Following its critically-acclaimed and sold-out run last season, the uplifting and richly funny TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS returns to The Public’s larger Newman Theater with Academy Award-nominee Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) reprising the role of Sugar. Based on the best-selling book by author Cheryl Strayed (Wild), the play TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS was praised by The New York Times as “an ideal catharsis” and “handkerchief-soaking meditation on pain, loss, hope & forgiveness.”

Thousands of people wrote letters asking for advice from an anonymous online columnist named Sugar, who drew from her own life experiences to answer in a candid, often brutally honest exchange. It was later revealed that Sugar was Cheryl Strayed. Vardalos adapts the book, weaving together the real letters to explore the monstrous beauty, unfathomable dark and glimmering light which are at the heart of being human.

Tony Award winner Thomas Kail (Dry Powder, Hamilton) directs this “incredibly moving” (Time Out) play about reaching when you’re stuck, healing when you’re broken and finding the courage to take on the questions which have no answer.

If you leave Tiny Beautiful Things, which opened last night at The Public’s Newman Theater, without having wept along with the rest of the audience for at least a few moments, you make up the small minority. In a time when large-scale horrors seem to penetrate our world every day, Tiny Beautiful Things delves into the more personal, albeit equally painful tragedies of everyday humanity, and although rivetingly sad, even depressing at times, it also manages to be cathartic and hopeful. The play is directed by Thomas Kail of Hamilton fame, based on the book by Cheryl Strayed, otherwise known for her novel Wild which became a film starring Reese Witherspoon, and adapted, co-conceived, and starring Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding). Vardalos’s character, Sugar, of the online advice column “Dear Sugar,” wanders through her cluttered home (excellently crafted by set designer Rachel Hauck), as the voices of her advice-seekers penetrate deeply into her walls and her soul. Teddy Cañez, Hubert Point-Du Jour, and Natalie Woolams-Torres, as the many letter-writers who enter Sugar’s life, give careful yet heart-wrenching performances across the board, allowing the emotion of their charact …Read more