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.
A Review by Deirdre Donovan At the end of David Malloy’s Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, the titular comet descends from the flies and comes into twinkling view at center stage at the Imperial Theatre. It’s a stunning spectacle that is matched in grandeur only by the whole emotional impact of this…
photo by Joan Marcus by Deirdre Donovan There are few plays that hold a mirror up to life with such intensity as Richard Nelson’s three-play cycle The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of One Family. His third installment in the series, Women of a Certain Age, opened at the Public Theater (at the LuEsther…
Courtesy of Onassis Cultural Center New York. Photos by Beowulf Sheehan by Deirdre Donovan If you want to get a firm handle on Sophocles’ Antigone, look no further than Lena Kitsopoulou’s Antigone: Lonely Planet. Kitsopoulou wrote, directed, and performed in her new play, specially commissioned for the Antigone Now Festival at the Gallery at…
by Deirdre Donovan Chekhov is always a tough go on Broadway. But you must admire the British director Simon Godwin, who’s at the helm of the Roundabout’s new production of The Cherry Orchard (at the American Airlines Theatre), for his courage in staging the Russian master’s last play. But in spite of Godwin’s earnest…
Rebeckah Brockman photos by Russ_Rowland by Deirdre Donovan “Dear Miss Littlewood, Along with this letter comes a play, the first I have written. I wonder if you would read it through and send it back to me because no matter what sort of theatrical atrocity it might be, it isn’t valueless as…
Ismenia Mendes, left, Andrew Burnap and John Glover Photo Credit: Joan Marcus by Deirdre Donovan Daniel Sullivan adds another feather to his cap by mounting Shakespeare’s most modern play at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. Troilus and Cressida has won the difficult affection of critics over the years. And, with Daniel Sullivan’s…
photo by Gregory Castonzo, 2016 by Deirdre Donovan The smartest way to beat the heat this summer may be to tuck into a seat at the Gym (at Judson), where the Bedlam theater company is presenting an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. Adapted by Kate Hamill, and directed by Eric Tucker,…
Santino Fontana and cast by Deirdre Donovan If you are a chronic rooter for the underdog, then God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater will be right up your alley. Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s 1979 musical version of Kurt Vonnegut’s novel resurfaces at New York City Center’s Encores! Off-Center series–and it couldn’t be fresher. …
by Deirdre Donovan There’s nothing tame about Phyllida Lloyd’s new gender-bending production of The Taming of the Shrew at the Public’s Delacorte Theater in Central Park. With an all-female cast, Lloyd takes Shakespeare’s early comedy about love and marriage and jazzes it up with a beauty pageant. And with Janet McTeer and Cush Jumbo…
Maggie Lacey and John Douglas Thompson star in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (© Gerry Goodstein) by Deirdre Donovan What could be better than seeing a new stage production of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House? Naturally, seeing it in tandem with Strindberg’s The Father. New York theatergoers now have a rare chance to catch…