Seat Filler: NYC Theater Guide for March

The Advocate's man on the New York theater scene breaks down 10 of your best bets Off-Broadway, including a riotous gay-rights drama, a passionate Stephen Sondheim musical, a surreal comedy about Bette Davis, and more.

BY Brandon Voss

March 21 2013 8:00 AM ET

The Lying Lesson
Carol Kane stars as Bette Davis? That’s all you really need to know about this juicy comedic thriller by out playwright Craig Lucas of Prelude to a Kiss and Longtime Companion fame. When an elderly Ms. Davis — captured in spirit more than impersonated — visits Maine in 1981 to buy an old lover’s house, she finds an awkward new assistant full of secrets. “This play is a damn lie,” Lucas writes in his author’s notes, but it’s also damn funny.
Atlantic Theater Company, through March 31.

Hit the Wall
Tackling the dawn of the gay-rights movement outside Stonewall Inn on June 27, 1969, out playwright Ike Holter's rock-driven drama means well and looks great, particularly its stylized dance and fight choreography. Unfortunately, the stereotypical composite characters — snap queens, Judy Garland-mourning drag diva, butch lesbian, one cartoonishly bigoted cop, etc. — don’t do the riots justice. “I was there,” they repeat, but we never feel like we were.
Barrow Street Theatre, open-ended.