NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ–Theater is a collaborative art, requiring actors, a director and a tech crew to create a refined and finished work.

But theater also starts with a playwright and it’s his or her vision that drives a drama, comedy or tragedy into a cohesive stage work.  Nothing solidifies this concept more than Crossroads’ current production of Richard Wesley’s Autumn.

HOLMDEL, NJ—With many area theaters winding down their seasons, the Holmdel Theater Company, some twenty miles south of New Brunswick, is just starting theirs.

Confirming there is excellent theater in the Garden State year round, the somewhat countrified venue’s season kicks off with David Auburn’s Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning "Proof."

The drama's first public performance was at New Jersey’s own George Street Playhouse’s 1999 Next Stage New Play Festival.

PISCATAWAY, NJ—Aside from attending the 2005 Broadway revival and several college productions, this reviewer has indulged himself in numerous non-equity productions of Edward Albee’s signature masterwork: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

This reviewer can say with the highest of confidence Circle Players' spellbinding production from a non-equity standpoint has taken a commanding lead.

Circle, compared to its theatrical neighbors has some decided disadvantages.

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ—Many theatrical comedies, dramas, and musicals use elaborate staging to set their themes, enhance their moods or help move their plot along.

Jonathan Tolins’ rollicking "Buyer and Cellar" isn’t one of them and the show proves theater at its minimum is often theater at its best.

Relying on almost nothing except the noted directorial prowess of David Saint, New Jersey native John Tartaglia brings us into the world of Alex More.

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ–There are several important events in American history that, after a brief period of time don’t lose their significance, but head to near omission from the mainstream.

Those events include the New York Civil War riots that forced African-Americans to take refuge on barges in the Hudson River, and the Klan Notre Dame riot, where an army of invading Klansman tried to take over that university but were driven away by the Irish-American student body.

EAST BRUNSWICK, NJ–There are some remarkable stage works that, for some reason, lose momentum in their film version, such as Joseph Kramm’s The Shrike, William Inge’s Picnic, and Sidney Kingsley’s Dead End.

Regrettably, Peter Shaffer’s fictionalized account of the decline and last days of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart might be among them.

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ—One of the most iconic lines in the film Gone with the Wind refers to Miss Ellen’s rosaries, reminding the audience that American slave owners were not all Protestant.

In George Street Playhouse's eye-opening presentation of "The Whipping Man," we are introduced to Simon, a recently emancipated slave who follows the same religion of his former masters, Judaism.