Results tagged “theater”

When we last caught up with the inspired young theater company Les Freres Corbusier, they were recreating an unforgettable Bible Belt "Hell House" for Halloween at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn. The immersive spectacle, which the audience walked through in small groups guided by the devil, was hilarious and terrifying for all the right reasons. Expect more of their not excessively ironic good humor in their latest big project, an emo rock musical exploration of the life of President Andrew Jackson, called Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. The show, a historical blend of fact and fiction, got great reviews when it was staged in a more modest form as part of The Public Theater's LAB season last spring. Written by Les Freres Corbusier Artistic Director Alex Timbers, with music by Michael Friedman, the production runs through April 25th. (If you're interested, be advised that last year's run quickly sold out.) Last week we had a pleasant chat with Benjamin Walker, who stars in the title role. more ›

If you see enough theater on a regular basis, you eventually develop an intuitive sense which tells you, usually within the first first couple of seconds, whether you're going to be grabbed by the lapels or hogtied for a long, hard slog. Sadly, the latter is much more common than the former, which is why I understand most people's reluctance to take a chance on theater. But a ticket to Clybourne Park, the acerbic new comedy by Bruce Norris, is an eminently shrewd investment, like buying a brownstone in prime Park Slope in 1959, when the play's first act takes place. more ›

If you've got theater tickets for tonight, you'll want to dig your snowshoes out of the closet and brace yourself for adventure. At this moment, there is not a single performance canceled. (Check these sites for updates.) And because many ticket-holders won't have what it takes to make it to the theater, Charlotte St. Martin, Executive Director of The Broadway League, says, "It's a great time to get good seats to the hot musicals and plays currently playing in our theatres." (All three TKTS discount booths are open as usual.) If you're willing to trudge to the theater district, A Behanding in Spokane, starring Christopher Walken and Sam Rockwell, sounds promising. If you're near the East Village, you can't go wrong Radiohole, and if you're snowed in in Williamsburg, we highly recommend You're Welcome.! more ›

Elizabeth Marvel first knocked our socks off six years ago when we saw Ivo van Hove's inspired, visceral interpretation of Hedda Gabler at New York Theater Workshop. Ever since, she's been reason enough to see pretty much anything, from Top Girls to The Good Wife. Don't ask us to articulate what makes her so eminently watchable, just go see Marvel for yourself starting next week at the Public Theater, where she's playing the title role in The Book of Grace, the new one from Suzan-Lori Parks—you know, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of such hits as Topdog/Underdog. more ›

After a brush with death in 2008, The Ohio Theatre, an indispensable nerve center of NYC's theater scene for 29 years, will be dispensed with on August 31st. The new landlord has issued an official notice and no further negotiations are scheduled. If you're one of those people who cares about theater as art, you know what a loss this is. As artistic Director Robert Lyons puts it, the Ohio "is where Tony Kushner produced his first play out of college, where Philip Seymour Hoffman made his professional acting debut, where Eve Ensler performed Dicks in the Desert, a decade before writing The Vagina Monologues. The Ohio Theatre has been an incubator and platform for New York’s most exciting and innovative theatre artists for almost 30 years. Its closing emphatically punctuates the end of an era in Soho." more ›

If it were possible to assemble a substantial evening of theater out of clever one-liners, gifted actors and crackling chemistry, Douglas Carter Beane's new comedy Mrs. & Mrs. Fitch would be a smashing success. Starring the equally adept John Lithgow and Jennifer Ehle, the story (which is the weak link here) concerns two married Manhattan gossip columnists who, feeling the heat from those infernal "blooooooggggs," resort to unorthodox methods to maintain their fading relevance. Desperate for a hot item after a night of fruitless party-hopping, they decide to simply conjure one up out of thin air, fictionalizing a chance encounter with a hunky young actor bound for stardom. A few tweets and reblogs later, and suddenly, presto, everyone wants a piece of this kid, even though he doesn't exist. more ›

When you name your band The Negro Problem, the last place you probably expect to wind up is on Broadway. Yet that's exactly where the multi-talented musician and songwriter Stew found himself back in 2008, starring in his exhilarating rock musical Passing Strange. This unexpected turn of events was made all the weirder for Stew because his longtime collaborator and girlfriend, Heidi Rodewald, was there onstage night after night—despite their relationship having ended two years prior. Passing Strange kept them essentially handcuffed together, and when it finally ended (without the avalanche of Tony awards it so richly deserved), one assumed their professional partnership would end, too. more ›

