Off-Broadway Reviews

Read the latest New York Off Broadway reviews on New York Theatre Guide. Discover more information on Off Broadway shows in New York City and beyond. New York Theatre Guide employs multiple critics to ensure a diversity of opinion about Off Broadway shows currently playing. Learn more about recent and past Off Broadway show reviews from New York Theatre Guide. Visit the Broadway page to read Broadway theatre reviews.

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  • On Straight Line Crazy's poster art, a pensive Ralph Fiennes towers above a diminutive New York skyline, in character as the notorious city planner Robert Moses. The image is an apt representation of the production. One can always count on Fiennes to deliver a riveting performance, but it's not quite enough to make David Hare's flat play as indelible as its subject matter. Moses, as head of multiple planning committees in the 20th century, oversaw the building of numerous bridges, highways,...

    The Shed
  • A revival of a landmark American play that enables you to appreciate it with fresh eyes and ears counts as a success – but not necessarily an unqualified one. So it goes for director Robert O’Hara’s hit-and-miss vision of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, an enduringly resonant 1959 drama of a Black family in Chicago chasing their dreams and desires. There are consistently fine performances by the cast, led by the estimable Tonya Pinkins as the ferociously determined, widowed matriarch...

    Public Theater
  • There are certain places that, at first glance, don't exactly scream "comedy." The gallows. The White House. A Neo-Nazi meeting. The end of the world. And yet, playwrights have not only set shows at each of these places, but received acclaim and awards for doing so. Gracie Gardner, in her Off-Broadway-debut play I'm Revolting, adds "skin cancer clinic" to that list. Whether she wins any awards for it has yet to be seen (she already has a Relentless Award, among others, for her show PussySludge),...

  • Why watch theatre instead of a YouTube video? That’s a question that might pop into your head upon seeing the synopsis for Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge, the new play from Elevator Repair Service currently running at The Public Theater. It is a beat-by-beat recreation of a real-life televised debate between the writer James Baldwin and the conservative William F. Buckley in 1965, around the question, “Has the American Dream been achieved at the expense of the American Negro?” That debate is...

    Public Theater
  • Two words best describe american (tele)visions at New York Theatre Workshop: sensory overload. The play is the theatrical equivalent of flipping through dozens of channels on the television, never being able to land on something to watch. On this channel, the characters are on a video game quest. Now they’re in a Walmart. Now they’re on a cop show. Now they’re witnessing a meteor show. In other words, american (tele)visions is a lot. Victor I. Cazares's play opens up at Walmart, as an...

    New York Theatre Workshop
  • If Stranger Things Twitter, theatre Twitter, and '80s kids all created a show together, it would look something like Stranger Sings! The Parody Musical.Jonathan Hogue, who wrote the show's book, music, and lyrics, seems to represent all those culture niches in one. Stranger Sings! is not only stuffed to the brim with nostalgic jokes, but it is also perfectly on the pulse with fan conversations around the show (speaking from personal experience, as a Stranger Things fan), perhaps even more so now...

  • This Beautiful Future is a peculiar yet quietly compelling portrait of two teenagers, a French girl and a German soldier, chasing a connection — and a roll in the hay — amid wartime. Over its compact 75 minutes, the play by Rita Kalnejais, an Australian writer based in London, lands with a modest impact as it pulls off a sly feat. It feels both very familiar (young love among the ruins) and disarmingly fresh (credit the unusual framework). The setting is Chartres, France in August 1944, a...

    Cherry Lane Theatre
  • It seems inevitable that Sesame Street would eventually hit the New York stage — the beloved children's show is already musical, and the theme song is as iconic as any classic Broadway overture. This season, it's finally here, right on the heels of the critically acclaimed Winnie the Pooh, Rockefeller Productions' last family-friendly show at Theatre Row. The company has once again outdone itself with Sesame Street: The Musical, a clever and utterly joyous show that's truly for all ages.The...

    Theater 555
  • As audiences file into the Connelly Theater for Kate, they might notice comedian Kate Berlant, of the title, sitting off to the side with a spotlight shining in her face — and on a sign taped to her chest that reads "ignore me." But make no mistake, this is absolutely her show. If the show's name, the photos of her plastered all around the theatre in various sizes (from life-size versions you can get a picture with, to teeny-tiny stickers in even the bathroom stalls), and the replicas of her...

    Connelly Theater
  • Situated amid the leafy splendor of Central Park, the Delacorte Theater offers an ideal open-air playground for As You Like It. In Shakespeare's comedy, after all, feuding families and mixed-up couples find forgiveness and "I do"-worthy clarity by going into the woods and savoring the rare and special vibe in the Forest of Arden.Call it reforestation at its best and most theatrical: The restorative grove has rooted again on the same Public Theater stage as part of Free Shakespeare in the Park....

    Delacorte Theater

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