Helen Shaw
@helenshaw.bsky.social
Writing about theater for the New Yorker. Tell me if you’ve seen something good!
Torrey Townsend's "Jewish Plot" has two more nights: tonight (Sunday) and tomorrow (Monday). It's the rare show where anything I say could undermine it; the tonal and structural switchbacks here are genuinely exhilarating & I don't want to ruin it for anyone who can get to Theatre 154 in time. (1/4)
November 9, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Torrey Townsend's "Jewish Plot" has two more nights: tonight (Sunday) and tomorrow (Monday). It's the rare show where anything I say could undermine it; the tonal and structural switchbacks here are genuinely exhilarating & I don't want to ruin it for anyone who can get to Theatre 154 in time. (1/4)
In Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson's "Kyoto" at Lincoln Center Theater, the real-life oil lobbyist Donald H. Pearlman (played by Stephen Kunken) tries to derail the UN's Kyoto Accords by sabotaging a decade of negotiations aimed at preventing the climate disaster. His story's compressed but true. 1/5
November 4, 2025 at 5:38 PM
In Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson's "Kyoto" at Lincoln Center Theater, the real-life oil lobbyist Donald H. Pearlman (played by Stephen Kunken) tries to derail the UN's Kyoto Accords by sabotaging a decade of negotiations aimed at preventing the climate disaster. His story's compressed but true. 1/5
Reposted by Helen Shaw
NYMag blew up its story about ICE's increased presence at 26 Federal Plaza, and pasted it on a wall a few blocks away on Broadway
November 3, 2025 at 5:57 PM
NYMag blew up its story about ICE's increased presence at 26 Federal Plaza, and pasted it on a wall a few blocks away on Broadway
Richard Move's bewitching "Martha@BAM—the 1963 Interview" continues Move's long history of "becoming" Martha Graham—what started at a nightclub (Martha@Mother) in 1996 arrives on the BAM Fishman stage at last. Of course the eye makeup is TIGER, the hair is ARCHITECTURE, the torso is CANTILEVERED 🧵
October 29, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Richard Move's bewitching "Martha@BAM—the 1963 Interview" continues Move's long history of "becoming" Martha Graham—what started at a nightclub (Martha@Mother) in 1996 arrives on the BAM Fishman stage at last. Of course the eye makeup is TIGER, the hair is ARCHITECTURE, the torso is CANTILEVERED 🧵
I saw Jeana Scotti's "immersive" show Oh, Honey last season at the restaurant Little Egg; now it's back! A support group for moms of sons who have done regrettable things spirals into disarray...I can 💯 recommend the soup, as well as the up-close, phenomenal performances uglyfacetheatre.com/oh-honey
Ugly Face Theatre - oh, Honey
uglyfacetheatre.com
October 28, 2025 at 1:41 AM
I saw Jeana Scotti's "immersive" show Oh, Honey last season at the restaurant Little Egg; now it's back! A support group for moms of sons who have done regrettable things spirals into disarray...I can 💯 recommend the soup, as well as the up-close, phenomenal performances uglyfacetheatre.com/oh-honey
I've been thinking about Keanu Reeves & double-acts, and I got overwhelmed all over again at the loss of River Phoenix. My Own Private Idaho is so similar to Godot, though there Reeves plays the knowing Didi-type and Phoenix's narcoleptic ingenue is Gogo...I can see their version in my mind's eye
October 3, 2025 at 6:10 PM
I've been thinking about Keanu Reeves & double-acts, and I got overwhelmed all over again at the loss of River Phoenix. My Own Private Idaho is so similar to Godot, though there Reeves plays the knowing Didi-type and Phoenix's narcoleptic ingenue is Gogo...I can see their version in my mind's eye
Liba Vaynberg's vividly drawn play "The Matriarchs" (directed by Dina Vovsi) features a rogue's gallery of wonderful downtown actors. Helen Cespedes from Fefu! Rachel Botchan from the Pearl! All doing funny, wise, detailed work in tight quarters @ TheaterLab...(1/4) theaterlabnyc.com/theaterlab-p...
