Category Archives: review

CD Review: Follies

Stephen Sondheim’s Follies is revered in the theater community, and I think rightly so. It contains some of the best musical comedy songs ever written – funny and poignant, often at the same time. Thank goodness, then, that the new … Continue reading

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Review: Private Lives

I’m a big fan of Noël Coward – here’s a gay playwright who married queer wit to a penetrating understanding of human emotions. Director Richard Eyre’s breezy new production of his Private Lives largely does right by my boy Noël, … Continue reading

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Review: Other Desert Cities

I’m so thrilled that 2011 can be marked as the year that two very promising American playwrights crossed over into visibly being really great writers. David Lindsay-Abaire did it on Broadway in the spring with Good People, and Jon Robin … Continue reading

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Review: Chinglish

While visiting mainland China some years back, playwright David Henry Hwang was invited to see a new arts center in a large provincial city. He was very impressed with the state-of-the-art facility; he was also thoroughly taken aback by the … Continue reading

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Review: Venus In Fur

How do you adapt one of the cornerstones of kinky culture, without creating pornography? Playwright David Ives has come up with a very creative solution for this smart, sexy show, by showing us an extended, out-of-control audition in which a … Continue reading

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Review: Godspell

The principal joy of Godspell is the richly tuneful score by Stephen Schwartz, featuring the huge hit “Day by Day”. Godspell was his first hit, and really put him on the musical theatre map. This new Broadway revival certainly does … Continue reading

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Review: John Pizzarelli and Jessica Molaskey

On the basis of their new cabaret act at the Cafe Carlyle, entitled “When Worlds Collide”, I can confidently call the husband and wife team of John Pizzarelli and Jessica Molasky the king and queen of mash-ups. No, really. These … Continue reading

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Review: Marilyn Maye

Ella Fitzgerald once called Marilyn Maye “the greatest white female singer in the world”. That’s no exaggeration – she may be the only singer alive who combines a great vocal instrument with interpretative flair and savoir faire equal to Ella’s … Continue reading

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Review: Rent

When Rent first opened I was freshly transplanted to the East Village from the Midwest. I arrived weeks before it opened, and was mildly curious about this edgy little musical playing at the New York Theatre Workshop. I didn’t go, … Continue reading

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CD Review: Michael Feinstein – The Sinatra Project, Vol. II: The Good Life

Michael Feinstein opens The Sinatra Project, Vol. II: The Good Life with a surprising bang. He swings “Thirteen Women” a brazenly heterosexual, even male chauvinist fantasy about a man and his harem (it makes a little more sense if you … Continue reading

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