All stories by Maya Phillips on BroadwayStars

Thursday, October 7, 2021

‘Lackawanna Blues’ Review: A Soulful Master Class in Storytelling by Maya Phillips

Ruben Santiago-Hudson brings his tender and vibrant autobiographical show to Broadway, honoring the woman who not only raised him but also kept a cast of misfits in line.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:32PM
Friday, October 1, 2021

Review: In ‘Persuasion,’ How to Lose Lovers and Influence People by Maya Phillips

The Bedlam theater company returns with another adaptation of Jane Austen, but the production misses all of the source material’s subtle wit.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 11:18AM
Wednesday, September 22, 2021

A Black Theater Flourished in New York. 200 Years Ago. by Maya Phillips

The African Theater, which had its first performance on Sept. 17, 1821, is both an inspiration and a cautionary tale.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:36AM
Thursday, September 9, 2021

‘Small Engine Repair’ Review: Of Mechanics and Men by Maya Phillips

John Pollono directs and stars in an adaptation of his play that adds depth to the original text but also struggles in its translation from stage to screen.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:06AM

Princess Diana and Michael Jackson Anchor New Biographical Musicals by Maya Phillips

In new musicals about Princess Diana, Cary Grant and Michael Jackson actors get a chance to embody icons while spotlighting their individual talents.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:32AM
Thursday, August 19, 2021

When Theater Installations Aim to Make Room for Drama by Maya Phillips

These worthy and adventurous lockdown experiments too often give short shrift to the relationship between a script and how an audience takes it in.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:42PM

‘On Broadway’ Review: History and Celebrity, Stages and Lights by Maya Phillips

The neon lights are bright, and so is the spirit of this brief but loving history of Broadway.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 07:03AM
Monday, July 26, 2021

Williamstown Theater Festival Tries to Weather the Storms by Maya Phillips

The annual summer festival in Massachusetts has tried to adapt amid the pandemic and calls for more diversity onstage.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 03:06PM
Friday, July 9, 2021

Review: Serving Murder in ‘The Dumb Waiter’ by Maya Phillips

Harold Pinter’s one-act play, starring Daniel Mays and David Thewlis as hit men, is available to stream live via the Old Vic Theater.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 07:06PM
Tuesday, July 6, 2021

In ‘What to Send Up,’ I See You, Black American Theater by Maya Phillips

Our critic reflects on the significance of Aleshea Harris’s play, at BAM Fisher, for Black audiences.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:06PM
Friday, July 2, 2021

Review: ‘The Watering Hole’ Can’t Quite Quench a Thirst by Maya Phillips

The collaborative project conceived by Lynn Nottage is too heterogeneous and muddled to rally around one clear theme or concept.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 06:54PM
Tuesday, June 29, 2021

‘Seven Deadly Sins’ Review: Pride and Pole Dancing Behind Glass by Maya Phillips

This array of short plays has viewers in headphones wandering the meatpacking district for stylish, but shallow, theatrical thrills.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:18PM
Monday, June 28, 2021

Review: Martha Washington, Hilariously Haunted by Her Slaves by Maya Phillips

James Ijames’s amusingly cynical and eclectic new play, “The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington,” is at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival through July 30.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 06:06PM
Wednesday, June 23, 2021

‘In the Heights’ y el colorismo: lo que se pierde cuando se borra a los afrolatinos by Maira Garcia, Sandra E. Garcia, Isabelia Herrera, Concepción De León, Maya Phillips and A.o. Scott

La película, ambientada en un barrio neoyorquino conocido como la Pequeña República Dominicana, no incluyó a latinos de piel oscura en los papeles principales. Críticos y reporteros del…

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:49PM
Monday, June 21, 2021

‘In the Heights’ and Colorism: What Is Lost When Afro-Latinos Are Erased by Maira Garcia, Sandra E. Garcia, Isabelia Herrera, Concepción De León, Maya Phillips and A.O. Scott

The film, set in a New York neighborhood known as the Little Dominican Republic, didn’t cast dark-skinned Latinos in lead roles. Our writers discuss how that absence reverberates.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:26PM
Sunday, June 20, 2021

Raja Feather Kelly and 'The Kill One Race': TV and Theater by Maya Phillips

Raja Feather Kelly’s “The Kill One Race” and “This American Wife” exist in a realm between, changing our relationship with what we witness.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:48PM
Friday, June 18, 2021

