New Light Theater Project

This is not a time of peace

February 29, 2024

"This is not a time of peace" has a stream of consciousness feel effectively handled by the director Jerry Heymann. There is never any confusion about who is who and what they represent despite overlapping dialogue and quick segues from one era to the other. It is Cohn’s performance as Alina that is the strong spine of the play. She opens and closes the play going from a matter-of-fact opening monologue to an impassioned closing statement, leaving the audience to empathize with her and comprehend all the frustrations she experiences. [more]

The Lights Are On

October 15, 2023

"The Lights Are On," written by Owen Panettieri and directed by Sarah Norris, is a psychodrama that plays with two ideas: are we really who we think we are, and what are the reasons we do what we do? It explores the light and dark of personal psychology, our perceptions of those around us, the events that shaped those people, and ultimately, ourselves. Panettieri’s script and Norris' actualization result in a solid theater piece. It is a well-conceived and solidly acted play whose every minute is worth experiencing. [more]

Brecht: Call and Respond (an evening of three one-acts)

February 4, 2020

“Producing theatrical works that feature compelling stories created by emerging theater artists” is from the New Light Theater Project’s self-description. Their vastly and thoughtfully entertaining presentation, "Brecht: Call and Respond (an evening of three one-acts)" achieves that aim. Bertolt Brecht may not be an emerging theater artist, but the other two playwrights certainly are. [more]

Everything Is Super Great

November 28, 2019

Stephen Brown’s "Everything Is Super Great" is a small, unpretentious play about an American family in crisis. That is not a novel theme, of course, but "Everything" rises gracefully to the occasion. Brown demonstrates his considerable skill for creating characters you can latch onto and root for. Director Sarah Norris—along with a gifted quartet of actors—has gently and thoughtfully taken Brown’s story up a notch, finding colors that may not have been evident on the page but that augment the script nicely. The resulting production is a lovely thing to behold. [more]

The Great Novel

June 19, 2019

The perennial tale of a noble servant exploited by a self-absorbed upper class family is given a bewildering and tedious treatment by playwright Amina Henry in "The Great Novel." It’s an enervating 95 minute mashup of lesser Ionesco with helpings of Wes Anderson and the visual style of John Singer Sargent. [more]

Imagining Madoff

March 7, 2019

Employing his rumbling deep voice, his thinning hair slicked back and veering from snarling cheeriness to reflective introspection, Jeremiah Kissel swaggering in a power suit gleefully gives us the ballsy Madoff we desire. Tossing off expertly pronounced Yiddishisms in his rants, Mr. Kissel fully embodies the archetypal striving lusty Jewish kid from Queens who worked the angles and became a macher. Kissel attacks the role with outsize relish as if it were Roy Cohn in "Angels in America." [more]

The American Tradition

January 31, 2019

There are many dimensions to Ray Yamanouchi’s "The American Tradition," directed by Axel Avin, Jr. for the New Light Theater Project. On one level, it’s an adventure story about a daring attempt to escape from American slavery. Eleanor (Sydney Cole Alexander) and Bill (Martin K. Lewis) are an enslaved married couple in the antebellum South. When they learn that he is about to be sold and separated from her, they seek a way to escape to the North. Eleanor proposes a wild scheme: A relatively light-skinned woman, she will disguise herself as Evander, a white male slaver. And Bill will pretend to be Evander’s slave and traveling companion. [more]

Life x 3

November 28, 2018

"Life X 3" was first seen in 2003 at the Circle in the Square. This revival is tauter and funnier. Perhaps this smaller venue refracts the play in a different way, but these four actors are more convincingly real, not to mention greater pains in the butt. As the title implies, they get three chances to reveal—and revel in—their egos and idiosyncrasies, each succeeding part bringing out both nuances and bombshells. [more]

Hitler’s Tasters

October 17, 2018

Though its title couldn’t be clearer or more transparent, "Hitler’s Tasters" proves anything but that, as it merges the past, when Hitler was still alive, with the present, when fresh autocrats are popping up all over the world, including in our neck of the woods. [more]

Less Than 50%

August 17, 2018

Though there are recurring references to Woody Allen and more specifically to "Annie Hall" during the 90-minute piece, "Less Than 50%" bears as much resemblance to that Oscar-winning film as Gianmarco does to a matinee idol. (According to Gianmarco, his play is not a “rip-off” of "Annie Hall," as Laura says it is, but an “homage.”) It’s telling that instead of the hysterical scene with lobsters in the kitchen in "Annie Hall," we have to contend with a mouse and a mousetrap in "Less than 50%." [more]

the hollower

May 25, 2018

Bit and Otto recall tomboy Frankie Addams and Berenice the maid from Carson McCullers’ "The Member of the Wedding" while Pigman and Missy parallel Pozzo and Lucky from Samuel Beckett’s "Waiting for Godot." There’s an arctic sequence out of Tony Kushner’s "Angels in America." The dialogue contains a lot of contemporary academic jargon and it all could be interpreted as some sort of Millennial exploration. [more]

Hal & Bee

March 23, 2018

Baker’s lines are spiky and colorful, often dark, sometimes banal, but his portrait of these two and the two lesser characters is always illuminating and full of real emotion. The fade-out, a quiet revelatory moment, is simply lovely—and sad. [more]

Breeders

September 28, 2017

There are plentiful comic one-liners and also sharp observations in Mr. Giles’ well-crafted dialogue. Giles perfectly renders all four characters with personality details and traits. The tensions, concerns and sensibilities of the long-term gay couple all ring true, but interspersing these with the mildly entertaining hamster story feels like a strategic theatrical device that undercuts the main plot to no great effect. [more]

Strange Country

July 26, 2016

These are among the choice zingers in playwright Anne Adams’ emotionally raw, earthy and often very funny contemporary dysfunctional Texas-set, family drama, "Strange Country." This entertaining piece of Americana has the humanity of Lanford Wilson, the quirkiness of Beth Henley and the unruliness of Sam Shepard. [more]

Monte Cristo

February 3, 2016

safe guess would be that most audiences coming to see New Light Theater Project’s adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ "The Count of Monte Cristo," one of most classic and exhilarating works of all time, are quite familiar with the material. A tragic tale of a man imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit leads sailor Edmund Dantes to seek justice as he becomes the wealthy Count of Monte Cristo. [more]

No One Loves Us Here

January 28, 2015

Playwright Ross Howard’s new work illustrates the characteristically 21st Century sentiments of unbridled selfishness, feigned apathy, and perennial discontent. His pointed, political indictment of our skewed American values is simultaneously too hard to watch and too illuminating to ignore. "No One Loves Us Here" is an entertaining, engaging bloodbath that leaves its audience thinking lots and feeling little. Perhaps this is as it should be. [more]