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Previews the Broadway comedy "Laugh Whore," by Mario Cantone, playing in New York City through the Christmas holidays. Direction of the comedy by Joe Mantello that retains a feeling of a club routine; Absence of structure and thematic design.

Previews the Broadway play "The Rivals," by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, starring Dana Ivey. Storyline of the comedy of manners, directed by Mark Lamos.

Reports on the performance of the drama "Rose Rage" in New York City.

Comments on the drama "Slava's Snowshow" performed in New York City.

Reports on the performance of the drama "Hedda Gabler" in New York City.

Reports on the performance of the drama "Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom" in New York City.

Reports on the performance of the drama "The Bald Soprano and the Lesson" in New York City.

Features the drama "Lysistrata." Cast of characters; Plot of the drama.

The article reviews the theater festival of drama by women authors known as Women’s Voices Theater Festival in Washington, D.C. (District of Columbia) from September-November 2015, including the theatrical production of the "Queens Girl in the World," directed by Eleanor Holdridge, presented by the theater company Theater J and starring Dawn Ursula, "Cake Off," directed by Joe Calarco and starring Sherri L. Edelen, Todd Buonopane, Michael Kevin Darnall and "Animal," directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch starring Kate Eastwood Norris, Cody Nickell and Joel David Santner.

The article presents a review of playwright Annie Baker's play "John," directed by Sam Gold and starring Georgia Engel, Christopher Abbott, Hong Chau and Lois Smith, performed at the Pershing Square Signature Center in New York City showing through September 6, 2015.

The article focuses on the play "Journey's End," by R.S. Sherriff, as performed on Broadway in New York City during the spring of 2007, and comments on its failure to draw the crowds it could have expected because it will be the winner of a Tony award. The article suggests that this failure is due to the U.S. public's weariness with war.

The article presents information on two plays of the famous playwright, Richard Greenberg.

Reviews two plays. "Doubt," by John Patrick Shanley; "Pillowman," by Martin McDonagh.

Previews the play "Inky," performed by Jessi Campbell at Julia Miles Theater in New York on April 2005.

Comments on the play "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," directed by James Lapine.

Previews the play "K.I. From Crime," directed by Kama Ginkas and performed by Katerina Ivanovna at the Freight Entrance Theater in New York City.

Previews the theatrical production "Nine Parts of Desire," at the Manhattan Ensemble Theater in New York City performed from Tuesdays through Saturdays.

The article offers information on the new project called WordPlay Shakespeare, created by the New Book Press, which offers series of plays written by William Shakespeare in electronic books (e-books) form.

