Margin Notes: The Censorship of Dreams

The Censorship of Dreams

Seen on: Thursday, 5/07/26.

Jess Dugger as Ellie and Kat Warnusz-Steckel
as Professional. Photo by Marina Levitskaya.

Plot

In a time not too far from now, society exists under an increasingly restricted vocabulary: citizens, with no memory of the time before the Restart, go to the "Post Office" to sell their dreams, and receive daily words on little slips of paper, to eat and immediately forget. The stated goal is the erasure of conflict and dissatisfaction, but the central couple, Thomas and Ellie, struggle to navigate their relationship with each other and with the world, when they have fewer and fewer words with which to do so.

Thoughts:

As the audience enters the space we see an uncanny valley display of a couple at home in spartan domesticity: two school desks face each other, and a young woman in a mint green cardigan (a sweet and nervy Jess Dugger) sits in one, sipping from a clear square glass of water. A young man in an autumn polo (an earnest and bewildered Bryce Michael Wood) paces in slow motion the inner perimeter of their white-painted floor. Encasing them both, like bars on a cage at the zoo, are plastic strips covered in lines of text, the most notable reading in large font "DON'T LET THE PRINTER EAT YOU." Further surrounding the couple's cage are low barriers, as if to prevent the audience from getting too close to an art piece in a museum. And there, against one side of the space, the stepped platforms normally used for audience seating now display pair after pair of used shoes, low-lit as if they are rare books at the Morgan Library. Scenic and lighting designer Christopher Annas-Lee has built a mysterious puzzle box, a display case of humanity preserved by a docent who doesn't quite remember the meaning behind the moment. Is this a place from which the characters can escape to a life more like the one we know now? Or is this all that's left of a dying society, struggling through the last gasps before extinction?

Weekly Margin 2026, W18: The Lost Boys, You & Me, Bat Out of Hell, Merrily We Roll Along

4/28/26: The Lost Boys

What: A new musical adaptation of the classic 80s film about vampires.

And? Honestly? I had a great time. Is it a great show for the ages? Debatable. Did I stop listening to lyrics half the time? Maybe. Are the central couple strong actors or can they just sing really well? Very much the second option. Did the final moment annoy me deeply, only to be chased by a post-bow moment that annoyed me even more? Yeah you betcha yeah.

But really, I had a great time. Fantastic stagecraft, especially as it takes advantage of how damn tall the Palace is, both from an audience perspective and the stage itself. We were midway up the mezzanine and still had a great view, with the staging and design utilizing to great advantage three different levels of their scaffolded set. The flying looked fantastic and not even silly. David (the blond Kiefer Sutherland vampire) was properly threatening and charismatic--Ali Louis Bourzgui can do no wrong, as far as I can tell. The show leans into the campier aspects unapologetically, especially in the ridiculous Act Two opener (no spoilers). The Frog Brothers (Jennifer Duka and Miguel Gil) are delightful, younger brother Sam (Benjamin Pajak) is adorakable, Paul Alexander Nolan perfectly walks the subtle line of video store owner Max, and the always-excellent Shoshana Bean belts to the ceiling and back again. I don't remember the film well enough to speak to the musical's faithfulness to the source material, but Sax Guy is there, and they successfully translate a film's three-act structure into a musical's two-act structure.

So, a few nits to pick, mentioned above, but still fun theater.

LJ Benet as Michael and Ali Louis Bourzgui as David, with
the cast of The Lost Boys. Photo by Matthew Murphy.

4/29/26: You & Me

What: A year after college student Delilah opened fire on campus, killing eleven people before killing herself, friends of both the murderer and the deceased gather for a memorial at their local diner. Attendees include Delilah's twin sister Chloe, her ex-girlfriend Mac, and a movie star in town to research an upcoming role. Over the course of one day, Chloe continues her pursuit to uncover why her sister did what she did, and friends and enemies alike reveal damning truths along the way.

And? full review here.

Courtnie Keaton as Mac and Brianne Buishas as Chloe.
Photo by Filip Rucewicz.

Margin Notes: You & Me

You & Me

Courtnie Keaton as Mac and Brianne
Buishas as Chloe. Photo by Filip Rucewicz.

Seen on: Wednesday, 4/29/26.

Plot Summary

A year after college student Delilah opened fire on campus, killing eleven people before killing herself, friends of both the murderer and the deceased gather for a memorial at their local diner. Attendees include Delilah's twin sister Chloe, her ex-girlfriend Mac, and a movie star in town to research an upcoming role. Over the course of one day, Chloe continues her pursuit to uncover why her sister did what she did, and friends and enemies alike reveal damning truths along the way.

Thoughts:

I'll be honest, I wish I didn't have a visceral sense memory of watching the news about a mass shooting in my hometown, frantically calling my mom and friends to see if they were alive. I wish I didn't have a more recent memory of the same trauma with coworkers at my office last year. Horribly, I'm sure I'm not the only audience member reliving a memory like that while watching the characters onstage live through it, too. What's awful about an incident like this is not just that your world changes completely, irrevocably -- the solid ground you thought you knew now an unsteady raft in a churning ocean -- but how the world keeps going anyway. Life keeps going. You keep going. You may be frozen inside, but you're still breathing and eating and your eyes blink and your feet move you from place to place. Playwright and director Anthony M. Laura's work wrestles with that internal division: Chloe is unable to move on from the moment her sister destroyed the world, thinking if she can only pause that moment, or even rewind, she could find a way to, if not undo, at least understand what happened. But she's surrounded by people attempting to move forward with their lives, to find new paths and meaning beyond the worst thing that ever happened to them. Mac is leaving town, Leighton wants to go into politics, Paris is selling her family diner, Ellie is going to RADA, and Aurora has already left town and gotten engaged. And Theo, the man who gave Delilah the guns, is nowhere to be found. They're not all in the acceptance stage of their grief by any means, but Chloe is the only one perpetually lost in the bargaining stage.

Weekly Margin 2026, W17: What Happened Was ..., Every Brilliant Thing, Becky Shaw, The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington

4/21/26: What Happened Was ...

