Around Broadway

Sandy is the name of the hurricane that’s wreaked havoc in New York City this week, but if you’re looking for stormy weather in the theater, the names you want are George and Martha. They’re the main characters in Edward Albee’s 1962 play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

The first new play of the fall Broadway season has arrived, settling in at the Cort Theatre. Grace, a drama about faith, love and fate, marks the Broadway debut of playwright Craig Wright, as well as actor Michael Shannon, known for roles in films such as "Revolutionary Road," and currently appearing on the third season of HBO’s "Boardwalk Empire."

Nineteenth century Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen is a theatrical legend, but most of his plays are not that frequently produced today, with Hedda Gabler and Ghosts probably getting the most stage time in our era.

The title of Lisa D’Amour’s play is Detroit, but the action doesn’t take place there – or at least not necessarily. However, an American city struggling with an economic downturn, drifting mostly helplessly in the current of shifting fortunes, makes an apt metaphor for individual Americans struggling with uncontrollable economic forces, too.

Forbidden Broadway is back. After a 30-year first run and a three-year, self-imposed hiatus, impresario Gerard Alessandrini and his send-up of theatrical convention – and theatrical innovation – are once again on the boards in New York.

The American playwright Horton Foote made his biggest marks with works such as The Trip to Bountiful and Tender Mercies, the screenplay for To Kill a Mockingbird, and his Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Young Man from Atlanta. Now, three years after his death in 2009 at age 92, New York theater audiences have a chance to re-assess one particular area of Horton Foote’s work.

For more than half a century, theater lovers have been heading a couple of hours west of Toronto to enjoy summertime performances of Shakespeare plays.

For its second presentation this summer at Central Park’s Delacorte Theater, the Public Theater has turned from Shakespeare to Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's musical Into the Woods, directed by Timothy Sheader with co-direction by Liam Steel.

“Good lords, make all the speedy haste you may,” says Prince Edward in Shakespeare’s Richard III. That’s just what the The Public Theater has done with the play itself, employing an adaptation directed by Amanda Dehnert to lighten the lengthy load of the text and make it easier to take on the road.

Until now, the idea of cheerleading a Broadway show has been metaphorical, in the sense of drumming-up-support. Now, however, it means actual cheerleading. A new musical called Bring It On, based on the 2000 movie of the same name, is giving New York audiences at the St. James Theatre a chance to see just how complex and intensely competitive cheerleading has become; it’s not just pleated skirts and pom-poms anymore.

“The Cockfight Play” is not the title of the play at the Duke on 42nd Street theater. But it’s the accepted euphemism, safe to print in family newspapers and safe to say on the radio. The plot is an old, old theatrical construct – a love triangle. But this gang of three has an unconventional twist: A young man in love with a young man, falls in love with a young woman. Which partner he will ultimately choose becomes the crisis of the drama.

Gore Vidal’s 1960 play The Best Man is enjoying a successful revival on Broadway. It opened in April, received a couple of Tony Award nominations and attracted a starry cast including James Earl Jones, Angela Lansbury and John Laroquette. But it’s not the only political play currently on the boards in New York.

There are more than 20 roles in William Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth. But a recent new production of the play at the Lincoln Center Festival featured only a single performer speaking all the lines, telling the entire story.

Irish playwright Tom Murphy is not the best known Irish playwright in America. Even authors whose work shows specific influence from Murphy, such as Conor McPherson and Martin McDonagh, have higher profiles. But the Lincoln Center Festival believes he deserves more attention. It's showcasing three Murphy plays in productions by the Druid Theatre Company of Galway, Ireland. Under the title DruidMurphy, the plays -- Conversations on a Homecoming, A Whistle in the Dark and Famine -- offer a chance to get better-acquainted with Murphy's works.

Anton Chekhov’s play Uncle Vanya is a classic of Western theater and New Yorkers are blessed with two productions of it this summer.

Shakespeare in the Park is -- and no pun intended -- a New York theater lover’s midsummer night’s dream. This is the 50th anniversary year of the Public Theater’s Shakespeare productions in Central Park’s Delacorte Theater, which opened in 1962 with a version of The Merchant of Venice that starred George C. Scott as Shylock. On the playbill this summer are the Shakespeare play As You Like It, and a classic of the American musical theater, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods.

A very amiable and otherwise harmless man – he drinks a bit and his best friend is an invisible rabbit – is persecuted by relatives who want him institutionalized so he’ll stop embarrassing them. Complications ensue, but in the end the man and his invisible friend are restored to freedom, and the other characters reflect on the possibility that the most eccentric among us may have the firmest grip on what’s important in life. That plot sounds a bit quaint for sophisticated, cynical New York theatergoers in 2012, doesn’t it?

