Off-B'way Review: Girl, Interrupted

Juliana Canfield in Girl, Interrupted.
Credit: Joan Marcus

Though it has flaws in terms of pacing and repetition, the new musical adaptation of Girl, Interrupted at the Public, based on Susanna Kaysen’s 1993 memoir, is a heart-wrenching portrayal of surviving mental illness. Pulitzer Prize-winner Martina Majok’s book feelingly depicts Susanna’s struggles with suicidal tendencies and her two-year residency at a mental facility in late 1960s Boston. The country’s collective nervous breakdown over civil rights and Vietnam parallels the psychological battles taking place within Susanna and her fellow patients. The title derives from a Vermeer painting “Girl Interrupted at Her Music.” Susanna obsesses over the work which she encountered during a visit to the Frick Museum with her high-school English teacher who may or may have been sexually inappropriate with her. She identifies with the girl in the painting since they both are interrupted at pursuing their full potential.

Ta'Rea Campell, Juliana Canfield and 
Lauren Jeanne Thomas in 
Girl, Interrupted.
Crdit: Joan Marcus

Issues of sexism are also addressed as her therapist dismisses her ambitions of becoming a writer (“No one is a writer”) and advocates a career for her as a dental technician. (Susanna is finally released when she accepts a proposal of marriage, but later fulfills her literary dreams.) There is only one male actor (a versatile Manoel Felciano), listed as “The Male Presence” who represents the restrictions of the patriarchal society. Majok emphasizes the bond developed between the protagonist and the other inmates. Their shared experiences of trauma and misogyny and feelings of oppression provide a strong connection. One of the most moving scenes involves Susannah and her friends visiting a patient in the violent ward. You can feel their hearts breaking at the degraded state of their former wardmate (she has smeared the walls of her cell with her own excrement), but also the fear that they could slip this far down.

Aimee Mann’s songs starkly evoke the period of the late 1960s, mixing folk-rock with soft-pop, Bacharach-like melodies. Her poetic lyrics chart the strange, far country the young men are trekking through. “Now you’re split in two/And each side isn’t you” they sing as they contemplate their interior conflicts.

Katherine Reis, Mia Pak, Juliana Canfield,
Gabi Campo, King Princess, and Sally Shaw
in Girl, Interrupted.
Credit: Joan Marcus

Director Jo Bonney’s staging is fluid, facilitated by the flexible set by the design team dots and the scene-shifting lighting by Heather Gilbert. Sarah Laux’s costumes subtly denote character such as a frilly mini-skirt for the flirtatious Daisy or radical rags for the rebellious Lisa. But, on the negative side, there are several slowly-paced sequences and many of the women’s stories are too similar, though the actresses including Gabi Campo, Mia Pak, Katherine Reis, and Sally Shaw do their best to provide differentiation.

The entire cast is exemplary. Constantly on stage, Juliana Canfield as Susannah carries the weight of the show on her slender shoulders and delivers a bravura performance, expressively conveying the young woman’s descent into irrationality and her valiant fight to regain her sanity. King Princess is fiery and funny as the defiant Lisa, the role which won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Angelina Jolie in the 1999 movie version.

Ta’Rea Campbell has several forceful moments as the compassionate nurse Valerie, expressing her divided emotions between sympathy for the young women and responsibility to perform her unpleasant job. Emily Skinner is properly starchy as Susanna’s no-nonsense British therapist. Lauren Jeanne Thomas is delightfully naive as an eager student nurse. She also ably doubles on the bass, flute and violin, along with Felciano who plays the guitar, bass and violin. Andrea Grody is the proficient music director and plays keys and guitar. There are slow patches, but over all, this Girl is a vibrant one.

June 4—July 12. Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St., NYC. Running time: 110 minutes with no intermission. publictheater.org.

B'way Update: Second Stage Season

The 2026-27 theater season continues to take shape. Second Stage has announced its schedule for both its Broadway (at the Hayes Theater) and Off-Broadway (at the Signature Center) platforms. The company's Broadway shows will include a two productions of shows seen previously seen Off-Broadway: a revised version of the long-running favorite The Fantasticks and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Pulitzer Prize finalist Gloria. So far there are only four new plays planned for the upcoming Broadway season with eight play revivals. This is a growing trend of Broadway companies reviving relatively recent Off-Broadway shows and marketing them as Broadway debuts (which they are). Examples include Lobby Hero, Mary Jane, Eureka Day, Becky Shaw, and Marjorie Prime. 

