All stories by Tony Marinelli on BroadwayStars

Friday, September 22, 2023

Prometheus Firebringer by Tony Marinelli

Somewhere there are rules for what theatre is supposed to do: it should entertain, it should instruct, it should provoke. To say that Annie Dorsen's "Prometheus Firebringer" checks all the b…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 02:26PM[SHARE]
Saturday, September 2, 2023

A Will to Live by Tony Marinelli

Director Rick Hamilton effectively steers the sad tale away from an endless maudlin saga. After all, the "spoiler" is in the program. Helena Weinrauch is alive and well and in her late 90's,…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:22AM[SHARE]
Monday, July 17, 2023

I'm Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire by Tony Marinelli

Playwright Samantha Hurley does beautiful justice to the life and times (and the inner workings of the mind) of this early teen with not a lot going on but for her own fantasy world and self…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 07:29PM[SHARE]
Sunday, June 11, 2023

Wet Brain by Tony Marinelli

Caswell's dialogue for and wry observation of a family this dysfunctional is quite compelling. Scenes where two of the siblings verbally gang up on the third are fraught with humor as much a…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 01:35PM[SHARE]
Saturday, May 27, 2023

Evelyn Brown (A Diary) by Tony Marinelli

While the painstaking entry upon entry yearn to be something of import, we can't help but feel it takes a certain steadfastness and desperate commitment to make the banal seem so extraordina…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:15AM[SHARE]
Saturday, May 20, 2023

Romeo and Juliet (NAATCO/Two River Theater) by Tony Marinelli

And the production is loaded with action. Except for the tender love scenes, the play moves at almost breakneck speed. Where most modern productions of Shakespeare tend toward languor, this …

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 01:18PM[SHARE]
Friday, May 5, 2023

Hong Kong Mississippi by Tony Marinelli

From the moment he walks out with a stuffed "Disneyfied" dragon to tell us a fairy tale his mother told him when he was little, we are enraptured by Pinky, an 11-year-old Chinese boy growing…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 01:15PM[SHARE]
Saturday, April 22, 2023

Lady M (Heartbeat Opera) by Tony Marinelli

Heartbeat Opera seems to have found the way to separate themselves from the rest of the pack of alternative opera companies here in New York. Their way is to inject the standard repertory of…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:31PM[SHARE]
Thursday, April 20, 2023

Tosca (Heartbeat Opera) by Tony Marinelli

Just when you think you've seen an opera so many times you can't imagine it being told anew along comes Heartbeat Opera with a riveting take on Puccini's "Tosca."  Director Shadi G. se…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:15PM[SHARE]
Monday, April 17, 2023

Television by Tony Marinelli

Bossert directs his own work here, thereby unfortunately removing any crucial distance from the material.  Where the story of the play and the relationships we see are engaging, the play-…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 01:48PM[SHARE]
Thursday, April 6, 2023

Grief: One Man ShitShow by Tony Marinelli

For the audience, there is an ease of losing sight of the fact that what we are watching is a piece of theatre. Campbell is direct and warm and instructing and sensitive in this piece that h…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 07:39PM[SHARE]
Thursday, March 30, 2023

Iceland by Tony Marinelli

Composer/librettists O-Lan Jones and Emmett Tinley have created what they refer to as "a re-Creation Myth" in this fascinating interdisciplinary opera theater work entitled "Iceland."  It…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 05:16PM[SHARE]
Sunday, March 26, 2023

Drinking in America by Tony Marinelli

Some critics would say Eric Bogosian's "Drinking in America" is dated, but that's very much up for argument. The script given to critics for the new production at the Minetta Lane Theatre is…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 06:12PM[SHARE]
Monday, March 13, 2023

Pericles (Target Margin Theater) by Tony Marinelli

Director David Herskovits must have looked at this as a true labor of love, but not all of the touches support the hard work of the actors. In some of the early ensemble scenes, the actors p…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 10:20PM[SHARE]
Saturday, March 11, 2023

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tony Marinelli

While it may have appeared a huge gamble to mount this 'Cat" again, the results are so well worth it. While other productions of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" have been mounted as star vehicles fo…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 06:45PM[SHARE]
Saturday, March 4, 2023

Letters from Max, a ritual by Tony Marinelli

When a tall, lanky Max Ritvo entered Sarah Ruhl's playwrighting class at Yale, she knew this was no ordinary 20-year-old student. Self-described as a poet with a sense of humor, he managed t…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:55PM[SHARE]
Saturday, February 25, 2023

