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Mia Pak

Girl, Interrupted

June 8, 2026

The Public Theater's adaptation of "Girl, Interrupted" is billed as a play with music. Curiously, the show isn't simply advertised as a musical--or as a concept album with lots of free-associative liner notes. Based on Susanna Kaysen's fragmented memoir about her 18 months of psychiatric confinement in the late 1960s, the production juxtaposes, rather than blends, the labors of iconic songwriter Aimee Mann and Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist Martyna Majok. This approach allows each artist to pursue her own creativity while sparing director Jo Bonney from having to narratively merge their idiosyncratic contributions. It apparently explains, too, why "Girl, Interrupted" isn't officially a musical, since Mann's score doesn't have to push the plot forward--though, in fairness, Majok isn't worried about doing that on the script side, either. [more]

Three Houses

May 25, 2024

Someone once coined the adage, “Write what you know.” For the past few seasons, we have seen many writers have a lot to say about surviving the Covid lockdown, but none so eloquently as Dave Malloy in "Three Houses." Where there is often the sameness in the stories we’ve heard thus far, Malloy chooses to give us three not so disparate individuals each with a particular heartbreaking loneliness. All three tales are prefaced “so this is the story of how i went a little bit crazy living alone in the pandemic.” Where aloneness is ripe for scenes that are maudlin, Malloy setting these tales to music is rapture. [more]