Raven Snook

Seeing the revival of Wendy Wasserstein’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play reminded me of how much it influenced my life — I’m always a bit anxious when I go to a Broadway revival of a show that I loved in its original incarnation. First off, it makes me feel old (or, more accurately, middle-aged—I suspect I’ll be […]

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Welcome to Building Character, our ongoing look at performers and how they create their roles When Mary Louise Wilson urges the audience to “Repent, repent, repent!” in Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of the screwball musical comedy On the Twentieth Century, everyone bursts out laughing. That’s because her character, a seemingly sweet little old heiress, Letitia […]

On the surface, Lucy Thurber’s new drama The Insurgents, now at the Labyrinth Theater Company, recalls her previous work. Like last year’s Obie-winning five-play cycle The Hill Town Plays, which chronicled the turbulent life of an author who (like the playwright herself) escaped an upbringing of poverty and strife in a small northeast town, The […]

Director Michael Longhurst isn’t big on naturalism—at least not for the shows he helms. That’s part of why he and playwright Nick Payne work so well together. Over the past three years, the British compatriots have collaborated on a number of thought-provoking productions. Now they’re both making their Broadway debuts with Manhattan Theatre Club’s Constellations, […]

Playwright Jenny Rachel Weiner uses broad comedy to explore the drama of preprepubescent girls — While most dark comedies about adolescent angst take place in high school (see Heathers, Mean Girls, et al), playwright Jenny Rachel Weiner thinks the anxiety sets in before the teen years. Even now as an adult, she still finds tweens […]

Whether protesting climate change, racial injustice, or overconsumption, Reverend Billy and his Church of Stop Shopping do it in glorious song — It’s going to be a very busy Thanksgiving weekend for the Talen family. For the holiday, Bill Talen, better known as political performance artivist Reverend Billy; his partner and longtime director, Savitri D; […]

Welcome to Building Character, our ongoing look at performers and how they create their roles When director Scott Ellis called Alessandro Nivola back in 2012 about playing the part of moralistic Victorian doctor Frederick Treves in a mounting of The Elephant Man at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, the actor knew he couldn’t say no. After […]

Two new immersive shows at the Park Avenue Armory appeal to grown-ups as much as children