Carsen Joenk

oh, Honey

October 23, 2025

Under Carsen Joenk’s clean, clever direction, Scotti’s writing finds a delicate equilibrium — biting, funny, and deeply humane. The quartet of women are precisely dressed by designer Iliana Paris — Lu (played with steely authority and a glint of battle-worn wisdom by Dee Pelletier), Bianca (played as a confection — all sugar, charm, and the gentle fizz of conviviality — yet beneath that polished surface something acrid brews, by Jamie Ragusa), Vicki (Karo, radiating a pitch-perfect, Aquarius-inflected, “healing crystal” chaos), and Sarah (Mara Stephens) — are not friends, as Lu icily reminds us. “We can’t talk to real friends about this crap,” she declares. “They already talk enough shit about us behind our backs.” This crap, we soon learn, is the devastating, unshareable truth they orbit: each has a son accused of sexual assault. [more]

Garside’s Career

February 28, 2025

While Dickson’s production is elegant and pitch-perfect for its 1914 era, the characterizations are partly satiric and off base. While Daniel Marconi is fine as the designing, unprincipled and power-hungry Peter, he seems to be playing him as a comic character with a wink in his eye though there is no evidence in the play that Brighouse intended this. Madeline Seidman’s Margaret is rather bland, failing to show us what Peter first saw in her. As his mother, Amelia White is almost as ambitious and designing a social climber as her son. The most problematic characterizations are those of the aristocrats who are all played too broadly, rather than true to the period. As Lady Mottram, Melissa Maxwell is almost a gorgon out of Oscar Wilde rather than simply a high class snobbish member of the gentry. Sara Haider’s Gladys fails to give off the kind of signals that would tell Peter she is interested in him, while Avery Whitted as her brother Freddie is practically one of the those silly-ass men of leisure out of P.G. Wodehouse. [more]

you don’t have to do anything

February 15, 2024

"you don’t have to do anything" written by Ryan Drake is a story that explores a gay man’s coming of age from the time he was in seventh grade until graduating from college. It is set in the period when cell phone and computer messaging were becoming more prevalent. The central theme of the production is the psycho-social impact of homosexuality from a young man’s adolescence into his early twenties. Ryan Dobrin's direction is effective, given the nuanced presentation of the central theme with dialogue that suggests misinterpretation of events and misunderstandings of emotional content. [more]

The Great Novel

June 19, 2019

The perennial tale of a noble servant exploited by a self-absorbed upper class family is given a bewildering and tedious treatment by playwright Amina Henry in "The Great Novel." It’s an enervating 95 minute mashup of lesser Ionesco with helpings of Wes Anderson and the visual style of John Singer Sargent. [more]

#yourmemorial

May 14, 2019

The black-accented stage has a raised runway platform, a square platform, a bench and some furniture. From these basic elements, scenic designer Susannah Hyde crafts an ideal landscape for this non-realistic piece that allows its times and locations to shift smoothly. Ms. Hyde’s outstanding projection design of social media imagery and illustrative photos is shown on the stage’s back wall.Resourcefully working on a minimalist level, director Emily Lyon achieves fluidity, some lovely stage pictures and the fine performances with her inspired staging. Sammy Jelinek’s dreamy lighting design and Carsen Joenk’s beating sound design contribute to an otherworldly dimension. [more]