Austin Fimmano

Each woman has a unique perspective on life in the investment banking firm, but with tragically similar trajectories. Despite what they do have in common, however, the tensions between them swell until they explode in the final scene, an epic confrontation that, nonetheless, doesn’t bring any real conclusion to the drama we just watched. But it’s not supposed to. Lin’s drama encompasses a question of identity that can have no answers, only different experiences.

The show has its high points. A dance number lit by phone flashlights has a uniquely 2020s feel, and the choreography tells a clear story about how our relationship to our phones can keep us from focusing on real life. However, this dance, in the show's second half, is the first time we learn that this issue is one of the couple’s marital struggles, and there’s no resolution. But for theatregoers who aren’t too pressed for story, the nonstop dancing — with a Post-it-themed climax, of course — is entertaining enough.

Teague and Lee’s chemistry is electric and arrestingly physical, almost like watching a choreographed dance. Lee is particularly mesmerizing, and it’s difficult to keep your eyes off of her as she sweeps across the stage. When Her addresses the audience in the last scene, the rawness in Lee’s performance moved more than a few in my audience to tears.

It’s Christmastime in the city, and you can hear the silver bells ring off Broadway in A Christmas Carol — quite literally. Of the many traditional carols performed in this production, those performed with a full bell choir stunned my audience into awed silence. And shock and awe are just the beginning of the emotions this evocative production hopes to stir up.

A five-hour play is certainly a tall order for most theatregoers. But for those willing to challenge their own attention spans, Initiative makes for a soft, pensive, introspective day at the theatre. Much like bingeing a miniseries in one afternoon, Else and Emma Rosa Went offer audiences the chance to watch four years of high school unfold on a stage, gloriously messy and precarious and rewarding.

Chess might not be for everyone: Diehard fans may bemoan the modern updates, while newcomers may get lost in the 2-hour-and-40-minute back-and-forth of plot that covers, essentially, two chess matches. But for those who go to Broadway musicals hoping to hear actors perform songs so powerfully you get goosebumps, you’ll find that three times over.

Urie brilliantly embodies Shakespeare’s King Richard, infusing him with just enough whimsy and vulnerability to make this manchild pitiable. Pitted against his revolutionary cousin Henry Bolingbroke (an austere Grantham Coleman), Richard may not be in the right, but he sure is fun to root for.

Tackling misogyny, internalized homophobia, domestic abuse, gender roles, and the need for intersectionality, Liberation leaves no stone unturned in its quest for answers about the past and the present. But with any of these topics, no play can have the answers to something that we haven’t figured out yet in real life – and that’s all part of the point.

Under the direction of Stevie Walker-Webb, Oh Happy Day! covers a lot of ground, but its main theme is the age-old question: What is the role of God in the face of unimaginable suffering? To that, Oh Happy Day! says to "lean not on your own understanding,” before God drops an excellent metaphor about spilled milk and carpet cleaner.

Mexodus, directed by David Mendizábal, comes just as packed with history and intention as it does with good music and good fun. It may just be the most fun you have at a show all year. But what makes this musical so likely to stay with its audience is the creators' focus on intersectionality: what solidarity between oppressed groups meant in the past, what it means in the present, and what it will mean in the future.

Some elements of the play come off as unfinished; for one, I could never quite wrap my head around the concept of a whale terrorizing a small town. Sulfur Bottom feels like it needs more development to reach its full potential, but Varma’s message is still powerful: If the only path towards a better life cuts you off from the people who love you, how could future generations ever come to terms with the choices of their forebears?

Nearly always barefoot, McGovern shines in Ava’s skin, relishing the quirkiness and entitlement that comes with having been famous and beautiful. (Argues Evans’s agent, played by Chris Thorn, when the journalist tries to protest the ghostwriting assignment: ‘Of course she’s bonkers! She was the biggest star in the world!’)

Ginger Twinsies is exactly what it hopes to be: a fast-paced, queer parody of a beloved cultural classic that may just be the spiritual successor of Titanique.

The subject matter of Call Me Izzy is inherently dark, but under the direction of Sarna Lapine (2017's Sunday in the Park with George on Broadway), there is an undeniable air of hope. Despite the smallness her husband imposes on her, Izzy moves through spaces confidently. She walks us through her life verbally and physically as the set transitions from Izzy’s bathroom to her kitchen to the shared outdoor space of her Louisiana trailer park.

