Monthly Archives: February 2012

Comments on “The Boys Next Door”

Soon after the review of SOAR Productions’ “The Boys Next Door” was posted, comments appeared here and on my personal email. Following are a few, edited for length (not for tone) and to ensure the writers’ anonymity. This email was … Continue reading

Blog

Brecht on “Galileo” at Classic Stage

The story told in Bertolt Brecht’s Galileo is fascinating. The way it’s being told in the version now at Classic Stage Company is murky. In the early 16th Century, Galileo invented the telescope – the play suggests he “adopted” it … Continue reading

NY Theater, Off Broadway

A tension convention: “Poetic License”

When Jack Canfora’s Poetic License premiered at New Jersey Repertory Company in 2008, the second act’s abrupt change of tone and introduction of too-much-information were significant flaws. Now enjoying a first class off-Broadway production with original director Evan Bergman helming … Continue reading

NY Theater, Off Broadway

“The Boys Next Door” – Call the movers…

A few things I‘ll never understand: how my cell phone works in the middle of the Lincoln Tunnel, how so many women have been willing to sleep with Newt Gingrich, and why any theater company would stage The Boys Next … Continue reading

Blog, Community, Regional

Grab the “Jitney” at Two River Theater

Each of August Wilson’s ten plays illustrates ‘the way it was’ for African-Americans in a different decade of the 20th Century. All the plays are acclaimed; two, Fences and The Piano Lesson, won Pulitzer Prizes. But none is more compelling … Continue reading

Professional, Regional

“Crimes” touches the heart at First Avenue Playhouse

Crimes of the Heart has been called both a “kitchen drama” and a “chick play.” To be sure, the play is set in a kitchen and it is about three sisters in a small Mississippi town in 1974, but the … Continue reading

Blog, Community, Regional