Ariana Reines's play Telephone begins in darkness, with the faint but mesmerizing sound of static, finally interrupted by the famous words, "Watson, come here, I want you!" Then, out of the void, burst our two stars, Alexander Graham Bell (Gibson Frazier) and Thomas Watson (Matthew Dellapina), their faces frozen in a tableaux of cartoonish terror. In the highly stylized, presentational comic patter that ensues, staged in front of Vaudevillian footlights, it becomes clear their intention is not so much to sell us on their miraculous invention as it is to figure out what the hell just happened. The first transmission of a human voice has left them rather disoriented, you see, as if they've been teleported to another dimension. more ›

Edward Albee, who turned 80 last month, has been enjoying a well-deserved center stage spotlight since last fall, when Second Stage produced a vital revival of The Zoo Story, which was coupled with a newly penned prelude called Homelife. A new play, Me, Myself and I, was well received in Princeton last January, while The Occupant, another new work, will premiere next month. Now two of Albee’s earliest exercises, the interconnected one-acts The American Dream and The Sandbox, are currently on view at Cherry Lane Theatre, in a production directed by Albee himself. more ›