Playwright Gina Gionfriddo's dark comedy Becky Shaw was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2009. Her first new play since then, Rapture, Blister, Burn, opened Tuesday night Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons, in a production starring Amy Brenneman, best known as the star of television's "Private Practice" and "Judging Amy." Brenneman plays Catherine, the character at the center of this play, who explores women's choices in the post-feminist era.

New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood travels far from the lights of the Great White Way this week, and he’s found a couple of shows that just might make it to Broadway. One, in fact, is already planned for a New York production after the end of its current run.

The Signature Theater Company’s busy season in its new Frank Gehry-designed home continues with a trio of late-spring openings. The first is the new monologue Title and Deed by Will Eno, the author of Thom Pain (based on nothing), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2005. The Irish actor Conor Lovett performs the show, which is a co-production with the Gare St. Lazare Players of Ireland.

A play in the commedia dell’arte tradition of Italy from the 1700s, featuring stock characters in uncomfortable situations, is now on Broadway. But the production is not full of powdered wigs and arcane syntax. The original play, Carlo Goldini’s Il servitore di due padroni (The Servant of Two Masters), has been adapted by Richard Bean and turned into One Man, Two Guvnors, set in the British resort town of Brighton in the 1960s.

Eugene O’Neill’s play The Iceman Cometh, is one of the more challenging works in the American dramatic canon. Its down-on-their-luck characters, mostly men, are steeped in life’s difficulties – steeped figuratively and literally, as alcohol is refuge and scourge of many of those found in the saloon where the play takes place in the New York City of 1912. The work challenges playgoers not only with its dark themes onstage, but with its real-time length: The Iceman Cometh has four acts, and often clocks in at around five hours running time.

Tuesday was a big day on Broadway with the announcement of nominations for the 66th annual Tony Awards. The musical Once was nominated considerably more often than that – 11 times, in fact. Two other musicals, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess and Nice Work If You Can Get It, received 10 nominations each. Bernadette Peters and Hugh Jackman were named recipients of special awards, along with Actors’ Equity Association, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.

Anticipating the announcement next week of the nominees for this year’s Tony Awards, New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood noticed something interesting: It’s possible that all the nominees in the category of Best Musical will be shows based on films.

She first told you not to cry, Argentina, back in 1978. Now — and how can it be 34 years later already? — Evita Perón, along with Juan and Che, are back for the very first Broadway revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's musical, Evita.

Last spring Lincoln Center Theater presented 4000 Miles by Amy Herzog under the auspices of its Lincoln Center Theater 3 – a program with the motto of “new artists and new audiences” – at the small Duke on 42nd Street Theater.

It started out as a concept album in 1970 and came to life on Broadway for the first time in 1971. Now, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s musical Jesus Christ Superstar returns to Broadway in a revival at the Neil Simon Theater.

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is back on Broadway. Esteemed movie and theater director Mike Nichols directs the revival, which features retro sets and music, and young actors playing old – including 44-year-old Philip Seymour Hoffman playing the role of defeated salesman Willy Loman, a man in his 60s.

The musical Carrie has become legendary among a certain subset of musical theater-obsessed New Yorkers. The 1988 Broadway show based on the 1974 Stephen King horror novel, earned its own special place in New York theater history as the “Prom Queen of Bad Musicals,” closing after just 16 previews and five performances.

Part of the mission of New York’s Signature Theatre Company, the Off-Broadway company founded in 1991, is to give season-long attention to the work of living American playwrights. With its expansion to a new Frank Gehry-designed complex this spring, it seems the Signature’s mission has expanded, too.

One of the great villains of the stage, Shakespeare’s Richard III, is in power once again.

John Osborne’s play Look Back in Anger, rocked the British theater – sorry, theatre – scene in the 1950s, bringing to the stage a vivid, unvarnished realism as well as Jimmy Porter, the play’s main character and the original “angry young man.”

South African Playwright Athol Fugard has a busy New York season ahead, with two theater companies producing four of his shows over the next several months.

January is the season for new and experimental theater in New York. But a work that was new last year at the Under the Radar festival has earned a return engagement at the Public Theater in the East Village through Feb. 5.

Porgy and Bess has returned to Broadway for the first time in many years. The show has probably spent more time in recent decades in the opera house, but this new production is a homecoming, because when Porgy and Bess first appeared in New York in 1935, it was in a Broadway theater.

The holiday decorations are mostly packed away and even the New Year’s eve parties are becoming dim memories (at least, those that are remembered at all). Yes, the winter blahs are upon us.

