Weekly Margin 2026, W43: The Ask, Bitcoin Bad Boy, Fish

10/20/26: The Ask

What: A new two-hander from Matthew Freeman about a meeting between a fundraiser for the ACLU and a wealthy donor who has been reconsidering her contributions based on what she perceives as shifting priorities incompatible with the organization's core mission.

And? The main crux here is the generational (and ultimately cultural) divide between a Boomer liberal and a Gen Z leftie, both believing passionately in the mission of the organization but at odds for the priorities of advocacy within that. And it's not that it's an uninteresting topic--the question of past fights won or lost weighed against current battles still in the trenches is one worth exploring. But it's not explored in the most interesting manner here. There's not a tremendous amount of insight offered for the full lives of either character outside the broad sketches of their demographic. There's tension in how fundraiser Tanner has to shape their responses to donor Greta, cognizant the entire time that hundreds of thousands of dollars are on the line for how this conversation concludes. But it's not really enough when I'm not invested in the characters, and neither side of the argument is going to effectively win over an audience member on the other side of the debate. There's some empathy to be gained, in understanding how each character believes what they believe (and very fine performances from Marilu Henner and especially Shannon Purser), but it's not enough and ultimately just feels like I'm reading a well-structured (and respectful) comments section.

Marilu Henner as Greta and Shannon Purser as Tanner.
Photo by Joan Marcus.

10/21/26: Bitcoin Bad Boy

What: As part of Chain Theatre's Factory Series, Inferno presents Ben Schiller's sequel to the 2024 Happenstance. Newly released crypto-coder Charlie must decide between embracing the more lucrative and corrupt side of cryptocurrency or insist on transparency and freedom.

And? full review here

Foreground: Gianna Hoffman as Sallie.
Background: Jack Orrico as Dan and Gloria
Sangirardi Jung as Barbara. Photo courtesy
of the production.

10/22/26: Fish

What: Melis Aker's play about a teenage girl who, trying to bypass her mother's efforts to see if her brother was recruited into a terrorist organization, begins catfishing ISIS members into sending her money.

And? The unfolding narrative is interesting, even if the performances are, by and large, not subtle (and the accent work unfortunately inconsistent). Emma Finckel's scenic design, the shiny tile panels of a swimming pool that turn strikingly modular depending on scene location, is excellent, simple, and smart.

Yasmin Ranz-Lind as Karya. Photo by Joan Marcus.

Margin Notes: Bitcoin Bad Boy

Bitcoin Bad Boy

Foreground: Gianna Hoffman as
Sallie. Background: Jack Orrico as
Dan and Gloria Sangirardi Jung
as Barbara. Photo courtesy of the
production.

Seen on: Wednesday, 10/21/26.

Plot and Background

As part of Chain Theatre's Factory Series, Inferno presents Ben Schiller's sequel to the 2024 Happenstance. At a Bitcoin World conference in Vegas, Charlie Schwagg--newly released from prison after writing a code that constituted money laundering--is hailed as a liberated hero of cryptocurrency. However, with his release contingent on his selling certain talking points in his keynote speech, notably those in service of a corrupt politician, his crisis of conscience leads him to instead flee the city, expose the truth, and bring the news to the world not only online but also to a stadium audience in New York. Playwright Schiller used his decade of experience in crypto journalism to inform Charlie's two poles: a "free" market of cryptocurrency about to be regulated and dismantled, and the hope of something purer and cleaner, a return to the free without any malingering corruption.

Thoughts:

Play: Well, it's a lot. It's a lot of moving pieces and a lot of players with questionable motives, from Charlie's parasitic and opportunist brother and parents, to two aggressive fans-slash-muggers in a parking lot, to the strong-arming from the power suit-wearing politician, to Charlie's redemption in the form of his spiritually-inclined ex-girlfriend. When Crypto Czar points out the flickering neon lights of Vegas to Charlie, he asks him what that looks like to him. Charlie responds, "Hell?" "No," Butch replies, "that's freedom." At the center of it all, Charlie seems more a shiftless wavering soul rather than an anchor, a core around which the other characters orbit. Perhaps that's the point: it is only when he finally crystalizes his beliefs that his posture transforms from a constant side-to-side shuffling to standing tall and still. That being said, I'm not sure the arc is fully earned. The scenes tend to meander both within the moments as well as the fade from one space to another. The family's transformation from using Charlie to supporting him moves too quickly to absolve them of their corruption, and a reconciliation never makes it onstage. Girlfriend Sallie's redemption of Charlie, meanwhile, feels as shapeless as her hippy-dippy world view (she's absconded from Burning Man to rescue him, based on a psychic revelation). I suspect some of these relationships are more rewarding for an audience already familiar with these characters from Happenstance, but coming at them fresh with only this play leaves me with a lot of unknowns. That being said, while the emotional resonance of the relationships runs on the light side, playwright Schiller does an admirable job of catching the viewer up on the backstory itself. The most strikingly drawn conflict and tension of this play lies between Charlie and politician Butch, whose villainy is clean-cut and merciless. But with his absence from the final reckoning, the weight of that conflict reaching its climax with more a whimper than a bang.

Weekly Margin 2026, W42: Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library

10/13/26: Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library

What: Luna Stage and Richard Jordan Productions with Traverse Theatre present Jenny Lynn Bader's play covering Hannah Arendt's arrest and interrogation that immediately preceded her escape from Germany and the rise of the Nazi party.

