Brian Friel’s oft-used fictional town of Ballybeg, Co. Donegal, marks a Chekhovian outline as well as the path to Friel’s own hopscotch bearings either side of the nearby Irish border. The Home Place, the last of his full-length original plays, is se …Read more

It was a cold winter’s night in January 1993, when a small group of theatre artists banded together, and unanimously decided to take greater control of their creative lives. Determined to leave their own distinct mark on the New York arts community, …Read more

For their first foray into Shakespeare, Elevator Repair Service, New York’s stalwarts of experimental theatre, tackle Measure for Measure at the Public Theatre. ERS delivers a screwball, slapstick rendering of the Bard’s problem play that is in turns …Read more

Set in Donegal, Ireland in 1878, Brian Friel’s The Home Place (at Irish Repertory Theatre) dramatizes the racial tension between the native Irish and the ruling English. It also depicts the tension between Christopher Gore and his son David, who are …Read more

Sometimes, a play really surprises me. Tomorrow in the Battle, a high stakes drama on love and morality by Kieron Barry, directed by Tana Sirois, is an effective and fun piece of theater storytelling. Despite the fact that the play had little product …Read more

Emmy Award-winning Letterman writer Ted Greenberg takes us back to December 18, 1987 in his taxi cab — a pivotal moment in the young Harvard student’s life. It’s the nine-year anniversary of his overdue paper on Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. I …Read more

The National Alliance for Musical Theatre will hold its 29th annual Festival of New Musicals on October 19 and 20 at New World Stages. Sam’s Room, by Trey Coates-Mitchell (book), Dale Sampson (book/music/lyrics), Caitlin Marie Bell (music/lyrics), an …Read more

The National Alliance for Musical Theatre will hold its 29th annual Festival of New Musicals on October 19 and 20 at New World Stages. Prom Queen, by Kent Staines (book), Akiva Romer-Segal (lyrics), and Colleen Dauncey (music), is one of eight new mu …Read more

Why is it so hard to create a successful adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein? That was the question I pondered as I watched Eric B. Sirota’s new Frankenstein musical, directed by Clint Hromsco at St. Luke’s Theatre. And as far as Frankenstein a …Read more

The National Alliance for Musical Theatre will hold its 29th annual Festival of New Musicals on October 19 and 20 at New World Stages. The Passage, by David Darrow, is one of eight new musicals this year. Tell us about your show! Albert, a sixth grad …Read more