★★★☆☆ Cary Gitter’s comedy centers on an Italian-American woman and an Orthodox Jewish knish maker in New York City
Off-Broadway
The Sabbath Girl: Bagels and Knishes, With Spicy Mustard
★★☆☆☆ Orthodox Boy meets Italian girl, loses girl, gets girl…
The Commons: Hell Is Other People
★★☆☆☆ In Lily Akerman’s new play, three’s a crowd and four is insufferable
Riddle of the Trilobites: An Earnest New Musical Packs Multiple Messages
★★★☆☆ Prehistoric characters deal with global warming and learn that change is their friend
Chekhov/Tolstoy Love Stories: From Russia with Languor
★★☆☆☆ From Mint Theater, a strangely soporific pairing of plays based on stories by creative giants
Chekhov/Tolstoy Love Stories: Russian Masters Sparsely Served
★★☆☆☆ Chekhov’s “An Artist’s Story” and Tolstoy’s “Michael,” adapted by Miles Malleson
Where We Stand: Donnetta Lavinia Grays’ Elusive Town Meeting
★★☆☆☆ Audience participation with a perhaps misguided purpose, directed by Tamilla Woodard
Hamlet: The Star’s the Thing
★★★☆☆ Oscar nominee Ruth Negga makes a stellar New York stage debut in a somewhat tedious staging of Shakespeare’s soliloquy-heavy tragedy
Hamlet: Ruth Negga To Be or Not To Be in Title Role?
★★★☆☆ Yaël Farber’s handsome Gate Theatre production boasts pluses and minuses
Darling Grenadine: Quirkily Charming New York Love Story, with Tunes
★★★★☆ Songwriter Daniel Zaitchik scores big with this endearing, small-scale musical comedy