“On the Aisle with Larry”

Lawrence Harbison, The Playfixer, brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. In this column, Larry reports on THE TESTAMENT OF MARY, MATILDA, MOTOWN, JEKYLL AND HYDE, THE NANCE, THE ASSEMBLED PARTIES, F#%KING UP EVERYTHING, THE DANCE OF DEATH, GOLDOR $ MYTHYKA, COLLAPSE, FINKS and SLEEPING ROUGH.

The Testament of Mary, Colm Torbin’s monodrama starring Fiona Shaw, posits that Jesus’ mom was a bitter, frightened, angry woman, appalled that her son grew up to be a crank and a leader of other cranks. Torbin does not pay much attention to Gospel chronology. Here, Lazarus is raised from the dead in Cana (instead of Bethany, where the Bible says this happened), dug up from his grave, which displays an astounding ignorance of Jewish burial practices at the time, then Mom’s son (she refuses to utter his name for some reason) maybe changes water into wine at the wedding. Or maybe not. His Mom thinks this is highly spurious. The miracle at Cana was Christ’s first miracle: Lazarus, one of his last. At Cana, Mary’s son tells her he’s the son of God – which is news to her. Finally, it turns out the Resurrection was a bad dream Mary had. She told it to some other people, and the rest is history. Lord, have mercy.

Deborah Warner’s staging has Fiona Shaw staggering around the stage, overturning tables and chairs willy-nilly, taking out cigarettes which she doesn’t smoke, swigging from what appears to be a bottle of vodka and – holy moly! – even stripping butt-naked at one point to splash around in a small pool. Occasionally, the back wall of the stage opens up slowly, for no discernible reason, while faint, eerie, almost inaudible music plays.

As a Christian, I found this appalling, one of the worst things I have ever seen. If you’re an atheist or an agnostic, I expect you’ll merely find it boring.

The reviews are in, and Matilda, at the Shubert Theatre, appears to be this season’s Big One. The book, by Dennis Kelly, is based on a children’s book by Roald Dahl about an indefatigable little girl who won’t be deterred by the Parents and Schoolmistress From Hell from getting an education. Everyone great in the show – most especially, Bertie Carvel as the horrible schoolmistress.

My problem with the show: many of the songs are very fast in tempo. When they’re sung by the kids (much of the time), in thick English working class accents, they’re pretty much unintelligible. I thought it was just me – but everyone sitting around me had the same problem. They should project the lyrics above the proscenium, like the New York City Opera.

Matilda is an overblown kiddie show. It’s OK – but I’ve seen better this season, including a few which did not find favor with most critics.

Motown, at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, is a jukebox musical which employs at least 50 Motown hits as it tells the story of the company’s founder, Berry Gordy, Jr. Since the book is written by Gordy, it’s pretty much a hagiographic portrait of the man. All the performers do terrific impersonations of the Real Thing. Charl Brown sounds exactly like Smokey Robinson, and Raymond Luke, Jr. stops the show as young Michael Jackson.

I grew up loving Motown songs, so for me it was a wonderful trip down memory lane, somewhat rueful, though, when I thought about the crap that passes for pop music nowadays.

Jekyll and Hyde is back, at the Marquis Theatre, and has gotten predictably terrible reviews. For some reason I can’t fathom, the critics loathe Frank Wildhorn, its composer, and are determined to prevent him from stinking up Broadway. As for me, I think his score is magnificent, full of soaring melodies, and it’s beautifully sung by the likes of Constantine Maroulis, in the title role, and Deborah Cox as the doomed whore, Lucy.

Jekyll and Hyde is not the dog you’ve read about.

Douglas Carter Beane’s The Nance, at the Lyceum Theatre, stars Nathan Lane as a two-bit burlesque performer named Chauncey Miles who specializes in “Nance” characters – flamboyant homosexuals spewing out outrageous double entendres. When not performing, Chauncey hangs out in an automat in the Village, a popular gay hangout, where he meets a young man from Buffalo and takes him in. Meanwhile, Mayor LaGuardia is cracking down on lewd entertainments – but Chauncey, a staunch Republican, refuses to see the handwriting on the wall until it’s too late.

