Theater
The Universe Doesn't Cast Leading Roles: Zhu Yi's You Never Touched the Dirt
By Billy McEnteeIn her surreal new comedy You Never Touched the Dirt, the wealthy Lis have lived detached from the land that nurtures them while also paying exorbitant prices to enjoy its unspoiled splendor in a private lakeside community somewhere outside Shanghai. Zhu Yi’s play is a bonkers, tilted, and utterly delightful eclogue; naturally, experimental mainstay Ken Rus Schmoll directs this New York premiere that bows at Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks starting June 3.
In Dialogue: Inner Life, Out Loud: A Strange Loop
By Branden Jacobs-JenkinsMichael R. Jackson’s new musical A Strange Loop premiers at Playwrights Horizons this June in association with Page 73. Earlier this spring, playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and Jackson sat down together for a long talk, covering their time at NYU/Tisch, Jackson’s coming into his own with musical theater, and “negro-liberalism.” What follows is a curated glimpse into that conversation.
“WHY WAIT?” On Being the Artistic Director of Your Own Work
By Crystal SkillmanWhen I log onto the New Play Exchange, I read amazing plays and I think, “Wait, why isn’t this being produced, like, now?” On Facebook, I visit Gina Femia’s Rejection Roundup, which she still continues as she gains success, and I can read threads where I see who else got knocked out of the first round of submissions. And it’s shocking: great writers and great plays are turned away at a rapid rate.
Blood Sacrifice: Adolescence, Borderlands, and Love in Julia Jarcho's Pathetic
By Miriam Felton-DanskyPathetic refracts the story of the lovesick queen onto multiple characters ranging from adolescence to adulthood, each negotiating spiritual and bodily appetites as well as the social costs of growing older in a female body. The play explores “society’s sick need to experience female desire as embarrassment,” as Ásta Bennie Hostetter, production designer and founding company member, puts it.
