Recent Theatre Columns

Can Tyler Perry’s ‘For Colored Girls’ Resurrect BAM?

By Roland Laird

Film adaptations from black masterpieces -- and the Chitlin Circuit -- are rejuvenating America's Black Arts Movement.

(more Write Black at You)

Ride This Time Machine Down a Road Less Traveled

By Mark Reynolds

Jump into that ’59 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz with the maxed-out tailfins, contemplate what an original Barbie doll could fetch on eBay, and enjoy this roll call of Reasons Why Everything Changed in 1959.

(more Negritude 2.0)

Like Movies—with Buttons

By L.B. Jeffries

Like Edwin S. Porter realizing that a series of shots was how you structured a film, games have to abandon the presumption that they need to obey a linear narrative or controlled message and just let the player loose.

(more Moving Pixels)

Frost/Nixon: An Interview with a Vampire

By Chris Barsanti

Frank Langella seethes and pulsates with cunning as the deposed president in 'Frost/Nixon', a far cry from the grinning cowboy executive Josh Brolin presented in 'W'.

(more The Screener)

And Baby Makes a Mess

By Nina Shen Rastogi

In which Sandra Oh inadvertently scares our columnist to death in a new play that's 'like birth control'.

(more Performance Oriented)

In Sickness and in Health

By Nina Shen Rastogi

In Well, Lisa Kron asks, what is the difference between the healthy and the ill? And also, why does my mom keep fucking up my play?

(more Performance Oriented)

Double Hedda

By Nina Shen Rastogi

In New York, Henrik Ibsen's centennial is celebrated with a knockout showdown: It's Cate Blanchett vs. the robots, for the soul of Hedda Gabler.

Keeping the Line Between the Past and the Present

By Nina Shen Rastogi

Pulitzer Prize-winner Doug Wright talks to Performance Oriented about his new stage adaptation of Grey Gardens; or, How to Make 'Morbid Eccentrics' Sing and Dance.

(more Performance Oriented)

Peanuts Brittle

By Nina Shen Rastogi

In Royal's theatrical adaptation of the Peanuts cartoon strip, Charlie Brown and the gang have grow older, been through some hard times. It's sometimes funny, sometimes morbid. But like it's one-dimensional inspiration, it never manages to get 'real'.

(more Performance Oriented)