The Week in New York Theater: Danny Burstein, Corbin Bleu Back on Broadway. Fringe Unfolding.

Theater is often awesome, even when in need of repair, and this week is no different.

 

Week in New York Theater Reviews

Apologia

In this well-acted, finely directed Off-Broadway production of Alexi Kaye Campbell’s 2009 play,  Stockard Channing portrays Kristin Miller, a long-time activist,  American expatriate and noted art historian who has entitled her recently published memoir Apologia.  Apologia is a word, she is quick to point out, that should not be confused with an apology. “It means a formal, written defense of one’s opinions or conduct,” she explains to the small gathering in her cottage in the English countryside to celebrate her birthday.

But her two sons (both impressively portrayed by Hugh Dancy)  feel she owes them an apology….

Fringe: Opening Night

Opening Night” begins with hilariously feuding twin sister Hollywood stars, who are brilliantly named Margo Nightingale and Joan de Tuileries, each presenting what they thought was a one-woman show. They hadn’t noticed the posters promoting the show as a “dual career retrospective.”,,For all it imperfections, it feels like the Essence of Fringe…

Emma and Max

Emma and Max are the toddlers in the care of a Barbadian nanny, Britney, who is fired by their parents in the awkward first scene of “Emma and Max,” a jarring play about racism written and directed by filmmaker Todd Solondz, making his theatrical debut…Like Solondz’s films (“Welcome to the Dollhouse,” “Happiness,” “Weiner-Dog”), “Emma and Max” is dryly funny and uncomfortably dark…

Fringe: The Resistible Rise of JR Brinkley

Edward Einhorn’s latest play is based on the jaw-dropping true story of a quack doctor who became rich and famous in the 1920s by implanting goat testicles as a cure for male impotence, and then in the 1930s ran for Governor of Kansas.

Midnight at the Never Get

In Mark Sonnenblick’s cabaret-like gay musical, Arthur, a pianist and songwriter, decides in 1965 that he will write songs to his lover, singer Trevor, without changing the pronouns in the lyrics from male to female. This act of defiance gets them a gig at a run-down backroom cabaret in a gay bar called the Never Get,…

Nazis and Me

There is little doubt in “Nazis and Me”  that Trump’s election gave organized haters a boost. But those acquainted with David Lawson’s one-man shows know to expect something different than just a Michael Moore-like screed connecting the current president to hate.

Week in New York Theater News

#MeToo a year later: How theaters & other arts institutions have adjusted in the year since #MeToo began. “Many small theaters “didn’t know, under the law, that they had to have a sexual harassment policy.” Now they do.

“Nantucket Sleigh Ride” by John Guare, dir by Jerry Zaks, opens at @LCTheater’s Mitzi Newhouse March 18, 2019 ” A NY playwright-turned-venture capitalist (John Larroquette) plunges into a whirlpool of a giant lobster, Roman Polanski, a pornography ring, Walt Disney..” etc.

Steven Skybell as Tevya and Ensemble sing “Tradition” (“Traditsye” טראַדיציע)

The National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s Fiddler on the Roof will now run through December 30 at Edmond J. Safra Theatre at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. Let’s kvell

Tony Kushner to Receive Humanitarian Award at Inaugural Arthur Miller Foundation Honors in NYC”

Choir Boy will now begin previews Wednesday, December 12, 2018 ahead of a Tuesday, January 8, 2019 opening at MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (It was originally announced to open on January 10, 2019.)

 

 

REST IN PEACE

Carol Hall, 82,  composer of ‘The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas,” which grew out of a dinner party conversation.

Author: New York Theater

Jonathan Mandell is a 3rd generation NYC journalist, who sees shows, reads plays, writes reviews and sometimes talks with people.

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