Trophy Boys
Written by Emmanuelle Mattana
Directed by Danya Taymor
MCC Theater
July 31, 2025
Production website
💉💉💉 out of 5.

Trophy Boys was a most novel, explosive, concentrated 70 minutes of classroom drama.  Staged by Danya Taymor of both The Outsiders and John Proctor is the Villain, the play is amplified with dance moves, blaring music and flashing lights – here – not as successfully as in the previous two works.  According to the playwright’s non-negotiable terms, her drama’s four 17-something male characters must be enacted by female, gender non-conforming and/or non-binary performers wearing schoolboy drag.  The play is set inside the classroom at a private school for girls – all the classroom walls were covered with historical female icons.  

Duke and Roya
Written by Charles Randolph-Wright
Directed by Warren Adams
Lucille Lortel Theatre
July 30, 2025
Production website
💉💉💉 out of 5.

Playwright Charles Randolph-Wright claims that he was inspired to write this play from a story that he read that spoke of a practice in Aphghanistan known as bacha posh – – a practice in which young girls dress up as boys to see out education and further to simply survive, “It stunned me (Charles Randolph-Wright). I thought, ‘I have to tell this story.’ I couldn’t get it out of my head.”