The Best of Off-Broadway
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Superb Set Design
Rachel Hauck’s set design work in A Boy and His Soul and Go Back to Where You Are. Lovely.
— @govnerdgrrl (via Twitter)
Paul Steinberg’s brilliant sets for Bathsheba Doran’s Kin at Playwrights Horizons, deceptively simple, evocative without being heavy-handed.
— @djmcclung (via Twitter)
Great Performances
Andrew Pastides is baring his soul in Love Song @59E59. It’s a tremendous performance. He made me cry, and it’s a rom com!
— @prforsmarties (via Twitter)
David Pittu leading “It’s a Simple Little System” in Bells are Ringing at Encores!, and just about everything in David Ives’ School for Lies at CSC: The rhyming couplets, the constant laughs, the company—especially Mamie Gummer and Hamish Linklater—even the costumes. Just brilliant theatre!
— Nancy Quigley
The Aquila Theatre at the NYU Skirball Center: A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Enormously talented cast, endless energy, added whimsy. Bravo!
— Ilene Rosenthal
I’ll pick Laurie Metcalf’s tour de force in The Other Place. She’s on stage for almost the entire show, her emotions range from hyper-confident to confused to desperate, and she creates a rich, complex, and totally involving character. The play is well-constructed, and her supporting cast is strong, but Metcalf’s performance alone is worth the price of a ticket, even without a discount. It ranks with the best performances I’ve ever enjoyed; you don’t want to miss it.
— Harry Matthews
Laurie Metcalf was amazing in The Other Place. She has to keep switching back and forth among various types of crazy.
— Roger Gindi
— Shari Lifland
Michael Shannon in Mistakes Were Made. An extraordinary, intense performance (in what was basically a one-man show) that had me shaking when I left the theatre!
— Dawn Connolly
Marin Ireland in In the Wake. She broke my heart.
— @WritersBlockRoc (via Twitter)
Jeffrey Wright in A Free Man of Color at Lincoln Center Theater was incredibly hilarious yet very believable as Jacques Cornet. He had awesome comedic timing and never dropped character.
— Sara Dalton
Reed Birney in A Small Fire at Playwrights Horizons. Beautiful, heartbreakingly masterful performance.
— Jill Garland
— @AdventureSarahB (via Twitter)
Family Fun
We went to see Peter and the Starcatcher at New York Theatre Workshop with friends from Massachusetts. They liked it so much that they returned the next weekend with another Massachusetts couple to see it again. As a retired youth librarian, I had read the novel and enjoyed it and was amazed that it made such a terrific show.
— Karlan Sick
— Mark and Fran Kaufman
I took my family to see Cactus Flower. They were of various ages, from early teens to seniors, and we all loved the show.
— Anonymous
Wonderful still, The Fantasticks [at the Snapple Theater Center] is just as fresh and delicious as I remembered it from about 50 years ago (!) at the Sullivan St. Theatre! And my 15 year-old twin grand niece and grand nephew visiting from L.A. loved it! We were lucky enough to be there for a Q&A with the cast afterward.
— Greta Berman
A Signature Achievement
The Signature Theatre: We moved here four years ago and read a blurb about a theatre that was, because of funding by a business, very inexpensive. In four years it has gone from wonderful productions which no one we met knew about to a theatre you have a hard time getting into. It has been a gift from NYC to us. I applaud the staff… for giving us real theatre at movie prices.
— Bette Meisel
— Tony Clements
By a landslide: Signature Theatre’s Angels in America! Powerful, moving, truthful, ever relevant. Best theatre experience ever! –
– @stephtastic17 (via Twitter)
Thoughtful Drama
Absolutely no question about it: The Man Who Ate Michael Rockefeller [at the Arclight] was the funniest and most intelligent piece I saw this year. It deserved a longer run. Rolling-in-the-aisles funny; but deep, thoughtful, true underpinnings. Very inventive; wonderful writing. I’d love to see it again…. and a bargain through TDF.
— Bob Sultan
I loved seeing Freud’s Last Session at the Marjorie S. Deane Little Theatre. Every aspect of the experience was wonderful: the set, the actors, the play, and the theatre were all impressive and enjoyable. — Betty Kiernan
In The Wake [which was produced at the Public] is one of the most stirring and moving new pieces of theatre I’ve seen in a long time. It put up on stage things that have been happening to and around me for a decade.
— Tony B. Lance
La Barberia at New World Stages: Funny and all too relevant in the midst of Washington Heights getting gentrified.
— Bea Moreno
Magical Musicals and Clever Comedies
Although I’d read the book and seen the movie version, I’d never seen the musical adaptation of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I jumped at the chance and was lucky enough to get a ticket for what I understand was a nearly sold-out run from the Peccadillo Theater Company. What a lovely, tuneful show—good performances, direction, set design—everything was done with care and love.
— David Garnes
I think Miss Abigail’s Guide to Dating, Mating, and Marriage at Sofia’s Downstairs Theater was so worth the money! Especially since the weekend we went, my friend Jan got in for free because she was able to prove that her name is Jan. Eve Plumb [who stars in the show and played Jan Brady on TV] was fantastic. We loved Mauricio Perez as Paco, too!
— Elizabeth
— Amanda Glassman
The Divine Sister at the Soho Playhouse was divine! But more exciting than that was meeting Charles Busch after the show. I have seen all of his plays and love him so it was a thrilling moment.
— Karen DeAngelis
–– Jill Cornell
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