It is a moving tour-de-force portrait of a woman who resists being silenced by embracing her tenacity, humor, and fiery imagination.
Call Me Izzy is a darkly comedic story about one woman in rural Louisiana who has a secret that is both her greatest gift and her only way out. It is a moving, tour de force portrait of a woman who resists being silenced by embracing her tenacity, humor, and fiery imagination.
Ultimately, as well, I left perplexed why this tale really needs to be told, especially to Broadway audiences in 2025. I admit some women (and a few men) in the audience will find “Call Me Izzy” to be inspirational or perhaps even motivational, while many other theatergoers will simply be content to be in Smart’s presence and hear her talk the talk. To me, however, the entire enterprise simply feels like a case of wrong place, wrong time, and wrong theater. (Studio 54 is way too vast for such an intimate piece, no matter how hard scenic designer Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams tries to convince us otherwise.) Call me cynical, if you must.
Smart, returning to Broadway after some 25 years, brings astonishing clarity and depth to the part. Spinning an enticing yarn from shopworn material — the action is set in 1989, when it may have struck a modern tone — she delivers a performance that feels deceptively featherlight while demonstrating total command. She lends Izzy’s tin-eared poetry a soaring lyricism and Wax’s trope-heavy script the texture of a character study. Every expression feels alive, and the sum total is transfixing.
| 2025 | Broadway |
Broadway |
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