Tamika Lawrence Archives - TheaterScene.net

Tamika Lawrence

Black No More

February 19, 2022

"Black No More," the new musical inspired by George S. Schuyler’s 1931 Afrofuturist novel, is the most exciting and inventive new show to be seen so far this season in New York though it is still in need of work. With a book by Academy Award-winning screenwriter John Ridley (12 Years a Slave), the stage version drops Schuyler’s scathing satire of Harlem Renaissance and Depression figures as well as its political election hijinks for a more direct story about race and racism in the United States. As brilliantly staged by Scott Elliott for The New Group, Black No More is also a play of ideas and will keep you thinking and debating long after the final curtain in this story of the sacrifices people have to make to change the world. [more]

Caroline, or Change

November 9, 2021

"Caroline, or Change" is an important musical, more now than in 2004. It should be seen. The Roundabout production, though somewhat flawed, still communicates the complicated relationship between Blacks and Jews, clearly an issue in today’s New York City. It is an excellently constructed show, its message surviving mostly intact. [more]

Gettin’ the Band Back Together

August 20, 2018

If the show plays like it was written by a committee, in fact, it has been. The book is by producer/ writer Ken Davenport and The Grundleshotz who turn out to be a group of performers and writers who originally workshopped the show in a series of improvised rehearsals. For the record, they are Sebastian Arcelus, Fred Berman, Michael Hirstreet, Jenna Coker Jones, Craig Jorczak, Nathan Kaufman, Emily McNamara, Jennifer Miller, Bhavesh Patel, Sarah Saltzberg (who is credited with additional material), Michael Tester, as well as Jay Kaitz who plays the second male lead in the show, Bart Vickers as though he were auditioning for Dewey, the laid-back music teacher in "School of Rock." [more]