Liba Vaynberg's vividly drawn play "The Matriarchs" (directed by Dina Vovsi) features a rogue's gallery of wonderful downtown actors. Helen Cespedes from Fefu! Rachel Botchan from the Pearl! All doing funny, wise, detailed work in tight quarters @ TheaterLab...(1/4) theaterlabnyc.com/theaterlab-p...

In which Jason Zinoman tells Fallon he is becoming a Kremlin star... www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/a...

The tremendous Morgan Bassichis show "Can I Be Frank?" at Soho Playhouse has added a show tomorrow at 9pm! Everything else is sold out out OUT Bassichis is the funniest and most entrancing comic performer out there; if you don't take that last ticket, I'm gonna www.sohoplayhouse.com/see-a-show/m...

“I am heartbroken to report that after thirty-five proud years, the program I currently direct at USC, the MFA in Dramatic Writing, is being sunsetted…I feel the acute message being sent here; four of its five professors are people of color.” — @luisalfaro.bsky.social #TheaterSKY

Road Kills by Sophie McIntosh at Paradise Factory is a fierce, nasty little beast...its claws are out. An angry young woman sulks through her mandated community service, picking up roadkill—between scenes, we hear each crash, right before some gnarly blob of fur and blood drops onto the roadway. 1/3

Service announcement! The Segal has created its own curated listings site www.theaterlistingsnyc.com, which is now in beta. If you're looking for complete listings, I use the encyclopedic TDF (www.tdf.org/on-stage/sho...) or the Power Search option on show-score (www.show-score.com/shows/all?op...)

I wrote about the Edinburgh Fringe here, but I've also been mainlining Fergus Morgan (thecrushbar.substack.com) and Natasha Tripney (natashatripney.substack.com) et al... I clearly missed so much! What a thrill to be in a city given over to culture (10/10, 5 stars) www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

Thank you to everyone who spoke to me for this www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

Crystal Skillman's monologue "Open," starring the great Megan Hill, is a magic act with no magic in it--a woman, the Magician, boasts about the illusions she's doing in front of us (bird, rings, flowers, PRESTO!) but nothing actually appears on the empty stage (1/4)

Gospel at Colonus on Little Island is sold out except for standing room, but you can always shore up your disappointed spirit with this, Bob Telson's stunning setting of the finest of all Sophocles' choruses. Numberless are the world's wonders/but none more wonderful than man youtu.be/TiTc8O__9Mw

Such an odd series of season announcements—one alone wouldn't have raised eyebrows, but it certainly looks like a trend when taken together (CSC, Roundabout, Williamstown, Playwrights Horizons) www.broadwayworld.com/article/Wher...

Diana Oh: Rest in peace, rest in power, rest in song, rest in flow youtu.be/RZmV6_1j1xk

Yooooo I just won a James Beard Award for my profile of Padma Lakshmi from last year! www.newyorker.com/culture/prof...

Mission Impossible borrowed from so many older better, movies—e.g., Fail-Safe, which led me to By Dawn's Early Light, which...is amazing? Rebecca DeMornay, James Earl Jones and Martin Landau try to stop an ongoing hot war, never flagging even when a braggadocious fool gets the nuclear codes

A really wonderful play by Ariel Stess—Kara & Emma & Barbara & Miranda—just won the Yale prize, chosen by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Absolutely super and appropriate choice: there’s a deep link btw Purpose’s monologues and Stess’s storytelling, a return to literary gorgeousness and patience

Seagull: True Story by Eli Rarey, dir. by Alexander Molochnikov, produced by En Garde Arts @ La Mama, is a grotesque carnival, exploring parallels between Russia's murderous repressiveness & U.S. anti-art callousness. Both expect artists to dance, while the Big Boys laugh & throw pocket change 1/5

The list of San Francisco theatres lost at the end of this article is awful to read…

Agree 💯 with Sara's rec of Lobster, Kallan Dana's A+ highschool comedy-turned-drama.... young Nora (Cricket Brown!!) stages Patti Smith & Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth with fellow students who struggle to channel the original's chthonic ambition. The Tank 'til 5/17... www.vulture.com/article/what...

A(U)NTS! at The Brick, written by Zoe Geltman and directed by Julia Sirna-Frest, is a dropped icecream cone of a play: sweet & sticky & a lil bit...infested. It starts as a workplace comedy about 3 single aunts (Jehan O. Young, Geltman, and cannonball Megan Hill), working in a medical office...1/5

Richard Foreman alert! Andrew Lampert has curated a series at Anthology Film Archives...rarities onscreen from May 21-28. (NB: On May 24, the "lost" doc by Berenice Reynaud, Pavane for a Missing Play, about a piece RF canceled late in its development...) www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screeni...

My gift to mothers today is a long chat with Richard Kind. We met, naturally, at Fairway, and talked about Harold Hill, Studio 54, his skin condition, his love of Don Quixote, the time that George Clooney threw pies at him, and more. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

A painful, sudden loss www.nytimes.com/2025/05/03/a...

