520 stories by "Jacob Malizio"
If Crystal and Ellis had stayed on that tack — tales about the house at 860 bound together by a sense of its loss — 860 might have the sturdiness of a tearjerker. Crystal’s inspiration…
Crystal is a master of polished shtick who is also uncommonly connected to his audience; he makes the 1,450-seat Imperial Theatre, which normally hosts huge productions like Les Misérables …
But what the extraordinary Crystal manages in “860,” his latest one-man Broadway show that opened Wednesday night at the Imperial Theatre, is a feat. He takes the devastating 2025 Palisa…
His latest solo show, 860, proves again that there’s likely no such thing as a bad time in Crystal’s company, even if its structure stretches any notion of “plot”… As a frequent Os…
“860,” despite being a one-man show, plays like a big opera without any singing. The stage at the Imperial repeatedly explodes, and it’s not just the Palisades fire that keeps us rivet…
Every family has a secret. Not every family survives it. On Christmas Eve, the sunlit Palm Springs home of a politically connected family becomes a battleground of memory, loyalty, and legac…
So I cannot say if it’s “worth” it to spend so much to see Louis-Dreyfus, but it is still grand to find her on Broadway. Her nervy charisma transfers nicely to the theater, where we ca…
Other Desert Cities is an undeniably satisfying piece of narrative drama, tightly constructed and rigorously paced. Baitz doles out information with careful precision; each mini-confrontatio…
It’s obvious why Louis-Dreyfus chose this role for her Broadway debut. Through seven seasons on Veep, she exhibited an unparalleled ability to inject humor into every phrase and eyeroll, g…
“Other Desert Cities” is a resounding piece of theater, not simply because of the subject matter but because of the performances. The entire cast works as a seamless ensemble, switching …
If we’re going to turn Broadway into a machine for letting people sit close to celebrities for an exorbitant fee, can’t we at least put those celebrities in plays that feel less dated? (…
Each actor has their moments, most are fine and one is excellent. Not for a second, however, does anybody believe that the Wyeths are a real family or something other than an impressive asse…
Director John Benjamin Hickey’s revival of this ever-captivating play, in a production opening at Broadway‘s Hudson Theatre tonight, features a must-see cast… but the bold names aren…
Louis-Dreyfus delivers one of the richest performances of her career as Polly Wyeth, a wealthy, fiercely opinionated Palm Springs matriarch whose wit and ironclad convictions make her a form…
This Other Desert Cities, directed by John Benjamin Hickey, is wobbly from the start, off-rhythm and woefully imbalanced in its performances.
The post Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ed Harris and Alli…
Becoming Miss Ghana 1986 would mean fame, fortune, and prosperity. At least, that’s what Paulina—the queen bee of Aburi Girls Boarding School—believes. When the pageant recruiter comes…
What we do have is marvelous. And Broadway does give the play an appropriate magnitude — the vast room matches Paulina’s operatic behavior. The scale of the actors, too, allows White to …
Ericka’s arrival sets off a chaotic chain of events by turns uproariously funny, stingingly painful and, for anyone who lived through teenage bullying, cruelly familiar. Yet Bioh always ke…
Benton and Rogers—each a radiant presence with resting Disney Princess Face—are perfectly matched rivals. As Paulina, Benton is unflinchingly cruel. She even draws gasps for her especial…
“School Girls” is an uproariously funny and heartbreaking portrait of sisterhood framed by the consequences of colonialism, anti-Blackness, and colorism. In just 75 minutes, “School Gi…
When it premiered at MCC in 2017 it was fresh, savvy, and funny. Almost a decade later in its Broadway debut, it’s lost none of that, and White’s production — perhaps inevitably given …
Bioh, perfectly assisted by her sympatico director Whitney White and a no-weak-link cast, has done something quite amazing with this comedy-drama, opening tonight on Broadway at the Samuel J…
What began as a plucky battle between a friendly newcomer and a queen bee with a nasty stinger morphs into something much more complicated, especially as further revelations are uncovered. B…
It’s a pleasure to be reunited with flawed, fractious but ultimately endearing classmates of this crowd-pleasing play.
The post Denée Benton and Jasmine Amy Rogers battle for attention in…
This is a production expert at making one smile. For what is clearly one of the past decade’s most loved plays, this Broadway debut is a beautiful homecoming.
The post Comedy makes a near-…
