AmericanTheaterWeb Original News & Reviews

New York Times

Shylock Schemes Behind Prison Bars
This provocative new production puts Shakespeare’s play on lockdown in a brutally violent men’s jail.

New York Post

'Merchant' is a pound of fresh
In a season packed with superb revivals, you'd be remiss to pass on this late entry at BAM. Director Edward Hall and his all-male...

Wall Street Journal

The 'Boys' Are Back, but Different
Chicago's TimeLine Theatre Company brings "The History Boys" to life with effective staging by Nick Bowling and a top-drawer cast. [also: 'The Merchant of Venice']

Variety

Review: The Merchant of Venice
...Helmer Edward Hall and designer Michael Pavelka create a whole new set of difficulties with the three-tiered coed jailhouse, but the company's faultless performances and gorgeous a capella musical adornments render the text aud-friendly and crystal clear.

BackStage

The Merchant of Venice reviewed by Adam R. Perlman
Shakespeare's plays have a little something for everyone: action, adventure, bawdy comedy, romance, philosophy.

TheaterMania

Review: The Merchant of Venice
Edward Hall's all-male, prison-set production of Shakespeare's classic play will delight some audiences and alienate some others.

 

New York Times

Coen’s-Eye View of 9 to 5
This set of three short plays by Ethan Coen leaves a distinctive if fleeting aftertaste that you’re not sure whether to savor or spit out.

New York Daily News

'Offices' is all work and three short, sly plays
Filmmaker Ethan Coen's new trio of playlets, "­Offices," offers sly takes on working 9 to 5 and the ways we make a living.

Associated Press

Darkly comic 'Offices' deals with workplace stress
Timing, as they say in show biz, is everything. And "Offices," the latest trio of one-act comedies by major film guy turned playwright Ethan Coen, could not have arrived at a more appropriate time, what with the economic downturn sparking rampant job insecurity.

Bloomberg.com

Ethan Coen Steps Off Screen, Finds Working People Fascinating: John Simon
Ethan Coen, well known as co-cineaste with his brother, Joel, returns as playwright to the Atlantic Theater Company. “Offices,” starring F. Murray Abraham, does not lack for easy laughs, but is more a sequence of skits than a trio of plays, despite an overarching theme.

Variety

Review: Offices
Three one-act plays that offer a brisk, brutal assessment of the contemporary workplace, where paper-pushing drudgery breeds alienation and paranoia but rarely efficiency, these dark situation comedies are given tasty treatment by director Neil Pepe and an adroit, multitasking cast.

BackStage

Offices reviewed by Erik Haagensen
Even though it clocks in at a mere 75 minutes, Ethan Coen's latest collection of one-acts wears out its welcome long before it's over, mistaking as it does banality for hipness.

TheaterMania

Review: Offices
Ethan Coen's new trio of one-acts about office life are quite amusing.

CurtainUp

Review: Offices
While Ethan Coen's triptych explore some Kafkaesque workplace issues, he's less like Kafka than a story-telling John Stewart or Steven Colbert with a nod to O. Henry

 

ADDITIONS LATE DAY May 4, 2009

BackStage

Everyday Rapture reviewed by Adam R. Perlman
The world was created for Sherie Rene Scott. This is one of the options presented by "Everyday Rapture," her one-woman autobiographical show—which is neither strictly one-woman nor strictly autobiographical.

nytheatre.com

Review: Everyday Rapture

AmericanTheaterWeb

Review: Everyday Rapture
A Life Torn Between Opposites

New York Times

Story of a Semi-Star, From Kansas to Broadway
Sherie Rene Scott’s sensational diva-as-trash-goddess show qualifies as one of the year’s most extravagantly entertaining new musicals.

New York Daily News

Her past, with great presence
How fitting that a show with music called "Everyday Rapture" features a song urging us to "go up the ladder to the roof, where we can see heaven much better."

New York Post

Kansan's yellow brick road
With "Everyday Rapture," Sherie Rene Scott proudly comes out as a Mennonite (OK, half of one) and a geek who's into show tunes and magic tricks. In this wonderfully crafted production, she reminisces about a Kansas childhood, sings U2's "Elevation" and skewers a balloon without popping it. Simple pleasures, maybe...

Associated Press

Sherie Rene Scott Examines a Woman's Semi-Stardom
Thank goodness for crises of identity and faith.