What: Audible's Minetta Lane Theatre presents a revival of Tom Noonan's two-hander about an awkward first date between two coworkers who both feel a bit at sea in a life that hasn't turned out how they thought it would.

And? Great performances from both Corey Stoll and Cecily Strong, particularly Strong's reading of her character's grim and explicit "children's story." I appreciate that the play doesn't attempt to land on a sweet button that has not been earned by the preceding moments. Instead, it chooses to highlight the persisting loneliness of both characters, whether or not they will ultimately be able to cross their divide to find companionship in each other.

Corey Stoll as Michael and Cecily Strong as Jackie.
Photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade.

4/22/26: Every Brilliant Thing

What: Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe's one-person interactive show, currently starring Daniel Radcliffe (but soon to be starring Mariska Hargitay), about a young man's attempt to reckon with his mother's recurring uncompleted suicides and his own depression, by making a list of "every brilliant thing" that makes life better. A number of audience members are drafted, to either read out individually numbered brilliant things (number one is ice cream), or to play characters in the young man's life, including father, spouse, and a nice couple in a hospital who give him a juice box (which he promptly returns because he doesn't like it).

And? Radcliffe is everything charming, a ball of energy whose battery never seems to peter out, even when getting into the heavier parts of the story. But in all honesty, even with its purportedly heavy topic, the play itself never feels that heavy. The concept/conceit of the show is exciting, but suffers in execution (it's often hard to hear the brilliant things being called out by audience members, and the audience-character-stand ins are, of course, inconsistent). And the whole thing just lacks a certain heft for it to really follow me home. I'm not saying I needed the gut punch of Macmillan's other work, People, Places and Things, but PPT knew how to land satisfyingly. EBT has a lighter heart than PPT, but it should still be able to land satisfyingly. It was a fine time, but not a great time.

Daniel Radcliffe. Photo by Matthew Murphy.

Weekly Margin 2026, W16: The Receptionist

4/16/26: The Receptionist

What: 2nd Stage presents Adam Bock's play about a gossiping receptionist in a suburban three-person office -- the northeast branch of an unnamed company. The seemingly innocuous office comedy takes a dark turn when Mr. Raymond, the senior employee who's been running inexplicably late, finally arrives to report on his client meeting from the day before.

And? I'm being deliberately coy because this show is still so early in previews and it's so much better to go in cold on this one. The play lands itself in a much more disturbing place than it started, and Bock achieves that journey deftly, imperceptibly, the red flags masquerading themselves until we examine them retroactively. The play becomes an exploration of the pretty sheen that can mask brutal fascism, as well as the dangers of complicity: the devil will always come for his due. All four cast members are great, led by the inimitable Katie Finneran, who can mine any line for humor or pathos in a way that no one else can.

Weekly Margin 2026, W15: Echoes of My Silence, Scorched Earth

4/09/26: Echoes of My Silence

What: As part of the Frigid/New York City Fringe Festival, Azadeh Kangarini's autobiographical one-woman show plays at the Chain Theatre. Her piece follows the path of her silence in the face of externalized and internalized misogyny through the various men whose molestations through the years of her life have made her question herself and her own relationship with her body.

And? full review here.

Azadeh Kangarani. Photo by Nathan Zhe.

4/11/26: Scorched Earth

What: St. Ann's Warehouse presents Attic Projects' production of Luke Murphy's choreographic play about a cold case over a death ruled accidental at the center of a land dispute in Ireland.

And? Absolutely stunning choreography: fluid and athletic and almost weightless, bodies seeming to be falling up from the ground, a collapse in reverse. The dance often separates itself from literal storytelling, dilating emotional moments and crises, fixations and mysteries. So while the ostensible frame is the 24 hours a man is held for questioning as a cold case is reopened in which he is the prime suspect for a murder, there are diversions to the late night walker who found the body, the damage to the body itself, the missing donkey, and the farmer's affection for the land he's losing that volleys between love and desire: a distinction noted in the work of giving versus taking. The final sequence, as the walls fall away to reveal the tract of land, a steep hill with a deep loam, is a gorgeous expansion of space and bodies in motion.

The company of Scorched Earth. Photo by Teddy Wolff.

Margin Notes: Echoes of My Silence

Echoes of My Silence

Seen on: Thursday, 4/09/26.

Azadeh Kangarani. Photo by Nathan Zhe.

Plot and Background

As part of the Frigid/New York City Fringe Festival, Azadeh Kangarini's autobiographical one-woman show plays at the Chain Theatre. Her piece follows the path of her silence in the face of externalized and internalized misogyny through the various men whose molestations through the years of her life have made her question herself and her own relationship with her body.

Thoughts:

Azadeh Kangarani stands onstage in slacks and a burnt orange blouse. She is calm, warm, collected. A woman who knows who she is and loves who she is. Behind her are six vertical mirrors: some single pieces, some a column of smaller mirrors. She lifts the seventh mirror, a horizontal one leaning at her side, and walks through the audience, asking us "How often do you look at your face?" As she tells her story, a mix of memories from the most recent--an encounter with a female pilot whose sight forces Kangarani to reckon with her own internal biases--to the most distant--a memory of a man exposing himself to her when she was only nine years old. For each story she tells, she wrestles with her guilt over how many times she held her tongue as men took advantage of her. Why was she silent each time? Why didn't she let the world know about yet another violation? Silence after silence, echoing through her life. For each memory, one of the vertical mirrors behind her is assigned an identity and an initial for his name. Though each represents a man who tried to steal her autonomy, who pressured her to quash her own sense of her worth and voice, they are all still each a mirror. She has named them, but if she turns to look at them dead on, she will see only herself. Even this, the performance of her wrestling with her self-imposed guilt, has her seeing her own face as the perpetrator of her trauma. She's not being fair to herself. But it's an honest examination of how survivors of this sort of assault do not know how to be fair to themselves. Her piece brings her face to face with her own shames, but also her survival of each of them. And she invites the audience to do the same: face that in ourselves which we are most afraid to see, and discover that in ourselves that we most love to see. The silence doesn't have to echo on, once we are able to speak.