Lane is magnificent as Chauncey, but there is also wonderful work from the likes of Lewis J. Stadlen as his baggy-pants partner in comedy and from Jonny Orsini as the young drifter who makes the mistake of falling for Chauncey.

The Nance is one of the best plays of the season, and not to be missed.

I also liked Richard Greenberg’s The Assembled Parties, at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Friedman Theatre, a drama about a well-to-do woman named Julie who loses her husband, her son but not her grace and charm. Lynne Meadow has done a fine job of directing, and Judith Light steals the show as Julie’s bitter sister in law, Faye. Jessica Hecht has received praise for her portrayal of Julie, but I felt she was just a little too affected, too perfect. She hardly seemed human.

Still, The Assembled Parties is a solid, well-written, well-acted play – definitely worth your time.

F#%King Up Everything at the Elektra Theatre, is a musical by David Eric Davis and Sam Forman about young Brooklyn hipsters, a little like Avenue Q but not as good. The central characters are two buddies. One’s the studly lead singer in a rock band; the other’s a kiddie-show puppeteer. All the performers are very engaging, though not exactly the best of singers. But the show won me over, and I wound up having a good time.

I have to admit I wasn’t looking forward to the Red Bull Theatre’s production of Strindberg’s The Dance of Death, at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, as I usually find Strindberg rather wearisome; but director Joseph Hardy has mined every ounce of humor in the dour Scandinavian’s play, finding in its two central characters, Edgar and Alice, a married couple who enjoy tormenting each other, prototypes of George and Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Daniel Davis and Laila Robins are sensational.

Even if your first thought is, “Oh God, not Strindberg,” check this one out.

Lynn Rosen’s Goldor $ Mythyka, which has just closed at the New Ohio Theatre, was classic New Georges, a women’s theatre company which likes to produce “the weirder the better” kinds of plays. Cohen’s was about a man and a woman who go on a crime spree dressed as video-game-type characters, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. Shana Gold’s direction was just-right, and Garret Neergaard and Jenny Seastone Stern were great as Our Two Anti-Heroes.

Keep an eye out for New Georges. They do fascinating, challenging work – and they do it well.

Allison Moore’s Collapse, produced by the Women’s Project at City Center Stage II, is a fascinating play about a woman named Susan whose marriage is collapsing due to the PTSD her husband is experiencing as a result of almost dying in the Minnesota bridge collapse. Nadia Bowers is terrific as Susan. Also wonderful are Hannah Cabell as Susan’s basket-case of a sister and Elliot Vilar as a sexaholic Susan meets.

I loved this play!

Also good is Joe Gilford’s Finks, at Ensemble Studio Theatre, which has just received a Drama Desk nomination for Best Play, a dark comedy about the dark days of the black llist which focuses on a nightclub comic named Mickey Dobbs who’s essentially apolitical but who falls for an actress/lefty named Natalie who drags him into pinko-ism.
Giovanna Sardelli, the director, has done an astounding job of making Gilford’s play work in EST’s tiny black box of a space, and Aaron Serofsky and Miriam Silverman are outstanding as Mickey and Natalie.

This one’s a don’t-miss.

As was Page 73’s production of Kara Manning’s Sleeping Rough at the Wild Project, which has just closed, wherein the always-excellent Kellie Overbey played a woman whose son has been killed in Afghanistan. Overbey was terrific, as was Quentin Maré as her ex-husband and Renate Friedman as her daughter.

Much of Sleeping Rough is comprised of narrative monologues. Ordinarily, I am not a fan of this kind of playwriting, but Manning’s writing is so touching and all the performances so engaging that I was won over.