And? There are some elements here of environmental tension and threat, but not enough. Hannah is kept in isolation in a basement prison cell for several days, not knowing if her mother (also arrested) is safe. She doesn't know if she will be released. She has no contact with the outside world. It isn't until a lawyer lies his way into her cell that she even knows she's being charged with treason. And yet this woman seems never unsure, never unsafe. It's never once clear that she's deliberately manipulating her interrogator and obfuscating her motives. She has no emotional journey because she starts where she ends, never really fearing she could be tortured or killed at any moment. Her interrogator Karl, then, is the character with an actual arc and journey: that of a green and insecure officer putting on bravado but eventually being won over enough to assist her in escaping punishment. And as it's not clear if he's making this exception for just her or if she really has turned him around on "the Jewish question," I therefore don't know why I should care much about the journey of a Jew-hater.

Ella Kaille as Hannah. Photo by Valerie Terranova.

Weekly Margin 2026, W41: Other Desert Cities, Night of January 16th

10/06/26: Other Desert Cities

What: A Broadway revival of Jon Robin Baitz's play about a family rocked by their adult daughter's upcoming memoir which reveals long-hidden secrets ... and leads to more revelations.

And? I saw the first Broadway run, about fifteen years ago, and over the course of this new production had my memory slowly jogged regarding upcoming revelations. It's well-acted, particularly Ed Harris as the patriarch Lyman. Lily Rabe has a very different take on Brooke, the catalyzer of the family catastrophe, than Rachel Griffiths, which affects the dynamic overall. Griffiths's Brooke was brittle and guarded but without the teeming warmth of Rabe. Either approach is valid, but it changes the nature of the audience's shifting loyalties. Overall a quality presentation of a solid play.

10/09/26: Night of January 16th

What: Ruth Stage presents Ayn Rand's courtroom drama, inspired by the death of Ivan Kreuger, in which a jury selected from the audience must vote on whether or not to convict the woman accused of his murder.

And? I'll confess I don't understand the meaning behind a number of director Theo Devaney's choices for this interpretation. Some things work very well: the ballet of Hannah Beemer's Lady Justice as she moves blind through the courtroom, the stillness of Christa B. Allen's Karen Andre in contrast to the almost frenetic movement of some of the witnesses. The sparseness of Tomas Calinao Correa's scenic design is effective as well with its floating chairs and podia but no actual physical grounding in a courtroom. The whole thing feels a bit like a dream, or a nightmare -- but here perhaps is where the vision loses me. There are a number of disparate elements that certainly feed the chaotic eclecticism of a nightmare but make very little story or metaphorical sense, like the prosecutor dressed as a dominatrix, the gradual undressing of both her and Karen (especially with no men onstage receiving the same treatment), the vision of the defense attorney as a hollow-eyed casino lounge sleeze, or cringing clerk Siegurd as a swaggering don with his peacoat draped elegantly over his shoulders. And of course the framing device of the cast as groaning, lumbering zombies awaiting their turn on the stand. I had hoped by the end of the production I would understand why, what statement was being made, but that did not happen. By and large these big swing choices distracted but did not fully obfuscate the play itself, but they still followed me home as unanswered questions.

Weekly Margin 2026, W40: Anon, Burning Leaves, Degenerates, Slam Frank

9/30/26: Anon: A Tempest at Our Kitchen Table

What: MCC presents Anne Washburn's newest play. In a suburb of San Antonio, a middle aged gay couple moves into a neighborhood across  the street from a family whose matriarch is knee-deep in the QAnon conspiracy swamp. As paranoia grows in both households, a violent confrontation feels more and more inevitable under the flashing lightning and booming thunder of a gathering storm.

And? This is pretty great. The overlay of the teenage daughter's work with King Lear is perhaps not subtle, but it is consistently satisfying; and her discussion of the difference between a monologue and a soliloquy sheds a perspective on how broken down online discourse has become that I hadn't actually considered before. A soliloquy isn't a conversation, like a monologue can be. Neither is a screed on X or a conspiracy-laden TikTok. They're bellowing into a void or at an imagined audience. As act two opened, I did one of those knowing chuckles of "ah right, this is an Anne Washburn play," but don't want to spoil more than that. At the end of the play, well ... I didn't realize we were at the end of the play. But otherwise I thought it was pretty great theater.

dots's scenic design is an interestingly spare and liminal space: a long wooden kitchen table in a room bare of other furniture or any art on the wall. To either side of the room, half-behind a scrim are cardboard boxes, but the question remains if the families are moving in or moving out, or--in the case of Jeanie's family--never quite finished moving in a year later. The concept for Cha See's lighting design is less clear to me. The general illumination of the space is fine, but I was continually distracted by the columns of round lights framing the space, and the significance of which lights were lit at different times. I didn't manage to resolve this by the end of the production, but I'm assuming it didn't distract anyone who isn't the kind of nerd I am. Good cast all around, especially Crystal Finn as the strident Jeanie and Izabel Mar as her outspoken daughter.

Izabel Mar as Delia and Crystal Finn as Jeanie.
Photo by Monique Carboni.

10/01/26: Burning Leaves

What: TOSOS presents the world premiere of Tom Rowan's play about Matt, a former New York actor, seeks a new start as a high school drama teacher in a small town in Illinois. As he attempts to engage the children on local events by encouraging them to craft a devised docuplay about the question of a nuclear power plant being built in their dying factory town, he encounters Jesse, a troubled young student with acting potential but a strong resistance to engagement as he wrestles with his sexuality. 

And? full review here.

Foreground: Campbell Idol as Jesse. Background: Sophie
Tanabaum as Hallie, Becky Rusch as Alicia, and Brady Dalton
Richards as Matt. Photo by Mikiodo.

Margin Notes: Slam Frank

Slam Frank

Olivia Bernábe as Anita and Walker Stovall as
ASM. Photo by Shawn Salley Photography.

