Plays

Small

June 21, 2026

Montaro’s career as an actor allows him to create a different voice and stance for each jockey, trainer and owner that he describes. That is enhanced by the atmospheric sound design by Brian Ronan, and the moody lighting by Jamie Roderick which puts us in the jockey room and track. The pitch perfect unit set design by Christopher Swader & Justin Swader represents both part of the stable and the tack room. Under the astute direction of Jessi D. Hill, not only is Montaro able to convince us that he is a teenager but we watch him grow up before us as he goes from age 12 – 20. He puts us in the middle of exciting races as he recreates his reactions to being on horseback and eventually to the abuse of his body to keep his weight down. "Small" is a unique and engaging show from someone who has been there and knows how to recreate this milieu. It is easy to imagine a follow up show where Robert Montano tells us the story of his dance career where he eventually gets to play his dream role of Bernardo in "West Side Story," but that would be another story. [more]

Romeo and Juliet (Free Shakespeare in the Park)

June 15, 2026

Associate artistic director/resident director Saheem Ali of The Public Theater believes in updating Shakespeare in ways that modern audiences can identify with. His latest production of "Romeo and Juliet" which now graces the stage of the Delacorte Theater in Central Park has taken a big risk in putting a good deal of the play into Spanish (in translations by Alfredo Michel Modenessi) but as his version takes place on the US southwestern border with a wall designed by Maruti Evans that looks much like the real one on our border, this makes perfect sense. With faces covered by bandanas, the Montagues put up signs that say “Abolish ICE” and “Defund the Wall” while the Capulets appear to be a vigilante force dressed entirely in black. One wishes the production were either more or less political. Since so many of the lines in "Romeo and Juliet" are iconic by now (most middle school students having read the play) there is little problem in following the text even if one doesn’t know Spanish. [more]

And Then the Rodeo Burned Down

June 11, 2026

Throughout, Rice and Roland demonstrate extraordinary command of tone. They move effortlessly from slapstick to philosophical inquiry, from broad clowning to moments of startling vulnerability. Their dialogue crackles with wit, but it is their physical storytelling that leaves the deepest impression. Every gesture feels considered. Every movement carries meaning. The years of collaboration between these artists are visible in every second of stage time, producing a level of trust and precision rarely encountered even among the most accomplished theatrical partnerships. [more]

Jerome

June 11, 2026

John J. Caswell’s "Jerome" is a lovely low-key play about a love, loss and illness. However, Dustin Willis who also directed Caswell’s "Wet Brain" at Playwrights Horizons never really lets us know where the play is going and its loose ends tend to get in the way. However, its excellent cast of three, two-time Tony Award winner Stephen Spinella, Jeorge Bennett Watson and Ken Barnett keep us interested in the fate of these three men, one dying of kidney and heart disease, while the others try to keep him alive and contented. [more]

In the Devil’s Hands

June 9, 2026

Helen Banner’s "In the Devil’s Hands," receiving its haunting world premiere at Zoopraxic’s newly opened Long Island City performance space, is one of those rare theatrical experiences that seems to alter the rhythm of time itself. Inspired by the true story of Alphonse Le Gastelois, the Jersey resident who voluntarily exiled himself to a barren reef after being falsely suspected of a series of crimes, Banner transforms a historical curiosity into a profound meditation on loneliness, forgiveness, memory, and the strange seductions of self-imposed isolation. Set in the aftermath of the Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands during the 1940s, the play unfolds with the inevitability of a tide, drawing audiences into a world where innocence is insufficient protection against suspicion and where exile can become both punishment and refuge. [more]

||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :||

June 8, 2026

The title of Eisa Davis’ "||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :||" tells it all: four gifted teenagers attend a prestigious girls’ music program in Berkeley, California, apparently for underprivileged students. Some have attended previously; some are new to the program. All are devoted to music: Fax for singing, Margot on the drums and percussion, Rile on the piano, and Clementine on the oboe and baritone sax. The play covered their studies and their interactions: some become friends, some enemies, and some would like to become lovers. Chance plays a role in their lives and choices. [more]

The Maids

June 7, 2026

Part of the play is an eye-filling fashion show with Solange and Claire trying on Madame’s gowns or taking them out of her closet to ogle them. However, what is most remarkable about Williams’ production is his use of technology as he did in his "Picture of Dorian Gray" with Sarah Snook on Broadway and his recent "Dracula" with Cynthia Erivo on the West End. The video technology used in "The Maids" is startling, almost overpowering at times. The mirror-lined closets and doors become giant screens that show us Madame’s online posts as well as her live footage of Solange, Claire and herself (from video designer Zakk Hein). Using Tiktok filters and effects she turns them grotesque or changes their face or features. Eventually in a dream sequence, Solange leads Claire through Madame’s closets and they visit a hallucinatory world of fantasy that we see on the screens. The fact that the screens are 13 feet high adds to the power and the effectiveness of these images. [more]

The Circuit

June 6, 2026

"The Circuit" is a multimedia dance show that takes place outside, using a combination of narration, dance, and music that allows the audience to watch a story unfold across the streets of DUMBO. Audience members are given headphones that play both the show’s score and its dialogue, delivered via prerecorded voiceover while the performers act and dance silently. Director John Kroft ("Dan Cody’s Yacht," "The Weak and the Strong") and choreographer/co-director Josh Zacher ("How the Grinch Stole Christmas," "La Cage Aux Folles") stage the performance wonderfully, making innovative use of the city as a set. [more]

I Wanttt a Unicorn Frappe!!!

