Thom Geier — Theater Critic

It’s no accident that the word belong appears more than 40 times in O’Neill’s drama. Beaver’s Yank is a physically imposing man who suffers from dual frustrations: Not only does he never seem at home anywhere but he also struggles to be seen. Though he commands the respect of his shipmates, outside of the boiler room he suffers from either knee-jerk fear or, worse, invisibility. Nobody takes him seriously, or recognizes his contributions or worth to society. While there’s a schematic quality to O’Neill’s narrative, there are flashes of poetry, too, and a social consciousness that still speaks to Americans a century later. Plus, this production benefits from a gritty, red-blooded performance by Beavers, who captures Yank’s brutishness but also his resentment at being seen as just a brute.

For all its verbal combativeness, Kramer/Fauci reminds us of a time when civilized discourse still flourished even among individuals publicly at odds with each other.

For her new work, creation stories and all the important importants. Udofia turns her gaze inward — creating a stylized autofiction centered on a middle-aged Nigerian-American playwright and theater professor who finds herself struggling with two types of creation: writing a new work that doesn’t spring from some other, recognizable texts and having a child of her own.

Else Went has a real knack for bringing audiences inside the headspace of outcasts and rejects; a voiceover (by Barresi) intoning stage directions and character moods reinforces her stylized approach to storytelling. Her first play, the five-hour-plus epic Initiative, followed turn-of-the-millennium high schoolers playing Dungeons & Dragons to work through their feelings about themselves and life’s big questions. Even at three hours (in not exactly comfortable wooden seats at Playwrights Horizons), Degenerates never drags during its similarly immersive dive into contemporary youth culture. That’s due not only to the writing but also to Emma Rose Went’s thoughtful, well-paced direction.

After hearing all that Ming-Trent had to overcome to earn his moment in the spotlight, he never allows himself the time to actually bask in it. That’s a shame. How Shakespeare Saved My Life details an absorbing, often haunting journey through the darkness — but offers only fleeting glimpses of the light on the other side.

As directed by Whitney White, School Girls sprays a thin mist of social commentary over its familiar genre-based story. But where the production shines is in the comedic set pieces, including a hilariously off-kilter rendition of a Whitney Houston ballad that allows each of the schoolgirls a moment to shine. A special shout-out to the winsome Erin Morton, who played a similarly bullied and zaftig high schooler in the recent Heathers revival. Unlike Paulina, Bioh generously shares the load of punchlines and emotional connection among the talented ensemble.

She also learns to reframe the central question of what she wants. Is it money? Revenge? Sympathy? To just get over it already? For Ireland, the act of writing this play — of giving voice to women who find themselves in similar impossible circumstances — suggests another path forward. Where shadows and nuance blur your vision, shed a searingly bright ray of light.

Your enjoyment of Garry Starr will depend on your tolerance for its audacious mode of comedy as provocation. Warren-Smith has a fascinating rapport with the audience: relaxed but commanding, and ingratiating enough to lure the unsuspecting into his NSFW foolishness. Crucially, he never makes anyone but himself the butt of the joke. And his waxed-clean butt is very much on display throughout. He also knows not to overstay his welcome; under Cal McCrystal’s direction, the show gallops through its book shelves in a sleek 70 minutes. You can’t even make your way through CliffsNotes that quickly.

Credit for that level of engagement goes to Álvarez and Knight, who convincingly portray millennials who are very much in love but not always capable of expressing empathy when the stresses build. James’s initial doubts, his desire to rationalize what Lou relates (could these visions be carbon monoxide poisoning from leaving the gas stove on?), register as genuine ways to grapple with the inexplicable. Álvarez, meanwhile, conveys an overriding dread that’s made more difficult by her partner’s impulse to discount or dismiss her lived experience. They give performances of understated honesty that help to compensate for some of the horror-movie stupidity of their later actions. You may be tempted to shout: For the love of God, don’t open the door! But by the time that thought occurs to you, it will be too late. Paranormal Activity will have crept into your bloodstream like some unearthly virus, and you’re unlikely to shake that sense of dread anytime soon. You won’t dare sleep until you’ve checked under the bed thoroughly.

