Mid-America Theatre Conference

I am currently in Pittsburgh for the Mid-America Theatre Conference which has the theme this year of Making and Remaking Americana.

This afternoon, I'll be delivering a paper for a panel about international perspectives on the Americas. My paper involves toy-theatre adaptations of the play Pizarro by Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

When Pizarro debuted in 1799, British audiences interpreted it as a parable for Britain's resistance to French aggression. At a time when people in Britain expected an imminent invasion by the French under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte, the tale of Inca warriors standing up bravely to Spanish colonizers made audiences associate themselves with the Inca underdogs.

However, I argue that over time this explicitly anti-imperialist play came to encourage fantasies about empire, especially among the juvenile audiences of toy theatres. I'll be sharing images by the publisher Skelt of toy-theatre versions of Pizarro which might have encouraged associations between the Spanish colonizers and the British and might have generated a desire to possess the sublime landscapes of an exoticised America.

This morning, I attended a very interesting panel on immersive theatre and performance, with two scholars discussing American nostalgia. Erin Bone Steele talked about the musical Showboat, which self-consciously depicted showboats only after that form of entertainment had essentially disappeared. Then Rebecca Jackson delivered a paper on how Confederate Civil War re-enactors perform the politics of belonging even as they embrace a very specific ideological point of view.

Tomorrow, I'm looking forward to a number of panels and programs, culminating in a discussion of August Wilson's legacy and future in American theatre. The conference concludes on Saturday, when we'll also all be assembling for a luncheon. It's good to be back in Pittsburgh!

The Price

Arthur Miller's 1968 play The Price isn't performed very often, so when it does get a production, you're going to want to see it.

The Price has had four Broadway revivals, most recently in 2017 with Danny DeVito, Mark Ruffalo, Tony Shalhoub, and Jessica Hecht. However, the Village Theater Group's production now playing at Theatre at St. Clement's is apparently the play's first appearance Off Broadway.

The intimate play is perhaps more at home in a smaller, Off-Broadway house. Seth Tyler Black's set design packs the stage with antiques that even spill into the audience. The first row, which is billed as "immersive" seating is made up of lush, antique-looking chairs much like those up on stage.

While this production is hardly "immersive" in the traditional sense, it does allow the audience to get close to the action, enabling them to see some amazing acting, particularly by Bill Barry, who plays Victor Franz. Once a budding scientist who experimented with radios in his youth, Victor left college to take care of his father after the stock market collapsed in 1929.

Victor's brother Walter, played by Cullen Wheeler, made different choices after the crash, finishing medical school and becoming a financially successful doctor. While Victor seems to have made the more principled decision, the more the audience learns, the more they come to realize that the truth is more complicated. Both brothers, in fact, have paid a price for choices they made.

Though Victor has spent his entire career as a beat cop, never rising very high due to his refusal to compromise on his principles, he has been able to build a family with his wife Esther, played by Janelle Farias Sando. Walter, on the other hand, is divorced and estranged from his children, though now with plenty of money, which he is willing to share with Victor, if he'll only take it.

There is of course plenty of history between the brothers that tends to make negotiation over every dollar particularly complicated. Into this family morass walks Gregory Solomon, played by Mike Durkin. A 90-year-old used furniture dealer, Solomon has seen more of the world than anyone else in the play.

Asked to purchase the antique furniture of Victor and Walter's parents, the appropriately named Solomon is more than happy to buy the family's unwanted treasures and make a nice profit, but he is also keen on getting Victor to look beyond the dollar value of everything.

Director Noelle McGrath, who is better known as an actor, coached some lovely performances out of the cast. If you have a chance to see the production, go.

In the Zone

Mariner Theatrical, a new company dedicated to producing works onboard ships and in buildings along the waterfront, just launched its maiden voyage with a production of Eugene O'Neill's one-act play In the Zone.

The play, which takes place in the forecastle of a ship, was appropriately performed in the sailor's quarters of the historic ship Wavertree at South Street Seaport. Audience members had a choice of watching from a seat or lying down in a bunk.

Some of the bunks had to be reserved for the actors, though, making this production truly immersive. (Though perhaps "immersive" isn't a word one wants to use when performing literally out on the water!) Andy Sowers directed the production, which featured live music by the Irish folk group Faoileán, led by Nathan Bishop.

