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Category Archives: off-Broadway
“The Bedwetter” and “Mr. Saturday Night”
Two new musicals are co-written by people who came to fame via stand-up comedy. Mr. Saturday Night, the Billy Crystal vehicle (which he co-wrote with Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, composer Jason Robert Brown and lyricist Amanda Green) is about … Continue reading
Telling it Clearly — “Macbeth” vs. “Cyrano”
I’m a story guy. I think the roots of the theater lie in people sharing stories. I’ve written before about a conversation I had in the mid-Seventies with novelist Louis L’Amour that influenced my thinking. He described how Native Americans, … Continue reading
Posted in Broadway, drama, New York, off-Broadway, theater
Tagged BAM, Betrayal, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Cyrano, Daniel Craig, Evelyn Miller, Harold Pinter, Ivo Van Hove, James Mcavoy, Jamie Lloyd, Louls L'Amour, Macbeth, Othello, Ruth Negga, Sam Gold, Shakespeare
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SPACE DOGS and ENGLISH
It’s no surprise that American playwrights usually write plays set in America. It is a little surprising that three current off-Broadway plays by American playwrights are, in fact, set outside our borders. I wrote recently about Joshua Harmon’s Prayer for … Continue reading
Posted in drama, off-Broadway, playwriting, theater
Tagged Atlantic Theater, English, Laika, Manhattan Class Company, Nick Blaemire, Sanaz Toossi, Space Dogs, Stalin, Van Hughes
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“Long Day’s Journey Into Night” – sort of
The program that comes with the off-Broadway production at the Minetta Lane Theater says the play on offer is Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill. And it’s true that every word spoken on the stage is by O’Neill. … Continue reading
Thoughts after watching THE VERDICT
Just watched The Verdict for the first time since it came out forty years ago in 1982. Sidney Lumet at the top of his game, a perfect damn script by David Mamet (I can’t say how much it owes to the … Continue reading
Posted in Chicago theater, drama, film adaptation, movies, off-Broadway, playwriting, Pulitzer Prize, Second City, Uncategorized
Tagged American Buffalo, Daniel, David Mamet, Duck Variations, Glengarry Glen Ross, Harold Pinter, James Mason, Jay Presson Allen, Julie Bovasso, Lewis Stadlen, Lindsay Crouse, Mike Nussbaum, Paul Newman, Prince of the City, Sidney Lumet, Slap Shot, St. Nicholas Theater, Stanley Richards, The Verdict, Village Voice, W.H. Macy
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CULLUD WATTAH and CLYDE’S
My idea was to write a series of plays, each of which would take place in another American city. The stories would be specific to those towns, each arising organically out of the character and history of the location. And … Continue reading
Posted in Broadway, drama, New York, off-Broadway, playwriting, Pulitzer Prize, theater
Tagged All My Sons, Arthur Miller, Clyde's, contaminated water, Crystal Dickinson, Cullud Wattah, Detroit, Dominique Morissea, Edmund Donovan, Enemy of the People, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, Flint, Generl Motors, Henrik Ibsen, Kara Young, Kate Whoriskey, Lynn Nottage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, pollution, Public Theater, Reading PA, Reza Salazar, Rick Snyder, Roger Ailes, Ron Cephas Jones, Rosebud, Ruined, Skeleton Crew, The Detroit Project, Uzo Aduba, What Playwrights Talk About When They Talk About Writing
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Review: “Morning’s at Seven”
Paul Osborn’s Morning’s at Seven (playing at St. Clement’s) is the most James Thurberish play I know and it isn’t by Thurber. Some people are charmed by Thurber. Some are immune. (Some have no idea who he was.) I am … Continue reading
Posted in New York, off-Broadway, playwriting, theater
Tagged Alma Cuervo, comedy, Dan Lauria, James Thurber, Lindsay Crouse, Morning's at Seven, Paul Osborn, small-town life, Tony Roberts
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Review: “The Visitor”
For about the first half of its 90-minute running time, The Visitor, the new musical playing at the Public Theater based on Tom McCarthy’s 2007 film, works very nicely indeed. Kwame Kwei-Armah and Brian Yorkey’s script effectively translates McCarthy’s screenplay … Continue reading
Posted in drama, movies, New York, off-Broadway, playwriting, Uncategorized
Tagged "David Hyde Piere", "The Visitor", Brian Yorkey, immigration, Kwame Kwei-Armah, musical, My Fair Lady, Tom Kitt, Tom McCarthy
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Jeffrey Sweet--Making the Scene 