Weekly Margin 2026, W14: Beaches, The Balusters

3/30/26: Beaches

What: A new musical adaptation (with lyrics and co-written book by Iris Rainer Dart, the original novelist of Beaches) of the beloved 80s film about two best friends whose wildly different personalities and paths lead them to connect, disconnect, and ultimately unite in their lifelong affection for each other. It's also the movie that gave us "Wind Beneath My Wings."

And? It's fine. The score isn't memorable and the script is serviceable, but the performers are excellent, particularly Jessica Vosk and Kelli Barrett as the adult versions of Cee Cee and Bertie, and Samantha Schwartz and Zeya Grace as their childhood counterparts. Also of note: the rarity of a musical with only two male performers (it's a small cast in general, but that's still impressive). Sadly, another show with an unimaginative use of projections and screens.

Jessica Vosk as Cee Cee and Kelli Barrett as Bertie.
Photo by Trudie Lee.

4/01/26: The Balusters

What: MTC presents David Lindsay-Abaire's new play about the Neighborhood Association of a community of houses in a historically preserved neighborhood, as they struggle with maintaining the faithfulness to the aesthetic against the ever-changing progress of time: here encapsulated in the need for a stop sign on an otherwise preserved esplanade, and the controversial installation of non-historically accurate balusters (porch railings).

And? Honestly just a fantastic night out -- good, messy fun. The play accomplishes a fantastic feat of a true ensemble work where every performer gets a chance to shine, where every character has admirable qualities and more despicable ones. There are no heroes here, but nor are there villains. These people are a damn mess, and it makes for very good theater. It's hard to talk about standout performances, but Marylouise Burke (who also starred in the original play version of Lindsay-Abaire's Kimberly Akimbo) is an absolute dotty gem, delivering even the simplest lines with her own unique spin. And the two primary antagonistic forces, Richard Thomas as the board president and ardent advocate for preservation and Anika Noni Rose as the newcomer ready to stir things up, are perfectly polarized: each with an ironclad conviction that they are on the correct side of the argument, each cunning enough to try to outwit the other.

Weekly Margin 2026, W13: The Unknown, Trash

3/25/26: The Unknown

What: Studio Seaview presents David Cale's new one-man show starring Sean Hayes, about playwright Elliott struggling with writer's block who finds himself the object of fixation by an actor rejected from the casting of his last play. As the details surrounding this actor become more convoluted, Elliott finds himself equally fixated on his stalker.

And? David Cale is truly adept at writing a showcase monologue (he also wrote the wonderful Harry Clarke, played with seedy charm by Billy Crudup), and this one showcases Sean Hayes very well. Deliberately murky while luring the audience further into the mire with every twist, Cale's play is excellently set off by the subtle but chilling design work of director Leigh Silverman's team. Under Cha See's stark, tight lighting, set pieces by Studio Bent appear and disappear as if conjured from Elliott's imagination. Elliott's hand drifts into shadow and reemerges holding a glass of whiskey. What was the brick backwall of the space now has a looming apartment door. And Caroline Eng's sound design, chilling and subtle, delicately cinches the audience in closer to Elliott's increasingly fractured sense of reality. Is he imagining Joey? Is Joey imagining him? What is true and what is hallucination and what is just hopeful dreaming? Though the play deliberately leaves the ending ambiguous as to whose story we've been watching, it's enough to hear the audience slowly filing out, eagerly debating what the truth could be.

Sean Hayes. Photo by Emilio Madrid.

3/27/26: Trash

What: Perelman Performing Arts Center hosts Out of the Box Theatrics's new play by and starring James Caverly and Andrew Morrill. Two Deaf roommates, at odds with each other and with the hearing world, argue over whose responsibility it is to take out the trash, as well as unpacking the reasons for why things have become such a mess: the trash of their own lives and baggage, and the literal stinking trash can in the kitchen.

And? The storytelling conceits here are fascinating. I was talking to a friend about the challenge of presenting Deaf theater to a largely hearing audience: the need to always accommodate the hearing audience, all the while mainstream theater often offering very limited means of accommodating a Deaf audience. This, then, is reclaiming the narrative by nature of who is telling it: a play written by and starring two Deaf men, and presented by Out of the Box, whose mission is to center stories about marginalized identities, with a focus on people with disabilities. At the performance I attended, at least half of the audience was either Deaf or fluent in ASL. And a huge chunk of the play is communicated only in ASL or the occasional handwritten message on a dry erase board.  I could say that this means I am not the primary audience, and I'm probably not; but the truth is, while I don't always grasp the nuance of a particular moment in the way the Deaf audience members do, I am still able to follow the characters' conflicts and emotional journeys. And then there's the slightly fantastical device: a jukebox rescued from an arcade. While outsiders observe that it's odd for two Deaf men to keep blasting music, for the audience, every dollar fed to the jukebox (here embodied by Chris Ogren in a smart black suit) awakens an English-speaking interpreter for the characters signing onstage. For the hearing audience, we are temporarily admitted into the conversation. For the Deaf audience, not much has changed. The show isn't for me, but it is letting me visit. In this way, it's a very generous invitation to the hearing world into what is often a very isolated community, as Deaf people are largely excluded from a mainstream society unwilling or unable to learn their language. One of the questions of the play is if it's worth the bigger lift on the part of ostracized Deaf to try to assimilate as much as possible into an audist world, or if it's better to live where they won't be treated as children or second-class citizens, as people not worth hearing. That's the macro. The micro is how Tim and Jake can bridge their own communication divide, as well as trying to wrangle a lifetime of baggage weighing them down.

Andrew Morrill as Tim, James Caverly as Jake, and Chris
Ogren as Jukebox. Photo by Rebecca J. Michelson.

Weekly Margin 2026, W12: Monte Cristo, Our House, My Joy is Heavy, The Wild Party

3/18/26: Monte Cristo

What: The York Theatre presents a new musical adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas classic novel about revenge and love.

And? full review here.

Norm Lewis as Villefort. Photo by Shawn Salley.

