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Julia Polinsky wrote, directed, produced, and starred in her first play when she was 7 years old. She’s been paying a lot of attention to theater ever since.
Maybe Happy Ending, now on Broadway at the Belasco Theatre, looks great, sounds great, has splendid performances and touches the heart as it explores what it means to be human. Or to love. Or both. It has real songs, that advance the show and reveal the characters’ thoughts. It has fireflies. It has robots in…
When you drop a coin into a jukebox, you pays your money and you hardly ever takes your chances. With A Wonderful World, The Louis Armstrong Musical, your chances are really good to hear some great music (arrangements by Branford Marsalis and Daryl Waters), enjoy some splendid choreography (Rickey Tripp) danced by splendid dancers, and…
Deirdre Lovejoy, Donnetta Lavinia Grays (Photo:Valerie Terranova) In The Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot By Julia Polinsky Family, climate, love, survival: Sarah Mantell’s In The Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot, directed by Sivan Battat and now at Playwrights Horizons, takes on some big subjects. Speculatively set in a not-too-distant future, the play gradually makes it clear that…
Part backstage comedy, part political satire, part based in fact and part pure fiction, David Henry Hwang’s Yellow Face is by turns hilarious, touching, and disturbing. It’s been suggested that we might appreciate the gift to see ourselves as other see us. But we might not. Yellow Face pokes hard at identity politics, as it…
Dan Luria, Patty McCormack (Photo by Russ Rowland) Just Another Day By Julia Polinsky A gentle, sadly sweet cross between Waiting for Godot and many another older-person-family-drama, Dan Lauria‘s Just Another Day presents two characters, Man (Luria) and Woman (Patty McCormack), on a perfectly lovely park bench with a nicely pretty streetlamp and a gently…
The Cast of Heart of Rock and Roll (Photo: Matthew Murphy) The Heart of Rock and Roll By Julia Polinsky Sometimes, musical theater is charming and predictable and silly and hummable and fun. Sometimes, that’s just what you want. The Heart of Rock and Roll delivers one of those times. Delightfully. In 2024, the…
Susannah Flood, Greg Keller (Photo: Chelcie Parry) Staff Meal By Julia Polinsky In Staff Meal, now at Playwrights Horizons, Abe Koogler wallows in the confusing banality of everything. You might wonder if author Koogler knew of the Douglas Adams’s novel, The Restaurant at The End of the Universe, and this play is in some ways…
Sheria Irving, Gabriel Ebert (Photo: Joan Marcus) Sally and Tom By Julia Polinsky The powerhouse that is Suzan Lori Parks has partnered with the Public Theater and director Steve H. Broadnax III to give us Sally and Tom. But this time, is Parks’ work about the history of American skin color politics, or about cutting a…
Ali Louis Bourzgui (Photo: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman) The Who’s Tommy By Julia Polinsky Hold on to your hats. It’s going to be a loud, stunning, bumpy ride. Worshipped by many, the revered subject of Boomer nostalgia and rocker adoration, The Who’s Tommy has held a unique place in the pop music world since…
Liev Schreiber, Amy Ryan (Photo: Joan Marcus) Doubt: A Parable By Julia Polinsky John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt: A Parable has received a handsome new mounting at the Roundabout’s newly re-named Todd Haimes theater. Directed for maximum impact by Scott Ellis, this first Broadway revival of arguably Shanley’s most famous play doesn’t flinch from tough issues:…