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MOST RECENT ARTICLES BY:
Sara Holdren
Theater Critic
See all their articles from across New York Magazine
Follow
@swholdren
on Twitter
Email
sara.holdren@nymag.com
theater review
Feb. 2, 2024
Quiet Obsessions, Unplugged:
Aberdeen
and
The Animal Kingdom
A verse play about Kurt, and a therapy play about hurt.
theater review
Jan. 28, 2024
Soaring Voices and Plastic Plants in
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Kelli O’Hara and Brian d’Arcy James at peak vocal power.
theater review
Jan. 25, 2024
Diary of an Overbooked Theater-Festival Surfer: Week Three
Jack! Rose! Jack! Rose! And
Eugene Onegin.
theater review
Jan. 24, 2024
The Long Zoom of
Public Obscenities
A story of bringing a partner home to Kolkata is steeped in naturalism.
theater review
Jan. 17, 2024
Diary of an Overbooked Theater-Festival Surfer: Week Two
Puppets, worms, toilets, and a
really
aggressive Shakespeare take.
theater reviews
Jan. 11, 2024
Diary of an Overbooked Theater-Festival Surfer: Week One
On finding eccentric Miranda July commentary and gonzo race commentary during January’s experimental-theater blitz.
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Jan. 9, 2024
Can You Put Your Faith in
Prayer for the French Republic
?
It’s a timely and engaged play, but that engagement is glib.
2024 preview
Jan. 4, 2024
14 Plays and Musicals We Can’t Wait to See in 2024
Izzard in Shakespeare, Strong in Ibsen, Carell in Chekhov, and a freaky Michael R. Jackson musical.
theater review
Dec. 18, 2023
An Estate That Divides: Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s
Appropriate
Sarah Paulson is furious and fearsome.
theater review
Dec. 15, 2023
When the Play’s Not the Thing
Too often, great performances and stagecraft are let down by the script behind them.
best of 2023
Dec. 8, 2023
The Best Theater of 2023
A play that’s not
not
about Fleetwood Mac, the return of
Merrily
and
Purlie
, and the agony of high-school test prep.
best of 2023
Dec. 8, 2023
Exhilarating Reactions to a Troubled World
Plus Sondheim old and (for the final time) new.
theater review
Dec. 5, 2023
Reflections on Lost Lands:
Manahatta
and
Life & Times of Michael K
Onstage, the commoditization of Lenape land and the reclamation of a South African farm.
theater review
Nov. 30, 2023
The Echo From the Days of ’39: Jen Silverman’s
Spain
A cool treatment of a once-hot civil war.
theater review
Nov. 21, 2023
At Playwrights Horizons, a Tinge of the Fringe
Amusements, School Pictures,
and
Sad Boys in Harpy Land
are running in repertory.
theater review
Nov. 19, 2023
Hell’s Kitchen:
A Familiar Diary of Alicia Keys
Conventional musical-theater turf, made fresh by killer performances.
theater review
Nov. 17, 2023
Who Thought Stoppard Needs More Sex?
Bedlam’s
Arcadia
falls into an easy trap.
theater review
Nov. 16, 2023
Spamalot
Returns, and It’s Not Dead Yet
Say no more!
theater review
Nov. 16, 2023
Is Anything Real in
Scene Partners?
Is Everything?
John J. Caswell Jr.’s script is like an Escher drawing, endlessly spiraling in on itself.
theater review
Nov. 14, 2023
That’s the Idea, Let’s Amuse Each Other! Shannon and Sparks in
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Michael Shannon and Paul Sparks foreground the funny in Beckett.
theater review
Nov. 14, 2023
Navigating the Expanses of
Danny and the Deep Blue Sea
Christopher Abbott and Aubrey Plaza star in the 1983 John Patrick Shanley play that’s beloved of young actors.
theater review
Nov. 8, 2023
Tragic Losses, of Life and Language, in
Watch Night
and
Translations
The destruction wrought by colonialism and racism, rendered onstage in very different ways.
theater review
Nov. 5, 2023
What’ll It Be? At
FOOD,
the End of the World As We Know It.
