Andrew R. Butler

The Potluck

July 15, 2026

César Alvarez's "The Potluck," directed with uncommon daring by Sarah Benson, is that increasingly rare theatrical achievement: a musical willing to risk confusion, contradiction, and formal unruliness in pursuit of emotional and historical truth. Inspired by the 1979 Greensboro Massacre—in which members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party, aided by astonishing failures of law enforcement, murdered five labor organizers during an anti-Klan demonstration—the production refuses to transform political martyrdom into tidy historical pageantry. Instead, Alvarez, in concert with Benson's characteristically adventurous theatrical imagination, constructs an expansive meditation on inheritance, memory, identity, and the uneasy obligations of art itself. The result is not documentary theater, nor autobiography, nor agitprop, nor conventional musical comedy, but an exhilarating synthesis of all four. It unfolds less as a linear narrative than as an act of excavation, uncovering the ways political violence reverberates through generations long after headlines have faded. [more]

Stereophonic

April 27, 2024

David Adjmi’s "Stereophonic" at the Golden Theatre, a transfer under the auspices of Playwrights Horizons, is a minutely detailed, almost minute-by-minute recreation of a recording session by a rock band, purportedly based on Fleetwood Mac’s creation of its epic album "Rumours" in 1976. (Adjmi has denied that this was his inspiration, claiming that the show has an amalgam of sources.) [more]

Stereophonic

November 7, 2023

Not since Stephen Sondheim’s "Sunday in the Park with George" have “civilians” gotten so close to the creative individual’s “process” when attending a theater piece. David Adjmi’s "Stereophonic" is an intensely personal work that examines the creation of a rock album, a group’s follow-up to a late-blooming debut, in the very competitive music scene of the 1970’s. As the characters in the play have been compared to the celebrated Fleetwood Mac members in many articles appearing before the opening of this production, it’s safe to say this is an exquisite fantasia on the creation of the now-legendary rock masterpiece known as "Rumours," an album firmly in Rolling Stone Magazine’s Top 10 of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” [more]

Rags Parkland Sings the Songs of the Future

October 17, 2018

For the first 25 minutes, the bushy red-bearded, receding with flowing hair Mr. Butler appears solo performing a series of his delightful songs. Butler superbly plays the banjo, guitar and harmonica as he conveys a Cat Stevens, Arlo Guthrie and Bob Dylan vibe. Then the ensemble joins him for a serious and light-hearted tuneful enactment. [more]

Folk Wandering

March 6, 2018

They’re friends in the present. Someone picks up yellowed newspaper articles from the past. Then we’re in New York City’s Lower East Side in 1911. We meet the spunky 13-year-old Roselia. She is the daughter of immigrants and her goal is to become a muckraking journalist. An exposé of the local butcher was one of her scoops that have been published. Her older sister is to marry a genial young man. Her parents are very affectionate but due to their hardscrabble circumstances it’s decided that after her impending 14th birthday, Roselia will leave school to join her mother and sister in working in a garment factory to bring in more money to the family. This heartbreaking thread is the most substantive, affective and dramatic of the three tales. The girlish and luminous Lena Hudson makes a great impact as Roselia. Kate Loprest’s practical but maternal characterization of the mother is perfect. “The House on Ludlow Street” is a haunting song that is woven through the narrative. [more]

The White Stag Quadrilogy

February 20, 2016

An element of "The White Stag Quadrilogy" which cannot go overlooked is the amount of dancing incorporated into the production. In lieu of proper production techniques, Wolfert and company instead choose to depict stags parading across the desert, or eagles flying through the sky, by way of “interpretive” dancing. Enlisting the staff of the Plaza Michelle for this purpose, the dancing trio of Derek Smith, Michelle Uranowitz, and Jaime Wright are together a band of merry misfits who revel in their undulating, gyrating, style of dance (choreographed in hilariously gratuitous fashion by Chloe Kernaghan). Referred to on multiple occasions by Wolfert as “trained professionals,” the self-aware ensemble is a recurring aspect of the play which is, time and time again—and again, hilarious. [more]