Neil McCaffrey and Jeremiah Porter
in the revised version of The Fantasticks
at Flint Repertory Theater
Credit: Mike Naddeo

The new edition of Fantasticks will feature young lovers Matt and Louis rather than Matt and Luisa. Their scheming fathers will be replaced by two scheming mothers. The late Tom Jones revised his own book and lyrics (to Harvey Schmidt's music) before he passed away in 2023. Christopher Gattelli (Schmigadoon) directs and choregraphs. The adaptation was presented in 2022 at Flint Repertory Theatre in Flint, MI, and was developed in subsequent productions at the Provincetown Theater in Provincetown, MA, and Coachella Valley Repertory in Cathedral City, CA. Previews begin at the Hayes on Oct. 22 prior to a Nov. 16 opening. The Fantasticks holds the record for the world's longest-running musical at 42 years and is a favorite of community and high-school productions. (I appeared as The Old Actor in a Brooklyn church production directed by Jeffrey Seller, who later produced Rent, Avenue Q, In the Heights, and Hamilton.) 

2026 Tony Award Predictions

For the past few years, I've combined my predictions for the Tonys with the Drama Desks because the two theater-award ceremonies were so close together. But this year, the DDs were held much earlier than the Tonys. So here are my predix for the upcoming Broadway-only Tonys. This has been an odd season with only 34 Broadway productions (if you count return engagements Mamma Mia and Beetlejuice) as opposed to 43 the previous season and 39 the season before that. There are only six new musicals, two of which have already closed (Queen of Versailles and Beaches). Some attribute this to the high volume of shows held-over from previous seasons including The Outlaws, Operation Mincemeat, Death Becomes Her, Buena Vista Social Club, and Maybe Happy Ending. Fewer theaters were available for new shows. 

Best Play
Prediction: The Balusters
Preference: Liberation

Will The Balusters triumph over Liberation?
Credit: Jeremy Daniel

The Balusters is still running and won the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards. Liberation (my choice) did take the Pulitzer Prize but closed as did NY Drama Critics Circle winner Little Bear Ridge Road. Liberation was not eligible for the DD or the OCC since it was nominated last season during its Off-Broadway run. Giant is seen more as a vehicle for John Lithgow than a play that could stand on it own. 

Best Musical
Prediction and Preference: Schmigadoon

The Lost Boys could sneak in, but there is much affection for Schmigadoon, the parody tribute to the Golden Age of Musicals even though most of it was already seen on the Apple TV+ series.

Best Musical Revival

Prediction: Ragtime

Preference: Cats: The Jellicle Ball

I voted for Cats: The Jellicle Ball because it was such a radical rethinking of the original, recasting Andrew Lloyd Webber's cosy musicalization of TS Eliot's poems as a drag ball celebrating outsider queer culture. Ragtime is magnificent, but this Lincoln Center revival is essentially the same show as the first production. As with Liberation, Cats was considered last season by the DD and the OCC for its Off-Bway run. It's very close and could go either way, but I have a feeling the Tony voters will lean towards the traditional with Ragtime.

Best Play Revival:

Prediction and Preference: Death of a Salesman

Despite multiple revivals of Arthur Miller's classic, director Joe Mantello found new insights.

Best Actor in a Play

Prediction and Preference: John Lithgow, Giant

Is John Lithgow on the way to his third Tony?
Credit: Joan Marcus

John Lithgow has two Tonys, Nathan Lane has three. Not that it matters. It's between these two past Tony champs. Lithgow has the edge because his role requires more shifting emotions from rage to deceptively ingratiating wit as the anti-Semitic author Roald Dahl. Lane is brilliant but his Willy doesn't go through as many changes.

Best Actress in a Play:

Prediction and Preference: Lesley Manville, Oedipus

Best Actor in a Musical:

Prediction and Preference: Joshua Henry, Ragtime

Best Actress in a Musical:

Prediction: Caissie Levy, Ragtime

Preference: Sara Chase, Schmigadoon

I preferred Sara Chase in Schmigadoon who was funny and touching as the musical-loving doctor trapped in the titular fantasy town but Drama Desk winner Caissie Levy will probably be part of a Ragtime sweep.

