Friday, November 21, 2025
Dear Diary LOL is the funniest show I have seen in ages. I was laughing like a hyena, snorting my fruit punch out of my nose and slapping my plus-one with the demented fervor of an overzealous evangelist. It’s all due to the verbatim diary entries of six tween-teens from the late 90s/early 2000s. These women willingly offered up their younger selves’ musings to lead artist, Francesca Montanile Lyons of the Antigravity Performance Project, to create this compelling gem. Francesca Montanile Lyons mined her own middle school diary and those of her willing friends – Megan Thibodeaux, Alicia Crosby, Nikki Hudgins,
Reviews
NINAGAWA Macbeth at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival
Feudal Japan might seem an unlikely setting for the Shakespearean masterpiece known as the “Scottish play,” but in actuality it could not be more interesting or appropriate, as was made clear through the vision of the late director, Yukio Ninagawa’s emotionally compelling, visually electrifying ode to the Bard’s killer couple -- NINAGAWA Macbeth -- playing at the David H. Koch Theater as part of Lincoln Center’s annual acclaimed Mostly Mozart Festival. This exceptional revival of Ninagawa’s landmark 1980 production was the last production overseen by the legendary director before his death in 2016 and these performances mark the work’s final
Before We’re Gone at 13th St. Repertory Theatre Company
Before We’re Gone is a sumptuous exploration of second chances. It has the rhythm and smell of nostalgia –like you are watching a lost play of Lillian Hellman, Tennesee Williams, Arthur Miller or Edward Elbee. The characters are meticulously drawn and we fall into their lives like a Saint Bernard on an old sofa –its immensely satisfying and comfortable to experience. Every element of this production is a memory trigger and it feels like you are walking with an old friend in deep conversation dissecting roads taken, paths avoided and future forks worth navigating. The rich, potent text has been written
The Pattern at Pendarvis at HERE Arts Center
So what’s a Pendarvis, and what sort of pattern does it contain? Behind Dean Gray’s somewhat cryptic title is a sweet, sincere, but very small exploration of Midwestern mid-20th century life, and how varying small-town factions got along together, or didn’t. Its source material, Will Fellows’ 2004 book A Passion to Preserve: Gay Men as Keepers of Culture, probably tells us more. What’s onstage at HERE, a production of the New Dog Theatre Company, amounts to a snapshot—an intriguing snapshot, but one with a frustratingly blurry focus. Dean Gray’s three-character drama of gay life in homophobic 20th century Wisconsin is sweet
Theatre: The Bridge Production Group presents ‘The Blue Room’ at the WhiteBox Art Gallery
Over one year, He (Max Hunter) and She (Christina Toth) rekindle their relationship through the lives of others. Some encounters are planned. Others random. Rich, poor, powerful, destructive, creative, desperate, and middling hook up and movie on, leading back the original prostitute. That's David Hare's slow-burning look inside The Blue Room, now playing with its two excellent leads at the WhiteBox Art Gallery. Hare borrowed the premise from the Arthur Schnitzler’s 1897 sex farce Reigen (Roundelay). The playwright got into trouble with Anti-Semitic Viennese censors and critics, but the play nevertheless became an international hit. It is also a film classic, Max Ophüls's La ronde (Round,
Brecht on Brecht at The Atlantic Stage 2
Brecht on Brecht is a monumental work that serves as an urgent invitation to - “change the world, she needs it.” In this production eight performers take us on an adrenaline fueled musical ride through some of Bertolt Brecht’s most powerful observations on social and political fall out. This “theatrical collage” has been woven together by George Tabori and serves to provoke us into deep introspection about the state of our current political climate. It’s a gift for those on the front lines, who are dedicating their energy to securing our democracy, to hear such poignant wisdom coming from someone
The After-Dinner Joke at The Atlantic Stage 2
The After-Dinner Joke is a biting black comedy about the “business” of doing “good”. It’s a fantastic production that seems to have a cast of thousands wrapping us up in a tornado of lively performances. Caryl Churchill wrote this teleplay for the BBC in 1977 and it remains an astute satire that pokes and prods at charity organizations and their effectiveness. The Potomac Theatre Project (PTP) mounts a phenomenal production that is slick and incredibly entertaining. PTP/NYC’s artistic vision is to “redefine politically aware theatre for the 21st century by presenting theatrically complex and thought-provoking work of contemporary social and
The Possibilities at The Atlantic Stage 2
The Possibilities is soul food for those intellects starved by the current political climate of idiocy. Four sophisticated, thought provoking short plays make up this refreshing production that asks us to evaluate our individual moral response to the unfolding complexity before us. You leave the theater feeling like your brain has had an intense workout and your body is pumped full of life inspiring endorphins. You immediately want to reach for a good book or engage in an intellectual hoop jumping discourse thanks to the stimulating perspectives that have shaken all complacency out of you. The production elevates your thinking
Dance: ‘Four Quartets’ at Bard/Summerscape
T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) has the pride of place among Dead White Authors. His posh boarding school, Ivy League and ex-pat background makes him untouchable in English departments and on bloggie lists of "GREATEST WRITERS EVER." Still, there are times when the heart of even an overrated writer's work created at the expense of a mentally-ill first wife is laid bare. Thanks to choreographer Pam Tanowitz and her company, composer Kaija Saariaho, artist Brice Marden, musicians of The Knights and most of all actress Kathleen Chalfant, Eliot's Four Quartets's is not for post-docs alone. It is unfortunate that there were only three performances of this
GET THE BOAT: at the SoHo Playhouse
Get The Boat is a vital conversation. It’s a timely play that taps into the current need to highlight crucial women’s issues in a patriarchal society that still attempts to tell women what they are “allowed” to do with their bodies. The #metoo and #ibelieveher movements have given many female playwrights the “voice” to tackle relevant societal issues with a courageous urgency. Irish playwright, Eavan Brennan draws attention to the traumatic journey many Irish women have to take to England to exercise their right to choose. The play is making its North American debut after a successful run at the