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• A Few Good Men
• By Aaron Sorkin
• Directed by Zina T. Bleck
• Produced by Zemfira Stage
• Reviewed by Steven McKnight

A Few Good Men is one of the more successful contemporary courtroom dramas and Zemfira Stage’s production fully realizes the dramatic potential of the script. (more…)

• The Oresteia                                                   
• Written by Aeschylus; Translated by Robert Fagles
• Adapted and Directed by Allison Arkell Stockman
• Produced by Constellation Theatre Company
• Reviewed by Debbie Minter Jackson

They did it again.  Constellation Theater, just finishing its first season yet already establishing a track record of stunning productions, has added a spectacular rendering of Greek tragedy to its repertory.   With a cast of almost thirty actors, a percussionist on stage, moodily placed fog and mist, and a huge coliseum set with columns that extend to the expansive rafters of the Clark Street Playhouse (lighting and set design by A.J. Guban), The Oresteia transports the audience to an ancient time to witness the essential core of theater. These folks are unstoppable.

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• Closing Time
• by Owen McCafferty
• Produced by Keegan Theatre New Island Project
• Directed by Eric Lucas and Kerry Waters Lucas
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

Ireland’s recent successes - it is among the most prosperous nations in Europe, now, and there is peace in the Occupied Counties for the first time in more than a generation - may prove a curse to a particularly glorious class of Irishmen: Irish playwrights.

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• Looking for Roberto Clemente
• Book and Lyrics by Karen Zacarias . Music by Deborah Wicks La Puma
• Directed by Kathryn Chase Bryer
• Choreographed by Krissie Marty
• Produced by Imagination Stage
• Reviewed by Ted Ying

Do You Remember Where You Were…?

When you heard about 9/11?  When space shuttle Columbia crashed?  When JFK was assassinated?  Most people remember where they were when pivotal events in history occurred.  And like any other Pittsburgher, I remember when I learned in 1972 of the passing of our local hero, Roberto Clemente.  (more…)

• Cinderella
• Script and puppets by Christopher Piper
• Directed by Allan Stevens
• Produced by The Puppet Co
• Reviewed by Hunter Kieserman

Spending an afternoon at Glen Echo’s puppet theatre is such a pleasure! Just walking around on the grounds where the theater is located brings back great memories of all the shows I have seen there. I have been seeing productions at Glen Echo since I was seven or eight years old and I am very happy to see that Glen Echo Park is still going strong.   (more…)

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• on Adding Machine, No No Nanette!, and a Master Class with Harold Prince
• By NY Theatre Buzz columnist Richard Seff

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• The School for Scandal
• by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
• Directed by Richard Clifford
• Produced by Folger Theatre
• Reviewed by Leslie Weisman

The Folger’s done it again: taken a classic from an earlier era and turned it into a contemporary cautionary tale of a situation so in-the-moment as to have been heralded, just four days into its run, by a Washington Post Style article dissecting the very phenomenon it portrays.  (more…)

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• IT’S LUCKY 13 FOR IN THE HEIGHTS
• By Joel Markowitz

Tues - May 13 — It’s the show that has captured my heart and the hearts of my friends. It’s energetic and exciting, and it’s an old fashioned Broadway musical with a Latin twist. Today, In The Heights received a well-deserved 13 Tony Awards nominations. (more…)

 

 Passing Strange: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (769)

 

 In the Heights: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1291)

• Crumble (lay me down Justin Timberlake)
• by Sheila Callaghan
• Directed by Shirley Serotsky
• Produced by Catalyst Theater Company
• Reviewed by Leslie Weisman

This may be the shortest, sharpest - and the most seemingly effortlessly poetic - play you’ll see outside of the Capital Fringe Festival.  Like some of those memorable mini- quasi- master sketches, “Crumble,” in a little more than an hour, draws an astute and affecting portrait of two sisters; the preteen daughter /niece whose mercurial moods and needs whet their differences; and the ways in which inanimate objects can serve as a silent sounding board for their, and by extension, our unarticulated fears and desires, and as a springboard to help us identify and at last, deal with them.  (more…)

• Antony and Cleopatra
• By William Shakespeare
• Produced by Shakespeare Theatre Company
• Directed by Michael Kahn
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

Forget all you’ve heard about Antony and Cleopatra, the great romantics. Forget all that claptrap about Antony as a love-addled cat’s-paw for the seductive Cleo. Throw it in the ash heap of history. Instead, believe Bill Shakespeare and Michael Kahn. Antony (Andrew Long) and Cleopatra (Suzanne Bertish) are political allies who cement their bond with great sex. They are much too self-absorbed to love each other, or even to know what love means.

Seeing this play as a sequel to Julius Caesar (with which it is running in rep) clarifies it in startling ways. Antony here is a hard-drinking party boy who lies as easily as he breathes. (more…)