Friday, February 26, 2010

Reborn in Extinction


What is it about the detectives on those USA Network series that enables them to cultivate such fans? It was a treat to see Tony Shalhoub of Monk fame play a very different character in Teresa Rebeck's hilarious The Scene a few years ago, and now Psych's James Roday should delight fans by sporting facial hair and stepping outside his TV persona in tone and type in the promising if not quite fully realized Extinction, an Off-Broadway play by Gabe McKinley, the brother of onetime New York Times theater columnist Jesse.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Twice the Mackers


I've been in a sort of Macbeth maelstrom lately. For one of my final assignments for RT Book Reviews, I talk to Shakespeare scholar turned thriller writer Jennifer Lee Carrell about her new novel Haunt Me Still, in which a celebrated Shakespearean director goes on a quest to undercover a centuries-old manuscript of the cursed Scottish play. (Have to admit I prefer the U.K. title, The Shakespeare Curse, though not her billing as "J.L. Carrell." So they didn't think British readers would be turned off by a book with "Shakespeare" in the title unless it was written by a woman?)

And in the current Time Out New York, I interview Bill Cain, who co-created a short-lived TV series that I loved, Nothing Sacred, and is the author of Equivocation, now at Manhattan Theatre Club, a play about Shakespeare, the Gunpowder Plot, recent American politics and Macbeth. I look forward to seeing the play, which I've only had a chance to read, especially now that I've seen production shots, like the one above, that remind me of the John Doyle Sweeney Todd. And I owe a shout-out to the guy who first told me about Equivocation a year ago. His enthusiasm for the play was infectious.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Man of Many Colors


Nothing like a job layoff to throw you off your game, and that's what I was faced with this past month. How's that for a lead-in to my review of a solo show in which actor Michael Aronov showcases the many sides of his personality? He has stage presence and then some, and if you go, you may end up becoming part of the show.