3/19/26: Our House

What: The Other Side of Silence presents Barry Boehm's new play, about elder queer couple Andy and Stanley hosting their nephew Brendan and his fiancé Gene for their upcoming wedding. When smalltown bigotries of racism and homophobia rear their ugly heads, old griefs and new pains are exposed.

And? This play is very difficult to watch, not because of its quality but because of its content. Though Andy and Stanley survived the worst of the AIDS crisis, with Andy a vocal and passionate fighter with ACT UP, they've settled into the family home in a rather small town with no queer community to speak of. And while they're frustrated by the harassment of local young men pelting their yard with walnuts, the underlying awareness of the danger facing Gene, a Black gay man, is felt not just by the audience but by the family onstage. And we all hate that we're right. So it's a difficult play to watch. But it's worth watching. Christopher Borg is particularly affecting as Andy, a mix of loving joy and fiercely bitter anger and heartbreak at what he and his community have lived through, and continue to live through. His final moments, a grief and reconciliation with his husband Stanley is well-earned. Also quite powerful is Jalen Ford as Eugene: quiet and sweet, but carrying an additional burden none of the others in his almost-family can seem to understand. Ford's performance is understated and honest and lived in, which makes it all the more horrible when he's attacked. Scenic designer Evan Frank builds a lovely backyard space for the action, with a fence strung with festive lights. It's notable that this feels more real than the back facade of the house, particularly with its importance to the family: a skeletal structure, with only half its siding covering the inside. But then, what we see is that perhaps a house isn't enough protection from the outside hostility, when the walls aren't as solid as we think.

Christopher Borg as Andy, Nancy Slusser as Paula, CJ DiOrio
as Brendan, and Jalen Ford as Eugene. Photo by Mikiodo.

Margin Notes: Monte Cristo

Monte Cristo

Seen on: Wednesday, 3/18/26.

Adam Jacobs as Edmund and Sierra Boggess
as Mercedes. Photo by Shawn Salley.

Plot and Background

The York Theatre presents the world premiere of Peter Kellogg and Stephen Weiner's new musical adaptation of the classic Alexandre Dumas novel The Count of Monte Cristo. Edmund, an honest sailor, is framed for treason on the eve of his wedding, and sent to prison for eighteen years. His fiancée Mercedes, believing him dead, marries his rival Fernand to cover her pregnancy. While in prison, Edmund is educated by fellow prisoner Abbe in languages, arts, and swordcraft, as well as the location of a hidden fortune; when he escapes, he uncovers the treasure on Monte Cristo, then uses his newfound wealth and knowledge to build his new persona as the mysterious titular count, and wreak revenge on the three men who wronged him.

Thoughts:

Originally released in serialized form before its publication as a novel, The Count of Monte Cristo is a complex web of treachery, revenge, and a twisted quest for justice, stuffed with a large cast of characters tracing morally ambiguous journeys. A two hours and change musical can't manage all that and still be coherent. Peter Kellogg and Stephen Weiner's musical adaptation seeks coherency by condensing and combining a number of auxiliary characters while cleaning up some of their acts: Edmund's allies, though played for laughs, stand on the side of right without treachery. Edmund doesn't teach someone how to poison her family. He also doesn't help rescue a number of past allies from financial ruin, but there's a lot going on in the novel, and it's better to narrow things down to the core parts of his arc. This is the correct move, but unfortunately in execution the reader's digest version of events, while following story beats, fails to thrill beyond what now seem like a very pedestrian narrative. Sweeney Todd this is not. (They also, incidentally, change the ending of the story, but they're not the first adaptation to make this change.)

That doesn't mean they're not trying. Stephen Weiner's score aspires toward the lushness of a tortured romance, but struggles to balance that against the more traditional sidekick character numbers, which indulge in an earthier old-fashioned musical comedy style. I think that tension might be the real struggle within the show at the moment: whether or not this is an old-fashioned musical comedy with a soupçon of camp, or a sweeping and ballad-full romantic musical drama, a la other pop musical writers like Webber and Wildhorn (incidentally, Wildhorn has also penned an adaptation of the novel, though it's played more internationally than domestically). If you go in expecting the latter, you'll be disappointed; however, if you go in open to the comic stylings, particularly of Danny Rutigliano, doing double duty as both Edmund's mentor (Abbe) and sidekick (Caderousse) and making a meal out of both, you might fare better. This is especially evident in Kellogg's lyrics. In the more romantic numbers, his lyrics tend toward a looser pop sensibility of songs that could be easily removed from context and played elsewhere; however, for the more comedic numbers, the lyrics must be specific to be funny, and are thus much more grounded in the circumstances of character and moment. 

Weekly Margin 2026, W10: Destination, Dust of Egypt

3/05/26: Destination

What: 4 Girls Film Productions in association with Jarrott Productions present George Ayres's new play. Howard Wright, a retired architect in an assisted living facility, facing only a year left of his life, embarks on a journey to declare his love for "the one that got away" after her engagement is published in the local newspaper. Meanwhile, his daughter wrestles with the what-ifs of her own lost love amidst a struggling marriage.

And? full review here.

3/06/26: Dust of Egypt

What: The Real Artists LLC presents Karin Abarbanel's new play about legendary activist Sojourner Truth. An adult Truth looks back on her youth, when she was newly emancipated from enslavement and fighting in court to rescue and liberate her son Peter, who was illegally sold across state lines from New York to Alabama.

And? full review here.

Margin Notes: Dust of Egypt

Dust of Egypt

Seen on: Friday, 3/06/26.

Jade Cayne as Bell. Photo by Rainer DeLalio.

Plot and Background

The Real Artists LLC presents Karin Abarbanel's new play about legendary activist Sojourner Truth. An adult Truth looks back on her youth, when she was newly emancipated from enslavement and fighting in court to rescue and liberate her son Peter, who was illegally sold across state lines from New York to Alabama.