It's almost unheard of to attend an evening of theater without some jackass's cellphone going off and ruining the performance. (Here's that agonizing video of Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman begging an audience member to shut off a cell phone during A Steady Rain.) We believe anyone guilty of this offense should be slowly impaled while simultaneously forced to watching a continuous performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express. But the chief theater critic at the NY Times disagrees, and has revealed a sudden sympathy for cell phone miscreants: more ›

Of all the performing arts, theater has a tendency to be the most unbearable. You can easily walk out of most concerts, and with dance there's usually at least a certain technical proficiency to be admired. But particularly in small Off Broadway theaters—where, ironically, the potential for magnificence is greatest—it's almost impossible to escape without causing a major disruption. When theater stinks, which is often, you've usually got no choice but to suffer through it without anesthetic, as time slows to a crawl and your captors torment you with boredom. more ›

Long gone are the golden days when watching pornography was a communal activity, savored by a (mostly) male audience who gathered together in a spirit of cheerful camaraderie and—sometimes—good-natured competition! Sadly, the Internet has isolated pornography enthusiasts, leaving them huddled alone in front of their computers, gloomily pleasuring themselves with no real sense of community. (And the producers of porn, too, have stopped investing anything extra in story, production value, feeling.) However, it's just come to our attention that the long-lost grandeur of Times Square porno palaces may not be entirely rubbed out! more ›

Last year there was some lobbying to get the longest-running movie house in the nation landmarked after word got out that it would reopen under new ownership. Now, the 91-year-old Ridgewood Theatre in Queens has had its facade granted landmark status. There was not a lot to save of the interior, so as the new owners renovate the space into a theater/retail hybrid, that will likely change significantly — though 1010Wins does report that they "envision a historically sensitive plan." Yesterday it was announced that another old theater, the Loews in Chinatown, would also get a new lease on life — albeit a non-landmarked one. more ›

Can the rundown Loew's Theater at 31 Canal Street make a comeback? Originally opened in 1927, it was run by Loew's until the 1960s. It then became an indie-run theater until 1980. Now, the NY Post reports, it may have another lease on life, as an Asian-American arts group (CREATE: the Committee to Revitalize and Enrich the Arts and Tomorrow's Economy) hopes to revive it. more ›

Click on the images for reviews of three productions in this year's indispensable Under the Radar festival, which gathers genre-bending performers from around the world for a twelve day envelope-pushing extravaganza. It ends next Sunday, January 17th. more ›

Click on the photos for Gothamist's top ten favorite theatrical productions of 2009. Last year, of course, we couldn't stop talking about Passing Strange, but this year's highly subjective list is notably devoid of musicals. (Unfortunately, we haven't seen Fela!) Two of these ten were unforgettable, site-specific odysseys—one on a bus through the Bronx, the other on a boat that went nowhere. Just two happened on Broadway—one with A-list stars, the other with brilliant yet relatively unknown downtown actors. (Both narrowly edged out the excellent revival of Waiting for Godot starring John Goodman, Nathan Lane and Bill Irwin.) more ›

One of the most memorable plays we saw last year was The Walworth Farce, a pitch-black comedy by Irish playwright Enda Walsh. The story concerned a menacing father who every day forces his two sons to join him in performing a farcical play he wrote about a phony brain surgeon's attempt to cheat his estranged brother out of his inheritance. In that frenzied, hysterical production, the family's shabby apartment doubled as their stage, and all nine parts were played by the housebound men, as a sort of elaborate domestic ritual for an audience of none. more ›

He materializes upstage wearing dark skirts, some sort of plastic tube stuffed in his mouth, his hair tied in a spiky pony-tail, a plastic duck in a birdcage hugged to his chest. The classic Chordettes oldie Mr. Sandman is playing, and in a flash we're once again transported to Foremanland, a singular dimension of feverish theatrical provocation, devoid of conventional narrative but rich with humor and deliciously inspired tableaux. more ›