Bloomberg.com

Semi-Mennonite Turned Broadway Diva Finds `Rapture' in Song: Jeremy Gerard
Sherie Rene Scott has been winning the hearts of Broadway theatergoers for years, and why not? She played the beautiful dumped girlfriend Amneris in “Aida,” the beautiful swindler in “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” and the hideous Ursula in “The Little Mermaid.”

Variety

Review: Everyday Rapture
Smart, funny and deftly balanced in its blend of self-exposure and theatrical artifice, this musical autobiography is an unpredictable voyage of spiritual reflection that charts the path of a Kansas Mennonite in New York with charming candor.

TheaterMania

Review: Everyday Rapture
Sherie Rene Scott delivers a fabulous performance in her vibrant, autobiographically-based musical.

Talkin' Broadway

Review: Everyday Rapture
Blessed with killer beauty, a brightly burnished copper waterfall of a voice, and a delicately dirty sense of humor, Sherie Rene Scott doesn’t seem like a performer who should have spent more than a decade searching for her ideal role. But that time has been well spent, at least judging by Everyday Rapture, the new show she’s cowritten with Dick Scanlan that just opened at Second Stage. Because she’s discovered that the best person for her to play is herself. Well, sort of. . . .

CurtainUp

Review: Everyday Rapture
This charming, offbeat little show has enough sources to fall into a new genre: a mixed jukebox musical

 

AmericanTheaterWeb

Review - Waiting for Godot
Finding Beckett's Merrier Side

New York Times

Tramps for Eternity
Anthony Page’s smart, engaging production of “Waiting for Godot” makes it clear that this greatest of 20th-century plays is also entertainment of a high order.

New York Daily News

A 'Godot' well worth the wait
They're still cooling their heels. Estragon and Vladimir, that is, the ratty roadside tramps of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot."Read more:

amNY New York City Theater

Theater Review of Waiting for Godot
In its way, “Waiting for Godot” is the original “Seinfeld.” Two homeless tramps wait for a mysterious stranger to arrive and nothing much else happens. Meanwhile, they eat food, play games, perform impersonations and contemplate killing themselves.

Newsday

This masterly 'Godot' a clowning achievement

New York Post

Gogo to see this much ado about nothing
'Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful!" It's not a very eventful day for Estragon, half of the...

Hartford Courant

New York Stage: Don't Wait For 'Godot,' An Absorbing Revival
It has been a season of superb performances in great plays, but nothing can quite match the new "Waiting for Godot," which opened Thursday at Studio 54.

Bergen Record

Nathan Lane and Bill Irwin revive 'Waiting for Godot'
...They haven’t stowed their public personalities — they couldn’t really, unless they labored to disguise the ways they walk and talk — but they’ve successfully integrated them into Beckett’s creations.

Associated Press

Review: Lane-Irwin Balance Emotions in 'Godot'
It's not easy handling the comic absurdity and terrifying despair that snake hand-in-hand throughout ''Waiting for Godot,'' but the Roundabout Theatre Company's striking revival does justice to both.

Wall Street Journal

The End of a Long Wait
The Roundabout Theatre Company's revival of "Waiting for Godot" is beautifully simple and straightforward -- and very, very funny.

Bloomberg.com

Nathan Lane Tramps Through `Godot,' `9-5' Sings Hello, Dolly: John Simon
Capped by a memorable comic performance from Nathan Lane, the Roundabout Theatre Company has solidly revived Samuel Beckett’s seminal 1953 play, “Waiting for Godot.”

USA Today

Accessible 'Godot,' absurd '9 to 5' round out Broadway season ...

Variety

Review: Waiting for Godot
Anthony Page's transcendent production showcases four distinctive actors at the top of their game.

Hollywood Reporter

Theater Review: Waiting for Godot
Bottom Line: Don't wait to see this superb revival of Beckett's timeless work.

BackStage

Waiting for Godot reviewed by David Sheward
Samuel Beckett's existentialist cry of despair spotlights the tedium humans face as they realize that their pursuits and objectives are meaningless.

TheaterMania

Review: Waiting for Godot
Nathan Lane and Bill Irwin star in Anthony Page's imbalanced production of Samuel Beckett's tragicomedy.

