Ta'Rea Campbell Archives - TheaterScene.net

Ta’Rea Campbell

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]

Stranger Things: The First Shadow

April 30, 2025

"Stranger Things: The First Shadow" concludes with a Netflix joke that, besides being pretty funny, also represents a bit of chest-thumping for the play's outsized number of developers who manage to successfully blur the line between theater and television. Whether that's a good thing is a matter of taste, or a lack of it, but there's no denying that "Stranger Things: The First Shadow," which has journeyed from the West End to Broadway, is exactly the type of experience it wants to be: immersive; scary; and, even if you've never seen an episode of the streaming series from whence it comes, familiar. That's because, imaginatively befitting its source material, the play is a storytelling stew of cultural callbacks that owes a debt--presumably unpaid-- to Stephen King, Wes Craven, and other unsettling shapers of Gen-X childhoods. [more]

The Hills of California

October 16, 2024

In a theatrical era when "full-length" works often fail to exceed 90 minutes, the English playwright Jez Butterworth dares to dubiously dramatize for approximately twice that span. His previous Broadway epic, "The Ferryman," conflated The Troubles with anachronistic paganism, a disturbed old woman's fear of banshees, and lots of boozing, earning Butterworth much critical acclaim, as well as Olivier and Tony Awards, for this bold mix of pretentiousness and unabashed Irish stereotyping. "The Hills of California," Butterworth's latest overhyped synthetic slog teeming with underdeveloped characters, is basically a tale of two postwar entertainment cities: Los Angeles, the world's dream capital, and Blackpool, England, a fading resort town that's become uniquely fit for delusions. [more]