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

Hot on the heels of Bored to Death, HBO’s neurotic noir starring Jason Schwartzman as the least likely of private detectives, comes The Missing Person, which gets the mood right, but badly miscalculates when it comes to Michael Shannon’s lead performance as detective John Rosow. Read more

ASHLEY SPRINGER IS rapidly becoming the go-to guy for movies that require sexually explicit high school scenes. After losing his dick in 2008’s Teeth (a fantastic, underappreciated black comedy about a teenager with vagina dentata), Springer is back on screen in director Adam Salky’s Dare (based on Salky’s 2005 short, also written by David Brind), helping Emmy Rossum shed her good girl image as onethird of a sexually adventurous trio nearing the end of their high school careers. Read more Read it in print

The 10 women—mothers, porn stars, hookers, bartenders, stewardesses, shrinks—of Sebastian Gutierrez’s interconnecting stories in Women in Trouble may not get into very inventive scrapes considering the title and the cast, but a lucky alchemy of writer and cast turns what could have been an indie bore into something surprisingly uproarious. Snagging the industry’s strongest supporting actresses and then giving them star turns was a canny casting strategy, one that vastly improves Gutierrez’s frequently recycled stories. 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

Alan Cumming won a Tony Award for his iconic performance as the MC in Cabaret. He’s earned a place in the hearts of cult movie lovers for his turn as the geek-turned-billionaire in Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion, before casting everyone’s favorite indie actors in The Anniversary Party, the film he wrote and directed with Jennifer Jason Leigh. He’s even written a book, Tommy’s Tale. So it should come as no surprise that he’s completing his pop culture to-do list by releasing solo CD, I Bought a Blue Car Today. Read more