Theater

Highlights

Sydney Lemmon Puts the Twisted Humanity Behind Tech on Broadway
After a small part in “Succession,” the actor has a breakout role in “Job,” in which she plays a content moderator having a mental breakdown.
By Zachary Small
CreditMichael Tyrone Delaney for The New York Times
At a Festival Amid Industrial Ruins, Ivo van Hove Takes Charge
For the Belgian director’s first edition as leader of the Ruhrtriennale, abandoned sites are “the starting point and the end point,” he says.
By Elisabeth Vincentelli
CreditVincent Tullo for The New York Times
1. Critic’s Notebook
  My Midsummer Dream: 7 Plays, 5 Days, 4 Stages, 1 Story
  At the Stratford Festival, a remix of genders and genres tells a brand-new, age-old tale of personal freedom.
  By Jesse Green
  CreditAnn Baggley
2. The Tony Winner Behind ‘Appropriate’ Is Back. This Time, With ‘Purpose.’
  Branden Jacobs-Jenkins had Broadway success this year with a drama starring Sarah Paulson. In February, he’ll return with a new play directed by Phylicia Rashad.
  By Michael Paulson
  CreditMichael Brosilow

‘Life and Trust’ Review: Choose Your Own Faustian Adventure
A new theatrical experience in the Financial District is composed of 25 individual stories, but it’s hard to make sense of any of them.
By Maya Phillips
CreditHiroko Masuike/The New York Times
Sutton Foster and Michael Urie Reunite in the Zany ‘Once Upon a Mattress’
The hit Encores! production has transferred to Broadway, with a cast fiercely dedicated to entertaining its audience.
By Elisabeth Vincentelli
CreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times
Critic’s Pick
An Unexpected Bright Spot in Theater? Look to Wisconsin.
No musicals and no mics: At American Players Theater in Wisconsin, nothing comes between the actors, their words and the public.
By Elisabeth Vincentelli
CreditEric Ruby for The New York Times
How Hollywood Glamour Is Reviving the Endangered Broadway Play
George Clooney, Robert Downey Jr., Denzel Washington and Mia Farrow are coming to Broadway, where some producers see plays with stars as safer bets than musicals.
By Michael Paulson
CreditClockwise from top left: Magdalena Wosinska for The New York Times, Chantal Anderson for The New York Times, Roy Rochlin/Getty Images, Jesse Dittmar for The New York Times
A Play About J.K. Rowling Stirred Outrage. Until It Opened.
The muted reaction to the Edinburgh Fringe show “TERF” suggests that when activists engage with potentially inflammatory art, offense can quickly vanish.
By Alex Marshall
CreditAndy Buchanan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Times Insider
A Project That Celebrates Collaboration and Cooperation
For T Magazine, Kate Guadagnino set out to identify the many people involved in creating a single object or artistic work, including a luxury handbag, a performance piece, a pizza and more.
By Sarah Bahr
Fiction
A Man Goes to See His Daughter’s Play. Turns Out It’s About Him.
In Jo Hamya’s second novel, “The Hypocrite,” a 20-something playwright puts her absent, aging writer dad on blast.
By Joumana Khatib
Overlooked No More: Renee Carroll, ‘World’s Most Famous Hatcheck Girl’
From the cloakroom at Sardi’s, she made her own mark on Broadway, hobnobbing with celebrity clients while safekeeping fedoras, bowlers, derbies and more.
By Julie Besonen
Kieran Culkin, Bob Odenkirk and Bill Burr to Star in Broadway ‘Glengarry’
A revival of “Glengarry Glen Ross,” David Mamet’s classic play about unscrupulous real estate agents, is to open next spring.
By Michael Paulson
‘Dance First’ Review: Beckett Encounters Himself
Samuel Beckett’s life is reduced to mommy and daddy issues in a biopic that offers simple explanations for the career of a complex writer.
By Ben Kenigsberg
Theater Review
Compassion Is in Short Supply at This Grief Support Group
In “Someone Spectacular,” Domenica Feraud skewers group therapy and the futility of sharing trauma in a fishbowl.
By Rhoda Feng
A ‘Stranger Things’ Prequel Is Coming to Broadway Next Spring
The play, now running in London, is set 24 years before the start of the Netflix series.
By Michael Paulson
A Jingle Put Cellino & Barnes on the Map. Their Split Inspired a Play.
Many New Yorkers can rattle off the phone number by heart. “Cellino v. Barnes” chronicles the rise and fall of these prominent injury lawyers.
By Matt Stevens
In Photos
Out and About at the Edinburgh Fringe
The streets of the Scottish capital are packed as thousands of performers seek to entertain and entice.
By Robert Ormerod
Can the Higgs Boson Shine on Broadway?
A musical about particle physics is under development, with David Henry Hwang, the playwright behind “M. Butterfly.”
By Dennis Overbye