The Matriarchs | Sep 10-28, ’25 | Theaterlab
theaterlabnyc.com
September 23, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Liba Vaynberg's vividly drawn play "The Matriarchs" (directed by Dina Vovsi) features a rogue's gallery of wonderful downtown actors. Helen Cespedes from Fefu! Rachel Botchan from the Pearl! All doing funny, wise, detailed work in tight quarters @ TheaterLab...(1/4) theaterlabnyc.com/theaterlab-p...
In which Jason Zinoman tells Fallon he is becoming a Kremlin star... www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/a...
Being a High-Profile Comedian Right Now Is No Joke
www.nytimes.com
September 22, 2025 at 2:37 PM
In which Jason Zinoman tells Fallon he is becoming a Kremlin star... www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/a...
The tremendous Morgan Bassichis show "Can I Be Frank?" at Soho Playhouse has added a show tomorrow at 9pm! Everything else is sold out out OUT
Bassichis is the funniest and most entrancing comic performer out there; if you don't take that last ticket, I'm gonna www.sohoplayhouse.com/see-a-show/m...
Bassichis is the funniest and most entrancing comic performer out there; if you don't take that last ticket, I'm gonna www.sohoplayhouse.com/see-a-show/m...
September 9, 2025 at 12:49 PM
The tremendous Morgan Bassichis show "Can I Be Frank?" at Soho Playhouse has added a show tomorrow at 9pm! Everything else is sold out out OUT
Bassichis is the funniest and most entrancing comic performer out there; if you don't take that last ticket, I'm gonna www.sohoplayhouse.com/see-a-show/m...
Bassichis is the funniest and most entrancing comic performer out there; if you don't take that last ticket, I'm gonna www.sohoplayhouse.com/see-a-show/m...
Reposted by Helen Shaw
“I am heartbroken to report that after thirty-five proud years, the program I currently direct at USC, the MFA in Dramatic Writing, is being sunsetted…I feel the acute message being sent here; four of its five professors are people of color.” — @luisalfaro.bsky.social #TheaterSKY
Sign of the Times
I am heartbroken to report that after thirty-five proud years, the program I currently direct at USC, the MFA in Dramatic Writing, is being sunsetted.
open.substack.com
August 30, 2025 at 9:28 PM
“I am heartbroken to report that after thirty-five proud years, the program I currently direct at USC, the MFA in Dramatic Writing, is being sunsetted…I feel the acute message being sent here; four of its five professors are people of color.” — @luisalfaro.bsky.social #TheaterSKY
Road Kills by Sophie McIntosh at Paradise Factory is a fierce, nasty little beast...its claws are out. An angry young woman sulks through her mandated community service, picking up roadkill—between scenes, we hear each crash, right before some gnarly blob of fur and blood drops onto the roadway. 1/3
August 26, 2025 at 8:55 PM
Road Kills by Sophie McIntosh at Paradise Factory is a fierce, nasty little beast...its claws are out. An angry young woman sulks through her mandated community service, picking up roadkill—between scenes, we hear each crash, right before some gnarly blob of fur and blood drops onto the roadway. 1/3
Service announcement! The Segal has created its own curated listings site www.theaterlistingsnyc.com, which is now in beta. If you're looking for complete listings, I use the encyclopedic TDF (www.tdf.org/on-stage/sho...) or the Power Search option on show-score (www.show-score.com/shows/all?op...)
Home | Theater Listings NYC
www.theaterlistingsnyc.com
August 25, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Service announcement! The Segal has created its own curated listings site www.theaterlistingsnyc.com, which is now in beta. If you're looking for complete listings, I use the encyclopedic TDF (www.tdf.org/on-stage/sho...) or the Power Search option on show-score (www.show-score.com/shows/all?op...)
