Results tagged “theater”

"I'm not someone who has difficulty communicating," declares Molly (Kate Walsh) at the beginning of Stephen Belber's modestly masterful play Dusk Rings a Bell. She's not kidding; throughout the next ninety minutes Molly, an bourgy P.R. flack for CNN in D.C., flies high-altitude linguistic loop the loops to tell the surprising story of her encounters with Ray (Paul Sparks) in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. As teens, the two shared an "indelible" and "innovative" make-out session on a lifeguard stand one late-summer eve, and never saw each other again—until Molly, on her 39th birthday, breaks into the summer beach house her parents used to rent, for reasons I won't spoil here. more ›

Two years ago there was talk of an indie film arthouse of sorts moving in to Williamsburg, but alas, that project didn't seem to get the greenlight. Now the Brooklyn Paper is reporting that there's a movie theater moving in... for real this time! more ›

The tagline for The Debate Society's latest deluxe little production, Buddy Cop 2, tells you a lot about their whimsical sensibility: "Nothing is what it seems. Or is it?" Set in the small (fictional) town of Shandon, Indiana in the early-'80s, the strange story revolves around a local police station, which was relocated to the recreation center after a devastating flood. As such, there is a racquetball court behind the makeshift office, where two of the cops (the titular buddies?) pass much of the time. Laura Jellinek's impressive set is a triumph of naturalistic detail, down to the prized collection of exotic beer cans seized by the cops during open container stops. more ›

We've adored multi-talented singer, composer, playwright, actor, and musician Cynthia Hopkins for quite some time now, having fallen under the spell of her enchanting voice and the imaginative, funny-sad aesthetic of The Accidental Trilogy, her convoluted series of increasingly far-out, semi-autobiographical theatrical extravaganzas. (Read our reviews here.) Hopkins's latest work, The Truth: A Tragedy, is more personal and pared-down than her recent shows, leaving her band (Gloria Deluxe) and most of the instruments offstage. (There is a piano, keyboards, accordion, and confetti cannon.) more ›

Jeff Daniels and Lea Michele woke up early this morning to announce the nominations for the 64th Annual Tony Awards, which will be distributed on June 13th. Unlike previous years, no single powerhouse show has dominated the nominations, with honors spread across the board. (Fela! and La Cage aux Folles tied for the most nominations—11) But there were some notable snubs, most notably the highly profitable yet critically panned The Addams Family. Stars Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth received no nominations, and the show is not in the Best Musical category. Ironically, the worst aspect of this mediocre tourist trap—the instantly forgettable score—was nominated for an award. more ›

Lynn Redgrave, part of the Redgrave acting dynasty, died at age 67 yesterday. According to the AP, "Her publicist Rick Miramontez, speaking on behalf of her children, said Redgrave died Sunday night at her Manhattan apartment. In 2003, Redgrave had been treated for breast cancer." Redgrave performed in film (earning Oscar nominations for her acting in Georgy Girl and Gods and Monsters), on TV and on stage. Earlier this year, she was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame. more ›

We'll take any excuse to publish more of Tod Seelie's bewitching photographs, but this time his subject matter is also relevant to your weekend plans. Jeff Stark, the DIY director, playwright, and publisher of the essential events newsletter Nonsense NYC, is staging his latest site-specific performance piece, Sweet Cheat, at an undisclosed upstate location this weekend. It is undisclosed because it is illegal. more ›

The Pulitzer Prize for Drama was awarded to a show that was not one of the three nominated by the jury, and the chairman of the jury is pissed. LA Times theater critic Charles McNulty has written an angry editorial denouncing the Pulitzer board for overridding its jury and bestowing the prize on Next to Normal. Maybe you've heard of it; it's a critically-acclaimed Broadway musical. But are you familiar with jury selections The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity and Bengal Tiger in the Baghdad Zoo? Not so much. To be fair, the third jury pick, In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), premiered in NYC, but wow was that overrated. more ›

Ken Ludwig's farcical screwball comedy Lend Me a Tenor first premiered in 1986, but this wearisome trifle feels so out of place in the Foul Year of Our Lord 2010 that it might as well be a relic from the Gilded Age. It's actually set in 1934 in Cleveland, but of course there's no hint of Depression-era squalor here; the milieu is Cleveland's upper crust, who are thrilled that world famous opera singer Tito Merelli (Anthony LaPaglia) has arrived for a single performance of Otello. But when the corpulent tenor is found dead to the world an hour before curtain, local impresario Saunders (Tony Shaloub) must scramble to find a replacement. more ›

What does one do with an old, now landmarked, theater in Queens? That's the big question for the owners of Ridgewood Theatre—in January the facade was landmarked, but the interior can still be renovated—leaving a few options on their hands. more ›

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 ›