682 stories by "Wendy Caster"
Who are the real actors of NYC? After watching the lightly entertaining, largely painless new musical, The Real Actors of NYC, I'd have to say that the answer is: Klea Blackhurst and Lorinda…
On Monday, September 26, 2016, The New York Innovative Theatre Foundation presented their IT Awards. Winners are marked with asterisks.OUTSTANDING ENSEMBLE** The Golfer,Gemini CollisionWorks…
This is not a review. I saw the first preview of Love, Love, Love, and a review wouldn't be appropriate. However, the show is already in excellent shape, and quite interesting, and completel…
James Blossom is a hero--over and over again. He defuses a Nazi nuke miles under the sea and "is given a ticker tape parade and his face on the five dollar bill." He saves the life of the Se…
Six people assemble for a spiritual retreat with varying levels of comfort and enthusiasm: an ultra-limber, ultra-sexy yoga instructor; a lesbian couple, affectionate but annoyed with each o…
My latest Art Times essay is up:The Greek philosopher Heraclitus believed that you can never step into the same river twice because the water is ever-flowing"and also you have chan…
Some friends and I are working our way through past Tony Award shows, and it's been a surprising journey in many ways. This past week, we watched 1970 through 1974. The Tony gestalt has chan…
My latest essay is up at Art Times:What accounts for the rise of the intermissionless 90-minute play? A prevalent theory points to the shrinking attention spans of a population inundated 24/…
It's almost impossible to discuss James Graham's new play Privacy without saying too much. So here's what I will say:Privacy is a frequently entertaining, sometimes horrifying exam…
My latest essay is up at Art Times. Here's a taste.A recent cover of Entertainment Weekly achieved a new low in spoilers. It blared out a big, juicy piece of information about a po…
Our correct predictions are highlighted. Wendy Sandra Cameron Liz Best play: The Humans The Humans The Humans The Humans King Charles III Best musica…
The Color Purple has been well-reviewed all over the place, and I generally agree that it is a strong production of a moving show. But I have a serious ax to grind.In Alice Walker's nov…
Stephen Hawking: The real risk with AI isn't malice but competence. A superintelligent AI will be extremely good at accomplishing its goals, and if those goals aren't aligned with ours, we'r…
The setting is familiar: a 12-step-program-type support group. A woman stands, says, "Hello, my name is Mica, and I'm Z-positive," and everyone else says, "Hi, Mica." Does "Z-positive" perha…
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The School For Scandal, first performed in 1777, reveals that humans have changed little over the centuries, clothing and…
There's good news, and bad news, and good news again. The good news is that the Master Voices (formerly The Collegiate Chorale) production of Dido and Aeneas was lovely. The bad news is that…
The earnest and well-acted Echoes takes place in two times and places: Victorian England and Afghanistan, and present-day England and Syria. In both situations, a young woman has&n…
From Art Times:Once upon a time, boys played the women's roles in Shakespeare's plays. Once upon a different time, Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor performed in blackface to great acclaim, and som…
Perhaps the single most salient fact about theater is that it is ephemeral, evanescent. Even if you get to see a production 10 times, it eventually closes, and it's gone. Poof. But in some i…
The Pearl Theater's production of Stupid Fucking Bird, Aaron Posner's 21st-century riff/recreation of The Seagull, is well-directed, well-acted, well-designed, and a great deal of fun. …
Here's what I liked about Dry Power, Sarah Burgess's predictable, unimaginative, and lame incitement of high finance, currently playing at the Public Theater: the women in the crew wore blac…
Playwright Hazel Ellis seems to have had a low opinion of women, with an even lower opinion of powerless women stuck together in lives harshly circumscribed by need. Premiering in Ireland in…
If you (1) love Stephen Sondheim; (2) adore A Little Night Music; (3) treasure gorgeous singing; and/or (4) value a bargain, get thee to Theatre 2020 in Brooklyn Heights. Running through Mar…
Sam Shepard's Buried Child presents the American nightmare. Family is poisonous; religion is useless; ambition is pointless; nothing has been planted in over 30 years. A bizarre, rotted Norm…
The Encores! presentation of Cabin in the Sky is over, so I'm going to limit this post to three comments:1. I am so glad that musicals have evolved over the years. Cabin in the Sky, whi…
