Best Shows of 2024

When New York theatre shut down in 2020, I had to come up with a list of the top shows I missed due to the pandemic.

Since then, theatre has come back... very slowly. Each year I've hoped that the next year would be better, but sadly theatre in New York--and in the United States in general--is in a sorry state, less diverse, less original, and less interesting than it has been in a long time.

That doesn't mean there haven't been any good shows this year, and I've been fortunate enough to see a few of them. (Though some of the best plays I saw, including Mrs. Warren's Profession and Fable, were far from New York.) Here's my list of the top productions that opened in New York City in 2024:

10. The Heart of Rock and Roll - Yes, jukebox musicals are way overdone, but this delightful romantic comedy featuring the songs of Huey Lewis and the News won me over, in part due to the comic acting of McKenzie Kurtz.

9. Stereophonic - Even when it was Off-Broadway, Stereophonic was getting incredible buzz, much of it deserved. It's true that if you're not a Fleetwood Mac fan you won't be able to appreciate it as much of some of your neighbors in the theatre, but it's still worth seeing.

8. The Hills of California - Similar to Stereophonic in theme and scope but more ambitious in terms of its use of theatricality, Jez Butterworth's The Hills of California was a must-see play for me. Though not as successful as some of his previous work, it still packs an emotional punch.

7. A Wonderful World - I went into this bio-musical about Louis Armstrong somewhat skeptical, but I was pleasantly surprised to see how deftly the show treated its subject, one of the transformational geniuses of popular music in the 20th century. Also, having Tony-Award-winner James Monroe Iglehart play Armstrong didn't hurt.

6. Blood of the Lamb - If this Off-Broadway drama wasn't on your radar, it should have been. Arlene Hutton's eerily prophetic play about the human costs of increased legislation over women's bodies took medical and legal discussions beyond abortion to the multitude of cases that arise when pregnancies, wanted or not, go differently than planned.

5. Cabaret - Speaking of politics, this year's revival of the John Kander and Fred Ebb classic Cabaret felt more relevant than ever, not so much due to tinkering with Joe Masteroff's book as from a fresh interpretation by director Rebecca Frecknall. The immersive nature of the performance brought in a lot of press, as did some star actors, but the highlight of the show is Bebe Neuwirth's portrayal of Fräulein Schneider.

4. The Devil's Disciple - Bernard Shaw's comedic melodrama about the American Revolution is one of my favorite plays, but its large, mostly male cast makes it tricky to get staged. Director David Staller came up with an intriguing solution in adapting the play for a cast of five women. Oddly enough, it worked, in part due to an amazing ensemble led by Folami Williams. With a run straddling a controversial presidential election, this production gave audiences plenty of food for thought.

3. Suffs - If anything, Shaina Taub's musical about the women's suffrage movement was a bit too politically relevant this election year. It can be infuriating to watch a group of well-meaning activists fight one another rather than join forces to achieve something, but that's exactly what happened at the beginning of the 20th century, just as it happens all-too-often today. Taub's catchy songwriting provided the perfect medium to tell the complex story of how the 19th amendment was finally passed. Sadly, the show is now closing.

2. La Forza del Destino - If you missed the Metropolitan Opera's production of Giuseppi Verdi's rarely performed La Forza del Destino, you might have a while to wait for another chance. The opera has been said to be cursed ever since the baritone Leonard Warren died on stage during the show while singing at the Met in 1960. This year's production was instead blessed by amazing performances by Lise Davidsen as Leonora and Judit Kutasi as Preziosilla. If the Met announces the opera's return in its next season, definitely try to go.

1. The Great Gatsby - Though it was snubbed by the Tony Awards this year, the best show I saw in New York in 2024 was Kait Kerrigan, Nathan Tysen, and Jason Howland's new musical adaptation of The Great Gatsby. The lyrics are delightful, and the elaborate sets and musical numbers are impressive. Jeremy Jordan, Eva Noblezada, Noah J. Ricketts, and Samantha Pauly all give strong performances, but the real star of the show is F. Scott Fitzgerald's story, which is presented in a manner that is both faithful to the original novel and still relevant to audiences today.

Sadly, there weren't a lot of runners-up this year, but these shows prove it's still possible to make great theatre in New York.

