French poet and avant-garde artist Jean Cocteau wrote his 1929 novella Les Enfants Terribles (The Terrible Children) in just 17 days while recovering from an opium addiction at a clinic. In Michael Gardner’s ambitious new stage adaptation, which he also directs, Cocteau’s dark, hypnotic fable explores the dangerous power of imagination, suggesting how unbridled fantasy and obsessive isolation can transform an internal refuge into a destructive prison.
In Stephen Sheffer’s new play Lean-To, strangers camp out in the titular structure during a hike. While the setting is rendered beautifully, the drama flops due to a script full of extended silences, platitudinous conversation, and ill-conceived character behavior.
In The Body of Mary: A Play in Three Acts (of God), Katie Cappiello reimagines the Virgin Mary’s origin story to examine the struggle over women’s bodies, reproduction, and who controls the narrative. Written and directed by Cappiello, this comedy brings together three women named Mary whose lives, separated by centuries, illuminate the forces of patriarchal control, violence, and repression.
Marfa, Texas, the shooting locale for the George Stevens epic film Giant 70 years ago, is known as a dot of cultural sophistication, big on minimalist art, amid hundreds of miles of Texas brush and desert. It’s also renowned for the Marfa Lights, a nocturnal phenomenon of distant brightness that can appear orange, yellow, blue, red. It’s not known as a hangout for anxious thirtysomethings yapping about politics, gender, and muddled friendships, but that’s the upshot of Very Blue Light, Daphne Silbiger’s new drama at The Tank. That it plays as well as it does is a tribute to Silbiger’s clever invocation of familiar themes, and a beguiling cast of four up-and-coming actors.
Molière’s Don Juan takes audiences on a feverish journey from seduction to reckoning, blending farce, tragedy, and the supernatural in a provocative examination of hypocrisy, morality, and the consequences of unchecked desire. In the free outdoor production by Molière in the Park (MIP), this darkly comic masterpiece proves as entertaining as it is unsettling, holding up a mirror to human folly while leaving audiences to determine where they stand.
Family entertainment often settles for amusing the children while asking adults to patiently endure the ride. The Listies: Make Some Noise gleefully defies that formula, delivering an hour of quick-witted comic anarchy in which playwright-performers Richard Higgins and Matthew Kelly prove that silliness, when executed with razor-sharp timing and imagination, can delight audiences from preschoolers to grandparents.
The ideals and experiences that bond people together when they are young may be the very things that divide them when they mature. This we learn from the protagonists in Birthright, Jonathan Spector’s play that tracks the lives of six Jewish friends from 2006 through 2024. In each of the three nearly one-hour acts, perceptible changes occur in each character’s priorities and attitudes, at least in part because in their discussions, no topic is sacrosanct.
For anyone who has ever believed mathematics belonged exclusively to gifted minds, That Math Show offers a joyful correction. Created and performed by Dr. Arthur Benjamin and directed by Eric Krebs, this lively production reveals the beauty and playfulness of numbers.
Neil Armstrong landed on the moon on July 20, 1969. Less than a month later, the Woodstock festival rocked America’s psyche. The run-up to these landmark events provides the symbolic dissonance for the bighearted and multifaceted new musical, A Walk on the Moon. With a score by AnnMarie Milazzo and book by Pamela Gray, this stage version of the 1999 film (also written by Gray) tracks a not-so-happy housewife through a risky voyage of self-discovery, just one short hike away from Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, N.Y., and one giant leap from her otherwise square and earthbound life.
Erica Murray’s The Loved Ones is a poignant meditation on grief and betrayal that offers a potentially melodramatic setup but largely avoids obvious broad strokes in favor of quieter pleasures—sharply observed dialogue, characters who defy the labels placed on them, and an exploration of the difficulties and power of empathy. An outstanding ensemble led by the great Maryann Plunkett depicts the international group of women—Irish, English, and American—brought together in rural West Clare, Ireland, through tragic circumstances that threaten to divide them yet end up eliciting a precarious and precious sense of solidarity.
The venue is St. Luke’s Theatre, but for all practical purposes, it isn’t anymore. The Restaurant Row mainstay is now the Wicked Tickle, an East Nashville dive where the beer is cheap, the country-and-western is tangy and smart, and Cindy the bartender is on hand to crack you open a Pabst. And it’s the home of Music City, a return engagement of a musical that played well at the West End Theatre in 2024 and has only ripened with age.
A tent creates a confined yet evocative space—the image might conjure up strong memories and associations, perhaps of childhood camping trips or adolescent backyard adventures or later-in-life attempts at experiencing the great outdoors. For Ari and Brit, the protagonists of Victoria Lynne Barclay’s new two-hander Camping, the tent is a world unto itself. From ages 15 to 40, the two women navigate life—including relationships with inadequate men—and feelings for each other that they can never quite come to terms with, through events that always return them to the same tent. That Barclay makes this contrivance feel largely natural is one of the strengths of this sensitively observed play.
