This week starts 20at20. Next week starts Off Broadway Week

Both are ways to get tickets to Off-Broadway shows that are even cheaper than usual. And, there’s plenty new to see.

The Week in New York Theater Reviews

My review of The Legend of Georgia McBride

…entertaining but slight and predictable comedy about drag performers…written by Matthew Lopez best known for The Whipping Man…Lopez has said his new play was inspired by the drag queens he befriended at the local gay bar when he was a high school senior in Panama City, Florida. There are glimpses that suggest character mettle observed from life, and these brief moments are enhanced by the cast of five…who can do poignant along with punchlines. But “Georgia McBride” mostly feels like a low-budget knockoff of the basic Broadway/Hollywood drag musical..

Full review of The Legend of Georgia McBride

My review of Laugh It Up, Stare It Down

ts title, its playful poster, its sleek chic showroom of a set, and its marketing suggest that “Laugh It Up, Stare It Down” is a shallow romantic comedy, telling the story of Joe and Cleo over some two decades of their marriage. But it takes only a short time into the play… to realize that playwright Alan Hruska aims for something more sophisticated – a relationship comedy as Theater of the Absurd. It takes even less time to realize this mash-up doesn’t work.

Full review of Laugh It Up, Stare It Down

My review of Desire

“I cannot write any sort of story unless there is at least one character in it for whom I have physical desire,” Tennessee Williams told Gore Vidal, who recalls this in the introduction to the collection of Williams’ short stories. “Desire” is the fitting title and the theme of an evening of six short new plays adapted, from Williams’ short stories, by playwrights including John Guare and Beth Henley….. the plays vary in their fidelity to their source, and in their effectiveness on stage. But together they offer a fascinating lesson in the art of adaptation, and serve as a welcome stimulus to become acquainted, or reacquainted, with the short stories that Williams wrote his entire life.

Full review of Desire

My review of Eve

“Eve” then is a site-specific, immersive, interactive, mute adaptation of the Biblical story of Adam and Eve? Except it doesn’t stop there. Over the course of two hours, the nine members of the cast — impressively lithe and committed — dance and otherwise move and interact and emote in some 10 or 11 makeshift rooms constructed for the show.

Full review of Eve

My review of Judy

Twenty-five years from now, according to Max Posner’s new play “Judy,” there will be no more plays; cancer will be cured; cars will not need drivers; and couples will be able to arrange to die together on the same day..Truth be told, the play is most interesting when absorbed as a collection of these undeveloped conceits, rather than followed for its accumulation of scenes in search of a plot….Posner has said that he came up with the idea for his play by imagining what he and his two sisters would be like when they were middle-aged. In “Judy,” Timothy (Danny Woloman) and his two sisters, Kris (Deirdre O’Connell) and Tara (Brigit Huppuch), spend a lot of time hanging out in their basements in front of their “System,” which is what the Internet has become in 2040. The siblings have plans, sometimes ambitious, more often vague, but these seem thwarted by regrets and inertia (making 2040 feel not much different from 2015.)

Full review of Judy

The Week in New York Theater News

Hand to God is closing on Broadway Jan 3, 2016 after a nine-month run, and re-opening in London in February.

Final performance of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder – January 17, 2016, producers announce

Kathleen Chalfant (Wit,Angels in Amer) to play Rose Kennedy in “Rose” solo show @norasplayhouse. Fall.

Archdiocese’s @SheenCenter for Thought and Culture, has grand opening Mon, followed by 3 weeks of events http://t.co/MDq2qvG4l4 — Jonathan Mandell (@NewYorkTheater) September 10, 2015

.@stannswarehouse celebrates its new theater in @BklynBrdgPark fashioned from old tobacco warehouse. Oct 17 pic.twitter.com/MMuzOSRZr9 — Jonathan Mandell (@NewYorkTheater) September 10, 2015

The Crucible (w/ Okonedo,Whishaw) will have its first preview at the Walter Kerr Feb. 29, opening April 7. pic.twitter.com/I59UY73pxU — Jonathan Mandell (@NewYorkTheater) September 9, 2015

Last week, Hamilton had the second highest percentage of attendance (behind only The Book of Mormon) and second highest gross (behind only The Lion King.

If I were a rich man…this might be the first commercial I’d commission for Fiddler on the Roof

poster for Hir at Playwrights Horizons

Saturday, September 12th was Mamma Mia’s, um, Waterloo, after 14 years and 5,765 performances. Reasons why even fans need not feel sad about this:

Still playing in UK

Worldwide gross: $2 billion

Seen by 54 million in 400 cities

You are the Dancing Queen, young and sweet, only seventeen

Dancing Queen, feel the beat from the tambourine

You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life

See that girl, watch that scene, digging the Dancing Queen

September 13: Last day for Hedwig and the Angry Inch on Broadway, closing after 22 previews,506 regular performances, and six Hedwiges ‬

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