I wrote about the Edinburgh Fringe here, but I've also been mainlining Fergus Morgan (thecrushbar.substack.com) and Natasha Tripney (natashatripney.substack.com) et al... I clearly missed so much! What a thrill to be in a city given over to culture (10/10, 5 stars) www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
A Season of Unease at the Edinburgh Festival
In this year’s offerings, the mood ranged from baffled sorrow to laughter in extremis, reflecting our unsettled times.
www.newyorker.com
August 25, 2025 at 1:12 PM
I wrote about the Edinburgh Fringe here, but I've also been mainlining Fergus Morgan (thecrushbar.substack.com) and Natasha Tripney (natashatripney.substack.com) et al... I clearly missed so much! What a thrill to be in a city given over to culture (10/10, 5 stars) www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
Thank you to everyone who spoke to me for this www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
www.newyorker.com
July 23, 2025 at 12:26 AM
Thank you to everyone who spoke to me for this www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
Crystal Skillman's monologue "Open," starring the great Megan Hill, is a magic act with no magic in it--a woman, the Magician, boasts about the illusions she's doing in front of us (bird, rings, flowers, PRESTO!) but nothing actually appears on the empty stage (1/4)
July 16, 2025 at 6:22 PM
Crystal Skillman's monologue "Open," starring the great Megan Hill, is a magic act with no magic in it--a woman, the Magician, boasts about the illusions she's doing in front of us (bird, rings, flowers, PRESTO!) but nothing actually appears on the empty stage (1/4)
Gospel at Colonus on Little Island is sold out except for standing room, but you can always shore up your disappointed spirit with this, Bob Telson's stunning setting of the finest of all Sophocles' choruses.
Numberless are the world's wonders/but none more wonderful than man youtu.be/TiTc8O__9Mw
Numberless are the world's wonders/but none more wonderful than man youtu.be/TiTc8O__9Mw
Numberless Are the World's Wonders (Live)
YouTube video by Release - Topic
youtu.be
July 14, 2025 at 9:30 PM
Gospel at Colonus on Little Island is sold out except for standing room, but you can always shore up your disappointed spirit with this, Bob Telson's stunning setting of the finest of all Sophocles' choruses.
Numberless are the world's wonders/but none more wonderful than man youtu.be/TiTc8O__9Mw
Numberless are the world's wonders/but none more wonderful than man youtu.be/TiTc8O__9Mw
Such an odd series of season announcements—one alone wouldn't have raised eyebrows, but it certainly looks like a trend when taken together (CSC, Roundabout, Williamstown, Playwrights Horizons) www.broadwayworld.com/article/Wher...
Where Are the Women? New Theater Season Announcements Signal a Troubling Setback
I’ve been writing about the lack of female representation in creative teams for at least 15 years. When I wrote a series on female playwrights a couple of years back, there was a sense that things wer...
www.broadwayworld.com
July 3, 2025 at 7:50 PM
Such an odd series of season announcements—one alone wouldn't have raised eyebrows, but it certainly looks like a trend when taken together (CSC, Roundabout, Williamstown, Playwrights Horizons) www.broadwayworld.com/article/Wher...
Diana Oh: Rest in peace, rest in power, rest in song, rest in flow youtu.be/RZmV6_1j1xk
Diana Oh's Clairvoyance
YouTube video by American Repertory Theater
youtu.be
June 19, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Diana Oh: Rest in peace, rest in power, rest in song, rest in flow youtu.be/RZmV6_1j1xk
Reposted by Helen Shaw
Yooooo I just won a James Beard Award for my profile of Padma Lakshmi from last year! www.newyorker.com/culture/prof...
Padma Lakshmi Walks Into a Bar
Since leaving “Top Chef,” Lakshmi has found herself in a period of professional uncertainty. What better time to try standup comedy?
www.newyorker.com
June 15, 2025 at 2:43 AM
Yooooo I just won a James Beard Award for my profile of Padma Lakshmi from last year! www.newyorker.com/culture/prof...
