Morgan Bassichis: Can I Be Frank? Written and performed by Morgan Bassichis Soho Playhouse August 13, 2025 Production website 💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
Sam Pinkleton has been very busy this giving a career boost to three burgeoning gay actors. He began with Cole Escola and won a Tony for directing him in Oh, Mary! And – tonight I watched his next collaboration with Morgan Bassichis and his Off-Broadway solo show, Can I Be Frank? This 70-minute solo show sets the fiercely funny Bassichis exploring the life of performance artist/comic/musician Frank Maya, who died from AIDS-related complications in 1995. I would imagine you are like me and don’t have a clue who Frank Maya is. You are not alone. You will be after this show as Bassichis’s mission is to spread the gospel of Maya far and wide. Maya performed at La Mama and PS 122 and other off-Broadway venues, but also at the hugely influential Caroline’s Comedy Club and on networks including Comedy Central. A 1991 voiceover intro on MTV’s Half Hour Comedy Hour called him “America’s only openly gay comedian.”
Beau The Musical Concept, Book and Lyrics by Douglas Lyons Director/Choreographer: Josh Rhodes Out of the Box Theatrics August 2, 2025 Production website 💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
Beau featured eight actor-musicians telling the story of Ace Baker – a young queer man whose life is forever changed when he discovers his deceased grandfather is actually still alive. Family secrets unravel as Ace rushes to make up for lost time with a man who changes his life by putting a guitar in his hand. I had a simply wonderful night of theatre at the Out of the Box / Theatre 154.
Operation Mincemeat Books, Music & Lyrics by David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson, & Zoe Roberts Directed by Robert Hastie Golden Theatre August 1, 2025 Production website 💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
If you love a good silly farce with lots of incredibly skilled actors giving their full out best – – then you need to get tickets to see Operation Mincemeat. The musical has a truly remarkable true-life story as its foundation and years and years of satire, comic adaptation and story telling given to it
Glass. Kill. What If If Only. IMP. Written by Caryl Churchill Directed by James Macdonald Martinson Stage – Public Theatre May 20, 2025 Production website 💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
The above are the names of four very short plays written by Caryl Churchill that are woven together with a bit of acrobatic interludes to create a wonderful evening in the theatre. Actually, the first three: Glass. Kill. and What If If Only are very short and play out as the first act and Imp. stands alone as the second act. They all are tied together very loosely by themes of faith and our need for myth – – juxtaposed against the violence we live with. And, of course what we get with any Caryl Churchill play is a seductive, playful, dangerous use of language that you just don’t find that often in the theatre.
John Proctor is the Villain Written by Kimberly Belflower Directed by Danya Taymor Booth Theatre May 18, 2025 Productionwebsite 💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
John Proctor is the Villain tells the story of a high school English classroom in the spring semester of the junior year in 2018 in a one-stoplight town in northeast Georgia. Mr. Smith, a very attractive, popular English teacher, is quickly and awkwardly working his way through the state required sex-ed curriculum so that he can get to the highly anticipated study of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. It is when this study of the characters and themes of the Crucible collides with the realities of the classroom and the world of the 2018 (the height of the #MeToo movement) that this play erupts into one of the most explosive and oddly cathartic dramas currently on Broadway.
