Christian Lewis

While midtown has a celebratory vibe and cheers of 'Broadway's Back!' ring with each new opening and re-opening, it is nice to go downtown, to a smaller, less gilded theater, and see a piece of art that is a bit grungier, less commercial, more experimental and edgy. NYTW's Sanctuary City perfectly scratches my Off-Broadway itch.

Pass Over is not the Broadway of yesteryear. This is a new Broadway, both glistening and openly revealing darkness underneath. It is not complacent, uncritical, or simply nostalgic. Perhaps we have finally said goodbye to one incarnation of the Great White Way, and here Pass Over ushers in the next era, baptizing Broadway anew.

Joeclyn Bioh's Merry Wives makes a play written by a white man in England 300 years ago speak to the experience of Black Americans and West African immigrants living in Harlem in 2021. Merry Wives is a vastly enjoyable piece of theater, a celebration of Black joy. After the past year, it is exactly the type of theater we need.

After his triumphant, Tony-award winning revival of OKLAHOMA!, Daniel Fish had a lot to live up to when he announced he would be directing an adaptation of WHITE NOISE. To raise the stakes, he is also the author of the piece, which he described as 'freely adapted from the Don DeLillo novel.'

When adapting famous novels into plays, the debate-and often the source of disappointment-is choosing what to cut. Elevator Repair Service has made the boldest, and yet at the same time the most neutral of choices in their adaptation: they have staged a production of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby' that includes every single word of the novel.

This piece, written by Dan Ireland-Reeves and directed by Zach Carey, is a site-specific, immersive, intimate experience. It is a one man show performed in a purposefully claustrophobic space for a nightly audience of only ten people. The play, which run a little over an hour, is a monologue delivered by Tyler, a confident 24-year-old who has turned to sex work in order to survive in the fatally expensive world of New York City.

Roundabout Theatre Company's latest Off-Broadway play, APOLOGIA, by Alexi Kaye Campbell, opened at the Laura Pels Theatre earlier this month. The play stars Stockard Channing and Hugh Dancy, two beloved actors of stage and screen. But this play is no simple piece - it requires an apologia, an explanation.

I'd like to propose something worthy of 16th century Arcadia: an Ode in Praise of HEAD OVER HEELS. For those who don't know, last month a new musical, HEAD OVER HEELS, opened on Broadway. The music combines a Renaissance source text, Sir Phillip Sidney's 'The Arcadia,' with the music of the Go-Go's to create an adult fairy tale. Not only is the musical incredibly fun, hilarious, and heartwarming, but it is also incredibly important.