“Desperate Measures” is a smartly crafted new musical (very) loosely inspired by the central plot of Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure”, set in the Wild West in the late 1800s. A musical comedy guilty pleasure that is fun and charming, this show offers a perfect, joyful escape from the horror of the daily news.
REVIEW: “The Winter’s Tale” at TFANA
“The Winter’s Tale”, one of Shakespeare’s notorious “problem plays”, is given a solid new production by Arin Arbus with a terrific troupe of actors. While not a canonical favorite of mine, this play offers fascinating insights, is well-designed and performed, and is sure to delight any lover of Shakespeare.
REVIEW: “He Brought Her Heart Back In A Box”
Trailblazing experimental African American playwright Adrienne Kennedy’s powerful new play, “He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box”, pieces together an anatomy of interracial young love amidst 1940s Georgia, stewing in the horrific inescapability of history, the tragedy of racism, and contradictions of life in the Jim Crow South. Dense, quick, sentimental, angry, and mysterious, this is one new work from a legend worth checking out.