Off broadway theater

Four strange girls, somewhere between 12 and 200 years old, live in an isolated cabin in the woods. Don’t they always? Marlow (Sophia Anne Caruso) is the alpha, bossing the others around — and also bossing the stranded outsiders, because of course there are stranded outsiders in a play that trades on the tropes of a million horror tales. In “Grey House,” the prime trope is coy creepiness. Of the small knife she occasionally brandishes, Marlow, who gives Wednesday Addams vibes, comfortingly says, “If I put it in your eye, it wouldn’t even hit your brain.” Good to know — and basically true of the play itself. “Grey House,” at the Lyceum Theater , is certainly an in-your-face assault, more in the manner of John Carpenter movies than anything seen onstage since the age of melodrama. It is so expertly assembled from spare parts by the playwright Levi Holloway and the director Joe Mantello that you may not notice, between the jump scares and the shivery pauses, how little it has on … [Read more...] about Review: In ‘Grey House,’ Broadway Gets an Expert Haunting

Joshua Harmon’s “Prayer for the French Republic,” a play about a family grappling with contemporary and historical antisemitism in France, will transfer to Broadway this winter. The play will be produced by the nonprofit Manhattan Theater Club, which last year presented the play's first run Off Broadway . The production will be directed by David Cromer, who also directed it Off Broadway; it will be staged at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, with previews beginning Dec. 19 and the opening scheduled for Jan. 9. Casting has not been announced. The production comes as concerns about antisemitism have been on the rise in the United States and beyond. Last season featured two shows about antisemitism — the play “Leopoldstadt,” about a Viennese family before, during, and after the Holocaust, and the musical “Parade,” about the lynching of a Jewish businessman in Georgia — both of which are leading contenders for Tony Awards this spring. “Prayer for the French Republic” will be … [Read more...] about ‘Prayer for the French Republic’ Transferring to Broadway

When the playwright and director George C. Wolfe moved to New York City in his 20s, he got a job at an archive for Black cultural history , where his work saving newspaper articles and maintaining records fueled a habit of preserving his own ephemera. “It activated this sort of curiosity-slash-obsession about who gets remembered, what gets saved, what gets valued and what doesn’t,” Wolfe said recently. On Thursday, the New York Public Library announced that it had acquired more than 50 boxes of material from throughout Wolfe’s career, during which he became one of the most sought-after theater directors in the country. His productions, including “Angels in America” and “Bring in ’Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk,” garnered multiple Tony Awards, and he’s credited with revolutionizing the Public Theater over a decade as its producer. Working scripts, correspondence with theatrical figures such as Tony Kushner (with whom Wolfe worked closely on “Angels in America”) and photographs … [Read more...] about New York Public Library Acquires George C. Wolfe’s Archives

See the article in its original context from March 22, 1993 Section Page Buy Reprints View on timesmachine TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. It was about a month ago, George C. Wolfe recalled, that he was asked by the executive committee of the New York Shakespeare Festival's board if he'd be interested in taking over the reins of the institution from JoAnne Akalaitis. He was. Then they asked him what he'd do with it. "I told them what I'm passionate about," he said in an interview. "I said you can't create an oasis for … [Read more...] about Shakespeare Festival’s Boss: Idealistic, Romantic and Busy

Most New Yorkers have probably spent some time in uncomfortably small studio apartments, but it’s doubtful that any has felt more claustrophobic than the one depicted in “Bad Jews,” a new comedy (you were wondering?) by Joshua Harmon at the Roundabout Underground’s Black Box Theater. True, there are lovely views of the Hudson — from the bathroom, yet — but getting to the closet requires trampolining across the foldout bed, and the room is scarcely wider than an aisle in a Target store. This already intimate space is shrunk to shoebox-size proportions by the presence of Diana Feygenbaum, a Vassar senior capable of easily sucking up all the air in a classic six on the Upper West Side. Diana — who prefers to be known by her Hebrew name, Daphna — is portrayed by the marvelous Tracee Chimo as a volatile cross between Sandra Bernhard at her most strident and Sarah Silverman at her most snarky, with maybe a little of the young Barbra Streisand thrown in, as a sort of fabric softener. … [Read more...] about Tiny Space, Big Enough for Emotions

See the article in its original context from November 3, 1986 Section Page Buy Reprints View on timesmachine TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. THERE comes a time when a satirical writer, if he's really out for blood, must stop clowning around and move in for the kill. That unmistakable moment of truth arrives about halfway through ''The Colored Museum,'' the wild new evening of black black humor at the Public Theater. In a sketch titled ''The Last Mama-on-the-Couch Play,'' the author, George C. Wolfe, says the unthinkable, … [Read more...] about STAGE: ‘COLORED MUSEUM,’ SATIRE BY GEORGE C. WOLFE