It wasn’t the year for celebration. But watching innovation flourish inspired our chief critic, while other writers found the joys of the stage in other media.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:06AMThe astonishing Jefferson Mays stars as everyone (and a potato) in a dark and pointed adaptation of the Dickens holiday classic.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:36PMThey’re attractive, young and tech savvy, but their 24 hours don’t add up to much.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:36PMFour new shows are part of a movement to engage more directly in the debates of our times — sometimes even stealing the script.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:18PMOur theater experts provide a guide to some of the successful (and failed) cinematic adaptations of plays and musicals — all for your streaming pleasure.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:36AMWould you like to see a new musical from the people who brought you “West Side Story”? For better or worse, you probably never will.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:48PMThe story of a marriage saved by the pandemic, “True Love Will Find You in the End” features a live audience but recorded actors.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 01:48PMA trenchant workplace comedy about the folks who tried to promote Pizzagate, confuse Wisconsin and, ultimately, elect Donald J. Trump.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:36PMAnne Washburn’s would-be epic of power and powerlessness, presented as a podcast, may be too close to current events to fulfill its big ambitions.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 03:03PMThe nominators did the best they could with a Broadway slate hobbled by Covid-19. But some of the Tonys’ problems predate (and will outlast) the pandemic.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 03:48PMIn a new show by David Kwong, the noted cruciverbalist offers a collection of games built for Zoom that let the audience be part of the puzzle.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:36PMAfter 27 years and more than 2,500 reviews, The Times’s co-chief theater critic reviews his own tenure and talks about why he’s (quietly) making an exit.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 07:03AMFrom a pro-slavery Martha Washington to a blank-screen Melania Trump, the wives and other women of the U.S. presidents get sent up and dressed down.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 03:24PMA starry selection of scenes from Tony Kushner’s 1993 classic discovers premonitions of another pandemic in the AIDS-era play.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 03:36PMIn a few minutes or a full show, these performers capture heartbreak, fury and laughs. For the words of Samuel Beckett, a disembodied mouth did the trick.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:24AMOne-woman plays by Tracy Thorne and Eliza Bent explore the problems of white power and privilege — and how people who say the right things aren’t helping.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:03PMA musical about two French chocolatiers may satisfy the hunger for live song and dance, but keep the insulin handy.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 01:03PMStephen Karam’s celebrated play about economic distress looks very different in 2020 than it did in 2015 — and streaming is only part of the change.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:18PMSix months dark. Thousands of artists out of work. Could this disaster have a surprise ending? Five critics on what must change, onstage and off.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:18AMThat package in your hallway may be an exciting new theatrical experience. Or maybe not.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:12PMThe “Fleabag” star Andrew Scott is the entire brilliant cast of a penetrating play about toxic fathers and sons.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 03:06PMThe actors quarantined together all summer to produce Shakespeare’s tragedy safely. But they can’t overcome the remove of a camera.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:42PMTheater for One was built on the idea of face-to-face encounters. Moving it online could have been a disaster, but instead it’s a heartbreaker.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 01:18PMAmong the performances you can catch online are a one-woman show about sexual assault and riffs on “Heart of Darkness” and “Rocky.”
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 04:06PMA collection of short solo works from the Weston Playhouse furthers the redefinition of theater online — and of life in isolation.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 01:42PMWith broad winks to Agatha Christie and the limitations of remote theater, a serialized song-and-dance mystery goes on. Well, not so much dance.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:54PMExpanding content and experimenting with form, the avant-garde finds a congenial new home online, as two recent offerings demonstrate.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 01:48PMIn “The 7th Voyage of Egon Tichy,” an experimental theater lab operating from a closet adapts a timely tale about the solitude of cramped quarters.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:24PMEight short plays take cues from the 1930 Noël Coward comedy — but now the stakes are different.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:48PMNot so long ago, top stars brought top musicals to suburban arenas that started their lives as tents.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:36PMA documentary play based on interviews with New York doctors, nurses and paramedics underlines the inequities of a medical system “flawed from its root.”
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