On Broadway 13 a smooth coming of age tale geared toward kids around that age performed by an entire cast of enthusiastic teenagers, including the onstage band, is one for the whole family. The show boasts some catchy tunes and several good performances by the youngsters. Based on the show’s slick marketing and packaging, the kids may already be chomping at the bit to see 13. The musical could easily be the opening for some serious heart to heart time with your kids about values, empathy and the effect of our choices.

Just Off- Broadway on 42nd Street the new jukebox musical Rock of Ages , a campy romantic comedy with cute American Idol’s hunk Constantine Maroulis, plays like a hard rock concert. The evening is almost two hours of non stop music, 1980’s pulsating hard rock.

Daniel Radcliffe, the star of the five "Harry Potter" films, acquits himself admirably with a confident Broadway debut as the disturbed adolescent Alan Strang at the core of Peter Shaffer’s 1973 psychodrama Equus. The revival directed by Thea Sharrock debuted at London’s National Theatre earlier this year with the same theatrically impressive design team. John Napier, set and costume designer, merely takes a fresh look as his original 1970’s sketches, but the staging is nonetheless dazzling with effectively haunting lighting and sound by David Hersey and Gregory Clarke respectively.

The high concept production of Arthur Miller’s morality drama All My Sons directed by Simon McBurney is a sight to behold. Burney is one of Europe’s most innovative theater makers, and his production with a Brech-like representational style, while always arresting, does little to aid his sterling cast. Commanding performances by John Lithgow, Dianne Wiest, and Patrick Wilson, along with a game Katie Holmes, making her Broadway debut, are all upstaged by McBurney’s cinematic flourishes. You will either love it or hate it.

Mike Daisey

IF YOU SEE SOMETHING SAY SOMETHING, the title of Mike Daisey’s new monologue which he performs at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater, is all about a bomb. The one he describes so vividly that he actually makes you see it.

Grease, the 1972 hit musical that ran for years playing over 3,388 performances on Broadway went on to become even a better 1978 film blockbuster boasting two charismatic star turns by John Travolta and Olivia Newton John in the leading roles of Danny and Sandy. There was another revival in 1994, but the little musical by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey is back again this time with a smart marketing scheme geared to luring television’s young audience into the theater.

Michael Weller dissects a volatile modern day marriage in his new drama Fifty Words, which takes a harrowing look at the challenges of an upper middle class couple struggling with their careers and a troubled son approaching his teen years. Norbert Leo Butz and Elizabeth Marvel portray Adam and Jan, the battling pair going through a major “rough patch,” with a passionate physical style that makes George and Martha from Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf appear tame.

It’s worth sitting through a musty old costume drama. It’s even worth enduring the trials of Sir Thomas More, morbid as they were, to see Frank Langella in “A Man For All Seasons”.

Director Matthew Warchus and his outrageous cast have turned the revival of the slight Boulevard farce "Boeing-Boeing" into a hilarious highlight of the season. Warchus expertly guides his gifted ensemble to fits of inspired lunacy lifting the 1960’s vehicle a mile high with a bold physical production that is a laugh out loud riot.

Ian Rickson’s wonderful production of Anton Chekhov’s classic The Seagull starring a marvelous Kristin Scott Thomas as the tempestuous Russian actress Arkadina, is never less than entertaining and often much more. Working with a new modern translation by Christopher Hampton, Rickson’s Seagull originally debuted at the Royal Court Theatre in London, where it was a heralded success.