Letters From Max (a ritual)
[full review published in Time Out New York February 27, 2023.] From 2012 through 2016, playwright Sarah Ruhl exchanged letters with her student Max Ritvo, which she published in 2018 […]
2022: excavation review
2022 was a continued return to viewing on line and in person theater, collaborating on theater, counting theater productions, and coalition-building on behalf of theater. The exhaustive (and exhausting) list […]
2021: excavation review
In 2021 — our year of continued recovery from a viral pandemic, from a devastating presidential term, from professional and social recalibrations — theater professionals including dramaturgs and critics have […]
2020: excavation review
This theatrical season will always have an asterisk. The COVID-19 pandemic closed down Broadway theaters as of March 12, 2020, with an uncertain re-opening date, and Off and Off Off […]
ATCA 2020: The Next Normal
American Theatre Critics Association’s 2020 Conference: The Next Normal What good is sitting alone in your room — when through the magic of Zoom, you can join fellow arts journalists […]
2019: excavation review themes
My travels this year were limited compared to travel in prior years: several days in Washington DC (where i lived in the late ’90s and early 2000s), ATCA-related trips to […]
2019: excavation review
I lived thousands of hours in roving artistic communities that move from theater to reading room to cabaret venue in the course of 2019. By my rough count, during 2019 […]
Critical Eye: Rupert Murdoch on Broadway in Tony-nominated “Ink”
[Full article published in Quill Magazine May 10, 2019.] James Graham’s play “Ink” opened April 24 at Broadway’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. Quill asked New York-based arts journalist Martha Wade Steketee to […]
‘The Price of Thomas Scott’ Offers Social Themes, a Dutiful Daughter, and Dance Breaks
The Mint Theater will unfurl a trio of plays this season by Elizabeth Baker (1876-1962), a woman of religious upbringing who worked in her family dry goods business as a […]
2018: excavation review themes
I squeezed adventures in Norway, Sweden, the wilds of central Wisconsin, Georgia, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island into 2018, a year of paring, sifting and sorting of involvement on professional boards […]
Heather Raffo in ‘Noura’ Unpacks Family Legacies with Radical Hope and Forgiveness
Noura by Heather Raffo Directed by Joanna Settle Featuring Heather Raffo Playwrights Horizons November 27, 2018 – December 30, 2018 production site On the 2017 list by The Kilroys of unproduced […]
In ‘Network’ on Broadway, Design Battles Howard Beale
[Full article published in The Clyde Fitch Report, December 6, 2018.] The countdown clocks are everywhere at the Belasco Theatre these days. Whether on a screen or presented verbally by characters playing TV technicians or […]
Breaking Bad Brecht: Off-Broadway ‘Arturo Ui’ Goes Kerplop
[Full article published in The Clyde Fitch Report, November 14, 2018.] It is hard to appreciate a play meant to capture a self-promoting sociopath’s rise to power, especially a broad, biting political […]
After 50 Years, Elaine May Returns to Broadway
[Originally published in The Clyde Fitch Report, October 26, 2018.] After a half-century absence, Elaine May has returned to Broadway, only to fade away before our eyes. Each beat of […]
Film Review: A Problematic Stage ‘Funny Girl’ To Appear on Screens World Wide
Funny Girl is a late 20th-century show built on the bones of the singular performer Barbra Streisand. This musical with a grand set list that has moved into the […]
As Joan of Arc’s Mother, Glenn Close Sears Your Soul
[Originally published in The Clyde Fitch Report, October 17, 2018.] As Isabelle Arc, Glenn Close is a no-nonsense, straight-talking, country woman. She speaks to us from France in the early […]
urban excavations 