The Winter’s Tale is a show full of tragedy, tyranny, and comedy, where characters get their comeuppance (but not always the ones most deserving of it). It’s a bit of a muddle, to be honest, and this production revels in its messiness in ways that both captivate and frustrate.

Lichty, whose La Femme Theatrical Productions produced this revival, also seems miscast as Lyssa, flat of voice and off-puttingly strident in defense of her own competence. The drama only works if the character builds to her final outburst but Lichty seems to have a chip on her shoulder from the beginning, upset rather than befuddled that anyone would misconstrue her good intentions. Like frosted tips and dial-up internet, An American Daughter emerges as another relic of the ’90s best consigned to that bygone era.

Washington, who made a memorable Broadway debut as Boy Willie in the 2022 revival of The Piano Lesson, brings a similar sly hustler’s energy to Nick, a quick-witted salesman for his new project whose biggest hook is his own armor of success and invincibility. He’s initially well-matched by Lucio, who brings a spiky energy and dagger tongue to a digital-age femme fatale with a PhD in applied math and artificial intelligence. Disruption touches on some timely themes about the ways that technology is reshaping our lives, but too often the aura of intelligence here feels entirely artificial.

Weiler has emerged as one of the most precociously promising playwrights of the American theater. There’s a deep humanism that courses through his work that makes his characters compelling to watch even as they stumble about in the darkness of their lives, trying to do good as best they can. “Now I don’t know what to do because. Like I keep thinking okay, what would Jesus do, but it never says,” Michael says toward the end of the play. “He’s a kid and then all of the sudden he’s thirty So now I don’t know what to do.” Even in their confusion, though, Michael and the other characters in The Saviors have one constant despite their different relationships to their faith over time. Like habitual theater-goers seeking stories that will explain the world to them, they keep returning to a stained-glass sanctuary that they hope will illuminate their path forward.

Shifters cribs from Constellations in other ways too. Instead of the color-shifitng balloons that hovered over the players in the original 2012 London production and the 2015 Broadway transfer, Linton places her two actors in a black cube surrounded by dangling strips of light. (Alex Berry designed the sets and costumes, and Neil Austin supplied the lighting.) The hashtag of lights shift in hue and intensity to mark the jumps in time as well as the mood of individual scenes. They also give us something to watch as the two leads drag out their will-they-or-won’t-they exchanges. Shifters runs 45 minutes longer than Payne’s play, but it feels slighter and less substantial. Even so, you’ll find yourself appreciating the engaging performances of two star-crossed souls who find their futures not in the stars but in themselves.

The question is not whether these joke-laced routines work without Whoopi Goldberg. They do, especially performed here by a first-rate cast with an innate sense of comedic timing. Instead, the issue is how well these sketches hold up four (or two) decades after their creation. (Goldberg herself dropped two monologues from the original 1984 Broadway show for the last revival, and added the one that Lewis performs.) There’s a sketchiness that’s built into the format. But part of the initial appeal, that Goldberg was embodying this grab-bag of wildly different personalities, is lost in the new format. But as a showcase for a quintet of gifted comedic actresses, The Whoopi Monologues still delivers.