THE TESTAMENT OF MARY. Walter Kerr Theatre, 219 W. 48th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
MATILDA. Shubert Theatre, 225 W. 44th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
MOTOWN. Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, 205 W. 46th St.
TICKETS: www.ticketmaster.com or 800-745-3000
JEKYLL AND HYDE Marquis Theatre, 1535 Broadway
TICKETS: www.ticketmaster.com or 800-745-3000
THE NANCE. Lyceum Theatre, 149 W. 45th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
THE ASSEMBLED PARTIES. Friedman Theatre, 261 W. 47th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
F#%KING UP EVERYTHING. Elekta Theatre, 673 8th Ave.
TICKETS: www.ovationtix.com
THE DANCE OF DEATH. Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher St.
TICKETS: 212-352-3101
GOLDOR $ MYTHYKA. New Ohio Theatre. Alas, closed.
COLLAPSE. City Center Stage II, 424 W. 55th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
FINKS. Ensemble Studio Theatre, 549 W. 52nd St.
TICKETS: www.ovationtix.com
SLEEPING ROUGH. Wild Project. Alas, closed.

For discount tickets for groups of ten or more, contact Carol Ostrow Productions & Group Sales. Phone: 212-265-8500. E-Mail: ostrow1776@aol.com.

“It requires a certain largeness of spirit to give generous appreciation to large achievements. A society with a crabbed spirit and a cynical urge to discount and devalue will find that one day, when it needs to draw upon the reservoirs of excellence, the reservoirs have run dry.”

— George F. Will

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who actually does strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

Lawrence Harbison, The Playfixer, brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. In this column, Larry reports on HANDS ON A HARDBODY, KINKY BOOTS, LUCKY GUY, HIT THE WALL, OLD HATS, RIDE THE TIGER, and the HUMANA FESTIVAL.

As I write this, Hands on a Hardbody has just closed at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, an official floperoo. This musical, with a book by Doug Wright and country-inflected songs by Trey Anastasio (of Phish) and Amanda Green, was based on a documentary film about a contest held by a struggling Texas car dealership which required the contestants to stand for days beside a brand new truck with at least one hand on it. The last one left gets the truck.

This was a static concept which was comprised mostly of exposition, as we learn about the hopes and dreams of each contestant. There was nothing much that director Neil Pepe or choreographer could do about this. But it featured terrific performances by a cast which included Hunter Foster and Keith Carradine, and several wonderful songs. What did it in? Well, a lot of it has to do with the mad rush to the Tony Awards, as shows were opening seemingly every day, and Hands on a Hardbody just had too much competition. And, the reviews were not good enough to entice enough Broadway theatregoers into buying tickets – and the ones who did apparently didn’t generate sufficient word-or-mouth the keep it going. Here’s why the critics and audiences were lukewarm, I think: every one of the characters voted for George W. Bush, Rick Perry and Ted Cruz. Probably, many of them signed the petition for Texas to secede from the United States after President Obama was reelected. In other words, here’s a show about red state morons which was trying to make it in the bluest city in the bluest of blue states, singing the soul music of the Tea Party, country music. Hands on a Hardbody was doomed before it ever opened; which is a shame because there was a lot that was good about it. It’s now the latest in a long line of country music shows which have flopped on Broadway.

Kinky Boots at the Hirschfeld Theatre, on the other hand, appears to be a huge hit. Drag queens go over much better in NYC than country bumpkins, I guess. It, too, is based on a film, this one about a British shoe manufacturer whose factory is going under until he meets a drag performer who gives him the idea that there might be a market niche for shoes for drag queens. He hires the drag performer to design a line of gaudy boots, and then the question is, will he pull off this daring new business strategy?

Harvey Fierstein’s book is, as you might expect, equal parts camp and cheery sentiment, and Cyndi Lauper’s songs are theatrical and wonderful. Jerry Mitchell does double duty as both director and choreographer, and both direction and choreography are terrific.

Billy Sands stands out as the drag queen, Lola, but there are fabulous performances as well from Stark Sands, as the reluctant young factory owner, and Annaleigh Ashford, as a young factory worker who has a crush on her boss.

I can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t like Kinky Boots – unless he’s from Texas and thinks the country is going to Hell in a handbasket.

The late Nora Ephron’s Lucky Guy, at the Broadhurst Theatre, is also a hot ticket, largely because of the presence in the cast of Tom Hanks. It’s about tabloid journalist Mike McLary, who broke the Abner Louima case, won the Pulitzer Prize and then died of cancer. It is largely comprised of stories about McLary (the play’s original title), given theatrical zing by one of the great directorial geniuses in the American Theatre, George C. Wolfe.

