Anwar Ragep

Vince Gatton’s Alexandria is this year’s winner of the Sanguine Theatre Company’s Project Playwright. Alexandria was selected from over 430 submissions and turned into a fully produced play in New York. It did not disappoint. Alexandria is the third play I’ve seen produced through Project Playwright and I commend Sanguine’s innovative program and the effort […]

Four-person plays with two couples typically include a few familiar elements: Jealousy. An affair. Unspoken conflict. A past relationship between characters no longer romantically involved. And of course, there’s usually a catalyst that brings all the issues to the surface.  But what makes Donald Margulies’s masterful Time Stands Still so unique is that, while it incorporates all the […]

  Anwar Ragep

Little League: A Smart Play Little League, written by Jack Spagnola, is a quirky play that mostly takes place in the stands of a little league field.  It is a lighthearted exploration of the lives of four protagonists whose problems do not extend too far beyond childhood pet emergencies or pre-college breakups.  But it is a touching […]

I’m a big fan of Antony Raymond whom I consider one of the city’s rising star playwrights. He creates rich unique characters with clear voices. As tensions and emotions inevitably build throughout his plays, the characters are primed to clash with each other. That said, the plot of his latest play, Apartment 301, feels undeveloped […]

  Anwar Ragep

Jessica, a play written by Patrick Vermillion, showing at the IRT Theater brings science fiction and artificial intelligence to the stage. But an overly ambition script falls short in execution as too many plot points must be explained in unnecessarily complicated detail, such as the minutia of implausible technological advancements As a result, it is […]

  Anwar Ragep

Dear Eleanor, written and directed by Estelle Girard Parks, premiered for one night only at the Kraine Theater. It billed itself as a murder mystery halfway between an Agatha Christie novel and Neil Simon’s Murder by Death. Unfortunately, it lacked the cleverness and intrigue of a Christie novel and the wit of a Simon play. […]

  Anwar Ragep

Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche pined after her and she rejected his multiple proposals of marriage. She was the muse for German-language Poet Rainer Maria Rilke who fell in love with her and she remained his confidante for life. She was one of the first female psychoanalysts having convinced Sigmund Freud to accept her into his inner […]

  Anwar Ragep

KYLE is a dark comedy directed by Emily Owens and inspired by both playwright and actor Hollis James’s own battle with drug addiction. Occurring almost entirely in the messy living room of Jack (Nat Cassidy), the play chronicles his foray into cocaine use as the hold of addiction consumes his life. The play opens when […]