Critic's Notebook: So, You're Going to Call Your Play _____?
Naming a show can be tricky. Some recent titles are obscure, others extremely long. And then there's the weird punctuation. What's going on?
Naming a show can be tricky. Some recent titles are obscure, others extremely long. And then there's the weird punctuation. What's going on?
With "The Tempest," "An Ideal Husband" and "To Kill a Mockingbird," the Stratford Festival carries on a conversation about purity and forgiveness.
Following "The Originalist," the judge talked fondly about its subject: her frequent legal sparring partner Antonin Scalia.
Playing in repertory at the Stratford Festival in Canada, these mirror-image musicals turn out to be part of the same conversation.
A show set inside a smartphone is silly, yet surprisingly resonant with contemporary politics.
Recent concert stagings of "West Side Story" and "On the Town" show the pitfalls " and solutions " for symphonic performances of these musicals.
In the Berkshires, plays by Bekah Brunstetter and Douglas Carter Beane consider equality in the bakery and the rise of the "wonder homo."
Crowd-drawing revivals of "Killer Joe" and "The Lieutenant of Inishmore" find two movie matinee idols transformed into mindless sociopaths.
The magicians Joshua Jay and Vitaly Beckman, both in one-man shows in Manhattan, are exploring uses of enchantment. And kitchen supplies.
Tony-nominated book writer Jennifer Lee details the differences from this new scene in her Frozen script.
The stagecraft is impressive, but if you're not familiar with J.K. Rowling's world of wizards, "Cursed Child" can be a mystifying slog.
What does tap mean in musicals these days? It's often used as a sparkly outfit " a symbol of Broadway's past, danced by nostalgists and drama nerds.
One of Ms. Churchill's merits as a playwright is that she tends to divide people. Her play, "Light Shining in Buckinghamshire," returns to New York.
Mr. Peck's dances for the revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical on Broadway tick almost every box of dutiful choreography, if without force.
This year's Humana roster includes merciless looks at power imbalances in the workplace, and a doom-metal finale that left audiences shellshocked.
A spate of works like "The Wolves" and "The Wholehearted" use sports to explore ideas about femininity, self-image and power.
"Sound House" and "This Is the Color Described by the Time" explore a sense that too often falls by the wayside onstage " sound.
Words on the page are only a start when improvisers and actors collaborate at a monthly show at Upright Citizens Brigade called "Gravid Water." And that's just fine with a theater critic.
A Morgan Library & Museum exhibition of the playwright's letters and manuscripts showcases the hungers that drove and derailed him.
Roslyn Ruff and Jeff Hiller bring new dimensions to plays about Betty Shabazz and a chatty wedding guest.
From a historical drama to an updated Restoration comedy classic, Washington, D.C., theaters make a case for evening the playing field.
This New York-based showcase offers the kind of experimental plays, like "Pillowtalk," that thrive in more obscure performance spaces.
"Parable of the Sower" is an earnest call to action, while the irreverent "Pursuit of Happiness" finds a Slovenian dance troupe in unfamiliar territory.
Rock is underexplored onstage, but two Under the Radar shows, "How to Be a Rock Critic" and "The Hendrix Project," grapple with its transformative power.
At the 14th Under the Radar festival, artists working with found audio and video stretch the boundaries of theater.