Suffs

Last night I saw Suffs, the emotionally moving and often infuriating new musical by Shaina Taub about the struggle to pass the 19th amendment.

Taub is one of New York City's most talented songwriters, and has long been supported by The Public Theater, which produced her musical adaptations of Twelfth Night and As You Like It in Central Park.

The Public Theater staged Suffs Off-Broadway prior to its transfer to the Music Box on 45th Street. The same company originated Hamilton, and comparisons between Suffs and that show are inevitable. Both musicals opted to feature their creators onstage as the play's protagonist and both utilized history in order to talk about contemporary politics.

While Hamilton was born out of the multi-cultural optimism of the Obama years, Suffs speaks to the anger, impatience, and exhaustion of our present moment. Taub stars as Alice Paul, the Quaker activist who both drove and divided the women's suffrage movement, engaging in militant protests and hunger strikes to try to embarrass the very politicians her movement needed to pass a constitutional amendment.

Suffs shows Paul first idolizing then clashing with Carrie Chapman Catt, played brilliantly by Jenn Colella. A mentee of the great Susan B. Anthony, Catt patiently built a movement that gathered support state by state, making slow and steady progress toward needed reform. In the show's opening number, "Let Mother Vote," she engages in folksy, non-threatening rhetoric aimed at winning over the American mainstream.

Though Catt welcomes the firebrand Paul into the feminist fold, it doesn't take long for Paul to George Clooney her mentor in the back. Paul forms her own National Woman's Party, funded by the multi-millionaire socialite Alva Belmont, played by Emily Skinner. Belmont happily bankrolls a team of professional activists, including Polish-American socialist Ruza Wenclawska, played by Kim Blanck. Historically, by the way, Wenclawska later appeared on Broadway in Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms.

A combination of left-wing extremism, elite monied interests, and showbiz glamor isn't attractive to everyone. Paul and her mostly white organization fails to win over Ida B. Wells, the legendary African-American journalist played powerfully by Nikki M. James. Though Wells is absolutely right about basically everything, her my-way-or-the-highway attitude mirrors that of the racist white Southerners she opposes and makes compromise impossible. A different (and perhaps more productive) course is charted by Mary Church Terrell, played by the wonderful Anastacia McCleskey.

Terrell, a graduate of Oberlin College, when told that because of her race she can't march with her state delegation at a national event, instead marches with a contingent of collegiate groups. This creative solution allows her to maintain her dignity (and get in a not-so-subtle dig against the racists) while neither engaging in nor provoking a pointless boycott. It's the type of political pragmatism that seems all-too-lacking in contemporary America.

In the play, Terrell notes that she assisted in the founding of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority at Howard University, which her daughter Phyllis (played by Laila Erica Drew) attended. When McCleskey said this onstage, a cheer erupted from a part of the audience, presumably Delta Sigma Theta sisters.

Suffs boldly presents the bitter infighting that characterized much of the American suffrage movement. It also gives voice to those who callously dismiss its achievements as limited and thus, to many, meaningless. Still, that cheer from Delta Sigma Theta filled me with hope.

Best Plays of 2022

As the end of the year approaches, I am once again making my list of the best productions I saw in New York City that opened this year.

If I were being just, I would include My Fellow Americans due to the amazing performance of Rebecca Ana Peña, but as the play's author, I'm probably a bit too close to it, so I'm disqualifying it.

Also disqualified is the virtual production of Kew Gardens as well as the live and virtual versions of A Christmas Carol at Passage Theatre Company. They weren't in New York City, anyway, nor were the productions of King Lear and Only Fools and Horses I saw in London.

Last year was rather lackluster in New York, though a couple good shows rose to the top of my list, including The Alchemist and The Streets of New York. It seems 2022 wasn't quite the year that theatre in this city got back into full swing, but at least there were a lot more good shows opening than there were in 2021.

So without further ado, here is my top-ten list in reverse order:

10. Cymbeline - New York Classical Theatre's outdoor production of Cymbeline was a blast, in large part due to Aziza Gharib, who played the show's heroine, Imogine.

