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.
 |
| Danny Burstein, Jessica Hecht and Jeremy Shamos will star in an MTC revival of Awake and Sing! |
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. 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.
Serenity Mariana, Haley Wong, Lark White,
Anissa Marie Griego and Rebecca Jiminez
in Indian Princesses.
Credit: Ahron R. Foster
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.
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.” 
Anisa Marie Griego and Greg Keller
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. 
Ben Beckley and Lark White in
Indian Princesses.
Credit: Ahron R. Foster
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 at the Linda Gross Theater, 336 W. 20th St., NYC. atlantictheater.org.
 |
| Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ed Harris and Allison Janney will star in Other Desert Cities. |
“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.
 |
| Batman with Eric Shea as Andy |
This episode's window cameo is the weirdest one yet: Werner Klemperer in character as Col. Klink from Hogan's Heroes, but wearing 1966 clothes. He explained he was in Gotham City to catch a spy as if he were still in WWII and the Caped Crusaders tell him to say hi to Col. Hogan. How can a character from the 1940s exist in the 1960s? Only in the Batman 66 universe.
Comedian Jack Carter plays a radio dj but is unbilled.
Catwoman Goes to College/Batman Displays His Knowledge: Bruce Wayne acts as Catwoman's parole officer as she claims to be going straight--to college, majoring in criminality. Stanley Adams (Cyrano Jones from the Trouble with Tribbles episode of Star Trek) plays Capt. Courageous (wordplay on the movie title), an out-of-town cop who arrests Batman after Catwoman frames him. He gets to call the Caped Crusader a "costumed kook." In another cultural allusion, the head of a jewelry firm is named Amber Forever (instead of Forever Amber, a popular potboiler novel). Jacques Bergerac, a popular French actor who appeared on the Dick Van Dyke Show, plays Freddie the Fence. In addition to selling stolen goods, he's an expert swordsman, but not as good as Batman, of course. (In one lame bit, he has a meal of pasta strained through his fencing mask.) TV personality Art Linkletter who hosted People Are Funny appeared in the window cameo.
 |
| Justin Boone and Ruben Santiago-Hudson in Joe Turner's Come and Gone. Credit: Julieta Cervantes |
The 2026 Richard Seff Awards will be presented to Ruben Santiago-Hudson (Joe Turner's Come and Gone) and Linda Emond (Becky Shaw). Established in 2004, the Seff Awards are for outstanding performers over 50 who have been in Equity for at least 25 years.
The Joseph Calloway Award, established in 1989, for the best performances in a classic play goes to McKinley Belcher III (Titus Andronicus, Coriolanus) and Olivia Reis (Oedipus, Titus Andronicus).
The Judges Panel for the 2025-2026 seasonal performance awards included Joe Dziemianowicz, New York Theatre Guide; Adam Feldman, Time Out New York; Elysa Gardner, New York Sun, New York Stage Review; Kobi Kassal, Theatrely; and Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter, New York Stage Review. The awards will be presented on June 22 at the Green Fig in Manhattan in a ceremony hosted by Julie Halston.
