Off-Off-Broadway Review: “The Cleaning Guy” at FringeNYC 2016 at the Huron...
It is rare to find a solo show in the NY International Fringe Festival that includes original music and lyrics: that welcoming combination can be found in Paul Adams who happens to be “The Cleaning...
View ArticleOff-Off-Broadway Review: “The Unusual Tale of Mary and Joseph’s Baby” at...
“When Herod saw that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was filled with rage. Sending orders, he put to death all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, according...
View ArticleOff-Off-Broadway Review: “Naked Brazilian” at FringeNYC at 64E4 Mainstage
One of the many solo shows being presented as part of the N.Y. International Fringe Festival is “Naked Brazilian,” written and performed by Gustavo Pace. The script follows his life from childhood in...
View ArticleOff-Off-Broadway Review: “Anonymous, Anonymous” at FringeNYC 2016 at the...
“The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.” – William Shakespeare, “Hamlet,” Act II, Scene 2. If a play has no playwright, is it a play? If a playwright’s play is entitled...
View ArticleOff-Off-Broadway Review: “In the Master’s House There Are Many Mansions” at...
“Their relative ineffectiveness, however, is reflective of larger forces that combined over many decades to make blacks in the city all but invisible. And by now, the truth is that the black community...
View ArticleOff-Off-Broadway Review: “Still Not” at FringeNYC 2016 at WOW Café
A woman is sitting on a bench. A man walks by and notices her sitting there alone. They silently flirt, coyly and innocently, until the man decides to sit on the bench next to her and attempt to have a...
View ArticleOff-Off-Broadway Review: “Jump Start” at FringeNYC 2016 at 64E4 Mainstage
Stu Napolitano (played with a charmed angst by Philip Cruise) owns his own towing business and still lives at home with his abusive father and collusive mother. Stu drops everything and dashes home to...
View ArticleOff-Off-Broadway Review: “ChipandGus” at FringeNYC 2016 at WOW Café
The rapid fire repartee that bounces back and forth faster than the ping pong balls that fly through the air is the source of energy in “ChipandGus, the remarkable two-hander one act play presented as...
View ArticleOff-Off-Broadway Review: “Scratching” at FringeNYC 2016 at the Player’s Theatre
In Britton Buttrill’s “Scratching,” four characters who seem to have no interest in “climbing up and scratching” their ways to “start something new” appear stuck in a Sisyphean loop with no hope of...
View ArticleOff-Off-Broadway Review: “Mother Emanuel” at FringeNYC 2016 at the SoHo...
“Tywanza Kibwe Diop Sanders was 26 years old when he returned to his Father in Heaven. A poet and entrepreneur, he died while reaching to save his Aunt Susie. Just a few hours before his death, his...
View ArticleOff-Off-Broadway Review: “Pucker Up and Blow” at FringeNYC 2016 at the...
There is really nothing fresh in the new play “Pucker Up and Blow” by Daniel Reitz, being presented as part of the N.Y. International Fringe Festival. It is vulgar, exploitive, offensive, contains full...
View ArticleOff-Off-Broadway Review: “The Curse of the Babywoman” at FringeNYC 2016 at...
Falling somewhere between a cheap Penny Dreadful and a horrific Sci-Fi B-movie, Michael Paul Wirsch’s “The Curse of the Babywoman” (hereafter “The Curse”) has found its way onto the stage of the Lower...
View ArticleOff-Off-Broadway Review: “Zuccotti Park” at FringeNYC 2016 at Flamboyan...
Serious political and socio-economic themes have always been an acceptable genre for playwrights in the contemporary theater landscape but more recently this subject matter is becoming a more prevalent...
View ArticleOff-Off-Broadway Review: “Off Track” at Teatro SEA at the Clemente
At some point on “Off Track,” – it might have been in a phone conversation with his ex-boyfriend just before his phone died – Ian (Matthew Trumbull) says, “It’s too late to fix it.” This phrase could...
View ArticleOff-Off-Broadway Review: “At the Flash” at FringeNYC 2016 at Under St. Marks
Gay-themed plays have been a staple of the New York theater scene for decades, including the Fringe Festival, which offers over forty shows this year alluding to all aspects of gay life and history....
View ArticleOff-Off-Broadway Review: “Dementia Americana” at Fringe NYC 2016 at Teatro...
Anyone who is inclined to have a penchant for New York City history might be drawn to a new play entitled “Dementia Americana” telling the story of what is billed “the Crime of the Century,” when Harry...
View ArticleOff-Off-Broadway Review: “A Microwaved Burrito Filled with E. coli” at...
Self-described foul mouthed talking, pill popping, lady loving Molly “Equality” Dykeman (Andrea Alton) is back – again it turns out according to the ratings on Yelp – at Enchilada Shelly’s for a...
View ArticleOff-Off-Broadway Review: “Steve Got Raped” at Fringe NYC 2016 at The Player’s...
Steve (played with a sincere and charmed ambiguity by James E. Smith) has a lot on his mind. His important story is stalled on his editor’s desk at work and has not yet been published. His fiancé Katie...
View ArticleOff-Off-Broadway Review: “The Gorges Motel” at Fringe NYC at The Player’s...
Playwright James Hindman invited a group of playwrights to write short scenes all set in Watkins Glen, New York in a roadside motel that – although it might have “seen better days” – is still...
View ArticleOff-Off-Broadway Review: “Is That Danny DeVito?” at WOW Café
It seems that this year in FringeNYC more than a few offerings are based on, connected to, or somehow resemble “Waiting for Godot” and almost all contain notes in the programs from the directors or...
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