New York

POLLUTION ISN’T THE ONLY PROBLEM IN SULFUR BOTTOM Playwright Rishi Varma sets out with noble intentions in Sulfur Bottom—to shine a light on environmental racism and the communities whose lives have been devastated by pollution and industrial encroachment. Yet despite its ambitious scope, the play’s non-linear family saga, spanning thirty years and three generations, offers…

AMAZE TURNS SLEIGHT OF HAND INTO SLEIGHT OF HEART; THE MOST DAZZLING TRICK IS MAKING YOU CARE Jamie Allan, the UK’s original technology magician, brings his new work Amaze to New York’s New World Stages after a successful run in London. Co-created with Tommy Bond and cleverly directed by Jonathan Goodwin, it is a personal…

ANIMATION, POLITICS, AND THE ART OF BEING HUMAN Cameron Darwin Bossert’s The Animals Speak closes his Disney-centered trilogy A Venomous Color (produced by Thirdwing) which began with The Fairest in 2021 and continued with Burbank in 2022. This final installment, now playing at The Wild Project, ventures far beyond the animation desks, landing on a…

TA-DA! AND OTHER QUEER MAGIC TRICKS For Josh Sharp, “ta-da!” is code for gay. As a twelve-year-old magician, it was his entrance line: “ta-da!” Yeah, totally gay. But growing up in the South, Sharp knew an even bigger magic trick—keeping that part of himself hidden until much later. Now, in his solo show ta-da!, he…

THE WEIGHT OF WHAT REMAINS In Brooklyn’s charming Fort Greene, Bubba Weiler makes his playwriting debut with Well, I’ll Let You Go, a lightly funny meditation on grief and healing, brought to the stage at The Space at Irondale under the direction of Jack Serio (Grangeville). It’s a nonlinear domestic drama that recounts the unraveling…

DARWIN DEL FABRO STUNS IN A PERFORMANCE OF BECOMING One reason the queer community has found broader acceptance in America — generally speaking — is that most people today know someone who identifies as lesbian, gay, or bisexual: a family member, friend, or colleague. They’ve heard stories and recognize the humanity of the community. Sadly,…

FRANK MORGAN Not too long ago in Sag Harbor, Morgan Bassichis spent time at an artist residency. For those unfamiliar with such places, Morgan wryly explained that “an art residency is when you go somewhere else to have sex with people.” During open visiting hours, a man stopped by the studio and asked about Morgan’s…

SINSATIONAL SENSATIONALISM OR, WHAT HAPPENS IN TIMES SQUARE, STAYS IN TIMES SQUARE Escape artistry emerged as a formal performance art in the 1860s, when the Davenport Brothers popularized their rope-escape act—paving the way for Harry Houdini, whose name became nearly synonymous with the craft by the 1890s. Carrying on this proud, magic-adjacent tradition is Lord…

PATCHWORK PATRIOTISM, POWERED BY A KILLER SETLIST With a book credited to Bryce Hallett, one may expect Rolling Thunder to be a new Off-Broadway musical. Despite the presence of a librettist, however, the show—now playing at New World Stages—functions far more as a rock concert than a traditional book musical. Of its 2-hour runtime, only…

Hollywood is full of iconic love stories but none is quite as brilliantly weird and tragically sweet as the romance between Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner, two comedy legends who fell madly in love somewhere between a silly goof and a punch line. And it is hard to think of somebody wanting to put their…