June 4, 2026

While "I Wanttt a Unicorn Frappe!!!" could have been a satire on wedding and wedding planning, the mockery is much too mild and familiar to have any sting. Both Darla and Cassandra are way ahead of Jenny on noticing that Sebastian is not to interested in her – as are we. Why it takes so long for Jenny to wake up to reality is a mystery. However, the unicorn frappe may be a metaphor for the pink dream that she has about her life once married though it appears to all be in her head. The play is much too long for its content, going over the same ideas over and over. [more]

Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

May 31, 2026

Unlike earlier New York productions, for this "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" set designer David Gallo has moved the set and action up close to the audience. It is as though we have been invited into the boarding house ourselves. Surrounding the boarding house are the factories and bridges that make up Pittsburgh’s life blood. Boone is more sympathetic than previous actors who have played Herald Loomis, a troubled man but one we can sympathize with. As his wife Martha, Abigail Onwunali brings an otherworldliness that adds another level to the play. As Bynum, Santiago-Hudson also endows his character both authority, wisdom and spirituality. [more]

Indian Princesses

May 31, 2026

The play is interesting and enlightening for those of us not aware of this chapter of American history. However, the author doesn’t make it easy for the audience to follow the characters: all nine characters, fathers and daughters, are introduced simultaneously in the first scene so that it is difficult to know who is who and who goes with which. There are ways of introducing a great many characters in groups so that we can keep them differentiated but Rodriguez has not done that. Plus the characters do not always call each other by name which would help sort out the confusion. [more]

Dirty Books

May 28, 2026

For most of its running time, "Dirty Books"—a slyly seductive immersive production written and directed by Mara Lieberman for Bated Breath Theatre Company—behaves less like a play than like a forbidden object one has discovered hidden in a filing cabinet marked “Moral Decay.” The audience enters a narrow white-walled performance space on West 14th Street that has been transformed into a miniature museum of American censorship: stacks of banned books, clothespinned documents, timelines of obscenity law, View-Masters displaying coyly erotic photographs, typewriters waiting for confessions. Before a word of drama has officially begun, the production has already implicated us in its central question: who gets to decide what stories may be told, what desires may be spoken aloud, and what forms of intimacy are permitted to exist in public? [more]

Specimen

May 25, 2026

Visually, "Specimen" resembles the fever dream of a junk dealer raised on 1970s science fiction. We anxiously anticipate the arrival of Robot B-9 from" Lost in Space" shouting “Danger, Will Robinson!,” but that level of comfort zone never materializes…wink, wink. The set, designed collaboratively by Sharp, McCormick, and Mancinelli, is a glorious landfill of keyboards, monitors, knobs, exposed wiring, and industrial debris. It evokes a radical version of the control room from any low budget sci-fi film of the 70s, as though salvaged after decades drifting through radioactive space. David Zeffren’s lighting bathes the production in bruised blues and flashing emergency reds, transforming the basement theater into a claustrophobic purgatory of technological exhaustion. The entire environment feels one electrical surge away from extinction. [more]

The People Versus Lenny Bruce

May 23, 2026

The trials and downfall of groundbreaking 1960s counterculture comedian Lenny Bruce is a fascinating story judging from the success of Julian Barry’s play "Lenny," Bob Fosse’s film version and a myriad of documentaries. Susan Charlotte has attempted to duplicate that success with The People Versus Lenny Bruce, adapted from civil rights lawyer Martin Garbus’ 1972 account of his part in the trial in the chapter of the same name in his book "Ready for the Defense." Unfortunately, Charlotte has not followed the theater dictum to show not tell and too much of the play is devoted to the defending lawyer’s very flat delivery of not very interesting narration. Another major problem may be that the evidence presented in 1964 is no longer very shocking in 2026 and it now seems that it should have been an open and shut case for which Bruce was convicted. [more]

The Emporium

May 22, 2026

John, discovered as an infant in a basket outside the grand department store known as the Emporium, grows up haunted by the place’s almost metaphysical allure. Like so many Wilder protagonists, he is both an innocent and a seeker, a fundamentally decent American pilgrim wandering toward a destination he only dimly understands. The Emporium itself becomes at once department store, cathedral, artistic calling, romantic ideal, and existential mirage. Wilder once described the play as “a mixture of Horatio Alger and Franz Kafka,” and the description proves hilariously apt: John’s yearning possesses the earnestness of American self-invention while the bureaucratic evasions surrounding the store carry the absurd, unknowable menace of a dream. [more]

