Patrick Page

All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain

October 25, 2023

The subtitle of Patrick Page’s absorbing and informative one-man show "All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain” is an actuate description of the content of his presentation. In a kind of lecture-performance it is Page’s credible contention that Shakespeare took the Vice character (the villain from the Middle Ages' Morality plays through Christopher Marlowe) and added psychological realism. Eventually in his last play, "The Tempest," Shakespeare was dealing with a character with a very worthy justification for revenge who finds compassion and empathy instead. [more]

Hadestown

April 29, 2019

The dazzling Broadway production of Anais Mitchell’s musical "Hadestown" proves director/developer Rachel Chavkin to be a creative genius. If you had not known it after she fitted her theater-in-the round production of "Natasha and Pierre and the Comet of 1812" into a Broadway theater, it is even more obvious now. This time she has turned her 2016 New York Theatre Workshop staging in the round into a production suitable for Broadway’s Walter Kerr Theatre with its proscenium stage without losing the sense that the musical takes place in many different places. Along with gripping choreography and movement from David Neumann and an onstage jazz band of six, the show simply takes your breath away, telling the joint stories of Orpheus and Eurydice, and Hades and Persephone. [more]

Saint Joan

May 8, 2018

After "Ruined" and then last year’s "A Doll’s House, Part 2," Condola Rashad is fast establishing herself as one of our finest young actresses. She is presently back on Broadway, offering a steely and, shall we say, saintly performance as the title character in George Bernard Shaw’s "Saint Joan" at the Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. [more]

Coriolanus (Red Bull Theater)

November 9, 2016

Just as Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower did centuries later, Coriolanus, urged on by his powerful mother, Volumnia (a startling, stinging Lisa Harrow), uses his military success as a springboard for a high political office, Consul, which he easily wins with help of two Tribunes of Rome, Sicinius Velutus (a wily Stephen Spinella) and Junius Brutus (Merritt Janson, playing cross gender to perfection) and a friend, Menenius Agrippa (Patrick Page, using his weighty voice and commanding eyes brilliantly). [more]

Second Annual Broadway Bets Eclipses Inaugural Total, Raises $247,800 for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS

May 17, 2016

Theatre fans and Broadway’s biggest behind-the-scenes players went “all in” on Monday, May 16, 2016, at the second annual edition of Broadway Bets, Broadway’s official poker tournament, raising a spectacular $247,800 for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. [more]

Cymbeline

August 13, 2015

At The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park venue, director Daniel Sullivan has proved himself a brilliant interpreter of the Bard’s comedies, both dark and light, from the evidence of his "Merchant of Venice," "The Comedy of Errors" and "Twelfth Night," to name only a few. Therefore it is a great disappointment to report that his "Cymbeline," the second and last 2015 Shakespeare in the Park offering, based on his 1999 Old Globe Theatre, San Diego, staging, is both confused and uneven, both visually and theatrically. Even more discouraging, the production wastes the talents of noted stage stars Kate Burton, Raúl Esparza, Patrick Page, and Lily Rabe and Hamish Linklater, the acting couple being reteamed on the New York stage for the fifth time. [more]

Broadway by the Year: The Broadway Musicals of 1966 – 1990

May 14, 2015

“Life Is,” from the 1968 Kander and Ebb musical "Zorba" as grandly performed by it’s original Tony-nominated cast member, Lorraine Serabian, was the show stopping highlight of the historical survey concert, Broadway by the Year: The Broadway Musicals of 1966 – 1990. With fiery hued hair, in a flowing black dress, tied with an elaborate gold belt, Ms. Serabian, fabulously recreated her theatrical moment of glory with this hard-edged anthem. Her deep, rich, expressive voice was matched with intense facial expressions that ranged from fierce to joyous. Mesmerizing on all levels, her performance of this one song felt like an entire concert all by itself. She was initially the understudy in the show, and was picked by director Harold Prince to replace the first actress during the out-of-town tryouts. [more]

ON THE TOWN with Chip Deffaa, March 31st, 2015

April 1, 2015

Of course, not everybody in the arts who has potential will stick with it. There’s a high rate of attrition in the arts. The stresses and strains of pursuing a career will be too much for many people. One must have not just talent, but energy and drive and determination, plus a certain stubborn kind of stick-to-it quality that is simply all-too-rare. And you also have to be a risk-taker, with an instinct for knowing when to move out of your comfort zone and take the chance on something that excites you, even it may appear risky. [more]

Casa Valentina

May 12, 2014

Harvey Fierstein's Casa Valentina is absorbing theater both as a revealing look into a world unknown to most theatergoers as well as a suspenseful new story. If the play has a flaw, it is that its message is a little bit obscure [more]