1,115 stories by "Frank Scheck"
'the King's Whore" bills itself as "a modern/historical mash-up of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn's debacle of a relationship." But Rob Santana's play " the first effort by Starcatcher Prod…
We were told to meet at a phone booth at the Montague Street entrance to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, near the famous Low Mansion. There, a man in blue-rimmed glasses introduced himself a…
In 1981, President Reagan famously fired some 11,000 air traffic controllers after they went on strike in defiance of their contract.
Now, "I Forgive You, Ronald Reagan" is doing to hapless…
Charlie Chaplin would be proud: The Lincoln Center Festival's "Murmurs," conceived and directed by his daughter Victoria Thiérrée Chaplin and starring his granddaughter Aurélia Thiérrée…
You can practically feel the humidity wafting from "Story-ville." Set in the final days of the famed New Orleans neighborhood " a notorious red-light district that's also considered the birt…
This theatrical concert by an expert Beatles cover band follow in the heels of such similar predecessors as "Beatlemania" and "Rain"read more
SUSAN BLACKWELL of "[title of show]" winningly plays an English teacher pressed into coaching them.
After the cheerleader musicals "Bring It On" and "Lysistrata Jones," it's nice to see girls finally take the court. And they do so " winningly " in "Volleygirls," about a high school girls' …
A romantic comedy that's light on both romance and comedy, this New York Musical Theatre Festival offering concerns the travails of Little Harry (Robb Sapp), a chef who yearns to leave his f…
Wallace Shawn stars in a revival of his landmark 1996 play about a bourgeois society of intellectuals who fall victim to a totalitarian regime.read more
For a conflict responsible for the most casualties in American history, the Civil War had one heck of a soundtrack.
"Dixie," "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," "The Battle Cry of Freedom" an…
If the actor's nightmare is finding himself onstage without knowing his lines, the theatergoer's is realizing he's actually part of the play. That's the dizzying idea behind "rogerandtom," J…
In Howard Barker's "The Castle," weary soldiers return home from the Crusades to discover that their wives are hardly awaiting them with open arms. Indeed, the women have gone on to establis…
A drifter wanders into a small town and changes the lives of its inhabitants. No, it's not "Picnic" or "The Rainmaker" but "Julian Po," the strange, intriguing new musical, part of the New Y…
For a show that touches on sadomasochism, self-mutilation and disfigurement, "Shun-kin" is awfully decorous. Director Simon McBurney's Complicite theater production is as gorgeous and delica…
The sexual gamesmanship in Christopher Hampton's "Les Liaisons Danger-euses" has never seemed quite so viciously amoral as it does in the hands of John Malkovich.
The actor, who made a memo…
Just how universal is Willy Loman, the doomed soul of "Death of a Salesman"?
We're about to find out, with "This Great Country," a new theatrical reimagining of Arthur Miller's 1949 classic.…
With more than 2,000 new shows each summer, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the largest arts festival in the world. But if you don't feel up to flying off to Scotland and digging through th…
The young man onstage is singing the traditional spiritual "Trust and Obey." But just as we're settling into his sweet, lilting voice, we hear the taunts of "Sissy," "F - - - - t " and even …
No, "The Banana Monologues" isn't a male rejoinder to Eve Ensler's feminist classic. Rather, in this solo turn, John R. Brennan tells the story of an ill-fated relationship starring an organ…
'Swapping is the new cheating," declares one of the partner-swapping marrieds in Jeff Gould's play.
Perhaps, but one thing's for certain: "It's Just Sex" is the same old sex comedy.
Swappi…
When the Ice Factory Festival opens its 20th season tonight, no one will be happier than Robert Lyons, its artistic director: That's because he'll finally get to see the shows.
The Obie Awa…
The acclaimed troupe Theater Breaking Through Barriers offers something you won't find anywhere else: Its works revolve around disability " which is only appropriate, since some of its membe…
A famous American composer proves an unlikely mediator between a violinist dad and his basketball- loving daughter in "Charles Ives Take Me Home." Jessica Dickey's three-character fantasia h…
Time to fess up. You never did get around to reading James Joyce's epic-length "Ulysses," did you? You meant to, but something else always came up . . . like life.
Fortunately, Patrick Fitzg…
