GLIDING WITH A SNORT BEYOND TIME'S BORDER

By CLIVE BARNES
October 3, 2008 - KRISTIN Scott Thomas is an actor who doesn't act. Rather, she moves into a character, breathing the same air as a human reality. It's a style heaven-sent for the plays and people of Anton Chekhov, as she's now demonstrating as Arkadina, the overbloomed actress who sweeps her way through "The Seagull" in the wonderfully...

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• 'NOT TO BE' RUDE, BUT ...

  JOKES FAIL, YET BRIT WON'T REWRITE

  By MICHAEL RIEDEL

  SOMETIMES, it's better if the writer's dead. That, at least, is the feel ing at "To Be or Not To Be," the stage...more >

• THEM'S FIGHTING 'WORDS'

  By FRANK SCHECK

  October 2, 2008 -

  NO wonder Norbert Leo Butz and Elizabeth Marvel have gotten hurt performing Michael Weller's "Fifty Words," which opened last night. As Adam and Jan, a married couple who endure one...more >

• THE MIMI NOBODY KNOWS

  200G AWARD STUMBLES IN DEBUT

  By MICHAEL RIEDEL

  October 1, 2008 -

  LAST week, I was pleased to draw attention to the "Mimi" award, a new prize meant to "nurture" play wrights that comes with a whopping cash prize of $200,000 (to be presented...more >

• BOOZE-FUELED NIGHT LASTS A ROUND TOO LONG

  By FRANK SCHECK

  October 1, 2008 -

  'IT'S bar talk," explains one of the characters in Stephen Belber's chatty new drama, and for 85 minutes that talk flows fast and furiously. Concerning the fateful encounter between...more >

• BLONSKY BOMBSHELL

  By FRANK SCHECK

  September 30, 2008 -

  THE performers who play Feinstein's are usually "of a certain age," but the current headliner is an exception. Nikki Blonsky, who at 19 can't even order a cocktail there, is...more >

• MODERN GOLDEN AGE OF OPERA IS UPON US

  By CLIVE BARNES

  September 29, 2008 -

  THERE was once some thing called the Golden Age of Opera. I missed it. When I started my opera-going, it was mostly a landscape of distinguished rather than great singing, occasionally lit up by...more >

• GIDDYUP!

  HARRY POTTER WAVES HIS MAGIC WAND

  By CLIVE BARNES

  September 26, 2008 -

  PETER Shaffer's "Equus" is a mystery play of sorts, but it's less a whodunit than a whywasitdun. The story of a disturbed young man who steals into a stable one night and blinds...more >

• HIP-HOP HELP FOR 'FELA!'

  JAY-Z'S INTERESTED IN B'WAY PROMOTION

  By MICHAEL RIEDEL

  September 26, 2008 -

  'THE Color Purple" had Oprah - and "Fela!" may get Jay-Z. According to my vast network of sources in the hip-hop world, Jay-Z and Beyoncé have fallen completely under the spell...more >

• NURTURING THE WELL-KNOWN

  By MICHAEL RIEDEL

  September 24, 2008 -

  I go away for a couple of weeks and miss the big news of the year: Tony Kushner has won an other award! It's a new award, something called the "Mimi," named after the late...more >

• FLEMING SHINES IN MET MEDLEY

  By CLIVE BARNES

  September 24, 2008 -

  YOU can be an extraordinary singer - all that's required are a superbly beautiful voice and impeccable training - and still lack that final gleam of genius. Discover a Different New York -...more >

• HEROINE OF THE HIDDEN IS REDISCOVERED

  By FRANK SCHECK

  September 23, 2008 -

  IF you thought there are no new Holocaust sto ries yet to be told, think again. "Irena's Vow," Dan Gordon's play starring Tovah Feldshuh that opened last night, relates a...more >