Off-B'way Reviews: Cold War Choir Practice; Bigfoot!, A New Musical; Chinese Republicans

Alana Raquel Bowers, Andy Lucien, and
Crystal Finn in Cold War Choir Practice.
Credit: Maria Baranova

That distinctly weird, transitional decade, the 1980s, provides the time frame for two wildly funny Off-Broadway productions. This was a time when America was rejecting the liberal ideals of the hippie-Vietnam era and moving into the narcissistic, ego-driven period of “Me first and the rest of you be damned.” Both shows use parody to lampoon the excesses of the time. One examines serious conflicts while the other is a silly spoof. The more complex work is Cold War Choir Practice, Ro Reddick’s imaginative, surprisingly riotous take on Reaganomics, nuclear threats, and race relations co-presented by MCC Theater, Clubbed Thumb and Page 73. Set in 1987 and written with a sharp satiric edge, this insightful and mercilessly dark comedy focuses on African-American adolescent Meek (intense and winning Alana Raquel Bowers) who becomes embroiled in international espionage when she corresponds with a Russian pen pal.

Will Cobbs, Lizan Mitchell, and 
Alana Raquel Bowers in
Cold War Choir Practice.
Credit: Maria Baranova

Matters get complicated when Meek’s estranged uncle Clay (solid Andy Lucien), a prominent black conservative, brings his mysteriously ill white wife Virgie (appropriately shattered Crystal Finn) home to the family’s Syracuse, NY, roller-skating rink for the holidays. Meek’s choir Seedlings of Peace and Virgie’s cultish women’s affinity group are involved in attempting to steal Clay’s state secrets. Meek’s dad Smooch (fiery Will Cobbs) and grandma Puddin (fun and feisty Lizan Mitchell) clash with Clay and Virgie, trying to fathom their family member’s transformation from radical Black Panther follower to Reagan White House advisor. 

Book Review: The Secret History

(Bought for full price at Barnes and Noble because I needed something to read on a big trip; another of the 100 books the BBC says I should read before I die.) You know a book is successful if you feel compelled to keep reading to find out what happens. Even if you are tired and it's 1 o'clock in the morning, you need to got to the end of a chapter. You need to know how the story turns out. Donna Tartt's The Secret History had that effect on me. I absolutely hated all the characters, but Tartt forced to me to keep going. She masterfully structured the suspense so that even though the book climaxed about half through its nearly 600 pages, I continued reading.

The story revolves around a small group of elitist students at a Vermont liberal-arts college. Under the influence of their beloved classics instructor, they commit several immoral acts and eventually spiral out of control. The narrator is Richard, a young man searching for meaning in his life. He thinks he finds it with his new friends and studies of ancient Greek, but he loses his moral compass. The story reminded me of Lord of the Flies in its examination of ethical relativism. Tartt's attention to detail and characterization are flawless. I did not like any of the characters. Richard is weak. The instructor Julian is a coward, selfish and clueless about the real world. Henry is narcissistic. Bunny is annoying. Charles is pathetic. HIs twin sister Camilla is vacuous. No one behaves well, but the plot was so addictive, I couldn't put this massive novel down. Also enjoyed Tartt's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Goldfinch, also about a lost young man without a family. I might try her The Little Friend.

B'way/Off-B'way Update: MTC; Wanted Musical

School Girls or the African Mean Girls Play
at MCC Theater.
Credit: Craig Schwartz

Manhattan Theater Club has announced two productions for its 2026-27 season: The Broadway premiere of Jocelyn Bioh's School Girls; or The African Mean Girls Play and the American premiere of Nick Payne's The Unbelievers. School Girls debuts Off-Broadway at MCC Theater in 2017 and focuses on an elite all-girls school in Ghana where the students are obsessed with an upcoming beauty pageant. Previews begin Sept. 8 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater. Whitney White who has staged Bioh's Jaja's African Hair Braiding for MTC at the Friedman directs. Casting and an opening date TBA.

Off-Broadway, MTC presents Nick Payne's The Unbelievers at City Center Stage I with preview performances beginning Oct. 13. Tony nominee Knud Adams (English) directs. MTC previously presented Payne's Constellations and Incognito. The play is about a family dealing with the disappearance of their teenaged son and how it impacts their faith. Additional MTC productions for the 2026-27 season will be announced soon.

Gun & Powder (now retitled Wanted)
at the Paper Mill Playhouse.
Credit: Jeremy Daniel

In other 2026-27 Broadway news, Wanted, the new musical formerly known as Gun and Powder, will arrive at the James Earl Jones Theater this fall. Previews begin Oct. 15 prior to a Nov. 8 opening. Solea Pfeiffer (Hadestown) and Liisi LaFontaine (Moulin Rouge in the West End) will star as Mary and Martha Clarke, African-American twin sisters who passed as white in 1893 Texas. Wanted features a book and lyrics by Angelica Cheri (descendant of the Sisters Clarke), music by Ross Baum, and choreography by Chelsey Arce  (Sweeney Todd revival, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child).  Obie winner Stevie Walker-Webb directs.

Under the title Gun & Powder, the musical played the Paper Mill Playhouse in Spring 2024 and then had a workshop in June 2025.

Also, two-time Tony winner Kara Young (Purlie Victorious, Purpose) will join the cast of the revival of Proof, replacing Samira Wiley who had to withdraw due to a treatable medical condition. Young joins Ayo Edebiri, Don Cheadle and Jin Ha at the Booth Theater where previews begin March 31, opening April 16.