Peter Filichia's Diary: Waiting, Waiting ... Godot's Late Again
Halfway through Wednesday’s matinee of Waiting for Godot, from the back of the theater we heard a man scream out, “Let me out! Get me out of here!” Soon the door on the 55th Street side of Studio 54 was flung open, and off he sped out of this dark play and into the sunshine. He must have agreed with a certain line in the play: “I’ve been better entertained.”

Talkin' Broadway

Review: Waiting for Godot
This production, which has been directed by Anthony Page, says nothing new about this existential daymare of a play. But it says that nothing with such satisfied joie de vivre, you occasionally think you’re seeing a newer and more profound take than you’ve seen (or read) countless times before. . . .

 

TheaterMania

Review: 9 to 5
Allison Janney gives a marvelously charismatic performance in this sturdy if unexceptional musical version of the film about a trio of strong-willed secretaries.
[this is my review for this one]

New York Times

Sisterhood vs. Boss, on a New Battlefield
This gaudy, empty musical feels assembled by an shopaholic who looked around at the tourist-drawing hits of the last decade and said: “I want some of that. And that. Ooh, and can I have that, too?”

New York Daily News

Dolly's tunes work in '9 to 5'
A souped-up Xerox machine sits front and center in the feminism-flavored musical cartoon "9 to 5," which is based on the 1980 film that spawned two sitcoms.

amNY New York City Theater

Theater Review of 9 to 5: The Musical
“9 to 5” had the potential to be a great musical comedy. And while faint hints of a crowd-pleaser occasionally occur, sitting through this faithful adaptation feels as tiresome as a long day at the office.

Newsday

Review: '9 to 5'
'9 to 5" is a female-empowerment theme-park musical - complete with a spunky Dolly Parton impersonator and lots of faceless scenery that might as well have been moving animatronics.
* Photos

New York Post

Parton's musical works
The star can barely sing or dance, the composer's never written for Broad way before -- and the whole thing's based on a 1980...

ny1

NY1 Theater Review: "9 To 5"
"9 To 5" is the workaholic of Broadway musicals, trying in every way to entertain its audience with decidedly mixed results. I kept thinking of Kander and Ebb's lyrics - "Give 'em the old razzle dazzle... give 'em act with lots of flash in it and the reaction will be passionate." As a musical, "9 To 5" is pretty flimsy stuff but credit is due to a very talented company that works overtime to sell it.

Associated Press

A Crowd-Pleasing '9 to 5' Arrives on Broadway
Durn. You kinda want ''9 to 5: The Musical'' to be better than it is.

Wall Street Journal

The End of a Long Wait
The Roundabout Theatre Company's revival of "Waiting for Godot" is beautifully simple and straightforward -- and very, very funny. [Also includes '9 to 5']

Bloomberg.com

Nathan Lane Tramps Through `Godot,' `9-5' Sings Hello, Dolly: John Simon
Capped by a memorable comic performance from Nathan Lane, the Roundabout Theatre Company has solidly revived Samuel Beckett’s seminal 1953 play, “Waiting for Godot.”

USA Today

Accessible 'Godot,' absurd '9 to 5' round out Broadway season ...

Variety

Review: 9 to 5: The Musical
...If the material showcasing the trio is an uneven cut-and-paste job that struggles to recapture the movie's giddy estrogen rush, plenty of folks will nonetheless find this a nostalgic crowd-pleaser.

Hollywood Reporter

Theater Review: 9 to 5: The Musical
Bottom Line: You'd be better off watching the movie while listening to Dolly's new album.

BackStage

9 to 5 reviewed by Erik Haagensen
Blessed with a terrific company of comic actors and led by three absolutely stellar performances, "9 to 5" is unquestionably entertaining and likely to be pleasing Broadway audiences for some time.

Chicago Tribune Theater Loop Blog

Dolly Parton on Broadway: '9 to 5' has its moments but short-changes its stars
But like many musicals spawned from movies, “9 to 5” doesn’t establish a cohesive theatrical pallet, nor does it unleash itself sufficiently from its cinematic source. It also doesn’t trust its own retro setting or embrace its own storytelling, and ultimately dissolves into a digitally enhanced and over-produced re-creation of famous scenes from the film

Talkin' Broadway

Review: 9 to 5
Can’t decide between an evening at home with Netflix and a night at the theatre? With the new musical that just opened at the Marquis, you can have both at the same time!