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With the exception of the dependably delightful antics of Bill Irwin and David Shiner in 'Fool Moon,' several of 1998's brightest moments were surrounded by so-so material. 'Love's Fire,' the [...]

Presented by James B. Freydberg, Jeffrey Ash, Don Bernstein, and CTM Productions at the Brooks Atkinson Theater, 256 W. 47 St., Nov. 17-Jan. 3. It has become the closest thing [...]

Presented by the Worth Street Theater Company, at the Tribeca Playhouse, 111 Reade St., NYC, Sept. 24-Oct. 18. 'Snapshots '98,' the Worth Street Theater Company's new evening of one-acts, would [...]

Wondering what to, do for your folks' fiftieth wedding Anniversary? You re not alone. Baby boomers parents-married in the years after World War II-are celebrating their golden unions in record […]

It's hard to work up much enthusiasm one way or the other for Jean Reynolds 'Dance With Me,' playing through Sunday at the Theatre Row Theatre. Its ambitions are as [...]

'But what if?' That phrase is heard explicitly in one segment of 'Stalking the Nightmare.' a paltry evening of Harlan Ellison stones adapted for the stage by Robert Armin. But [...]

It is shocking to realize that Terrence Rattigan's 'The Deep Blue Sea' was written only five years before JohnOsborne's 'Look Back in Anger' Western theatre has veered so irrevocably toward [...]

A mid all the toe-corn and fart jokes, in between all the badgering and baiting of the audience, there's an interesting play lurking, somewhere in 'Birth of the Boom,' which [...]

'Richard II' and 'Richard III,' now playing in repertory at Theatre for a New Audience, have very different assets and very different drawbacks. This shouldn't come as much of a [...]

People seem to fall into two pretty distinct categories when it comes to Richard Foreman. Either they see him as a bold, fearless voice crashing through the predictable dogmas of [...]

'Clue: The Musical,' now playing at the Players Theatre, could be worse. I guess. This ill-conceived, charmless piece has some pretty good performers in it; they do as well as [...]

Say what you will about Tanya Kane-Parry's trippy, zonked-out 'Trojan Women,' at Westside Repertory Theatre--it ain't boring. Kane-Parry has adapted Euripides' tale of bottomless sorrow and dislocation into an untamed [...]

I wish I could put my finger on exactly why Jean Cocteau Repertory's production of Tom Stoppard's 'Rough Crossing' made me so sad. When a company this good sinks its [...]

Voltaire survived various beatings, exiles, and stints in jail during his lifetime. His name will certainly survive the memories of the two recent 'Candide' productions--first Hal Prince's bloated musical revival [...]

As a cautionary tale, 'Baby Anger' is a qualified success. As a black comedy,though, it falls short. And since it ultimately aspires to the latter, it is on that level [...]

Nostalgia takes center stage in the third series of Ensemble Studio Theatre's annual one-act marathon. All four plays, while very dissimilar, are memory plays of sorts, conjuring up (often with [...]

'Play the man, not the cards.' For Fail of the lingo coming from Patrick Marber's card sharks in Manhattan Theatre Club's predictable but engrossing 'Dealer's Choice, 'that simple dictum is [...]

Jonathan Marc Sherman's 'Sophistry' is an engaging, articulate sham of a play. The Tidemark Theatre Company's new production brings out both the work's quirky charms and its considerable flaws, but [...]

Despite popular opinion, critics get no pleasure out of clobbering bad shows. (Unless, of course, the show is arrogantly bad.) So rather than dwell on the pretensions and gaping inadequacies [...]

With such a glut of shows opening, it would be easy to miss a gem like 'The Joy of Going Somewhere Definite,' at the Atlantic Theater Company. Do so at [...]

'If 'Stomp' is just a little too mellow for you, head over to 'Tap Dogs,' at. the Union Square Theatre. Dein Perry's macho maelstrom, straight from industrial Australia, plays like [...]

'Godspell' fans will find much to enjoy in the all-black revision playing at Harlem's Victoria Theater, but they'll have to sit through some long. dry spells. This bare-bones production brings [...]

For a 'foul bunch-back'd toad,' Richard III has been finding a lot of work lately. Shakepeare's infamous conniver has been seen as lan McKellen's sinuous schemer, Al Pacino's skulking dynamo--and [...]

