278 stories by "Erik Haagensen"
Charles A. Taylor's 1903 melodrama is very much a compendium of clichés, but Alex Roe's impish direction and a strong cast make it fly by in a breeze of entertainment.
Actor-author Troy Deutsch is clearly a font of talent, even if his two-hander about a pair of estranged and disaffected high school seniors in rural Minnesota is full of incompletely reali…
In an interview, playwright Dan Klores notes that his maiden effort, last season's "Little Doc," was "a disaster" and "a great learning experience." I'd say the learning curve was not a sh…
Rita Gardner's tribute to the venue that nurtured her cuts its nostalgia with a lightly acerbic wit and mint-fresh song stylings, making for a marvelous hour.
Director Eric Schaeffer deserves credit for working hard to address the numerous problems with his Kennedy Center production of Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman's towering musical classi…
With this powerful and original work, director Jonathan Bank and his Mint Theater Company strengthen their case for Teresa Deevy as a formidable and too-long-lost voice in Irish theater.
You've got to hand it to him: Chris Phillips has nerve. It's not everybody who would put his own versions of iconic Tennessee Williams characters on stage in serious dramatic scenes.
Author-performer Tayo Aluko's one-man show about the great Paul Robeson is at its best when it is being most political, but it's less successful as a portrait of the artist.
Directed with sensitivity and intelligence by playwright David Auburn and acted to a fare-thee-well by a dynamite cast of six, Tennessee Williams' rarely produced foray into situation come…
I haven't the foggiest idea of what author-actor Peter Welch thinks he's up to with this two-hander, but as Noël Coward once sang, 90 minutes is a long, long time.
Playwright Danny Mitarotondo's theater is a lyrical one of splintered poetry and inchoate longing that seems most interested in essences, but they're not jelling as successfully as they co…
With this heartfelt epistolary comedy-drama about two very different men who have been best friends since childhood, writer Kevin Cochran has given us a gay "Love Letters."
The highly sexual photo with which Elixir Productions Theatre Company sells this gay-themed noir drama proves more tease than promise thanks to Alex DeFazio's synthetic script.
Acutely observed, inventively structured, and acted impeccably under the nuanced direction of Craig Baldwin, Cory Conley's new play is, in a word, terrific.
Though Juha Jokela's two-hander about religious fundamentalism comes with the imprimatur of the 2008 Nordic Drama Award for best play, what's on stage at the IATI Theater is definitely a m…
In the wake of Stephen Sondheim's letter to The New York Times questioning the rewrites being done to "Porgy and Bess," playwright-director Leah Maddie has a tiger by the tail.
I'm afraid you'll have to look far and wide to find a musical more inept than this 1920s satire being given a manic, never-met-a-cliché-it-didn't-like production by director-choreogra…
Charles Busch's commercially minded comedy is an obvious attempt to duplicate the box office success of his "The Tale of the Allergist's Wife," but lightning is unlikely to strike twice.
There's nothing particularly wrong with Anna Kerrigan's slice-of-life, coming-of-age comedy-drama set in Oakland, Calif., in the summer of 1970, but there's nothing very distinctive about …
Author-actor Brian Stanton's compelling one-man show about his search for his birth mother overcomes a few flaws to be a moving exploration of identity and a thought-provoking and challeng…
It's dispiriting to watch the talent and professionalism of Nosedive Productions' artists put to use in the service of something as shallow and glibly cynical as James Comtois' would-be bl…
Paul David Young has written a deceptively quiet winner with his new one-hour one-act about three 20-something friends hallucinating possible futures on an alcohol- and LSD-fueled summer n…
Michael Ross Albert's preposterous, self-indulgent one-hour one-act purports to examine four former child geniuses reunited after years apart, but it sails off the proverbial cliff of credib…
Writer-performer Jessica Sherr's naive one-woman play about Bette Davis is not remotely persuasive and unfortunately suffused with self-pity, an emotion Davis would have despised.
Strong singing and acting mitigate unfortunate attempts to modernize Noël Coward's 1929 operetta. Still, this is a welcome chance to hear the lovely score sung in dramatic context.