The 2006 independent movie Once, about the relationship between an Irish musician and a Czech immigrant who meet on the streets of Dublin, has been turned into an Off-Broadway musical.

Two new plays that opened recently Off Broadway offer studies in divergent reactions to the stresses of contemporary life. At Playwrights Horizons, Maple and Vine by Jordan Harrison offers a dark fantasy about a young urban couple seeking a novel way of escaping from their harried lives. And Alan Ayckbourn’s latest comedy, Neighbourhood Watch, at the 59 East 59 Theaters, tells the story of gentle middle-class Britons turned into vigilantes. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood shares his views.

Amid a good number of new plays on Broadway this fall season are two by female African-American writers. Stick Fly by Lydia R. Diamond recently opened at the Cort Theater; and Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop opened this past fall at the Bernard Jacobs Theater. Both plays are directed by Kenny Leon.

As a famous filmmaking duo, the Coen Brothers have given us Fargo, No Country for Old Men, a remake of True Grit, A Serious Man and many other big screen successes. One of Coens, Ethan, has also been writing for the stage.

Lincoln Center Theater has yielded two Broadway productions this fall, its Tony-winning hit War Horse and the acclaimed Other Desert Cities at the Booth Theater. But Charles Isherwood, theater critic for The New York Times, has found a strong new LCT production Off Broadway: J.T. Rogers’s Blood and Gifts, a play commissioned by Lincoln Center Theater running now at the Mitzi Newhouse Theater.

The fall season on Broadway features two prominent concert performances. Hugh Jackman, better known as Wolverine to fans of the X-Men series, is installed at the Broadhurst Theater, performing songs from classic musicals. He's also paying tribute to Peter Allen, the Australian singer-songwriter he played in The Boy From Oz. Meanwhile, a few blocks uptown at the Ethel Barrymore, Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin, the original stars of Broadway’s Evita, are sharing the stage.

Two very well-known musicals from the 1970s drawn from the life of Jesus return to Broadway this season: Stephen Schwartz’s Godspell and Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Jesus Christ Superstar.

Nina Arianda is an actress whose star power brightened considerably a couple of years ago because of her Off-Broadway performance in the David Ives play Venus in Fur. Now the play is being revived and Arianda is re-creating her celebrated performance on Broadway, opposite the British actor Hugh Dancy, in the Manhattan Theater Club production that opened recently at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater.

Up until last week the famed Berliner Ensemble — the theater company founded by Bertolt Brecht and his wife, the actress Helene Weigel, in 1949 — had never appeared in the United States. That changed when the company brought Brecht’s most famous show, The Threepenny Opera, to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Written with Kurt Weill, the production directed by Robert Wilson had a brief, sold-out run last week.

Adam Rapp is a creative artist who keeps busy. He’s a musician and a filmmaker, a novelist and he’s written episodes of HBO’s In Treatment. He also is a playwright of prolific output – something like 20 plays in the last 10 years. The New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood joins host Jeff Spurgeon to talk about Rapp's latest staged work called Dreams of Flying, Dreams of Falling, which is playing at the Classic Stage Company in a production from the Atlantic Theater Company.

Much ink has been spilled about the financial swindler Bernie Madoff since his multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme was exposed at the beginning of the global economic collapse. Madoff is, of course, imprisoned for what we expect will be the rest of his life. But now one of the most notorious American figures of the 21st century has been brought to life on the stage.

The 1971 musical Follies, with a score by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Goldman, has opened the fall season on Broadway with a splash of acid-tinged nostalgia. The revival production began in Washington, D.C., this summer. The New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood reports on the show’s look after the move from the Kennedy Center to the Marquis Theater.

This fall season is full of new plays opening between now and December. Charles Isherwood, theater critic of The New York Times, joins Jeff Spurgeon to give a preview of several of the new productions, including The Mountaintop with Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett, Private Lives with Kim Cattrall and Relatively Speaking, a series of one-acts by Woody Allen, Ethan Coen and Elaine May.

Brian Dennehy, the burly actor who has won Tony awards for both his Willy Loman in “Death of a Salesman” and his James Tyrone in “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” is making a return visit to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario this summer. He’s appearing in two shows running through October, Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” and Harold Pinter’s “The Homecoming.” New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood tells Jeff Spurgeon about what makes him a singular actor.

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario is one of North America’s preeminent theater festivals. Founded in 1953 under the leadership of the legendary director Tyrone Guthrie and now under the direction of Des McAnuff of “Jersey Boys” and "The Who’s Tommy" fame, it presents performances from May through early November. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood joins Jeff Spurgeon in the studio to discuss this season's productions of "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Camelot."

