Writer
Journalist Deirdre Donovan has written for the Washington Post and the Boston Globe, among others. Her theater writing has been published in The Brooklyn Paper, Our Town, West Side Spirit, Curtainup, Theaterscene, and Offoffonline.
More than four centuries after its first performance in 1611, The Winter’s Tale has lost none of its vigor or charm. Daniel Sullivan’s staging of Shakespeare’s tragicomedy makes the second offering of this season’s Free Shakespeare in the Park at the renovated Delacorte Theater a delight. With a star-studded cast led by Lily Rabe and…
Heather Agyepong, Daniel Ezra (Photo: Marc J. Franklin) Shifters By Deirdre Donovan on August 7, 2026 Love stories often ask whether time heals old wounds; Benedict Lombe’s Shifters, directed by Lynette Linton, asks the more provocative question of whether memory ever allows those wounds to close. Following its 2024 West End run in London, this…
Ben Duke in The Last Hamlet (Photo: Christophe Raynaud de Lage) The Last Hamlet By Deirdre Donovan What if Hamlet’s final performance really were his last? In The Last Hamlet, conceived and directed by multidisciplinary British artist Ben Duke, Duke and his company Lost Dog imaginatively turn Shakespeare’s most frequently performed tragedy inside out, creating…
Sophie Rossman, Kayta Thomas, Renée-Nicole Powell, Amalia Yoo (Photo: Maria Baranova) Dad Don’t Read This By Deirdre Donovan on July 14, 2026 Adolescence is often remembered as a time of awkward transitions, but Eliya Smith’s Dad Don’t Read This, sensitively directed by Chloe Claudel, captures something even more elusive: the uncertainty of discovering who one…
Flight in Pilobolus’ Trips (Photo: Emily Denaro) Pilobolus: Trips By Deirdre Donovan With Trips: Program A, Pilobolus once again demonstrates why it remains one of America’s most inventive dance companies. Through a series of visually arresting works that blend athleticism, illusion, humor, and poetry, the troupe transforms the stage into a realm where the human…
The Ensemble (Photo: Richard Termine) Every Kind of Light: The Love and Lyrics of Alan & Marilyn Bergman By Deirdre Donovan Few lyricists have captured the complexities of love with as much grace, wit, and emotional insight as Alan and Marilyn Bergman, and Every Kind of Light: The Love and Lyrics of Alan & Marilyn…
On Broadway, where celebrity casting is often used to sell a show, Celebrity Autobiography turns the concept inside out. This long-running comedy sensation invites a rotating roster of stars from stage, screen, sports, and politics to perform selections from other celebrities’ unintentionally hilarious memoirs, creating an evening where every performance—and every laugh—is a surprise. Inspired…
Lydia Wilson (Photo: Julieta Cervantes) The Maids By Deirdre Donovan on May 26, 2026 In Kip Williams’ electrifying new adaptation of Jean Genet’s The Maids at St. Ann’s Warehouse, the playwright’s fever dream of class resentment and fractured identity is thrust headlong into the social media age with startling immediacy and theatrical bravado. Fueled by…
Hiran Abeysekera (Photo: Julieta Cervantes) Hamlet By Deirdre Donovan on May 11, 2026 At the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Hamlet arrives not as a museum piece but as a joltingly alive modern tragedy, with director Robert Hastie stripping away centuries of dust to reveal the play’s unnerving immediacy. Led by a magnetic, emotionally volatile…
Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show storms back to Broadway at Studio 54 with a gleeful sense of mischief and theatrical abandon, reminding audiences why this cult classic has endured for more than half a century. Under the exuberant direction of Sam Pinkleton, this revival fizzes with irreverent energy and a game, starry ensemble, delivering…