Since sight-lines could be... challenging in this space, some of the play's stage directions were read aloud, which helped the audience to follow the story. That story, by the way, involves crew members sailing a ship full of ammunition into the war zone of the North Atlantic during the First World War. One crew member starts acting suspiciously, making the others wonder if he might be a spy and saboteur.

This is an O'Neill play, so of course there are multiple allusions to alcoholism in the piece. To help the audience get in the mood, Mariner Theatrical provided some hard cider, which was quite nice. After the performance I attended, O'Neill scholar Robert Richter gave a free talk on the dramatist's relationship to seafaring.

If you missed it, keep an eye out for Mariner Theatrical in the future. They appear to be a company to watch!

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.

At the Kit Kat Club

Cabaret is a musical deservedly lauded for utilizing a Brechtian Alienation Effect so that book scenes and song-and-dance numbers can comment on one another rather than integrating the entire show into one cohesive whole.

This would seem to make Cabaret an odd choice for an immersive theatre experience. However, a production in London successfully marketed the Kander and Ebb classic as an opportunity to wander around a Kit Kat Club recreating Weimar-era Germany.

When producers tried to recreate the experience on Broadway, they had trouble capturing the same magic, and while the show has been kept afloat by stars like Eddie Redmayne and Adam Lambert, critics were less receptive and ticket sales less robust than in London. Though the Broadway show has its flaws, it's still very much worth seeing, as I discovered when I finally caught up to it last night.

A young man I sat near had seen the play multiple times on two continents, and he assured me that while individual performers had different takes on their characters, the set-up in New York was essentially the same as in London. If that's true, perhaps Brits deal better with crowds, as the downstairs space that featured much of the pre-show entertainment was so packed it was difficult to see and appreciate the performers.

Fortunately, upstairs there were smaller groups of performers, providing music while audiences mingled and enjoyed the atmosphere. There were also plenty of bars available to get drinks, though they had a surprising lack of variety in cocktails. As I took my seat, a floor show had already begun on the main stage, so wherever you wandered there was bound to be something to see and hear. The stage, by the way, is in the round, and features some wonderful turn-table action.

I saw Adam Lambert as the Emcee and Ayla Ciccone-Burton as Sally Bowles. Those roles are frequently considered the leads, while the protagonist Cliff, who is the audience's point-of-view character, is a mostly thankless role of a bland American simply observing life in Berlin as the Nazis are on the rise. Calvin Leon Smith made the role come alive, though, and was perfectly marvelous as Cliff.

The biggest treat in terms of the cast was Bebe Neuwirth, who played Fräulein Schneider, a role originated by Lotte Lenya. Seeing Neuwirth in the late-night cabaret show Here Lies Jenny was an unforgettable experience, and while she is no longer performing the athletic dance moves she had in that show, her voice is still amazing, and her rendition of "What Would You Do" exquisite.

When the show premiered in 1966, it shocked audiences by lulling them into a sense of tranquility with songs like "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" or amusing them with numbers like "If You Could See Her" and then turning on them with those same songs, refashioning entertainment into terror. This production tips its hand, disturbing the audience from the beginning.

Still, the brilliance of the original show shines through, and the immersive aspects are quite enjoyable. If you haven't seen it yet, go.

10,000+ nights

I just got back from a book event at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center for a book event celebrating the launch of 10,000+ nights: Theatre Before the Plague by Marvin Carlson.

The book is a sequel to a previous book Carlson wrote recounting 50 years of theatre going and ending in 2010. This noticeably slimmer volume covers 2010 through 2019, with discussions of Sleep No More, Blood Knot, Mr. Burns, An Octoroon, Hamilton, and Great Comet among other plays.

During his talk, Carlson suggested that the movement toward immersive theatre was one of the big trends in New York prior to the shutdown related to Covid. Sadly, there hasn't been as much immersive theatre since, though I did enjoy the immersive Great Gatsby last year. I was surprised at how optimistic Carlson was about the future, predicting that all the social distancing would remind us of the indispensability of live performance.

Tomorrow night, I'll be enjoying a live performance of David Willinger's new play Bring Them Back at Theater for the New City. Then on Saturday I have the first rehearsal for a staged reading of Snip o' the Shears, which will be presented at the Hamilton Grange Library on June 1st at 1:00 pm. I hope you can make it!