If there ever was an actress who could easily be the literal embodiment of music itself, it’s Amber Iman. Tony Award-nominated for her role in Lempicka last year, Iman is a powerhouse in the role of Marimba, the goddess in disguise as mild-mannered Nadira. Marimba/Nadira was an instant hit with my audience, bringing down the house before her first song (the sultry ‘Honeysweet’) had even finished. And for all of Nadira’s belting and ballads, Iman’s innate sweetness gives the character an essential vulnerability that highlights just how out of place she is in the mortal world when she’s not singing.

Pirates! The Penzance Musical comes with a stacked cast and a nearly 150-year history of Broadway adaptations. With such an iconic piece of theatre, any change is bound to stir the pot. But perhaps what makes this version such a smash is that at its core, it’s exactly what Gilbert and Sullivan created the original to be: a fun, silly, nonsensical laugh with the lightest plot and a great big happy ending to wrap it all up.

For all its star power and chemistry between the leads (Washington-Gyllenhaal and Washington-Osborne), however, not much of this production is particularly original or groundbreaking. Standout Kimber Elayne Sprawl is a breath of fresh air as a whip-smart Emilia. But setting aside the excitement of a beloved lead in an iconic role, Leon’s buttoned-up production is a perfectly enjoyable, if not particularly memorable Othello.

Sumo’s character arcs are compelling, if somewhat predictable. The same could be said for its larger story arc, in which Akio, the reckless, chomping-at-the-bit ingénue weighs the differing advice from his many mentors before ultimately choosing the path of humbleness over hypermasculinity. That said, its predictability does not lessen the impact. Like in Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, the story of humility triumphing over toxicity always holds weight.

On the Evolutionary Function of Shame is a master class in weaving topical issues with people and stories that humanize those issues. And in a world that is actively trying to remove trans people from society, to see a play like this one is truly special, and no small privilege.

Wohl’s writing is sharp and witty, toggling back and forth between humor and heartbreak with natural ease. But given the length of the show, the two acts of the play can feel like they’re spiraling after a while. Even so, the characters are personable enough that it’s easy to get lost in their worries. Wohl’s charming, fourth-wall-breaking lead is played with an endearing desperation by Susannah Flood, who navigates the time jumps between 1970 and the present well. And though she has comparatively fewer lines than the rest of the cast, Kayla Davion’s turn as Lizzie when the narrator needs to take herself out of her mother’s shoes is one of the most powerful scenes in the show.

Kowalski isn’t an entirely seamless play. Both the framing device (an older Tennessee Williams telling the story on a talk show) and the secondary characters feel somewhat superfluous against the strength of the meeting between Williams and Brando. But the electricity of the two lead characters together is undeniably exciting to experience, and it just may make you want to go home and learn everything there is to know about them.

McDonald’s take on Momma Rose is all her own from her very first line to her triumphant final song. She oozes with all of Rose’s insecurities but loves so fiercely and protectively. McDonald throws her entire being into “Rose’s Turn,” building and building until you begin to marvel that you are lucky enough to witness such a performance. And when Rose finishes her song, soaking in the adoration from the audience that is both imaginary and also very real, there is no other choice but to give her a standing ovation.

It’s hard to follow the film's leading ladies Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn, but if anyone is up for it, it’s Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard. Hilty bursts with star power as the glamorous and self-indulged actress Madeline Ashton, and Simard’s dry delivery is hilarious in author Helen Sharp’s meeker getup — and even better after she transforms into a femme fatale to show up Ashton. Christopher Sieber is the perfectly bumbling plastic surgeon Ernest Menville, who can’t get a song in edgewise when Madeline and Helen are at their finest - though he manages to sneak away for a ludicrously funny song of his own in one of the campiest scenes of the show. Michelle Williams, a Broadway veteran and former Destiny’s Child member, opens the show and is ever-present as the otherworldly Viola van Horn (based on Lisle von Rhuman from the film). Aloof in contrast to the hotheadedness of the main characters, with a voice to bring the house down, she is a fitting choice for a character offering eternal youth.

King Lear is stripped down to two hours, focusing more on the external conflicts than any internal ones. This makes for an action-packed show, but without some of the more emotionally resonant scenes, the tragic ending doesn’t quite pack a punch.

We Live in Cairo’s evocative music, complete with an all-Arab band and distinct Arabic instruments like the oud, gives it the wings to fly. The cast, all powerful vocalists, make the words of the soundtrack resonate throughout the theater as they experience hope, love, and loss. Sweeping anthems such as “Genealogy of Revolution” and “Tahrir Is Now” to the sweet, more personal “Movement” or “Living Here” make these six fictional students as real as the events of the revolution itself. Timeless and beyond any single movement, We Live in Cairo is a tribute to the lives of people who fight for the greater good, no matter the cost.