MARK BLANKENSHIP
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The Modern Soul of “You Can’t Take It With You”
By MARK BLANKENSHIP You Can’t Take It With Youis a wonderfully slippery play. You think you’ve got it nailed as a loopy comedy, and then it delivers a tender love scene. You’re convinced it’s breezy good time, and then it dismantles the fantasy of American success This complexity—this ability to be funny and lovable and […]
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When Art Is a Matter of Life and Death
By MARK BLANKENSHIP When you’re writing a play about a real person, where do you start? At the day she’s born? At the moment he becomes “significant?” The entry point not only dictates the shape of your script, but also underscores who you are as a playwright. Consider Lauren Gunderson’s Bauer, now at 59E59. Inspired […]
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This Conversation Is an Earthquake
By MARK BLANKENSHIP Kenneth Lonergan’s play This Is Our Youth, now on Broadway at the Cort Theatre, begins with shenanigans. In 1982 a troubled kid named Warren gets kicked out of his house, so he steals $15,000 from his dad and scurries over to Dennis, his drug-dealing, narcissistic friend who lives by himself on the […]
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“Bootycandy” Has So Many Flavors
In some ways, Bootycandy is a wild fantasy. Robert O’Hara’s latest play, now at Playwrights Horizons, just keeps breaking storytelling conventions, so that every time we think we understand it, it dodges and weaves. For instance, we might start with a sitcom-style scene about a little boy and his mother, but in a just a […]
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Which Performance Would You Go Back in Time to See?
Welcome to Geek Out/Freak Out, where theatre fans get super enthusiastic about things. This week, Stages editor Mark Blankenship geeks out (via Gchat) with Allison Taylor, TDF’s very own Manager of Individual Giving and Events. Today’s Topic: Which performance would you go back in time to see? — Mark Blankenship : Hello Allison! Before we […]
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When Do You Stop Seeing the Barbed Wire?
It’s always there, stretched across the stage. For the entire 70 minutes of The Good and the True, a play based on the recollections of Holocaust survivors Hana Pravda and Milos Dobry, barbed wire hangs between us and the actors. Even after the characters survive Auschwitz and death marches, the wire is there. Even when […]
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WATCH: Meet New Jersey Repertory Company
At New Jersey Rep, new plays are a calling.
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Which Movies Should Become the Next Broadway Musicals?
Welcome to Geek Out/Freak Out, where theatre fans get super enthusiastic about things. This week, Stages editor Mark Blankenship geeks out (via Gchat) with Greg Reiner, Executive Director of Classic Stage Company. Today’s Topic: Which movies should become the next Broadway musicals? — Mark Blankenship: Hi Greg! I’m so glad you could join me for […]
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This Audience Laughs at the Strangest Things
Phoenixdoesn’t sound like the funniest play. The show, which is now at Cherry Lane Theatre, opens with a nurse named Sue (Julia Stiles) confronting a laid-back dude named James (James Wirt) just a few weeks after their one-night stand. Turns out she’s pregnant—whoops—and she’s not planning to keep the baby. And oh yeah, after this, […]