B'way/Off-B'way Reviews: Every Brilliant Thing; Bughouse; Burnout Paradise

Daniel Radcliffe in Every Brilliant Thing.
Credit: Matthew Murphy

The Daniel Radcliffe vehicle Every Brilliant Thing, currently at the Hudson after a transfer from London, is ostensibly a solo show. The former Harry Potter star is the only cast member listed in the program. Yet the show really features one of the largest ensembles on Broadway. Before its 85 minutes have elapsed almost the entire audience has taken part in this moving, intimate yet expansive meditation on depression and recovery, performed with energy, wit and compassion by Radcliffe. 

Originally produced at the Edinburgh Festival and later Off-Broadway during the 2014-15 season, Brilliant involves its audience to amazing extent. An unnamed protagonist relates his childhood-to-adult story of compiling a list of all the things that make life worth living in response to his mother’s repeated suicide attempts. Theatergoers are given post-its with items on the list and read them out when called upon. Additional spectators take on the roles of the hero’s long-suffering dad, understanding school counselor, sympathetic love object (male at performance attended), and many others. This is a joyous and heartwarming experience as the patrons cry out “Ice cream” and “Water fights,” though it was difficult to make out some of the longer entries when it was clear the audience member did not have vocal training and Tom Gibbons’ sound design could not entirely clarify their remarks.

Oscar Predix

For the past few Oscars seasons, I've made it a point to see as many of the nominees as possible including documentaries, foreign films, animated and shorts. Since I was in Ecuador for two weeks, I was not able to see as many Oscar contenders as usual. I wasn't as enthused about this year's crop anyway. The front runner, One Battle After Another did not particularly impress me. Paul Thomas Anderson will undoubtedly win for his direction and adapted screenplay (from Thomas Pynchon's novel Vineland). His long, tracking shots and suspenseful chase scenes are indeed riveting, but I didn't really care about the cardboard characters and their nutty conspiracies. Sinners which shattered the record for most nominations seems to be surging and I enjoyed it more than Battle. Michael B. Jordan who triumphed over early favorite Timothee Chalamet at the SAG Awards could benefit from the Marty Supreme star's oafish comments on nobody caring about ballet or opera. Chalamet is seen as arrogant and too eager for his first Oscar at age 30. The reasoning seems to be let him win one when he's older and more humble. 

Anyway here are my predictions in all categories for the Oscars on this coming Sunday:

Off-Broadway Reviews: Antigone (This Play I Read in High School); Marcel on the Train

Celia Keenan-Bolger and Susannah Perkins
in Antigone (This Play I Read in High School).
Credit: Joan Marcus

There have been numerous attempts at updating Greek tragedy. This season alone the tale of Oedipus has seen a new modern version from Robert Icke and a revival of the gospel musical adaptation. Anna Ziegler has taken on the shattering narrative of Oedipus’ equally benighted daughter Antigone in a searing retelling through a modern lens. Subtitled (This Play I Read in High School), this Antigone is still a devastating portrait of female defiance of male oppression but goes several steps further. 

In Sophocles’ original, Antigone is condemned to death for giving her brother a decent burial in defiance of the king, her uncle Creon who wants the body to be left to the vultures for political reasons. In Ziegler’s skillful melding of myth and modern issues, the heroine is to be killed by the state for having an abortion. This is a chillingly relevant adjustment since so many states have made such an operation illegal since the overturning of Roe V. Wade and some have gone so far as to equate abortion with homicide, punishable by lengthy prison sentences. (The state of Tennessee just unsuccessfully attempted to make execution the penalty.) How many Antigones are there in America today?

Ziegler answers that query by combining a contemporary woman’s story with a version of the original that takes place simultaneously in the past and the present. Celia Keenan-Bolger compassionately plays the Chorus who interweaves her 2026 story of an unwanted pregnancy with Antigone’s tale after meeting a punky, self-possessed teenager (the magnificently spiky Susannah Perkins) who happens to reading the play across the aisle from her on an airplane. We then travel to a Thebes not unlike our contemporary society where the new king Creon (a searingly self-doubting Tony Shalhoub) strives to bring rigid order to the moral chaos left behind by his predecessor Oedipus, who had unwittingly married his own mother. 

Book Review: Holy Fire

(Read on my phone on the Libby app): I heard about this Bruce Sterling sci-fi favorite on a series of lectures on Prime: How Great Science Fiction Works (Prof. Wolfe). It sounded interesting. In the year 2092, a 92-year-old woman undergoes experimental life extension treatments which cause her personality to go somewhat haywire. She escapes from the San Francisco government medical facility where she is recooperating and launches onto a Candide-like trek across Europe. She hits Stuttgart, Prague, Rome as a model and photographer, falling in with a gang of radical anti-agist rebels. There's something important about a digital cache of memories called a "palace" she has inherited from a former lover, but I couldn't figure out why everybody is after her for its secrets. There was a talking dog in the palace and it escapes to menace our heroine, Mia or Maya depending on if we are referring to her old or new self. There's also something called holy fire, a kind of divine inspiration which apparently has affected the new pope and maybe Mia/Maya.

Mia/Maya's adventures seemed rather random and arbitrary. She just bounces from incident to incident with no strong objective or goal. We do get a fascinating picture of late 21st century life with analyses of public life, fashion, art, and intergenerational conflict. Older people called geronticrats stack the deck in their favor and keep younger people impoverished. 

There were individual sequences I found compelling such as a talking dog called Aquinas (not the other talking dog) with his own intellectual TV chat show and a touching scene where Mia visits an actress who has transformed into a Neanderthal version of herself to get away from the stresses of modern life. A mixed bag.