A farcical, funny, and haunting commentary on the industrialized, globalized diet.
theater review
Nov. 2, 2023
I Need That
Does Not Spark Joy
Danny and Lucy DeVito, as an almost-hoarder and his daughter, are trapped in a play full of junk.
theater review
Nov. 2, 2023
Bring a Bucket and a Mop for This
Snatch & Tainty
A juicy, joyful, bodily-function-obsessed trip below the belt.
theater review
Nov. 1, 2023
The ‘Yes, We Can’ Spirit of
Poor Yella Rednecks
Qui Nguyen’s optimistic, funny immigration tale.
theater review
Oct. 31, 2023
The Box-Checking Work Begins:
Merry Me
A self-described lesbian sex comedy leans on its
Angels in America
references.
theater review
Oct. 26, 2023
Covenant
Is Best When It’s At Its Pulpiest
Why aren’t there more plays that lean into being genre horror?
theater review
Oct. 23, 2023
Make Like a Tree: Renae Simone Jarrett’s
Daphne
Ovid’s telling of the myth, reimagined.
theater review
Oct. 23, 2023
The Last Midnight: Sondheim and Ives’s ‘Here We Are’
A strange, dark, fragmented, and compelling final message from the master.
theater review
Oct. 20, 2023
Language As Engine:
Helen.
and
Mahinerator
A feminist Trojan War parable and a monologue that leaps right over the desk to grab you.
theater review
Oct. 19, 2023
How It Went Down, Revised:
Salesman之死
and
Room, Room, Room …
Two plays that find power in strange historical corners.
theater review
Oct. 13, 2023
A Full, Fierce Day in Sean O’Casey’s Dublin
A six-hour, three-play
DruidO’Casey
marathon where the ’20s rhyme with ours, unsettlingly.
theater review
Oct. 12, 2023
Gutenberg! The Musical!
’s Broadway Dreams Mostly Come True
Book of Mormon
dynamos Andrew Rannells and Josh Gad reunite on Broadway with a new mission: to elevate a delightful yet padded-out show.
theater review
Oct. 10, 2023
Here’s to Them. Who’s Like Them? Damn Few.
Turns out what
Merrily We Roll Along
needs most is three actors who can really bring it home, and here they are.
theater review
Oct. 3, 2023
Jaja’s African Hair Braiding,
Where the Stories Intertwine Too
And the wigs deserve an award all their own.
theater review
Sept. 27, 2023
A Vintage Satire That Still Has Sting:
Purlie Victorious
Returns
Ossie Davis’s plantation farce retains its wit and snap.
theater review
Sept. 22, 2023
Slapstick and Plague, in
Mary Gets Hers
Wacky fun with medieval horrors.
theater review
Sept. 19, 2023
Did a Bot Write This Review of
Prometheus Firebringer
? No, and Here’s Why Not.
A script written and performed by AI in real time has unexpected effects on an audience.
theater review
Sept. 18, 2023
Job
Pays Off and Clocks Out
“Like a good TV crime drama, it’s manipulative in a value-neutral sense: It knows the position it wants to put you in, and it puts you there.”
theater review
Sept. 12, 2023
The Mortal Truths of Annie Baker’s
Infinite Life
“This is part of Baker’s brilliance: to ruffle feathers with the calmest of breezes.”
theater review
Sept. 10, 2023
Shadows and Seams, Both Visible:
No Good Things Dwell in the Flesh
In Christina Masciotti’s play about a Queens tailor facing her career’s end, the principal characters are everything.
theater review
Aug. 30, 2023
A
Tempest
in the Park That’s (Mostly) No Thoughts, Just Vibes
In tone and temperament, this production owes much more to Disney than it does to Shakespeare.
fall preview 2023
Aug. 22, 2023
29 Plays and Musicals We Can’t Wait to See This Fall
Our two new drama critics share and compare their enthusiasms.
theater review
Aug. 18, 2023
Improv on the Roof, Catharsis in Aisle 5
What Else Is True?
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Joan of Arc in a Supermarket in California
leave our critic saying, “Yes, and …?”
theater review
Oct. 7, 2019
Theater Review: Deep in Red America with
Heroes of the Four
th Turning
“Will Arbery’s
Heroes of the Fourth Turning
is so frighteningly well written, it’s hard to write about.”
theater review
Oct. 6, 2019
Theater Review:
Slave Play
Nearly Demands a Conversation. So We Had One.
As Jeremy O. Harris’s play transfers to Broadway.
theater review
Oct. 2, 2019
Theater Review:
Freestyle Love Supreme
May Not Be Theater, But It’s a Blast
A loose, fun hip-hop-comedy-improv night with Lin-Manuel and friends.
theater review
Oct. 1, 2019
Theater Review: The Great-Man Theory of
The Great Society
The sequel to
All the Way
goes waist-deep into the big muddy, and then some.
theater review
Sept. 26, 2019
Theater Review: At the Armory, a Mesmerizingly Japanese
Antigone
Satoshi Miyagi strips away the usual chest-beating from Sophocles’ ancient play.
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