While New Yorkers have been immersed in the Bard courtesy of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s visit to the Park Avenue Armory, the highlight of the summer theater season in Washington has been a visiting troupe from Down Under. The Sydney Theater Company production of Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya,” starring Cate Blanchett as Yelena, plays the Kennedy Center through Aug. 28. Charles Isherwood joins Jeff Spurgeon in the studio to find out more about how the creative team and the big name star jive with the script.

Just a few months after his last play “The Divine Sister” closed Off-Broadway, the playwright and performer Charles Busch has a new play on the boards. "Olive and the Bitter Herbs," presented by Primary Stages at the 59E59 Theaters, is a comedy about a cranky former actress whose apartment is haunted by a mysterious ghost who turns out to have strange connections with more than one of the play’s characters. New York Times critic Charles Isherwood tells Jeff Spurgeon about the production and Busch's career.

Zach Braff and David Greenspan, two very different actors, are busy writing for the stage this season. Braff (“Scrubs,” “Garden State”), tries his hand at playwriting with "All New People." Greenspan's latest play, Go Back to Where You Are, received its premiere at Playwrights Horizons in the spring. He plays the whole cast of characters in "The Patsy," a revival of a forgotten 1925 comedy by Barry Conners. New York Times critic Charles Isherwood joins Jeff Spurgeon to talk about the new productions.  Listen to the piece above and enter our trivia contest below to win tickets to the production of David Greenspan's The Patsy.

The Royal Shakespeare Company’s ambitious repertory season at the Park Avenue Armory is entering its final stages. All five of the Shakespeare plays the company is presenting have now officially opened. In the last two weeks of the season, which runs through August 14th, viewers could potentially see all the productions in succession. Charles Isherwood of the New York Times joins Jeff Spurgeon in the studio to find out what stood out from the residency.

The Public Theater’s Tony-winning production of “Hair,” directed by Diane Paulus, has returned to New York this summer for a ten-week run at the St. James Theater. This unusual summer run features the national touring company and the London and Broadway versions. Charles Isherwood of the New York Times tells Jeff Spurgeon about why it has returned so quickly and whether this production holds up to the previous incarnations. Listen to the piece above and enter our trivia contest below to win tickets to the current production of Hair.

The theatrical event of the summer in New York is the arrival of the Royal Shakespeare Company. It's performing five plays in repertory as part of the Lincoln Center Festival. The British company is not traveling light: in addition to the 41 actors and 21 musicians performing the plays, the RSC has brought a 975-seat replica of its mainstage theater to the Park Avenue Armory. Charles Isherwood of the New York Times speaks with Elliott Forrest about how the theatrical space affects the quality of the productions.

The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park is an annual New York summer rite. This season the company is presenting two late comedies in repertory at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park: "All’s Well That Ends Well,” directed by Daniel Sullivan, and “Measure for Measure,” directed by David Esbjornson. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood joins Elliott Forrest in the studio to weigh in on the season.

The San Francisco Chronicle's fictional serial "Tales of the City" about social life in the city spawned a series of popular novels, a television show, and now a new stage musical based on the first two novels. "Tales of the City" opened at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater and runs through July 24. Jeff Spurgeon finds out why the material is so appealing in any form from Charles Isherwood of the New York Times.

After a record-breaking number of preview performances, "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" has finally opened on Broadway. Jeff Spurgeon finds out if the show's long incubation improved the final product from Charles Isherwood of the New York Times.

The live broadcast of this year's Tony Awards begins this Sunday at 8pm on CBS, hosted by Neil Patrick Harris. Jeff Spurgeon speaks with Charles Isherwood, theater critic of The New York Times, to get his predictions on who will take home the top prizes.

The Punchdrunk Theater Company, known for producing offbeat adaptations, has taken on Shakespeare's Macbeth in their new play Sleep No More. Jeff Spurgeon gets the skinny on immersive experience from Charles Isherwood of The New York Times.

Two classic plays are in featured in new Off-Broadway productions. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood looks at how a new English adaptation of Moliere’s “The Misanthrope” at the Classic Stage Company called "The School for Lies" and a musical version of Shaw’s “Candida” at the Lincoln Center Theater called “A Minister’s Wife” stack up against the originals.

The Tony Award nominations were announced yesterday in advance of the telecast of the awards ceremony on June 12th. Charles Isherwood of The New York Times joins Jeff Spurgeon to discuss the nominations: who was snubbed, who cleaned up, and what it all means for the success of the shows and the direction of future productions.