What to do if your NEA grant was rescinded docs.google.com/document/d/1...

My many thanks to the many people who talked to me about this issue… www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

David Cote on "John Proctor is the Villain": "They’re reciting the sweet, green times, clutching the slim volume of their short lives, before starting a new chapter no longer written in their hand." observer.com/2025/04/revi...

Mark Seliger's portfolio, from our Yesteryear issue, is just staggering. 29 theater legends, re-enacting their biggest roles. If you are even remotely interested in Broadway theater, this will blow you away. www.vulture.com/article/bigg...

@helenshaw.bsky.social reviews a new Broadway production of David Mamet’s masterpiece “Glengarry Glen Ross,” starring Kieran Culkin and Bob Odenkirk, and George Clooney’s stage adaptation of his superb film “Good Night, and Good Luck.”

Invisible Dog has been turfed out so the building can be developed--another re-used storefront/warehouse performance venue (like Soho Rep's WalkerSpace) gone. Today is the last day of their flea market-style sell-off of all their goods; it's New York, so everything must go www.theinvisibledog.org

I know we talk about the money a lot, but money is in every minute of these super-priced shows; you can hear the faint swipes of credit cards whenever anyone takes a breath www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

treasuring this glimpse behind the scenes at New York mag from Jackson McHenry: "I keep repeating that 'ambitious girls must be vicious girls' to my editors and they’ve gotten annoyed to the point of making me write a blog post." www.vulture.com/article/gal-...

A huge amount to be delighted by in Eve Bromberg's interview with Jerry Lieblich and Paul Lazar, as there was in "The Barbarians," which was at La Mama and may (may? please?) return. www.culturebot.org/2025/01/9966...

Streetcar (with Paul Mescal and Patsy Ferran) and Ghosts (with Lily Rabe and Billy Crudup) www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Rhoda Feng at Art Forum on Bess Wohl's Liberation... beautiful writing that both describes and embodies "Orphic" energy...https://www.artforum.com/columns/bess-wohl-liberation-review-1234727855/

I saw Henry IV at TFANA last night; I recommend wholeheartedly. Sit close! It's worth it! Jay O. Sanders as Falstaff, THIS is what we've been waiting for...not to mention James Udom, astonishing in a cleverly rendered double-cast part as Hotspur/Pistol. Tip: seat C204 is the best in the house.

Vincentelli with the goods www.nytimes.com/2025/01/27/t...

There are still several days left in Under the Radar...https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-theatre/under-the-radar-keeps-rollin-along

Writing about Richard Foreman... www.newyorker.com/culture/post...

The death of the irreplaceable theatrical auteur Richard Foreman last week led us back into our archives. We will be publishing more on him soon but for now, the following thread contains some choice Foreman pieces from our shelves.

Richard Foreman www.nytimes.com/2025/01/04/t...

I keep thinking: The last time a lot of us saw Linda Lavin onstage was two years ago, Off Broadway in Noah Diaz’s “You Will Get Sick,” and she didn’t play the sick one. Jesse wrote that, at 85, she had “never seemed more vital, sly and fearless,” which was true. We were so lucky to be in the room.

You too can have EV's perfect day! There are more shows this weekend at La MaMa of "Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey," which has that smoky Foreman flavor, but with Object Collection's alt-noise-jazz garnish on top. I know people say Foreman texts aren't about anything, but this one is, just saying

There are those who think lists like this are goofy, since all comparison is invidious (true!). But speaking selfishly (I always do 🙏), remembering so many great shows—and having to struggle like crazy to keep the list to ten—always cheers me right up www.newyorker.com/culture/2024...

I'm genuinely shocked www.americantheatre.org/2024/12/13/m...

I loved "room room room in the many mansions of eternal glory for thee and for everyone" by the theatre-band Friend of Friend at HERE: half a gentle lecture on the Publick Universal Friend (an 18th century trans prophet), half a pseudo-church service, complete with a sermon on hyperpop (1/3)

There are only a few more days to see Kenneth Branagh in King Lear at the Shed. But...what if you spent that time another way, instead? www.newyorker.com/culture/cult...

www.vulture.com/article/brid... Rebecca Alter’s profile of Bridget Everett is such a stunner

This is a real shame…the strangeness of this show and John Gallagher, Jr’s odd, menacing take on redemption (you can keep it, basically) were a breath of salt air

Jason Zinoman makes the point that calling Carson "apolitical" erases his deep politics of misogyny. One of those pieces that says something seemingly obvious and true that, somehow, no one ever said quite so clearly www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/a...

Cara Joy David's piece about Meghan Finn and the Tank's light-touch producing model (basically, they offer free space), which manages to field literally hundreds of shows a year on a budget of 1.7 million. www.broadwayworld.com/article/Hope...