urban excavations

Live and filmed performances, as well as readings of works in progress, filled my days in calendar year 2018. I usually attend solo, and yet often host my spouse or theater-obsessed friends and colleagues. By my rough count, during 2018 in New York City and elsewhere, I saw 300 theatrical performances (ticketed, cast, full productions), 10 staged readings, and a handful of cabaret performances (basically a singer and musicians, a set list, in a club setting). I also attended or participated in 10 panels on theatrical subjects, and attended several show tapings (Stephen Colbert and Samantha Bee, you are glorious). A paltry number of film screenings, compared to prior eras of my life, are also listed here, and I hope to up these numbers in the upcoming year.

Events where I wrote a review, essay, interviewed principals, or otherwise ruminated are linked in the list below.

I look forward to much more of the same in 2019, and to writing stories already pitched and stories yet to be imagined.

January

• (1/1) Phantom Thread (AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13)
• (1/3) The Girl Who Jumped Off The Hollywood Sign (Theater for the New City)
• (1/5) John Lithgow: Stories by Heart (Roundabout | American Airlines)
• (1/6) Unexploded Ordinances (La MaMa)
• (1/10) The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (taping, Ed Sullivan Theater)
• (1/11) Hindle Wakes (Mint | Clurman Theater Row)
• (1/12) Postcard American Town (reading)
• (1/12) Ballyturk (St. Ann’s Warehouse)
• (1/13) The Undertaking (59E59)
• (1/13) Until the Flood (Rattlestick)
• (1/14) A Kind Shot (TBG Studio Theater)
• (1/14) LaBute New Theater Festival (59E59)
• (1/16) Mankind (Playwrights Horizons)
• (1/17)  X: Or, Betty Shabazz v. The Nation (Theater at St. Clements)
• (1/18) Disco Pigs (Irish Rep)
• (1/19) The Things with Feathers (Barrow Group)
• (1/20) Balls (One Year Lease | 59E59)
• (1/20) Josephine: A Burlesque Cabaret Dream Play (Soho Playhouse)
• (1/21) Party Face (City Center)
• (1/24) Miles for Mary (Playwrights Horizon)
• (1/25) The Homecoming Queen (Atlantic Stage Two)
• (1/26) Jimmy Titanic (Irish Rep)
• (1/27) Being a Critic of Color (panel, BroadwayCon 2018, Javits Center)
• (1/27) He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box (TFANA)
• (1/28) Theatre Critiquing: A Woman’s Touch (panel member, BroadwayCon 2018, Javits Center)
• (1/29) Cardinal (Second Stage | Tony Kiser Theater)
• (1/31) Imperfect Love (The Left Wing | Connelly Theater)

February

• (2/1) Hurt Song (reading, Lark)
• (2/1) Hangmen (ATC | Linda Gross)
• (2/3) [porto] (WP Theater)
• (2/4) Mary and Max (Pace New Musicals)
• (2/4) A Chronicle of the Madness of Small Worlds (NYTW Next Door)
• (2/6) Fire and Air (Classic Stage Company)
• (2/7) Against the Hillside (Ensemble Studio Theatre)
• (2/8) Flight (McKittrick Hotel)
• (2/8) FILL FILL FILL FILL FILL FILL FILL (Flea)
• (2/9) The Human Canonball (reading, St. Luke’s)
• (2/9) Returning to Reims (St. Ann’s Warehouse)
• (2/10) Some Old Black Man (59E59)
• (2/10) In the Body of the World (New York City Center)
• (2/11) Pete Rex (59E59)
• (2/13) A Walk with Mr. Heifetz (Primary Stages | Cherry Lane)
• (2/14) Is God Is (Soho Rep)
• (2/15) Amateurs (Vineyard)
• (2/16) The Rest I Make Up (screening, MOMA)
• (2/17) Truth & Justice (reading performance and postshow, George Bruce branch of New York Public Library)
• (2/17) Kings (Public)
• (2/18) The Danube (The Actors Studio)
• (2/20) Jerry Springer — The Opera (New Group | Signature)
• (2/22) Little Rock (reading, Sheen Center)
• (2/22) An Ordinary Muslim (NYTW)
• (2/23) Black Light (Public | Joe’s Pub)
• (2/24) Relevance (MCC | Lucille Lortel)
• (2/24) Amy and the Orphans (Roundabout | Laura Pels)
• (2/25) Albee Home at the Zoo (Signature)
• (2/27) The Surest Poison (reading, EST)
• (2/28) The Brobot Johnson Experience (Bushwick Starr)

March

• (3/2) Folk Wandering (Pipeline | A.R.T./New York)
• (3/3) A Brooklyn Boy (East Village Playhouse)
• (3/4) Good for Otto (New Group | Signature)
• (3/4) The Low Road (Public)
• (3/5) From the Children of Planet Earth (Playwrights Realm | Duke on 42nd Street)
• (3/6) A Letter to Harvey Milk (Theatre Row | Acorn)
• (3/7) Full Frontal with Samantha Bee (taping, CBS Television Center)
• (3/10) Education (59E59)
• (3/11) Later Life (Theatre Row)
• (3/12) David Yazbek (54 Below)
• (3/13) Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story (2b theater company | 59E59)
• (3/14) Admissions (LCT | Mitzi Newhouse)
• (3/15) High Noon (Axis)
• (3/16) Shakespeare’s Will (HERE)
• (3/17) Tidy Black (reading + post show, George Bruce branch NYPL)
• (3/17) Three Wise Guys (Theatre Row)
• (3/18) My Brilliant Divorce (New Ohio)
• (3/18) 54 Below Sings Baby (54 Below)
• (3/19) Dido of Ohio (Ensemble Studio Theatre)
• (3/21) Angels in America Part 1 (Neil Simon)
• (3/21) Angels in America Part 2 (Neil Simon)
• (3/22) Until the Flood (Milwaukee Rep | Stiemke Studio)
• (3/23) Always, Patsy Cline (Milwaukee Rep | Stackner Cabaret)
• (3/24) One House Over (Milwaukee Rep | Quadracci Powerhouse Theater)
• (3/26) Anita Gillette: Me and Mr. B (Birdland)
• (3/27) Three Tall Women (Golden)
• (3/28) Lobby Hero (Hayes)
• (3/30) The Winter’s Tale (TFANA, Brooklyn)
• (3/31) Feeding the Dragon (Primary Stages | Cherry Lane)
• (3/31) Love Trade (The Hess Collective | La MaMa)

April

• (4/1) ms. estrada (Flea)
• (4/1) Once On This Island (Circle in the Square)
• (4/2) American Theatre Wing Conversation on Design with David Rockwell, Natasha Katz, Alex Poots Founding Artistic Director and CEO, The Shed (Helen Hayes)
• (4/2) Symphonie Fantastique (HERE)
• (4/3) The Lucky Ones (Ars Nova @ Connelly)
• (4/4) Pygmalian (Bedlam @ Sheen Center)
• (4/4) Goldstein (Actors Temple)
• (4/5) Mean Girls (August Wilson)
• (4/6) Frozen (St. James)
• (4/7) Children of a Lesser God (Roundabout | Studio 54)
• (4/7) Yerma (Park Avenue Armory)
• (4/8) Bobbie Clearly (Roundabout Underground)
• (4/9) A Walk in the Woods (Barrow Group)
• (4/11) This Flat Earth (Playwrights Horizons)
• (4/12) Dutch Masters (Wild Project)
• (4/12) Mlima’s Tale (Public)
• (4/13) The Seafarer (Irish Rep)
• (4/14) One Thousand Nights and One Day (Prospect | A.R.T./New York)
• (4/14) My Fair Lady (Lincoln Center | Beaumont)
• (4/15) Carousel (Imperial)
• (4/15) I Miss You Like Hell (Public)
• (4/16) Stone Witch (Westside)
• (4/17) We Live By The Sea (59E59)
• (4/18) The Metromaniacs (Duke on 42nd Street)
• (4/19) Transfers (MCC | Lucille Lortel)
• (4/20) Travesties (Roundabout | American Airlines)
• (4/21) Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Part 1 (Lyric)
• (4/21) Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Part 2 (Lyric)
• (4/22) The Iceman Cometh (Jacobs)
• (4/24) Saint Joan (Friedman)
• (4/25) Summer: The Donna Summer Musical (Lunt-Fontanne)
• (4/26) The Confession of Lily Dare (Theater for the New City)
• (4/28) Summer and Smoke (CSC)
• (4/28) King Lear (BAM)
• (4/29) Unexpected Joy (York)

May

• (5/1) A Brief History of Women (59E59)
• (5/2) Assembled Identity (HERE)
• (5/3) Happy Birthday, Wanda June (Wheelhouse|Gene Frankel)
• (5/3) A Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (NYTW)
• (5/5) Henry V (Public Mobile Unit)
• (5/5) Dance Nation (Playwrights Horizon)
• (5/7) LPTW Oral History with Chita Rivera (Bruno Walter Auditorium)
• (5/7) Cicada (reading, Lark)
• (5/8) Daybreak (Theatre Row)
• (5/9) Molasses in January (Theater Center)
• (5/10) Operation Crucible (Brits Off Broadway | 59E59)
• (5/12) The Gentleman Caller (Abingdon | Cherry Lane)
• (5/12) Long Day’s Journey Into Night (BAM | Harvey)
• (5/13) Bump (EST)
• (5/17) Peace for Mary Frances (New Group | Signature)
• (5/18) Woman and Scarecrow (Irish Rep)
• (5/19) Paradise Blue (Signature)
• (5/19) Time’s Journey Through a Room (PlayCo | A.R.T./NY Theatres)
• (5/20) Tremor (Brits Off Broadway | 59E59)
• (5/23) Stage Migrations: Immigrants and the American Theatre (Rattlestick + American Theatre)
• (5/24) Our Lady of 121st Street (Signature)
• (5/26) Single Rider (Players Theatre)
• (5/27) saved again and by him (IRT Archive Residency + anecdota | New Ohio)
• (5/29) Suicide Seed (Playwrights Horizons, reading)
• (5/29) Randy Writes a Novel (Theatre Row | Clurman)
• (5/31) Holler River (reading, Sheen Center)

June

• (6/1) The Beast in the Jungle (Vineyard)
• (6/2) The Great Leap (ATC Stage 2)
• (6/2) The Fourth Wall (Theater Breaking Through Barriers | A.R.T. / New York)
• (6/3) Drama Desk Awards (Town Hall)
• (6/4) Theatrical Sound Designers and Composers Association conference, Women Sound Designer panel (panelist, Baryshnikov)
• (6/4) this is Modern Art (NYTW Next Door)
• (6/5) Secret Life of Humans (Brits Off Broadway | 59E59)
• (6/6)  Fruit Trilogy (Abingdon | Lucille Lortel)
• (6/6) Tony Awards panel discussion (panelist, Coffee House Club)
• (6/16) Pass Over (LCT3 | Tow)
• (6/17) Everyone’s Fine with Virginia Woolf (ERS | Abrons Arts Center)
• (6/17) Othello (Pubic Delacorte)
• (6/19) Log Cabin (Playwrights Horizons)
• (6/20) Conflict (Mint)
• (6/20) Skin Tight (Roundabout | Laura Pels)
• (6/21) Lonesome Blues (York)
• (6/22) Sugar in Our Wounds (MTC | City Center Stage II)
• (6/23) All I Want is One Night (Brits Off Broadway | 59E59)
• (6/23) Fire in Dreamland (Public)
• (6/24) Red Hills (En Garde Arts)
• (6/26) Dan Cody’s Yacht (MTC City Center I)
• (6/28) Cyprus Avenue (Public)
• (6/29) First Love (Cherry Lane)
• (6/30) A Blanket of Dust (Flea)
• (6/30) Vivian Reed Sings Lena Horne (The Green Room)

July

• (7/1) Boys & Girls (Minetta Lane)
• (7/1) Little Rock (Sheen Center)
• (7/2) On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (Irish Rep)
• (7/3) Fairview (Soho Rep)
• (7/5) Laura Bush Killed a Guy (Flea)
• (7/6) Teenage Dick (Public)
• (7/7) Carmen Jones (Classic Stage Company)
• (7/8) The Saintliness of Margery Kempe (Duke on 42nd Street)
• (7/8) Mary Page Marlowe (Second Stage | Tony Kiser)
• (7/10-7/16) ATCA national conference (Spring Green, Wisconsin)
• (7/11) AS YOU LIKE IT (Hill Theatre, American Players Theatre)
• (7/12) THE RECRUITING OFFICER (Hill Theatre, APT)
• (7/13) PERSPECTIVES IN CRITICISM: A Conversation with CARRIE COON
  (Touchstone Theatre, APT)
• (7/13) BLOOD KNOT (Touchstone Theatre, APT)
• (7/14) EXIT THE KING (Touchstone Theatre, APT)
• (7/18) Fiddler on the Roof (National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene | Museum of Jewish Heritage)
• (7/19) The Originalist (59E59)
• (7/20) Straight White Men (Second Stage | Helen Hayes)
• (7/21) Brecht on Brecht (PTP/NYC | ATC Stage 2)
• (7/21) The Possibilities (PTP/NYC | ATC Stage 2)
• (7/22) My Life on a Diet (Theatre at St Clements)
• (7/22) This Ain’t No Disco (ATC | Linda Gross)
• (7/23) Peculiar Justice (National Black Theatre)
• (7/24) Smokey Joe’s Cafe (Stage 42)
• (7/25) Head Over Heels (Hudson)
• (7/25) Comfort Women (Peter Jay Sharp)
• (7/27) The House That Will Not Stand (NYTW)
• (7/28) Dramatists Guild National Conference Day 3, NCI Alumni  (New York Hilton)
• (7/28) Twelfth Night (Public | Delacorte)
• (7/29) Before We’re Gone (13th Street)
• (7/31) Fire in Dreamland (Public)

August

• (8/4) Summer Shorts Part A (Throughline Artists | 59E59)
• (8/4) Summer Shorts Part B (Throughline Artists | 59E59)
• (8/5) Be More Chill (Signature, rental)
• (8/7) Less Then 50% (59E59)
• (8/8) Pushkin (the american vicarious | Sheen Center)
• (8/10) Gettin’ The Band Back Together (Belasco)
• (8/11) Pretty Woman (Nederlander)
• (8/12) Mike Birbiglia: The New One (Cherry Lane)
• (8/12) R.R.R.E.D. (DR2)
• (8/15) Neurosis (DR2)
• (8/16) Eric Yves Garcia (Feinstein’s / 54 Below)
• (8/18) Henry VI Part I Foreign Wars (NAATCO | A.R.T./New York)
• (8/18) Henry VI Part II Civil Strife (NAATCO | A.R.T./New York)
• (8/21) Days to Come (Mint | Theatre Row)
• (8/23) The Rest I Make Up (MOMA, screening)
• (8/25) Scraps (Flea)
• (8/27) Maria Irene Fornes Marathon (Public)
• (8/30) Hershey Felder is Irving Berlin (59E59)
• (8/31) Private Peaceful (Barrow Group)

September

• (9/4) The Gospel at Colonus (Public | Delacorte)
• (9/5) Tevye Served Raw (The Playroom)
• (9/5) Unraveled (Theatre Row)
• (9/7) Separate and Equal (59E59)
• (9/8) Collective Rage (MCC | Lucille Lortel)
• (9/8) Hoaxocaust! (14th Street Y)
• (9/9) beep boop (HERE)
• (9/9) The Hurricane Party (The Collective NY | Cherry Lane)
• (9/11) Heartbreak House (Lion | Theatre Row)
• (9/12) Agnes (Lesser America | 59E59)
• (9/13) Off-Broadway Oral History Project Event (panel, Primary Stages Studio)
• (9/13) The Fourth Annual Harvard-Yale Cantata (Feinstein’s/54 Below)
• (9/14) Uncle Vanya (Hunter Theater Project | Frederick Loewe)
• (9/15) The True (New Group | Signature)
• (9/15) The Emperor (Young Vic at TFANA, Brooklyn)
• (9/16) James & Jamesy in the Dark (Soho Playhouse)
• (9/18) Stars in the Night (Firelight Collective, DUMBO immersive)
• (9/20) Bernhardt/Hamlet (Roundabout | American Airlines)
• (9/21) A Lovely Summer for Creve Coeur (Theatre at St Clements)
• (9/22) Wild Abandon (Irish Repertory)
• (9/23) UNCLE ROMEO VANYA JULIET (Bedlam | A.R.T./New York)
• (9/23) The Nap (MTC | Friedman)
• (9/24) Season Opening Critics Panel (panelist, Century Association)
• (9/25) You and I (Metropolitan Playhouse)
• (9/26) I Was Most Alive With You (Playwrights Horizons)
• (9/27) What the Constitution Means to Me (New York Theatre Workshop)
• (9/28) Final Follies (Primary Stages | Cherry Lane)
• (9/29) On Beckett (Irish Rep)
• (9/29) Because I Could Not Stop (Signature)
• (9/30) Girl From The North Country (Public)

October

• (10/1) The Revolving Cycles Truly and Steadily Roll’d (Playwrights Realm | Duke on 42nd Street)
• (10/2) The Evolution of Mann (the cell)
• (10/3) HOPE (wild project)
• (10/4) Intractable Woman (PlayCo | 122 Community Center)
• (10/5) Because I Could Not Stop (Ensemble for the New Century | Signature)
• (10/6) Popcorn Falls (Davenport)
• (10/6) I Hear You and Rejoice (Irish Arts Center)
• (10/7) Midnight at the Never Get (York)
• (10/8) Hitler’s Tasters (IRT | New Ohio)
• (10/9) Black Light (Greenwich House Theater)
• (10/10) Travisville (Ensemble Studio Theatre)
• (10/11) Apologia (Roundabout | Laura Pels)
• (10/12) Rags Parkland Sings The Songs Of The Future (Ars Nova)
• (10/13) Emmy and Max (Flea)
• (10/13) Ordinary Days (Keen | Theatre Row)
• (10/14) Mother of the Maid (Public)
• (10/17) The Lifespan of a Fact (Roundabout | Studio 54)
• (10/17) Oklahoma! (St. Ann’s Warehouse)
• (10/18) Fireflies (Atlantic | Linda Gross)
• (10/19) The Ferryman (Bernard B. Jacobs)
• (10/20) Hole (reading, New York Public Library | George Bruce Branch)
• (10/20) The Waverly Gallery (Golden)
• (10/22) Henry Hewes Design Awards ceremony (The Palm West Side)
• (10/22) Lewiston / Clarkson (Rattlestick)
• (10/23) Sesar (Ma-Yi | Theatre Row)
• (10/24) Funny Girl (Manchester Palace Theater | Trafalgar Releasing, screening)
• (10/24) Renascence (Transport Group | Abrons Arts Center)
• (10/25) Arbor Falls (reading, Lark Play Development Center)
• (10/25) India Pale Ale (New York City Center I)
• (10/27) I Am A Seagull (screening and panel, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA)
• (10/29) I Am A Seagull (screening and panel, Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, Brown University, Providence, RI)
• (10/30) Yale Drama Series 12th annual award + God Said This (Tow, reading)
• (10/31) Catch as Catch Can (Page 73 | New Ohio)

November

• (11/1) Days of Rage (Second Stage | Tony Kiser)
• (11/2) American Son (Booth)
• (11/3) O’Neill Center National Critics Institute 50th Anniversary (New Amsterdam)
• (11/3) The Thanksgiving Play (Playwrights Horizons)
• (11/4) Sakina’s Restaurant (Minetta Lane)
• (11/4) Thunderbodies (Soho Rep)
• (11/5) Kennedy: Bobby’s Last Crusade (Theatre at St. Clements)
• (11/6) King Kong (Broadway)
• (11/7) Gloria: A Life (Daryl Roth)
• (11/7) Torch Song Trilogy (Hayes)
• (11/8) The Other Josh Cohen (Westside)
• (11/9) The New One (Cort)
• (11/10) Eve’s Song (Public)
• (11/10) The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Classic Stage Company)
• (11/11) The Prom (Longacre)
• (11/11) Usual Girls (Roundabout | Black Box)
• (11/12) 48th Annual Theater Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony (Gershwin)
• (11/13) Good Grief (Vineyard)
• (11/18) Shake & Bake: Love’s Labour’s Lost (94 Gansevoort)
• (11/18) Wild Goose Dreams (Public)
• (11/20) Downstairs (Primary Stages | Cherry Lane)
• (11/21) Two by Friel (Irish Rep)
• (11/21) Happy Birthday Wanda June (Wheelhouse | Duke on 42nd Street)
• (11/23) Natural Shocks (WP | McGinn/Cazale)
• (11/24) Bernie and Mikey’s Trip to the Moon (59E59)
• (11/25) Cleopatra (Chelsea Music Hall)
• (11/26) Hype Man (Flea)
• (11/27) Daniel’s Husband (Westside)
• (11/28) The Hello Girls (59E59)
• (11/29) The Hard Problem (LCT | Newhouse)
• (11/30) The Cher Show (Neil Simon)

December

• (12/1) What to Send Up When it Goes Down (Movement | A.R.T./New York)
• (12/1) A Child’s Christmas in Wales (Irish Rep)
• (12/2) Network (Belasco)
• (12/2) Thom Pain (based on nothing) (Signature)
• (12/4) Shadow of Heroes (Metropolitan Playhouse)
• (12/5) All is Calm (Sheen Center)
• (12/5) Noura (Playwrights Horizons)
• (12/6) Slave Play (New York Theatre Workshop)
• (12/7) Clueless (New Group | Signature)
• (12/8) Nassim (New York City Center)
• (12/8) Stand (reading, Dramatists Guild)
• (12/9) Christmas in Hell (York)
• (12/11) Apple Boys (HERE)
• (12/12) Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine (Signature)
• (12/13) The Rented Bridegroom (Keen Company Playwrights Lab Reading)
• (12/13) The Prisoner (Theatre for a New Audience)
• (12/15) To Kill a Mockingbird (Shubert)
• (12/15) The Jungle (St. Anne’s Warehouse)
• (12/16) I’m Not a Comedian I’m Lenny Bruce (The Cutting Room)
• (12/18) Stephen Sondheim (TimesTalks | The TimesCenter)
• (12/19) Christmas in Hell (York)
• (12/21) Circus Abyssinia: Ethiopian Dreams (New Victory)
• (12/23) If Beale Street Could Talk (screening, Angelika Film Center)
• (12/23) Vice (screening, Cinema Village)
• (12/25) Can You Ever Forgive Me? (screening, The Landmark 57 West)
• (12/28) The Net Will Appear (59E59)

© Martha Wade Steketee (December 29, 2018)