May & June recommendations

a plea for a new genre: The Ferocity of Teenage Girls

👋 There are a bunch of new folks here, so: welcome! Here’s some more info on what this whole shebang is about.

FYI: I recently enabled paid subscriptions to What’s On. The goal of this newsletter is to make great theater more accessible to more people, so the content will remain free - no paywall. But I spend dozens of hours writing this thing, and plenty of 💰 on tickets, so if you do have the means to pay for What’s On, I’d be grateful!

On to the shows! NYC, Chicago, and DC this edition.

🗽NYC: CYRANO DE BERGERAC in a new version by Martin Crimp, directed by Jamie Lloyd, presented by BAM

James McAvoy leads a superb ensemble in this “breathtakingly exciting” (Evening Standard) theatrical tour-de-force that captures timeless passion through spoken word, contemporary poetry, and raw physicality. Cyrano seduces in raps and rhymes, using his linguistic brilliance to help another man win the heart of his one true love—above all—championing his own unbridled love for words.

It feels a bit foolish to write this production up when it’s got plenty of buzz thanks to James McAvoy, but it was so excellent I can’t resist. English playwright Martin Crimp adapted Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play to a contemporary British vernacular so sharp and smart that I was actually glad that it’s in rhyming couplets. I never thought I could be moved by Cyrano, which in its original translation is pretty stilted. This production, however, is minimalist and smart and gorgeous. And honestly, James McAvoy is brilliant. Celebrity actors sometimes phone it in on stage shows, but he is giving a 150% performance and it’s well worth seeing.

🚶🏽watch in person at BAM Harvey: 651 Fulton Street, Brooklyn
❗️The show is sold out but there is a standby line. A limited number of on-stage Rush seats are available. These are ground-level and do not obstruct views for any other ticketholders. Visit TodayTix to learn more.
📆 through May 22
💉 must show proof of vaccination + ID and wear a mask for the whole show

🗽NYC: CORSICANA by Will Arbery, directed by Sam Gold, presented by Playwrights Horizons

In Corsicana, a small city in Texas, a woman with Down syndrome named Ginny and her half-brother Christopher are unmoored in the wake of their mother's death. Their close family friend, Justice, introduces them to a local artist named Lot, a recluse and outsider, hoping that he and Ginny can make a song together. That that'll help somehow. In this restless quartet about care-taking and care-giving, in which the very fabric of reality is up for debate, Will Arbery charts the quiet, particular contracts of the heart that forge a new family.

Will Arbery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning, directed by Danya Taymor at Playwrights Horizons in-person (before) and virtually (during) the pandemic, was so thrilling even on Zoom that I am eager to see his next project.

Back in 2018, I saw Jellyfish by Ben Weatherill at the Bush Theatre in London. It’s the story of a love affair between a woman with Down Syndrome and a man with Asperger’s Syndrome and the hurdles and assumptions their romance faces due to able-bodied prejudices. The performances of lead actors Sarah Gordy and Nicky Priest—both also advocates for actors with disabilities—completely blew my mind. Before seeing Jellyfish, I had never seen a performance by an actor with Down Syndrome, and I’m ashamed to admit I also hadn’t spent much time considering the artistry of people with Down Syndrome. There are theaters throughout the US, including in New York, creating theater that intersects with disability justice, and I’m excited that Corsicana will bring off-Broadway visibility to the movement.

🚶🏽watch in person at Playwrights Horizons: 416 West 42 Street
💰 tickets from $30
❗️If you are 35 or under, or a full-time student, you can become a Young Member for free to access $20 tickets. $10 tickets available with a Student Membership.
📆 June 2 - July 10
🧏🏽 ASL interpretation, audio description, touch tour, and relaxed performances offered. Information here.
💉 must show proof of vaccination + ID and wear a mask for the whole show

🏛 DC: MARYS SEACOLE by Jackie Sibblies Drury, directed by Eric Ruffin, presented by Mosaic Theater Company

Inspired by the real life of Mary Seacole, a British-Jamaican nurse and businesswoman who cared for soldiers during the Crimean War, Marys Seacole charts one Black woman’s extraordinary journey through space and time - from mid-1800s Jamaica to a modern-day nursing home - with fierce theatricality and reverence for the caregivers and unsung heroes among us.

