The Minutes
Written by Tracy Letts
Directed by Anna D. Shapiro
Cort Theatre
March 11, 2020 Production website
💉💉💉 out of 5
All of the advertising says that you are going to get a big surprise and twist at the end of this production – and granted you do, and, obviously, I am not going to spill the beans here. The problem I have with this big moment is that it was rather predictable 40 minutes into the show. You weren’t able to predict how visual this surprise was going to be – but you knew how the tables were going to get changed and the absent councilman was going to figure into the mix. Continue reading The Minutes→
72 Miles to Go . . .
Written by Hilary Bettis
Directed by Jo Bonney
Roundabout Theatre Company
Laura Pels Theatre
March 8, 2020 Production website
💉💉💉 out of 5.
I really wanted to love this play; I really did. I was thinking it was time for a good play to really deal with the DACA debate and the personal stories of those who are living through the experience and the fear.
72 Miles to Go . . follows a splintered family over 10 years of strength, struggle and love, as they face the profoundly personal drama of immigration. Seventy-two miles. That’s the space between Nogales, Mexico and Tucson, Arizona—and the world of distance that separates a mother at a shelter and her American-born husband and children.Continue reading 72 Miles to Go . . .→
Grand Horizons
Written by Bess Wohl
Directed by Leigh Silverman
Second Stage Theatre – Helen Hayes Theatre
December 29, 2019 Production website
💉💉💉 out of 5.
This is going to be a gold mine for community theatre everywhere in just a few years.That I am sure.Grand Horizons offers roles foractors in their twenties and seventies and beyond.It is a simple unit set (apart from a U-Haul truck that you must see to believe).It is funny and the humor is only mildly adult.Only would the most conservative of communities find this offensive.
The plot centers around Bill and Nancy that have spent 50 years together as a couple totally in sync.But then, in the first moments of the play, the unthinkable happens and Nancy wants out.This sudden move to divorce after so many years is unimaginbleto their grown children, and they work to unweave their parents predicament.The play is full of two and three person scenes that are true gems.Nothing is radically new here – it becomes the very best of TV scripts. Continue reading Grand Horizons→
Marvin J. Taylor on Underneath the Skin
Mise-en-scene, Direction, Coreography, Video, Costume, and Set Design by John Kelly
Original Texts by Samuel Steward
NYU Skirball Theatre
October 12, 2019 Production website
💉💉💉 out of 5.
Underneath the Skin was a smart, smart play. It was a most novel dance-theatre piece based on the life of the classic star-****er and sexual maverick, Samuel Steward. Yes, this was another gay play but the fascinating history that came with the play made it much more than that! Here we have a living biography of Samuel Steward (1909-1993) who redefined himself often. He succeeded as a novelist, poet, scholar, gay erotic fiction writer, and tattoo innovator. And during all that he had time to sleep with Valentino, Lord Alfred Douglas (Boise), and Rock Hudson – while chumming up with good friends Gertrude Stein and Thornton Wilder. Is there enough material here for a night in the theatre?? Hell, yes!! Continue reading Marvin J. Taylor on Underneath the Skin→
Company XIV: Queen of Hearts
Created by Austin McCormick and Company
Company XIV Theatre
October 10, 2019 Production website
💉💉💉 out of 5.
Burlesque is alive and well and now living in Brooklyn. Company XIV’s seductive spin on the story of Alice in Wonderland, Queen of Hearts is a quite the success and quite the sexcess. From the minute you walk into the dim, highly incensed room of the theatre and are greeted by a most handsome collection of androgynous men in heels, you know that you are in store for an Alice in Wonderland that your mother never took you to.
The Minutes
