Alicia Pilgrim

The Wash

June 7, 2025

Smith’s script, which is heartily laden with day-to-day chatter and feels slightly long, still finds perfect opportunities to divulge important messages about friendship, love, empowerment, loyalty, dignity, and perseverance. The play's conclusion is heartwarming, although there is a missed opportunity for rejoicing, when the ultimate success of the strike is written to occur between scenes. Director Awoye Timpo and dramaturg Arminda Thomas expertly weave the energy of the actors and their keenly intentional listening into a compelling tapestry. Though minimal, the opening choreography by Adesola Osakalumi and Jill M. Vallery is striking; this, and the few instances of singing spur the imagination with thoughts of what a great musical could be born from this material. [more]

I’m Revolting

October 5, 2022

There are two truisms in life in addition to the one about death and taxes: it takes all kinds of people to make a world and something will get everyone in the end. The world premiere of Gracie Gardner’s "I’m Revolting" beautifully proves both points. A sensitive and perceptive play set in the waiting room of a private New York City skin cancer clinic, the play introduces us to all walks of people and many reactions to medical reports. The ensemble cast includes several veteran actors (Laura Esterman, Glenn Fitzgerald, Peter Gerety and Patrice Johnson Chevannes) and several not so well known faces. Knud Adams’ direction is subtle and unobtrusive allowing life to pass on the Linda Gross stage of the Atlantic Theater Company. [more]

Cullud Wattah

November 27, 2021

All of us are probably aware of the problems of polluted water in Flint, Michigan, owing to civic neglect. However, it might shock you to know that it is still going on. Erika Dickerson-Despenza’s 2021 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize winning play, "Cullud Wattah," takes on this crisis through the prism of one family of three generations of Black women living in the same house. The material is powerful and explosive. We learn a great deal about the crisis as well as see how it personally affects all five of these women in one family. Director Candis C. Jones has obtained the kind of performances from her ensemble cast that makes you feel that these actresses have lived and worked together for years when they may have never met before now. [more]