Dreams of Dracula

Last night I saw the immersive theatre piece Dreams of Dracula. If you're looking for a fun immersive piece to see, you could do worse. Though not as good as the immersive The Great Gatsby, it has the advantage of still being open, and though the production doesn't have the same resources as Sleep No More, the tickets are more affordable.

Created by Nicole Coady and Jonathan Albert, the piece brings Bram Stoker's novel Dracula to life at the club Musica on 50th Street near the West Side Highway. The upper level focuses on dance pieces, while the lower level is the place you want to be if you prefer dialogue and interacting with the characters. That's also where I ran into Oscar Wilde (played by Kelsey Rondeau), a former classmate of Stoker's from Trinity College in Dublin.

My favorite character was Renfeld, portrayed by Paul Pecorino. He ran about in a straightjacket delivering in his madness lines from Percy Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" among other things. Alas, I never ran into Shelley himself, though Mary Shelley is supposed to appear on some nights, along with Lord Byron and Sigmund Freud for some reason.

Like with Sleep No More, audience members are all supposed to be masked. Those with glasses sometimes had a difficult time with this, but you can put your mask over your forehead, and no one will mind. The dress code is all black, which is good, as any speck of white will shine brightly in the venue's lights. Some of the audience members last night were even better costumed than the actors!

Immersive Gatsby

When I was in London last year, there was an immersive production of The Great Gatsby that I was interested in seeing. However, I had a lot of things to do, so I wasn't able to fit it into my schedule.

That's why I was happy when I heard the immersive adaptation of the classic novel was opening in New York. I was going to get tickets while it was in previews, but stuff happened, as it often does in life. I kept putting off going, but finally got to see it this afternoon.

Well, the show closes tomorrow, so I caught it just in time, and I'm very glad I did. Though I had my doubts, the production does a good job of telling the story while also integrating the audience at important moments. While key scenes take place in a main ballroom, audience members are also invited off into numerous side rooms, where some of the most interesting parts occur.

Mister Gatsby himself invited me and a number of other "potential investors" into his study for a "business proposal" and asked us questions about ourselves while also revealing some of his own secrets. Later he selected a smaller group of us, and after dodging questions from a nosey reporter, he took us back to a bedroom with stacks of his famous shirts.

The reporter showed up again in a scene in a darkroom where pictures were being developed. In another scene, Daisy invited us to play charades, and in another Myrtle started a game of truth or dare where certain truths about her relationship with Tom were revealed. The interactions with the audience felt just right, seeming natural, while the cast members were also ready to steer things in the direction they needed to go.

Other scenes were more traditional pieces of theatre, where we all watched either a key interaction from the book or listened to a character (usually Nick) provide narration in F. Scott Fitzgerald's immortal words. This made the show quite different from the immersive juggernaut Sleep No More which contains virtually no dialogue and is closer to a dance piece than a traditional play.

Of course, there's also plenty of dancing in The Great Gatsby, for both the performers and the audience. (I was pleased I got a chance to Charleston.) And there's lots of live music. It was a wonderful time, Old Sport!

Meow Wolf

Today I visited Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, New Mexico. If you are not familiar with it, Meow Wolf provides both a massive art installation and a colossal piece of immersive theatre.

Known as The House of Eternal Return, the installation was launched with support from George R.R. Martin, the author of Game of Thrones, so there is definitely a storytelling aspect to it. However, some visitors prefer to simply walk around and take in the aesthetics.

As you enter, you see a two-story house, but an anomaly in space and time his fractured it. A refrigerator opens into another world, you can crawl right through the fireplace like it's a Magritte painting, and if you slide down a shoot in the back of a dryer, you might find out where all those lost socks ended up.

Unlike other works of immersive theatre, such as Sleep No More, there are no performers. There are, however, staff members in white lab coats to ensure people's safety, and they can aid you if you need to get out of the installation and back to normalcy. I overheard one person asking about the audience, and the man in the lab coat clarified that there was no audience here, only participants.

Each participant ultimately makes his or her own experience, but there is a story behind the house, if you want to look for it. My sister told me to look in the mailbox, but when I did, there was nothing in it. When I went to the living room, however, I found a brown envelope with some documents inside. "Do those help?" a woman asked.

I said I didn't know if they helped, but they were interesting, as they did seem to shed some light on the anomaly that had disrupted a seemingly normal house.

