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"All in all my visit to SUMMERFEST was entertaining and I was introduced to a number of interesting
and talented artists whose work I hope to see more of.

The atmosphere is friendly and informal and homey, too, making this unherald event a welcome addition
to the many theatre festivals all around NYC this time of the year."
- Martin Denton - nytheatre.com (6/26/08)

For the complete review...

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2006

Men
Reviewed by Nicholas Linnehan

Manhattan Rep produced an original work entitled, Men. This play, written and directed by Ken Wolf, depicts 20 monologues about the “shortcomings” of men. If you want to laugh at people and yourself, go see this play. What makes this play work, instead of just being a forum for women to vent, is the human elements found in these hysterical pieces. Mr. Wolf manages to masterfully weave subtle truths about human nature that make the pieces funny and poignant.

Now, as everyone knows, no writing or directing could be brilliant without talented actors. Jennifer Pierro opens the jam with great comic timing and a whole lot of pizzazz as a witty-jaded female dealing with inferior males. Also, unforgettable was Elizabeth Hoyt as a dominatrix and Sarah Paige as an optimistic cheerleader faced with the bitter reality that men are scum. These actors bring great energy and honesty to their work.

Despite some uneven casting, this play has something for everyone, male and female, old and young.
It is most definitely entertaining and most certainly a treat!

POSTED BY NICHOLAS LINNEHAN AT 2/19/2006 03:18:00 AM

The Washington Square News April 9, 2004

Game, Set, Match 'The Match Game':
The Independent Theatre
by Tausha Cowan STAFF WRITER

As anyone who has been on a bad date - or several - knows, the dating world can be exciting or awful, romantic or ridiculous. But once in a while you find someone who makes the whole rigmarole worth it.

In "The Match Game," written and directed by Ken Wolf, two friends embark on a tumultuous journey to find such a solid relationship.
The play opens as protagonist Ted Fox's blind date ends differently than he had hoped, to say the least. Fox has recently divorced his cheating wife and is looking for a new relationship full of passion and fidelity. His friend Maxine has also been through a divorce and is looking for love. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the conventions of the genre of romantic comedy, neither character seems particularly capable of finding it.

With the help of his friend Big Bobby B., Ted meets with a nightmarish series of blind dates including a violent punk rocker, a dominatrix and a southerner who very much wants children. In desperation, he even joins several dating services. But all his attempts at meeting "the one" end horribly. The person he finds himself confiding in the most is Maxine. Like Ted, she wants someone to be her life partner, but the task seems easier said than done.

Ultimately, the two friends realize they must follow their hearts and, metaphorically, take the leap off the edge of the cliff, even though it sounds daunting. The show evolves into a funny and charming play about relationships: the good, the bad and the ugly. The five-person cast includes David Perrin as the love-confused Ted, Synge Maher as Maxine and other characters, Tom Lacalamita as Big Bobby B., Jennifer Pierro as various characters and Phillippe Cu Leong as the waiter. Each character has distinct traits that are quirky, hilarious, scary or all three.

Ted often gets nervous and rambles during his blind dates. His frustration and longing are palpable after each disastrous dinner. Maxine is looking for an intelligent and responsible man who will accept her as herself. Big Bobby B. has a way with the ladies and is often full of quotes he finds applicable to the present situation. The myriad of dates Ted experiences are played wonderfully by Maher, Lacalamita and Pierro. The characters are all different but equally amusing, providing comical examples of the ultimate bad date.

"The Match Game" is the Manhattan Repertory Theatre company's first on-going play. The Off-Broadway show received a welcoming response during its initial run in 2002 as part of "The Stagestruck Project," which also included a full theatrical production of "Stagestruck," a play written by Wolf about the theater company putting on "The Match Game" and a television pilot also titled "Stagestruck." Manhattan Rep was founded in 1998 and has been the home of more than 20 New York productions.

Jul 08, 2006

Identity by Nick Linnehan,

Directed by Ken Wolf

Manhattan Repertory Theatre, 303 West 42nd Street, 3rd floor

CAST
Sarah Giller, Nicholas Linnehan, Peter Quinones

AUTHOR
Nicholas Linnehan

DIRECTOR
Ken Wolf

Identity is a new play by Nicholas Linnehan, described as "an autobiographical tale of Cerebral Palsy, Catholicism, and Homosexuality." It's being presented as part of Manhattan Repertory Theatre's Summerfest.

nytheatre.com review
Martin Denton · July 6, 2006

Man in Chair, the narrator/star of the new musical The Drowsy Chaperone, says he hates it when characters in a play break the fourth wall and talk to the audience. He gets a laugh with that assertion, but before you start nodding in agreement, think about the danger—and the fun—that theatregoers would miss if Man in Chair's preference was always honored. Identity, an inventive new play by Nicholas Linnehan, exemplifies the kind of keen theatrical adventure that can be had when a character drops pretense and starts to confide in the audience.

Linnehan, who also stars in his play, portrays a character named Mike, who is a gay disabled Catholic. Though he's quick to point out that he chose only one of these three aspects of his lifestyle, he's just as quick to rail at God, his family, the universe—you name it—for giving him these various discordant crosses to bear
(so to speak). Identity, on its surface anyway, is a kind of theatrical intervention: Mike, who is apparently straitjacketed or otherwise restrained in the mental ward of a hospital following what we infer is a suicide attempt, is acting out (dreaming?) key moments from his life in order to try to gain control of it.

But the play begins, and is frequently interrupted by, Linnehan's character commenting on what's going on, or annotating the structure of the play, or, in one interesting place, suddenly dropping in a new scene. Is it Linnehan or Mike speaking to us at these moments? To everyone's credit, we're uneasily not quite sure. Linnehan and his director Ken Wolf manage the Pirandellian play-within-a-play conceit extremely well, and so the piece, which may or may not be Linnehan's actual autobiography, unfolds tantalizingly before us.

Where Identity could provide more information to us is in the area of Mike (and Linnehan's?) disability, which is Cerebral Palsy. One of the play's strengths is that it allows the audience to walk a mile in its leading character's shoes, and learn a bit of what it might be like to be a gay disabled Catholic. But the aspect of his life that most people probably have the least amount of information about—the disability— gets short shrift here. A revision of Identity might clarify for the audience the nature of Mike's condition.

Linnehan's storytelling prowess, though, is commendable, and his performance as this possible version of himself is compelling. Sarah Giller offers strong support as Mike's Mother, with whom he has a severe love/hate relationship, while Peter Quinones is fine as Mike's Father, his therapist, and (briefly) a priest. Wolf's staging is spare and simple, exploiting the intimacy of Manhattan Repertory Theatre's new tiny space without stinting on necessary production values.

Identity is an interesting introduction to playwright Linnehan, from whom we hope we will hear more in the future; and it's also a potent opening for Manhattan Rep's Summerfest, which continues into August with more than a dozen additional productions.