Date: July 10, 2026 Author: Thom Geier Jennifer Nettles, the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter best known for her work with the alt-country duo Sugarland, is a one-woman force of nature. She not only wrote the score and book for the messy but memorable musical Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo but also stars as the title character: a real-life serial killer from 17th-century Italy with a protofeminist vigilante streak as wide as the Mediterranean. Nettles, who’s appeared in Broadway shows like Chicago and Waitress, showcases her musical gifts both as a writer and performer to astonishing effect. With her forthright bearing and flaxen hair hanging loose about her doll-like face, Nettles strikes and immediately sympathetic impression as Giulia Tofana, an apothecary in 17th-century Palermo who gained a reputation for dispensed vials of poison to women to kill men who abused or mistreated them. (Modern historians have only a sketchy understanding of Tofana, including her real surname and the exact date and manner of her death. Plus, she was one of many “black widows” operating at that time.) In Nettles’s heavily fictionalized account, Giulia is a healer, cosmetics saleswoman, and confidante who hands out potions for women’s troubles — including abortifacients for unwanted pregnancies. But when her brutish new husband (Matthew Amira) makes physical advances on her teenage daughter, Vitoria (Naomi Serrano), she impulsively dispatches him with a dose of cyanide later dubbed Aqua Tofana. That spontaneous act of defense — which a sympathetic local priest (Sam Simahk) tacitly endorses because “You were only protecting your sheep” — soon leads to a widespread killing spree of other abusive husbands around town. giuliia-2026 Christopher M Ramirez, Sam Simahk, Bre Jackson, Jennifer Nettles, and Quentin Earl Darrington in ‘Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo’ (Photo: Andy Henderson) Nettles introduces two rival antagonists, the Cardinale (Quentin Earl Darrington) who secretly seeks out Giulia for an ointment after contracting syphilis and the district’s new Governatore (Christopher M. Ramirez), an ambitious creep who soon makes advances toward Vitoria. The two, not based on any specific historical figure, form an uneasy alliance to appease a community reeling from a long-standing drought and ultimately hatch a plan to scapegoat Giulia as a “witch.” Even by the standards of musical villains, though, the two are barely two-dimensional. Ramirez’s Governatore serves mostly as a comic foil, an awkward mix of animated Disney villain and bitchy queen who seldom flashes anything close to genuine menace to help drive the plot. While the book and some of the lyrics can drift into cliché, Giulia really shines when the music kicks in. The score leans heavily on musical traditions — and not just Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s Sweeney Todd, which famously follows another murderous madman with ostensibly sympathetic motives (and a lower total body count). The songs carry echoes of everything from Beyoncé bangers to Fiddler on the Roof to (especially) Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton — which inspires both the rap-style banter in the often sung-through book scenes as well as multiple production numbers that blend spoken-word elements and sung refrains. (The boisterous Act 1 ensemble number “Cold” could benefit from dialing back all the direct references to its predecessors; it’s overripe with Hamiltonian phrases like “I could get it all done, one shot right here” and “Maybe I should wait for a while.”) There’s an admirable eclecticism to the tunes, which boast some memorable hooks and witty turns of phrase. They’re also more musically challenging than you might initially guess. Many, particularly Nettles’s own soaring, radio-ready solo ballads, require a broad vocal range and a seamless blend of both lower registers and head voice. Naturally, she nails them with aplomb. But the ensemble numbers also benefit from remarkable harmonies, amplified by Austin McCormick’s poetic choreography. I wish that Nettles would dial back on the pastiche as well as the many on-the-nose name drops. Darrington sings the hell out of his Act 2 solo “The Wolf,” which culminates in a full-throated howl at the moon, but does every gospel-inflected number need to include the line “Can I get a witness?” (Also, the predatory Governatore seems like a stronger candidate to be branded as a wolf.) giulia-jennifer-nettles Jennifer Nettles (center) in ‘Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo’ (Photo: Andy Henderson) Director Mary Zimmerman creates enchanting visuals, making the most of Ana Kuzmanić’s heavily embroidered period costumes. I especially appreciated the harlequin details on the bodice of the traveling player who occasionally serves as narrator (Bre Jackson, blessed with golden pipes). More problematic is Daniel Ostling’s set design, which efficiently renders multiple locations but also cuts off sight lines in many scenes. (Those seated on the far left of the auditorium are liable to miss action that occurs on a tall staircase situated upstage left — beside three arched entryways that open to reveal deep backdrops that may not always be visible to anyone seated too far from the center.) The show is very much a work in progress. With tinkering to the plot and design, and overall narrative tightening, Giulia is poised to join the ranks of truly great new stage musicals. Nettles is an absolute star, but she leads a cast of noteworthy depth. Didi Romero makes a feast out of her solos as the deliciously campy and spoiled Duchessa who turns on Giulia for refusing to supply her with Aqua to off her husband (Andrew Kober) who subjects her to boredom rather than outright abuse. (Despite her growing body count, Giulia has some scruples.) The Duke’s worst offense appears to be that he snores — which makes him one of only two male characters (Simakh’s Padre Paolo is the other) who is not an outright monster. It’s the padre who reminds Giulia that there are decent men in the world, a point she concedes in a perfunctory spoken response that’s unlikely to mitigate concerns about the show’s inescapable anti-male bias: “Yes, there are. And they are none of my business.” This is not a musical focused on a woman finding her perfect (male) match, or vice versa. Giulia’s business is focused on empowering women to confront the men who take advantage of them, a score-settling agenda that Nettles makes remarkably compelling. It’s unnerving how quickly we find ourselves rooting for this serial killer to mow down half of Palermo. Credit Nettles’s skills as an actress, toggling between impish and innocent while delivering some soaring and heartfelt vocals. She sends the audience out with the show’s hookiest number, a post-curtain-call barn-burner called “Higher” that summarizes the good will she has engendered for the last two and a half hours: “This is a moment you don’t want to forget,” she sings with goosebump-inducing intensity (before a chorus that tangentially repeats an old Duncan Sheik hit, “Barely Breathing”). Despite the show’s flaws, you can’t help but agree.