Millie, the cheeky British teenage expatriate at the center of Youth in Flames, begins the play drifting contentedly through life. In playwright-performer Mimi Martin’s engaging and deeply affecting solo drama, directed by Jessica Wiley, that carefree detachment is challenged by the turmoil of the 2019 Hong Kong protests, leading to a journey of self-discovery and moral reckoning.
Many of the actors play multiple witnesses. Stephen Boyer testifies as Ring Lardner Jr., while Brooks Ashmanskas looks on.
Eric Bentley’s 1972 play Are You Now or Have You Ever Been revisits the House Un-American Activities Committee’s (HUAC) investigation into Communist influence in the entertainment industry during the mid-20th century. The dialogue is drawn directly from the hearing’s transcripts, making this revival as much a documentary as a drama. Directed by Anna D. Shapiro, the production captures the grind of a political investigation in all its tedious forms.
Brooks Ashmanskas plays, among other characters, film director Edward Dmytryk, best-known for The Caine Mutiny (1954).
Those subpoenaed are asked, essentially, one question: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” What follows is a variety of responses. These hearings continued for more than a decade (1947–58), producing a blacklist and sending several individuals to prison. By dramatizing the emotional distress inflicted on the targets, Shapiro presents a prominent example of political power being misused.
The production portrays the committee’s search for “truth” as increasingly contradictory, particularly when members justify their actions by claiming to represent the will of the people while dismissing First and Fifth Amendment protections.
For contemporary theatergoers, although these proceedings took place nearly seven decades ago, Bentley’s 50-year-old play still has relevance. It serves as a reminder of the abusive power that the U.S. government can wield.
The production employs visuals to reinforce the testimony. Newspaper headlines and articles are projected in the background, while the clickety-clack of a manual typewriter—a sound perhaps recognizable only to the baby boomers in the audience—provides context and updates on the individuals appearing before the committee. The static stage setting effectively mirrors the decorum and rigidity of a legal proceeding.
Among the characters played by Frederick Weller is director Elia Kazan, whose “naming names” outraged liberals.
As a documentary, its accuracy is admirable. As theater, however, it often resembles an actual government hearing, with a mixture of anguish and distrust on both sides. Actors deliver much of their dialogue while standing or sitting behind desks, and at times the production feels like an extended table read. The burden falls on the actors—17 witnesses—to make their characters’ cases.
Andrew McCarthy’s portrayal of actor Larry Parks effectively opens the proceedings and illustrates the emotional turmoil experienced by many of those who were subpoenaed—from refusing to “name names,” to relenting, to regret, and ultimately to the destruction of a career.
Each witness makes a personal decision about how to proceed—all emerge damaged personally, professionally, or morally. Yet some choose to resist: characters such as playwright Abe Burrows (David Krumholtz), co-writer of the book for the hit musical Guys and Dolls; gravel-voiced actor Lionel Stander (Jay O. Sanders), best known for his late-career turn as the manservant to Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers on the TV series Hart to Hart; and singer Paul Robeson (Billy Eugene Jones), star of the 1936 film Show Boat, bring moments of humor, dignity, and hope to an otherwise sobering production.
Burrows humorously recounts his introduction to Communism that coincided with his move to Hollywood. Admitting that he was part of the social circle, he denied ever actually joining the party.
Sally Murphy plays dramatist Lillian Hellman, one of the few women called to testify. Photographs by Marc J. .Franklin.
In those days, I was invited everywhere. Attended more parties than anyone. The Saturday Evening Post did an article about me and the fact that I played at parties all over Hollywood. … I used to go to too many, and, when I started to get asked by people I didn’t know, I began to quit going.
Sanders delivers Stander’s testimony with mounting indignation, transforming a transcript excerpt into one of the evening’s most theatrical moments, furiously defending his rights and willing to testify against his accusers:
I have knowledge of subversive action! I know of a group of fanatics who are trying to undermine the Constitution of the United States by depriving artists of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without due process of law! I can cite instances! … A group of ex-Bundists, America Firsters, and anti-Semites, people who hate everybody, Negroes, minority groups, and most likely themselves—
Finally, Billy Eugene Jones gives Robeson’s testimony tremendous force, turning a procedural exchange into a powerful challenge to the committee’s authoGentlemen. … Wherever I have been in the world, the first to die in the struggle against fascism were the Communists. … The Fifth Amendment does not infer criminality. Chief Justice Warren has been very clear on that. I invoke the Fifth Amendment.
Ending with Robeson’s voice silenced, the production underscores how political institutions can suppress dissent while claiming to protect democracy. Bentley’s play may document events from the mid-twentieth century, but its warnings about governmental power still resonate.
Are You Now or Have You Ever Been runs through Sept. 11 at New York City Center Stage (131 West 55th St.). Evening performances are at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday and at 8 p.m.; matinees are at 2 p.m. Wednesday and Saturday and at 3 p.m. Sunday. For tickets and additional information, visit areyounowplay.com.