Seen on: Saturday, 10/03/26.

Plot and Background

Inspired by a viral tweet asking if Anne Frank ever acknowledged her white privilege, Joel Sinensky and Andrew Fox conceived Slam Frank: The Anne-Frank Afro-Latin Hip-Hop Musical. Following a hit run with Asylum NYC, the encore production comes to the Orpheum Theatre. The premise of this production is a progressive theater attempts to retell Anne Frank's story while including as many diverse identities as possible, from ethnicity to gender to sexuality to neurodiversity.

Thoughts:

Play: We open with the "Artistic Director" of a progressive theater company standing onstage to introduce the show, beginning with a land acknowledgment which stutters to a stop when he can't remember the name of the indigenous people who originally lived here. He then goes on to explain his attempt as a cis white male to make space for other identities to express themselves, and the audience is chuckling along, knowingly acknowledging the performative wokeness and over-correcting we are about to witness in longform. And then we're in it, with Anita--not Anne--rapping into a hand-held mic about writing in her diary.

As the show goes on, the various characters emerge as one marginalized identity or another--or many intersectional ones. Anita is a Latina teen told to repress her ethnic identity to be more commercial (even as the ghost of her Abuela encourages her to remember who she is). Edith, Anne's mother, is a proud Black woman in a bold African print dress, who continually breaks the fourth wall to remind us that this is happening "today"--both the today of 1944 but also the today of 2026. Otto, her husband, is every neurodiverse identity the writers can throw at the wall, while also a closeted homosexual. The family Van Daan, hiding in the attic with the Franks, consist of Mr. Van Daan, the cis white villain; Mrs. Van Daan, a repressed woman on a journey of self-actualization; and Peter, their child who comes out as nonbinary (this of course leads to Anita discovering this must mean she's pansexual). Peter's number, the enjoyable tuneful "Non-Binary," is a showstopper coming-out for all characters (except Mr. Van Daan and Margot--hang on, we'll get to her in a moment), featuring each ripping off their yellow stars in favor of stars with the flag colors for their respective identities, complete with pronouns. The show-within-a-show and its characters are so enamored of exploring these identities that the actual circumstances of the Franks and Van Daans hiding in an attic are forgotten: at one point a character brings up the Nazis, and Anita, bewildered, replies, "the what?" That's the point, though: the writers takes the deliberate approach of appropriating a story without addressing the real circumstances, à la Cole Escola's conscious decision to not do any research when writing O, Mary! (reinforced especially in Slam Frank by the mispronunciation of character names: the t in Margot shouldn't be silent, for example). The extent of that appropriation--taking a story explicitly about the attempted annihilation of the Jewish people and making it explicitly about anyone else (reducing Jewish people, as unfortunately is happening a lot right now, to "white Europeans")--reaches full expression with Anita's sister Margot. Margot is the only character remotely coded as Jewish: lighting Shabbat candles and wearing a scarf over her hair. She's also the only character who doesn't speak.

Margin Notes: Burning Leaves

Burning Leaves

Foreground: Campbell Idol as Jesse.
Background: Sophie Tananbaum as Hallie, 
Becky Rusch as Alicia, and Brady Dalton Richards
as Matt. Photo by Mikiodo.

Seen on: Thursday, 10/01/26.

Plot and Background

Matt, a former New York actor, seeks a new start as a high school drama teacher in a small town in Illinois. As he attempts to engage the children on local events by encouraging them to craft a devised docu-play about the question of a nuclear power plant being built in their dying factory town, he encounters Jesse, a troubled young student with acting potential but a strong resistance to engagement as he wrestles with his sexuality. 

Thoughts:

Play: Rowan's play is well-constructed with a strong line of tension powerfully carried by director Graydon Gund. The dialogue is unstilted and honest, and I care about each character onstage, their wants and needs, as well as their individual hang-ups. I spent the show genuinely concerned for how things would shake out, desperate for a happy ending, but aware of the warning signs that we were headed for trouble. Matt moves into a spare room in the high school counselor's house, and proceeds to help around the house (including raking and burning the titular leaves), inadvertently inciting a crush in the recently-divorced Jane. He continues to unconsciously stir pots when he eschews the idea of putting on a musical (to the intense frustration of student Alicia, who has been counting on landing a leading role as a senior), favoring instead scenes from Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams, until he lands on the concept of the devised theater piece. And finally, in his biggest slip in judgement, he ignores the resistance of both counselor Jane as well as Jesse's hostile (and homophobic) father to encourage Jesse to pursue an acting career. Of course things will go badly. The best intentions, etc.

While Matt is, frankly, not a good teacher for a group of high schoolers still figuring out who they are, he is also simultaneously a good mentor for artists discovering their inner aptitudes: Hallie, the daughter of his landlord/school counselor Jane, shows an innate attunement for how to craft disparate elements from raw interviews into a coherent narrative. He recognizes (as does she) that though she is no actor, she can be a capable playwright (and, though they don't say it, a strong dramaturg). Jesse, meanwhile, demonstrates strong instincts with his connections to Hamlet's struggles, finding a way to externalize his own unspoken pain and fear. Where Matt falls short, continually, is in knowing how to balance his instincts of open vulnerability (no doubt a carryover from his time in the downtown New York theater space) with the boundaries needed to effectively teach teenagers without any lines being crossed. He's already off to a bad start by living in the spare room of the school counselor, which means cohabiting with one of his own students; but when his interest and kindness to Jesse spurs the teenage boy to not only come out to him but to also express his love for him, Matt completely fails to properly establish boundaries to protect not only the vulnerable child but also himself (for that matter, he should have immediately reported when Jesse confirmed his father beat him). Though it's clear he feels protective of Jesse and doesn't want to hurt him, what little he does to enforce boundaries is ineffective. It's also clear he understands on some level that what he's doing is wrong, hiding from Jane the full extent of their connection. Though he never crosses the physical boundary that would lead to actual molestation of a minor, his relationship to Jesse, with its inherent power dynamic and age gap, is not a safe environment for a vulnerable boy, especially when the shit hits the fan.