9. Richard II - Another enjoyable outdoor production of Shakespeare was Hudson Classical Theater Company's Richard II at the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Riverside Park. Nathan Mattingly played the title role.

8. Made By God - Ciara Ni Chuirc's new play that opened at Irish Rep at the beginning of this year has stayed with me. This meditation on the changing law regarding abortion in Ireland doesn't run away from tough issues of faith and society's shared responsibility for all of its members.

7. As You Like It - Generally, this is one of my least favorite Shakespeare plays, but Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery's musical adaptation was a delight this summer in Central Park. The songs perfectly captured the goofy, conflicted nature of the play's characters. I'd like to see regional theatres pick this one up for the future.

6. Ohio State Murders - Adrienne Kennedy finally made her Broadway debut this year, with help from the star power of Audra McDonald. Playing Suzanne Alexander, a fictionalized version of the playwright herself, McDonald takes us on a harrowing journey where small things take on terrifying aspects by pointing toward much darker ends. (Still playing!)

5. Candida - Gingold Theatrical Group's magnificent production of one of Bernard Shaw's most delightful comedies did not disappoint. Avanthika Srinivasan starred in the title role, while R.J. Foster and Avery Whitted played the two very different men who are in love with her. The production also featured the best set I saw in New York all year, wonderfully crafted by Lindsay Genevieve Fuori.

4. A Touch of the Poet - Irish Rep scored another hit with their revival of Eugene O'Neill's powerful exploration of one moment in American history. Robert Cuccioli was brilliant as Con Melody, but the real discovery was Belle Aykroyd, who played Con's daughter Sara. I'll have a full analysis of the production coming out next year in The Eugene O'Neill Review. The author never saw the play performed in his lifetime, but I think he would have appreciated this staging of it.

3. Downstate - In the past, I've not been a fan of the work of Bruce Norris, but Downstate, still playing through January 7th at Playwrights Horizons, deserves to be seen. The cast, including Glenn Davis, K. Todd Freeman, and Francis Guinan as convicted sex offenders living together in a group home in downstate Illinois while overseen by a parole officer (portrayed brilliantly by Susanna Guzman), is absolutely excellent. Even more important, though, is the way Norris interrogates a culture of victimhood and portrays what it might look like for people to truly take responsibility for their actions.

2. Leopoldstadt - Tom Stoppard's latest play is more conventional than most of his work, but it packs an emotional wallop, especially in these times of rising ethnic nationalism. I spoke about the production on CUNY TV, sharing my long-time love of Stoppard's plays. Though the storytelling is mostly straightforward, its enormous cast of characters would be impossible to follow were it not for the deft direction of Patrick Marber, who makes sure we understand the steady march of time through the most terrifying decades of the 20th century. Tickets are currently on sale until the beginning of July, so if you haven't seen it yet, go.

1. Paradise Square - My top choice will no doubt be controversial, but in spite of its many problems, Larry Kirwan's reimagining of Five Points during the infamous Civil War draft riots captured what contemporary theatre can be if it has the courage to try. Choreographer Bill T. Jones did an exceptional job, and Joaquina Kalukango brought down the house singing the brilliant number "Let It Burn." The music, which is inspired by the work of Stephen Foster, deserves the cast recording we've been promised, but alas, the financial mismanagement of producers could mean this show never again sees the light of day. That would be a shame, as it deserves a much larger audience than it received during its abbreviated run on Broadway.

Here's to an even better year in 2023!

As She Likes It

Last night, I saw Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery's musical adaptation of William Shakespeare's As You Like It performed in the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

First of all, I have to give a shout out to the understudies. Amar Atkins stepped in to perform the normally thankless role of Duke Senior, but provided such warm charisma that he was the center of attention whenever he was on stage.

Another understudy, Trevor McGhie, played the male lead of Orlando, who usually takes a back seat to his love interest, Rosalind. At one point, a character in this adaptation refers to Orlando as "Romeo's understudy," which seems about right. McGhie was wonderful, though, and he even managed to make Orlando's unlikely win in a wrestling match believable.

The shepherd Silvius got gender-swapped to Silvia, played last night by understudy Claudia Yanez. I was initially unsure of how the reversal in gender would work, but the adaptation pulled it off just fine, and Yanez was delightful. Honestly, these three understudies might have been my favorite performers in the whole cast. Whatever events brought them to the stage, the audience benefited.

