Waitress
book by Jessie Nelson
music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles
directed by Diane Paulus
Brooks Atkinson Theatre
June 21, 2016 Production website
💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
I was just a breath away of standing up on my seat and giving a single song a standing ovation. Jessie Mueller simply hits the signature song, “She Used to be Mine” out of the ballpark. That one song alone was worth the ticket price. Not sense the original Dreamgirls have I felt so compelled to give a song a standing ovation. Continue reading Waitress→
Hughie
written by Eugene O’Neill
starring Forest Whitaker
directed by Michael Grandage
Booth Theatre
March 23, 2016 Production website
💉💉💉💉 out of 5
Stuck in the lobby.
I often talk with my students – particularly my seniors about how much of their senior year is spent in the “hallway” between the world of high school/adolescence and the next, soon to be open, door of their adulthood. It sucks to spend time in the hallway, I get it. Continue reading Hughie→
Fool for Love passed the “gay test.” The first criteria that I look for in enjoying Sam Shepard is the amount of gay that I find on stage. Obviously I celebrate all that gay artists and particularly stage artists have done – – but I do not like gay with my Sam Shepard. If it isn’t 100% straight, then it just doesn’t tell the story and fits like bad, off-the-rack clothing.
This play was bleak and sexually explosive. Seldom did they ever mention the sex act and even more seldom they didn’t go to the easy, cheap overplayed crudeness in language that would fuel a play say by David Mamet. Little was said or done with the sexuality but you won’t find a play that smokes with lust more then this. Continue reading Fool for Love→
Kafka on the Shore
based on the book by Haruki Murakami
adapted for the stage by Frank Galati
Ninagawa Company
Lincoln Center Festival
July 23, 2015 Production website 💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
Only in New York after a quiet cappuccino do you get a chance to see a play with talking cats, transgender librarians, truck drivers, a man named Johnnie Walker that cuts off he heads of cats and refrigerates them, and Colonial Sanders (yes, the one from chicken fame) hustling to get you laid for the night. All of this in an elaborate Peer Gynt-like story of finding yourself by taking the greatest journey. Crazy right? Continue reading Kafka at the Beach→
Happy Days
written by Samuel Beckett
directed by Andrei Belgrader
starring Brooke Adams and Tony Shalhoub
The Flea Theatre
July 13, 2015
Production website 💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
You walk into the theatre of seventy-five seats and see nothing on stage but a large mount of dirt and an obviously painted scrim with clouds and sky. The lights go down and up and then we see our protagonist, Winnie (Brooke Adams) “planted” in the ground with only her head and torso above ground. A theatre shaking alarm blares off, Winnie opens her eyes and it’s “just another day.” Winnie spends all of act one trapped in this dirt mound with only a capacious bag full of toiletries, and a gun – – Brownie – – a gun – just in case . . Continue reading Happy Days→
appy Days