The Whoopi Goldberg movie Sister Act has been made into a new Broadway musical. Rossini's Le Comte Ory, now being performed at the Met Opera, features a group of men disguised as nuns. And nuns get spoofed in every imaginable fashion in Charles Busch's new comedy The Divine Sister. Does this trend represent a new sensibility for portraying religion on the great white way or is it merely a coincidence? Charles Isherwood of the New York Times joins Jeff Spurgeon in the studio to find out why so many are getting back in the habit.

The British-born actor Mark Rylance has spent much of the current theater season in New York, recreating two acclaimed performances originally seen in London. Last fall, he starred in a revival of David Hirson’s period comedy La Bête at the Music Box Theater and this spring he is appearing at the same theater in a new play, Jerusalem, by Jez Butterworth. Reflecting on these two performances, Charles Isherwood wonders whether Mark Rylance might just be the best actor of his generation.  Listen to the conversation to find the answer to our trivia question, then login in the top right corner and enter our contest before Wednesday night at midnight to win two tickets to see Jerusalem. The question: For what play did Mark Rylance win the 2008 Tony Award?

In the first installment of our new show Around Broadway, Jeff Spurgeon discusses the new Broadway play “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo” with The New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood. The show addresses the Iraq war and the more general repercussions of unleashing violence through the moral conscience of a tiger, played by Robin Williams. Listen to the conversation to find the answer to our trivia question, then login in the top right corner and enter our contest before Wednesday night at midnight to win two tickets to see the show.

Clifford Odets was a vibrant New York playwright in a vibrant period in American theater: the 1930s. Life during the Great Depression provided rich material for works confronting the difficulties and opportunities that lay in the American experience. Odets explored those ideas first in the theater, and then in Hollywood, writing for the screen. Three of his works have been revived recently in New York. The latest is Golden Boy, about a young man with both artistic talent and a taste for quicker, cruder fame.

With a cast led by a two-time Tony Award-winner Norbert Leo Butz, and an actress currently best-known for her off-screen life, Katie Holmes, the new play Dead Accounts, gives fans of both acting and star-gazing a reason to head to the Music Box Theatre.

Fans of Anton Chekhov will likely recognize three of the four title names in playwright Christopher Durang's new comedy, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, which stars Sigourney Weaver and David Hyde Pierce in the Lincoln Center Theater production at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater.

August Wilson’s play The Piano Lesson is one of the few in his 10-play “Century Cycle” that has not seen a major New York revival since its original Broadway production in 1985. The Signature Theatre, which devoted a whole season to Wilson’s work a few years ago, has now revived this Pulitzer Prize winner, in a production directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson at the Pershing Square Signature Center.

The Tony-winning musical "Spring Awakening," a coming-of-age musical about teenagers and sex, has returned to Broadway. The original production of the musical by Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik closed only in 2009, and thus might seem to be making an unusually quick return. However, the new production on stage at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre takes a very novel approach. It’s from the Los Angeles-based company Deaf West Theatre and the cast features a mixture of hearing and deaf actors. Casting deaf actors in a musical may seem like a challenging prospect. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood explains the mechanics of the production and whether or not the show merits its quick return to Broadway.

Playwrights Horizons kicks off its fall season with "The Christians," a play by Lucas Hnath about a schism in an evangelical church. In the production, directed by Les Waters, Andrew Garman portrays a pastor who causes an uproar among his flock when he decides that church policy will no longer recognize the existence of a literal hell. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood offers his review.  “The Christians” can be seen through Oct. 11 at Playwrights Horizons.

The new Off Broadway show "The Legend of Georgia McBride" by Matthew Lopez is a comedy about a young Elvis impersonator named Casey who’s barely making a living performing in a Florida Panhandle bar. With an empty bank account and pregnant wife, during the course of the play Casey makes a rather surprising career switch from struggling Elvis impersonator to successful drag queen. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood lets us know if "The Legend of Georgia McBride" is something to get all shook up about. The MCC Theater production directed by Mike Donahue with choreography by Paul McGill runs through Oct. 11 at the Lucille Lortel Theatre.

Labor Day, the semi-official end to the summer, is now in the rearview mirror. Which means that theater-watchers will be eagerly getting ready for the fall season. Broadway already has seen one smash musical open, the hotter-than-hot ticket “Hamilton,” but there’s much more to come, both on Broadway and Off. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood takes a look at the new fall crop of shows and suggests some highlights.

A new Off Broadway play by Sherie Rene Scott and Dick Scanlan tells the semi-autobiographical account of their experiences working with prison inmates. The play's unusual title — "Whorl Inside a Loop" — refers to a particular fingerprint pattern. Scott also stars in the play as a well-regarded actress who agrees to teach six inmates how to tell their stories behind the bars of a men's maximum security prison. Sharing intimate and sometimes hilarious details of their former lives, this unlikely group forms a bond. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood offers his review.

