HAIR-BRAINED PLAY A BIT TOO OVER-THE-TOP

By FRANK SCHECK
October 7, 2008 - 'WIG OUT!," the new play about the competitive world of drag-queen ballrooms, is fabulous. And I mean that in the gayest sense of the word. Playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney ("The Brothers Size") has returned with an overstylized extravaganza about the complicated lives and loves of a group of African-American cross-dressers...

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• STUB YOUR POE WITH A BIG BANG

  By FRANK SCHECK

  MANY shows involve audience participation, but few provide as heady a sense of empowerment as "Eureka!" does. This latest...more >

• MUSICAL MAZEL TOV FOR HEARTLAND TEENS

  By BARBARA HOFFMAN

  October 6, 2008 -

  I can't remember the last Broadway musical with a big Torah number. Then again, I can't re member a leading man six years shy of legal drinking age. All that (and more) adds up to "13...more >

• GLIDING WITH A SNORT BEYOND TIME'S BORDER

  By CLIVE BARNES

  October 3, 2008 -

  KRISTIN Scott Thomas is an actor who doesn't act. Rather, she moves into a character, breathing the same air as a human reality. It's a style heaven-sent for the plays and people of Anton...more >

• 'NOT TO BE' RUDE, BUT ...

  JOKES FAIL, YET BRIT WON'T REWRITE

  By MICHAEL RIEDEL

  October 3, 2008 -

  SOMETIMES, it's better if the writer's dead. That, at least, is the feeling at "To Be or Not To Be," the stage adaptation of the classic Jack Benny-Carole Lombard movie now in...more >

• THEM'S FIGHTING 'WORDS'

  By FRANK SCHECK

  October 2, 2008 -

  NO wonder Norbert Leo Butz and Elizabeth Marvel have gotten hurt performing Michael Weller's "Fifty Words," which opened last night. As Adam and Jan, a married couple who endure one...more >

• THE MIMI NOBODY KNOWS

  200G AWARD STUMBLES IN DEBUT

  By MICHAEL RIEDEL

  October 1, 2008 -

  LAST week, I was pleased to draw attention to the "Mimi" award, a new prize meant to "nurture" play wrights that comes with a whopping cash prize of $200,000 (to be presented...more >

• BOOZE-FUELED NIGHT LASTS A ROUND TOO LONG

  By FRANK SCHECK

  October 1, 2008 -

  'IT'S bar talk," explains one of the characters in Stephen Belber's chatty new drama, and for 85 minutes that talk flows fast and furiously. Concerning the fateful encounter between...more >

• BLONSKY BOMBSHELL

  By FRANK SCHECK

  September 30, 2008 -

  THE performers who play Feinstein's are usually "of a certain age," but the current headliner is an exception. Nikki Blonsky, who at 19 can't even order a cocktail there, is...more >

• MODERN GOLDEN AGE OF OPERA IS UPON US

  By CLIVE BARNES

  September 29, 2008 -

  THERE was once some thing called the Golden Age of Opera. I missed it. When I started my opera-going, it was mostly a landscape of distinguished rather than great singing, occasionally lit up by...more >

• GIDDYUP!

  HARRY POTTER WAVES HIS MAGIC WAND

  By CLIVE BARNES

  September 26, 2008 -

  PETER Shaffer's "Equus" is a mystery play of sorts, but it's less a whodunit than a whywasitdun. The story of a disturbed young man who steals into a stable one night and blinds...more >

• HIP-HOP HELP FOR 'FELA!'

  JAY-Z'S INTERESTED IN B'WAY PROMOTION

  By MICHAEL RIEDEL

  September 26, 2008 -

  'THE Color Purple" had Oprah - and "Fela!" may get Jay-Z. According to my vast network of sources in the hip-hop world, Jay-Z and Beyoncé have fallen completely under the spell...more >