Credit: Photos by Nancy Adler "Bike Shop: The Musical,” with book by Elizabeth Barken and Caroline Murphy, music by Younyoung Park and lyrics Caroline Murphy, is a little gem of a musical that seems as tucked away from the world as the characters whose lives revolve around the family business; a bicycle repair shop in Brooklyn. The audience is invited into this humble multi-generational sanctuary which serves to shelter as well as to isolate the characters from the pain

In truth, the play is less about three women and more about loneliness and the need to find meaning in relationships however flawed by human frailties they may be.

There’s a moment in John Patrick Shanley’s new play “The Pushover,” premiering at the Chain Theatre, when Evelyn, played by Rebecca De Mornay, tells Pearl, played by Di Zhu, that Soochi, played by Christina Toth, is now nothing to worry about. Soochi once stole “from” Pearl. Things have changed. Now she’s going to steal “for” her. The point is, she hasn’t changed, but she’s going to go from being a threat to an asset. Human beings don’t change: What changes is who thieves s

Armando Gutierrez ( Papa Cash, Dwayne Goodin and Others) , Allison Ann Kelley ( Jack, Young June Carter and Others) , Matt Cusack ( Older Johnny Cash and Others) , Cat Patterson ( Mama Cash, Older June Carter and Others) , Mark Mazzarella ( Young Johnny Cash and Others) All photos courtesy of The John W. Engeman Theater There’s a moment in "Ring of Fire," presented by the John W. Engeman Theater, in Northport, when Johnny Cash is seated, dri

Charles E. Gerber and Eva Gozé as Otto and Anne Frank in "The Diary." Photos by Phil Holt There’s a moment in “The Diary,” a new play by Theater for the New City playwright in residence Claude Solnik, that says something very much worth remembering. In this story, we follow Otto Frank (Charles E. Gerber), the now famous father of Anne Frank (Eva Gozé ) , and see Anne, in his mind and memory. Miep, played by Patricia Magno, gives Otto Anne’s diary that she picked up a

Cady McClain and Sophie Moshofsky in a play that's a virtual chemistry class when it comes to performances. There’s a famous saying that if there’s a gun in a play, it better go off. It’s a kind of promise of drama. And it creates a kind of inevitable, unavoidable sense of foreboding. We know what will happen, just not how. Even before actors take the stage in The Slide is the Negative, a new play by Jake Shore, as a collaboration between Axial Theatre, JCS Theater Co. and O

. Plays are written, or used to be written, on paper, although today they start with letters more like shadows on a screen. They’re written by arranging alphabets that look something like the shadows of the shapes of letters. Some plays, though, have a pulse. They are very much not only acted, but alive on stage, flesh, blood and feeling. And some plays have a heart, a beating, burning heart. Their characters are full of passion, navigating elevated emotions. These plays, tr

A musical titled “Waitress” is going to evoke all sorts of expectations. It will tell the story of a working girl, under appreciated,...

Btanden Jacobs-Jenkins gives us a family that is high functioning and highly dysfunctional.