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Tag Archives: 59e59

Theater Review (NYC Off-Broadway): ‘The Hello Girls,’ a New WWI Musical by Peter Mills and Cara Reichel

'The Hello Girls' at 59e59, photo by Richard Termine

A smart, crisply written book by Peter Mills and Cara Reichel links a sequence of superb musical numbers, recounting in the best musical-theater tradition the little-known story of the U.S. Army's WWI female telephone switchboard operators.

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Theater Review (NYC Off-Broadway): ‘A Brief History of Women’ by Alan Ayckbourn

From left, Frances Marshall, Antony Eden and Louise Shuttleworth in A Brief History of Women. Image © Tony Bartholomew

Nearly six decades into his career, Ayckbourn maintains his sure touch on both the page and the stage, while his depictions of the long view of life continue to deepen. Brilliantly written and beautiful acted, his new time-shifting masterpiece engages both heart and mind.

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Theater Review (NYC): ‘Rotterdam’ by Jon Brittain

In the aftermath of a season of "identity politics," the Olivier Award-winning new play zooms in on a handful of young people whose personal identity politics happen to involve sexual orientation and gender identity, but who could stand in for any and all of us. And it does so with glitz and panache, meaty insight, sinewy dialogue and performances, and top-notch skill from beginning to end.

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Theater Review (Off-Broadway NYC): ‘Iphigenia in Splott’ by Gary Owen

A typhoon of a performance by Sophie Melville drives toward – and justifies – a wrenching twist. Directed with just-shy-of-frantic energy by Rachel O'Riordan, Sophie Melville's Effie is a raw slice of humanity, baring her ragged soul and bringing us her milieu, a few of the people in her life, and a critical encounter with a war veteran that bends the arc of her history toward, if not justice, a kind of heroism.

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