‘Star’ School
W.C. Fields said that you should never work with children or animals, but for the cast of the Off Broadway show Platanos & Collard Greens, that warning is easy to ignore.
The play, which focuses on overcoming stereotypes and prejudices between the African-American and Latino communities, is welcoming one lucky local student into its cast thanks to Everybody Is A Star, a program designed to introduce New York City high school students to theater. Read more
Taking Flight
Bringing Murakami’s ‘The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle’ to the stage has been as peculiar and challenging as the book itself
Reading Haruki Murakami’s prose can be a frustrating endeavor. Filled with surreal characters and moments—talking cats, mystical sex workers, magical jellyfish, mysterious amputees—his books are packed with inexplicable metaphors that don’t always seem to add up to anything substantial. While the Japanese writer possesses a rabid group of followers and each book is debated intensely in a multitude of languages, the ultimate conclusion of a story is often exasperating. The thought of adapting one of his stories, let alone an entire novel, would be an intimidating, even impossible, feat for most. Just think of all those fans who would hate you if you screwed it up. Read more
Hope Amidst the Storm
The Last Cargo Cult at The Public Theater, which runs through Dec. 13, left audiences feeling optimistic even though the show tells the story of the financial meltdown. “Well, I got drink tickets,” said author, commentator, and “PC Guy” John Hodgman.
The Public Theater's Executive Director, Andrew Hamingson, and Artistic Director, Oskar Eustis with The Last Cargo Cult director Jean-Michele Gregory and star, Mike Daisey.
Acknowledging the risk that star Mike Daisey is taking to hand out his pay for the performance to audiences at the start of the show, and request it back at the end, Hodgman said, “I think he’s going to make a lot of money with this scheme.” Read more
Light and Desolation
Edward Hopper hitches a ride on ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’
By Valerie Gladstone
When set designer Ralph Myers met with Norwegian actor and director Liv Ullman to discuss the revival of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire for the Sydney stage, they spoke about Edward Hopper for his design. She understood the compatibility of Williams’ and Hopper’s visions and warmed to the idea.
“Hopper stripped everything of extraneous detail,” Myers explained. “He depicted a noble emptiness. I kept that in mind as I developed the set.” Read more
Coitus Interruptus
Little actual stimulation in Sarah Ruhl’s Broadway debut
By David Blum
Sarah Ruhl’s new play is anti-climactic and unsatisfying, which adds a special layer of frustration since it’s ostensibly about climax and satisfaction. But In The Next Room (or the vibrator play) fails utterly at its intentions, a drawing-room drama as awkwardly constructed as its title—an intriguing first-act setup followed by a mish-mash of missed opportunities in the second, and, of course, no happy ending. Read more
The Vulgar Poet
Playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney premieres a powerful triptych of new works about the black experience at The Public Theater
Tarell Alvin McCraney is one of the most thrilling new voices in theater right now. But if you haven’t heard of him, you’re not alone. The African-American writer just celebrated his 29th birthday and is only a few years out from the Yale School of Drama. He has just a handful of produced plays so far but, considering the buzz his work has generated over the past couple of years, it won’t be long before the rest of the world—outside of New York and London—discovers this ambitious young talent. Read more
Big ANT Festival
What happens when you curate a theater festival based on an open call to artists? You get another year of ANT FEST, Ars Nova’s annual collection of over 30 new creative types parading their ideas on stage for the next five weeks.
“Each evening is a completely different piece,” said Jason Eagan, the artistic director of Ars Nova and head curator for the festival. “The focus is on new work being created and the theme is the diversity of it all.” Read more
Mama’s Baby
By Mark Peikert
Nearly 50 years after founding La MaMa E.T.C., the experimental theater that has become synonymous with the avant-garde, Ellen Stewart will be honored on Nov. 1 with a gala benefit to rename La MaMa’s Annex Theater the Ellen Stewart Theatre.
Founded by Stewart in 1961, La MaMa has long been world famous as a haven for risk takers, with the list of artists who launched their careers there reading like a who’s who of theater and film: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Elizabeth Swados, Mike Figgis, Patti Smith, Lanford Wilson and many others. But if nothing else, La MaMa sealed its place in theater history by being both the first company to produce the works of Harold Pinter in America and the first home for what would eventually become Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy. Read more
Playing by Mamet’s Rules
Julia Stiles gets all the best lines in Oleanna and manipulates the audience all the more
By David Blum
In 1992, David Mamet’s Oleanna debuted Off-Broadway against the backdrop of the just-ended Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas case. This month’s Broadway production has David Letterman’s sex scandal as its true-life context. Times have changed; where feminists then defended Hill in her accusations against the would-be Supreme Court justice, now they defend Letterman even though he’s likely exerted far more power over women than Thomas ever did—or could. Sometimes it feels like we’re moving backward through history. Read more
Fall Preview: Theater
A Steady Rain
Starring cinema heartthrobs Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman, the play is about two police officers recalling a few days that changed their lives. But that’s hardly the point. The show hasn’t already sold $3 million worth of tickets on the basis of playwright Keith Huff. Rather it’s all about the chance to see two buff action-movie stars in the flesh (and in police uniforms). Opens Sept. 27
Superior Donuts
Tracy Letts’ followup to the phenomenally successful (and Pulitzer Prize-winning) August: Osage County is about a Chicago doughnut-shop owner. Maybe it doesn’t have the same epic scale, but these Steppenwolf transfers are usually the best theater the city can hope to see. Opens Oct. 1 Read more
