Off-Broadway

Writer: Richard Saudek Director: Wes Grantom Reviewer: Adrienne Sowers Before any given theatrical performance, one can spot several patrons with their mobile devices out (and on infuriatingly but blessedly rare occasions, some audience members use their devices during performances, but that is another matter altogether). Screens illuminate faces in the house, with theatregoers sending off texts to cement post-show plans, ...

Writer: William Shakespeare Adaptor: Austin Pendleton Director: Austin Pendleton & Peter Bloch Reviewer: Robert Price Come to hear a play and you will not be disappointed. Semi-scholars of The Bard will be thrilled to listen carefully to the rarely read origins of Richard III that lie in Shakespeare’s Henry VI Part 3. His kid brother Rutland is murdered, and Richard’s ...

Writer: Anton Chekhov Director: Timofey Kulyabin Reviewer: Adrienne Sowers The joke goes: What do you call someone that speaks three languages? Trilingual. What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bilingual. What do you call someone who speaks one language? American. And so it is for this reviewer at the Theatre of Nations’ brilliant production of Ivanov at New York ...

Writer: A. R. Gurney Director: Christopher Burris Reviewer: Adrienne Sowers A.R. Gurney’s The Fourth Wall can be a tricky play to effectively produce. How does one strike a balance between the presentationalism required by the circumstances of characters who openly address being unnerved by a fourth wall, while creating a connection that compels the audience to want that wall to ...

Writer: Randy Director: Randy Reviewer: Adrienne Sowers Randy is a globetrotting vegan from Australia making headlines with his stand-up comedy. Randy also happens to be a purple puppet, who wrote a novel, that he would very much like to share with New York audiences at Theatre Row. A one-puppet performance, Randy commands the stage for anywhere from seventy to one ...

Award-winning producer Katy Lipson of Aria Entertainment announces a new partnership with New York City-based Tony and Olivier Award-winning theatre and film producer, Jim Kierstead of Kierstead Productions. The pair are joining forces to develop and present new and groundbreaking productions on both sides of the Atlantic in Off-Broadway/Off-West End-sized venues. Their first co-production will be the new Bill Russell and Janet Hood musical, Unexpected Joy, which will receive its Off-Broadway ...

Writer: The Associates Director: Jamal Abdunnasir Reviewer: Maridee Slater Sheila. Sheila. Sheila. Who - or what - is Sheila? In the event of live performance, there's a divine chance to bend space and time in collective and intoxicating agreement. Sheila, a new devised play by The Associates, is a concisely drawn 75-minute window into a three-year process. The ensemble clearly ...

Writer & Director: Aaron Mark Reviewer: Robert Price Sharon visits Dr. Schneider on the Upper West Side in the middle of the night, because she is desperate and genuinely scared. She sits in a winged chair with a coffee cup and tells him (us) about the last five months. She hasn’t talked to Dr. Schneider since her birthday, when she ...