How is Tom Hanks? Well, he’s a great actor – and his performance here demonstrates that. I think, though, that for the play to be optimally effective you have to care about the world of tabloid journalism. You have to think that these scoop-hungry ink-stained wretches are heroes. You have to be a Post or Daily News reader who would be bored out of his gourd if he ever read the times. Lucky Guy is ultimately more than just about a “heroic” journalist – it’s about the coarsening of American culture. Which it takes to be a good thing. Not me.

Ike Holter’s Hit the Wall, which is closing soon at the Barrow Street Theatre, is an import from Steppenwolf about gay culture in New York at the time of the Stonewall riot which culminates in the riot itself. It is touching and intensely theatrical, inventively directed by Eric Hoff, and features several superb performances. Sadly, it hasn’t been able to catch on, but definitely try to see it before it closes.

Ten years or so ago, the great clown Bill Irwin announced that he was retiring from physical clowning. Fortunately, he has had a change of heart, and has reunited with his partner in foolery, David Shiner, for one last evening of shtick, Old Hats, at Signature. The show is hilarious. Between bits, there are goofy songs written and sung by the very babealicious Nellie McKay, which add considerably to the fun. Go. Irwin and Shiner are unlikely to pass this way again.

I travelled up to the Long Wharf Theatre to see a new play by William Mastrosimone called Ride the Tiger, which offers an alternative history to the official story of the Kennedy assassination. Apparently, Mastrosimone, who was writing a mini-series for CBS about rank Sinatra, hung out with Frank Sinatra shortly before he died. Sinatra. who knew he was at the end of the line and no longer cared who he pissed off, told Mastrosimone that the Kennedy assassination was mob hit. Ride the Tiger is about the why and how. It’s absolutely fascinating, and highly credible; and Gordon Edelstein’s production is brilliant.

I know you’re probably not going to mission up to New Haven; but if live in the area check this one out. If there’s any justice (which all too often there isn’t) this one should “come in.” It certainly deserves to – just in time for the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination.

Finally, I also journeyed afield to attend this year’s Humana Festival at Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, the first festival whose lineup was chosen by new Artistic Director Les Waters. Waters is best known for his brilliant staging of plays by Sarah Ruhl and Caryl Chruchill, so I expected him to take the Festival in their direction. Imagine my surprise when the first two plays I saw, The Delling Shore by Sam Marks and Appropriate by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, turned out to be classic examples of American realism such as used to be ubiquitous at ATL but which have been rarely seen in recent Festivals. The Delling Shore was about two writers, friends since college. One’s successful; one’s not. Appropriate was about an Arkansas family’s fight over who gets what (if there’s anything left) from the sale of the family manse. Very August: Osage County and just about as compelling. This seemed to be the Big One at this year’s festival, and I wouldn’t be surprised if New York theatregoers get to see it in the near future. Jeff Augustin’s Cry Old Country was set in Haiti during the Duvalier dictatorship and was about an artist struggling to stay under the government’s radar, and a young man determined to build a boat in order to escape the repression and horrible poverty in his country.

Finally, there was Will Eno’s Gnit, the last play I saw, directed by Waters, a loose adaptation of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, which was clever in an annoying sort of way. Eno’s the sort of writer who impresses literary managers, dramaturgs and The Times’ The Ish, because his work is so unique and different; but everyone else sits through his plays scratching the heads and going “what?” I found the play impossibly precious and, ultimately just silly, though well-acted and directed, as were all the Humana plays.

All in all, I was impressed by Waters’ stewardship of the Humana Festival, and look forward to next year’s edition.

HANDS ON A HARDBODY. Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Alas, closed
KINKY BOOTS. Hirschfeld Theatre, 302 W. 45th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
LUCKY GUY. Broadhurst Theatre, 235 W. 44th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
HIT THE WALL. Barrow St. Theatre, 27 Barrow St.
TICKETS: 212-868-4444
OLD HATS. Signature Theatre Center, 480 W. 42nd St.
TICKETS: 212-244-7529
RIDE THE TIGER. Long Wharf Theatre, New Haven, CT.
TICKETS: www.longwharf.org
HUMANA FESTIVAL. Go to www.actorstheatre.org in the fall for information about
next year’s Festival.

