The American musical these days seems to be full of cartoon characters, which isn’t always a good thing, but in “Scotland PA”, based on the 2001 indie film, cartoon is celebrated to joyous effect. That’s not only good but astonishing given that the plot is a re-telling, albeit broadly, of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth. Michael Mitnick’s book is amusing enough and Adam Gwon’s music, rooted in 1970’s pop, and lyrics are okay, too, but what makes “Scotland PA” charmingly winning in

“David Byrne’s American Utopia” transcends staged concert. It’s not only a wholly entertaining theatrical celebration of music and movement but also the defining expression of Byrne’s canon that ponders, through his song, the puzzlement of “what are we doing here”. Appropriately, the 100 minute performance begins with Byrne’s solo rendition of “Here, which posits life contradictions: “Here is it something we call elucidation. Is it truth or merely a description?” The perf

“Soft Power” is a cement truck of a musical, churning into a solid mess a mix of political fantasia, Broadway musical homage, social satire, love story, cross-cultural parable and tale of self-identity. Confusing in plot and didactic in theme, the story germinated from a real-life hate-crime attack on Chinese-American playwright David Henry Hwang (“M. Butterfly). His character in “Soft Power, DHH (Francis Jue), is a famous Chinese- American playwright commissioned t

“The Wrong Man” isn’t the most original story set to music; the title itself telegraphs the plot line. But this new chamber musical at MCC Theater advances storytelling in musical theatre by dint of bold, muscular choreography and dazzling lighting direction both seamlessly integrated with a soulful, hook-laden, pop-driven score. Directed by Thomas Kail, still in high gear from his direction of the phenomenon “Hamilton” and choreographed by Travis Wall, best known for telev

“What the Jews Believe” is a heartfelt, coming-of-age memory play told by the 12 year old Nathan (Logan Weibrecht), as he prepares for his bar mitzvah as an only child in the only Jewish household in a small town in central Texas in the 1950s. It’s based on the real-life upbringing of playwright Mark Harelik, who also directs, and is a sequel of sorts to his earlier play “The Immigrant” about his Jewish Russian grandfather. Mr. Harelik creates several story lines. Nathan’s

Playwright Brent Askari’s “American Underground” takes place in “the not-so-distant future”. The US Government has segregated Arab-Americans (read Muslims) in concentration camps. An underground railroad run secretly by a network of resistors assists American Muslims to escape the country. The Government executes traitors, displaying their corpses in malls as object lessons to citizens who don’t conform. Rog (Alan H. Green), African-American, teaches biology at a local uni