Sinister Kid - Patrick McCartney - The PIT Loft

Sinister Kid – The PIT Loft

Written and performed by Patrick McCartney (From Cold Lake, Elf, Conan O’Brien), Sinister Kid explores mental illness, trauma and addiction with humor and absolute truth. This deeply personal solo show starts with the death of McCartney’s mother and becomes an exploration of his alcoholism and heroin addiction, all the while taking the audience through his journey to reconnect with his mom. McCartney also shares the stage with violinist Mae Roney, whose music provides color and texture to the piece, and the show is directed by Shira Piven (Welcome to Me, Transparent).

Company XIV - Queen of Hearts - Photographer - Mark Shelby Perry

Queen of Hearts – Company XIV – Review

Queen of Hearts, currently playing through November 2, is everything I’ve come to expect from a Company XIV show, in the best way possible. Whenever I hear that Company XIV has a new show, I expect a stage filled with sexy people doing high kicks, acrobatics, and inventive covers of my favorite pop songs. It’s a few hours of escape from the real world into one of decadence and light-hearted debauchery. Queen of Hearts was all of it, but there was something more this time around that I wasn’t expecting.

Patience – Interview with Playwright Johnny G. Lloyd

In Johnny G. Lloyd’s new play Patience, a young black queer man grapples with the pressures of black excellence, building a life with his fiance, and maintaining his status as the world’s #1 ranked Solitaire player. Despite having a busy weekend closing out the Corkscrew Theater Festival, Johnny took the time to answer a few questions about the show and the challenges of making a solo card game compelling on stage.

The Magnificent Revengers - Logo

The Magnificent Revengers: This Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Is Peak Immersive Theater

The term “immersive theater” has been thrown around so much in recent years that it has lost much of its meaning and purpose as a storytelling device. Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More is an example of doing it right, letting the audience explore the story as they please and have different experiences on each visit. Mamma Mia! The Party is tourist-friendly, and it’s more of an excuse for audiences to drink and dance to ABBA songs. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!) Even the newest Broadway revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma, which is already unconventional enough, is serving corn bread and chili at intermission.

Just as audiences are starting to get immersive theater fatigue, writer Matt Cox and director Kristin McCarthy Parker (Kapow-i GoGo, Puffs) come along with a premise that is insanely ambitious, technically challenging to say the least, and gobsmackingly brilliant. Their new play The Magnificent Revengers, which is currently playtesting at the People’s Improv Theater, is a choose-your-own-adventure revenge Western. Using their phones, the audience votes on a wide range of decisions, including whether to kill or spare an enemy, buy a boat, and which of your companions will get a pretty flower. Some of these decisions may seem minor, but there are always consequences down the road.

A Modest Proposal – The Cherry Lane Theatre – Review

A Modest Proposal, which played January 25 thru 27 at the Cherry Lane Theatre, imagines a dystopian future where a totalitarian government has taken extreme measures to curb the population. The ruling political party stays in power by feeding the population an unending stream of cheery propaganda, extolling the virtues of figurehead Dr. Swift (Adam Foldes). Swift is credited with shaping the new world order, one that revolves around firmly maintaining births and deaths. Any addition needs a subtraction, so the government encourages people to commit suicide at a convenient facility. Grandparents do it to make room for their grandchildren. Others do it to serve the greater good. Some do it because they can’t stand the thought of living in this world anymore.

Broken Pieces – Interview with Writer-Actor Mateo Moreno

Anthology play Broken Pieces will play its final two performances on Saturday, July 28 at 3:15 PM and Monday, July 30 at 7:15 PM as part of the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity. Before ending its run, playwright Mateo Moreno (Bohemian Valentine, Paper Airplanes) chatted about current events that shaped the show and why he challenges his audience, even if it makes them uncomfortable.

My Self-Care Lady: Why Broadway Burns Women Out

This week, an article about Lauren Ambrose, who is currently playing Eliza Doolittle in a musical revival of My Fair Lady, has been making the rounds in the Broadway community, regarding her choice to take the Sunday matinee off. She might be taking it off because her role is extremely difficult musically and she needs to take a vocal rest day. She might be taking it off because she has children and she’d like to spend more time with them. Whatever the reason, the decision had been made and it’s nobody’s business except for Ambrose and the show management. That should have been the beginning and end of the story.

Except, it wasn’t the end of the story. No, what happened next played into our worst instincts and harmful “ideals” of the Broadway community that pit women against one another, generation against generation. And devalue women’s bodies and well-being.

The Rafa Play - The Pool - The Flea Theater (4)

The Pool’s “The Rafa Play” – The Flea Theater – Review

The Rafa Play, now playing at the Flea Theater’s new Tribeca home, is a meta comedy about playwright Peter Gil-Sheridan’s imagined romance with professional tennis player Rafael Nadal. Gil-Sheridan, played on-stage by Olli Haaskivi, acknowledges his dual roles as the show’s playwright and lead character from the start with an over-the-top glowing preamble, and the navel-gazing never lets up. I don’t say this to be negative, I say it as a fact. This is a deeply self-involved show.