East Village actor and director Sturgis Warner isn't just facing eviction from his apartment of more than 30 years — in a theatrical twist that adds insult to injury, he might get kicked out of his home by the producers of the Blue Man Group. In 2001, the moneymen behind the indigo-hued performance troupe purchased the building that houses their theater on Lafayette Street's Colonnade Row, where the 59-year-old thespian has lived in a fifth floor walk-up since 1978. Since then, the producers have been buying out tenants to convert the residences into their own apartments, a move that housing laws allow. more ›

Since it's impossible to attend a theatrical performance these days without some bonehead's cell phone shattering the mood, this incident during a recent performance of A Steady Rain isn't exactly news. But what's surprising is how intense actor dudes Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman restrain themselves from leaping into the audience and thrashing the culprit to within an inch of his or her inconsiderate life. Also surprising is how long the friggin' cell phone rings—even after the frustrated stars stop the performance to beg the owner to shut it off. It's just so painfully awkward to watch, you have to wonder: How many celebrities have to be interrupted before we get those cell phone jammers like theatergoers in civilized Russia enjoy?! more ›

On an old steam-propelled, decommissioned U.S. Coast Guard vessel docked at Pier 40 on the Hudson, 2009’s most exhilarating theatrical achievement (thus far) can still be experienced, and it doesn’t cost a dime. Called The Confidence Man and inspired by Herman Melville’s 1857 novel of the same name, this enthralling production is the work of Woodshed Collective, a company that specializes in immersive, site-specific performance. Last year they filled the vast, empty McCarren Park pool with their acclaimed play-with-music Twelve Ophelias, and their new venture is even more ambitious: The show's comprised of multiple, intertwined narratives performed simultaneously on all four levels of the rusty, labyrinthine vessel, named the Lilac. Like life, it’s impossible to see the whole story from every angle, and what you see is up to you. more ›

As you first venture north across the Harlem River, comfortably ensconced in a retro charter tour bus, a voice inquires, "Are you wondering where we're going? When we get there will you think—This is nice. This is new. This is old. This is urban. These are the real people. These are the other people. This is the old New York... whatever. You shouldn't think." For such a thought-provoking journey, that's a funny instruction, but it seems intended to dispel any preconceived notions about the destination, one of the five poorest congressional districts in the United States. That would be the South Bronx, and the voice is addressing you through headphones provided by the Foundry Theatre, a company with seemingly boundless inspiration and ingenuity. more ›

The first New York revival of Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning two-part epic work, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, will be staged by Signature Theatre Company as part of their 20th anniversary season in 2010-2011. Signature, which devotes an entire season to a single playwright's work, announced that part one, Millennium Approaches and part two, Perestroika, will run in repertory; the theater also plans to have performance days where the plays (each three and a half hours) are presented back to back. As usual with Signature, all tickets for the initial run will be sold for $20, thanks to a grant from Time Warner. more ›

It can sometimes spell trouble when an Off-Off Broadway production features cast members of a certain age; seniors willing to perform for peanuts have been known to sink otherwise competent ensembles with an awkward amateurishness. It's hard to say whether Rae C. Wright is in fact an AARP card-carrier—she's in impeccable shape, for one thing—but her appearance in Tina Satter's sort-of-musical Family initially gave me pause. It shouldn't have. Far from scuttling the show into a community theater morass, she electrifies Satter's enjoyably daffy production with an incisive, intelligent humor, portraying the matriarch (Mum) of a once-prominent family in decline. more ›

Yesterday we got a press release about the new Martin McDonagh (The Pillowman) play coming to Broadway in March, A Behanding in Spokane. Intriguiging title, and sounds cool, we thought. Well! The release promised "an all-star cast of four," and now Variety reports that Chris Rock, Sam Rockwell and Zoe Kazan "are all said to be eying roles in the play." The black comedy, McDonagh's first set in America, is described as "a man searching for his missing hand, two con artists out to make a few hundred bucks, an overly curious hotel clerk, and the rest is up for grabs." Whatever, it could be about rollerskating zoo animals and we'd still shell out Times Square ticket prices to watch Rock and Rockwell square off live. And Kazan's not exactly a lightweight, either; she more than held her own alongside an adrift Peter Sarsgaard in The Seagull last season. This would be Rock's first legit run on Broadway, aside from his one-off appearance in the 24 Hour Plays a couple years ago. Could this be our new Passing Strange? We're already obsessed, people. [Via The Playlist] more ›