Constance: A Confession

May 20, 2026

The evening’s pleasures derive less from narrative surprise than from tonal dexterity. Sindelar knows exactly how ridiculous this world is, but resists the temptation to become smug about it. The libretto and score gleefully catalogue the linguistic debris of internet spirituality—“divine feminine,” trauma jargon, gut-health evangelism, pseudo-mystical affirmations—yet the satire lands because it is rooted in recognizable human hunger. These characters are not fools so much as spiritually malnourished people searching for coherence in a culture that increasingly offers branding in place of meaning. [more]

The Receptionist

May 19, 2026

The Second Stage revival of Adam Bock’s "The Receptionist" first seen at Manhattan Theatre Club in 2007 appears to be more timely than ever. That may explain why is seems to shock less than it should as we have been come inured to reports of atrocities all over the world. Sarah Benson’s new production is so low-key that is possible to miss the point. But that may be the point: the banality of evil is not possible if we don’t look away when unpleasant things arise. [more]

Broken Snow

May 16, 2026

Ben Andron’s "Broken Snow" has an interesting premise: two half-brothers who never knew of the others existence meet in an abandoned house which was their father’s last known address. The father has recently died and both men want some answers to his mysterious life. In flashbacks, we meet Kris, that father, played by television star Tony Danza. Unfortunately, much of the mystery remains at the end of the play, with too much repetitious dialogue before we get where the play is going. If this had been played as an outright thriller, it might have generated some real tension. Under Colin Hanlon’s leisurely direction, the play takes too long to build up any steam. Don’t blame the three actors who have to deal with underwritten roles with too much left to our imaginations. [more]

Canciones

May 14, 2026

Inside, "Canciones" unfolds less like a play than like an actual family gathering one has somehow wandered into midway through the evening. The house hums with side conversations, overlapping instructions, beer coolers on the patio, guitars in the basement, cousins teasing one another from room to room. Guests are separated organically into shifting clusters and ushered through the home not with theatrical rigidity but with the casual hospitality of relatives making space at a crowded party. Downstairs, primo Ricky, played with irresistible warmth and improvisatory ease by Sammy Rivas, and sister-in-law Jenn, wife to brother Tommy who has a history of not making an appearance at family gatherings, played by the welcoming EJ Zimmerman, invite audience members into a basement jam session lined with wood paneling, family photographs, storage bins, and the cluttered archaeology of real domestic life. He hands out instruments from a basket on the floor, riffs on guitars, jokes about getting high with cousins, and casually points to photographs of the family’s prized mariachi heirloom hanging nearby. Jenn joins on fiddle. The realism is so granular, so socially exact, that one stops observing and simply begins participating. [more]

Come and Knock Down My Door

May 14, 2026

The directing, from Philip Cruise (Fat Cat Killers, The Sex Writer), is adequate. Cruise also plays Clark, the father of Pablo’s girlfriend Samantha – who is played by Callie Fabac (Alexandria, The Sex Writer). Cruise’ directing rarely takes any big risks, but the blocking and set placement do a fine job of communicating how cramped the apartment setting is meant to feel. The (uncredited) window setpiece and the lighting cues (lighting designer Olivia Martin) skillfully create a lot of paranoia. James’ sense of panic and loss of control is well represented through the production, with him literally having no control over who enters and leaves the apartment for much of the play. The directing is competent – dutifully carrying out the vision of a deeply muddled script. [more]

73 Seconds

May 11, 2026

The title refers to the catastrophic 73 seconds between the Challenger’s launch and explosion, and Mezzocchi turns those seconds into the play’s governing existential paradox. Had Rosemary not become pregnant, might she have boarded that shuttle instead? The playwright comes to see himself simultaneously as the force that prevented his mother’s cosmic aspirations and the accidental reason she survived. Few memoir plays confront the absurd intimacy between guilt and gratitude with such honesty. The production recognizes how families construct themselves around contingencies so enormous they become nearly impossible to contemplate directly. Mezzocchi’s very existence becomes entangled with one of the most traumatic public tragedies of the 20th century. [more]

Othello (Bedlam)

May 11, 2026

There might be some advantages to a stripped-down version of a William Shakespeare play with fewer characters for small theater companies on a tight budget but Eric Tucker’s Bedlam production of "Othello" hasn’t found it. Reduced to four actors playing all the roles, this effort reaches its limit when in the last scene after Susannah Hoffman’s Desdemona and Susannah Millonzi’s Emilia lie dead, they have to stand up and become Michael Cassio, formerly lieutenant and now general of the Venetian Army in Cyprus, and Lodovico, emissary from the Venetian court, respectively, as there are no other actors to play these parts. It is also unconvincing watching Ryan Quinn’s Othello dropping his blue button-down shirt to his shoulders as a shawl and playing Bianca, Cassio’s Cyprus girlfriend, when we have just seen him as the hero of Shakespeare’s tragedy. This production demonstrates that Shakespeare’s "Othello" might be played with six or eight actors, but not four. [more]

