The title of Megan Loughran’s recent show at Don’t Tell Mama, “I Sing Standing Up,” gives a sly indication of the show’s content. Her act was a hybrid. It was, at base, a stand-up comedy show, but there were songs sprinkled throughout—some (but not a …Read more

With “Johnny Mercer: Trav’lin’ Light” (directed by Peter Napolitano and presented at Urban Stages’ Winter Rhythms festival), Minda Larsen offered a reboot of a program of songs with lyrics by Mercer that she had first presented in Manhattan at the Me …Read more

The fact that Jack Bartholet has a big, flamboyant, impressive-sounding voice became evident a mere measure or two into “Nature Boy” (eden ahbez), the first number of his recent Duplex show, “Two Drink Minimum.” The young singer let loose with a batt …Read more

The excellent Christian Thom plays the title role of Alfo Idello in Vincent Amelio’s romantic comedy How Alfo Learned to Love (at 59E59 Theaters, directed by Daisy Walker). But the real star of this production may be its casting director, Judy Bowman …Read more

  New York Animals, a “play with music” produced by Manhattan’s Bedlam theatre company, takes a look at a collection of New York beasts of various stripes and spots—people whose lives intersect in sometimes predictable, sometimes unexpected ways …Read more

Jeopardy! answer: “In this 1962 American play, a squabbling married couple argue about their child, who may not even exist.” If you know anything about 20th-century theatre, you’ll likely pipe up with the matching question: “What is Who’s Afraid of V …Read more

Playwright Michael Kimmel and songwriter Lauren Pritchard gambled by setting Songbird, their adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s drama The Seagull, inside a messy nest of contemporary Nashville musicians. But the resulting work (produced in association wit …Read more

At age 10 Avi Hoffman (born Avrum Ber, in 1958) made his theatrical debut in a Yiddish Folksbiene Theater production called Bronx Express. In the decades that followed, the performer, a son of Holocaust survivors, has appeared in a wide range of thea …Read more

Playwright Sam Shepard and director Robert Woodruff were on a roll together in the late 1970s and early 1980s, teaming up for a series of well-received dramas centered on that favorite of themes: The American Family. Curse of the Starving Class (1978 …Read more

Some stories linger in the incubation stage. Patiently—or not so patiently—they wait to be told, to make their way into the public consciousness. Then, uncannily, when they finally burst into daylight, they show up in multiple iterations. The tale of …Read more