Taub, who previously wrote the songs for a similar production by The Public Theater of Twelfth Night, played a role as well, just as she took on the motley of Feste in Twelfth Night back in 2018. She didn't play the fool Touchstone, though. (That role was filled hilariously by Christopher M. Ramirez.) Instead, Taub appeared as the melancholy Jacques, who has some of the best speeches in the original play.

Some of those speeches are musicalized by Taub, often quite wonderfully. On the whole, I enjoyed her adaptation of Twelfth Night much more, but I've always considered it a better play than As You Like It, which can get downright silly at times. This adaptation leans into the absurdity of the play though, and the songs help with that. I would love for a cast recording of the show to be released, as it has some of the best music by Taub that I've heard yet.

Director Laurie Woolery took a heavy hand in reducing the script to a lightening-quick 90 minutes without an intermission. She previously directed a 90-minute version of The Tempest I saw pre-pandemic (which I rather enjoyed). The Tempest is a much shorter play, though, and with the addition of extensive song-and-dance numbers, this adaptation leaves very little of Shakespeare's poetry intact. (We probably get more of Shaina and Laurie in this adaptation than we get of Bill.) With the joyful spirit of the outdoor production, however, you won't mind one bit.

Top Shows (that I missed) in 2020

In past Decembers, I have come up with a list of the best shows I saw that opened in New York City that year. Well, for 2020, that list would have to be pretty short.

Sure, I could talk about Blessed Unrest's Battle of Angels, and Irish Rep's Lady G, and end with Roundabout's standout production of A Soldier's Play, but for the most part, 2020 was a total loss when it came to live theatre.

Instead, I'm going to write about ten shows I missed, plays I was looking forward to seeing live, but couldn't experience because massive government incompetence turned a completely predictable (and predicted) outbreak into the worst health crisis since the influenza of 1918-1920.

This year was supposed to be one of world travel for me, rather than confinement to mostly just four small rooms. That's why my list is not restricted to just New York City this year. Here are ten shows I should have seen, would have seen, and likely would have loved, had it not been for the dumpster fire of 2020:

10. A Touch of the Poet. Okay, this one is partially my fault, since Irish Rep went ahead and produced this Eugene O'Neill play digitally. I was looking forward to seeing it live, though, and Zoom fatigue combined with the added work of trying to teach classes online meant that I missed the virtual performance. I still blame 2020.

9. Hangmen. Was Martin McDonough's latest play going to be a masterpiece? Maybe. Maybe not. But New York never got to find out, because it was still in previews when COVID-19 shut down theatres. Some shows vowed to reopen once the crisis passed, but as it became clear that the shutdown would last for weeks and then months, producers had to pull the plug on this one.

8. Man of La Mancha. The Astoria Performing Arts Center had planned a revival of this classic musical, to be directed by Dev Bondarin, whose work I've always loved. Fortunately, APAC is still going, though other theatre companies have been forced to fold. Theatre in Queens took a big hit when the Secret Theatre announced its closure this year. The one bright spot is that APAC will be taking over the space they've vacated.

7. As You Like It. The Public Theater has experienced tremendous success with its Public Works productions in Central Park, bringing together professional artists and amateurs in a celebration of all that's great about New York City. Shaina Taub did an excellent job composing music for 2019's production of Twelfth Night, and I was looking forward to hearing her score for As You Like It. It looks like I'll have to wait a bit longer now.

6. Richard II. The Shakespeare in the Park production I was really looking forward to seeing this year, though, was Richard II. Though I've seen multiple filmed versions of the play this is the only one in the Shakespeare canon I've never experienced live. After the shutdown, director Saheem Ali organized a radio version of the piece that aired on WNYC. You can listen to each of the four episodes, which are available as podcasts, though it's certainly not the same thing.

5. The Prince of Egypt. After attending a Shaw conference in Spain this May, I was supposed to spend some time with my sister in London. She had already gotten us tickets to see the stage adaptation of Stephen Schwartz's The Prince of Egypt at the Dominion Theatre. The movie was delightful, and the score does seem to lend itself to a stage transfer, so I was looking forward to seeing how it works on stage, as well as spending some time with my sister. Instead, I've only been able to see her virtually this year.