Book Review: Gay Bar: Why We Went Out

(Bought at Center for Fiction bookstore in Brooklyn): Jeremy Atherton Lin combines memoir with social history in his examination of gay bar culture in London, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Through the lens of his personal experiences, Lin dissects shifting attitudes on gays and our public gathering places. There are fascinating details about the history of certain establishments and how their very structure changed over time. Many gay bars covered their windows so patrons would not be seen from the street. Many had "no-touch" policies because same-sex dancing and displays of physical affection were illegal and could result in police raids. 

While I appreciated the history, I found Lin's personal story uninvolving. He does trace his relationship with a boyfriend, nicknamed for a Leonard Cohen song, but I felt I didn't get to know him (Lin or the boyfriend). The very fact that we don't know the guy's name is telling. During his time with the boyfriend, they engage in sex with others. It would have been interesting to delve into that aspect of certain gay unions and why fidelity is not seen by some as important. 

B'way/Off-B'way Update: Awake and Sing; Playwrights Horizons

Danny Burstein, Jessica Hecht and
Jeremy Shamos will star in an MTC
revival of Awake and Sing!

Manhattan Theater Club will present a Broadway revival of Clifford Odets' Depression-era family drama Awake and Sing! Previews begin at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater this December with an opening set for sometime in January 2027. The cast will be headed by Tony winner Danny Burstein (Moulin Rogue, Marjorie Prime), Tony nominee Jessica Hecht (currently in Dog Day Afternoon), and Tony nominee Jeremy Shamos (Clybourne Park). Tyne Rafaeli (Data) directs in her Broadway debut. 

“Awake and Sing! is one of the great masterpieces of our canon—it makes you laugh and breaks your heart in one fell swoop,” said MTC Artistic Director Nicki Hunter. “Though Odets wrote this story of a family caught between the life they imagined and the one they were saddled with nearly a century ago, its questions of ambition and sacrifice feel as timely as ever. I’m thrilled to bring the wildly talented Danny Burstein, Jessica Hecht, and Jeremy Shamos back to the Friedman stage. With Tyne Rafaeli—who will make her Broadway debut with this production—at the helm, I look forward to sharing the power of this play with our audiences.”

Off-B'way Review: Indian Princesses

Serenity Mariana, Haley Wong, Lark White,
Anissa Marie Griego and Rebecca Jiminez
in Indian Princesses.
Credit: Ahron R. Foster

The pain of adolescence and being labelled as different is conveyed with humor and compassion in Eliana Theologides Rodriguez’s insightful comedy Indian Princesses, now at Atlantic Theatre Company’s Linda Gross Theater in a co-production with Rattlestick Theater. The title refers to a father-daughter YMCA bonding program modeled on the Boy Scouts, but as the author explains in a program note, the well-intentioned activity is based on a “pernicious fiction.” An Indian Princess “is an archetype invented to justify the ongoing brutalities of colonization.” Ironically, five middle-school-aged, mixed-race girls spend a formative summer with their white fathers but fall victim to the program’s stereotyping cliches and the cruelty of the other girls’ tribes. The results are a deeper understanding of the young girls’ cultures and uncomfortable confrontations for the dads.

Each of the potential “princesses” and their conflicted pops are drawn with telling details. Andi, the eldest at 12 (entertainingly sullen yet suffering Rebecca Jimenez), longs for more information on her late Mexican Mom. Her macho working-class Anglo father Mac (Pete Simpson, expert at conveying subtext) refuses to open up to her. Whimsical Maisie (delightfully smart and perceptive Lark White), is obsessed with magic and fantasy while her unemployed, unfocused dad Wayne (soulfully struggling Ben Beckley) in an effort to protect from harsh reality, refuses to discuss her African-American background or the history of slavery. 