The latest play from the prolific A.R. Gurney comes with a forthright title, "Love & Money." The Signature Theater Company production features Maureen Anderman as the wealthy, elderly Cornelia Cunningham, who has decided to give away her entire fortune to charity, at least until an unexpected visitor arrives. As the work of divesting herself of the money continues —with good intentions — complications arrive in the form of a young man who is — or at least, claims to be — the woman’s grandson. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood offers his thoughts on "Love & Money," directed by Mark Lamos. The Signature Theater Company production runs through Oct. 4 at the Pershing Square Signature Center.

Annie Baker won the Pulitzer Prize in 2014 for her play "The Flick," which has been restaged this summer at the Barrow Street Theatre. But Baker also has a new play concurrently on the boards called simply "John," and presented by the Signature Theatre Company. The drama tells the story of a young couple with relationship problems who the week after Thanksgiving pay a visit to a rather odd bed and breakfast in Gettysburg, Penn. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood lets us know if "John" is worth the trip to the theater. The production plays through Sept. 6 at the Pershing Square Signature Center.

The Public Theater’s second free Shakespeare in the Park presentation this summer is the late romance “Cymbeline,” a twisty tale of duplicity and betrayal directed by Daniel Sullivan. The cast features Shakespeare in the Park regulars Lily Rabe and Hamish Linklater as young newlyweds separated by the titular king and his conniving queen. The convoluted "Cymbeline" plot involves, among other things, a headless corpse, a beautiful heroine who fools everyone into thinking she’s a boy simply by putting on a boy’s clothes and Jupiter flying in and out of the action on an eagle’s back. The play has been in and out of fashion over the years, with many detractors over the last century or so. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood has seen several productions, so he has a sense of perspective to offer as he evaluates Shakespeare in the Park’s "Cymbeline" at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

The story behind one of the best-known hymns in the English language is the subject of the new Broadway musical "Amazing Grace." The show tells the story of the man who wrote, “I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.” John Newton worked in the English slave trade before changing his ways and becoming a spokesman for abolition in Great Britain — and a hymn writer. The production at the Nederlander Theatre features a score by Christopher Smith, a newcomer to musical theater, and a book by Smith and Arthur Giron.  New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood reviews it in this conversation.

The young playwright Joshua Harmon made a splash with his comedy “Bad Jews” in 2012, which was initially presented at the Roundabout Theatre Company’s black-box theater and was later produced at its larger Laura Pels Theatre. The play not only got great reviews, it also received productions at numerous regional theaters around the country. Now Roundabout is mounting another Harmon play, “Significant Other,” a romantic comedy about a gay man in his 20s watching his female friends pair up around him as he remains single and a little lonely. It stars Gideon Glick and is directed by Trip Cullman. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood explains why Harmon’s new work is good summer entertainment.

Even when everybody knows what’s planned, you can never be sure of what will actually happen when friends get together. In Bruce Norris's new play “The Qualms,” what’s supposed to be a quiet evening of dinner, drinks and what used to be called “swinging” doesn’t go as expected. It’s a barbecue with a side of sexual dallying among four couples. Norris’s comedy, directed by Pam MacKinnon, is running at Playwrights Horizons through July 12. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood lets us in on the story and the performances.

The 2015 Tony Awards ceremony was Sunday night at Radio City Music Hall. The new musical "Fun Home" had the most fun, winning awards for Best Musical, Book, Score, Leading Actor and Director. "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime" was named Best New Play. As the statuettes were being handed out, New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood was keeping track — not only of the winners, but also of the nominees who he thought should have won. Isherwood shares his list, as well as a few thoughts on the telecast itself.

An awkward sweetness and a laconic wit are qualities the actor Jim Parsons wields with Emmy Award-winning skill in his role as Sheldon Cooper on the television series “The Big Bang Theory.” Those are not, however, characteristics we usually associate with the Creator of the Universe. And yet, there on the Broadway stage is Parsons in the title role of “An Act of God,” a new show written by David Javerbaum and directed by Joe Mantello. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood lets us in on the idea behind this act and even a couple of new commandments being issued to audiences at Studio 54.

A quiet play about a group of people working in a run-down Massachusetts movie theater is getting its second New York City production. Annie Baker’s “The Flick” might be quiet onstage, but it has made noise in the theater world, winning the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It was first produced at Playwrights Horizons in 2013. Now the play has been remounted in a Off Broadway production at the Barrow Street Theatre, with the original cast intact and the same director, Sam Gold, at the helm.  How has the mix of old and new elements altered New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood’s impression? He tells us.

