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David Cote

David Cote

Observer

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‘Smash’ Is Escapist Fluff and Exactly What We Need Right Now

‘Smash’ Is Escapist Fluff and Exactly What We Need Right Now

Loosely adapted from a short-lived television series, this musical comedy about the making of a musical is full of showstopping songs and powered by a...

friday 3

Observer

David Cote

Review: Does Kieran Culkin Close the Deal in ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’?

Review: Does Kieran Culkin Close the Deal in ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’?

Culkin leads a cast that includes Bob Odenkirk, Michael McKean and Bill Burr in this latest Broadway revival of David Mamet's classic tale of...

01.04.2025 5

Observer

David Cote

Review: Sarah Snook Blows Up in Multimedia Dazzler ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ 

Review: Sarah Snook Blows Up in Multimedia Dazzler ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ 

Snook gives a master class, playing 26 characters in an adaptation of the Oscar Wilde novel that's hideously apt for our age of Instagram filters and...

28.03.2025 9

Observer

David Cote

Review: Denzel Washington’s ‘Othello’ Has Star Wattage But No Illumination

Review: Denzel Washington’s ‘Othello’ Has Star Wattage But No Illumination

Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal are megastars, but that doesn't solve the problems of this maddeningly bland production.

24.03.2025 5

Observer

David Cote

Review: British Musical Farce ‘Operation Mincemeat’ Is Anything But Dead on Arrival

Imported from London, this musical about a WWII counterintelligence operation is totally lovable and expertly zany.

21.03.2025 8

Observer

David Cote

Review: Whale-Loving Islanders Drown In Fathomless Loss in ‘Deep Blue Sound’

Playwright Abe Koogler's portrait of a group of Pacific Northwesterners is rich, funny and devastating, with a cast that's a tasting menu of acting...

08.03.2025 20

Observer

David Cote

Spring Preview: Fight Doom and Gloom as Dance and Opera Speak Truth to Power

The coming season promises opera that draws on everything from Herman Melville to jazz and blues, and dance that flows from breaking to ballet.

27.02.2025 5

Observer

David Cote

Spring Theater Preview: History Sings, Classics Get Twisted and Experiments Explode

Broadway has George Clooney and two different shows based on TV series. Downtown has space travel and T.S. Eliot. Brooklyn has Chekhov and an ant...

27.02.2025 7

Observer

David Cote

Review: Half-Brotherly Love Is a Struggle Against Darkness in ‘Grangeville’

This two-hander about estranged half-brothers with a dying mother is painfully gorgeous.

25.02.2025 9

Observer

David Cote

Review: Idina Menzel Goes Out on a Limb in Eco-Musical ‘Redwood’

Menzel remains an indomitable diva in this well-intentioned misfire.

14.02.2025 7

Observer

David Cote

Review: Is ‘Urinetown’ Still Good to the Last Drop?

Nearly a quarter century after its Broadway debut, the Tony winning musical is back at City Center Encores. Does its ghoulish giddiness still work?

10.02.2025 5

Observer

David Cote

Review: The Distant Future Is Already Ancient History in AI Drama ‘The Antiquities’ 

The human race is presented like a museum exhibit—a grimly compelling concept, but one that makes for a glitchy play.

05.02.2025 3

Observer

David Cote

Review: ‘English’ Speaks Eloquently of Language and Loss

Pulitzer Prize winner Sanaz Toossi's play about a group of Iranians studying for the Test of English as a Foreign Language transfers to Broadway in an...

24.01.2025 3

Observer

David Cote

Review: Does A Race-Critical ‘Show Boat’ Weather the Winds of History?

This minimalist staging strips 'Show Boat' to its bones, scraping away a century of cultural rust and sentimentality to reveal an often deeply sad and...

16.01.2025 30

Observer

David Cote

Review: Audra McDonald Is One Mother of a Rose in a Stupendous Gypsy

Audra McDonald in Gypsy Julieta Cervantes At the end of, shall we say, a testing year, it seems perverse to cheer for a malignant narcissist, a...

20.12.2024 20

Observer

David Cote

Review: Libs Own Themselves in the Sharp and Infectiously Funny ‘Eureka Day’

Bill Irwin, Thomas Middleditch, Amber Gray, Jessica Hecht and Chelsea Yakura-Kurtz in Eureka Day Jeremy Daniel Manhattan Theatre Club’s new dramedy...

18.12.2024 10

Observer

David Cote

Review: Kenneth Branagh’s ‘King Lear’ Howls Into A Stormy, Rushed Muddle

Shakespeare never lacks for juicy insults, and King Lear is especially thick with verbal abuse. The unhinged title monarch viciously curses his...

15.11.2024 4

Observer

David Cote

Review: ‘Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!’ Is A Crazy Avant-Garde Flashback

I have little appetite to spend the next four years gloomily referencing current events in my reviews, so let’s get this out of the way. It was a...

11.11.2024 10

Observer

David Cote

Review: ‘In The Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot’ Tries to Think Outside the Box

How sadly apt, to attend In the Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot the day after Jeff Bezos ordered The Washington Post to refrain from endorsing a...

30.10.2024 4

Observer

David Cote

Review: Juliet Is Fire, Romeo Got Mad Rizz In This Shakespeare Glowup

Last time I reviewed a Shakespeare play staged by the daring and gifted Sam Gold, I led with a cheeky question about bowls of soup slurped by the...

25.10.2024 3

Observer

David Cote

Review: Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Sunset Boulevard’ Ready For Its UHD 4K Close-Up

The latest revival of Sunset Boulevard —glossily stark and aggressively meta—puts several shades of lipstick on a pig. “Shades” being black, white,...

21.10.2024 7

Observer

David Cote

Review: Long, Bumpy Ride to Sisterly Reconciliation Over ‘The Hills of California’

Shameful confession: It took Laura Donnelly’s coolly stunning entrance in The Hills of California to finally acquaint me with the lyrics to “Gimme...

30.09.2024 40

Observer

David Cote

Review: Forbidden Broadway Mercilessly Mauls the Hits

When I was a callow theater kid, I hated musicals: it was a bastard genre, inferior to the classics and modern drama. To be honest, I didn’t know...

20.09.2024 2

Observer

David Cote

Review: Ex-Lovers Eat Their Hearts Out in Savory Romantic Comedy ‘Table 17’ 

Over the years audiences have seen many sides of magnetic powerhouse Kara Young. There was Troubled Teen Kara in Halfway Bitches Go Straight to...

10.09.2024 6

Observer

David Cote

Opera and Dance Fall Preview: A Rich Tapestry of Politics, Myth and Mortality

A thought experiment: From these cherry-picked events by the city’s best opera and dance companies, choose two—one from each category—for a double...

30.08.2024 3

Observer

David Cote

Theater Fall Preview: Women Are Taking Charge, On Broadway And Off

Seasons don’t have themes. Scores of shows will open this fall from Broadway to Off-Off, but no shadowy organization meets to decree a season...

28.08.2024 3

Observer

David Cote

Review: The Gaudy, Immersive ‘Life and Trust’ Is Part Theater, Part Stunt

You may not believe it, but theater critics actually work . It’s not all plopping into an aisle seat, yawning, and scribbling in the dark. Perhaps...

02.08.2024 10

Observer

David Cote

Review: That Internet Can Drive a Person Crazy in the Gimmicky ‘Job’

Received wisdom says a play on Broadway will only turn a profit with a star (or two). Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal in Othello ? Get you...

31.07.2024 2

Observer

David Cote