Choir Boy
Written by Tarell Alvin McCraney
Directed by Trip Cullman
Manhattan Theatre Club
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
January 1, 2019 Production website
💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
I loved this play, and I NEVER realized the power of gospel music in igniting passion and brining an audience in.Choir Boy centers on the tensions in a prestigious prep school for African American boys when a flamboyantly gay youth is named leader of their celebrated gospel choir.Essentially is a coming-of-age story for a gay student surviving and thriving in a mostly straight prep school with the strongest and most stringent of values to create “ethical black men.”Continue reading Choir Boy→
The Slave Play
Written by Jeremy O. Harris
Directed by Robert O’Hara
New York Theatre Workshop
December 26, 2018 Production website
💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
“White people still have the whip” claims Jeremy O’Harris in his crazy, rollarcoaster of a work, Slave Play. It is perhaps the kinkiest and most unapologetic play I have seen in years. The crux of the play is a montage of three interracial couples (1. a young slave girl and her master; 2. An older plantation mistress with a biracial house slave; and 3. A white indentured laborer and the black male slave who oversees his work. At the beginning of the play, these three couples are caught in the throughs of their erotic fantasy of domination and submission. Continue reading The Slave Play→
Mike Birbiglia’s The New One
Written and performed by Mike Birbiglia
Directed by Seth Barrish
Cort Theatre
December 23, 2018 Production website
💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
How does a successful stand-up comedian who has spent a life traveling through the midwest in town’s where “everything centers on the action at the local Applebees” translate to the Great White Way?How can one man fill he stage when he is used to filling a few square yards of staging shoved in the corner of some bar pushing a two drink minimum? Mike Birbiglia is how you do it!
Thom Pain (based on nothing)
Starring Michael C. Hall
Written by Will Eno
Directed by Oliver Butler
Signature Theatre
November 24, 2018 Production website
💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
Watching Thom Paine (based on nothing), with Michael C. Hall is a 70 minute romp round the existential racetrack that feels very much like Beckett brought back to life.In fact, as I was sitting there, I began to see this play and imagining what it would be like to have seen Waiting for Godot– now told in the 21st century and now played out after the death of Estragon.What would Godot be like after the death of one member of its infamous couple?How would Vladimire hold forth on a world when there was no one to verbally spar with him?Can you imagine the pain of all those jokes and pondering landing on ears that were no longer there to answer.Existential on steroids for sure . . . Continue reading Thom Pain (based on nothing)→
The Waverly Gallery
Written by Kenneth Lonergan
Directed by Lila Neugebauer
Golden Theatre
October 27, 2018 Production website
💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
From its start, I did not think I was going to like this experience at all.The beginning of the play was so such of an obvious, relentless set of jokes about having a mother that is VERY hard of hearing and goes about repeating herself time after time.It was funny for a few minutes then it just became relentless.I thought I was going to be in for entire afternoon of cheap jokes on aging.But then the play changed. Continue reading The Waverly Gallery→
Choir Boy