The Balusters

May 4, 2026

Following in the footsteps of Joshua Spector’s "Eureka Day" and Tracy Letts’ "The Minutes," also stories of local community service groups, David Lindsay-Abaire’s hilarious satire "The Balusters" is simply the best new play of the 2025-26 season. Set at a series of meetings of the Vernon Point Neighborhood Association in a landmarked enclave of an East Coast city, the pointed dialogue skewers liberals who really want to maintain the status quo as well as their white privilege. Hypocrisies abound as the nine members discuss local issues that stir up a great deal of heated debate as well as revealing their personal biases, while little change actually gets voted on. Director Kenny Leon’s terrific ensemble cast is led by Tony Award-winner Anika Noni Rose and Emmy Award-winner Richard Thomas, and the play also reunites the author with Marylouise Burke who has created roles in his "Fuddy Meers," "Wonder of the World" and "Kimberly Akimbo." [more]

The Door Slams, A Glass Trembles

May 4, 2026

Inspired in part by "he Magic Mountain," Thomas Mann’s 1924 meditation on illness and temporality, Zimet’s play borrows not its plot but its sensibility: the peculiar dilation and contraction of time as it is lived, remembered, and imagined. Like Mann’s sanatorium-bound protagonist, Zimet’s characters find themselves suspended in a liminal zone where past, present, and future bleed into one another with disorienting grace. The result is not mere homage but a vivid reanimation of Mann’s central insight—that time, far from being fixed, is a profoundly subjective medium. [more]

Proof

May 3, 2026

Thomas Kail’s elegant and polished production now at the Booth Theatre (probably the best Broadway venues for dramas) has recast the family as African American and it works just as well – if not better - than the original production in which the family was white. Two stars from the world of film and television – Ayo Edebiri (Chef Sydney on "The Bear") and Don Cheadle ("Devil in a Blue Dress," "Crash," "Hotel Rwanda," "Traffic," etc.) – make their Broadway debuts and take to it like a duck to water. In addition, the remarkable Kara Young, nominated for the Tony Award the last four years and winning two in the last two years in a row, plays the supporting role of the sister with the assurance we have seen in her previously. [more]

Beauty Freak

May 2, 2026

What lingers, long after the final moments—which are, indeed, superb—is not a tidy judgment but a series of disquieting questions. Clements refuses the comfort of easy condemnation, even as he lays bare the cost of moral evasion. Riefenstahl emerges neither exonerated nor simplified, but as a figure whose brilliance and blindness are inseparable. The play does not ask us to forgive her; it asks us to understand how such a figure could exist, and, more provocatively, what it means that she did. [more]

The Bad Daters

May 2, 2026

Derek Murphy’s "The Bad Daters" arrives Off Broadway from Ireland and the United Kingdom with the unassuming air of a chamber piece and the stealthy force of something far more piercing: a romantic comedy that has the good sense to distrust romance, and the better sense to proceed anyway. Murphy, an Ireland-born New Yorker with an ear for the bruised lyricism of everyday speech, has fashioned from the well-trod terrain of app-based courtship a work of surprising delicacy and cumulative emotional power. Under Colm Summers’ exquisitely modulated direction, and animated by two performances of uncommon acuity from Kate Arrington and Shane McNaughton, the production unfolds with a patience that feels almost radical, allowing its jagged edges to soften—though never quite smooth—into something like grace. [more]

Love Story

May 1, 2026

Where past and present commingle—as they so insistently do in a play like "Love Story"—the burden falls squarely on the director to furnish the audience with a legible temporal grammar. Without such guidance, fragmentation risks reading not as intentional lyricism but as simple confusion. Here, despite the production’s many sensitivities, that grammar is not always clearly articulated. Judging by the palpable hesitations in audience response—the delayed laughter, the uncertain silences—it takes an inordinate number of transitions before one fully apprehends a crucial fact: that Maria is already dead at the top of the play. This is not, in itself, a flaw; dramatic revelation can be a powerful tool. But the production does not so much reveal this reality as obscure it, leaving spectators to assemble the timeline retroactively, often at the expense of emotional continuity. [more]

Dreamcats!

