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The article reviews several theatrical productions including "Billy & Ray," directed by Garry Marshall, "Moonlight and Magnolias," directed by Viktor Fleming, and "Acapulco," starring Steven Berkoff.

The article reviews the theatrical production "My Cousin Rachel" directed by Toby Frow and starring Philip Ashley and Hannah Yelland, performed at the Gate Theater in Dublin, Ireland.

The article reviews a revival of Paula Vogel's play "And Baby Makes Seven" directed by Marc Stuart Weitz and starring Constance Zaytoun, Susan Bott and Ken Barnett, performed at the New Ohio Theater in West Village, New York City which continues through April 12, 2014.

Step aside, all you apple-cheeked newspaper boys and American idiots, you little mermaids and littler orphans. The grown-ups have something to say. You may want to take some notes -- and not just because you'll be one of them soon enough. Musical theater has courted young audiences relentlessly in the 23 years since ''Closer Than Ever'' opened Off Broadway. But among the abundant charms of this pocket-size 1989 revue, now getting a polished revival by the York Theater Company, is its assertion that folks with a few miles on the odometer also have stuff to sing about. More stuff, in fact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By the end of ''The Bad and the Better,'' Derek Ahonen's red-herring-stuffed panorama of dime-store pulp, nearly every one of the 26 cast members gets to do at least one of the following: A. Enter a room looking furtively over his or her shoulder. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

''American Jornalero'' is the feel-good racist vigilante story of the year. If that strikes you as a questionable premise, Ed Cardona Jr. will be happy to convince you otherwise. Or at least try to: His enjoyably low-key drama makes up in atmosphere for what it lacks in plausibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What a rare and rich treat to see a group of performers stretch the classics as far as possible and not one inch further. That's what the misleadingly named Bedlam company has done with its taut, maraudingly high-spirited take on George Bernard Shaw's ''Saint Joan'' at the Access Theater. A protean quartet has created a production to be treasured: just three gifted men play the 23 fighters, schemers, moralizers and executioners surrounding Joan of Arc (the no-less-gifted Andrus Nichols). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