A show that can take on both Shakespeare and a group of Tony nominees sounds like a wonder and “Something Rotten” appears to be just that. The new musical has racked up an impressive 10 Tony Award nominations recently, including one for best musical. Set in the theater world of Elizabethan England and directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw, it’s the story of two brothers, Nick and Nigel Bottom, whose company is in desperate need of a hit to counter the overwhelming success of their chief rival, William Shakespeare. They concoct a crazy plan to sing and dance at the same time on stage — in other words, they’ve dreamed up the idea of the Broadway musical. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood lets us know if the show deserves the accolades it’s already received.

Broadway has been going to the movies for so long now that it’s almost surprising that the beloved 1951 movie-musical “An American in Paris” has only now been turned into a stage show. The man who finally undertook the challenge of brining the Gene Kelly-Leslie Caron romance to the stage is the internationally acclaimed ballet choreographer Christopher Wheeldon. He created the dances and directs the new production, which this week earned 12 Tony Award nominations, including best new musical. The film "An American in Paris" celebrated the City of Light, but even more so the music of George Gershwin. His songs were integrated into Alan Jay Lerner’s story about an American ex-patriate, played by Kelly, and his romance with a Parisian woman, played by Caron. The climactic dance scene was scored to the Gershwin concert work for which the picture was named. The film won seven Oscars, including an honorary one for Kelly. Now, given Wheeldon’s presence, one might assume that this stage version is a dance-driven production. Is it a ballet on Broadway, a Broadway musical, or something in between? Wheeldon is a former principal dancer with New York City Ballet and most of the dancers come from the ballet world, too, including the leads, Robert Fairchild and Leanne Cope, who get to do something rarely required of ballet artists — they sing. The playwright Craig Lucas has adapted the original screenplay by Lerner.   New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood visits this week to say if the stage version swings — and sings.

The 1958 movie musical “Gigi,” about a young woman being groomed for a life as a courtesan, won an impressive nine Oscars, including Best Picture. But a 1973 theatrical production did not enjoy similar success. Now a new lavish stage version has opened on Broadway. Directed by Eric Schaeffer, it stars Vanessa Hudgens, best known for the “High School Musical” franchise. This production features a newly adapted book by Heidi Thomas, which has been revised since its first, brief, appearance on Broadway. Along with it come all the Lerner & Lowe songs made famous in the movie, including “The Night They Invented Champagne,” “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” and “I Remember It Well.” New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood assesses the latest “Gigi," playing at the Neil Simon Theatre.

Social scientists tell us that relocating and setting up a new home is one of life’s big stresses. So the pressure is really on when a young, upwardly mobile black man moves back to his old Brooklyn neighborhood, bringing his white girlfriend with him. Add a little more tension when the man’s former schoolmate, fresh out of rehab, arrives to crash on the couch for a while. It can push a relationship to the breaking point. Love, fear and privilege are topics explored in playwright Tracey Scott Wilson’s new Off Broadway play “Buzzer,” directed by Anne Kauffman and now running at the Public Theater. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood shares his review.

Robert Askins’s dark comedy Hand to God has already had two productions Off Broadway, at Ensemble Studio Theatre and MCC Theater. Now it’s making the leap to the big time, opening on Broadway’s Booth Theatre in the thick of the spring season. The show stars Steven Boyer as a troubled, but good-hearted teenage boy whose alter ego, an evil hand puppet named Tyrone, gradually wreaks havoc on his life. It’s pretty unusual for a play to have three separate New York runs. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood lets us in on what makes Hand to God so special — and so funny.

The spring theater season is traditionally dominated by Broadway openings, as the deadline for Tony awards considerations arrives at the end of April. But Off Broadway doesn’t go into hibernation. Ars Nova, a small theater dedicated to new writing, has a hit on its hands with its latest show, Small Mouth Sounds, written by Bess Wohl and directed by Rachel Chavkin. The play is set at a weeklong silent spiritual retreat — which would seem to pose a dialogue challenge. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood answer the question: Do the characters break their vow of silence or is this an unusually quiet play?

The late Wendy Wasserstein hit the playwright’s jackpot in 1989, when The Heidi Chronicles took home the Tony Award, the Pulitzer Prize, the Drama Desk and New York Critic’s Circle Awards for best new play. Wasserstein’s tale of a New York City woman looking for love, but ultimately making her life — and even having a child — without a male partner, resonated with many women struggling over their life and career choices at the time. But that was more than a quarter-century ago. Now the play is being given its first Broadway revival in a new production starring Elisabeth Moss of “Mad Men” fame. The new production at the at the Music Box Theatre is directed by Pam MacKinnon and also features Bryce Pinkham and Jason Biggs as the men in and out of the heroine’s life. So, is the story relevant to a new generation and are the jokes still funny? New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood answers those questions and explains how Moss puts a new spin on the title role.