Meow Wolf provides worlds to explore, but it also provides a story. You might encounter that story's beginning, middle, and end, though not necessarily in that order. In addition to the documents in the envelope, there are notes left throughout the house, journals you can flip through, even appointment books you can examine. There are also video screens with headphones that supply an interesting narration of at least one version of the events leading to the fracturing of the house.

Children are welcome, and although there are dark aspects to the story, the kids won't necessarily pick up on them. Older people and folks with limited mobility might find it more difficult to navigate the rooms, though. Some spaces are small, but when you squeeze through, there's usually something fascinating waiting for you on the other side.

If you start getting sensory overload, you can always take a break in the café outside the installation, and if you want to go back in later, you can. That means even if you're not sure Meow Wolf is going to be your thing, there is little risk in giving it a try.

Sleep No More

Last night, I finally saw Punchdrunk's Sleep No More. A couple of years ago, I had the good fortune of seeing Woodshed Collective's The Tenant, another immersive theatre experience. At the time, The Tenant rather suffered in the press due to comparisons with the more lavishly produced British import. However, as much as I enjoyed Sleep No More, I find that in retrospect, The Tenant deserved more credit than it got.

Sleep No More, as most theatre-going New Yorkers know by now, is the massive walk-through ambiance drama currently ensconced in the McKittrick Hotel in Chelsea. Though based loosely on Macbeth, don't expect a faithful production of Shakespeare. Audience members, referred to as "guests," check in at appointed times and are handed playing cards as their "room keys." This is the first device to split people up, as Sleep No More is a decidedly individual experience.

As guests wait in the ballroom, an announcer calls out numbers. When the number on your card is called, you are invited to the next room where you are given instructions, as well as a Venetian-style mask, which must be worn at all times. Some of the people in the room are invited into an elevator, again splitting people up, while the other guests wait for the next one. The elevator operator then lets people off on various floors. If you were expecting to spend the evening with a friend, forget about it. The producers of the show are determined to separate you.

And why? Because that's the best way to experience the adventure. And adventure really is a better word than "play" or "show." This is a theatre piece that is almost entirely about the design elements. There are actors who wander about, and audience members instinctively follow them, expecting the performers to, well, you know, perform. Many of the performances are decidedly mundane, however, though quite provocative. A man dusts dirt from a human skull. A woman strips with the aid of a nurse and washes herself in a bathtub, trying desperately to remove blood from her hands. A man with an umbrella buries a small parcel in a graveyard. These performances are, as some critics would have it, "post-dramatic."

But ah, what a set! While the non-profit Woodshed Collective did an admirable job with the budget they had for The Tenant, Sleep No More shows what you can do when money is no object. Woodshed offered their performances for free, while tickets to Sleep No More start at a hundred dollars. Once inside, though, you see where your ticket price has gone. A run-down building in Chelsea has been transformed into not just a mid-century British Hotel, but also into a hospital, a brick-paved street of shops, even a whole forest. The taxidermy alone must have cost a fortune. (Oh yes, there will be taxidermy.)

Though there is some muttering of phrases here and there, the performances in Sleep No More are for the most part non-verbal. This was the biggest difference between it and The Tenant. While audience members for The Tenant could overhear a myriad of different conversations, often happening at the same time in different parts of the building, there is little to hear in Sleep No More, other than the intense music and sound effects constantly pumped through the speaker system. Rather than traditional scenes, the characters perform athletic dance numbers, frequently flipping each other's bodies over in movements that are simultaneously violent and sexually suggestive.

Like The Tenant, Sleep No More ultimately guides the entire audience into a large room for the climax of the piece. It is here, and in the ballroom afterward, that guests can reunite with the rest of their party. There are other major scenes as well, such as the murder (which I heard about, but missed) and a wild dance reminiscent of the Hecate scene in Macbeth (which I did catch). The performers tend to gather large groups together for these scenes, so you will probably see some though not all of them. With so much to explore, it really does not matter how many of these "scenes" you catch anyway. While in The Tenant there was a clear plot, in Sleep No More the atmosphere does not merely serve the show--the atmosphere IS the show.

If you're interested in Sleep No More, check out the website here:

SLEEP NO MORE

To find out about Woodshed Collective, which produced The Tenant in 2011, click here:

Woodshed Collective