What follows, then, at least for this audience member, is both a lingering frustration with a deeply flawed protagonist, and a strong protective instinct for the teenage boy, hoping against hope that he will come out of all this safe and with the potential to lead a happy life.

Margin Notes 2026, W39: The Imaginary Invalid

9/27/26: The Imaginary Invalid

What: Roundabout revives Moliere's classic with a new adaptation by Bill Irwin (who also stars as the titular invalid). Argan believes he is perpetually ill, not realizing he is being bilked by his doctor. Desperate to get a doctor into the family, he tries to marry his daughter off, but she's already in love with someone else. Machinations, costume changes, and a happy ending for most!

And? A lot of fun. I'll admit to missing the rhyming couplets I'm used to for Moliere adaptations, but it's still very clever, and Bill Irwin is brilliant. Also making a good show for themselves are Rachel Bloom as wily servant Toinette, Dylan Baker as Argan's brother Beralde, Crystal A. Dickinson as Argan's melodramatic wife Beline, and the always scene-stealing Brooks Ashmanskas as both Drs Diafoirus and Purgon. The production might be worth it for the opening sequence alone, which is beautiful and well-crafted, bringing us from the world of masked comedy to today: though the costumes and setting remain "period," the dialogue is committed to contemporary inflection. We unfortunately had a snafu at our performance with a disruptive audience member, which led to them holding the show for about a half hour while it was resolved, but Irwin had an excellent sense of humor about it, nodding subtly to it the rest of the performance.

Margin Notes 2026, W38: The Cherry Orchard

9/16/26: The Cherry Orchard

What: Park Avenue Armory hosts the North American premiere of Chekhov's classic, as adapted by Simon Stone. This production moves the story from Russia  to Seoul, South Korea.

And? It's very visually striking (props to scenic designer Saul Kim), and I really appreciate the pared-down adaptation. I don't often have much patience for Chekhov, but this version worked well for me. It's a compelling study of nostalgia versus naked ambition, of stubborn denial versus practicality and cynicism, and of course of the changing mentalities around class structure. The cast is very strong, particularly Jeon Do-yeon as the dreamy and brittle Song Do-young (Madame Lyubov Andreievna Ranevskaya) and Park Hae-soo as her foil, the practical and passionate Hwang Doo-sik (Yermolai Alexeievitch Lopakhin). As with Simon Stone's production of Yerma, this show faces a few aural challenges by placing its cast behind glass walls for so much of the show. They're all clearly miked, but the sound mix offers no assistance in locational listening: many times I wouldn't realize the primary dialogue scene had moved to a different room, because the sound was all coming from the same place. This, coupled with the need to read the supertitles, made following some scenes a particular challenge, especially early on and with overlapping scenes. I'm still very glad I saw it--some excellent work here.

The cast of The Cherry Orchard.
Photo by Studio AL, LG Arts Center.

Margin Notes 2026, W34: Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody, The Winter's Tale, A Walk on the Moon, Paranormal Activity

8/17/26: Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody

What: Exactly what it says on the tin. An unauthorized musical parody of the hit Canadian TV series about rival hockey players who fall in love.

And? So very stupid and so very fun. The songs were, by and large, enjoyable. As with Titanique, some fatigue did set in for me as things went on, but I still had a good time. It was fantastic to see Ryann Redmond and Jay Armstrong Johnson again, and standby Shelby Acosta was fan-flipping-tastic as Shane's Mom and others.

And now I have to go off-topic because I had no idea that "The Culture Club" is in the McKittrick's old space (home for over a decade to Sleep No More). So imagine my surprise when I climbed the stairs to the second floor lobby and found myself in what every cell in my body remembers as the hotel lobby floor. My memory filled in the blanks: there were the phone booths; there was the piano where Boy Witch sang "If That's All There Is;" there's the lobby desk where the Boy Witch cried on my shoulder; down that curtained-off hallway is the dressing room where the Bald Witch put on her wig, or where the Porter put on lipstick while staring at me through a mirror. Here I saw so many encounters, here I was swept away, again and again. Of course, the phone booths and piano are gone. The lobby counter remains but it is now a bar for patrons. There are more places to sit: squashy velvet chairs and couches. Periodically a host will approach guests in the lobby and invite them upstairs. We ride the elevator up to the sixth floor (!) but there is no old-fashioned wicker wheelchair, no upside-down model of the Manderley estate. The actual performance space is the old Club Car, which hosted the wonderful chamber production of The Woman in Black both before and after the pandemic lockdown; I saw that production four times, so even this brought back memories. Parts of the space have been redressed; parts have not -- I grabbed a quick photo of a wall covered in chalk tally marks, which confused the other patrons as we left the sixth floor via the long set of stairs. And one last remnant of the Sleep No More experience: a staff member at each open door as we took the stairs down, to make sure we did not wander away.

Sorry, I did enjoy the show, but the sense memory of being in that space again was a lot. Sleep No More meant so much to me in 2011 and 2012, when I kept going back again and again.

Jay Armstrong Johnson as Ilya and Jimin
Moon as Shane. Photo by Matthew Murphy.