April 30, 2026

Fans of feminist science fiction and revisionist fairy tales will find much to recognize in playwright Charlotte Lily Gaspard's new work. Set on a planet ruled by intelligent and mighty creatures called "Dreamcats," the play features a rebellious feline princess played with gusto by Gaspard herself. Intellectually courageous, the Princess has a secret plan to challenge the belief that her planet is the best of all possible worlds--a sacrosanct tenet that no Dreamcat has dared to investigate, still less to refute. Her project envisions comparing all the planets, but how can this be done when hardly any data on them is available? (The one map of the galaxy she has found was under wraps.) [more]

Kenrex

April 30, 2026

There are evenings in the theatre when the air seems to tighten, as though the room itself has drawn a breath it cannot quite release. Such is the case with "Kenrex," a work of unnerving command and cumulative force, written by Jack Holden and Ed Stambollouian, and directed by the latter with a vigilance that borders on the prosecutorial. What begins as a seemingly familiar excursion into the annals of American true crime—its outlines recognizable, its destination foreknown—steadily transforms into something far more disquieting: a communal autopsy, conducted in real time, of a place where the mechanisms of justice have not merely failed but quietly abdicated. [more]

Rheology

April 25, 2026

"Rheology" previously seen at Brooklyn’s Bushwick Starr in the spring of 2025 has reopened at Playwrights Horizons and proves to be a unique meta-theatrical experience with both performers, a real mother and son, theoretical physicists Bulbul Chakraborty and writer/director Shayok Misha Chowdhury (Pulitzer Prize finalist for "Public Obscenities"), appearing as themselves. Written and directed by Chowdhury in association with Chakraborty, Rheology begins as a physics TED talk on sand as “capricious matter” (Bulbul’s field) then switches to a demonstration of stage directing (Misha’s field), and finally becomes a metaphysical discussion on life and death tying the two together. This is an unusual theatrical presentation, one you will ponder for a long time to come. [more]

The Adding Machine

April 24, 2026

Among Bradshaw’s revisions are the use of a narrator, reducing the original cast list from 25 to four, adding an intermission, updating some of the slang to contemporary speech, and having its protagonist Mr. Zero played by a woman instead of a man. The effect of all of these changes is that the play now runs longer than it used to, and the long monologues are still in evidence and become rather tedious. The new version still includes some of the protagonist’s racist rant in the trial scene. Few of these changes make the play any better or more relevant today. [more]

Fallen Angels

April 23, 2026

It’s therefore a delight to see two such skilled actresses as Byrne and O’Hara, both using ultra-posh accents, willing to play against their striking beauty to get laughs, demonstrating both physical dexterity and perfect timing. At first, it seems as if everyone, the stars included, is trying express some stereotypical notion of what being in a Coward comedy requires, from the ultra-sophisticated speech, mannerisms, and elevated tone, and it takes a few minutes to begin seeing through the self-consciously lacquered veneer to the characters inside. Although Coward now and then comes through with a bon mot matching his reputation, much of the laughter is generated by throwaway comments and responses, gestures, facial expressions, and bodily reactions. Ellis creates amusing business with props, like long cigarette holders, and food, like strawberries. What Byrne does with a slinky green gown and veil, using her elegant slimness to visually hysterical advantage, will long remain in my memory, just as will the image of the glamorously blonde O’Hara, flopped upside down over a club chair as she ever so slowly slides down it to the floor. [more]

The Fear of 13

April 22, 2026

Renowned theatrical spoilsport Bertolt Brecht decried the stupefying effect of catharsis. By contrast, the new Broadway offering The Fear of 13 revels in it. Adapting liberally from British filmmaker David Sington's 2015 documentary of the same name, playwright Lindsey Ferrentino turns the true story of Nick Yarris--a Pennsylvania man who served an unjust 22-year death row sentence for rape and murder--into something that feels decidedly less true. Admittedly, Ferrentino adheres to the basic facts of Nick's brutal mistreatment, but, with the masterful assistance of director David Cromer, packages them into an easily digested and forgettable form. [more]

Lost in Del Valle

April 21, 2026

Van Zandt is a cyclone that tears through the intimate confines of SoHo Playhouse’s Huron Club, detonating with the force of lived experience refined into art. What might, in lesser hands, resemble a familiar confessional is here transformed into something far more volatile and exacting: a darkly comic, genre-defying work that refuses containment even as it unfolds within a single body onstage. Van Zandt’s performance achieves the rare feat of appearing both recklessly spontaneous and meticulously controlled. He moves through the evening with a muscular precision, shifting registers and emotional temperatures with such fluency that the boundaries between character, narrator, and witness begin to dissolve. It is acting of a high order—technically exacting, yet fueled by something that feels perilously close to exposure. [more]

Death of a Salesman

April 20, 2026

As you may have read, a lot of critics are saying that “attention must be paid” to the sixth Broadway revival of "Death of a Salesman," Arthur Miller’s 1949 “tragedy of the common man,” innovatively directed by Joe Mantello at the Winter Garden. Indeed, it is an attention‑getting, nearly three-hour mounting, led by sterling performances from Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf as Willy and Linda Loman, and Christopher Abbott and Ben Ahlers as their sons, Biff and Happy. My companion was so moved when it ended she could barely speak. I was impressed but with tearless results. [more]

