Fright Night

Review by Bob Greene Original Poster Artwork by Songe Riddle As the 19th century gave way to the 20th, the Grand Guignol of Paris, using tech tricks and old-fashioned fright, allowed us to be scared by live theater. An audience could sit in a dark crowded space and be taken on a journey into the […]

The Short Play is at the CORE

Review by Sander Gusinow This past summer, the Core Artist Ensemble mounted over forty workshop productions of short plays from around the country. A commendable undertaking, to be sure. Now, CAE has returned to the Barrow Group Theatre armed with seven shorts selected for full production. And what a rowdy bunch of shorts they are. […]

A Long List of Short Plays

October Installment PROGRAM A reviewed by Sander Gusinow The experiments continue! John Chatterton’s Midtown International Theatre Festival Short Play Lab brings another host of vivid shorts crackling to life. This suite of shorts left me with a happy predicament, some plays were so good they deserve entire reviews of their own. Alas, alack, I have […]

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

review by Sander Gusinow Heavy drinking and long stretches of chilly silence permeate Blowout Theatre’s ’s In Antarctica, Where it is Very Warm, currently playing at IRT. Staged inside a splendid wooden installation, Jona Tarlin’s new play attempts to bring friction into the land of the penguins when a new plumber arrives at a research […]

Fight on, ye ten minutes warriors!

John Chatterton’s Short Play Lab September 2014 Review by Sander Gusinow In chemistry, a failed experiment could mean you’ll be needing skin grafts; in theatre, the worst that could happen would be a waste of ten minutes. Midtown International Theatre Festival’s 2014 Short Play Lab harnesses this convenient truth to bring twenty ten-minute plays surging […]

A Romantic Night

“Muse” A TheatreGoer’s Diary by Mary Ann Randazzo The question is “Can true love conquer all?” The answer is “Muse.” This Victorian love story had all the trials and tribulations that any couple can endure in any era. A struggling painter, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, played brilliantly by Greg Pragel, falling in love with his red […]

KANDER AND EBB REVISIT THE VISIT – THIS TIME, IT’S A LOVE STORY

Part of the Williamstown Theatre Festival Review by Robert Gulack Again and again, humanity is snapped down in a steel mousetrap fashioned of our own greed. One by one, the townspeople raise their hands, agreeing to sell their consciences for money, and, as they do, a horrible clang rings out, again and again. After that, […]