Craig Napoliello

The Exes

August 25, 2019

Lenore Skomal’s "The Exes" wants to revive the Broadway-style sex comedies of the 1950’s and 60’s, earlier called boulevard comedy. Unfortunately, not only is the formula passé but television sit-com now does it better. The play is also too heavily plotted with two main characters with the same name and a great many petulant, entitled people. Worse still, the play fails to deliver any witty or clever lines, instead giving us quotes and references from much better works without much point. Directed by Magda S. Nyiri, "The Exes" has at least two false endings before it comes to an unearned conclusion. [more]

Midnight Street

June 10, 2019

Cohen is clearly an intelligent, well-read man, familiar with the twists and turns of different periods and styles. "Midnight Street" is chock full of ideas, poetic meanderings and some worthwhile melodies but just doesn’t add up. His direction can’t overcome the pretentious language and heavy-handed symbolism. Only a Lotte Lenya or, perhaps, a Patti LuPone might have given Mr. Cohen’s songs the right gravity, not to mention finding sense where none exists. [more]

Come Light My Cigarette

August 20, 2017

But Cohen the composer is another matter entirely--his jazz-inflected songs make "Come Light My Cigarette" a gem of a chamber musical. As more and more of the songs are revealed, time and again one is reminded of "Trouble in Tahiti." And like that classic Leonard Bernstein opera, "Come Light My Cigarette" appears to be set in the 1950’s, which the music evokes. So do the busy but impressive set and costumes, both designed by Craig Napoliello. [more]

Touch

August 27, 2016

Toni Press-Coffman’s "Touch" is a rather challenging play both in that a great deal of it is narrated in recollection and also that it deals with much naked emotion. The cast led by Peter McElligott who is onstage almost throughout the evening could not be bettered. Director Nathaniel Shaw has made this under-dramatized play into a more theatrical experience. While Touch will not be for everyone, it is an impressive document of the workings of the human heart. [more]

Believers

October 11, 2015

Donna and Chris, the couple under the microscope in this play, are portrayed by two sets of actors: the first pair represents the lovers while they are still in college (where they first meet), and a second set of actors play the couple twenty years later—married and expecting their first child. The way these two stories intersect is through rotation, as alternating scenes flip between the two timelines until both stories come together at the climax. [more]