All stories by David Finkle on BroadwayStars

Sunday, March 13, 2016

First Nighter: George Bernard Shaw's Little-Seen "Widowers' House" Viewed Smartly Now by David Finkle

When George Bernard Shaw, who had strong opinions about what constituted potent theater, wrote his first play,...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 07:34PM[SHARE]
Thursday, March 10, 2016

First Nighter: Anna Ziegler's 'Boy' Is a Smart, Fresh Transgender-Play Twist by David Finkle

The current trend towards transgender plays gets a heart-jolting spin by way of Anna Ziegler's Boy, another of her Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan-backed plays and now under Keen Com…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 10:23PM[SHARE]
Friday, March 4, 2016

First Nighter: 8 Plays Worth Seeing in London Now by David Finkle

Like New York City there are good productions and bad productions. The rambling I've done this trip has ranged broadly, as the following round-up of offerings outside the National Theatre an…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 03:08PM[SHARE]
Thursday, March 3, 2016

First Nighter: Shakespeare Globe Smartly Does the Bard's Jacobean Works by David Finkle

LONDON--During the winter months the Shakespeare's Globe crowd--as the current artistic director Dominic Dromgoole...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 03:14AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, March 2, 2016

First Nighter: Hot Times Right Now at London's National Theatre by David Finkle

LONDON--For whatever reason--recent artistic director Rufus Norris's enthusiastic approach?--things at the National...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 03:28AM[SHARE]
Saturday, February 13, 2016

First Nighter: Mike Birbiglia Thanks God for Jokes, Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs by David Finkle

Mike Birbiglia is an immensely likable guy, the sort you think would make a great friend. Anyway, that's what I was considering throughout his current--and third--stint at the Lynn Redgrave …

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 10:04AM[SHARE]
Friday, February 12, 2016

First Nighter: Frank Basloe's Please Continue a Top-Drawer Examination of the Primacy of Order-Giving, Guilt and Little Remorse by David Finkle

In the early 1960s, social psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a series of preliminary experiments with Yale undergraduates prior to a more elaborate version, the results of which are now…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 01:32PM[SHARE]
Thursday, February 4, 2016

First Nighter: Len Cariou Grandly Celebrates 'Broadway & The Bard' by David Finkle

Cariou no longer has his second- or third-age voice. The sixth-age one, however, is well worth hearing. The veteran performer continues to exert masterful control over the lines in Shakespea…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 10:46PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, February 3, 2016

First Nighter: Llewellyn Casey's Misguided "O, Earth," Nandita Shenoy's Misled "Washer/Dryer" by David Finkle

Although you need to know that Casey Llewellyn's O, Earth, directed by Dustin Wills at HERE in a Foundry...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 11:51PM[SHARE]
Saturday, January 30, 2016

First Nighter: Mfoniso Udofia's "Sojourners" Deserves a Welcome Stay by David Finkle

In Sojourners, the stimulating new Playwrights Realm production at Peter Sharp, the first-generation Nigerian-American author Mfoniso Udofia never directly explains the title, but implicitly…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 10:01AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, January 20, 2016

First Nighter: Dominique Morisseau's "Skeleton Crew" a Full-Bodied Achievement by David Finkle

When Rui Rita's lights go up--but not too brightly--on Skeleton Crew, Dominique Morisseau's excellent drama, at the...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 12:14PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, January 19, 2016

First Nighter: CSC's "Mother Courage and Her Children" Fighting a Tough Battle by David Finkle

Anyone these days even casually interested in theater news has to be aware of the recent developments with the Classic Stage...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 11:20PM[SHARE]

Now on Broadway: The Funniest Second Act Ever Written by David Finkle

Reading the script, the play's original director had to "go lie down at once." The post Now on Broadway: The Funniest Second Act Ever Written appeared first on Clyde Fitch Report.

SOURCE: Clyde Fitch Report at 10:44PM[SHARE]
Monday, January 11, 2016

First Nighter: Maurice Hines's 'Tappin' Thru Life' Is Tops, Mac Wellman's 'The Offending Gesture' Has Its Moments by David Finkle

No sooner than the Broadway revival of A. R. Gurney's Sylvia closes, in which an actress plays a dog, than Mac Wellman's The Offending Gesture, opens, at the Connelly, in which not one but t…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 10:09PM[SHARE]
Monday, December 28, 2015

First Nighter: The American Dance Machine at the Joyce Recalls Great Musical Comedy Dances Greatly by David Finkle

As Americans, we're lucky to have an abundance of national treasures. Some treasures, however, are more prominent than others. One less regularly ballyhooed is The American Dance Machine.