While performing in a Maine summer stock production of As You Like It back in 2006, a few theater buddies noticed a roadside greasy spoon for sale and wondered: Wouldn't it be a gas if a troupe of avant garde performance artists bought the place and turned it into an experimental "dinner theatre"? Three years later, the fantasy has been fully realized as a five course celebration of kooky transgression—they didn't buy the place but took the name (Conni's) and ran with the idea, setting up residency at the Bushwick Starr in, well, Bushwick. But last week they invaded Manhattan for a four night stand at the Ohio Theater on Wooster Street, as part of the Soho Ice Factory Festival. more ›

Adaptations of Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland are legion, and allusions in pop culture innumerable; with its barely concealed drug references, the story became particularly popular in the far-out '60s, most famously with Jefferson Airplane's psychedelic hit "White Rabbit." The latest riff on the tale, from multimedia theater troupe Anonymous Ensemble, incorporates live rock, simultaneous video projection, clowning, acrobatics, and modern dance to tell the tale of 34-year-old Alice, a frustrated administrative assistant who's watching her dreams of fame fade away. more ›

If you don't know who Cynthia Hopkins is yet, you will sooner or later—the multi-instrumentalist-singer-songwriter-dancer-actor-playwright (I'm sure I'm missing something) with the distinctively sly voice ought to be headlining Webster Hall, not just opening for David Byrne. (Not that headlining St. Ann's Warehouse is anything to sneeze at, either.) Nevertheless, even if you think you know Cynthia Hopkins, you'll probably still be surprised by the deeply personal way she reveals herself in the unsparing second half of The Success of Failure (or, The Failure of Success), which concludes her convoluted and captivating Accidental Trilogy. But more on that later. more ›

An old tow truck warehouse near the Gowanus Canal might not seem like such a likely location to take in some elegantly highbrow dance/theater, but when you think about it, abandoned industrial spaces have often provided fertile ground for avant-garde performance troupes (The Wooster Group and Radiohole are the first two that come to mind). Still, you'll be pleasantly surprised by the rococo splendor that awaits you inside the Brooklyn home of Company XIV, where their second production, Le Serpent Rouge, unfolds under a lavishly designed, pressed tin proscenium and shimmering curtain. more ›

The office—that overly-lit, frigid warren of tedium where many of us fritter away the best years of our lives—continues to be a source of inspiration for writers, who in recent years have mined cubicles for comedy in works like Office Space, The Office, and The Thugs. The latest worthy addition to the canon comes from Ethan Coen, one half of the famously idiosyncratic filmmaking duo. Last season Coen had a hit with his Off Broadway debut Almost an Evening, a funny exploration of existentialism, religion and homicide neatly divided into three short plays. His newest theatrical venture, Offices, uses the same short play format to skewer the competitiveness, anxiety, and alienation of corporate culture. It's the perfect antidote for anyone suffering from a case of the Mondays. more ›

The 2009 Tony Award nominees were announced this morning, and competition for a nod was particularly intense this year because the 2008-09 theater season saw the highest number of new Broadway plays, musicals, and revivals in 25 years—and an unusually large percentage of them weren't just flashy drivel. Take for example, reasons to be pretty, Neil LaBute's stirring relationship-wreckage play: the Broadway production nabbed three desperately-needed Tony nominations—including Best Play and one for Gothamist crush Marin Ireland—but the show is hanging by a thread at the Lyceum Theatre, filling just 30% of the house last week. more ›

Toward the end of La Didone, the latest multidisciplinary mash-up from the indefatigable Wooster Group, one vampire alien says to a captive astronaut, "Just let one of us join you. It will give you this wonderful new complexity." The line's an obvious metaphor for director Elizabeth LeCompte's conceit, a juxtaposition of the 17th century Italian opera Didone with kitschy 1965 sci-fi horror flick Planet of the Vampires. Yet, just as the alien's promise of "wonderful new complexity" is merely a ruse to latch onto another host body, LeCompte's spectacle feels like an elaborately empty shell, seeking a spirit to animate it. La Didone is more fussy than complex, and "wonder" isn't exactly what it's full of. more ›