Thoughts:

Over an empty stage, a man and a woman stand on mirrored balconies running the perimeter of the space, trilling a birdsong and waving their arms, gently flying. As this prologue, a gentle dream of escape and freedom, gives way, Sojourner Truth walks onstage. Bonneted and white shawled, she tells us the story, not of how she became renowned activist and speaker, but of how she accomplished another unusual task: she was one of the first Black woman to win a case against a white man of an enslaved person being sold illegally across state lines. She introduces her younger self, a woman named Bell (played by Jade Cayne with a sweet vulnerability that transforms over the course of the story into a spine of steel and a unswerving sense of self). What follows is a mix of narration by the elder Truth (a stentorian Desi Waters) that lends itself easily into crowd-speaking as she stands behind a podium), re-enactment of Bell's struggle, and that liminal space where Truth and Bell both wrestle with her betrayal of her son, a lingering question of whether forgiveness is ever possible.

Margin Notes: Destination

Destination

Seen on: Thursday, 3/05/26.

Plot and Background

4 Girls Film Productions in association with Jarrott Productions's four-day presentation of George Ayres's new play, as part of Chain Theatre's 2026 The Factory Series. Howard Wright, a retired architect in an assisted living facility, facing only a year left of his life, embarks on a journey to declare his love for "the one that got away" after her engagement is published in the local newspaper. Meanwhile, his daughter wrestles with the what-ifs of her own lost love amidst a struggling marriage.

Thoughts:

Play: Over the course of one day, Howard Wright learns that the woman who got away--a coworker with whom he was infatuated years ago, even while both of them were married--is getting remarried, and he resolves to drive out and offer himself to her instead. His daughter spends this same day meeting with her lover--another one who got away, her high school sweetheart--and finally confronting him about why they broke up so many years ago, only to return to her life just as her father does, a little more weathered but definitely wiser. The theme overall here is missed chances and second chances: can you reclaim what you've lost, or can you at least heal an old scar before moving on? Playwright George Ayres finds a variety of ways to explore this across his band of characters: Howard and his pining for Caroline (and the reveal of her reciprocal pining); Howard's neighbor Gigi and her pining for him; Howard's daughter Jennifer and her lover Robert, each reaching back to an uncapturable past; and Howard's longtime housekeeper Alma, advising from her own experience of letting her true love die without knowing she returned his love, warning Howard not to let his chance go by too. I do feel that the pacing and structure need some reworking: Howard's reunion with Caroline is touchingly bittersweet with a killer final line to the scene, but it's such a satisfying moment that it's almost jarring to realize there are still several scenes to go before everything wraps up, and the final moments of the play don't manage to land with the same satisfy beat of a journey completed.

Weekly Margin 2026, W9: Cold War Choir Practice, Marcel on the Train, Antigone (This Play I Read in High School), Hate Radio, Bug, The Other Place, Operation Mincemeat (Blizzard livestream)

2/25/26: Cold War Choir Practice

What: MCC, Clubbed Thumb, and Page 73 present Ro Reddick's play about Meek, a young Black girl in her local Cold War Choir (apparently this is a real thing), who gets caught up, along with her aunt, in intrigues involving the Soviet Union and a cult.

And? So there's a lot going on. It's a strange but interesting show with engaging performances, especially Alana Raquel Bowers's straightforward and sweet Meek, and Grace McLean's sly and purring Choir slash cult member. I don't quite know what to take away from the show, but it was a fun ride along the way.

Alana Raquel Bowers, center, as Meek, with Suzzy Roche,
Grace McLean, and Nina Ross as the Choir. Photo from the
Summerworks production by Maria Baranova.

2/26/26: Marcel on the Train

What: Ethan Slater co-writes (with director Marshall Pailet) and stars in bioplay about a young Marcel Marceau's role in the French Resistance during the German occupation of France during WW2, as he helped Jewish children escape Nazi capture.

And? It's really quite an extraordinary piece of history on its own, and one I hadn't heard. Scenic Designer Scott Davis evokes the train car in which Marcel escorts the four orphan children with a wooden platform and benches, and a curved metal scaffolding overhead to represent the train's roof. This is where we are for the whole show (with a few flashbacks and flashforwards): a place with no apparent escape but also no evident protection. The ceiling is an illusion, the walls invisible. Studio Luna's lighting design plays dramatically with light and shadow, creating a world where darkness is safer than the threat of light. Against this, director Marshall Pailet crafts a taut 100-minute production, with each raised voice a potential siren to bring on capture and execution, while also teetering over a future uncertain enough that--even knowing Marcel Marceau goes to become a world-renowned mime--survival does not feel guaranteed. And indeed, with the flashforwards we see that no one escapes this time unscathed or free from trauma. Are these flashforwards the truth, or only what the children hope for--what Marcel hopes for?

The four children we see Marcel ushering are fictionalized but each serves as an interesting foil to the twenty-year-old man (in addition to being fully realized characters on their own): Henri (the sweet and funny Alex Wyse), whose gift for blather and determination to survive inspires a self-doubting Marcel to keep moving forward with his mission; Adolphe (my favorite, Max Gordon Moore), a preteen with a strong sense of right and wrong, and a distaste for lying, who holds Marcel accountable for his responsibility to four vulnerable children; Etiennette (a mute but expressive Maddie Corman), terror-struck but drawn out of her shell by mirroring Marcel's playful impulses and clown work; and Berthe (the always wonderful Tedra Millan, here bringing a brittle brine to her performance), whose blend of pessimistic and realistic perspective force Marcel to extend himself beyond gentle play into action and decision. Aaron Serotsky, who plays Everyone Else, brings an especially terrifying energy to the Nazi search of the train car, delicately tip-toing along the line between a benevolent authority figure performing an unfortunate necessity, and a snake waiting patiently for his prey to stumble in biting range. As the titular Marcel, Slater beautifully embodies the charisma and showmanship, while also delving into the vulnerability of a young man only just out of his teens, risking not only his life but the lives of children unable to protect themselves.

Tedra Millan as Berthe and Max Gordon Moore as Adolphe.
Photo by Emilio Madrid.

Weekly Margin 2026, W8: Bigfoot!, Chinese Republicans, An Ark, Poor Judge

2/17/26: Bigfoot!

What: New York City Center presents Amber Ruffin, Kevin Sciretta, and David A. Schmoll's new musical about Bigfoot.