Playwright: Eric Bentley
Director: Anna D. Shapiro
Associate Director: Zoe Adams
Scenic Design: Andrew Boyce
Costume Design: Johanna Pan
Lighting Design: Donald Holder
Sound Design: Rob Milburn & Michael Bodeen
Projection Design: Brittany Bland
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The pub in Irish dramas is a center not just of drinking, but also of telling tall tales. In J.M. Synge’s Playboy of the Western World, a new arrival, Christy Mahon, boasts of killing his father. In Conor McPherson’s The Weir, the regulars exchange ghost stories. But the atmosphere of Catch of the Day, by Megan Jenkins and the Red Fox Theatre company, is different. There’s music already happening on stage when one enters, and the gregarious cast may be engaging the audience in conversation or offering potato chips up and down the aisle or sniping at one another. The slapdash mix of music and comedy is more goulash than ghoulish, yet the lack of structure turns out to be one of the show’s charms.
At the newly revitalized Delacorte Theater, Saheem Ali’s stirring production of Romeo and Juliet reimagines Shakespeare’s Verona as a divided community along the U.S.-Mexico border, bringing fresh urgency to the tale of the star-crossed lovers. By allowing Romeo and Juliet to speak to one another in Spanish amid a world of conflict, Ali illuminates both the intimacy of their bond and the forces determined to keep them apart.
Angsty-girl plays have been flourishing on New York stages, and in several of these ensemble dramas, the characters use music to let out their frustrations—see, for example, the group dance breaks in John Proctor Is the Villain, All Nighter and the just-extendedDad Don’t Read This. For the title characters of Eisa Davis’ disarming ||:Girls:|| ||:Chance:|| ||:Music:||, though, music represents more than a release. It’s their way of communicating, of making sense of their world, of discovering just what they’re capable of and what (and who) they truly care about.
And Then the Rodeo Burned Down is New York City’s third exposure to the antic stagecraft of Xhloe and Natasha, who write, perform, co-direct, and design and recently snagged major prizes in three consecutive years at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. These Gen-Z collaborators (full names Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland) deploy their well-honed professional skills—acting, clowning, dance, acrobatics, and stand-up—with astonishing energy and rugged charm. As writers, their stock-in-trade is a skeptical reassessment of myths about American history. As performers, their mission is to challenge those entrenched falsehoods in a style that’s more imagistic than analytic and informed by Theater of the Absurd.
Abigail Pickard Price’s production of Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield may not include all the great characters of the 800-plus pages of the novel, but her exciting adaptation (with Sarah Gobran and Matt Pinches) for the Guildford Shakespeare Company is not to be missed.
Eljon Wardally’s Blooming in Dry Season turns a family dispute over a daughter’s future into a moving examination of ambition, sacrifice, and the burdens parents pass to their children. Over the course of two acts, layers of conflict gradually emerge, deepening one’s understanding of the characters’ lives. Wardally skillfully builds suspense through subtle clues that reveal the emotional toll hidden beneath the characters’ seemingly happy lives, and director Jackie Alexander paces the production adroitly and guides the powerful performances of an excellent cast.
Girl, Interrupted comes in a choice of formats. Susanna Kaysen’s 1993 memoir is a flippant quick read with an irresistible neurotic edge. The 1999 movie version features Angelina Jolie chewing the scenery around a quietly intense Winona Ryder. “Queens of the Summer Hotel,” the 2021 album by indie star Aimee Mann, is a collection of songs inspired by the book, its sweet melodies belying the dark undertone of its lyrics. Her tunes were originally meant to serve as the score of a staged musical, and now, after a COVID-era delay, they have arrived at the Public Theater as the backbone of a new work, with Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Martyna Majok faithfully adapting Kaysen’s story, if not her impudent attitude.
Few things are as ripe for satire as the modern wedding industry, and Catherine Weingarten’s I Wanttt a Unicorn Frappe!!! gleefully plunges its horn into the target. This clever world premiere transforms one woman’s engagement anxiety into a satire about desire, denial, and the pressures placed on women to pursue happily-ever-after at any cost.
John J. Caswell, Jr.’s Jerome is a departure from the typical gay play that pops up in June, geared toward Pride month: its focus is older gay men. A chalkboard in front of the proscenium curtain charts the decline of Jerome, Ariz., a mining town, from 10,000 population (crossed out) to lesser numbers (also crossed out) to, finally, Ghost City. That’s a tipoff that this eerie, intriguing drama is going to be different.
Send-ups of television series have become a cottage industry in New York theater, but they usually target familiar, long-established properties. Dylan MarcAurele’s Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody arrives barely six months after HBO Max premiered Heated Rivalry, a hit drama about rival hockey players who become lovers. Under Alan Kliffer’s direction, the result is fresh and bawdy, and sung with serious voices by a talented cast, all of whom help with scene changes that boost the production’s sketch-comedy vibe.
Jean Genet’s The Maids remains one of the theater’s strangest and most unsettling explorations of class, identity, fantasy, and performance. In director Kip Williams’s “new version,” Genet’s world of ritualized role-playing is transplanted into the age of Instagram filters, live-streams, and social media influencer culture—a contemporary framework that proves surprisingly well-suited to Genet’s original obsessions.