8/19/26: The Winter's Tale

What: Shakespeare in the Park presents one of the weird ones: the first half of Winter's Tale plays like a tragedy, where (spoilers) King Leontes's tragic flaw of overwhelming jealousy leads to the estrangement from his lifelong friend Polixenes, the banishment of his newborn infant Perdita, and the death of both wife Hermione and son Mamillius. The second half jumps forward sixteen years and plays like a light romance: Perdita is a sweet young shepherdess in love with Florizel, son of Polixenes; Leontes has been mourning faithfully the past sixteen years for his wronged wife. Also, this play features the famous stage direction "Exit, pursued by a bear."

And? The tonal reversal between the first half and the second is not managed as smoothly as I would like. By which I mean: the tragedy of the first half is performed heartbreakingly by Lily Rabe (Hermione), my beloved Raúl Esparza (Leontes), and Marsha Stephanie Blake (Paulina, the wisest character in the play). It's powerful and devastating and delicately crafted by director Daniel Sullivan, a SitP regular. The second half of the play is too bogged down in the clowns (no doubt meant to alleviate the heaviness of the first half) and I found all three of them profoundly tiresome. Perhaps in stronger comedic hands it would be less so (I recall Jesse Tyler Ferguson making a delicious feast out of the Young Shepherd's first monologue). So I did get impatient for things to wrap up, as we ventured into hour three, but I still consider the show worth seeing, if only for Lily Rabe's incredible performance in the trial scene. 

Marsha Stephanie Blake as Paulina, Lily Rabe as Hermione,
and Raúl Esparza as Leontes. Photo by Joan Marcus.

Weekly Margin 2026, W33: An American Daughter

8/15/26: An American Daughter

What: La Femme Theatre Productions presents Wendy Wasserstein's play about the maelstrom incited by some candid remarks by Dr. Lyssa Dent Hughes, the 1997 nominee for Attorney General. Inspired in part by Hillary Clinton's comments about not just being a homemaker, the play is an examination of acceptable female roles and the toxic and proscriptive discourse surrounding them.

And? Not your perfect play, but it's still worthwhile to see a Wasserstein play onstage. The cast is generally great, especially Mary Beth Peil and Dakin Matthews, who remain superb in everything they do. Unfortunately the weakest link is Jean Lichty in the lead role, who doesn't know how to throw away her lines or allow for a variety of flavors and levels in her delivery. Around her, Robert Sean Leonard and Montego Glover try their best as her husband and lifelong best friend, but they can do only so much.

Dakin Matthews as Alan Hughes, Jean Lichty as Lyssa Dent
Hughes, and Robert Sean Leonard as Walter Abrahmson.
Photo by Joan Marcus.

Weekly Margin 2026, W30: Birthright, Belly

7/23/26: Birthright

What: MCC presents Jonathan Spector's new play spanning eighteen years in the lives of six friends in the aftermath of their Birthright trip to Israel (2006, 2006, and 2024). Over the years the characters go through changes big and small: marriage, divorce, children, career reevaluations, substance abuse, and an ever-widening gulf among perspectives on the Jewish state.

And? I love Spector's writing -- he has a real ear for dialogue and conversational rhythm, including and especially how quickly things can spiral out of control -- but this play is weaker story-wise than Eureka Day and This Much I Know, both of which I saw last season. Though each act features a time jump from the previous, it thankfully doesn't take too much of a lift to catch the audience up on what we missed, especially if we managed to catch key details from the projected montage of emails, texts, and social media posts that starts both Acts Two and Three. That out of the way, the individual arc of each act feels a bit thin -- more a drop-in than a story -- and Act Two especially feels more like the audience is being talked at than hearing true interaction between lifelong friends. What can be amazing with works that discuss big ideas and complicated questions is bringing the audience (or reader, when it comes to fiction and poetry) into a place of active listening and empathy, to put a human behind whom we've told ourselves is a monster. And while the characters are well-sketched, there's not quite a story here. I think this play wants to be Heroes of the Fourth Turning but doesn't quite achieve it (interestingly one of the performers here, Zoë Winters, starred in that as well).

This goal is eventually achieved, to a degree, in the third act. Though the audience is yet again subjected to an extended sequence of being talked at, at least in this case it's to a deliberate point. The two women at the extreme ends of the divide among Jewish people in the wake of October 7, 2023, Chaya and Izzy, reach critical mass without fully listening to each other, instead turning to their phones to quickly google other people's essays or Wikipedia articles to prove their point. Both women are talking at each other, not to each other, and both have lost the ability to listen. No longer a conversation, it is now a spoken version of the online screeds yelling into the void at strawman enemies. Mercifully, this explosion finally breaks as we see the very real damage and fallout both Izzy and Chaya have experienced in the wake of the pogrom. To be fully honest, I don't believe that this play will change anyone's mind about the conflict or the talking point "conversation" happening online, but perhaps some will sit with what's said and consider that we're dealing with people who are not trying to be enemies.

Act Three does also bring us an arc we didn't realize was happening, perhaps too subtle to be the A plot, but there all the same: five of the six friends are gathered after shiva for their sixth friend, and as the scene progresses each character speaks of the last time they saw their friend in the months before. Each memory reveals a profound level of connection that showed this person had such a deep well of empathy that none of them saw their friend as the enemy, but someone to whom they could speak openly. This slow reveal is powerful and heartbreaking, and much-needed as a salve after so much anger and bitter hurt. And as they all stand together in a minyan to speak the Kaddish for their friend, their deep connection to this part of themselves is shown, too: deep in their bodies, no matter how nonpracticing they may be, these words are known, are said, without hesitation.