And? It's very uneven. Amber Ruffin and Kevin Sciretta's book is full of some really funny one-liners, but the pastiche of the scenes feels more like sketches rather than pieces of a larger story. By contrast, the score by Ruffin and David Schmoll is nowhere near the level of humor, nor the level of pastiche, needed to really make a show like this soar (and the music just sits there, rather than pushing forward momentum or leaning in harder to the comedy). The show owes a heavy debt to late nineties/early aught musicals Bat Boy and Urinetown, but it hasn't paid off its arrears yet. The cast, though, is excellent. I saw it in the first week of previews so they're still working out some of the kinks with line delivery and timing, but when they nail a line it's nailed. It's a treat to see Crystal Lucas-Perry onstage again, and to see Katerina McCrimmon for the first time (the voice coming out of that tiny frame!). And of course the standout is Grey Henson as Bigfoot himself. Henson has an uncanny knack for delivering any line, no matter how ridiculous or dad-joke-groan-worthy, earnestly and almost thrown-away, that will never not be hilarious to me (he was distinctly my favorite part of Shucked). He's absolutely delightful and as immediately likeable as a fluffy puppy bounding onstage. The show is worth it for him, honestly, though I'm glad it's only ninety minutes.

Grey Henson as Bigfoot. Photo by Marc J. Franklin.

2/18/26: Chinese Republicans

What: Roundabout presents Alex Lin's play about four Chinese American women in the corporate world and the question whether assimilation will ever be allowed for them in that environment (and if they want it to be).

And? It's fine. The arguments are interesting, and the cast is strong, particularly Jodi Long as the groundbreaker of the group, the first Asian woman to be a Managing Director in New York, and Jully Lee as a snarky Iris, the only one among them to have actually been born in China. 

Weekly Margin 2026, W7: Kramer/Fauci

2/11/26: Kramer/Fauci

What: Skirball Theater presents the Daniel Fish-directed verbatim play depicting a contentious televised confrontation on CSPAN between legendary (and incendiary) gay rights activist Larry Kramer (author of The Normal Heart) and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading AIDS researcher.

And? Daniel Fish is such a strange combination of being able to draw out interesting, understated performances and just throwing things at the wall and saying "fuck it." Will Brill as Fauci and Thomas Jay Ryan as Kramer are wonderful. Kramer is the juicier role in many ways, with his incendiary rants, his penchant for taking over the conversation, and his bone-deep passion for his cause; Ryan captures all of that perfectly, showing us a man whom is simultaneously impossible to hate but very possible to want to slug. As to the design, well, the preshow lighting by Scott Zielinski feels like an assault: a grid of lights on the back wall shining aggressively at the audience with no softer overhead light to balance it. Why? To annoy Zelda? Who knows. Tei Blow's sound design, however, is perfectly intimate, letting us hear the slight tinniness of voices in microphones while also feeling like those voices are speaking directly in our ears. Fish's staging is deliberately abstract, which is fine: it gives us something dynamic to look at for what would otherwise just be talking heads, if we went literal. But then there are just some weirdass choices that to me never end up connecting to the story being told: Jennifer Seastone, who plays all the call-ins during the televised sequence, begins the show watching patiently in roller blades and a neon pink windbreaker: once she starts to call in she skates her way around the space. I was fine with this, as it shows the more infantile approach by the laypeople to the arguments raised by the experts, but then later she dons an inflatable chicken costume. Sure, why not, right? Oh and there's a tower that starts gouting out giant clouds of bubbles, forming a mountainous blanket for the stage that will slowly melt over the rest of the hour-long performance, while Kramer sits calmly in a chair and lets it engulf him.

I ... listen, I like unusual staging, I like when we engage with the metaphor that is live performance, when we depart from the literal to see what additional stories we can tell with the texts we have. But I also like for those choices to contribute to story, character, or theme. These just felt like weirdness for the sake of weirdness. It's either too deep for me or too silly for me. I bet I know which one Daniel Fish thinks it is.

Weekly Margin 2026, W6: The Porch on Windy Hill, Hans Litten: The Jew Who Cross-Examined Hitler, Mother Russia, High Spirits

2/02/26: The Porch on Windy Hill

What: Urban Stages presents the return of "a new play with old music," about Mira, who inadvertently reunites with her estranged grandfather while on a hootenanny-hunting road trip with her enthusiastic grad school boyfriend.

And? This is a rare special piece that is perfectly tailored to the three performers at its center (which makes sense as two of them are also cowriters on the piece): each adept at a variety of stringed instruments, from banjo and dulcimer to guitar and mandolin to violin (or fiddle, depending on the song) and urhu (a two-stringed Chinese instrument with a long narrow neck and a small wooden soundbox). As the three characters trade stories and song across the porch of Edgar (Mira's grandfather)'s porch, the timbre varies: when they play together in traded melody lines, singing along in a joyous shifting harmony, everything seems easy. But between the songs the unhealed wounds reopen, confronting unresolved tensions and heartbreak. Music may be Mira and Edgar's connector, but it's not the thing that can actually mend what's broken. Words spoken a cappella are the only road to reconciliation. The dialogue sections themselves are uneven, pace-wise, and need to be sharpened and tightened. But the emotional beats are still there and hit well, especially as performed by Tora Nogami Alexander as the closed-off but hopeful Mira, and David M. Lutken as a beautifully understated--and also a bit closed-off--and homespun pure Edgar (the third voice in their trio, Morgan Morse, plays Beckett, who keeps verging over into annoying and intrusive. But he does it so well, I have to think it's deliberate). But oh, when the three of them play--when they're playing, harmonizing, improvising--the joy of it, the beauty of the sound. When they play, none of the rest of it seems to matter, if we can just be here and listen to them go.

Tora Nagomi Alexander (Mira), Morgan Morse (Beckett), and
David M. Lutken (Edgar). Photo by Ben Hider.

2/04/26: Hans Litten: The Jew Who Cross-Examined Hitler

What: Douglas Lackey's new bioplay about the attorney, Hans Litten, who in his capacity as private prosecutor questioned Hitler on the stand to answer for the violence of his storm troopers. Later, when Hitler assumes the role of Chancellor, Litten is specifically targeted for imprisonment, interrogation, and torture. Though his family and allies campaign for his release, he ultimately dies in Dachau by suicide.

