Anna Ziegler

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]

Theatre Now’s Astonishing! Gala 2025

November 10, 2025

Honoring three women reshaping the American musical: Mindi Dickstein, Lisa Lambert and Anna K. Jacobs.Hosted with radiant humor by Taylor Iman Jones, the evening celebrated women and nonbinary musical-theatre writers, with performances by Isabelle McCalla, Kyra Kennedy, Claire Kwon, Afra Sophia Tully, and Jones herself. Songs rose through the oak-paneled hall like light through stained glass. [more]

The Wanderers

February 21, 2023

The latest play to reach New York by Anna Ziegler, author of 'Photography 51," "Boy," "The Last Match" and "Actually," has a complicated structure she appears to have invented. "The Wanderers," her fascinating study of faith, love and fulfillment, parallels two Jewish couples a generation apart who appear to have been each other’s destiny (the Jewish concept of “bashert”) but who do not seem to be able to live together successfully. The play also has an email correspondence between a celebrated and controversial novelist and a Hollywood film star played by Katie Holmes, who really is a Hollywood film star. Barry Edelstein who also directed the play’s world premiere at The Old Globe theatre in San Diego keeps the separate parts bubbling along but without achieving the depth of character that the play implies. [more]

Boy

March 15, 2016

In his widely produced 1977 play," The Elephant Man," Bernard Pomerance employed the theatrical device of having the grotesque John Merrick portrayed by an actor (invariably a handsome one) without makeup. "Boy" is similar in that the magnetic Bobby Steggert plays Samantha and later Adam without any external differentiation. Acclaimed for his New York City appearances in such musicals as "Yank" and the 2009 Broadway revival of "Ragtime," as well as the Terence McNally play "Mothers and Sons," Mr. Steggert here delivers a powerful performance. Low-key yet animated, he commandingly conveys all of the anguish and endurance of the character with heartbreaking effect. His characterization is particularly outstanding considering he alternates between being a child, an adolescent and an adult throughout the play. Each permutation is depicted with absolute focus. [more]

A Delicate Ship

September 7, 2015

Anna Ziegler’s "A Delicate Ship" is an intelligent, intensely absorbing play that treats its three thirty-something characters like chess pieces moving warily about Reid Thompson’s raised platform apartment set, floating amidst a rock garden which becomes a life-sized game board. [more]

Ensemble Studio Theatre’s 35th Marathon of New One-Act Plays: Series A

May 24, 2015

Founded in 1968, this theater company is, “…committed to the discovery and nurturing of new voices, and the continued support and growth of artists throughout their creative lives.” Ensemble Studio Theatre's 35th Marathon of New One-Act Plays: Series A fulfills this noble goal with its enticing and often quite remarkable variety of works. Series B and Series C will follow and all will run through several dates in June. [more]