Bruce Apar - Page 3

'Just to be back in person doing theater again feels like such a gift after being on computers for a year or more.'

This smartly-curated collection of five short, lively, skillfully-mounted plays -- running without intermission for a fast-moving 90 or so minutes -- is a fine and fun way to become reacquainted with the kind of pleasures only live-audience theater can offer. (Zoom theater ably serves its purpose as a stop-gap -- not a substitute -- for in-the-room theater.)

Six short plays and monologues explore diversity, equity and inclusion in our homes, neighborhoods and theatres in live performances June 11-12 as part of Philipstown Depot Theatre Pop-Up Patio Series

In VIRTUAL LIVING ART EVENT at Westchester Collaborative Theater, 7 Playwrights Paint Pictures With Words

When the ghost of Scrooge’s deceased partner Jacob Marley shows up to apprise him of the three visitations coming his way, if you close your eyes, Mr. Spaddacino would have you believing there were two actors on stage. It’s a lot of fun to watch -- and hear.

I don't remember a show moving with such energy, grace, Moe-mentum, musicality and sheer fun. From the moment the Moes materialize until the moment they Moe-sey off stage, this musical is magical, with just the right mix of mayhem, mugging and music.

While Lend Me a Tenor's tenor is typically farcical -- breakneck pace, mistaken identities, misunderstandings, overactive hormones, sexual wordplay, frenetic and improbable physicality, and a panoply of slamming doors -- what sets it apart from others of its ilk is the musical conceit that drives the nutty plot.

The Marvelous Wonderettes tugs at the memories of audiences who remember the days when AM radio ruled the airwaves and 45-rpm records were stacked, like hotcakes, on a phonograph spindle.

Mr. Gorn's distinctive voice vibrates with wry humor, a supple command of language, and fascination with the insoluble puzzle of our being. Mordant musings about the wonder and woes of earthly existence are leavened by playful shtick that, far from disrupting the story, puts a shine on it.

The show's resplendent color palette, anchored by a stage floor covered in dappled brush strokes, pays homage to the French impressionist school of painting, notably that of Claude Monet. 

The 90-minute play flew by in what seemed like half that time, a credit to director Margarett Perry and the very skillful cast of Denise Bessette, Kurt Rhoades, Mary Stout and Rachel Kent. 

Things are messy for our fine, fettered friends in Sender, a reminder that, even for the most grounded among us, life is messy by default, whether or not it's not our fault.

Middle-aged nebish Barney Cashman borrows his working mother's apartment during the late afternoon so he can play the playboy, a role for which he is laughably unsuited. 

Mambo Italiana is about family camaraderie. It's about being displaced by outside forces. It's about the younger generation breaking away from traditions and being caught between cultures old and new.

Among Mr. LaBute's best known works for stage and screen are the award-winning feature film In the Company of Men, The Wicker Man, Nurse Betty, Reasons to Be Pretty, and The Shape of Things.

As if scripted by a Hollywood writer, less than a year after a spine-shattering tour bus crash that nearly paralyzed her, there was the glorious Gloria, on her feet, at the January 1991 American Music Awards, as were the movers and shakers of the record business, welcoming her back with an emotional standing ovation.

When Lenny comes on stage at the start of the cunning and quirky play Companion Piece, he is nervously trying to knot a necktie while addressing an unseen person in the bedroom from which he just emerged. Her name is Rosemary.

In the airless unfunny farm over which dour Nurse Ratched presides, McMurphy appears to foment anarchy. Yet, given the oppressive circumstances, the only thing subversive in his intention is to restore a sense of dignity and free will to those he views as the downtrodden -- captives of a rigged system that is oblivious to their best interests.

This trio is comprised of somewhat eccentric avatars of male camaraderie, peppered with anomie. Any evidence of bonhomie is in short supply for the 85 minutes we are in the company of the battling bosom buddies.