Category Archives: Nowhere Near Broadway

The Following Evening

Created by 600 Highwaymen for Talking Band
Featuring Ellen Maddox & Paul Zimit
Perelman Performing Arts Center
February 16, 2024
Production website
๐Ÿ’‰๐Ÿ’‰๐Ÿ’‰๐Ÿ’‰๐Ÿ’‰ out of 5.

The Following Evening was a piece of theatre history and theatre magic.ย ย Theatre legends were working alongside the cutting edge of theatre present.ย ย The production was created by 600 Highwaymen โ€“ one of perhaps the most exciting experimental theatre companies in the world stage today.ย ย Highwaymenย (Abigail Browde & Michael Silverstone) have been making performances since 2009. Their work โ€“ย ย which blends theater, dance, contemporary performance, and civic encounters โ€“ illuminates the magic and potential of people coming together.

Yira, Yira

Yira, Yira
Co-Directed by Bruno Isakovic and Natisa Rajkovic
Queer New York International Arts Festival at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts at NYC
February 7, 2024
Production website
๐Ÿ’‰๐Ÿ’‰ out of 5.

Yira, Yira was more of a doc-theatre piece than an actual play. Co-directors Bruno Isakoviฤ‡ and Nataลกa Rajkoviฤ‡ spent several months with four Argentinian sex workers, leading to their theater piece, Yira, Yira (Cruising, Cruising,) which reveals aspects of sex work and fights against some of the stereotypes we have.ย  Performed by actual sex workers – 2 men, 1 woman, and 1 transvestite – we enter the world of sex work defined both by personal choice and circumstances. We also become aware that at the same time, we are talking about their work conditions in general, demand and supply, healthcare, and other benefits afforded to any other working person in Argentina.

Wounded

Wounded
by Jiggs Burgess
Directed by Del Shores
P3 Theatre Company
February 4, 2024
Production website
๐Ÿ’‰๐Ÿ’‰ out of 5.

Wounded is one of the rare productions at a Fringe Festival that is a traditional play with a protagonist and a forward moving plot. The story revolves around a โ€œwoundedโ€ man, Carrol, who over-compensates with everything (food, affectation, gossip, babble, etc.) to make up for feeling like a nobody.ย Soon to enter is his high school classmate, Robert, equally โ€œwoundedโ€ now an addict, living with the parents – – in his fifties unable to get started in life.ย  The play focuses on how an unhealed past simply feasters and feasters until it damages everything its path. ย 

Saw the Musical: The Unauthorized Parody of Saw

Saw the Musical: The Unauthorized Parody of Saw
Written by Zoe Ann Jordon
Music and Lyrics by Patrick Spencer & Anthony De Angelis
Directed by Stephanie Rosenberg
AMT Theatre
September 17, 2023
Production website
NO ๐Ÿ’‰ out of 5. โ˜  TOTAL POISON

This was, without question, THE VERY WORST PLAY/MUSICAL that I have EVER seen in NYC.ย  It was a torture unlike any torture that the Saw movie franchise could have ever devised.ย  Here are just 10 of the reasons sitting in this musical made me want to โ€œsawโ€ my arm off and run to the streets of NYC shouting, โ€œFree at last!ย  Thank God; Free at last.โ€

Truth’s a Dog Must to Kennel

Truth’s a Dog Must to Kennel
Written and performed by Tim Crouch
Fringe Encore Series by the Soho Playhouse
January 5, 2023
Production website
๐Ÿ’‰๐Ÿ’‰ out of 5.

This was a weird one – even for the land of Fringe Theatre.ย  The heart of the play was one man, Tim Crouch wearing a virtual reality set of goggles.ย  With the goggles on he places himself in the role of the Fool in Shakespeareโ€™s King Lear.ย  He describes being in the actual role during a live performance of Lear where actors and scenes are playing around him as he describes what he is experiencing. ย  Perhaps even more interesting was his X-ray like vision of the audience.ย