And? Having appreciated him in a number of supporting roles over the past few years, I'm pleased to see Daniel Yaiullo step into a leading role. He leads the cast with gentleness and intelligence, tracing Litten's arc from a confident young man of conviction, to a battered and beaten-down shell still determined to hold onto his honor as well as his love for music and the written word. The ensemble is a bit uneven under him, but Zack Calhoon's turn as Hitler is strikingly understated, and Dave Stishan makes an affably practical Barbasch (a colleague of Litten's), contrasted with the glowering visage when he plays a stormtrooper. The design is in large part utilitarian if unremarkable, except for a transformative and stomach-dropping moment that closes out the first act. The script itself is clunky and overlong with a bit of a dragging pace right now--issues that could be fixed with a tightening and focus to a theme, rather than a strict adherence to the facts as they happened. I'm not saying make things up; I'm saying make it a story rather than a biography. It's a story worth telling.

Foreground: Daniel Yaiullo as Hans Litten.
Background: Zack Calhoon as Adolf Hitler.
Photo by Nejamin Rivera.

Weekly Margin 2026, W5: The Disappear, Data

1/27/26: The Disappear

What: Audible's Minetta Lane Theatre presents Eric Schmidt's new play about an insufferable and  narcissistic screenwriter/director and his long-suffering (and more prolific) wife who are pressured into adapting one of her novels into a film, amidst his chronic infidelities.

And? Honestly this one never quite gelled for me. There's talent onstage, for sure, but the story and characters are just kind of there without surprises or much inspiration.

Anna Mirodin, Madeline Brewer, and Hamish Linklater as
Dolly Blair-Braxton, Julie Wells, and Benjamin Braxton.
Photo by Jeremy Daniel.

1/28/26: Data

What: The Lucille Lortel Theatre hosts Matthew Libby's play about a coder who realizes his new predictive algorithm is primed for use by a government overreach that could endanger many people including his family. 

And? This was profoundly by the books, with each story beat entirely predictable (#irony) and therefore unsurprising. We've seen this story before, many times; just this time it involves AI.

Sophia Lillis, Karan Brar, and Justin H. Min as Riley, Maneesh,
and Alex. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.

Weekly Margin 2026, W4: Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York), The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Murder at Midnight

1/21/26: Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)

What: The Broadway transfer of the West End two-hander musical about a young British man visiting New York for the first time to attend the wedding of a father he's never met, and his antics with the sister of the (much younger than the groom) bride.

And? It's cute. It's definitely cute. Both actors are doing good work (nice to see Christiani Pitts again). I like Soutra Gilmour's seemingly simple but magic box surprise of a scenic design. Several of the songs in the second half are clever. But I was not in a good headspace when I saw this--which is not the show's fault--so I found a lot of the humor unimpressive, the plot turns predictable, the first half of the score unsurprising, and the piece as a whole not unusual enough to transcend any of that. Someone said to me it's being described as this season's Maybe Happy Ending, and I can see that, in terms of a small-cast chamber musical telling a sweet story of two polar opposite people on a quest learning to appreciate each other. But Two Strangers slides closer to a number of movies I've already seen, whereas MHE surprises in staging, scenic and projection design, clever lyrics and earned character arcs, and ultimately managing to skirt a number of predictable archetypes of this type of story to show us something new.

Two Strangers doesn't show us something new, even if it is charming enough at what it's showing us. I don't want to come down to hard on it. But I think it got overhyped for me, and then with my brain being what it was when I saw the show, I was underwhelmed.

Christiani Pitts and Sam Tutty as Robin and Dougal.
Photo by Matthew Murphy.

1/22/26: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

What: The Off-Broadway revival of Rachel Sheinkin and William Finn's adorable musical about, well, what the title says, and the oddball kids who compete.

And? A perfectly fine and fun revival, if not particularly transformative. The sweet and tart nature of the show remains intact, as well as the humor. And it's good to hear this score live again. I had hoped to catch Justin Cooley, a delight in Kimberly Akimbo, but he was out; luckily, his understudy Jahbril Cook did excellent and endearing work. The contemporary script updates were mostly fun, and a good way to keep surprising people who already know the show well from its original run. I particularly enjoyed a number of the women in the cast: Jasmine Amy Rogers (Miss Betty Boop herself!) is an endearingly earnest Olive without being cloying, Leana Rae Concepcion's Marcy is a hilarious taut wire until her euphoric explosion in my favorite song in the show, "I Speak Six Languages," and the always excellent Lilli Cooper is polished, wryly funny, and in excellent voice as the bee's emcee Rona Lisa Peretti. My one real beef with this production is the missed opportunity seized by the original production. When this show first arrived on Broadway back in the aughts, it featured three principal roles played by larger bodied actors. It was great representation of three talented performers (and their talented understudies and replacements--I got to see Josh Gad), and there were no jokes made about their size. With this revival cast, there is none of that, and it's a damn shame.

The company of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.
Photo by Joan Marcus.

Streaming Theater

• Original Theatre's Murder at Midnight.

Weekly Margin 2026, W3: Try/Step/Trip, The Great Escape, Fiddler on the Roof

1/12/26: Try/Step/Trip

What: The Living Word Project presents Dahlak Braithwaite's non-linear interrogation of a young Black man's experience within a court-mandated rehab program, utilizing the the language of hip hop, step, and spoken word.

And? full review here.

Dahlak Brathwaite, center-ish, and the Los Angeles cast of
Try/Step/Trip. Photo by MarKing IV Photography.

1/16/26: The Great Escape

What: Ruthie Scarpino brings her clown, four-year-old Apfel Tucas, to New York with the story of her daring escape from Rosh Hashanah services to find the snack stash at her synagogue.

And? Pretty freaking adorable. Scarpino's well-gifted in the body- and gesture-isolation needed to do effective mime work, and her guileless persona as young Apfel endears her to the audience even as she continually drafts them into helping her physicalize her imaginings and enact the story of her great escape.

