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.
In David Zax’s new play, Aftermath, a family struggles to regain its equilibrium when a son returns home after surviving a Taliban kidnapping in Afghanistan in 2011. Directed by Colton Pometta, this ambitious new play explores the difficult road to recovery from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but its dramatically unconvincing story and characters undermine its…
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…
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 emotionally resonant drama intertwines romance with the elusive nature of recollection, proving as intoxicating as it…
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 a theatrically exhilarating fusion of drama and dance in which the Prince of Denmark fights for the…
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 is while constantly performing for others. Through four teenage girls navigating sleepovers, friendships, and the virtual world of The Sims, Smith crafts…
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 body seems capable of infinite reinvention. Perhaps to remind the audience that…
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 Bergman proved a fitting tribute to their extraordinary legacy. Presented as part of the 92nd Street Y’s “Lyrics & Lyricists” series,…
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…
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 storming performances from Phia Saban, Lydia Wilson, and Yerin Ha, this turbo-charged Donmar Warehouse…
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 performance from Hiran Abeysekera, this National Theatre production proves both darkly funny and…