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…
Gary Soto Pens Play for Latinx Teens in Distress by Robert M. Gardner In Gary Soto’s “The Afterlife,” two Fresno teenagers, Chuy and Crystal, die in the opening minutes. Chuy is murdered for an unintended slight, and Crystal kills herself. They are the victims of an alarming spike of teen deaths from violence and…
Kate Cortesi’s Exploited Women Demand Pay-Back by Patricia L. Morin “Love” swims in the gray area of consensual versus manipulated sexual relations. Playwright Kate Cortesi asks profound questions about honesty, morality, and reciprocity. In 2004, Penelope (Clea Alsip), a smart-ass Stanford grad who talks way too much, applies for an intern job, letting the…
Lydia R. Diamond’s Spectacular Play Embodies Our Herstory by Barry David Horwitz Toni Stone was a real live woman who yearns to play baseball. But she’s female and Black. She manages to overturn every prejudice, joke, and stupidity—until she plays with the San Francisco Sea Lions, and then, the Indianapolis Clowns in 1953. Toni…