The score of JAGGED LITTLE PILL, defined by the cannon of Canadian-born songwriter and performer Alanis Morissette, confirms she is, as “Rolling Stone” dubbed her, “the queen of alt-rock angst”.  The book by Diablo Cody, who won an Oscar for her original screenplay of...

“Call me Ishmael” famously declares the narrator of legendary novel “Moby-Dick”.  Call me exhilarated and bored, mesmerized and distracted,  all at the same time at Dave Malloy’s musical adaptation of Herman Melville’s epic, “Moby Dick: A Musical Reckoning”,  in its w...

Matthew Lopez’s THE INHERITANCE, wondrously surmounts - at times, soars above – its sheer scale of two parts in seven hours.  Part love story, part literary homage (inspired by E. M. Forster’s “Howard’s End”), part gay rights polemic, and so much more, it’s mostly a s...

The dog-eat-dog theme gets an entertaining application to the restaurant business with some distinctively sprightly playwriting from Theresa Rebeck paired with equally robust direction by Moritz Von Stuelpnagel in “Seared”.  Best friends, chef Harry (Raul Esparza) and...

THE SOUND INSIDE, near perfect in its world premiere at Williamstown Theatre Festival in the summer of 2018, is even better on Broadway.  (I’ve posted my original review below).   I was skeptical that the play, which transacts so intimately, could maintain its intimacy...

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-telli...

“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”....

“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 germinate...

“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 seam...

“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-...