All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. And when families become very unhappy, they imprison each other inside manmade bomb shelters. Or so Tolstoy would have elaborated, had he seen this play. In Safe Hous …Read more
Though we understand their circumstances may have been a bit different, like Oliver and his clan of orphan boys, we’ve all fallen into a daze dreaming of “food, glorious food” at one point or another. After all, it’s been said that food is the great …Read more
Sophie McIntosh is the playwright behind benevolent at IATI Theater, a play set in 1917 that follows four young women living in a strict Manhattan reformatory called the Inwood Benevolent Home, where they turgidly wash stains out of soiled laundry on …Read more
In Sophie McIntosh’s compelling new play Benevolent, playing through September 12th at the IATI theater, there are a lot of ways women can get in trouble: poverty, prostitution, pregnancy and premarital sex, to name a few. The four young wo …Read more
It had been raining off and on for several days. The air was thick and the sky slightly grey. Yet in the distance, there was a patch of blue. Fingers crossed, we set out for the second Free Shakespeare in the Park play of the summer season. Rarely ha …Read more
Maybe Happy Ending’s savviest Helperbot shares her favorite food spots before or after a show. Though we understand their circumstances may have been a bit different, like Oliver and his clan of orphan boys, we’ve all fallen into a daze dreaming of …Read more
What if there were no men in the world? Feminist authors have been exploring that concept for over a century, from Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland in 1915 to Joanna Russ’s 1975 speculative fantasy The Female Man. (My ex-girlfriend also used to pos …Read more
I’ve long been an admirer of playwright Wendy Wasserstein but had never seen her 1997 play An American Daughter. So I looked forward to the recent revival by LaFemme Theatre Productions. Although the play is somewhat dated, some basic themes remain c …Read more
What’s more destructive to the human race – the threat of AI, or the reality of marriage? On the one hand, artificial intelligence seems fairly close to replacing the charmingly antiquated notion of “thinking for ourselves.” But marriage has been i …Read more
Before I review this play, I just want to say that the Democratic Socialists of America are totally valid, I really hear what they’re saying, I appreciate their perspective, and the work they do in our community is so, so important. I don’ …Read more