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…
Millennial Notes Nicole Parizeau Dissects Dead Artist’s Sex Scandal by Beau McGlasson To cancel or not to cancel—that’s the question at the heart of “The Human Ounce,” which exposes an Impressionist painter as a sexual predator. The sex scandal is based on Gauguin’s bad behavior in Tahiti. Nicole Parizeau’s new play grips us with…
John Collins Makes Stage Magic with The Great Gatsby by Barry David Horwitz “Gatz” has everything—love, passion, party, class conflict, car culture, and self-involvement. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s scandalous party animals are speeding down the road, running red lights, leaving the rest of us dead in the road. Director John Collins reimagines the novel as…
Millennial Notes David Lindsay-Abaire’s Sharp-Edged Seniors Act Up by Jordan Freed Working at a retirement home for a year, I saw my fair share of squabbles between residents, ranging from a stolen seat in the dining hall to snarky gossip about who’s sleeping with whom. “Ripcord” by David Lindsay-Abaire ramps up the senior drama…