Stowe Nelson

Intractable Woman: A Theatrical Memo on Anna Politkovskaya

September 23, 2018

Exhibiting talent and charm but with relatively impassive vocal deliveries are the trio who portray Anna Politkovskaya and other characters such as soldiers, medical personnel and military officials. They are Nadine Malouf, Nicole Shalhoub and Stacey Yen. They’ve been styled to have similar appearances and directed to be distant so that their performances are in the mode of recitation rather than distinctive characterizations, resulting in a lack of emotional impact. [more]

Miles for Mary

February 9, 2018

Playwrights Horizons has a real winner with the first entry in its new Redux Series bringing back worthy Off Off Broadway plays for a longer run Off Broadway. First up is "Miles for Mary," a company project from The Mad Ones, a New York City-based troupe dedicated to creating “ensemble-driven highly detailed theatrical experiences that examine and illuminate American nostalgia.” Seen previously at The Bushwick Starr during the 2016-17 season, "Miles for Mary" is a brilliant satire on group dynamics in an ongoing school fund-raising committee told in real time. While hilarity abounds as the committee does its pedantic and minimal work, an inevitable explosion is promised by the end and it is a doozie when it finally occurs. [more]

The Skin of Our Teeth

March 8, 2017

Thornton Wilder’s "The Skin of Our Teeth" with its benign belief in the resilience of the human condition is unlike any other American play you are likely to see. Both heavily influenced by earlier European experiments in theater, it is also influential in itself. While Arin Arbus’ production for Theatre for a New Audience at times seems as though it need tighting up, it is a play that must be experienced in the theater which is why it has never been turned into a Hollywood movie. Go and see for yourself what only the live theater can do to expand your imagination. [more]

The Wolves

December 9, 2016

The audience sits on either side of the large runway stage that set designer Laura Jellinek has arrestingly fashioned into an indoor soccer field. It’s a green vista of Astro Turf that gives the sense “…that the field goes on forever,” writes playwright Sarah DeLappe in her stage directions. [more]

Small Mouth Sounds

July 27, 2016

Inspired by the playwright’s attending a silent spiritual retreat at an upstate New York institute in the woods, this is an absorbing play which immediately causes the viewers to listen intently as our world is never really silent. In Stowe Nelson’s remarkable soundscape, the play begins with a torrential rain, and then proceeds to a great many sounds we usually take for granted (both performed by the actors and recorded): breathing, laughing, clicking of a pen, sighing, a gong ringing, whispers, giggling, crickets chirping, the crunching of chips, birds, a sip of tea, a sneeze, coughing, a cell phone ringing. As a result of this state of affairs and the fact that the actors (in general) don’t speak, we become attuned to watch the smallest facial expression and other forms of non-verbal communication. [more]

The Essential Straight & Narrow

May 26, 2014

Shifting abruptly from flashbacks to a form of the present, we follow Jo, a young woman formerly a folk/country musician and now an actor. Periodically she is shown reading from and trying to memorize a script indicating that she's preparing for a role, seemingly in a television police drama. Much of the action takes place in 1974 in a rundown New Mexico wood-paneled motel room where an estranged trio of country western performers has gathered to launch a reunion tour. [more]