theater

Brixton House, London Paula Varjack’s kinetic play uses lip syncing and dance routines to show how prejudice turned a ‘wardrobe malfunction’ into a career disaster The year is 2004 and the Super Bowl halftime show is about to begin. What would later become known as “Nipplegate” – in which Justin Timberlake ripped part of Janet Jackson’s bodice, briefly exposing her right breast – will be broadcas…

Soho Theatre Walthamstow, London The Drag Race star brings nuance to the vocals and has a hoot with a frisky script but this bio-drama is too limited and ultimately cramps her style Drag Race fans already know that the series’ “queen of all queens” Jinkx Monsoon does a mean Judy Garland impression from her lurid account of a threesome with Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. This revival of Peter Quil…

Royal Exchange, Manchester Rory Mullarkey’s play, expertly directed by James Macdonald, is a bold attempt to encapsulate a whole city in decisive events from across three centuries The theme of the Royal Exchange’s 50th anniversary season is “a homecoming”. But whose home do they mean? Who lives here? Who belongs? Is it, for example, the heavily pregnant Annie Donovan, an Irish immigrant who, in …

'Brigadoon' soars at Pasadena Playhouse but 'Flower Drum Song' only intermittently comes to life at Little Tokyo's Aratani Theatre despite best intentions.

Grayson the Musical will explore ‘identity, creativity and self-acceptance … with life coaching from a six-foot teddy bear named Alan’ Grayson Perry’s life story is to be told in an “outrageous” new stage musical co-created with the composer of Jerry Springer: The Opera. Grayson the Musical is a portrait of the artist from his childhood in Chelmsford to his international fame as a Turner prize-wi…

Bush theatre, London Married aspiring standups confront on stage what they’re concealing in real life, in Piers Black’s compelling two-hander Standup is performance in extremis, self-projection in the raw – and has long appealed to dramatists interested in the faces we present to and conceal from one another. That seems to be the territory of I’m Not Being Funny, too, as we meet two young parents…

Shakespeare’s Globe, London Forgoing Brecht’s usual distanciation, Anna Jordan’s new translation and Michelle Terry’s lovable performance bring out the humanity of a woman doing what’s necessary to keep herself and her family alive This production of Bertolt Brecht’s masterpiece seems to break the first rule of Brecht’s epic theatre, which requires emotional distance. It conjures Brecht’s upside …

Actors Vivica A Fox, Kara Young and Mallori Johnson on subverting revenge tropes as Aleshea Harris’s play storms on to the screen Kara Young remembers the fervor around Is God Is’s off-Broadway run in 2018. Playwright Aleshea Harris’s revenge tale ran at New York’s Soho Rep theater from February through May of that year. Young was performing in a different show at the time, but she knew she neede…

Lyric Hammersmith, London The dissolute aristocrats from 1895 remain sharply funny, and bitingly relevant, in this flamboyant new spin Oscar Wilde’s comedy was billed as a “play of modern life” when it premiered at the Haymarket theatre in London in 1895. It is just as modern now in its central, chiming theme: the clandestine corruptions of outwardly squeaky-clean members of parliament. Sir Rober…

Regent’s Park Open Air theatre, London The detective and his sidekick return for a new case by Joel Horwood in an alfresco setting that playfully refers to nearby attractions Outdoor drama is a pleasure complicated by the plot twists of the season. A day of almost hourly showers left the evening air so ominously moist for Sherlock Holmes that the detective could reasonably have announced: “The ra…

Aviva Studios, Manchester Kip Williams’ in-the-round staging, with the action live-projected onto enormous screens, can be disorientating, but Du Yun’s Pulitzer-winning work is compelling and kaleidoscopic English National Opera takes a bold leap , selecting one of the most uncompromising pieces of 21st-century music theatre for the first new opera staged in its northern base. Du Yun’s Angel’s Bo…

Southwark Playhouse, London Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s revenge drama has plenty of rug-pulling twists, but stilted presentation leaves little sense of jeopardy As a revenge fantasy between a former school bully and her victim, Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s 2015 drama sits squarely at the baroque end of the spectrum. Heather (Cassandra Hercules) was targeted by Carla (Serin Ibrahim), a former friend turned …

The late playwright was also a great actor and pianist who combined all three talents in Chasing the Moment, which flowed like real life Jack Shepherd’s plays have such an easy way of doing things, a kind of structure I really hadn’t experienced before. I had seen and admired him directing his own play, In Lambeth, in 1989 at the Donmar Warehouse. So, in a spirit of entrepreneurship after we set …

Nominations also include recognitions for actors including Nathan Lane and Luke Evans while stars such as Lea Michele and Ayo Edebiri were snubbed The Lost Boys and Schmigadoon! lead this year’s Tony nominations with 12 nods each. The original musicals, based on the 80s vampire movie and cancelled Apple TV comedy respectively, will face off against each other in the category of original musical u…

Playwright and Notre Dame alumna Dolores Díaz returned to campus for a staged reading of her play, George Washington’s Mexican Birthday, and a day of conversation with students and faculty.

Brighton Dome Corn Exchange The timeless parable of a 16th-century horse dealer turned violent protester questions the personal cost of resistance in this awe-inspiring production from Omar Elerian It starts and ends with a circle. Arinzé Kene stands, runs or speaks inside it. For his 16th-century horse-dealer protagonist, Michael Kohlhaas, its circularity represents a world in which all is in or…

After an acclaimed, Olivier-winning run on the West End, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical revival will transfer to New York After months of speculation, the award-winning Evita revival will officially transfer to Broadway in spring 2027. The West End run starred Rachel Zegler in the lead role, winning the actor an Olivier award, and she will follow the revival to New York. The triumphan…

Avant-garde theater legend Robert Wilson’s final work was a bold reimagining of Melville’s classic. His collaborators explain bringing it to the Brooklyn stage Not far into Herman Melville’s 1851 epic novel Moby-Dick , a shipowner describes the man who will take their whaler on a tragic quest. Captain Ahab, he says, is “a queer man … a grand, ungodly, godlike man”. The same might be said of Rober…

Broadway reviews of Adrien Brody and Tessa Thompson in “The Fear of 13,” Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf in “Death of a Salesman,” Jon Bernthal and Ebon-Moss Bachrach in “Dog Day Afternoon” and John Lithgow in “'Giant.”

Stephen Dillane and Bridgerton’s Luke Thompson set to co-star in Robert Icke’s production based on the German film this autumn Keira Knightley will return to the West End stage for the first time in 15 years in an adaptation of the Oscar-winning German film The Lives of Others . The play, adapted and directed by Robert Icke and with music by Max Richter, will open at the Adelphi theatre in London…