Flo

April 16, 2026

The show’s titular character, Flo Weinberg, is a wheelchair-bound Upper West Side resident who decides to make a deal with Satan – in exchange for her soul, she can have fame, wealth, and happiness. The final part, happiness, proves to be a difficult sticking point, and the two bicker over what happiness exactly means and how one achieves it. Toby Armour’s ("Freedom Summer," "Meltdown") script is wickedly clever, full of recurring jokes and fascinating religious themes. There’s an undercurrent of gnosticism to the play’s narrative, one that works impressively well with the show’s tone. "Flo" is a comedy at heart, but one that engages seriously with larger ideas even as it commits to being quite wacky. [more]

Titus Andronicus

April 14, 2026

While 'Titus Andronicus" is not for the squeamish, it has definite importance in Shakespeare’s canon showing us where he started, how he was influenced by his contemporaries, and how he developed later. Jesse Berger’s exciting and swiftly moving production is riveting at all times, not only keeping the energy up but keeping the play surprising as it develops. As we suspected from Patrick Page’s one-man Shakespeare play, he is an asset to any Elizabethan production and leads a compelling cast. This may not be your cup of tea but you will not be bored for a second, even though you may be startled or shocked. [more]

The Pushover

April 12, 2026

Di Zou as Pearl and Rebecca De Mornay as Evelyn in a scene from John Patrick Shanley’s “The [more]

Nicole Travolta Is Doing Alright

April 12, 2026

Nicole Travolta, a member of the famous Hollywood family, has turned her life into a one-woman show that is introducing her to the New York stage. "Nicole Travolta is Doing Alright" is an entertaining and humorous tale of a girl who grew up in Los Angeles and then found herself as a teenager in Florida when her parents moved there. Co-written with Paula Christensen, it is also a cautionary tale about how not to grow up when on your own. Travolta is an animated, vivacious performer in telling her life story up until now. She recounts her adventures with credit card debt, divorce by age 30 and becoming a spray tan artiste which eventually straightened out her finances. Now at age 40, she has finally learned the error of her ways. [more]

Scorched Earth

April 12, 2026

In Luke Murphy’s astonishing "Scorched Earth," a vitality is rendered with a ferocity that feels at once ancient and bracingly new. Murphy, working under the banner of his multidisciplinary company Attic Projects, has fashioned a work that does not so much adapt John B. Keane’s play "The Field" (which went on to great acclaim in the landmark film starring Richard Harris) as detonate it—scattering its themes across a landscape of dance, film, sound, and theatrical invention, and then reassembling them into something hypnotic and wholly its own. [more]

Becky Shaw

April 10, 2026

Gionfriddo’s play, which runs nearly two and a half hours, is directed with finely calibrated control by Trip Cullman. It’s a tart, unsettling, and often wickedly funny examination of the emotional minefields that define modern intimacy. At its center is the seemingly innocuous act of a blind date, but as in so many comedies of manners, what begins as social ritual quickly metastasizes into something darker, probing the uneasy intersections of manipulation, vulnerability, and power. [more]

Public Charge

April 8, 2026

If you ever wondered what it is really like to work in the corridors of power, "Public Charge" based on the political career of Julissa Reynoso, an idealistic diplomat who was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere under Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Ambassador to Uruguay during President Obama’s second term, will give you an excellent idea. Written with playwright Michael J. Chepiga, the world premiere production of "Public Charge" now at The Public Theater is a fascinating account of attempting to make change in a bureaucracy whose very policies keep anything from happening. Told by someone who lived it, it is all true as far as we know. Under Doug Hughes’ robust and forceful direction, the play is never didactic or too dense, making us feel we are living the events as Julissa encountered them. [more]

Desi SNL

April 8, 2026

For all its incremental gestures toward inclusivity, "Saturday Night Live"—now improbably in its 51st season—has remained curiously bereft of a regular South Asian cast member, a lacuna that feels less like oversight than inertia. Desi SNL, an ensemble-driven sketch revue, cheekily appropriating the familiar architecture of "Saturday Night Live"—the opening monologue, the mock-news desk, the parade of quick-change characters—and refitting it with a distinctly South Asian sensibility, performed by an entirely South Asian ensemble, arrives not so much to fill that absence as to gleefully upend it, at once affectionate and insurgent. What emerges is not mere pastiche but a lively act of cultural translation: a show that gleefully inhabits the grammar of American late-night comedy while infusing it with the textures, tensions, and tonalities of diaspora life. [more]

