Category: Playwriting
Playwright Terrence McNally Dies at Age 81 of Coronavirus Complications
By RAVEN SNOOK
The five-time Tony winner was well-known for 'Love! Valour! Compassion!' and the books to many musicals
Revered playwright Terrence McNally has passed away at age 81 at Sarasota Memorial Hospital in Sarasota, Florida. A lung cancer survivor who had with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, he died of complications due to the novel coronavirus....
They're an Everyday American Family, Save for Their Deported Mom
By JOSE SOLÍS
Hilary Bettis on her new play 72 Miles to Go… at Roundabout Theatre Company
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Long before she dreamed of becoming a playwright, Hilary Bettis wanted to be a veterinarian. "How people treat animals tells us so much about their values and their soul," she says. That perspective is evident in 72 Miles to Go…, Bettis' exploration of man's...
A Black Queer Playwright Explores a Story of Those Who Came Before Him
By REGINA ROBBINS
Azure D. Osborne-Lee on why Mirrors was a long time coming
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A drama about black women in '60s Mississippi whose lives are constrained by misogyny and homophobia, Mirrors feels like a play Azure D. Osborne-Lee was born to write. As a black trans theatre artist who grew up in Tennessee and Texas, he longed to see LGBTQ people of color on stage....
This 'Urinetown' Tony Winner's New Musical Comedy Is About the End of the World
By GREG KOTIS & AYUN HALLIDAY
Writer-composer Greg Kotis and his wife Ayun Halliday gab about their latest irreverent theatrical collaboration
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Greg Kotis (who won a pair of Tony Awards for writing the book and lyrics of Urinetown) and Ayun Halliday (experimental dramatist and performer, indie comic icon and best-selling memoirist) have collaborated on a lot of projects over...
Why Young Jean Lee Wants to Ease Your Pain
By DAVID COTE
The button-pushing playwright returns to a 2011 cabaret experiment, but takes herself off the stage
In 2018, Young Jean Lee became the first Asian American woman to have a play produced on Broadway with Straight White Men at Second Stage Theater. But before she shattered that glass ceiling, the Korean American writer-director spent 16 years creating...
Can You Solve the Mystery of 'The Headlands?'
By REGINA ROBBINS
Christopher Chen talks about his latest puzzle of a play, which is having its world premiere at Lincoln Center
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Henry (Aaron Yoo), the narrator and central character of The Headlands at Lincoln Center Theater, is a San Francisco software engineer with an unusual hobby: He likes to investigate cold cases for kicks. At the outset of the play, he...
Finding the Off-Kilter Comedy in Everyday Life
By JEN GUSHUE
With a pair of witty plays in the East Village, Sarah Einspanier is a writer to watch
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Considering Sarah Einspanier has two productions running in New York this spring, it's jarring to hear her claim that "I'm bad at plot when it comes to plays and also my life! I'm always like, you should figure out who you are, but I haven't yet." That kind of...
Bringing Real-Life Tales of the Undocumented to All Five Boroughs
By JOSE SOLÍS
Fandango for Butterflies (and Coyotes) and Border People give audiences a visceral sense of the immigration crisis
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At a recent rehearsal for Fandango for Butterflies (and Coyotes), currently at La MaMa and scheduled to tour the outer boroughs, the very core of my soul was stirred as I listened to two characters speak blissfully about Honduras,...