Thanks to Jack Serio’s direction and playwright Ruby Thomas’s script, “The Animal Kingdom” falls into the category of a difficult but necessary watch, and the questions we are left with inspire us to think more critically about our mental health and relationships.
Theater
Posted inArts & Culture, Interviews
John Patrick Shanley on ‘Doubt,’ sex abuse and his Catholic upbringing
In an interview with Rob Weinert-Kendt, the playwright John Patrick Shanley discusses the continued resonance of ‘Doubt.‘
Posted inArts & Culture, Theater
Interview: ‘Terce: A Practical Breviary’ composer Heather Christian believes in theater
“Terce: A Practical Breviary” doesn’t feel all that far from a worship experience—at least, what an ideal worship experience might be.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
Voice, posture, emphasis: What priests could learn from theater actors about saying Mass
The way a presider celebrates Mass can illuminate the congregation’s experience of liturgy.
Posted inArts & Culture, Theater
The big family drama returns to Broadway with ‘Appropriate’ and ‘A Prayer for the French Republic’
For playwrights, family dramas are never just about families.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
The great message of ‘Our Town’: Nostalgia and regret come with age. So do grace and compassion.
Good theater draws us into its few hours of seeming reality, but it is most effective when it speaks to our lived reality.
Posted inArts & Culture, Theater
Three new shows break the mold of the jukebox musical—for better and for worse
Three new Off-Broadway shows don’t just show us what draws musicians to their chosen medium; they make us hear it, with often bracing effect.
Posted inArts & Culture, Theater
Stephen Sondheim’s final musical is a satisfying cap to an extraordinary career
Sondheim has left the building, and he lives on only in interpretation and iteration, no less than Shakespeare or Mozart.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
Pro-life playwrights exist. The Dramatists Guild just doesn’t seem to think so.
I was saddened but not surprised by the pro-abortion position of the dramatists guild.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: August Wilson, a playwright of multitudes
In ‘August Wilson: A Life,’ an excellent new biography by Patti Hartigan, we read of the winding path that led Wilson to his ascendance, then delves into the tumults and triumphs of his two decades at the heights of achievement.