'Robbers' is a bad play. It doesn't work. You should do something else with your time instead of seeing it. That was to give you a feel for the nuances [...]

It's all a question of ratio with Sam Shepard. Within every play, every scene, there's bound to be some brilliance and some dross, with the vast majority lurching between the [...]

It's probably unfair to fault the Roundabout's starry revival of Chekhov's 'Three Sisters' for being 'merely' very good. Director Scott Elliott's version is intelligent, articulate, and well-acted; qualities Broadway can [...]

Romulus Linney's 'Mock Trial,' at Theater for the New City, is far from perfect, but it has energy and a probing, restless intelligence. This urgency carries the play over the [...]

Like David Mamet, playwright Tom Donaghy has an uncanny ear for the words that land unheard in day-to-day life. And like Mamet, his plays require a sort of stylized naturalism [...]

Some would say that 'Neat,' Charlayne Woodard's new one-woman show playing at Manhattan Theatre Club, has a few things working against it. It spends a fair amount of time devoted [...]

Like most bad plays, Jose Rivera's 'Cloud Tectonics' is not totally without merits. It boasts incredible visuals and a touching central performance by John Ortiz. In fact. if often looks [...]

'The Barber of Seville' really doesn't have much of a plot. Rossini's score helps hide that fact in the opera version, but Beaumarchais' original, now at the Pearl Theatre, has [...]

David Sedaris is arguably the funniest writer working today; he's like the most perceptive, most deviant eight-year-old you could ever hope to meet. So the Atlantic Theater Company's pairing of [...]

A few things worth mentioning about Assurbanipal Babilla's 'Othello and the Circumcised Turk,' Purgatorio Ink Theater's aggressively annoying new production: Dramaturges can serve a very important function, especially if you're [...]

'Volunteer Man,' the new Rattlestick Productions play by Dan Clancy, is that rarest of treats: an intelligent, well-written, well-acted play. It never veers far from the tried and true, but [...]

If only more plays had the problems that 'Old Wicked Songs' has. Dramatic fireworks, major plot twists, controversial topics, inscrutable characters--- each of these works against the play at least [...]

Maybe it was the thoughtfully provided Dixie Cup of 'dolls,' but I can't recall an audience enjoying itself as much as it did at Theatre-A-Go-Go!'s 'Valley of the Dolls' in [...]

'Freiheit Makes a Stand,' playing as part of the Peculiar Works Project's At Odds festival, tries so many different things in so many different ways that a few ideas can't [...]

New York has no lack of interesting stories to tell, but you wouldn't know it from 'Manhattan Zip,' now playing at The Miranda Theatre. The show, made up of 11 [...]

If any production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice pop opera 'Evita' is to succeed, it has to do two things: It must have voices capable of handling one of [...]

It's a great time to be a gay hustler, according to many Off- and Off-Off-Broadway theatre scenes of late. David Mauriello's 'Come in From the Rain,' which recently closed at [...]

Watch Your Step,' the 1914 Irving Berlin musical at Theater for the New City, has plenty going for it--not the least of which is Berlin's infectious, innovative score. (The program [...]

Nostalgia's a tricky thing. The new World War II musical Take it Easy' walks a pretty fine line between quaint and cloying, a line it sometimes but not always manages [...]

Ensemble Studio Theatre has a decidedly mixed bag on tap with Part B of its one-act 'Marathon '96.' The always-dependable Romulus Linney delivers a well-written if flawed piece, but the [...]

'Carool' the play has quite a bit in common with the event it portrays: It's dependable enough, but the destination is obvious and the company all too predictable. Laura Hembree's [...]

Before the Classic Stage Company/Cucaracha Theatre's disappointing co-production of 'Don Juan Comes Back From The War' even begins, it makes its first mistake. The pre-show music includes the stirring final [...]

Nobody clapped at intermission. About a million thoughts were racing through my head at the end of the truly awful first act of 'The Boar's Carcass,' which recently completed its [...]

I have seen what just might have been the future of musical theatre, and this saddens me more than I could possibly articulate. Rent, now playing at the New York [...]

Bed & Sofa, playing at the Vineyard Theatre, is frustratingly okay. Composer Polly Pen has taken a slight 1926 Russian silent film and turned it into a slight 1996 pseudo-opera. [...]