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.
Jamie Lloyd’s Broadway revival of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot finds Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter trading Bill and Ted’s comic banter for Beckett’s haunting silences. With Brandon J. Dirden and Michael Patrick Thornton rounding out the cast, Lloyd once again turns minimalism into a bold theatrical statement. Before parsing the current production, it’s worth…
Alexander Hurt, Nick Westrate (Photo: Gerry Goodstein) The Wild Duck By Deirdre Donovan on September 23, 2025 The first major Off-Broadway staging of The Wild Duck has winged into Polonsky Shakespeare Center for a brief sojourn, in a co-production of Theatre for a New Audience and Shakespeare Theatre Company. David Eldridge’s new version infuses fresh…
The king of the roast has traded his podium for the Broadway stage. In Jeff Ross: Take a Banana for the Ride, directed by Stephen Kessler, the Emmy-nominated comedian known for skewering Hollywood royalty serves up his most daring material yet — himself. Directed with an eye for intimacy and energy, the one-man show feels…
John Keating, Sean Gormley, Johnny Hopkins, Dan Butler, Sarah Street (Photo: Carol Rosegg) The Weir By Deirdre Donovan on August 26, 2025 Irish Repertory Theatre’s fourth staging of Conor McPherson’s The Weir, directed by Ciarán McPherson, proves why the play has become one of the company’s touchstones. What begins as an evening of pub banter…
Emmanuelle Mattana (Photo: Valerie Terranova) Trophy Boys By Deirdre Donovan on July 18, 2025 Faced with the question, “Has feminism failed women?”, a group of elite private school boys set out to argue in the affirmative — fueling the fire of Emmanuelle Mattana’s audacious new comedy, Trophy Boys. As they prepare for a high-stakes debate…
John Krasinski (Photo: Jonny Cournoyer) Angry Alan By Deirdre Donovan on July 11, 2025 In Angry Alan, directed with clinical precision by Sam Gold, John Krasinski plays Roger, a 45 year-old man from the Midwest, teetering on the edge of crisis. Reeling from a divorce, a demotion, and a growing sense that the world no…
Babak Tafti (Photo: Ahron R. Foster) Lowcountry By Deirdre Donovan on July 7, 2025 In Lowcountry, playwright Abby Rosebrock delivers a razor-sharp romcom that dives headfirst into the emotional wreckage of modern love, and life on the margins of respectability. Under Jo Bonney’s clear-eyed direction, what unfolds is not just a first date gone awry,…
The Company(Photo: Marc J. Franklin) Purpose By Deirdre Donovan Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Purpose explores the struggles of a prominent African-American family navigating the intersection of personal ambition and their historical responsibilities. Directed by Phylicia Rashad, Jacobs-Jenkins masterfully interweaves family, politics, and contemporary national issues into a compelling narrative. Set in Illinois, Purpose revolves…
George Clooney in Good Night, and Good Luck. (Photo: Emilio Madrid) Good Night, and Good Luck By Deirdre Donovan George Clooney and Grant Heslov’s new play, Good Night, and Good Luck, an adaptation of their 2005 film, arrives on Broadway with plenty of buzz. Directed by David Cromer, this production doesn’t disappoint, largely due to…
Andrew Scott in Vanya. (Photo: Julieta Cervantes Vanya By Deirdre Donovan Andrew Scott takes on the Herculean task of performing a one-man production of Anton Chekhov’s 1898 tragicomedy and succeeds in turning it into a mesmerizing virtuoso performance. Directed by Sam Yates, and created by Scott, along with Yates, Simon Stephens, and Rosanna Vize, Stephen’s…