From a design perspective, absolutely genius choices by director Teddy Bergman and the collaboration between projection designer David Bengali and sound designer Lee Kinney. During the climactic argument, as the two women keep diving into their phones to find "evidence," the sound turns unintelligible as if the characters are speaking through water, and the walls behind them are filled with their phone screen searching: an artistic illustration that no one is actually listening to each other. It is only when they are told to put down their phones that they begin to hear.

Final thoughts: great cast, great pacing. Each act runs an hour or a little less, and for all that the evening is three and a half hours, the play never drags, and the show seems to go by fairly quickly: it's a little like A Prayer for the French Republic in that regard, though as mentioned above, not as compelling a narrative as one could wish.

Molly Ranson as Alona, Nate Mann as Emerson, Liz Larsen
as Deborah, Eli Gelb as Noah, Molly Bernard as Izzy, Zoë
Winters as Chaya, and Hale Appleman as Lev.
Photo by Emilio Madrid.

7/24/26: Belly

What: In advance of its run in Edinburgh, Reilly O'Shaughnessy's one woman show Belly runs briefly at 59E59. Belly tells the interwoven narratives of Ellie, a teenager on the swim team whose coach advises her to follow a strict (starvation) diet and exercise routine in order to win a scholarship; Katie, Ellie's aunt, currently expecting her first child and worried she will somehow ruin her fetus's health by eating the wrong food or gaining too much weight; and Susan, Katie's mother and Ellie's grandmother, a grieving widow who keeps to a very strict diet and unconsciously reinforces unhealthy attitudes toward body size and dieting on her descendants. Playwright/performer O'Shaughnessy periodically breaks the fourth wall as herself throughout the narrative of these three women as they struggle with body image issues, grief, and eating disorders, to discuss her own personal experience with them herself.

And? full review here.

Margin Notes: Belly

Belly

Seen on: Friday, 7/24/26.

Plot and Background

In advance of its run in Edinburgh, Reilly O'Shaughnessy's one woman show Belly runs briefly at 59E59. Belly tells the interwoven narratives of Ellie, a teenager on the swim team whose coach advises her to follow a strict (starvation) diet and exercise routine in order to win a scholarship; Katie, Ellie's aunt, currently expecting her first child and worried she will somehow ruin her fetus's health by eating the wrong food or gaining too much weight; and Susan, Katie's mother and Ellie's grandmother, a grieving widow who keeps to a very strict diet and unconsciously reinforces unhealthy attitudes toward body size and dieting on her descendants. Playwright/performer O'Shaughnessy periodically breaks the fourth wall as herself throughout the narrative of these three women as they struggle with body image issues, grief, and eating disorders, to discuss her own personal experience with them herself.

Thoughts:

"Is there a food that makes you feel safe?" Reilly asks the audience and answers for herself: while in recovery for her eating disorder, Honey Nut Cheerios felt safe to eat. Even as O'Shaughnessy's play tells three specific stories -- and a bit of her own -- it also easily opens the door for the audience to contemplate their own history with body dysmorphia, fear of weight gain, fear of failure, fatphobia in the medical field and in schools, generational diet culture, and the overwhelming sensation in society that one must make oneself as small as possible in order to be considered worthy. It's all profoundly relatable. The euphoria of seeing the number on the scale go down, of feeling proud of sticking to a diet, but always chased so quickly by intrusive thoughts of being "bad" for craving or even consuming sugar, of failure when the number on the scale goes up. Throughout the seventy-minute show I could hear people crying and sniffling, not only for the grief of the characters onstage but also for their own history. While Ellie struggles with her declining health, she remembers "I used to be able to feel my edges in the pool. Like, be able to feel where I was, where I started, where I stopped ... And now? I can't feel anything."

Weekly Margin 2026, W29: The Scarlet Pimpernel

7/14/26: The Scarlet Pimpernel

What: In honor of Bastille Day, 54 Below presents a concert of the score from the cult hit/commercial flop (and the first show I saw on Broadway), The Scarlet Pimpernel: a tale of derring-do, disguise, and romance set against the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution.

And? Our host of the evening began with "This show opened on Broadway in 1997. And 1998. And 1999." The crowd laughed knowingly, for many of us were members of The League: the fandom for the show during its initial run, and a big reason why the producers kept trying to rescue the show with new director/choreographer and updated script. The feat of a Broadway show closing and reopening twice, each time in a slightly different version, is, I believe, unprecedented and unrepeated. It really was a wild moment to be a part of. Anyway, the evening was fun, with strong voices. The score really holds up. "Into the Fire" will always be one of my favorite musical theater songs; "Prayer" really is an excellent soliloquy; "Falcon in the Dive" is thrilling and feral. The big excitement for me was getting to see William Michals reprise his performance as Chauvelin -- he originally played the role in the first national tour, which I saw twice in LA. His voice is even better now, and it was a real treat to hear him sing the score in such an intimate setting. Afterwards, I got a chance to speak to him briefly, to tell him that I'd seen him in the tour 26 years ago, and how much it meant to hear him tonight. He correctly identified me as a member of The League and offered to take a photo. It was a great night, and I was so happy to share it with my friend Beth, a fellow longtime fan of the show.

Zelda Knapp and William Michals. 2000 photo by Raymond
Knapp. 2026 photo by William Michals.

Weekly Margin 2026, W26: KENREX

6/23/26: KENREX

What: The Lucille Lortel Theatre hosts the true crime thriller by Jack Holden, Ed Stambollouian, and John Patrick Elliott, starring both Holden and Elliott, and directed by Stamboullouian. D.A. David Baird is questioned on the events leading up to the murder of Skidmore terror Kenrex McElroy. Holden plays all roles, including Baird, McElroy, McElroy's attorney Richard Gene McFadin, and the townsfolk of Skidmore, Missouri.