Uncle Vanya, scenes from country life

April 7, 2026

The narrative architecture of "Vanya"—its languors, its longings—is assumed, even beside the point. In its essence, this distilled adaptation unfolds less as a conventional staging than as a kind of theatrical mixtape, an assemblage both deliberate and mischievous, in which the familiar architecture of this oft-performed play is artfully dismantled and recomposed. Scenes arrive out of their expected sequence, as though guided by emotional rather than narrative logic, while character motivations are subjected to a searching reconsideration—some gently refracted, others boldly reconfigured—yielding a work that feels at once recognizably rooted and thrillingly unmoored. What Dmitry Krymov has fashioned instead is a kind of theatrical palimpsest, a dream-logic fantasia in which the gravitational center is unmistakably Yelena, that luminous and unwitting axis of desire (much to the dismay of Vanya). One might, without doing violence to the enterprise, retitle Krymov’s audacious, dreamlike reimagining of Chekhov’s inexhaustible classic evening: "All Roads Lead to Yelena." [more]

The Last Audition

April 7, 2026

There is, in "The Last Audition," something almost defiantly modest—a chamber piece of sorrow that refuses the grandiloquence of tragedy even as it circles one. The play, a solo vehicle of hushed ambitions, written by and starring Paul Shearman, sensitively directed by David St John, unfolds like a fading echo in an empty theater, its emotional register pitched not to catharsis but to the quieter, more unsettling key of recognition. It is, at heart, a drama about diminishment—of memory, of stature, of self—and yet it proceeds with a delicacy that feels, in its way, like a form of grace. [more]

Jesa

March 31, 2026

The dominant form of American theater since Edward Albee’s "Who’s Afraid of Virigina Woolf?" has been the dysfunctional family drama of which there have been countless such plays. The newest one, Jeena Yi’s debut play "Jesa" presented by Ma Yi Theater Company in residence at The Public Theater, adds a new wrinkle. This time the family is Korean American and the cast is all women, four sisters to be exact who meet to perform their parents’ jesa. Jesa is a Korean ceremony honoring the dead on the anniversary of their passing that includes food, ritual and requesting their blessings. It is this ceremony that brings together the four estranged for the first time in a long time, the first time they are honoring their mother who died a year ago. [more]

The Unknown

March 30, 2026

Hayes proves wholly persuasive, gliding among a gallery of supporting figures (Hayes delineates 11 distinct characters with astonishing lucidity, his transitions so fluid they seem almost instinctive, even as the narrative around them grows increasingly clouded and labyrinthine.) with a lightness that never calls attention to its own virtuosity. As Elliott, he is coolly, almost disquietingly composed, revealing only the briefest fissures beneath a meticulously maintained façade—a man who seems able to exist only in the telling of stories, never quite as himself. [more]

Antigone (This Play I Read in High School)

March 30, 2026

The world premiere of Anna Ziegler’s new play, "Antigone (This Play I Read in High School)" now at The Public Theater, is one of four ambitious attempts to update Sophocles’ tragedy playing in New York this spring. However, Ziegler overburdens her version with three separate stories which vie for our attention: a contemporary woman who read the play in high school and has admired its heroine ever since, Sophocles’ version of the Greek myth, and the one that takes up the most time in this play, a modern Antigone who has a different beef with the state. What Ziegler is really after is a Post-Roe v. Wade story about a woman who goes against the new abortion laws of her country. Unfortunately, Sophocles’ original plot as a sequel to "Oedipus Rex" and "Oedipus at Colonus" doesn’t really work with this contemporary social context. Tyne Rafaeli’s direction suggests that at any moment one of the scenes will catch fire but, unfortunately, they never do. [more]

Antigone in Analysis

March 30, 2026

Yet the production proves curiously reluctant to pursue the implications of its own provocations. The philosophers, rather than evolving into distinct and dynamically opposed sensibilities, settle into the dramatic equivalent of bullet points. Kierkegaard cleaves to divine absolutism; Hegel dismisses women with a glib reductionism; Lacan invokes madness as a universal solvent; Irigaray insists upon feminine multiplicity; Butler reiterates the performativity of gender. These positions are announced, then reiterated, but seldom interrogated or transformed. What might have been a dialectic becomes a recitation. [more]

Bughouse

March 29, 2026

John Kelly in a scene from Martha Clarke and Beth Henley’s “Bughouse” at the Vineyard Theatre [more]

Giant

March 27, 2026

It doesn’t matter that this debate never took place because, aside from an overly contrived moment regarding Jessie’s copy of Dahl's review, it’s plausible enough to believe in, and it makes for a memorably dramatic, politically hot stage confrontation. In the second act, things cool down dramatically as Dahl, perhaps showing self-doubt, begins to question even the serving girl and the old retainer on what to do; perhaps we’re meant to feel a sliver of sympathy for him. [more]

Ivanov

March 26, 2026

New American Ensemble may be young, but this production announces a company of rare precision and ambition. Every element—the mulch underfoot, the bar at your shoulder, the dead tree overhead—feels deliberate, considered, necessary. In a theatrical landscape often defined by haste, such care is not merely admirable. This true theatre company in every sense of the word is most welcome and we look forward to productions in their future. [more]

