Going to a solo show that is set up as a memorial service might not sound like a particularly inviting theatrical experience during the dog days of summer. But A Eulogy for Roman, written and performed by the beguiling Brendan George, proves that saying farewell to a childhood friend doesn’t have to be an occasion for tears but can be a time for making new promises.
Inua Ellams’s The Half-God of Rainfall is an epic revenge fantasy about a basketball superstar who was born as a consequence of Zeus’s raping of a mortal woman. This multilayered piece uses poetry, music, and a mix of Greek and Yoruba mythology for a lyrical meditation on power, patriarchy, and the black feminist response to the #MeToo movement.
“I guess I’m just relatable,” says Liz Kingsman with a shrug in One Woman Show, her sharp, absurdist parody of the British TV series Fleabag and the wave of women’s solo confessionals that followed it. Kingsman plays a hyped-up version of herself in her play, a jobbing actor who is recording her self-penned solo show, Wildfowl, so that she can market it in the hope of becoming a major TV series.
Betty Shamieh’s Malvolio, a joyous sequel to Twelfth Night, investigates the life of Malvolio after the events in Shakespeare’s wintry dark comedy. In the Classical Theatre of Harlem’s production, 20 years have passed since Olivia’s much-abused steward (Allen Gilmore) threatened revenge on his tormentors. Back then, Malvolio was tricked into believing the Countess Olivia, his mistress, had written a love letter to him and insisting he don yellow, cross-gartered stockings to please her. Swallowing the bait, Malvolio did as the letter requested—and swiftly was incarcerated in Illyria as a lunatic.
Ben Beckley and Nate Weida’s In Corpo is a new sci-fi musical about human connection that will make some theatergoers smile and others wince. Directed by Jess Chayes, it draws on Franz Kafka’s unfinished novels The Castle and The Trial, Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby the Scrivener,” and the artists’ own experiences navigating the corporate world. The piece grapples with corporate overreach, invasive technologies, and unresponsive bureaucracies to satirize how working in the corporate world can stymie one’s heart and soul. Its principals’ names, “K” and “Bartleby” (played by Austin Owens Kelly), are borrowed directly from Kafka (K. is the hero of The Castle; Josef K. of The Trial) and Melville’s 1853 short story.
Richard Hellesen’s new solo show Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground resurrects the 34th President with much sound and fury. Directed by Peter Ellenstein, and with the superb John Rubinstein playing the eponymous role, this play may well overhaul that musty image of Dwight D. Eisenhower as a “do-nothing” president.
Justin Huertas’s Lizard Boy, a queer pop-rock indie musical with a sci-fi vibe, is funny, poignant, and life-affirming. Huertas, as the titular character, is a sweet and likable protagonist in this coming-of-age love story even though he suffers from having green, scaly skin. Cleverly directed by Brandon Ivie, and under the aegis of Prospect Theater Company, this show is a terrific homage to—and satire of—comic-book mythology.
Tori Sampson’s This Land Was Made is a steamy gumbo of history, humor, and imagination. Directed by Taylor Reynolds, it serves up a fictive account of the origins of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, Calif., in 1966. Although the play has some structural flaws, it invites one to ponder the issues that animated this revolutionary social organization—racist police brutality and economic injustice—and to consider how they still resonate today.
The National Asian American Theatre Company’s Romeo and Juliet may just go down as the season’s most misdirected production. Employing Hansol Jung’s modern-verse adaptation as its text, codirectors Jung and Dustin Wills no doubt intended to revamp Shakespeare’s tragedy by leaning into its comedy to point up the darker aspects. But what one gets is a travesty of the play.
Part ghost story, part coming-of-age drama, part memory play, Being Chaka—written by Tara Amber, Chuk Obasi and Nalini Sharma—is a provocative investigation into racism in America. The surreal plot centers on the character Chaka (Kahiem Rivera), a black 16-year-old transfer student at East Prep High School in Manhattan. As the action unfolds, the audience will see him continually shifting between reality and dreamscapes, with the line between the two worlds often blurring.
Lucie Tiberghien, artistic director of Molière in the Park, has scored a coup—an English-language world premiere of Tartuffe that uses Moliere’s uncensored version as its basis. Tiberghien’s production is the first English rendering to draw on a restoration of the original text by Georges Forestier that played in 2022 at the Comédie Française.
Tony Sportiello and Albert M. Tapper’s new musical comedy On the Right Track invites audiences to ride the rails on a New Jersey Transit train carrying three couples who have three very different problems. Sensitively directed by Mauricio Cedeño, the show is not only entertaining but edifying. It also reminds folks that “sometimes the key to happiness is simply a matter of knowing which door you want to open . . . and which one you want to keep closed.”
Perhaps because one must dodge homeless people to get to the theater the time seems right for the new one-woman musical, Walking with Bubbles. Created, written and performed by Jessica Hendy, and based on her journey as a single mother rebuilding her life after her husband Adam’s mental illness and homelessness, this female-driven narrative is inspiring and may well impart hope to others in crisis.
In spite of its off-putting title, Matthew McLachlan’s This G*d Damn House delivers two hours of satisfying theater that touches on loneliness, mental illness, homelessness, and more. Directed by Ella Jane New, this show is for gutsy theatergoers who like their drama to smack of real-life situations and push the theatrical envelope.
Shakespeare’s romance Pericles has washed up at the Doxsee, the Brooklyn home of Target Margin Theater, with all the “outrageous fortune” in the 1607–08 play intact. Clocking in at 105 minutes, this new staging by David Herskovits, though wildly uneven, delivers some limpidly beautiful moments that redeem the production.
Agnes Borinsky’s The Trees is a quirky and ambitious new play that may please some environmentalists and Thoreau-minded folk, but many theatergoers may find it hard to warm up to this work, populated with a dozen characters, many of whom flit in and out of the play in will-o’-the-wisp fashion. Directed by Tina Satter, The Trees investigates the American dream and questions whether stability is possible in a capitalistic world.
The New Place Players’ production of Othello at Casa Clara, a former foundry replete with balconies and staircases, is an unusual, site-specific staging that pulls the audience into the world of Shakespeare’s tragedy. Makenna Masenheimer directs the 1604 tragedy without a fourth wall, and a limited audience of 50 assures an intimate experience.
Jill Sobule’s F*ck7thGrade, a queer musical-memoir that marries narrative and song, has returned to the Wild Project for a limited engagement. Directed by Lisa Peterson, Sobule (music, lyrics, and concept) shares her life story thus far, cleverly drawing upon her stultifying days in seventh grade as a jumping-off point to examine her life beyond middle school.
Asi Wind’s new close-up magic show, Inner Circle, may be the perfect antidote to the midwinter blahs. Wind, a master magician, eschews tricks with traditional playing cards by using ones that hold a mirror up to his audience—patrons write their names with a red or black Sharpie on blank-faced playing cards of standard size and texture, which, once collected, become his single deck for the evening. Wind believes that by having his audience members personalize each card, it makes them one audience before the show begins.
Bailey Williams’s Events at The Brick is a wild and woolly comedy that examines the stresses of current workplace culture. It deals with job-related themes—the high demands for productivity, the delusion that one is irreplaceable—in a style that is witty, original, and entertaining. Directed by Sarah Blush, and co-presented by The Hearth, Events doesn’t altogether succeed as a coherent narrative. Nonetheless, it uses the properties of the theater in a deeply poetic and intriguing way.