For discount tickets for groups of ten or more, contact Carol Ostrow Productions & Group Sales. Phone: 212-265-8500. E-Mail: ostrow1776@aol.com.

“It requires a certain largeness of spirit to give generous appreciation to large achievements. A society with a crabbed spirit and a cynical urge to discount and devalue will find that one day, when it needs to draw upon the reservoirs of excellence, the reservoirs have run dry.”

— George F. Will

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who actually does strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

Lawrence Harbison brings you up to date with what’s hot and what’s not in New York. In this column, Larry reports on CINDERELLA, REALLY REALLY, THE REVISIONIST, BELLEVILLE, THE NORWEGIANS, BEARS, GOOD WITH PEOPLE, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S, HONKY, SAGA and ANN.

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, at the Broadway Theatre, is a charming if somewhat old fashioned musical for those of you who like charming and old fashioned and are looking for something to take your kid to, now that Mary Poppins has closed.

Douglas Carter Beane has provided a new book, which is quite witty, in the gay humor sorta way that Beane is cherished for. Cinderella’s prince, played with aplomb by Santino Fontana (who knew this gifted dramatic actor could sing so well?), is now a rather hapless weenie, dominated by his chief counselor, played with wonderfully swishy flair by Peter Bartlett as if he were still Mr. Charles, currently of Palm Beach. He’s the Dick Cheney of the kingdom. Laura Osnes is charming in the title role, and Harriet Harris is delightful, even though at times she appears to be doing a Peter Bartlett impersonation (come to think of it, she’s been doing that for years …). Director Mark Brokaw has made the show a lot of fun.

Paul Downs Colaizzo’s Really Really, which has unfortunately closed after an extended run at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, was a sensational debut by a gifted new playwright about soulless college students and featured an impressive turn by David Mamet’s daughter, Zosia, as the most soulless of them all. David Cromer’s direction was, as you might expect, brilliant. This should have had a commercial transfer, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s produced many times all over the country and made into a film.

Jesse Eisenberg’s The Revisionist, produced by Rattlestick at the Cherry Lane Theatre, is a huge hit, primarily because Vanessa Redgrave’s in the cast, playing an elderly Polish woman. A young writer, played by Eisenberg, comes to Poland to stay with a distant relative (Redgrave), in order to revise his second book. This is basically just a contrivance, but Eisenberg is excellent, though he’s basically playing only a slight variation on his character in The Social Network and in his own play Asuncion, and Redgrave is, as you might expect, great. The play, though, is No Great Shakes. Why this young man has chosen to come to Poland to hang out with a distant relative he hardly knows is never really explained, and Eisenberg has no concept about how to build an effective dramatic arc. It’s just a series of scenes until the old lady boots the kid out, For No Apparent Reason. Reportedly, this is transferring to a commercial house. You could skip it, unless you absolutely can’t miss seeing Vanessa Redgrave or you’re a Jesse Eisenberg fan.

Amy Herzog’s Belleville, at New York Theatre Workshop, is a largely effective drama about a young couple living in Paris. He’s a research scientist. There’s a Big Surprise in the end, having to do with who he really is, and the couple has to vacate their flat – after which their landlords spend about 5 or 6 silent minutes removing the couple’s belongings. The play is effectively over by this time, so you sit there going, “What could the playwright and director have been thinking?” Still, it’s a good production with fine actors.

C. Denby Swanson’s The Norwegians, at the Drilling Co., is probably the biggest hit that theatre has had. It’s received great reviews (for the most part justified), and is about a young  woman who wants to hire two hit men, Minnesotans of Norwegian descent, to bump off her ex-boyfriend, who’s dumped her. The acting and direction were a little broad for my tastes; but there’s no denying that the play, which is loaded with great Norwegian jokes, is hilarious.

Bears, at 59 E 59, which has now closed, was an offbeat comedy by Mark Rigney about three bears struggling to survive after the world has gone to hell in a hand basket. Two of the bears are complacent zoo bears, whose equilibrium is upset upon the arrival of a wild wild bear named Susie. The actors were terrific, but I especially enjoyed Jenna Panther (what a name!) as Susie. This was worth seeing – I’m sorry if you missed it.