Amani by Tony Marinelli

Denise Manning as Amani is totally believable as a 9-year-old who has had to grow up quickly without parents and her naiveté about love as she maneuvers through growing pains is touching. H…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:24PM[SHARE]
Saturday, February 18, 2023

Othello (New Place Players) by Tony Marinelli

In the most elementary explanation of a play's dramatic structure, the protagonist is the character who drives the action and is the emotional heart of the narrative. Everyone knows how the …

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:22AM[SHARE]
Sunday, February 5, 2023

Sugar Daddy by Tony Marinelli

Sam Morrison's poignant "Sugar Daddy" has been "on the boards" for just under a year, but first coming to prominence at last year's East to Edinburgh presentations at 59 East 59th Street The…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:07PM[SHARE]
Saturday, December 10, 2022

Hoagy Carmichael's Stardust Road by Tony Marinelli

The York Theatre Company's masthead reads "Where Musicals Come to Life…" and that couldn't be more evident in their new production, "Hoagy Carmichael's Stardust Road." Originally scheduled…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:06PM[SHARE]
Friday, November 25, 2022

Cocoon by Tony Marinelli

Director Kotryna Gesait's direction does not have the necessary distance from the material to realize that actors speaking simultaneously will blur content and intentions for the audience. S…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 05:21PM[SHARE]
Thursday, November 10, 2022

Merciful Delusions : 4 One Act Plays by Tennessee Williams by Tony Marinelli

Director Lorraine Serabian is faithful to the spirit of when these plays were written. She delves into the spirited dreamers and chance takers that Tennessee Williams so faithfully showed us…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:38PM[SHARE]
Sunday, November 6, 2022

38th Marathon of One-Act Plays: Series B by Tony Marinelli

Ensemble Studio Theatre's "38th Marathon of One-Act Plays," their first since 2019, is split up into two programs of five plays each, with an eleventh play, Vera Starbard's "Yan Tután," s…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 08:57PM[SHARE]
Sunday, October 30, 2022

HOUND DOG by Tony Marinelli

Director Machel Ross does little to guide this play to any semblance of cohesion.  Scenes 1 and 13, between Hound Dog and Ayse, her childhood best friend, begin with the exact same lines …

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 01:04AM[SHARE]
Sunday, October 23, 2022

Albert Camus' "The Fall" by Tony Marinelli

Belgian actor Ronald Guttman gives a subtle, yet wrenching performance in "The Fall," expounding the philosophies of Albert Camus trapped in the sad and now resigned character of the exiled …

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:57PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, October 19, 2022

Melissa Etheridge Off Broadway: My Window " A Journey Through Life by Tony Marinelli

Etheridge may be 61, but she sounds just as she did when she first came on the American rock scene in 1988:  full-throated emotion and raspy vocals that bring honesty and pathos to intens…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:26PM[SHARE]
Friday, October 14, 2022

Powerhouse by Tony Marinelli

Harms' play never lets up in its homage to corporate intrigue laced with humor. The audience's caring for how Regan and Guy end up is a given, so that we can forgive his "poetic license" in …

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 12:05PM[SHARE]
Monday, October 10, 2022

Complicity by Tony Marinelli

On paper, Diane Davis' play "Complicity" offers a stark, yet refreshing take on the now familiar Harvey Weinstein-tainted Hollywood story of women being victimized by a male-run, male-driven…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:51AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, September 27, 2022

Cheek to Cheek: Irving Berlin in Hollywood by Tony Marinelli

As conceived, directed and choreographed by Randy Skinner, who was also part of the creative team that brought the stage version of the 1954 classic Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" to Broa…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:56AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, September 21, 2022

Faust et Hélène & L'heure espagnole by Tony Marinelli

Maurice Ravel's delightful 'L'heure espagnole," usually paired with his other opera, "L'enfant et les sortilèges," is here paired with "Faust et Hélène," an obscure cantata by Lili Boulan…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 03:51PM[SHARE]
Thursday, September 15, 2022

On the Verge or The Geography of Yearning by Tony Marinelli

Revived by Retro Productions, we are treated to Eric Overmyer's alternative Victorian fantasy, "On the Verge or The Geography of Yearning," that takes three vibrant, independent women of 188…

SOURCE: www.theaterscene.net at 11:58PM[SHARE]

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