I’m a big Jackie Sibblies Drury fan. I’m still kicking myself that I couldn’t see Marys Seacole when it was in NYC. She writes unflinching theatricality into her plays in a way I find thrilling.

Caregiving, how it is gendered and racialized, and the way that America lacks structures to support or provide for caretakers rightfully received time in the spotlight during the pandemic. As restrictions ease and collective amnesia kicks in, I’m excited to see Jackie’s take on the subject.

🚶🏽watch in person at Atlas Performing Arts Center: 1333 H Street NE
💰 tickets $20
❗️📆 through May 29
🧏🏽 Open captioning and ASL-interpreted post show discussions available
💉 must show proof of vaccination + ID and wear a mask for the whole show

🏛 DC: JOHN PROCTOR IS THE VILLAIN by Kimberly Belflower, directed by Marti Lyons, presented by Studio Theatre

Things are unsettled at Helen County High in rural Georgia—rumors are swirling around a student’s dad, another student blew up her life and left for Atlanta, and Mr. Smith’s junior English class has to make it through sex ed before they can finally start The Crucible. But what one man calls a witch hunt, a young woman calls the truth, and when the teens start questioning what really happened in Salem, everything threatens to change….John Proctor is the Villain captures a generation in mid-transformation, running on pop music, optimism, and fury—writing their own coming of age story.

There’s a genre of play/movie/novel that I like to call Boys Are Amazing!, which works to elevate a common, often nerdy, typically-male-gendered activity or hobby into High Art. It wouldn’t irk me except that a) I find it pretentious, b) it’s so prevalent, c) and it leaves out activities typically gendered female entirely. I cank think of several books and movies about How Superheroes And Comics Are Actually Really Important but when was the last time you heard about the nerd-level passion that some people put into makeup?

I first heard Kimberly Belflower talk about wanting to see more teenage girls onstage, and rural teenage girls especially, back in 2016, as a prospective grad student at UT Austin. Teenage girls of the suburban and urban variety have gotten more visiblity onstage, thanks in part to the success of Sarah DeLappe’s The Wolves and Clare Barron’s Dance Nation (which it seems woke The Industry up to the fact that stories about teenage girls sell tickets). Rural teenage girls, though, are a different story.

All to say: it’s time for a more diverse Ferocity of Teenage Girls genre. I wish I could see this production. If you go, let me know what you think!

🚶🏽watch in person at the Mead Theatre: 1501 14th Street NW
💰 tickets from $45, discounts available
📆 through June 12
🧏🏽 ASL-interpreted and audio described shows available

🏙 Chicago: ATHENA by Gracie Gardner, directed by Jessica Fisch, presented by Writers Theatre

Mary Wallace and Athena are both seventeen-year-old fencers training for Nationals. Mary Wallace lives in a house in New Jersey, loves marine biology, and practices at home. Athena lives in an apartment in New York City, takes acne medication, and Athena is not her real name. Follow their journey from competitors to confidantes as they form a bond navigating the milestones of adolescence, training together only to learn the future is only certain for one of them.

Dramaturg and fellow Substack writer Lauren Halvorsen writes (in a subscriber-only post¹ that I’m hopefully not devaluing by referencing here) about the genre of the Athletic Feat play, and the subset of that genre focused on teenage girls. It’s a genre that got more limelight with the (excellent) Showtime series Yellowjackets. Despite not giving one hoot about sports, I often love Athletic Feat plays because they are—you guessed it—theatrical. Sports, at their best, are theatrical, after all - they are suspenseful, live, emotionally charged, and take place in front of an audience. To me, the most exciting things onstage are the ones you can’t fake. Watching someone perform soccer drills, for example, as is staged in The Wolves, is engaging because the actor is doing the drills, not pretending to do drills. Someone really doing something is present and un-selfconscious in a way that someone pretending to do something is usually not.²

So, combine the Athletic Feat play with the Ferocity of Teenage Girls play (see above), and I’m sold. I haven’t been able to see this play or this production, but I trust anything Jess Fisch touches.

🚶🏽watch in person at The Gillian Theatre: 325 Tudor Court
💰 tickets from $60, discounts available
📆 through July 10
😷 must wear a mask for the whole show

1. go pay her for her labor: nothingforthegroup.substack.com!

2. For more, see Becker’s First Law of Theater: Children Onstage Are More Interesting Than Almost Any Veteran Actor