A stripped-down production of a musical can reveal hidden depths and new layers if the show is right. For example, Sweeney Todd and Company both benefited from a less-is-more approach. Ragtime, however, does not. Read more

Not until Children at Play has ended does one realize just how much the cast of Jordan Seavey’s promising (but ultimately disappointing) play has done to make the black comedy seem like the best new show in ages. Led by Susan Louise O’Connor, fresh from her rave reviews in Blithe Spirit on Broadway, the eight actors and director Scott Ebersold all manage to smooth over the rough patches of Seavey’s script about life in high school. Not until after the applause has died down does the realization come that Seavey bit off more than he can chew. Among his plot points is the fallout from Chernobyl, eating disorders, teenage sexuality, molestation and the extent to which we’ve failed the next generation. Some of these ideas fit more organically into his story of five gifted and talented students than others (the eating disorder is mentioned with annoying infrequency), but the cast all manage to make the script seem fluid and natural. Read more

Consider Finian’s Rainbow a much-needed palate cleanser. After all the Sturm und Drang this season has already seen (Hamlet, After Miss Julie, A Steady Rain, Memphis), it’s a relief to settle into a seat at the St. James Theatre for an evening spent with a stellar example of the Golden Age of musical comedy. Read more

Every set designer for Off-Off-Broadway should drop what he’s doing and attend a performance of Astoria Performing Arts Center’s production of The Pillowman, which features a brilliant, all-purpose set from designer Stephen K. Dobay. Actually, everyone should drop what he’s doing for a subway ride to Queens, because it seems that shivery, riveting theater has abandoned Manhattan to take up residence in the other boroughs. Read more

Theresa Rebeck, please know that we get it. We get that show business is a cruel, crazy and sometimes wonderful world, because we've heard it over and over and over again—usually from you. And The Understudy is a lesson in diminishing returns. Read more

ROOTING FOR A couple to overcome their neuroses to be together is almost impossible when one half of them is as downright grating as Allison is in Embraceable Me. Her friend and occasional boyfriend Edward isn’t exactly a prize himself, but he certainly deserves better than the manipulative user Allison reveals herself to be over the course of Victor L. Cahn’s annoying two-hander. Read more Read it in print

Experimental theater director Robert Wilson adapts Les Liaisons Dangerous into a semi-accessible, stylized and brightly colored work. Isabella Huppert, the French actress I would most like to sleep with, stars. Read more

Who could have known that the season's most unsettling Broadway experience would be amiable musical Memphis? Never mind the shrill Oleanna or the strained A Steady Rainfor sheer seat fidgeting, try the musical about integration set in the Civil Rights-era South. Read more

British writers and performers are washing up on the shores of Manhattan over the next two months, and it has nothing to do with splashy Broadway imports that shamelessly show up the weaker American offerings. Instead of the Great White Way, they’ll be taking over the theater complex at 59E59 Theaters for the sixth annual Brits Off Broadway festival, the yearly reminder of just how shockingly talented British theater artists really are. Read more

Let me ask you a question. What would you do if your daddy killed his own daddy and then fucked his mommy by mistake? OK, he didn’t know they were flesh and blood, but that’s rather carele Read more