ATW NewsClips - Tri-State Print

New York Times

Jets? Yes! Sharks? ¡Sí! In Bilingual ‘West Side’
More than 50 years after the musical “West Side Story” had its original Broadway premiere, it is set to return in February in a darker, grittier, bilingual revival.
* Original Review: 'West Side Story' (Sept. 27, 1957) [pdf]
* 'Tonight,' from 'West Side Story' (Original Broadway Cast Recording) (mp3)

Second Stage Will Set Up a Broadway Shop at Helen Hayes
Second Stage Theater, a nonprofit Off Broadway company, plans to announce that it has acquired the right to purchase the historic Helen Hayes Theater on West 44th Street.

Two Candidates Debate, but No One Seems to Think
“The Strangerer” is a a curious hybrid of existential philosophy and political satire.

New York Post

Great depth of characters
The rags-to-riches theme of "Expatriate," Lenelle Moise's new play with music that opened last night at the Culture Project, is familiar stuff. Two black women seeking musical fame in Paris find plenty of heartache along the way - drug addiction, the testing of friendships and the high price of stardom. Yet as standard as those...

'East' goes south
Don Reed's autobiographical monologue is subtitled "True Tales of a Reluctant Player," but his performance is anything but...

Liz Smith: Urban Angel Covert
Talk a comeback! On Aug. 7, lots of people get the chance to see Liza Minnelli at the 30-year-old Seaside Summer Concert Series outside Asser Levy/Seaside Park in Coney Island/Brighton Beach! ..."Charlie Chang and the Mysterious Salami," a musical spoofing the old movie serial, pokes fun at racial stereotypes. That starts Monday at the Grand Theatre, 358 W. 44th. This is part of the NY Artists Unlimited's Bad Musicals Festival. We don't do enough to encourage struggling talents in this big city. ...Christine Baranski, who scores big in the film, introduced the evening, saying, "The 'Mamma Mia!' experience may be the precursor of 'global heart-warming.'

New York Sun

Second Stage Buys a Broadway Theater
The nonprofit Second Stage Theatre plans to buy and renovate the 499-seat Helen Hayes Theater on West 44th Street, the New York Times reported Wednesday. The company's artistic director, Carole Rothman, told the Times that Second Stage will raise $35…

Time Out NY

Retro active
Jonathan Groff, 23, is carving out a specialty in playing angels...

[quirky downtown theater actor]
Susan Blackwell makes a name for herself in [title of

Review: Kicking a Dead Horse
Cowboy playwright Sam Shepard contemplates death in the desert, with a little help from Stephen Rea.

Review: Damn Yankees
Is it a home run or foul ball in City Center at the revival of this beloved 1955 chestnut? Here comes the umpire.

Review: The Marriage of Bette and Boo
Christopher Durang eviscerates several sacred cows in his classic satire. The Roundabout does right by it.

Review: Potomac Theatre Project: Scenes from an Execution
Here's a welcome shot of tough British dramatist Howard Barker—plus the sterling Jan Maxwell.

Review: The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac
Once you fall for splendiferous drag artist Taylor Mac, you’ll go anywhere with him.

Review: Potomac Theatre Project: Crave and Somewhere in the Pacific
Potomac presents a twofer that meditates on death. There's some liveliness there, mostly Sarah Kane.

Review: Life in a Marital Institution
James Braly airs his dirty laundry (and his wife's) in this warm and witty new solo about spousal relations.

nypress

Theater: ‘Bette’ Noir
A revival of Christopher Durang’s savage comedy, ‘The Marriage of Bette and Boo,’ still stings

Hartford Courant

Rizzo: 'Story Of My Life' At Goodspeed; 'Ella Run Extended

Fairfield County Weekly

Two households, both alike in dignity
Stratford's Putney Players and Stamford's Curtain Call both put on enticing outdoor Romeo and Juliet productions

Star-Ledger

Arts notes

Bergen Record

A Revolutionary version of classic play/ '1776' features young cast

Shakespeare New Jersey Theatre’s Next Stage Ensemble presents “The Learned Ladies”
Comedy tonight - 'Esther Demsack'

Albany Times-Union

WTF tackles family strife in 'Three Sisters'
Michael Greif is making a cottage industry out of directing Anton Chekhov at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. His production of "The Three Sisters" opens tonight at the festival, following earlier takes of "The Seagull" (in 1994, starring a young Gwyneth Paltrow alongside her mother, Blythe Danner) and "The Cherry Orchard" (2004).

'Altar Boyz' inspired at Adirondack Theatre
However improbable it may seem, an off-Broadway musical called "Altar Boyz," about a Christian boy band, became a hit and continues to run in Manhattan more than three years after opening. The show's upstate premiere, which closes the Adirondack Theatre Festival season, demonstrates why "Altar Boyz" is such a success.

Charms of 'Kiss Me, Kate'
With its new production of "Kiss Me, Kate," Glimmerglass is a late comer to the trend of opera companies producing musical comedies. Where other troupes usually pick weighty pieces of nearly operatic scale...

Italian troupe sets child play into motion
Presenting dances in which children from the audience spontaneously create much of the movement represents a bit of an artistic risk. But it's a risk Davide Venturini and Francesco Gandi, directors of the Italian visual dance-theater company T.P.O. (Teatro di Piazza o d'Occasione), are willing to take....