The Great Privation
Closing: March 26, 2025The Great Privation - 2025 Off-Broadway History , Info & More
Playwrights Horizons
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You think, we carry our ancestors with us?
No. I do think there are hints they leave for us though. In our walk. Or maybe I don’t know. In the soil. I don’t know.
1832: a mother and daughter stand vigil behind the African Baptist Church in Philadelphia at the grave of a recently deceased loved one. Today, on the same grounds: another strangely familiar mother and daughter work as counselors at what is now a sleepaway camp. Timelines collide, horrors are buried and revealed, but love never lacks.
The Great Privation (How to flip ten cents into a dollar) is a darkly comic play about our nation’s long practice of harming Black bodies in the name of scientific progress, our responsibility to time, and the role joy plays in living with a history we cannot change.
The Great Privation - 2025 - Off-Broadway Cast
FEATURED REVIEWS FOR The Great Privation
‘The Great Privation’ digs up the bones of one family’s history (Off Broadway review)
7 / 10
At times, The Great Privation can also feel a bit diffuse and undercooked. Some scenes meander pleasantly without advancing either the story or the underlying themes, and the ending plays more like the result of exhaustion than intention. This feels like a show that could have benefited from another revision or two, to tighten its time-jumping connections and to sharpen its point of view. (There are no clear antagonists in the present day, which deprives those scenes of dramatic tension.) But I’d gladly spend more time with these characters, as authentic and engaging and alive as the talented cast has made them, and to sink into future worlds that spring from Robinson’s fertile imagination.
REVIEW: ‘The Great Privation’ is about the past informing the present
8 / 10
The Great Privation features solid performances from its cast, especially Lucas-Perry and Vickerie, who hardly leave the stage for the intermissionless work. The two actors, along with Holiday and Jackson, seamlessly transition between the two time periods with ease, sometimes within seconds. They adopt slightly different voices and embody different characters, but again they keep the channels between the generations open, allowing influence to seep in. Robinson, who premiered this play at Theatre 503 in London, is definitely someone to watch in the theatrical space. Her ideas and perspectives are most welcome beneath the proscenium, and The Great Privation is one of the strongest plays of the spring season.
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THE GREAT PRIVATION U.S. Premiere Adds Performance At SoHo Rep
by A.A. Cristi - March 21, 2025
by A.A. Cristi - March 21, 2025
Soho Rep has added an additional, final performance to its U.S. premiere production of Nia Akilah Robinson's The Great Privation (How to flip ten cents into a dollar), directed by Evren Odcikin.
THE GREAT PRIVATION Extends at Soho Rep Through Late March
by Chloe Rabinowitz - March 18, 2025
by Chloe Rabinowitz - March 18, 2025
Soho Rep has added two performances to its U.S. premiere production of Nia Akilah Robinson’s The Great Privation (How to flip ten cents into a dollar), directed by Evren Odcikin. Learn more and see how to purchase tickets.
Review Roundup: THE GREAT PRIVATION Opens Off-Broadway
by Chloe Rabinowitz - March 11, 2025
by Chloe Rabinowitz - March 11, 2025
Soho Rep is presenting the U.S premiere of Nia Akilah Robinson's The Great Privation at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons. See what the critics are saying and read the reviews.
The Great Privation History
Other Productions of The Great Privation
| 2025 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
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