Off-Broadway Reviews
Off-Broadway Reviews doodle

Blue Man Group

The three-man new-vaudeville Blue Man Group pounds on just about anything it can get its azure little hands on. The loopy, gently avant-garde trio of silent performers continue with their long-running production at the Astor Place Theatre.

Confederates

Sara, an enslaved rebel turned Union spy, and Sandra, a tenured professor in a modern-day private university, are having parallel experiences of institutional racism, though they live over a century apart. This New York premiere by MacArthur Genius Fellow Dominique Morisseau, directed by Stori Ayers, leaps through time to trace the identities of these two Black American women and explore the reins that racial and gender bias still hold on American educational systems today.

English

Two words set in motion award-winning playwright Sanaz Toossi’s intricate and profound New York debut: “English Only.” This is the mantra that rules one classroom in Iran, where four adult students are preparing for the TOEFL — the Test of English as a Foreign Language. Chasing fluency through a maze of word games, listening exercises, and show-and-tell sessions, they hope that one day, English will make them whole. But it might be splitting them each in half.

Prayer for the French Republic

In 1944, a Jewish couple in Paris desperately awaits news of their missing family. More than 70 years later, the couple’s great-grandchildren find themselves facing the same question as their ancestors: “Are we safe?” Following five generations of a French Jewish family, Prayer for the French Republic is a sweeping look at history, home, and the effects of an ancient hatred.

Sistas: The Musical

Sistas is an uplifting musical journey, of a multi-generational African-American Family. Based on a series of interviews conducted with Black women over a six-year period, using a playlist of songs made famous by artists that include Billie Holiday, Lena Horn, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Mary J Blige and others, this Musical tells of the struggles, the joys and the triumphs of being Black and of being a Woman in America. Told through the life and experiences of one woman and the women in her family, the story easily segues from the days of Jim Crow to the present and covers a range of topics from segregation, the women’s movement to the meaning of love and control. The narrative is stitched together using songs that perfectly capture the mood and speaks to the issues of each period and time — “Strange Fruit,” “Society’s Child,” “Taint Nobody’s Business,” “I am Not My Hair” by India.Arie, Alicia Keyes’ “A Woman’s Worth,” “Golden” by Jill Scott and, Erykah Badu’s “Tyrone.” In the end, the women find strength in each others’ stories and arrive at a way to best honor the memory of their beloved Grandma – a seminal figure in their development as strong and accomplished women.

Stomp

Garbage can lids and brooms and sticks make up just a few of the “instruments” used for this percussive symphony. Stomp has been packing in audiences at the Orpheum Theatre since 1994, and is still running strong.

Suffs

In the seven years leading up to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, an impassioned group of suffragists—“Suffs” as they called themselves—took to the streets, pioneering protest tactics that transformed the country. They risked their lives as they clashed with the president, the public, and each other. A thrilling story of brilliant, flawed women working against and across generational, racial, and class divides, Suffs boldly explores the victories and failures of a fight for equality that is still far from over.

The Bedwetter

Meet Sarah. She’s funny. She’s dirty. She’s 10. And she’s got a secret that you’ll never guess (unless you read the title). The Bedwetter is a new musical based on the bestselling memoir by Sarah Silverman, written with Joshua Harmon (Bad Jews), and featuring a score by Adam Schlesinger (Fountains of Wayne).

This Beautiful Future

Caught in the middle of a war, two teenagers take shelter from a divided world. Elodie is French and 17. Otto, a German soldier, is 15. Safe from the debris outside, they meet secretly for one night. They talk, tease, and touch. They fall in love and fall through time. Kalnejais’ kaleidoscopic play is a story of uncomplicated first love in a very complicated world. It seeks out tenderness amidst tragedy. Hope in the hopeless.