Category Archives: Blog

“A Bronx Tale” Well Told at Axelrod PAC

The Axelrod Performing Arts Center in Deal Park, New Jersey has emerged from Covid lockdown with a stylish and engaging production of “A Bronx Tale,” the full-scale musical version of Chazz Palminteri’s 1989 autobiographical solo show. The 1993 (non-musical) film … Continue reading

Blog, Community, Professional, Regional

A Couple Thousand Miles (And a War) Between Friends: “Ken Ludwig’s Dear Jack, Dear Louise” in New Jersey

It is no knock on A. R. Gurney’s much-admired “Love Letters” to note that “Ken Ludwig’s Dear Jack, Dear Louise” takes Gurney’s premise and runs with it…literally. Gurney has a man and a woman seated at desks reading aloud the … Continue reading

Blog

Four Actors Play Multiple Characters in Two Broadway Plays

In his very fine book “A Lifetime with Shakespeare” (McFarland),  about having directed all of Shakespeare’s plays, the late Paul Barry postulated that casting is eighty-five percent of directing and that good directors, by definition, cast well. If that is … Continue reading

Blog, Broadway, NY Theater

The Dazzling Half-Dozen: “Six The Musical” on Broadway

Henry VIII wasted no time embarking on his multiple-marriage mission. Just weeks after assuming the English throne at age 19 in 1509, he wed number one of six, Catherine of Aragon, his older brother Arthur’s widow. (Catherine was the daughter … Continue reading

Blog, Broadway, NY Theater

“Merry Wives” in Harlem, via Central Park

Tradition holds that Queen Elizabeth I, enamored of Sir John Falstaff from Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays, asked the playwright to depict that character in love, and that he complied, writing “The Merry Wives of Windsor” in under a fortnight. Maybe … Continue reading

Blog

Long Live the King! (Lear, that is…and Cordelia too)

In calendar year 2014 I saw four different productions of Shakespeare’s “King Lear.” In all of them, and six or eight others over the years, Lear and his daughter Cordelia [spoiler alert] died at the end.  As devastating as are … Continue reading

Blog, NY Theater, Off Broadway