Wheatle & Hussein Celebrate Bravery of Inner-City Youth by Patricia L. Morin Alex Wheatle’s award-winning young adult novel, turned into a play by Emteaz Hussain, draws us into the lives of six multicultural teens who introduce themselves by rapping: “We are the Magnificent Six.” In “Crongton Knights,” the conflict centers around survival and poverty,…
Nina Raine Depicts Struggles of Exploited Medics by Patricia L. Morin Even on the small screen, “Tiger Country” brings us into the jungle of a besieged British public hospital, the famed National Health Service, where every move can mean life or death. Nina Raine has written and directed a series of quick-paced, thoughtful vignettes…
Gary Soto Urges Us to Reflect by Patricia L. Morin As a therapist who ran a suicide hot-line, I have talked to teens who cut themselves, then heal, and cut again. In Gary Soto’s play, The Afterlife,” Crystal (engaging Bianca Catalan), daughter of wealthy almond growers, begins to “cut” herself. And another schoolmate gets…
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Questions Workers’ Choices by Patricia L. Morin Watching ACT’s streaming version of “Gloria,” I miss being a participant—there’s nothing like live theater. But I enjoyed how MacArthur Fellow playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins explores young workers competing in a toxic show-biz office, like Entertainment Today. He drops us into a smartly designed sterile office…