Review Roundup: GIRL, INTERRUPTED Opens At The Public Theater

The world premiere production of Girl, Interrupted written by Martyna Majok and based on the memoir by Susanna Kaysen. opens tonight at The Public Theater NY. Read the reviews!

The new stage adaptation features music by Aimee Mann, with choreography by Sonya Tayeh and direction by Jo Bonney.

Check out video highlights of the production.

Based on Susanna Kaysen’s bestselling memoir, this empowering new theatrical production features original music by two-time Grammy Award winner Aimee Mann, choreography by Tony Award winner Sonya Tayeh, and direction by Tony Award nominee Jo Bonney. When Susanna admits herself to a psychiatric hospital, following a 15-minute session with a doctor she’d never met, she forms unexpected bonds with the young women inside as they search for connection and a way forward. Raw and unapologetic, this new play with music reveals that the people who witness our darkest moments are often those who truly see us. 

The complete cast includes Leela Bassuk (Understudy), Ta’Rea Campbell (Valerie), Gabi Campo (Tori), Juliana Canfield (Susanna), Eileen Doan (Understudy), Manoel Felciano (The Male Presence), King Princess (Lisa), Gunnar Manchester (Understudy), Mia Pak (Grace), Katherine Reis (Daisy), Anna Roman (Understudy), Sally Shaw (Polly), Emily Skinner (Dr. Wick), Rachel Stern (Understudy), and Lauren Jeanne Thomas (Judy/Musician).

The production will now run through Sunday, June 28 with an official opening night on Thursday, June 4.

Helen Shaw, The New York Times: What is moving here, even in a murky production with too much stillness at its center, is the assembled talents — from Kaysen to Majok to Mann — all dedicated to describing a group of girls in a hospital nearly 60 years ago. Some didn’t survive, many of them weren’t cured, a few might not have even been sick. But at least, for a while, they do interrupt our lives. We pause, together, to remember them.

Austin Fimmano, New York Theatre Guide: The script borrows heavily from Kaysen’s memoir of decades-later, matter-of-fact observations about the hospital — wry and informative, but not exactly narrative. Play adapter Martyna Majok punches up the relationship between Susanna and her roommate Grace (Mia Pak) during their first night together (illustrated by the sweetly optimistic song “Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath”). But overall, there isn’t much room left for the development of relationships between the characters. Girl, Interrupted pays homage to Kaysen’s memoir, but at the expense of narrative drive.

Michael Sommers, New York Stage Review: An achingly beautiful new blend of drama and music, Girl, Interrupted has been exquisitely crafted from Susanna Kaysen’s memoir regarding the many months she spent as a teenager in a psychiatric facility. Readers of Kaysen’s story (unlike me) can judge how faithfully the original is followed, but the strange musical loveliness and abiding sensitivity of this play infused with a dozen or so striking songs will soon be obvious to anyone who sees the very fine production that premiered Thursday at the Public Theater.

Mike Dressel, Slant Magazine: The show ultimately succeeds, despite its occasionally muddled narrative structure, due to its seriousness and sensitivity. Kaysen’s story is one that inspires fierce identification and protection, and has made people feel seen. Like the lyrics in the show’s final song, “I see/And I believe,” this production manages to harness what connects audiences to each version of story: the acknowledgement of its characters’ struggle, their frailty, and their humanity.

Thom Geier, Culture Sauce: Girl, Interrupted is not a conventional musical. Despite the subject matter, it’s also not a total downer. Director Jo Bonney embraces its unorthodoxy in her understated staging, with a simple stylized set (by the collective dots) and lighting (by Heather Gilbert). Sarah Lux’s costumes and J. Jared Janas’s hair, wig and makeup design summon the fab look of the late ’60s while still connecting us to women who feel familiar even if circumstances have improved. Under Bonney’s direction, the cast conveys the stark reality of their characters without wallowing in their predicament. They seem as surprised as we are when things don’t turn out, when tragedy strikes, and that brings a deeper layer of authenticity to the story. Girl, Interrupted celebrates the strength in sisterhood, and the power of music and storytelling to find meaning in the darkest episodes of human experience.

Richard Lawson, The Guardian: Review Girl, Interrupted review – mental health memoir reborn as patchy Aimee Mann-soundtracked musical The Public Theater, New York Susanna Kaysen’s retelling of her time in a psychiatric hospital in the 60s became an Oscar-winning movie in the 90s and now it’s an elegant, if limited, play Richard Lawson Thu 4 Jun 2026 21.15 EDT Share Prefer the Guardian on Google In 2021, the singer-songwriter Aimee Mann (perhaps best known, as a solo artist, for her contributions to the Paul Thomas Anderson film Magnolia) released an album called Queens of the Summer Hotel, a collection of somewhat narrative tunes inspired by Susanna Kaysen’s bestselling memoir of mental health struggle, Girl, Interrupted. Mann had been commissioned to write the songs for a stage adaptation that took years (and the duration of a pandemic) to materialize. Now finally at the Public Theater in Manhattan, Girl, Interrupted is a sturdy showcase for Mann’s gorgeous, shimmering-sad compositions, but perhaps a less successful conduit for Kaysen’s arguments.

Charles Isherwood, The Wall Street Journal: Susanna ultimately is freed, not because she’s cured of the alienation she has always felt but because of an accepted marriage proposal. The musical’s implicit moral is that the oppressive patriarchy has condemned these women—but, ironically, rescued Susanna. All the characters the excellent Mr. Felciano plays are sinister, selfish or generally priggish. The consultation that lands Susanna in McLean lasts just 15 minutes, with the paternalistic doctor suggesting that she will be there for a “few days.” She’s there for 18 months. A doctor like that could get a girl down.

Average Rating: 75.7%