Cold War Choir Practice Off-Broadway Reviews

The play Reddick has built on the foundation of that experience, Cold War Choir Practice, is a coming-of-age fantasia that embraces a wild array of genres and styles, leading us down a path filled with farce, music, and suspense to some stark truths ...

The play Reddick has built on the foundation of that experience, Cold War Choir Practice, is a coming-of-age fantasia that embraces a wild array of genres and styles, leading us down a path filled with farce, music, and suspense to some stark truths that ring as true now as they did in the play’s 1987 setting: Institutional power can steamroller over individual choices, every time.

Director Knud Adams does an admirable job trying to calibrate between the wild swings in tone and seriousness, leaning on the choir to smooth some of the more rugged transitions. They consistently draw our attention away from the absurdities of the p...

Director Knud Adams does an admirable job trying to calibrate between the wild swings in tone and seriousness, leaning on the choir to smooth some of the more rugged transitions. They consistently draw our attention away from the absurdities of the plot and the hurried attempts to ground the characters in a kind of reality. Plus, their red-hued outfits (designed by Brenda Abbandandolo) simultaneously call to mind the multiple threads of the story. They read as church choir, red communist comrades, or Christmas carolers, depending on the moment.

Cold War Choir Practice often forays into song, with music and lyrics by Reddick. The children’s choir rehearses for their holiday show, but it also serves as a Greek chorus, narrating both action and internal thought. Grace McLean is a particular ...

Cold War Choir Practice often forays into song, with music and lyrics by Reddick. The children’s choir rehearses for their holiday show, but it also serves as a Greek chorus, narrating both action and internal thought. Grace McLean is a particular standout, alternating pop star bravado and melodrama. Music director Ellen Winter, who also serves as the onstage Choir Leader, should be commended as much as director Knud Adams for balancing the show's tone.

Even as individual moments of Cold War Choir Practice continued to charm me, I kept wondering what exactly was preventing me from getting swept up all the way. Part of my stuckness, I think, sprung from Afsoon Pajoufar’s set, which situates the who...

Even as individual moments of Cold War Choir Practice continued to charm me, I kept wondering what exactly was preventing me from getting swept up all the way. Part of my stuckness, I think, sprung from Afsoon Pajoufar’s set, which situates the whole play inside the architecture of the roller rink.

Luckily, Reddick, director Knud Adams and the rest of the creative team stick to history in some small but satisfying ways – the way the ensemble skates on the roller rink (guided by Baye and Asa’s movement direction), albeit without skates; tha...

Luckily, Reddick, director Knud Adams and the rest of the creative team stick to history in some small but satisfying ways – the way the ensemble skates on the roller rink (guided by Baye and Asa’s movement direction), albeit without skates; that Speak & Spell (an actual handheld electronic educational toy introduced by Texas Instruments in 1978), and, above all, the cinnamon-flavored jawbreakers invented in 1954 that Meek gobbles up from the neighborhood candy shop – the Atomic Fireballs.

It’s all a bit much, honestly, with the playwright not fully successful in getting all of her fantastical, Boris & Natasha-style plot elements across. But thanks in large part to the inventive direction by Knud Adams (English), the witty, farcical ...

It’s all a bit much, honestly, with the playwright not fully successful in getting all of her fantastical, Boris & Natasha-style plot elements across. But thanks in large part to the inventive direction by Knud Adams (English), the witty, farcical play proves consistently amusing even while making serious points about such things as 80’s-era Cold War politics and divisions within the Black community.

Through it all the agreeable cast members do whatever they can with the material—choir members McLean, Roche, Ross repeatedly lurking and larking—but it may be director Knud Adams (with the property since its Clubbed Thumb and Page 73 development...

Through it all the agreeable cast members do whatever they can with the material—choir members McLean, Roche, Ross repeatedly lurking and larking—but it may be director Knud Adams (with the property since its Clubbed Thumb and Page 73 development) is too committed to the overplaying that the outcome is so tiring.

The story’s timeline is not always intelligible—or, for that matter, possible—and Afsoon Pajoufar’s attractively curved Roll-a-Rama set, which employs mirrors very cleverly at one exit, doesn’t do much to define the play’s various physica...

The story’s timeline is not always intelligible—or, for that matter, possible—and Afsoon Pajoufar’s attractively curved Roll-a-Rama set, which employs mirrors very cleverly at one exit, doesn’t do much to define the play’s various physical spaces. But clarity is not exactly the goal. Reddick is not aiming for realism; a bomb in the climatic sequence is just bundled red sticks of dynamite, Looney Tunes style.

For anyone who had to read Alas, Babylon in school or sit through ABC’s The Day After—both nightmare-inducing post-apocalyptic narratives—Cold War Choir Practice will strike a nerve. But it’s hardly a museum piece. As the U.S. throws itself i...

For anyone who had to read Alas, Babylon in school or sit through ABC’s The Day After—both nightmare-inducing post-apocalyptic narratives—Cold War Choir Practice will strike a nerve. But it’s hardly a museum piece. As the U.S. throws itself into another nuclear tantrum under the guise of self-preservation, Meek’s obsession with building a fallout shelter is all too real.