Also at 59 E 59, you can still catch Scottish playwright David Harrower’s brief Good With People, about a middle aged woman who runs a bed and breakfast in a small Scottish town and a mysterious young man who stays at her establishment for one night. The play is rather slight, but both actors, Blythe Duff and Andrew Scott-Ramsay, are really excellent.

Anita Loos’ odd comedy Happy Birthday has been revived by the excellent T.A.C.T. at the Samuel Beckett Theatre (at the Theatre Row multiplex) and features a large cast of superb character actors, headed by the always-terrific Mary Bacon as a shy librarian who comes into a bar in New Jersey looking to find a man who hangs out there, and to escape her abusive drunk of a father. The director, Scott Alan Evans, has given this rather old-fashioned play a somewhat expressionist spin, which I found most effective.

As for Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Richard Greenberg’s adaptation of the Truman Capote novella at the Cort Theatre, the less said the better. Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke plays Holly Golightly. She does the best she can; but I found the character insufferable, so Clarke is too. And the play seems endless. This is definitely miss-able, and I expect will be gone soon.

Greg Kalleres, Honky (at Urban Stages) on the other hand, is terrific and has been extended. It’s a pithy comedy about a company which makes sneakers for the “urban market;” i.e., black teenagers, featuring terrific performances from the likes of Anthony Gaskins as a shoe designer appalled by the company’s ad campaign, which seems to encourage black kids to shoot each other for the company’s product, and Dave Droxler as the copywriter who wrote the ad. Honky is funny, and says a lot who we are as a country, in terms of racial attitudes. It’s a don’t-miss.

Another don’t-miss: Wakka Wakka’s amazing Saga, at the Baruch Performing Arts Center. For those of you who don’t know about Wakka Wakka, they are sort of a gonzo puppet theatre. Saga is about the economic crisis in Iceland, and how it affects one hapless man and his family. All the characters are puppets, manipulated by gifted onstage puppeteers. Wakka Wakka is that rarity, a company which does weird theatre but which does it well, with a truly amazing theatricality. They are totally unique, and not to be missed.

Also a don’t-miss: Holland Taylor as Ann Richards in Ann, at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre, which Taylor also wrote. Taylor plays the feisty Texas Governor to a T, and her script has a lot of trenchant observations about the Great Political Divide in this country.

Ann is one of the best one-person plays I have seen in quite some time. It’s vastly entertaining, and Taylor is amazing.

CINDERELLA. Broadway Theatre, 1681 Broadway
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
REALLY REALLY. Lucille Lortel Theatre. Alas, closed.
THE REVISIONIST. Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce Street
TICKETS: 212-989-2020
BELLEVILLE. New York Theatre Workshop, 79 E. 4^th St.
TICKETS: 212-460-5475
THE NORWEGIANS. Drilling Company, 236 W. 78^th St.
TICKETS: www.smartix.com
BEARS. 59 E 59. Alas, closed.
GOOD WITH PEOPLE. 59 E. 59
TICKETS: www.ticketcentral.com or 212-279-4200
HAPPY BIRTHDAY Samuel Beckett Theatre, 410 W. 42^nd St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S. Cort Theatre, 138 W. 48^th St.
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200
HONKY. Urban Stages, 259 W. 30^th St.
TICKETS: www.smartix.com
SAGA. Baruch Performing Arts Center, 150 E. 25^th St.
TICKETS: 626-312-4085
ANN. Vivian Beaumont Theatre, Lincoln Center
TICKETS: www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200

For discount tickets for groups of ten or more, contact Carol Ostrow Productions & Group Sales. Phone: 212-265-8500. E-Mail: ostrow1776@aol.com.

“It requires a certain largeness of spirit to give generous appreciation to large achievements. A society with a crabbed spirit and a cynical urge to discount and devalue will find that one day, when it needs to draw upon the reservoirs of excellence, the reservoirs have run dry.”

                                                                                      — George F. Will

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who actually does strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

                                                                                    — Theodore Roosevelt