‘Liminality’ Is Theater of the Mind That Explores the In-Between by Maya Phillips

A new virtual reality experience in Williamsburg marries wondrous production values with banal narratives.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 06:32PM
Tuesday, June 15, 2021

‘Revolution Rent’ Review: Taking the Show South by Maya Phillips

This HBO documentary follows Andy Señor Jr. as he directs a production of “Rent” in Cuba.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:18PM
Sunday, May 23, 2021

‘This American Wife’ Review: Wives Out, Knives Out by Maya Phillips

The play is a wild genre-bending parody of, and homage to, “The Real Housewives” franchise.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 06:18PM
Thursday, May 20, 2021

‘A Dozen Dreams’ Review: Eerie Memories Bring Magic to the Mall by Maya Phillips

Twelve exquisitely designed installations capture the fears, hopes and reveries shared on audio by 12 women playwrights.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 09:06PM
Monday, May 17, 2021

‘Lilies’ Review: A Queer Romantic Drama That Wilts Quickly by Maya Phillips

Michel Marc Bouchard’s melodrama, about an illicit gay love affair in 1912, displays a lot of kookiness and little self-awareness.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 07:48PM
Sunday, May 9, 2021

‘Mary Stuart’ Review: A Battle Royal in a Brooklyn Apartment by Maya Phillips

With four actors and a contemporary setting, Bedlam offers an audacious, if half-baked, take on the Schiller play about the fate of Mary, Queen of Scots.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 03:54PM
Thursday, May 6, 2021

‘Zoetrope’ Review: And You Thought Your Apartment Was Small? by Maya Phillips

Exquisite Corpse Company’s clever choose-your-own-adventure play has a handful of viewers peek in on a Brooklyn couple in really close quarters.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 03:33PM
Friday, April 30, 2021

‘Black Feminist Video Game’ Review: Pixels and Polemics by Maya Phillips

Live performances via Zoom mix with actual game footage in this well-intentioned but preachy play by the poet Darrel Alejandro Holnes.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 06:06PM

‘Romeo and Juliet’ Meets the Hot Vax Summer by Maya Phillips

A lusty new production is both an enticement and a warning as we tentatively explore intimacy after a year of forced solitude.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:42PM
Sunday, April 25, 2021

‘Block Association’ Review: Yes, in Your Backyard by Maya Phillips

In this clever show, audience members join a “neighborhood” and lobby for how its discordant residents should to spend a chunk of community money.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 04:42PM
Wednesday, April 14, 2021

Review: Close Quarters and Distant Love in ‘The Last Five Years’ by Maya Phillips

Casting Black actors and filming in a claustrophobic New York apartment revitalizes Jason Robert Brown’s popular two-character musical.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 02:03PM
Tuesday, April 13, 2021

Jeremy O. Harris's Grad School Reunion by Maya Phillips

At the Yale School of Drama, the playwright Jeremy O. Harris found the kind of classmates that you can trust with your first drafts.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:03AM
Thursday, April 8, 2021

‘Only Child’ Review: A Magnetic Performer Without a Story to Match by Maya Phillips

The autobiographical solo show from Daniel J. Watts shows off his skill with spoken word and dance, but doesn’t add up to more than the sum of its parts.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 12:32PM
Tuesday, April 6, 2021

‘Blindness’ Review: Listening to the Sound of Theater Again by Maya Phillips

Stimulating and immersive — yet actor-free — this audio adaptation of the Saramago novel brings the terror of an epidemic into your ears.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 03:42PM
Tuesday, March 30, 2021

When Tragedy Strikes, What Does Criticism Have to Offer? by Maya Phillips

It’s easier to find meaning in fiction than in the senseless mass killings of our reality, which seem to render the critical perspective pointless, even silly, at times.

SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 10:03AM

All that Chat

2024-2025 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 05, 2024: Home - Todd Haimes Theatre
Jul 11, 2024: Oh, Mary! - Lyceum Theatre
Jul 30, 2024: Job - Hayes Theater
Sep 12, 2024: The Roommate - Booth Theatre
Nov 14, 2024: Tammy Faye - Palace Theatre
Dec 12, 2024: Cult of Love - Hayes Theater
Dec 19, 2024: Gypsy - Majestic Theatre
Mar 17, 2025: Purpose - Hayes Theater
Apr 01, 2025: Glengarry Glen Ross
Apr 10, 2025: Smash - Imperial Theatre
TBA: Titanic