Touch

March 24, 2026

In "Touch," a work of disarming modesty and unnerving emotional precision, a life that has been carefully tamped down begins, almost imperceptibly, to leak. The play, written by Kenny Finkle, sensitively directed by Jonathan Silverstein, and performed with aching lucidity by Anthony Rapp, takes as its subject a man whose disappointments have calcified into habit, and whose sense of self—once animated by artistic ambition—has settled into something quieter, if no less fraught. There is, at first glance, something almost perversely austere about Touch: Rapp, seated for 90 uninterrupted minutes, inhabiting the brittle interiority of a middle-aged gay man whose emotional register oscillates between panic, irritation, and quiet devastation. And yet the experience proves not merely engaging, but quietly transfixing. Its modesty is its method, its intimacy, its force. [more]

Every Brilliant Thing

March 22, 2026

In persistently hopeful defiance of its heavy subject matter, the show strives for lightness. That's largely achieved thanks to Radcliffe's affability, which also swiftly inoculates the audience against his celebrity and lessens the chance for the type of slack-jawed fawning that might grind the proceedings to a halt. But Radcliffe isn't permitted to completely shed his fame, because, in lieu of a fully fledged character, "Every Brilliant Thing" desperately needs it as the engaging force to both form and conduct the "choir." That means, to some unknowable extent, Radcliffe must remain Radcliffe. [more]

Burnout Paradise

March 22, 2026

"Burnout Paradise" is the most unique show in New York right now and enormous fun. A sort of athletic performance piece, it is also an interactive circus competition. Four members from the Australian theater collective Pony Cam perform on treadmills in four sets of 12-minute sessions each while performing set tasks and have to beat their own previous record while completing all the tasks. Genial hostess Ava Campbell explains the rules, keeps time, sells merchandise and serves Gatorade to lucky theatergoers. If the performers do not beat their previous record, audience members can request their money back. However, the show is so much fun that you will have had your money’s worth by the end no matter what the final score. In any case, the performers do collectively run about 17 miles before the evening is over. [more]

Entangled: 12 Scenes in a Circle K off the I-40 in New Mexico

March 20, 2026

In "Entangled:12 Scenes in a Circle K off the I-40 in New Mexico," the beguiling and philosophically mischievous collaboration between Mona Mansour and Emily Zemba, the American desert becomes less a landscape than a condition of thought—a place where the ordinary laws governing time, consequence, and human attachment appear to have loosened their grip. Set in the fluorescent limbo of a Circle K somewhere in the New Mexico expanse—30 miles from the nearest outpost of civilization, and perilously close to both an atomic testing site and a nuclear laboratory—the play hums with a low-grade metaphysical dread that it wears, with admirable restraint, as comedy. [more]

Trash

March 19, 2026

James Caverly and Andew Morrill’s Trash is a provocative play about two late 20s deaf roommates who have nothing in common except sharing an apartment. However, what is most intriguing about Trash is that it told in multiple ways. As the main characters are both deaf, they use American Sign Language to communicate. As a concession to hearing audiences, some of the dialogue is projected on three walls facing the audience. Still more unusual, there is a jukebox on stage (played by Chris Ogren) which, when fed with dollar bills, translates the ASL into spoken speech. When the lead characters really want us to know what is being said they use this method. However, this is only used partially. Much of the play is told only in ASL but Caverly and Morrill are so adept (and so dramatic) at it that we often feel like we know exactly what they are saying. They also use white boards which they hold up for all to see for simple statements or questions to the audience which sometimes require answers. [more]

Spare Parts

March 14, 2026

What begins as a satirical clash between corporate swagger and academic idealism gradually deepens into a more unsettling inquiry. The play’s true subject, it turns out, is not merely the arrogance of billionaires but the universal temptation to trespass upon the limits of the body. Humanity, after all, has always been drawn toward transgression—whether through cosmetic surgery, pharmaceutical enhancement, or the relentless drive to improve the species one experiment at a time. [more]

Zack

March 14, 2026

While not the classic that "Hobson’s Choice" has become, Harold Brighouse’s follow-up play "Zack" proves to be a charming Edwardian comedy drama in the Mint Theater Company’s production which may be the first full New York production since 1916. Ironically, Zack has a great many things in common with "Hobson’s Choice" probably best known from the awarding-winning 1954 Sir David Lean film with Charles Laughton, John Mills, Brenda da Banzie and Prunella Scales. Britt Berke’s production glosses over the play’s deficiencies by keeping this middle-class comedy of manners going at quite a clip. While "Zack" shares many elements with "Hobson’s Choice," the two plays are very different, variations on a theme: a strong woman who saves the hero from his weaknesses, siblings who are against seeing the strength of an unambitious person, a parent who is both dominating and dogmatic, and a happy ending for the leading characters. However, both are based on the theme of the “worm turning.” [more]

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