4. Leopoldstadt. Even more exciting than The Prince of Egypt was the other show my sister had gotten us tickets to see. Tom Stoppard's new play Leopoldstadt opened this January in a production directed by Patrick Marber, who had done such a brilliant job directing Stoppard's Travesties. Of all the shows playing in London this year, this was the one I really, really wanted to see. It tells the stories of members of the Jewish community in Vienna during the first half of the 20th century. We had tickets, but now I don't know if I'll ever have a chance to see it.

3. The Devil's Disciple. Though the Shaw conference in Spain was cancelled due to COVID-19, I briefly entertained hopes of attending another Shaw conference in Niagara-on-the-Lake in Canada. Instead, that conference went virtual, and the Shaw Festival decided to postpone its summer season for the summer of 2021. That means I might still get a chance to see the Shaw play they were supposed to do this year, The Devil's Disciple. Incidentally, Gingold Theatrical Group had planned to produce the same play this autumn. Will it be possible in 2021? We're still not sure.

2. Great Expectations. This play isn't an adaptation of the work by Charles Dickens, though I would have been excited about that, too. No, this Great Expectations is a reworking of my own short play The Rainbow, but for two older actors. A friend of mine, Ellen DiStasi, approached me earlier this year about doing The Rainbow with Theater of Light, which brings live drama to communities of older folks here in New York. Ellen asked if I could update the script to be performed by more mature actors, so a woman who had recently had a break-up became a widow, and there were a few other changes as well. The biggest thing, though, was that Ellen wasn't sure that a long monologue about a D.H. Lawrence novel would work for her target audience, so I changed it to a monologue about Great Expectations instead, which naturally changed the title of the play as well. I'd love to be able to do this show in 2021, but a play performed by members of a vulnerable community for other members of a vulnerable community....

1. The Love Songs of Brooklynites. I've been working on a full-length version of my one-act play that was workshopped in 2019 at the Theatre of Western Springs. Meanwhile, the one-act version was accepted for the theatre trail at the Arundel Festival of the Arts in the United Kingdom. The Drip Action Theatre Company in Arundel says they want to do the show this upcoming year. That would be wonderful. Though I've had my work performed in Canada, Australia, and even Japan, I've never had a production in the U.K., and Arundel looks like an amazing place to visit. Perhaps I'll be able to go this August and see it. Whether that happens or not, I'm still holding out hope for the full-length version of The Love Songs of Brooklynites to have a New York production once the theatres reopen. That means we're all going to have to wear masks, limit unnecessary travel, and get vaccinated. It also means that the government needs to get its act together and actually distribute and administer the vaccines being produced. Only then are we going to be able to have great theatre back.

Top Plays of 2018

Each December, I compile a list of the top plays I saw that opened that year in New York City. Last year, Sweeney Todd, HOME/SICK, and Julius Caesar topped the list.

This year both Roundabout Theatre Company and the Public Theater have multiple shows on my list. Playwrights William Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw get multiple nods as well.

So without further ado, here’s my list:

10. Romeo and Juliet – Each year, New York Classical Theatre Company puts on free productions in the city’s parks. This summer’s production of Shakespeare’s classic tale about star-crossed lovers used innovative doubling to tell a familiar story in a memorable new way.

9. Heartbreak House – Gingold Theatrical Group makes the list this year with another innovative adaptation of a classic. This re-imagining of Shaw’s chestnut about Europe during World War I was reset as a play-within-a-play during the London Blitz, which worked quite well.

8. Love’s Labour’s Lost – This Shake & Bake production combines the Bard’s romantic comedy with a five-course tasting menu. The actors do a wonderful job creating magical moments in a pared-down production in the Meatpacking District. The food is tasty, but it’s the acting that is truly delicious.

7. Stories by Heart – So, what is this thing? That’s what John Lithgow quipped at the beginning of his one-man show about the stories his father read to him as a child. Ordinarily, I don’t go in for one person plays, but Lithgow’s mixture of personal memoir with classic storytelling won me over in the end.