Larry David was one of the masterminds behind the megahit sitcom “Seinfield,” but since then he’s become better known for playing a version of himself in the HBO series “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Now he’s on Broadway in Fish in the Dark, which he wrote and stars in, alongside a cast that includes Rita Wilson, Ben Schenkman and Rosie Perez. You might be wondering if the Larry David you know from “Curb Your Enthusiasm” is the guy you’re going to see on Broadway. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood answers that question, and a few others.  Directed by Anna D. Shapiro, Fish in the Dark continues through June 7 at the Cort Theatre.

Helen Mirren won an Oscar for portraying Queen Elizabeth II in the 2006 movie “The Queen.” Now she picks up the famous handbag again in the play The Audience, written by Peter Morgan, who also wrote “The Queen,” and directed by Stephen Daldry. The play, originally seen in London's West End, depicts the Queen in her weekly meetings with various prime ministers, including Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, Harold Wilson and David Cameron. The Audience is on Broadway at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre through June 28.

If you’ve been in a dive bar in New York, or anywhere else, just those simple words are enough to conjure the bleak decor, the smell of stale drink and something more. Eugene O’Neill’s 1939 play, The Iceman Cometh, takes place in a dive bar filled with broken people, and their broken dreams, who are the unseen props that fill the stage. The play makes only rare appearances on stage, this is in-part because of its extensive length. The four acts stretch across more than four hours. But the Brooklyn Academy of Music is currently hosting a production from Chicago’s Goodman Theatre. The play stars Nathan Lane and Brian Dennehy. Dennehy is an old hand at playing O’Neill characters, but Lane, one of New York’s great comic actors, might be a surprising casting choice. New York Times theater critc Charles Isherwood has visited this bleak O’Neill world and he shares his view of the production and also suggests why spending time in O’Neill’s world is worthwhile. The Iceman Cometh is at BAM's Harvey Theater through March 15.

A new production from The Civilians, a journalistic theater company, is called Pretty Filthy and is an exploration of the pornography industry centered in Southern California’s San Fernando Valley. The Civilians use words of ordinary people — in this case, people who work in porn — so the story is told with less concern for poetry than for verity. And, oh yes, it’s a musical, too. The show, directed by Steve Cosson, features songs by the Civilians’ in-house composer Michael Friedman, and a book by Bess Wohl. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood lets us know if Pretty Filthy is worth seeing in, shall we say, the flesh.

Decades before Anton Chekhov’s plays about the struggles of existence among ostensibly successful and wealthy Russians, Ivan Turgenev wrote A Month in the Country, a play that contains many elements of Chekhov’s more famous works. There’s a bored, young wife on a country estate and men who orbit her in varying degrees of attraction and repulsion. The play has been given a rare revival this season by the Classic Stage Company. The production features two stars currently appearing in popular television shows: Taylor Schilling from “Orange Is the New Black” and Peter Dinklage from “Game of Thrones.” New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood shares his thoughts on this classic 19th century play as produced with actors of 21st century fame.

"Boy meets girl” is a fine start for so many stories, including Let the Right One In, a play adapted by Jack Thorne and based on the Swedish novel and film of the same name by John Ajvide Lindqvist. But when the boy is an adolescent misfit and the girl is a vampire, the consequences of their encounter are likely to be farther-reaching than those in a human-to-human hookup. No less than three other Broadway musicals have been vampire-based, although all three of them proved to be somewhat less than immortal. This one is directed by John Tiffany, known for the musical Once. How does this "boy meets girl" relationship begin, how does this vampire make her way in the world of mortals? And — more important for us theatergoers — is this vampire tale going to leave us bewitched or simply benumbed? New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood clues us in. The National Theatre of Scotland production of Let the Right One In runs through Feb. 15 at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn.

What can happen when two people meet? The possibilities are endless, but every relationship winds up following a single path, better known as “what actually happened.” But what about all of those alternative possibilities, the relationship roads not taken, the places the relationship might have gone? We see some of those alternative realities in Nick Payne’s 2012 play, Constellations, now in its Broadway debut at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. Relativity, quantum mechanics and string theory are involved in this story — both in the play’s underpinnings and in the words spoken onstage by actors Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson. So there are stars of several kinds in Constellations; New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood tells us if they shine brightly enough for Broadway.