On a deliberately cheap stage (footlights made from soup cans, lavish curtains painted on canvas), two actors are currently performing what is probably the most unique twist on Romeo and Juliet in history. The script is not Shakespeare's; it's derived from hours of recorded telephone conversations of people recounting what they remember about the play, which most haven't revisited since high school. In the telling, new characters are created (like Euristhepiss, Romeo's flamboyent friend), the poetry is mangled (Where DOTH my Romeo? Juliet is the sky, and I am the sun!"), and gaps in recollection are filled with inspired invention. Digress, memory! more ›

I never saw First Blood in the theater; I was seven when it was released. But I vividly recall my first exposure to the movie, which occurred a few years later when I caught a glimpse over the shoulders of older cousins watching it on VHS during a family barbecue. I was soon yanked away, but not before the image of a bloody Sylvester Stallone screaming in anguish was imprinted on my ten-year-old mind. Who knows exactly which scene it was—Stallone's bloody and screaming throughout—but it definitely made an impact, as it has on actor Zachary Oberzan, whose 80 minute play Rambo Solo consists entirely of his retelling of First Blood's story. more ›

Caution: Half the bathrooms at the Tribeca venue currently hosting Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s No Dice are designed for children; the tiny toilets and sinks hover inches above the floor and may give adult users a disorienting sense of vertigo. The actors’ dressing room, which opens directly onto the performance space, is marked with a laminated sign that declares: “No Adults Are Allowed in the Bouncy Castle!” The company inherited these elements from this... more ›