And? Truly excellent stagecraft all around. Holden and Stambollouian's writing is tight and tense, condensing the timeline of events somewhat and rarely letting the audience breathe. Holden's Olivier-winning performance is outstanding as well: thirty-five distinct characters with specific physicality and vocal timbres, among which he shifts so seamlessly that the tension never has a moment to break. His execution of the titular villain Kenrex is particularly terrifying: one shoulder always lifted in a predatory hunch, his hand only a twitch away from his holstered pistol (not seen, just verbally indicated). Stambollouian's vision manages an extraordinary feat: while utilizing one of my favorite theatrical tropes (letting us see how the sausage is made, rather than going for cinematic realism), he also shapes the physicality of the space and Holden's performance with such specific muscularity that you start to forget you're watching one man play an entire town, that this is all just a very visible illusion. But with the combination of John Patrick Elliott's onstage music and Giles Thomas's Olivier-winning sound design simmering beneath every moment, you can't help but feel the danger in the stillness of of Kenrex standing there with hooded eyes and a voice so low and graveled it feels like walking barefoot on an unpaved road at two in the morning. It's a grim story, a dark story, so it's good to know that going in: Kenrex McElroy terrorized his small town for years with theft, arson, sexual assault, and violence by blade and gun. But arming you with that bracer, I cannot recommend this show highly enough.

Jack Holden. Photo by Manuel Harlan.

Weekly Margin 2026, W25: Dame Granny Smith, Beyond Encounters, La Cage aux Folles

 6/18/26: Dame Granny Smith

What: Soho Playhouse hosts ventriloquist David Salter's interview with renowned actress and singer Dame Granny Smith (yes, the apple).

And? A damn delight. Very silly, very funny, and just absolutely wild that he's puppetting a Granny Smith apple.

6/19/26: Beyond Encounters: An Evening of Three One-Act Plays by Hannah Benitez, Miriam Kulick and Lanford Wilson

What: A Betrothal by Lanford Wilson, and two new plays: Bound by Miriam Kulick and The Call by Hannah Benitez.

And? Because this is a new endeavor, they've requested no write-ups, but I still wanted to document it.

6/20/26: La Cage aux Folles

What: New York City Center's Encores! series presents Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein's adaptation of the French film about a gay couple who run a nightclub, whose son is engaged to the daughter of a homophobic politician.

And? It's never been my favorite show, but it's performed joyously here with full orchestra, which is what we want from an Encores! production. Billy Porter is unfortunately struggling with his vocals, especially on shared songs (when he's solo he has the freedom to riff as desired). Wayne Brady is everything smooth and debonair with a wonderful voice. Tonya Pinkins waltzes in to steal any scene she's in, but she has healthy competition from James Jackson, Jr. as the maid Jacob.

Billy Porter, center, as Albin/Zaza with the Cagelles.
Photo by Joan Marcus.

Weekly Margin 2026, W24: The Maids

6/10/26: The Maids

What: St. Ann's Warehouse hosts the Donmar Warehouse's revival of Jean Genet's classic, as adapted by Kip Williams. Two sisters work as maids for a high-maintenance narcissist, but spend their time when she is away playacting as her while they rehearse ways to kill her.

And? I'm glad I finally got to see this play, and Kip Williams certainly knows how to deliver a kinetic and engaging interpretation of it. It's probably a play I'll never actually like, but it's one I can appreciate. Williams's liberal use of iPhone filming with different filters flavors well the contemporary nature of wealth and celebrity enjoyed by Solange and Claire's Madame. Rosanna Vize's scenic design is striking: a room of soft white carpeting, bed, sunken nook sofa, and ceiling-high mirrors, the space is both minimalist and bloated with decadence. Video Designer Zakk Hein enables the mirrored walls to serve double-duty, as a giant screen on which to project the camera feeds of iPhones and iPad: the funhouse mirror writ large over the more literal mirrors. Reflection on reflection on filtered reflection, performative histrionics from both the sisters impersonating their Madame and from Madame herself, an ecstasy of materialism and perception, of envy and love and loathing. All three actors do excellent work, but of particular note for me is Yerin Ha's work as Madame: one moment all tragedy and vulnerability, the next love bombing her two employees, the next her eagle eye catching any perceived liberty taken by them and zeroing in with the coldness of a criminal prosecutor.

Lydia Wilson as Claire (playacting as Madame) and Phia Saban
as Solange. Photo by Julieta Cervantes.

Weekly Margin 2026, W23: Julius Caesar, Becoming Hamlet

 6/03/26: Julius Caesar

What: Smith Street Stage presents Shakespeare's play about politics, intrigue, and the slaying of Julius Caesar.

And? I was excited to see this one, as I've been meaning to get out to Brooklyn to see a show from Smith Street Stage for a while now (the co-founder is someone I went to both high school and college with). Smith Street does an excellent job of embracing its surroundings: they perform in Carroll Park, with children playing around and behind, traffic passing, and the sun slowly setting as the story continues. Indeed, for this play in particular, what begins in the seeming broad light of day -- a self-righteous plot to assassinate a ruler feared to be despotic -- descends slowly into the gloom of evening as political maneuvering and violence take hold. With the falling light comes illumination from stage lights, a refusal to let these deeds sink into darkness. I know this happens with any evening outdoor theater (heck, we see it at the Delacorte every summer), but it is especially effective with this narrative. The company tells the story well, without ornamentation or self-indulgence. Louis Butelli's Caesar is affable and diffident and surprisingly frail when not wearing his power suit. Amara James Aja's Brutus has a quiet power and dominating presence that draws the attention whenever he is onstage. His foil, Bryce Foley's Antony, has a different power, almost catlike in his spatial awareness, physicality, and strategizing. Though clearly dismissed by the senators as someone with no political power, he demonstrates first in his funerial speech and later in his battle prowess that he is not a man to be easily overpowered or outwitted. Katie Wilmmorth's Cassius is earnest and sharp, the full polish of someone who knows how to play the political game, but knows less how to win a war fought on the ground. Jonathan Minton manages to make his comparatively smaller character, Casca, highly memorable with his dry delivery and confidence demeanor.