You can't see Quiara Alegria Hudes's ''Water by the Spoonful'' right now, even though it just won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. The play, the second part of a trilogy, ran for less than a month in its world premiere at Hartford Stage in late 2011. The other two finalists, Jon Robin Baitz's ''Other Desert Cities'' and Stephen Karam's ''Sons of the Prophet,'' were far better known, having enjoyed prominent and well-received New York productions; ''Other Desert Cities'' is playing on Broadway and is a likely contender for the Tony Award for best play, to be announced in June. This is not the first time the Pulitzer has gone to a play on the strength of the script as opposed to a production. (None of the five jurors saw ''Water'' in Hartford.) That's completely permissible according to the prize rules, but it tends to ruffle feathers; the last time this happened -- when Nilo Cruz's ''Anna in the Tropics'' won sight unseen in 2003 -- the theater critic John Lahr of The New Yorker sniffed that it was ''as absurd as giving a restaurant four stars on the basis of its menu.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Years before ''Everybody Loves Raymond'' propelled Brad Garrett to stardom, he was a stand-up comedian opening for Frank Sinatra in Las Vegas. He capped his warm-up act on one particularly unresponsive night by deadpanning: ''You're a great audience. Stick around for Frank.'' The Acting Company's forceful, fine-boned revival of ''Julius Caesar,'' a co-production with the Guthrie Theater playing at the Baruch Performing Arts Center, evokes this memory as its Brutus (William Sturdivant) concludes his logically airtight but dry funeral oration with, ''I do entreat you, not a man depart,/Save I alone, till Antony have spoke.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If reality television didn't exist, Caden Manson/Big Art Group would have had to invent it. The caterwauling banalities and strenuous camp on more or less constant display in the company's ''Broke House,'' at the Abrons Arts Center, bring to mind a grad student bingeing on the Bravo channel after taking a bit too much allergy medication. With their penchant for meta-theatrical shenanigans -- a play within a play, a stage manager calling out scene changes -- Mr. Manson and his deconstruction crew have bigger fish to fry than the Snookis of the world. But as the show's presentational antics and Wooster-Group-with-a-glue-gun aesthetics cross the one-hour mark with few variations in volume or tone, it becomes increasingly clear that there will be no rescue in the form of commercial breaks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Penn and Teller, meet Wayne and Garth. And another guy. The three beta males laying waste to St. Ann's Warehouse in the delightfully daft ''Elephant Room'' may not have much luck with the ladies, no matter how many synchronized karate kicks and amplified hair-metal ballads they offer. Nonetheless, Stan's Warehouse, as one of them calls it, is where the magic happens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ravaged James Tyrone on display at City Center Stage II in the Pearl Theater Company's sure-footed revival of ''A Moon for the Misbegotten,'' as played by Andrew May, has got a certain quality. He's downright ... unexceptional. This may sound like a criticism. It's not. It actually signals a vote of confidence in the durability of the role, one of Eugene O'Neill's most unsparing yet most generous, by Mr. May and his director, J. R. Sullivan. And it helps further to cement O'Neill's final completed play, a semi-sequel to ''Long Day's Journey Into Night,'' as one of the 20th century's greatest romances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Too sophisticated for its intended audience and too shrill for the grown-ups in tow, ''Lucky Duck'' is a rare miscalculation for the New Victory Theater. This raucous reboot of ''The Ugly Duckling'' fable ends up nestling uneasily between bratty and brainy. It's neither fish nor waterfowl. The composer, Henry Krieger, is also responsible for ''Dreamgirls'' and (along with his ''Lucky Duck'' lyricist, Bill Russell) ''Side Show,'' which both feature babes in the dark woods of show business, buoyed by predatory men and their false promises. The same holds true here -- and much of the ''Lucky Duck'' score is equally strong -- but this time the woods are real, and the pawing is done by actual paws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hindsight may always be 20/20, but the clarity of Simon Van Booy's ''Hindsight'' is much harder to determine. On paper, the story has a chance: An older woman and a younger one meet on a Paris park bench, exchanging wary confidences that slide into a surreal examination of a life not yet lived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If you've ever wondered what a plant being Tasered sounds like, wonder no more. In ''Botanica,'' Jim Findlay's overripe juxtaposition of scientific jargon and randy flora, the wildlife endures that and much, much more. Mr. Findlay has moved to the director's chair after nearly two decades of creating beguiling visuals for a Who's Who of downtown theater practitioners (the Wooster Group, Collapsable Giraffe, Cynthia Hopkins, Ridge Theater). And fittingly for a designer taking the reins (he is also a writer of the play, with Jeff Jackson), he has constructed a riotously lush world in which the environment usurps its ostensible minders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why didn't Henry James think of adding some dragon tattoos and poisoned cups of tea? ''Tokio Confidential,'' a new musical by Eric Schorr, has plenty to recommend it, not least a plush, inviting score. But Mr. Schorr, who wrote the music, book and lyrics, does his almost comically lurid story no favors by basing several characters' names on figures in James's naturalistic masterpiece ''The Portrait of a Lady,'' even retaining Isabel Archer's birthplace, Albany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If you've ever wondered what a plant being Tasered sounds like, wonder no more. In ''Botanica,'' Jim Findlay's overripe juxtaposition of scientific jargon and randy flora, the wildlife endures that and much, much more. Mr. Findlay has moved to the director's chair after nearly two decades of creating beguiling visuals for a Who's Who of downtown theater practitioners (the Wooster Group, Collapsable Giraffe, Cynthia Hopkins, Ridge Theater). And fittingly for a designer taking the reins (he is also a writer of the play, with Jeff Jackson), he has constructed a riotously lush world in which the environment usurps its ostensible minders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A more sensationalist entity than the proud-to-be-prickly Under the Radar festival might have given ''Chimera'' a sexier title, like, say, ''I Am My Own Sister'' or ''Invasion of the Body Cohabitant.'' Not to worry: This play, Suli Holum and Deborah Stein's cerebral freakout, is plenty compelling on its own. A trim actress with an asymmetrical pixie hairdo and a somewhat predatory grin, Ms. Holum -- the show's creator, along with Ms. Stein, who is credited with the text -- ultimately gives voice to three characters. There's Jennifer Samuels, an esteemed microbiologist; Brian, her wonky son; and a chipper narrator with a Midwestern accent, who may be the twin sister Jennifer never had. Or, rather, did have, but only prenatally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

