David Rooney looks at “The Rap Guide to Evolution”

David Rooney says of Baba Brinkman's musical lecture on The Origin of Species, "Unlike more sophomoric hybridists of highbrow content and popular form, Mr. Brinkman brings genuine passion, curiosity and analytical skills to his subject."

Read the entire review: HERE

Neil Genzlinger reviews "Some of Our Parts"

"It’s no surprise that Neil LaBute’s contribution to “Some of Our Parts,” a bill of seven 10-minute plays about disabilities, is the brashest. It’s also the best."

Read the full review: HERE

Ben Brantley reviews "All's Well That Ends Well" in the Park

Brantley says that director Daniel Sullivan, "has come up with an approach to “All’s Well” that is worldly while holding onto a bright, sustaining glimmer of romantic hope."

Read the full review: HERE

Andy Webster on "The Play About My Dad”

Andy Webster reviews Boo Killebrew's The Play About My Dad, about which he says: "telling multiple accounts of Hurricane Katrina’s assault on her hometown, Gulfport, Miss., and recounting the dissolution of her parents’ marriage...She largely pulls it off, though detours intermittently threaten the balance."

Read the full review: HERE

Ben Brantley reviews "“Unnatural Acts" at CSC

Ben Brantley says that Unnatural Acts, "is steeped in an earnestness that can only be described as collegiate."

Read the full review: HERE

Charles Isherwood on "Sex Lives of Our Parents"

Isherwood avoids writing about the new play, Sex Lives of Our Parents, in his review - looking at everything BUT the play.

Read his review: HERE

Rachel Saltz on “Civilization (All You Can Eat)”

Rachel Saltz says that Civilization (All You Can Eat), "ineffectively mixes the surreal with the banal, the hyper-serious with the comic."

Read the full review: HERE

Eric Grode looks at "The Comic Book Theater Festival" at The Brick

The Comic Book Theater Festival is, "currently stuffing the Brick Theater with no end of chintzy superhero outfits."

To read the full review: CLICK HERE

Charles Isherwood's rave for "4000 Miles"

Isherwood calls 4000 Miles, "a funny, moving new play by Amy Herzog" ans says "Ms. Wilson’s portrait of a capable woman grappling with the indignities of aging is as detailed and truthful as any I’ve seen in the theater."

Read the full review: HERE

Catherine Rampell reviews “Next Thing You Know"

Catherine Rampell says Next Thing You Know at CAP21 "achieves a nearly effortless resonance — especially with any 20-something who has recently moved to the Big Pond that is the Big Apple."

Read the full review: HERE

Ben Brantly on "Side Effects"

Ben Brantley compares Side Effects to about five other plays in his review of Michel Weller's new play being presented by MCC. Brantley says watching Joely Richardson "spark and sputter before she blows up the house makes “Side Effects” more of a pleasure than it has any right to be."

Read the full review: HERE

Charles Isherwood on "Tales of the City" in San Francisco

Charles Isherwood calls Tales of the City a, "lively and likable but overstuffed new musical adaptation of Mr. Maupin’s big-hearted portrait of a time, place and people..."

Read the full review: HERE

Anita Gates looks at “Ajax in Iraq”

Anita Gates says "The Flux Theater Ensemble’s fervent and valiant production of Ms. McLaughlin’s sophisticated 'Ajax in Iraq'"

Read the full review: HERE

Andy Webster reviews “Drawn and Quartered" (in the third person)

"Maggie Bofill, the playwright behind the production, “Drawn and Quartered,” has much to be proud of, as does the director, Lou Moreno, blessed with actors reaching for the stars"

Read the full (strange) review: HERE

David Rooney reviews "EST Marathon 2011: Series B"

David Rooney says that "it’s the women who make this lineup memorable, and far superior in overall quality to the uneven new works in Series A."

Read the whole review: HERE

Ben Brantly re-reviews “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark”

Ben Brantley says, "this singing comic book is no longer the ungodly, indecipherable mess it was in February. It’s just a bore."

Read the full review: HERE

Jason Zinomen reviews "Our Lot"

Jason Zinmoen is none too fond of Our Lot, saying it "does not have stories that build so much as they assemble together uneasily. The script has a one-thing-after-another structure."

Read the full review: HERE

Rachel Saltz looks at "Under The Cross"

Rachel Saltz says, "Directed by David Winitsky and produced by the
New Worlds Theater Project, whose mission is to keep Yiddish theater vital by presenting plays in English, this staging often falls short. Much of the acting is stilted..."

Read the entire review: HERE

Claudia LaRocco reviews "Fish Eye"

"This production gets a lot right, beginning with the actors’ fully realized takes on their characters and continuing through much of the script’s witty back-and-forths."

Read the entire review: HERE

Ben Brantly on "One Arm"

Ben Brantley is mixed on One Arm, writing "...while Ollie finds redemption before the final curtain, his tale never achieves the same apotheosis. His reincarnation here should inspire tender feelings among hard-core Williams fans (I’m among them); others — especially those with a resistance to sentimental clichés about streetwalkers — are more likely to roll their eyes over “One Arm,” a production of the New Group and the Tectonic Theater Project."

Read the full review: HERE

David Rooney looks at "A Little Journey"

David Rooney calls A Little Journey a "lovingly staged revival" and says "The Mint does for forgotten drama what the Encores! series does for musicals".

Read the full review: HERE

Charles Isherwood takes in "Theater Fro One"

Mr. Isherwood's thoughtful review states that "this artful production leaves you with an unsettling sense of how guarded, mediated and constrained most of our daily interactions with other people are."

Read the full review: HERE

Charles Isherwood reviews "Enfrascada"

Charles Isherwood reviews the fist of the three Clubbed Thumb Summerworks plays, Enfrascada, calling it "a likable but lightweight comedy."

Read the full piece: HERE

Charles Isherwood on "The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World"

Isherwood calls The Shaggs, "a glum “Gypsy” for the hippie era" and a, "quirky but dreary new musical".

Read the whole review: HERE

Andy Webster reviews "Wax Wings"

The always-awesome Colleen Werthmann gets a great notice in an otherwise mixed review: "it’s Ms. Werthmann who triumphs as Sofya, earning laughs and sympathy while unerringly employing a Russian accent."

Read the entire review: HERE

Ben Brantley's love letter to Carey Mulligan in “Through a Glass Darkly”

"Ms. Mulligan convinces us that we are seeing through Karin’s very skin. Such vision is a rare and frightening privilege afforded only by acting of the highest order."

Pass the tissues...

And read the full review: HERE

Ben Brantly on "The Illusion"

Brantley is lukewarm on Tony Kushner's adaptation of The Illusion currently at Signature Theater, saying, "For all its love for all things theatrical this “Illusion” can’t avoid sometimes feeling like an academic exercise."

Read the entire review: HERE

Ben Brantley raves about “Lysistrata Jones”

Ben Brantley calls Lysistrata Jones: "effervescent, tasty and surprisingly filling new musical at the Judson Memorial Church Gymnasium on Washington Square."

Read the review in its entirety: HERE

Catherine Rampell reviews "Shakespeare's Slave"

According to Rampell, Shakespeare's Slave seems a bit overstuffed. "Unfortunately it tries to cram in just about every literary theme imaginable: racism, sexism, grief, greed, revenge, ambition, infidelity, pearl-clutching hypocrisy."

Read the full review: HERE