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                        Balls is a flat-out hilarious, and simultaneously subtly insinuating, tribute to the vulnerable "bromantic" core at the heart of macho posturing.  Studded with brilliantly satirical songs, and self-mocking dance numbers, Balls, through its five defiantly he-men protagonists, dives into the overwhelming maelstrom of theatrical ambition and maddeningly complex  contemporary male-female warfare. In order to offset the trauma of the disorienting realities  they face, the featured quintet has forged an indestructible bond based on their sense, that as straight men committed to the world of musical theatre, they are a beleaguered minority.    

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                                       For those, like your humble writer, previously unfamiliar with the Brick Theater Company (575 Metropolitan Avenue at the corner of Lorimer, in the newly-posh Brooklyn enclave of Williamsburg), it can wholeheartedly be shouted from the rooftops that New York's Off-Off-Broadway scene has a brand-new goldmine in the form of this lovely black box. More than this, however, is the hysterical brilliance that is the satirical Little Lord's Babes in Toyland, a mirthfully-mangled take on Victor Herbert and Glen MacDonough's classic holiday operetta from 1903. This uproarious little masterpiece is adapted and directed by the cherubically-delicious Michael Levinton, who also stars in the dual roles of mean old miser Barnaby and his nephew Alan.

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                        The All For One Theater Festival, a series of solo shows which ran throughout November at Theatre 80 St Marks, is one of those events that prove in lush detail, that theatrical innovation will never die. Governed by an Advisory Board of renowned solo entertainers (among them Jackie Mason, Jackie Hoffman, Gretchen Cryer, Tovah Feldshuh, Mark Rylance, Deb Margolin and Leslie Jordan), this year's proceedings included such award-winning shows as Mary Dimino's Scared Skinny and Over There by PJ Walsh. But perhaps the best of the best was unFRAMED, by Iyaba Ibo Mandingo and directed by Brent Buell. Over the course of these ninety riveting minutes of sheer lightning, the gentleman manages to sing, to dance and to act in a variety of ages and accents, and also tell his acclaimed spoken-word poetry and to captivate from his very first nanosecond on stage. As if none of this was enough, he manages to paint a self-portrait right before our eyes.

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     For a twenty-seven-year-old playwright with a short string of hits (and a couple of misses), Anthony M. Laura has done a bang-up job with the complex and surprisingly-mature Silence, at Theater for the New City. As a director...well, he's done not quite a bang-up job, but a more-than-serviceable one (with assistance from Katherine Booze-Mooney), and he's aided by a cast that manages to knock it out of the park for the most part; this is hardly simplistic material, and just as strenuous for an audience to absorb as for those on stage to embody. The action begins even as the audience wanders into the theater, with the character of Cassandra on stage in her bedroom, designed beautifully by Sarah Harris, who did an equally stunning job with the downstairs living room set.

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           Producer/director/artist Rachel Klein can be called nothing else besides one of the most innovative young people on the modern downtown scene. Over the last four seasons, she has emerged as a leading force behind theatre and dance, as well as video production, and the pride of her fleet has become The Tragedy of Maria Macabre. This dance opus, which features a story by Klein with Sean Gill, and utilizes a mix of musical styles from Mozart and Phillip Glass to the Tiger Lilies, proved stunning when it took its place at The Wild Project on East 3rd Street for a month-long run in October, after previous engagements in excerpt form, and then a full-length permiere at Dixon Place, which was quite a success Given the intricate journey the show has taken (including development of a mass-market video presentation in 2010), it's a joy to behold.

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The play Last Summer at Bluefish Cove by Jane Chambers deals with themes of love, self-discovery, and loss that are as unique in this play as they are universal in life. The production currently running at The Stella Adler Theater and produced by The LA Women’s Theatre Project is one that handles its subject with grace. In reading director Dee Jae Cox’s program notes about her production she refers to it as both timeless and as a lesbian story. I will agree that the story is timeless, but to call it a lesbian story simply because it’s principal characters are lesbian, does the play a grave disservice. The piece is a slice of life with a point of view to be sure, but it is even-handed, never preachy and it is universal. In the hands of a lesser director “Last Summer” might be the last piece of “lesbian theater” you’d ever want to see. This mostly insightful production will have you wanting more.

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        Let's give our props to agitprop theatre. Once again Crystal Field (one of the two remaining grande dames of downtown theatre, the other being Judith Malina) and a cast of 33, takes to the streets and parks and churchyards all over the five NYC boroughs, to tell it like it is, and how it might be (if we don't wake up) and how it should be, if we were all doing what we ought, to make it right. This year, Theater for the New City's annual Street Theater is, as always, an excellent introduction to both theatre and politics, for children and any adults unengaged in either.

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         Ninety-nine times out of every one hundred, attending a theatre camp proves a life-changing experience for those involved; while other more "normal" kids are happy to spend their summers involved in athletics and "meaningful" adolescent romantic pursuits, those in the self-chosen world of "junior summer stock" live for those two months when they may escape the harsh realities of high school hierarchy and be themselves, lost in a world of pursuing their chosen craft and accepted wholeheartedly by all whether they be gay, from broken homes, or other elements that label them as utter oddballs during the off-season. It was for this reason and this reason alone that your humble reviewer, himself not merely a proud three-season alumnus of theatre camp on Long Island, but an unofficial electee to the head of the Annual Reunion Committee for same, was drawn to see and speculate upon Greenwood at the closing of the 2011 New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF).

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         The familiar macho stereotypes-football, excessive beer drinking,large breasts,aversion to homosexuality, are given a ribald send up in Balls:The Musical, workshopped at this year's (2011) New York Musical Theatre Festival. The unique twist in this exercise in non-stop zaniness and satire, is that the five comrades who share these militantly manly proclivities are all aspiring musical theatre performers, who sing and dance and go to a large number of psychologically shattering auditions that sorely test their ability to retain their status as happy-go-lucky, unfeeling brutes, secure in their status as charter members of Neanderthals Inc.