Torch Song Trilogy
Written by Harvey Fierstein
Directed by Moises Kaufman
2nd Stage
June 23, 2017
Production website
💉💉💉 out of 5.

This Torch Song needed to have its torch lit!  I saw the original Torch Song back in the Eighties with a younger Harvey Fierstein and his unmissable, low, rumbling voice.  I remember as a young man in my twenties – I was blown away by every single scene.  I had never seen a drag queen – much less the preparation that drag queens go through to complete the transformation.  I had never been to a gay bar (sheltered, I know) much less a gay bar with a “back room.”  I couldn’t imagine an entire scene of a straight couple and a gay couple shacking up together and swapping partners – all played out in a scene that takes place on a stage-filling bed.  And then that big coming out scene with (in the original, Estelle Getty)  It changed my world – and clearly it opened the door for Will and Grace, Modern Family and the inclusion of gays in a hundred stories, movies and TV shows to come.    It changed the world for gay men in the entertainment world – for sure! Continue reading Torch Song Trilogy →

The Pipeline
Written by Dominique Morisseau
Directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz
Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse
June 26, 2017
Production website
💉💉💉💉 out of 5.

I go from the wonderment and colossal budget of Groundhog Day to the basement of Lincoln Center to a play that has a teachers desk, a lunch table and a couch, a VERY white wall and some very harsh florescent lighting.  And I will take the second play over the first any day.  Pipeline was another play that I knew very little about before the show.  I knew it was about a teacher (familiar ground) and about a black student trying to navigate life in a ROUGH urban school – or survive a very preppy private school (certainly much less familiar ground.) Continue reading The Pipeline →

The Parrallelogram
Written by Bruce Norris
Directed by Michael Greif
Second Stage Theater
July 25, 2017
Production website
💉💉💉 out of 5.

Now tonight I truly saw Groundhog Day but without all of the glitz.  It is also the only time that I have been to a show that during the intermission the first thing that the audience was doing was opening Google to see what a parallelogram was and how it had anything to do with the show.  Nothing wrong with doing a little geometry outreach. Continue reading The Parallelogram →

The Government Inspector
Written by Nikolai Gogol
Adapted by Jefrey Hatcher
Directed by Jesse Berger
Red Bull Theater
New World Stages
July 23, 2017
Production website
💉💉 out of 5.
but the work of Michael Urie 💉💉💉💉💉

The Russians are funny people.  So often I have taught the Russian classic plays and my students take them with such reverence that nobody sees any reason to laugh.  The Government Inspector is all about the laughs and all about making fun of the greed and corruption that dominated the provincial Russian government and perhaps could say a thing or two about the current world of politics – – you think so.  (BUT although so tempting to bring “Trumpisms” into the play, they take the high road and trust the audience will make those connections if they want to. Continue reading The Government Inspector →

Napoli, Brooklyn
Written by Meghan Kennedy
Directed by Gordon Edelstein
Roundabout Theatre Company
June 17, 2017
Production website
💉💉 out of 5.

This play was trying to do to much.  It was trying to tell the story of a true life plane crash in the early 1960’s that destroyed a good section of Brooklyn.  It also seeks to tell the story of a family with an abusive father who is trying to break out and break free.  It is also a coming out story about a young girl embracing herself as a lesbian.  It is also about the end of the 1950’s and the embrace of the radically unsettled world of the 1960’s.  THAT is a lot.  I had wished the play covered less ground and covered it more fully. Continue reading Napoli, Brooklyn →