''BLOOD KNOT,'' the 1961 play that vaulted Athol Fugard into international prominence, features two young South African men, one black and one white, grappling over what the world owes them. ''The Train Driver,'' which Mr. Fugard, above, wrote in 2010, features two older South African men, one black and one white, grappling over what they owe the world. These works bookend a rich career for Mr. Fugard, who turns 80 this June and is being honored this season with four major New York productions. These two plays, along with the 1989 political drama ''My Children! My Africa!,'' make up a big part of the Signature Theater Company's inaugural season in its new home. But first comes ''The Road to Mecca,'' which opens Jan. 17 at the Roundabout Theater Company's American Airlines Theater. Rosemary Harris stars in the 1984 drama as Miss Helen, an Afrikaner widow who earns the mistrust of her village when she begins filling her yard with ambitious, whimsical sculptures after the death of her husband. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wonderment comes roughly in four-minute intervals at the New Victory Theater these days. That's about how much time is given to each sequence in Cirque Shanghai's ''Bai Xi,'' which translates rather hyperbolically to ''100 amazing acts.'' The title overstates the number of acts by about 80, but that's the only example of overpromising in this child-friendly spectacle of traditional and updated Chinese acrobatics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The dungeon master, that eight-sided-dice-wielding arbiter in any Dungeons & Dragons game, serves as a potent metaphor in ''She Kills Monsters,'' Qui Nguyen's deceptively breezy and rather ingenious comedy. The play includes a fairly standard version of the alpha geek, complete with Renaissance Faire cloak, two-liter jug of Mountain Dew and imaginary girlfriend. But looming over the action is another fate-shaper, one whose edicts are permanent. Bumping into the wrong orc in the wrong cave can mean a premature death, and so can dying in a car crash at the age of 15. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than a handful of names have been made at the New York Musical Theater Festival. The impish ''[title of show]'' duo Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell, the Pulitzer Prize-winning ''Next to Normal'' team of Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, and the pastiche-happy ''Altar Boyz'' writers Gary Adler, Michael Patrick Walker and Kevin Del Aguila all rode the wave of festival hype to acclaim. Thanks in part to this success, bigger names have been gravitating toward NYMF, as the annual event is widely known. While crew members can still be seen jamming sets into Toyota hatchbacks outside the theaters as members of a creative team apologize for technical difficulties within, this infusion of old-guard talent -- which this year includes the composer David Shire (''Closer Than Ever,'' ''Baby'') and the book writer/director Lonny Price (''A Class Act'') -- lends a pinch of seriousness to the agreeably ramshackle affair. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Change is in the air in Sylvan Oswald's ''Nightlands,'' and neither its beneficiaries nor its potential victims know quite what to make of it. Mr. Oswald betrays a similar level of uncertainty about how to resolve the issues raised in his empathic if scattered memory play set amid the uneasy racial tensions of his hometown of Philadelphia in the early 1960s. But even when he tries to jam too many stories and styles into the production, which opened Monday night at the Here Arts Center under the auspices of New Georges, he and his inventive director, Tamilla Woodard, shrewdly double back to the two main characters and their all-too-plausible inconsistencies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]