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 11:29AM[SHARE]
Monday, December 21, 2015

First Nighter: Vincent Amelio's "How Alfo Learned to Love" Could Have Audiences Moonstruck by David Finkle

The relatively new comedy -- it played the Sanford Meisner Theatre in 2005 and the New York Fringe Festival in 2010 -- tells the tale of an earnest, likable blue-collar Italian man advancing…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 12:11PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, December 16, 2015

First Nighter: The Rolin Jones-Billie Joe Armstrong 'These Paper Bullets!' Makes Much Ado Over The Beatles by David Finkle

Since April 23, 2016 is the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death, it shouldn't be surprising that homages to the great playwright will be popping up right, left and center.

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 08:17AM[SHARE]
Monday, December 14, 2015

First Nighter: DiDonato, Brownlee Lift Heavy 'La Donna del Lago' at the Met by David Finkle

Since opera is first and foremost about the music -- and that certainly applies to Gioachino Rossini as much as or more than many composers -- it frequently means that the quality of any giv…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 04:32PM[SHARE]
Sunday, December 13, 2015

First Nighter: Hoffman, Epperson Make Merry in "Once Upon a Mattress" by David Finkle

Bah humbug! to anyone who goes to the Transport Group Theatre Company's Once Upon a Mattress, at the Abrons Arts Center,...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 10:14PM[SHARE]
Saturday, December 12, 2015

Al Pacino Thrashes a "China Doll" by David Finkle

David Mamet has something here. But what?

SOURCE: Clyde Fitch Report at 12:40PM[SHARE]

"The Color Purple" Turns Broadway Red Hot by David Finkle

Cynthia Erivo is the toast of the town.

SOURCE: Clyde Fitch Report at 12:40PM[SHARE]
Thursday, December 10, 2015

First Nighter: Two Superlative Thornton Wilder One-Acts in "A Wilder Christmas," "Real Men: The Musical" Teases the Fellas Enterta by David Finkle

Perhaps Thornton Wilder's chief glory is his belief in and conviction about the celestial mundane.

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 11:54PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, December 8, 2015

From David Bowie, "Lazarus" Rises by David Finkle

A logic that often crosses into the illogical.

SOURCE: Clyde Fitch Report at 09:05PM[SHARE]
Sunday, December 6, 2015

First Nighter: Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'School of Rock' Doesn't Quite Rule by David Finkle

The old theater saying that goes "If you have a great finish, you don't have to worry about anything else" comes close to working for the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Glenn Slater-Julian Fe…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 06:15PM[SHARE]
Sunday, November 29, 2015

First Nighter: Kathleen Chalfant Convincing as "Rose" of the Kennedys, Steven Sater's Tedious "New York Animals" With Burt Bachara by David Finkle

They never stop coming: the Dysfunctional American Family plays. In the last few weeks, we've had The Humans, Lost Girls and...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 10:34PM[SHARE]
Monday, November 23, 2015

First Nighter: Nick Jones's 'Important Hats of the Twentieth Century' an Important Comedy of the Twenty-First by David Finkle

Granted, Nick Jones's latest should probably be played in one act instead of two and goes a bit wilder than it needs to in the second half. None of that, however, detracts significantly fro…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 10:40PM[SHARE]
Saturday, November 21, 2015

First Nighter: John Yearley's "The Unrepeatable Moment" Full of Enthralling Moments by David Finkle

Sometimes understatement is the best kind of statement. It's surely true of these six pieces, and it's also surely true that dramatist Yearley proves to be a master of understatement. Congra…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 08:07AM[SHARE]
Sunday, November 15, 2015

First Nighter: Willis, Metcalf Make Stephen King's "Misery" Extremely Pleasurable by David Finkle

Stage thrillers come along once in a very blue moon--and good ones in even fewer extremely blue moons. In the last...

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 11:02PM[SHARE]
Saturday, November 14, 2015

First NIghter: Beauty Salon Crime Comedy "Shear Madness" is, as Advertised, Sheer Madness by David Finkle

Shear Madness has just arrived in Manhattan for the first time after playing for decades(!) in Boston. How appealing does a seeming farce sound that's been fruitcaked with broad topical joke…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 12:16PM[SHARE]
Thursday, November 12, 2015

Michael Riedel, "Razzle Dazzle" and the Battle for Broadway by David Finkle

Surprising for this author, he keeps self-aggrandizement off its pages.

SOURCE: Clyde Fitch Report at 11:02PM[SHARE]

First Nighter: Ivo van Hove Does Wonders With Arthur Miller's View From the Bridge- by David Finkle

The tic I find annoying in the work of very busy director Ivo van Hove is happily suppressed for his revival of A View From the Bridge, birthday-boy Arthur Miller's unrelenting, as usual, pl…

SOURCE: Huffington Post at 10:51PM[SHARE]

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