The Encores! series at the New York City Center began twenty years ago and presents forgotten musical gems and a handful of new works for limited engagements, some of which have later gone on to great acclaim when selected for longer runs elsewhere.
If you’re Twilighted out, see Lincoln!
The acting in Grace is extraordinary, with all four actors being seasoned professionals with the ability to portray the array of emotions required of the material.
If you are looking for a good tale of sword & sorcery, you can’t go wrong with Solomon Kane
Touring around the country and now currently in San Diego, the 25th Anniversary production of Les Miserable is excellent.
Kodi Smit-McPhee is wonderful as Norman and as his exasperated sister, Anna Kendrick can do an animated ‘sigh’ better than anyone.
Penny Templeton is a New York based acting coach with 20 years of teaching under her belt and the knowledge and understanding of acting and the business side of acting shows. In the book, she’s taken the lessons and styles of all of the great acting teachers – Stanislavsky, Strasberg, Adler, Meisner and Uta Hagen – and combines them all into her own technique.
It’s been over 25 years since director Spike Lee debuted with She’s Gotta Have It and more than 20 since his 1989 film Do The Right Thing was released to critical acclaim. He’s had his highs and lows since then, with his lows particularly low. Perhaps that’s why Lee decided to revisit the world of his best film in Red Hook Summer.
With so much indie theater in New York City it’s impossible for me to make it to every production I’m invited to review. So before I even get into my review of The Seeing Place’s double-bill of Harold Pinter’s The Lover and John Patrick Shanley’s Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, I feel obligated to point out that this is the third Seeing Place production that I’ve been invited to review this season and perhaps the biggest compliment I can pay them is that I make sure I have been there every time.
It seems like almost every septuagenarian actor is required to do at least one “grumpy old man” movie role in which its pretty typical for such a character to go from a cranky and surly old coot to a smiling, kindly grandfather with a young heart by the end of the film. Thankfully, in Robot and Frank director Jake Schreier and writer Christopher D. Ford, with a great performance by Frank Langella, find a way around that cliche by sticking the grumpy old man with… a robot pal.
Could you and your friends create a musical in 24 hours? Not only create it, but rehearse and have it performed? That’s the idea behind 24 Hour Musicals and the story of the wonderful documentary, One Night Stand.
Shankman has successfully turned a hit musical comedy that was lively and fun into a slow moving slog but…. with Tom Cruise putting in a fantastic performance, you just might like it.
With a cast that includes Frances McDormand, Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward and frequent Anderson players Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman, Moonrise Kingdom is everything Wes Anderson lovers expect; the visual style, quirkiness, originality and humor.
Starring Hugh Dancy (currently appearing in the wonderful Venus in Fur on Broadway) and Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hysteria is based on the true story of Mortimer Granville and how he came to invent the world’s first electric vibrator.
The good news is that the sequel we’ve all been waiting for (we have, right?), Men in Black 3, doesn’t suck.