Ruthie Scarpino as Apfel Tucas. Photo source.

Margin Notes: Try/Step/Trip

Try/Step/Trip

Seen on: Monday, 1/12/26.

The Los Angeles cast of Try/Step/Trip.
Photo by MarKing IV Photography.

Plot and Background

The Living Word Project presents Dahlak Brathwaite's non-linear interrogation of a young Black man's experience within a court-mandated rehab program, utilizing the language of hip hop, step, and spoken word, as part of the 2026 Under the Radar Festival. As "Anonymous" navigates rehab and the systemic external expectations placed on him by society for the intersectional parts of his identity, he must also navigate his own sense of self, independent of these markers.

Thoughts:

Brathwaite's work is instantly kinetic, rhythmic, and engaging as he summons the ensemble from his place at the Conductor's station (a setup including keyboard, soundboard, and microphone). They jog out in perfect percussive synchronicity to the beat he's built, chased by the Conductor's spoken word introduction of the cyclical nature of his story and this performance, and it becomes clear to the audience that we're in the hands of a confident, polished, and virtuosic writer/composer/star. Anonymous, the younger version of the Conductor, lands himself in group rehab with the charismatic Samples, always on the verge of relapse; the self-possessed Mary, acknowledging her indulgences but committed to staying clean; Steve, a recovering cocaine addict and lone white character, whose frantic energy is maintained with a new fixation of espressos; and Pastor, the group's leader and a firm advocate of religion as salvation from addiction.

Anonymous, after delineating a series of police aggression--stop and frisks over the years that yielded nothing--finds himself in rehab after finally being stopped while in possession of mushrooms. Though apparently not an actual addict, he enters the program to avoid prison because "we been locked up since the day we arrived" anyway. But what he learns is that his inescapable identity as a Black man in America subjects him to systemic proscriptions of that very identity, regardless of his actions. As he says, he "seems to be stuck in the same role/No one wondered why [he] was there./[He] was just playing the role." And in this framework, he is volleyed from law enforcement prejudices to the criminal court with a seedy public defender, to a group rehab where he encounters two men vying for the position of his mentor: Pastor, who wields his religion like a cudgel against a young man who never felt at home in the church; and Samples, who encourages him to embrace hip hop as a liberation, to embrace the tradition of being an American Black man descended from enslaved people. The sticky part of either of these conflicting credos is that Anonymous himself is the child of immigrants and a first-generation American. So any identity offered to him--be it a Baptist church, a hip hop artist articulating his generational pain, or a criminal waiting to be caught--does not truly speak to who he is, even as he tries on different identities in search of a truer understanding of himself.

Weekly Margin 2026, W2: Picnic at Hanging Rock

1/05/25: Picnic at Hanging Rock: The Musical

What: A musical adaptation of Joan Lindsay's novel about a schoolgirl picnic in Victoria, Australia where several girls and a schoolteacher mysteriously go missing. As the search for the missing girls continues, the remaining students and teachers slowly start to fracture themselves, the damage from the tragedy stretching out to encompass them.

And? What a weird weird story. I'm half-tempted to read the novel, but from what I've learned it has as dissatisfying and inconclusive an ending as the musical does. The show is full of strong performers (and it's refreshing to see another female-dominated musical), but the staging feels very cramped on the Greenwich House stage. The scenic design, though visually striking, cinches the cast in, and then there is choreo of the seven students trying valiantly to not knock themselves against anything as they spin. I don't think it needed to be this claustrophobic; I think the Greenwich House Theater is actually maneuverable enough to allow for a more expansive performance space to really let the story and performers breathe (this is, after all, where the pie shop Sweeney Todd played, when it was still the Barrow Street Theater).

The company of Picnic at Hanging Rock. Photo by Matthew Murphy.

Weekly Margin 2026, W1: Marjorie Prime, Twelfth Night

1/03/25: Marjorie Prime

What: 2nd Stage revival of Jordan Harrison's play about Marjorie, a woman in her 80s with Alzheimer's interacting with a new technology of holographic people called Primes who are taught to be the embodiment of lost love ones, through the stories told to them by those who still remember. Marjorie's adult daughter Tess struggles with the idea of this technology, both as an evocation of her dead father and as an imperfect and filtered version of reality: a Walter who is taught a gussied up version of his marriage to Marjorie and who isn't told about his son Damien who died many years ago.

And?  The wildest thing about this play to me is that it was written years before ChatGPT existed, because it seems like such a good conversation piece to have in regards to that particular AI application, full of half-truths culled from many sources, but also full of hallucinations (and frankly terrible counting skills--ask my sister). Walter Prime tells Marjorie the story of the night he proposed, but Marjorie asks him to overwrite it so they saw Casablanca rather than My Best Friend's Wedding. The death of their son Damien irrevocably changed the entire family, and yet Marjorie hasn't spoken Damien's name since he died. Walter Prime learns from her the story of their marriage, their daughter, their two dogs, but not a word about their son. And as each memory is overwritten with a newer glossed-over draft, it steps further and further away from reality and into the realm of fairy tales. Spoilers ahead, so stop reading now if you don't want them! As each subsequent character passes away, to be reincarnated into their blank page version to be written and rewritten, we step further and further away from reality: each new self has softened edges, removing conflict and unkindness, erasing trauma and baggage for theoretically easier communication, but instead creating smudged carbon copies. In the final sequence, the three remaining Primes sit around a table telling each other their stories, each one not quite true, but yet in full consensus. It's an excellent demostration of the inferiority of AI art to human-created art: AI art can regurgitate and collage, but it cannot invent, whereas human-created art can do both. The final sequence of these three Primes in their loop of half-truths and elided facts also got me thinking about the line I heard once, that you only truly die when there's no one left alive who remembers you (Tom Stoppard's Leopoldstadt explores this theme beautifully). Here at the end when only Primes remain, with no one left alive to remember Damien, the poor unhappy son is dead at last.

June Squibb and Cynthia Nixon as Marjorie and Tess.
Photo by Joan Marcus.

Streaming Theater

• Shakespeare in the Park's summer production of Twelfth Night, hosted on PBS.