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  Theatre in Review: Leni's Last Lament (Paradise Factory)
Even history's villains deserve a certain respect, and when it comes to twentieth-century history, there are few more riveting troublemakers than Leni Riefenstahl. One of the original multi-hyphenates -- actress, director, producer, and ...
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Theatre in Review: Goddess (The Public Theater)
Goddess has cycled through many writers' hands, and I fear it shows. When the musical was first announced at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in the summer of 2022, it had a book by Jocelyn Bioh, with additional material by ...
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Theatre in Review: O.K.! (INTAR)
O.K.! is a backstage comedy about abortion; that's not a combination I ever expected. The characters in Christin Eve Cato's play are appearing in a "bilingual parody of Oklahoma!" fashioned around the Mexican ...
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Theatre in Review: Gertrude Lawrence: A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening (59E59)
It is, sadly, appropriate that this entertainment has been booked into Theatre C, 59E59's tiniest venue. Gertrude Lawrence, one of the greatest stage stars of the twentieth century, is more than a little forgotten. The reasons are obvious: ...
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Theatre in Review: The Last Bimbo of the Apocalypse (The New Group)
Our playwrights have fallen, collectively, into a retrospective mood lately, examining past historical moments marked by a hope that somehow evaporated. In Purpose, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins wonders about the long aftermath of the ...
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Theatre in Review: Real Women Have Curves (James Earl Jones Theatre)
The revelation of Real Women Have Curves: All you need for a captivating musical is a tightly constructed book and score, a talented and ingratiating cast, and slick, fast-paced direction. Who knew? ...
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Theatre in Review: Just in Time (Circle in the Square Theatre)
Here's a spring surprise: Just when the bio musical genre appears all but exhausted, we get the disarming story of Bobby Darin. I mean, Bobby Darin?
There's a kind of gambler's recklessness behind this project. Most successful ...
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Theatre in Review: The United States vs. Ulysses (Once Off Productions/Irish Arts Center)
Our national pastime -- I'm talking about book-banning, of course -- is revisited in this lively, sometimes scattered slice of literary history. It's hilarious that a work as willfully obscure as James Joyce's Ulysses was ever ...
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Theatre in Review: Dead Outlaw (Longacre Theatre)
This has turned out to be the season of immobile leading men: Uptown, at Lincoln Center, Jeremy Jordan, playing the title character of Floyd Collins, spends most of the evening trapped in a mine, pinned down by a rock. In Midtown,
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Theatre in Review: Stranger Things: The First Shadow (Marquis Theatre)
For fans of the streaming series Stranger Things (I am one): The new attraction at the Marquis is a fascinating milestone in the ongoing saga, focusing on Henry Creel, who, we learned in season four, is the hidden link between ...
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Theatre in Review: Pirates! The Penzance Musical (Roundabout Theatre Company/Todd Haimes Theatre)
I know I'm saying the obvious, but David Hyde Pierce is the secret weapon of Pirates! Fitted out, alternately, in tails or naval uniform, muttonchop whiskers creeping across his face like Spanish moss, his understated ...
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Theatre in Review: Floyd Collins (Lincoln Center Theater/Vivian Beaumont Theater)
Is Floyd Collins a thrilling piece of lyric theatre or an insoluble problem set to music? Despite some unforgettable passages, I lean toward the latter view. It's an evening of intermittent electricity, occasionally leaping ...
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Theatre in Review: Irishtown (Irish Repertory Theatre)
Theatre people certainly have it in for their own these days. On Broadway, Smash follows the development of a new musical about Marilyn Monroe, which spins out of control when the leading lady takes on distinctly Monroe-ish ...
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Theatre in Review: Hold Me in the Water (Playwrights Horizons)
In Hold Me in the Water, Ryan J. Haddad gets the star entrance he has long deserved. Rising on an elevator -- something you don't see every day at Playwrights Horizons -- he greets us ebulliently with "Hello, Darlings!" ...
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Theatre in Review: Grief Camp (Atlantic Theater Company)/Becoming Eve (NY Theatre Workshop)
It is no small accomplishment to populate a stage filled with grieving young people and then render them almost entirely uninteresting and unsympathetic. But this is the dubious achievement of Grief Camp. Debuting playwright < ...
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Theatre in Review: Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends (Manhattan Theatre Club/Samuel J. Friedman Theatre)
The ovations come early and often at the Friedman these nights. The first is ignited by Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga merely taking the stage, a sure sign that the audience is already wired. Of course, the ladies do not ...
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Theatre in Review: John Proctor is the Villain (Booth Theatre)
In her charming Playbill biography, Kimberly Belflower describes herself as "a playwright and educator originally from a small town in Appalachian Georgia," adding that John Proctor is the Villain is "her first ...
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Theatre in Review: Smash (Imperial Theatre)
In one of the many arguments that make up the book of Smash, someone defines a musical as "wherein a character sings when speaking can't possibly express the emotion they are experiencing, and people in the audience cheer." ...
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Theatre in Review: Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp. (Public Theater)
Caryl Churchill is showing a certain shrinkage these days, yet she remains as eerily buoyant as ever. The first quality can be found in this quartet of one-acts now at the Public; the first three are like tiny, spiked blunt ...
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Theatre in Review: minor*ity (Colt Coeur/WP Theater)
In minor*ity, playwright Francisca da silveira throws together a trio of Black artists at an international symposium, catching them in all sorts of personal and ethical entanglements. Key virtues of the debut work are ...
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