Director Sheryl Kaller creates some beautiful stage tableaux, deploying Tal Yarden’s brightly hued set and projection designs and Robert Wierzel’s lighting to good effect to re-create the magic of the moon landing and the psychedelic swirl of Woodstock. But there’s little that she or the talented Suskauer can to make Pearl a plausible heroine. By the end, we don’t comprehend why this woman embarked on a fling with a stranger, why she regretted it, or how that experience might have changed her, for good or otherwise. Her journey is neither a small step nor a giant leap, but occupies some blank space in between as yet uncharted by NASA.

The Loved Ones stands on more secure ground when the focus remains on Nell. Plunkett radiates an Earth mother rootedness that keeps drawing your focus even as she scrambles to process the news that Gabby delivers and to buy herself some time on what to do with it. Time is the one commodity that all four women seem eager to manipulate — to reverse, to slow down, to speed through. But managing time proves as daunting a challenge as navigating the jagged cliffs of mourning.=

Day also wraps things up by addressing each of his castmates by name (“I see you, Aaron”) in a ritual of inclusion that feels forced — especially since so many of his fellow performers never get a monologue of their own. That’s the problem with theater: It doesn’t lend itself to absolute togetherness, or to having 17 leads trying to carry a show. Leveling the playing field also means flattening it so that nothing stands out.

Day also wraps things up by addressing each of his castmates by name (“I see you, Aaron”) in a ritual of inclusion that feels forced — especially since so many of his fellow performers never get a monologue of their own. That’s the problem with theater: It doesn’t lend itself to absolute togetherness, or to having 17 leads trying to carry a show. Leveling the playing field also means flattening it so that nothing stands out.

One of the reasons we return to the Bard — and to any classic work — is to find the thread that make a centuries-old story relevant to today’s audiences. Ali succeeds in crafting some memorable stage images, and of depicting the challenges for youthful love to survive the prejudices of families from different backgrounds. But he goes too far by taking sides between the rival clans, making the show’s ultimate reconciliation feel less like welcome detente and more like surrender. A hollow victory indeed.

While I wish that A Woman Among Women had embraced a single aesthetic approach and worn its inspiration more loosely, I admire how Jonas invites us to consider familiar conflicts in new ways. What are the challenges, both within our communities and our personal consciences, that would resonate with the mid-20th-century figures of Miller’s lifetime? And would female protagonists react any differently, with more nuance or less dogmatism? These are fascinating, even important questions — and Jonas poses them with considerable skill.

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.

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.

Impressive stagecraft can’t make up for an unconvincing story or characters who seem unlikely to be friends, let alone passionate lovers. It doesn’t help that Barnett appears to be decades younger than the fiftysomething we eventually learn that he is — but we never really buy that he’s chosen this couple as anything but a way station as he hides out from the fraught life he left behind in the Bay Area.