6/04/26: Becoming Hamlet

What: The Shakespeare Forum continues its investigation of the fracturing of Shakespeare protagonists into parts, to see what different aspects emerge, having explored this theme in their past productions of Lear, Titus, and Othello[s]. In those productions the roles were shared across the company; in this workshop the role of Hamlet is shared among the audience, the Facilitators, and by the actor playing Hamlet. In this way the audience is encourage to bring their own selves and experiences to the role and the story. The rest of the roles do not rotate among performers, as in past Forum explorations.

And? I really like the concept behind the experiment they're conducting here, and they lay out the format and boundaries early on, including asking audience members individually if they are comfortable participating in this way. The experiment is most effective if you fully buy in: not knowing when they might be called upon to repeat one of Hamlet's lines to dilate the moment, or even exchange dialogue with another character, the audience must choose to be actively present rather than quietly passive. In this way, I was emotionally invested in each moment, with less of the analytical lens I usually wear to theatrical experiences. Hamlet's words become our words. Claudius's smiling condescension to Hamlet is irksome, the sight of Hamlet's dead father is heartbreaking, and the revelation of Ophelia's death is devastating. The intimate and earnest portrayals by the ensemble equally reenforce this personal experience: these are real people who love us (or don't). So when they had me speak Hamlet's confrontation with Laertes at Ophelia's grave, I was already crying at the sight of her, dead and lost forever.

One of the larger challenges with this sort of experiment is the question of pace and rhythm. These challenges can be massaged with further work (again, this is a workshop, not a full production), but as it currently stands there is often air between lines of dialogue -- or even amid soliloquies where an audience member trades lines with the actor playing Hamlet -- which dissolve the immediacy of the  moment, as well as break up thoughts into disconnected phrases. A challenge, too, is the balance Damon Horowitz (who co-directs with Sybille Bruun as well as physically embodying Hamlet onstage) must strike between performing the role and functioning -- as the program indicates -- as our Hamlet Guide. His performance then feels more like teacher than character, a curious void among so much feeling. It's especially hard if the audience member speaking meets him on that level, rather than attempting to engage with the line as their own individual self. This is why the buy-in helps: hear the words, speak the words, see the other characters, and take this personal journey. But it's an unusual sort of vulnerability to bring to a show, and not everyone is comfortable doing that. Perhaps that ready comfort was easier for me because of how well I know the text, as well as how much love I have for my memories of Forum and for its founders Tyler Moss and Sybille Bruun, who both perform in this as well.

My Perennially Inaccurate Tony Predictions

It's been a thin season this year, especially as far as musicals are concerned -- it's always rather damning when two of the nominees for Best Original Score are plays rather than musicals. It's been a fatter season in terms of star power, which makes tickets harder to get ($400 for back of the orchestra is extortion). Accessibility issues aside, I'll admit I've been having a bit more fun with shows Off-Broadway rather than On this spring, but I missed my chance to do the Drama Desk predictions, so we may as well dive in. (Note: I missed Waiting for Godot, am bypassing Death of a Salesman and Dog Day Afternoon, and will not be able to see Rocky Horror Show until after Tony season. I saw Liberation during its Off-Broadway run, and did not end up making it to the Broadway transfer.)

Let's get to it!

Weekly Margin 2026, W22: Schmigadoon!

5/29/26: Schmigadoon!

What: The Broadway transfer of the TV show about Josh and Melissa, hiking in the woods after a failed couples' retreat to fix their problems, who suddenly find themselves -- Brigadoon style -- in a magical and enclosed village where -- pastiche style -- everyone is in a musical. The show follows the TV series' first season, where the musical style takes its cue from the Golden Age of musicals (chiefly the Rodgers and Hammerstein catalogue and Meredith Willson's The Music Man). They are cued by a leprechaun (hat tip to Lane, Harburg, and Saidy's Finian's Rainbow), who sings to them that they will not be able to leave until they have rediscovered true love. Melissa may adore musicals, but Josh hates them, so wacky chaos ensues, but since it's the Golden Age of musicals, we're guaranteed a happy ending.

And? I had such a great time. They manage to fit most of the songs from the TV show in, and the cast is an absolute delight (loved seeing Ann Harada reprise her role from the series as the Mayor's wife Florence). She's not the only return from the show -- choreographer Christopher Gattelli returns, this time to both direct and choreograph, and his skills are a perfect fit for this show. It's a bit odd to see Alex Brightman -- known for his larger than life performances in Beetlejuice and School of Rock -- play the straight man, but he is indeed also good at the dryly sarcastic rebuffs to the nonsense around him, with perfect timing (it's still weird to see him play the most grounded character in the show, but hey, I love Alex Brightman). Some of the tee-hee gay about the closeted Mayor still feels pretty 90s in its style, which isn't my favorite, but looking past that I still had a great time. I went into this with somewhat muted expectations, weighed down by the rampant cynicism that flavors so many screen-to-stage productions of the past decade, but with such faithful adherence to a show (especially one already steeped in tropes and styles lifted straight off a Broadway stage), this manages to be a success.

Alex Brightman as Josh, surrounded by the cast of Schmigadoon!
Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman.