urban excavations

2023 included on-line and primarily in-person theater on which I collaborated, attended, counted, worked on coalition building to support theater and its creatives.

The exhaustive (and exhausting) list below is my thirteenth annual “what Martha has seen” marathon record of theater and event and film adventuring. Prior adventures can be found at 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. Before we get to the list, I’ll muse about summary details and other activities of the year.

Theater by the Numbers. This year’s number of productions (not readings, not screenings, not conference sessions) tells me that our pandemic recovery is still in process. In calendar year 2023 I saw 239 staged productions, and an additional 14 streamed readings and conversations. We continue to be surprised by abrupt performance cancellations on and off Broadway. in 2021 my total just exceeded 200 performances, up significantly from the approximately 80 productions in the just emerging partial year of 2021, and 59 in the three months of 2020 before all theaters went dark. I remind myself that during calendar year 2019 as reported that December, I saw 300 ticketed and staged theatrical productions, 20 or so cabaret performances or panel discussions (smaller scale adventures), and too few film screenings. We’re still not quite to where we were in 2019 but we’re on our way.

Travel. My travels this year were focused in part on family — a June Michigan cottage vacation with one brother while we mourned and continued estate work for a sibling who passed away a few weeks before, and an early fall trip to the Pacific Northwest to visit with the deceased brother’s ex-spouse and children. A quick trip to Washington DC in May is probably where I was gifted with Covid while I masked on Amtrak, and a recent quick day trip to see old friends of half a century in Philadelphia probably gifted me with the cold I’m still overcoming. Small hardships with big benefits. Solemn travels with bits of joy.

Board and Committee Service. I continued my service to the American Theatre Critics Association by as webmaster and content developer — managing and adapting and crafting content for the website redesigned in 2020 and activated in early 2021 — and as member of committees that manage the Helbing Mentorship Program and the Steinberg-ATCA and Osborn playwrighting awards. I worked on the committee to plan the successful November 2023 New York City convening, at which I moderated public conversations with Charles Busch about his memoir Leading Lady: A Memoir of a Most Unusual Boy, and a panel on “revival and revision” discussing the Classic Stage Company’s production of I Can Get It for You Wholesale. I continue as a member of the Henry Hewes Design Awards committee, and as chair of the Drama Desk nominating committee (the work that subsidizes the theater-going gluttony documented in the month-by-month listing below).

Women Count. The release of the seventh edition in the Women Count report series will be published in early 2024, and will include three seasons (2012-2013, 2017-2018, and the most recent 2022-2023) from the now 13 complete seasons in the database. As always, the report will examine whose plays are put on Off Broadway and the designers and backstage professionals who work on them. This report series that authored by me with data collection assistance provided by Judith Binus. The reports series has been part of several consortia of theater-related data projects, including Counting Together, and RISE Network Partners.

New Play Development. Ongoing new play development projects and judging for ATCA’s Steinberg-ATCA and Osborn Awards and as a member of the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference Artistic Council kept me busy, along with ongoing dramaturgical projects ranging from script reading to new play development with particular playwrights.

Covid Covid Covid. I’ve received a total of eight Modern shots over the past 2-plus years (two initial doses and six boosters) and I line up as soon as new boosters are available. And still, people, I tested positive for Covid in May of this past year, obtained a prescription for Paxlovid, had a relatively easy time while in sequestration, and believe in science. Get those boosters.

January

• (1/1) Patti LuPone: Songs from a Hat (54 Below, stream)
• (1/13) Sugar Daddy (Soho Playhouse)
• (1/14) The Immortal Jellyfish Girl (Wakka Wakka at 59E59)
• (1/14) Asi Wind’s Inner Circle (The Gym at Judson)
• (1/15) mothermotherland (Slovo Theatre Group at A.R.T./New York Theatres)
• (1/17) Conversations on Broadway: The Conversation (SAG-AFTRA Foundation Robin Williams Center)
• (1/17) A Beautiful Noise (Broadhurst)
• (1/18) Drew Barrymore Show (taping, CBS Broadcast Center)
• (1/18) Paul Newman: The Extraordinary Life of an Extraordinary Man (92NY, Clea Newman with David Rosenthal, online)
• (1/19) Solo (Soho Playhouse)
• (1/20) The Appointment (WP)
• (1/21) Memorial (A.R.T./New York Theatres)
• (1/22) Without You (New World Stages)
• (1/23) Rutka (NYPL Bruno Walter Auditorium, reading)
• (1/24) Colin Quinn: Small Talk (Lucille Lortel)
• (1/25) The Smuggler (Irish Rep Studio)
• (1/26) Ellipses (Theatre 71, reading)
• (1/29) Endgame (Irish Rep)
• (1/30) F*ck7thGrade (Wild Project)

February

• (2/1) Public Theater Town Hall: Artistic Leadership (zoom session)
• (2/4) Pictures From Home (Studio 54)
• (2/5) Othello (New Place Players | Casa Clara)
• (2/6) A Celebration of John Guare (92NY, stream)
• (2/7) Lucy (Audible | Minetta Lane)
• (2/9) Cornelia Street (Atlantic Theater Company Stage 2)
• (2/10) The Wanderers (Roundabout | Laura Pels)
• (2/11) this body is so impermanent (Rubin Museum of Art, screening)
• (2/12) Wolf Play (MCC and Soho Rep | MCC)
• (2/13) Please Leave (The Theater Center, reading)
• (2/13) Amani (National Black Theater | Rattlestick)
• (2/18) A Bright New Boise (Signature)
• (2/18) New Models of Theater Criticism, Online Panel Discussion (stream)
• (2/19) Pete’s Theatrical Adventures: Filichia Tells All (Theater 555)
• (2/20) PHÈDRE presented by Red Bull Theater & FIAF (stream)
• (2/23) black odyssey (Classic Stage Company)
• (2/24) Letters from Max (Signature, Pais as Max)
• (2/25) Letters from Max (Signature, Edelman as Max)
• (2/25) I Love My Family, But (The Huron Club at Soho Playhouse)
• (2/26) The Trees (Playwrights Horizons)
• (2/27) The Meantime (Theater 555, reading)

March

• (3/1) Becomes a Woman (Mint | New York City Center II)
• (3/1) Public Obscenities (Soho Rep)
• (3/2) Pericles (Target Margin | The Doxsee, Brooklyn)
• (3/3) The Seagull/Woodstock, NY (Signature)
• (3/4) Fall River Fishing (Bedlam | Connelly)
• (3/4) Kissing the Floor (One Year Lease | Theatre Row)
• (3/5) Crumbs from the Table of Joy (Keen | Theatre Row)
• (3/5) The Rewards of Being Frank (New York Classical Theatre | A.R.T./New York Theatres)
• (3/6) Love (Park Avenue Armory)
• (3/7) The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window (BAM Harvey)
• (3/8) The Best We Could (a family tragedy) (MTC | New York City Center I)
• (3/9) How To Defend Yourself (New York Theatre Workshop)
• (3/10) Elyria (Atlantic Theater Company | Linda Gross)
• (3/11) Misty (The Shed)
• (3/11) The Coast Starlight (Lincoln Center Theater | Mitzi Newhouse)
• (3/12) Dog Man The Musical (New World Stages)
• (3/12) Truckers (Intar)
• (3/14) Arden of Faversham (Red Bull Theater | Lucille Lortel)
• (3/15) A Doll’s House (Hudson)
• (3/15) Guest in Conversation Theater Special Interest Group, hosted by Ekemini Ekpo (Harvard Club of NYC)
• (3/16) Dark Disabled Stories (Public Theater | Shiva)
• (3/17) Harder They Come (Public | Newman)
• (3/18) Sancocho (WP + Sol Project | WP Theater)
• (3/19) Yes, I Can Say That! (Primary Stages | 59E59)
• (3/21) Parade (Bernard B. Jacobs)
• (3/22) Sweeney Todd (Lunt-Fontanne)
• (3/23) Drinking in America (Audible | Minetta Lane)
• (3/24) The Good John Proctor (Bedlam | Connelly)
• (3/25) Washington Square (Axis)
• (3/26) Zephr (New Victory)
• (3/26) Vanities The Musical (York | Theatre at St. Jean’s)
• (3/29) Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ (Music Box)
• (3/30) This G*D Damn House (Chain)
• (3/31) Día Y Noche (LAByrinth | 59E59)

April

• (4/1) Life of Pi (Gerald Schoenfeld)
• (4/2) Harvardwood NYC Brunch
• (4/2) According to the Chorus (New Light Theater + The Journey | 59E59)
• (4/4) A Beautiful Noise (Broadhurst) (return visit)
• (4/5) Bad Cinderella (Imperial)
• (4/6) Regretfully, So the Birds Are (Playwrights Horizons)
• (4/7) White Girl in Danger (Second Stage | Tony Kiser)
• (4/8) Walking with Bubbles (AMT Theater)
• (4/9) Fat Ham (American Airlines)
• (4/10) Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight (Flea)
• (4/11) Some Like It Hot (Shubert) (return visit)
• (4/12) The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (1697 Broadway, taping)
• (4/13) Smart (Ensemble Studio Theatre)
• (4/14) Plays for the Plague Year (Joe’s Pub | Public)
• (4/15) Camelot (Lincoln Center | Vivian Beaumont)
• (4/15) Lunch Bunch (PlayCo | 122CC)
• (4/16) Peter Pan Goes Wrong (Barrymore)
• (4/17) Eleanor and Alice (Urban Stages)
• (4/18) On the Right Track (AMT Theatre)
• (4/19) Shucked (Nederlander)
• (4/19) The Thanksgiving Play (Second Stage | Hayes)
• (4/20) Prima Facie (Golden)
• (4/21) Breathless (Brits Off Broadway Theatre Royal Plymouth | 59E59) (to be considered 2023-2024)
• (4/22) Good Night, Oscar (Belasco)
• (4/22) New York, New York (St. James)
• (4/23) Summer, 1976 (MTC | Samuel J. Friedman)
• (4/26) The Knight of the Burning Pestle (Red Bull | Lucille Lortel)
• (4/28) Vámanos (INTAR)
• (4/29) Robin and Me (Abington Theatre Company | Theatre Row)

May

• (5/2) The Habit of Art (Original Theatre | 59E59)
• (5/3) Daughter of the Wicked (New York City Center II)
• (5/6) Cecil Beaton’s Diaries (Evergreen Theatrical Productions | 59E59)
• (5/7-5/12) Covid positive theater break
• (5/13) God of Carnage (Theater Breaking Through Barriers | Theatre Row)
• (5/14) the Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window (James Earl Jones)
• (5/14) Sorry for Your Loss (Minetta Lane Theatre)
• (5/16) Leopoldstadt (Longacre, return visit)
• (5/17) Shucked (Nederlander, return visit)
• (5/17) Bees & Honey (MCC Theater)
• (5/18) Bernarda’s Daughters (New Group | Signature theatre)
• (5/19) King James (MTC | New York City Center)
• (5/20) Primary Trust (Roundabout | Laura Pels)
• (5/21) Monsoon Wedding (St. Ann’s Warehouse)
• (5/22) Singfeld! A Musical Parody About Nothing! (The Theater Center)
• (5/24) shadow/land (Public Theater)
• (5/25) The Beautiful Lady (La MaMa)
• (5/26) The Harriet Holland Social Club Presents The 84th Annual Star-Burst Cotillion in the Grand Ballroom of The Renaissance Hotel (New Georges + The Movement Theatre Company | A.R.T./New York Theatres)
• (5/26) Let Me Cook For You (Theaterlab)
• (5/27) The Fears (Pershing Square Signature Center | Irene Diamond)
• (5/28) Fuente Ovejuna (Theatre for a New Audience)
• (5/28) The Comedy of Errors (Public Theater)
• (5/29) Romeo & Juliet (Classic Stage Company)
• (5/30) Orlando (BoonDog Theatre | 59E59)
• (5/31) Waiting in the Wings: The Musical (Theatre at St. Clement’s)
• (5/31) This Land Was Made (Vineyard Theatre)

June

• (6/1) The Comeuppance (Signature Theatre)
• (6/2) Khan!!! The Musical! (Players Theatre)
• (6/3) Wet Brain (Playwrights Horizons)
• (6/7) A Simulacrum (Atlantic Theatre Company | Stage 2)
• (6/8) Days of Wine and Roses (Atlantic Theatre Company | Linda Gross)
• (6/9) Love + Science (New York City Center Stage II)
• (6/10) Grey House (Lyceum)
• (6/10) Foxes (Defibrillator | 59E59)
• (6/11) Lizard Boy (Prospect Theatre Company | Theatre Row)
• (6/13) The Whitney Album (Soho Rep)
• (6/15) Cassie and the Lights (Patch of Blue + Diorama Theatre + Verse Unbound | 59E59)
• (6/16) Once Upon a One More Time (Marquis)
• (6/17) The Doctor (Park Avenue Armory)
• (6/17) Invisible (Bush Theatre | 59E59)
• (6/18) Good Vibrations (Irish Arts Center)
• (6/18) Triple Threat (Theatre Row)
• (6/19) Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground (Theatre at St. Clement’s)
• (6/21) One Woman Show (Greenwich House Theater)
• (6/22) Rock & Roll Man (New World Stages)
• (6/23) Just for Us (Hudson)
• (6/24) The Great Gatsby — The Immersive Show (Park Central Hotel)

July

• (7/1) The Gospel According to Heather (Theater 555)
• (7/2) The Empire Strips Back (Orpheum)
• (7/6-7/20) Castle Park, Michigan vacation
• (7/22) Prejudice & Pride (59E59)
• (7/22) The Cottage (Hayes)
• (7/23) Orpheus Descending (Theatre for a New Audience)
• (7/25) Chanteuse: A Survival Musical (HERE)
• (7/26) The Saviour (Irish Repertory Theatre)
• (7/27) Here Lies Love (Broadway Theatre)
• (7/28) Flex (Lincoln Center | Mitzi E. Newhouse)
• (7/29) Cat Kid Comic Club (TheaterWorksUSA | Lucille Lortel Theatre)
• (7/29) The Half-God of Rainfall (New York Theatre Workshop)
• (7/30) Toros (Second Stage Uptown | McGinn/Cazle Theater)

August

• (8/1) Hamlet (Public Theater | Delacorte Theater)
• (8/2) Back to the Future (Winter Garden)
• (8/4) Lighthouse: An Immersive Drinking Musical (Soho Playhouse)
• (8/5) The Shark is Broken (John Golden Theatre)
• (8/10) A Eulogy for Roman (Through the Tollbooth Co. | 59E59)
• (8/13) Small (Penguin Rep | 59E59)
• (8/17) Uncle Vanya (OHenry Productions | Home Studios Inc.)
• (8/19) Pay the Writer (Pershing Square Signature Center)
• (8/24) A Will to Live (Chain Theatre)
• (8/27) Seance with Mom (Chain Studio Theatre)

September

• (9/6) The Creeps (Playhouse 46 at St. Luke’s)
• (9/13) Doris Day: My Secret Love (Emerging Artists Theatre)
• (9/14) Anne Being Frank (Emerging Artists Theatre)
• (9/14) 9 Kinds of Silence (PlayCo | 122 Community Center)
• (9/15) 20 Seconds (Pershing Square Signature Center)
• (9/15) Sex Work Sex Play (Emerging Artists Theatre)
• (9/16) Psychic Self Defense (HERE)
• (9/16) Cross That River (Love Productions Records | 59E59)
• (917) Job (Soho Playhouse)
• (9/18) Death, Let Me Do My Show (Lucille Lortel Theatre)
• (9/19) Dig (Primary Stages | 59E59)
• (9/20) Mary Gets Hers (MCC Theater)
• (9/21) Dracula, A Comedy of Terrors (New World Stages)
• (9/22) Swing Stage (Audible | Minetta Lane Theatre)
• (9/23) Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch (Music Box Theatre)
• (9/23) Infinite Life (Atlantic Theater Company | Linda Gross)
• (9/24) Zoetrope (Caborca | Abrons Arts Center)
• (9/27) Tripping on Life (Theatre Row)
• (9/29-30) trip to Portland and Eugene, Oregon

October

• (10/1-10/4) trip to Portland and Eugene, Oregon
• (10/6) The Refuge Plays (Roundabout Theatre Company | Laura Pels Theatre)
• (10/7) Jaja’s African Hair Braiding (Manhattan Theatre Club | Samuel J. Friedman Theatre)
• (10/7) Coping Mechanism (Wild Project)
• (10/8) One with the Current (Chain)
• (10/9) The Making of a Great Moment (Urban Stages)
• (10/12) (pray) (Ars Nova | Greenwich House Theater)
• (10/13) Bite Me (WP Theater)
• (10/13) All The Devils Are Here (DR2 Theatre)
• (10/14) Melissa Etheridge: My Window (Circle in the Square)
• (10/15) Partnership (Mint Theater | Theatre Row)
• (10/18) The Berlin Diaries (The Pool Plays 3.0 | 59E59)
• (10/18) Chasing Happy (59E59)
• (10/19) Emergence (Pershing Square Signature Center)
• (10/20) Stereophonic (Playwrights Horizons)
• (10/21) The Lights Are One (New Light Theater Project | Theatre Row)
• (10/22) Arms and the Man (Gingold Theatrical Group | Theatre Row)
• (10/25) Redwood (Ensemble Studio Theatre)
• (10/26) Translations (Irish Repertory Theatre)
• (10/27) I Can Get It for You Wholesale (Classic Stage Company)
• (10/28) Merry Me (New York Theatre Workshop)
• (10/28) Sabbath’s Theater (New Group | Pershing Square Signature Center)
• (10//29) Artificial Flavors (The Civilians | 59E59 Theater)
• (10/31) Gutenberg! The Musical! (James Earl Jones)

November

• (11/1) Covenant (Roundabout Underground | Black Box Theatre)
• (11/2) King of the Jews (HERE)
• (11/4) Snatch Adams & Tainty McCracken Present It’s That Time of the Month (Soho Rep)
• (11/5) Poor Yella Rednecks (Manhattan Theater Club | New York City Center I)
• (11/7) I Need That (Roundabout Theatre Company | American Airlines)
• (11/8) Emily Mann: Rebel Artist of the American Theatre (reading and signing, The Drama Book Shop)
• (11/9) Telling Tales Out of School (New Federal Theatre | Castillo Theatre)
• (11/10) Harmony (Ethel Barrymore)
• (11/11) Watch Night (Perelman Performing Arts Center)
• (11/11) X: The Life and Times of Malcom X (Metropolitan Opera House)
• (11/12) Waiting for Godot (Theatre for a New Audience)
• (11/13) A Good Day to Me Not to You (Connelly Theater)
• (11/14) Ode to the Wasp Woman (The Actors’ Temple)
• (11/15) Make Me Gorgeous!, The True Story of Kenneth “Mr. Madam” Marlowe (Playhouse 46 at St. Luke’s)
• (11/15) Spamalot (St. James Theatre)
• (11/16) The Gardens of Anuncia (Lincoln Center | Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater)
• (11/17-11/19 visit to Grand Rapids for brother Joe’s memorial)
• (11/20) Amid Falling Walls (Museum of Jewish Heritagej)
• (11/21) Hell’s Kitchen (Public Theater)
• (11/21) War Words (NewYorkRep + New Light Theater Project | A.R.T./New York Theaters)
• (11/22) Scene Partners (Vineyard)
• (11/22) Mind Mangler: A Night of Tragic Illusion (New World Stages)
• (11/24) Monsieur Chopin (59e59)
• (11/25) Arcadia (Bedlam | Arcadia)
• (11/26) The Jerusalem Syndrome (The York Theatre Company | Theatre St. Jean’s)
• (11/26) Spain (Second Stage | Kiser Theater)
• (11/29) ‘Til Death (Abingdon Theatre Company | Theatre Row)

December

• (12/1) The Inheritance of a Long-Term Fault (Clutch Productions | Theatre Row)
• (12/2) Lone Star (Ruth Stage | Theatre Row)
• (12/2) Life & Times of Michael K (St. Ann’s Warehouse)
• (12/3) Manahatta (Public Theater)
• (12/4) Madwomen of the West (The Actors’ Temple)
• (12/8) How to Dance in Ohio (Belasco Theatre)
• (12/10) Adrift: A Medieval Wayward Folly (59E59)
• (12/12) Less Lonely (Greenwich House Theater)
• (12/14) School Pictures (Playwrights Horizons)
• (12/15) Buena Vista Social Club (Atlantic Theater Company | Linda Gross)
• (12/16) Before the Drugs Kick In (Under St. Marks Theater)
• (12/17) Appropriate (Second Stage | Hayes Theater)
• (12/20) The Night of the Iguana (La Femme Theatre Productions | Pershing Square Signature Center)
• (12/29) The Gospel According the Chaim (New Yiddish Rep | Theater for the New City)
• (12/31) Here We Are (The Shed)

© Martha Wade Steketee (December 31, 2023)