ONE of the happier stories of the Broadway season, to be capped on Sunday night with the annual presentation of the Tony Awards, was the wealth of fine new plays. There's a story behind that story: the continuing importance of Off Broadway as the cultivating ground for America's best dramatists. All four of this year's nominees for best play -- ''Clybourne Park,''''Other Desert Cities,''''Peter and the Starcatcher'' and ''Venus in Fur'' -- were first produced Off Broadway. But it's worth noting, amid the glittery festivities, that some of the finest new playwriting to be seen Off Broadway is not necessarily Broadway-bound, and probably shouldn't be. The two most memorable plays I saw in New York this season, Stephen Karam's ''Sons of the Prophet'' and Amy Herzog's ''4000 Miles,'' were produced Off Broadway, and while there was talk of Mr. Karam's play -- a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize -- transferring to Broadway, I was almost relieved it didn't. Moving, funny and entertaining as ''Sons'' was, I feared its nuanced humanity might become diffused in a Broadway house. Heaven knows it's happened before. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If you're going to have the chutzpah to call your show ''Shatner's World: We Just Live In It ...,'' it is probably wise to enter joking. William Shatner, who does not need an introduction to anyone who has made it to the second sentence of this review, does precisely that in the chatty, digressive and often amusing tour of his unusual acting career, which opened Thursday night at the Music Box Theater for a brief Broadway run. Despite the absurdly (joshingly?) self-aggrandizing title, Mr. Shatner shows a welcome tendency to poke fun at himself that anyone who has seen his commercials for the travel Web site Priceline.com will probably recognize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is the stress of urban striving shredding your nerves? Do you fight the odd urge to throw the BlackBerry down the nearest manhole? Had it up to here with the overscheduled, information-saturated, distraction-filled frenzy that is contemporary American life? The smiling fellow in the slick suit, skinny tie and nifty hat has a proposition for you. Turn off the digital assistant, tune out the endless din and drop in to the friendly neighborhood depicted in the new play ''Maple and Vine,'' where social networking is a mere matter of inviting friends over for pigs in a blanket and crab puffs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A wedding is an easy peg to hang drama on, for reasons that hardly need much elaboration. Two words suffice: family togetherness. In ''We Live Here,'' a programmatic play by Zoe Kazan that opened on Wednesday at City Center in a Manhattan Theater Club production, the summer nuptials of the daughter of an artsy clan in New England brings about a painful family reckoning with the impact of a tragedy from a dozen years before. Amy Irving plays Maggie, the mother of the bride, who is seen greedily opening her soon-to-be-wedded daughter's gifts as the play begins, a neon-bright indicator of her narcissism if ever there was one. Maggie airily insists that she's just trying to be helpful, but it is soon clear that she is the kind of mom who thinks being helpful extends to organizing every facet of the family's social and emotional lives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Stage directions, those humble, practical and occasionally ignored players in the art of dramatic composition, are the stars of the show at the Kraine Theater in the East Village, where the New York Neo-Futurists are presenting a handful of early Eugene O'Neill plays, shorn of all dialogue. ''The Complete & Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O'Neill Volume 1: Early Plays/Lost Plays'' sounds like the title of an exceptionally dreary doctoral thesis, but the show, adapted and directed by Christopher Loar, is something far more enjoyable, an impish illustration of how lively entertainment can be created from theatrical spare parts. Elevator Repair Service has won acclaim with its elaborate staged readings of classic works of literature, but the Neo-Futurists, best known for the 30-plays-in-60-minutes whirlwind ''Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind,'' have set themselves a more challenging task in removing the dramatic heart and soul of a play's text, leaving only the indications of action to hold the stage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Last seen in sober work attire, with his nose buried in a book for about six hours, the protean actor Scott Shepherd appears in far more garish guises in the Wooster Group's restless but surprisingly reverent production of ''Vieux Carre,'' a little-seen Tennessee Williams play in which the writer exhumes a macabre assortment of lonely ghosts from his youthful, desperate days in New Orleans in the late 1930s. Mr. Shepherd, who played the narrator Nick Carraway in ''Gatz,'' the fall season's acclaimed word-by-word enactment of ''The Great Gatsby,'' enters the darkened playing space at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in what might be called a state of faux tumescence. You hardly notice the dilapidated kimono robe or the frazzled gray fright wig that almost obscures the actor's pale, angular features, for strapped to Mr. Shepherd's waist is a rubber phallus that enters the room before he does. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Within seconds of sweeping onstage, and with a wordless gesture as funny as it is subtle, the great actor Brian Bedford proves beyond question that gender is of no importance whatsoever in portraying the imposing Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde's greatest comedy, ''The Importance of Being Earnest.'' Mr. Bedford's Lady Bracknell enters the drawing room of her nephew Algernon Moncrieff (Santino Fontana) as she would enter any room, with the authority of one who believes firmly in her right to be welcomed anywhere, preferably with tea and cucumber sandwiches. Advancing to greet Algernon, she registers the presence of his friend Jack Worthing (David Furr). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

