Tag Archives: Noah Levine

The First Step: Diary Of A Sex Addict Is Hilarious, Insightful And *Really* Unflinching

The First Step (Diary of a Sex Addict), which makes the rounds of video porn parlors, urinals, gay baths and sessions of a self-help group, sounds like the premise for a Saturday Night Live skit. And Michael Leeds’ play at Island City Stage is, indeed, very funny. But woven into the outrageous humor is a compassionate in-depth examination of the emotional spiral wreaked by the tyranny of this specific disease/illness.

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Mixed Nuts Is Mixed Bag Of New Spoofs On The Holiday Season

Like the requisite ballet’s presentation of The Nutcracker, theater troupes have been turning over their Decembers as of late to holiday-themed plays: David Sedaris’s Santaland Diaries comes to mind. Unlike the wholesome Nutcracker many modern Christmas offerings are aimed at an adult crowd, taking the Ho, Ho, Ho of the holiday to a more mature level.

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Why Not? With Nixon: A Navel-Gazing Comedy Best Suited For Mad Cat’s Cult Faithful

Why Not? With Richard Nixon is perhaps Mad Cat Theatre Company’s most Mad Catty show ever, a production for company insiders that is esoteric enough to reference another Mad Cat show in its text. If you feel invited to this self-contained world, you’ll have a blast; if not, you may feel you’re observing a bubble you can’t enter, looking at your watch and waiting for it to pop.

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Presidential Politics Make Shorts Gone Wild Even Wilder

Political satire is like the finest champagne – delectable at the time but going flat with age. But in the meantime, as Shorts Gone Wild 4 (subtitled Decision 2016: It’s Gonna Be Yuuuuuge!) underscores, what a terrific way to blow off angst over today’s polarized landscape.

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Slow Burn’s Heathers Sings To The Teenage Misfit In Us All

You know you wanted to murder some abusive soul-crushing bullies and snobs when you were in high school. Heathers knows it and wants to liberate your daydream. So do the cool kids and not-so-cool kids at Slow Burn Theatre Company giving a hilarious don’t-miss production of the 2014 off-Broadway musical version of the 1988 cult classic film.

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With Uproarious Humor And Aching Empathy, Thinking Cap Keeps Up With The Joneses

The opening scene of Will Eno’s The Realistic Jones, as staged by Thinking Cap Theatre, is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in years.

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Slow Burn Theatre’s Violet Blossoms But Doesn’t Bloom

Fine talent, stirring music and Slow Burn Theatre’s enthusiasm elevate the musical Violet, but the material has consistent void somewhere deep down in this musical’s emotional investment.

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Thinking Cap’s Wilde Ride Takes ‘Earnest’ To A 1978 Disco Ball

Thinking Cap Theatre sets The Importance of Being Earnest in a madcap lampoon of New York City’s disco era. The urbane and farcical elements are irreconcilably at war, but each facet – one of the funniest literate scripts ever written and a zany hoot of a production – is so strong on its own merits that the result is a mostly satisfying gigglefest worth the investment.

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Thinking Cap’s Map Of Virtue Spins Weird Tale Of Chills, Metaphors And Deep Thought

If you like your theater schematic, clear-cut and requiring little cogitation, you will absolutely hate A Map of Virtue. But if you don’t mind wrestling with a production while it’s underway, if you enjoy trying to dope out what it meant on the ride home, then Thinking Cap’s production may well intrigue, perplex and unsettle you if you let it.

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Outre’s Bed & Sofa Is Uneasy Mix Of Opera, Silent Film, Theater

The collision of two never-subtle art forms in Bed and Sofa is certainly intriguing as befits Outré Theatre Company’s mission of fearlessly pushing the boundaries of theater, thanks in part to the commitment of Outré’s directors and performers. But this bizarre entry never lands solidly.

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