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.
Juliet Stevenson (Photo: Stephanie Berger) The Doctor By Deirdre Donovan Of all the productions that have arrived in New York this summer, The Doctor may well be the most memorable. Written and directed by Robert Icke, and starring the superb Juliet Stevenson, this play invites theatergoers to take a fresh and clear-eyed look at…
Caleb Eberhardt and Susannah Flood (Photo: Monique Carboni) The Comeuppance By Deirdre Donovan Some plays demand reflection; others ask that you place yourself in their frame-of-mind. With Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ provocative new play, The Comeuppance, you must do both. Directed by Eric Ting, this unsettling new drama invites theatergoers to take a close look at…
Ruthie Anne Miles (Photo: Joan Marcus) Light in the Piazza By Deirdre Donovan The new Encores! concert staging of the 2005 musical The Light in the Piazza breezed in and out of New York City Center in June, leaving audiences enchanted. Directed by Chay Yew, and starring the incomparable Ruthie Ann Miles as Margaret…
Marcel Spears and Billy Eugene Jones in Fat Ham. (Photo: Joan Marcus) Fat Ham By Deirdre Donovan Those theatergoers who have hungered for a spicy new take on Shakespeare’s Hamlet need look no further than James Ijames’ comic tragedy, Fat Ham, at the American Airlines Theatre. Directed by Saheem Ali, it is both a…
Okieriete Onaodowan and Jessica Chastain. Photo by Emilio Madrid. A Doll’s House By Deirdre Donovan It’s been almost a century and a half since Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House premiered in Norway in 1879. But this domestic drama is hardly “old stuff,” in playwright Amy Herzog’s new version, and under the astute direction of…
Ben Steinfeld (Photo: Austin Ruffer) Pericles By Deirdre Donovan When Ben Steinfeld strolls out with a guitar to sing Gower’s Prologue in Fiasco Theater’s Pericles, you immediately feel that you’re in good hands. Steinfeld is wearing a troubadour’s outfit, and there’s a confident air in everything he does. His eyes scan the audience; his…
Roger Dominic Casey, Tom Holcomb. (Photo: Jeremy Daniel) Aristocrats By Deirdre Donovan “I’m suddenly sick of Chopin — isn’t it strange?” asks Claire in the final scene of Brian Friel’s Aristocrats, but audiences visiting the Irish Repertory Theatre’s revival of his 1979 play may well hear Claire’s cri de coeur as…
Anastasia Hille in Oresteia, Park Avenue Armory, 2022 Photo: Joan Marcus Oresteia By Deirdre Donovan Aeschylus’ Oresteia is the kind of work that makes most directors go weak in the knees. Not Robert Ickes. British writer-director Ickes has grabbed the bull by the horns and astonishingly reworked the tragic trilogy for contemporary sensibilities. His Oresteia, currently running in repertory with Hamlet at the Park Avenue Armory, is not only a successful realization of the…
Mikhail Baryshnikov, Jessica Hecht in The Orchard at the Baryshnikov Arts Center Photo: Maria Baranova The Orchard A Review by Deirdre Donovan Robots rule in The Orchard, the fascinating new adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard at the Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC). This new take on Chekhov’s masterpiece has the quality of soulfulness, not to mention a superb performance by Mikhail Baryshnikov as the old servant Firs….
Phylicia Rashad in Skeleton Crew Photos: Matthew Murphy Skeleton Crew by Deirdre Donovan Hat’s off to the Manhattan Theatre Club for bringing us Dominique Morisseau’s searing new drama, Skeleton Crew! With a superb cast led by Phylicia Rashad, this play about a tight-knit working family in uncertain times, is profoundly moving and altogether real. Set in Detroit, Michigan, during the economic recession of 2008, the play…