''Vampires are rare,'' opines Dr. Van Helsing, the expert on all things undead, in the revival of the drama ''Dracula'' that opened Wednesday night at the Little Shubert Theater. ''Nature abhors them, the forces of good combine to destroy them, but a few of these creatures have lived on for centuries.'' Ahem, excuse me? A few? I know you're the world-famous authority, Dr. Van H., but I fear I must demur. Nature seems to have done an about-face in recent years, adoring where it once abhorred. Far from being exotic rarities these days, vampires are all but ubiquitous, the very lifeblood, if you will, of popular culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communication is definitely a problem in the household of ''The Subject Was Roses,'' Frank D. Gilroy's 1964 drama about disappointed lives in the Bronx in the aftermath of World War II. Triple toe loops could safely be performed on the ice that has formed between John and Nettie Cleary, whose marriage has long since soured into a subdued cold war. But there are also signs of frost between both parents and their only son, Timmy, just back from service and uneasily trying to repair damage and regenerate affections with the perspective he has gained from experience. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The naked cowboy with the sequined phallus would be a startling apparition just about anywhere, with the possible exception of a gay strip club, but he seems a particularly incongruous vision in the humble Hungarian village of ''Peasant Opera,'' the quirky musical melodrama that opened Tuesday night at the Clark Studio Theater as part of the Lincoln Center Festival. Written and directed by Bela Pinter, a leading figure from the theater world of his native Budapest, with music by Benedek Darvas, the show is a ribald sendup of opera that blends the earthy sounds of Hungarian folk songs with the ordered conventions of baroque music, to strange but surprisingly satisfying effect. The story, drawn from a native folk tale widely known in Hungary, unfolds on the wedding day of Roland (Mr. Pinter) and his bride to be (Sarolta Nagy-Abonyi), whose obvious pregnancy doesn't appear to have dampened her blissful excitement. In the opening scene she sings merrily of her delight in the buds of springtime, which causes puzzled stares from the family gathered for the nuptials. ''Has she been drinking?'' asks one. ''Has she smoked a joint?'' As her betrothed informs her gently, the date is actually Oct. 28. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

BEST PLAY Ben Brantley [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

''Good Boys and True,'' about a scandal at a prep school, is a standard-issue issue play written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and acted competently by a likable cast. The brouhaha in question, unfortunately, is likely to inspire more stifled yawns than furrowed brows or raised consciousnesses. The incident driving this blunt drama, directed by Scott Ellis, which opened Monday night at the Second Stage Theater, is a sex tape circulating among the jocks at an elite boys' school near Washington. The year is 1988, which I suspect is Mr. Aguirre-Sacasa's attempt to inoculate the play against a cosmic shrug on the part of the audience. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the possible exception of a few hedge fund billionaires, is anyone in America not worried about money, as the stock market settles into a state of permanent hysteria, the economy lumbers, and the cost of living leaps? So the two new plays at the center of the 11th annual Pacific Playwrights Festival here opened in a naturally sympathetic atmosphere. Both ''The Injured Party,'' by Richard Greenberg, and ''What They Have,'' by Kate Robin, consider how far men and women will push themselves -- or each other -- to get the money for what they want (or what they think they need), whether it is a house in the country or the medical treatment necessary to conceive a child. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Previews several plays to be staged in various theaters in New York City.

Announces the staging of the plays "Kissing Fidel" at the Kirk Theater, "The BreadWinner," at the Connelly Theater, "Holy Cross…!" at Arts Nova in New York City.

Previews theatrical performances in New York City and Massachusetts. "As You Like It," directed by Mark Lamos and starring Lynn Collins, Brian Bedford and Richard Thomas; "Follies," starring Donna McKechnie, Marni Nixon, Kim Crosby, Lara Teeter and Jeff McCarthy.

Previews the play "Play Without Words," by Matthew Bourne at Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey Theater in New York on April 2005.

Previews the play "After Ashley," directed by Terry Kinney and performed by Anna Paquin and Kieran Culkin at Vineyard Theater in New York on April 2005.

Previews the play "Woman Before a Glass," directed Casey Childs and performed by Mercedes Ruehl.

Previews the play "Orson's Shadow," directed by David Cromer at Barrow Street Theater in New York on April 2005.

Previews the play "Going to Saint Ives," by Lee Blessing and performed by L. Scott Caldwell and Vivienne Benesch at Primary Stages in New York on April 2005.

Previews the play "Moonlight & Magnolias," directed by Lynne Meadow at Manhattan Theater Club in New York on April 2005.

Previews the play "Dessa Rose," directed by Graciela Daniele and performed by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens at Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater in New York on April 2005.

Previews the play "Jackie Mason: Freshly Squeezed," directed and performed by Jackie Mason at Helen Hayes Theater in New York on April 2005.

Previews the play "Altar Boyz," by songwriters Gary Adler and Michael Patrick Walker at Dodger Stages Stage 4 in New York on April 2005.

Presents a preview of the play "Thom Pain (Based on Nothing)," written by Eno Will and performed by James Urbaniak at the DR2 Theater in New York City.

Presents a preview of the play "Happy Days," written by Samuel Beckett and performed by Lea DeLaria at the Classic Stage Company in New York City.