Anisa Marie Griego and Greg Keller
in Indian Princesses.
Credit: Ahron R. Foster

Well-meaning lawyer Chris (comically blundering Greg Keller) clumsily attempts to interject progressive ideas and attitudes into the gathering and to his strained relationship with his Native American stepdaughters, show-biz-crazy Lily (sweetly show-off-ish Anissa Marie Griego) and shy Hazel (enchanting Serenity Mariana). The group’s heavily religious “Chief” Glen (moving Frank Wood) is torn between keeping “politics” out of the program and acknowledging the raw truth of racism the girls have to face. His granddaughter Samantha (desperate and darling Haley Wong) is wracked with guilt for what she describes as “sinful thoughts.” 

Ben Beckley and Lark White in
Indian Princesses.
Credit: Ahron R. Foster

The Glen-Samantha storyline is the least developed here. We don’t find out why Samantha is living with her grandfather as opposed to with her parents or what she considers sinful. However, Wood and Wong fill in the missing backstory with subtle and layered performances, as does the entire cast. Director Miranda Cornell balances the dramatic and comic moments like an expert juggler. The troupe’s bizarre skit for the Indian Princesses’ Talent Night called “America the Beautiful” is a particularly wonderfully staged and written sequence. Chief Glen has written a wholesome, vanilla-flavored rendition of American history, suitable for a conservative audience. But each of the dads and daughters has their own agenda—Andi wants act on her secret crush on Chris; Chris wants to impose his “woke” sense of  diversity on Glen’s whitewashed version of our national past; Lily sees this as her big opportunity to sing and dance; and slightly embarrassed Wayne and Mac are just looking to bond with their girls. The resultant fiasco is a mess in terms of the story with the kids and parents stepping on each other’s lines, dropping props, and missing cues, but thanks to Cornell’s clear staging we understand each character’s objectives. 

This scene, along with the unspoken dialogue and incomplete sentences that mark the rest of this lovely play, tell us volumes about each of the unhappy daughters and their fathers. They’re all trying to love each other, but so much stands in the way. Rodriguez lovingly chronicles their efforts, failures and attempts to surmount the barrier of prejudice and to celebrate their heritages.

Emmie Finckel’s versatile set recreates a believable community center and the surrounding rustic woods while Mextly Couzin’s atmospheric lighting provides for several different additional locations. This is a beautiful and tender play of healing families and seeking one’s identity.

May 19—June 7. Atlantic Theater Company and Rattlestick Theater at the Linda Gross Theater, 336 W. 20th St., NYC. atlantictheater.org.

B'way Update: Other Desert Cities; Evita Dates and Theater

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ed Harris and
Allison Janney will star in Other Desert Cities.

Eleven-time Emmy winner Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Seinfeld, Veep, etc.) will make her Broadway debut in a revival of Jon Robin Baitz's Other Desert Cities, beginning previews at the Hudson Theater on Sept. 29 with an opening set for Oct. 18. She will co-star with Ed Harris, Allison Janney (seven Emmys), Joe Kerry, and Lily Rabe. Tony winner John Benjamin Hickey will direct.

“I had, more or less, talked myself out of imagining Other Desert Cities back in New York,” said playwright Baitz said in a statement. “But John Hickey is family to me, and I trust him completely. We go back longer than I ever imagined: he hears a play – its ideas, its feeling, its music – with an intelligence and knowingness that anchors a room. And with this company of actors a playwright dreams about, I thought that if there were still something alive in it, they would find it. What’s slightly unnerving is that nearly 20 years later, through all the fractures and divisions, the questions remain the same: how to live with who we are and what we’ve done and call that a life.”

Hickey said in a statement, “I have loved Robbie’s plays since he began writing them. I acted in two of them early in my career, and when I recently revisited Other Desert Cities, I was stunned at how relevant the play remains, maybe now more than ever. It’s an incredibly funny, surprising, and heartbreaking play about an American family. OUR American family. To be able to bring it back to Broadway, with this powerhouse ensemble of actors, and incredible creative team, is a dream come true.”

The play opened Off-Broadway at Lincoln Center's Mitzi Newhouse Theater in 2011 with a cast including Stockard Channing, Linda Lavin, Stacy Keach, Thomas Sadoski, and Elizabeth Marvel. Joe Matello directed. The production transferred to Broadway with Judith Light (who won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress) and Rachel Griffiths replacing Lavin and Marvel.

The story concerns a family with political and show-biz connections facing a crisis over a Christmas holiday when the daughter announces she is writing a tell-all memoir, potentially exposing uncomfortable family secrets.