All of Me by Laura Winters directed by Ashley Brooke Monroe The New Group at Signature Theatre June 11, 2024 Production website 💉💉💉 out of 5.
All of Me is a boy-meets-girl romantic comedy that follows the love story between Lucy and Alfonso, who have a sweet first meeting outside in a hospital parking lot. Lucy, who dreams of being a jazz singer, and Alfonso, a healthcare researcher, face hurdles that have plagued lovers since time immemorial, including race, class, and disapproving mothers. But their story has an added layer: The dynamic pair use mobility devices and text-to-speech device and apps to communicate. It is interesting that what is very new to the audience – at least to me – is the text-to-speech device that gives that unmistakable “Stephen Hawking voice” is not what is the source of the conflict. The complex disability is really not the disability.
The Welkin by Lucy Kirkwood Directed by Sarah Benson Atlantic Theatre June 9, 2024 Production website 💉💉💉 out of 5.
This has to be the most gruesome, vile, horrifying play that I have seen in a good long time. It is bloodier than many of those bloody Irish plays! Set in 1759, on the night of Halley’s Comet passing, a dozen rural women are enlisted to decide the fate of a young woman (a horrible human being herself) convicted of murdering the young daughter of her wealthy employer. The alleged murderer claims that she is pregnant and, if true, she will escape being hanged in the public square. Thus, the men of the town have locked 12 matrons of the town in a room with the alleged murderer to determine if she is indeed pregnant and thus innocent.
Dark Noon by Peter Morgan Written & Directed by Tue Biering Co-Directed & Choreographed by Nhlanhla Mahlangu St. Ann’s Warehouse June 7, 2024 Production website 💉💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
Experimental theatre can be a real risk. It can either be the best of theatre or the kind of theatre that makes you want to chew your arm off to escape the trap of sitting there having to endure another hour of watching it. Dark Noon was the very BEST of experimental theatre. This group of South African actors (one white male, one black female, and the remainder black males) created a piece that set out to tell the history of white America from the founding of the country through the end of the Gold Rush and the Wild West.
Sally and Tom by Suzan-Lori Parks Directed by Steve H. Broadnax III Public Theatre June 2, 2024 Production website 💉💉💉 out of 5.
Sally and Tom
This play was a slow burn for me. It took me a good long time to see the value of the play and to start to care about the characters but thankfully, near the end of the first act I was hooked in. The story of Sally and Tom focuses on a group of actors playing members of Good Company, a ragtag theatre company putting on a show called The Pursuit of Happiness, written by Luce, who also plays Sally (the 14 year old slave owned and impregnated several times by President Jefferson), and directed by her white romantic and creative partner Mike. He is playing the man they refer to as TJ (President Thomas Jefferson).
Breaking the Story by Alexis Scheer Directed by Jo Bonney 2nd Stage at Tony Kiser Theater May 31, 2024 Production website 💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
Breaking the Story follows the character Marina, a war correspondent, about to receive a lifetime achievement award for her work shedding light on the darkest parts of humanity. She is playing with the idea of leaving her job for good to settle down with her former colleague-turned-lover — but she must reckon with the hold that war and her profession still have on her.