Mission Impossible borrowed from so many older better, movies—e.g., Fail-Safe, which led me to By Dawn's Early Light, which...is amazing? Rebecca DeMornay, James Earl Jones and Martin Landau try to stop an ongoing hot war, never flagging even when a braggadocious fool gets the nuclear codes
June 8, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Mission Impossible borrowed from so many older better, movies—e.g., Fail-Safe, which led me to By Dawn's Early Light, which...is amazing? Rebecca DeMornay, James Earl Jones and Martin Landau try to stop an ongoing hot war, never flagging even when a braggadocious fool gets the nuclear codes
A really wonderful play by Ariel Stess—Kara & Emma & Barbara & Miranda—just won the Yale prize, chosen by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Absolutely super and appropriate choice: there’s a deep link btw Purpose’s monologues and Stess’s storytelling, a return to literary gorgeousness and patience
May 31, 2025 at 10:26 PM
A really wonderful play by Ariel Stess—Kara & Emma & Barbara & Miranda—just won the Yale prize, chosen by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Absolutely super and appropriate choice: there’s a deep link btw Purpose’s monologues and Stess’s storytelling, a return to literary gorgeousness and patience
Seagull: True Story by Eli Rarey, dir. by Alexander Molochnikov, produced by En Garde Arts @ La Mama, is a grotesque carnival, exploring parallels between Russia's murderous repressiveness & U.S. anti-art callousness. Both expect artists to dance, while the Big Boys laugh & throw pocket change 1/5
May 26, 2025 at 7:13 PM
Seagull: True Story by Eli Rarey, dir. by Alexander Molochnikov, produced by En Garde Arts @ La Mama, is a grotesque carnival, exploring parallels between Russia's murderous repressiveness & U.S. anti-art callousness. Both expect artists to dance, while the Big Boys laugh & throw pocket change 1/5
The list of San Francisco theatres lost at the end of this article is awful to read…
Sadness. Just sadness. The kind that hits you in waves. The initial shock. The multiplying implications. The looking through old show photos to tally one fabulous production after another. On Aurora Theatre Company's decision to suspend its season in 2025-26: www.sfchronicle.com/entertainmen...
Another Bay Area theater is ‘suspending’ as industry’s free fall continues
For 33 years, Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre Company has been renowned for language-forward theater performed by exceptional Bay Area actors in an up-close venue.
www.sfchronicle.com
May 13, 2025 at 10:05 PM
The list of San Francisco theatres lost at the end of this article is awful to read…
Agree 💯 with Sara's rec of Lobster, Kallan Dana's A+ highschool comedy-turned-drama.... young Nora (Cricket Brown!!) stages Patti Smith & Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth with fellow students who struggle to channel the original's chthonic ambition. The Tank 'til 5/17... www.vulture.com/article/what...
May 13, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Agree 💯 with Sara's rec of Lobster, Kallan Dana's A+ highschool comedy-turned-drama.... young Nora (Cricket Brown!!) stages Patti Smith & Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth with fellow students who struggle to channel the original's chthonic ambition. The Tank 'til 5/17... www.vulture.com/article/what...
A(U)NTS! at The Brick, written by Zoe Geltman and directed by Julia Sirna-Frest, is a dropped icecream cone of a play: sweet & sticky & a lil bit...infested. It starts as a workplace comedy about 3 single aunts (Jehan O. Young, Geltman, and cannonball Megan Hill), working in a medical office...1/5
May 12, 2025 at 10:19 PM
A(U)NTS! at The Brick, written by Zoe Geltman and directed by Julia Sirna-Frest, is a dropped icecream cone of a play: sweet & sticky & a lil bit...infested. It starts as a workplace comedy about 3 single aunts (Jehan O. Young, Geltman, and cannonball Megan Hill), working in a medical office...1/5