6. Othello – Not everyone loved the Public Theatre’s production of Othello this summer at the Delacorte, but I found Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s direction to be superb. The relationship between Iago and Rodrigo was particularly fascinating to me, and Chukwudi Iwuji did a great job playing the title role.

5. Mother of the Maid – The Public Theatre scored another hit with Jane Anderson’s new play Mother of the Maid about the family of Joan of Arc. The piece was marketed as a vehicle for Glenn Close, who played Isabelle Arc, but Anderson’s play tells the story from an interesting perspective, and would be worth seeing even without Close’s star power.

4. Bernhardt/Hamlet – As a fan of both Sarah Bernhardt and William Shakespeare, I knew I had to see this show. This is probably Theresa Rebeck’s best play to date, and the cast was superb. Janet McTeer was deservedly praised as Bernhardt, but Dylan Baker was also wonderful as the legendary French actor Constant Coquelin, and Jason Butler gave a memorable portrayal of the playwright Edmond Rostand.

3. Pygmalion – Bedlam theatre company’s productions are sometimes hit-or-miss, but they are generally memorable even when they don’t entirely succeed. This year’s re-imagining of Shaw’s most popular play definitely qualifies as a hit, though. The immersive first act led into an exploration of not just class, but also race, ethnicity, and assimilation, all in the frantic Bedlam style in which performers play multiple characters to hilarious effect.

2. Twelfth Night – What happened to musicals this year? All of my top ten picks were straight plays this year, with the exception of Shaina Taub’s musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, which she co-created with director Kwame Kwei-Armah as part of the Public Works program, but came back in a new production this summer as a part of the regular Shakespeare in the Park season. Taub’s songs are inspired by Shakespeare’s text, but not usually direct settings of his poetry, in spite of the fact that Twelfth Night already contains multiple songs. Her lyrics fit in with the Bard’s play beautifully, and her performance as Feste was equally delightful.

1. Travesties – To me, the most delightful production this year, however, was Roundabout’s revival of Tom Stoppard’s play Travesties. As a playwright, I’ve always admired Stoppard’s skill in weaving together the stories of James Joyce, Vladimir Lenin, and Tristan Tzara into a rollicking farce that also makes us think and feel in new ways. Perhaps because this production was directed by a fellow playwright, Patrick Marber, it was able to encompass both the profundity and goofiness of Stoppard’s writing. A cast that included Tom Hollander, Scarlett Strallen, and Sara Topham also seemed exceptionally sympathetic to Stoppard’s ambitious vision.

So that’s my list. Here’s to an even better year of New York theatre in 2019!

It Raineth (But Not Everyday)

The last couple of weeks in New York have been very... well... wet. That's not good for outdoor productions, and the last few performances of The Public Theater's Twelfth Night in the Delacorte in Central Park have been rather soggy.

Fortunately, last night was the exception. I lucked out and got to see the show during a clear evening, and it was phenomenal. The weather looks good for tonight, so you might want to try to get to the Delacorte early to see if you can get standby tickets. That's how I saw Othello earlier this summer, and I got in no problem.

There's no show on Monday, and Tuesday is opening night. After then, it's going to be considerably more difficult to get tickets. This production, the brainchild of singer-songwriter Shaina Taub and co-director Kwame Kwei-Armah, is destined to be legendary. Shakespeare's dialogue is condensed down to its essence, and Taub has penned some brilliant songs that perfectly capture the play's key moments.

The result is an original musical that is faithful to the spirit of Shakespeare's comedy while also creating something wonderful and new. Whether it's Olivia's household arguing over who is the worst, or Malvolio fantasizing about greatness, or the people of Illyria singing about the word on the street, the songs are always entertaining as well as advancing the storyline.

Taub, a veteran performer from the off-Broadway productions of Old Hats, Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, and Hadestown, clearly knows what she's doing. In addition to providing the songs for Twelfth Night, she also plays a feisty Feste with perfect deadpan timing.

Oskar Eustis co-directed this production. The musical originally played the Delacorte for just one weekend back in 2016, so it's great to have it back for a full five-week run this summer. Its next stop will be London at the Young Vic, where Kwei-Armah is the incoming artistic director.

Will a Broadway production follow? One can hope, but my advice is not to wait. See it now!