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1 week ago | 
americantheatre.org | Rob Weinert-Kendt
What goes into the recipe for a new play? For Dhaba on Devon Avenue, now in its belated premiere in a co-production by Chicago’s Writers Theatre and TimeLine Theatre (June 19-July 27), playwright Madhuri Shekar stirred in a helping of immigrant history, a dash of Chekhov, a pair of local actors she wanted to write for—and a to-die-for saag grilled cheese sandwich a friend once made for her.
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3 weeks ago | 
americantheatre.org | Rob Weinert-Kendt
One reason people turn to religion, it is often thought, is for comfort in tough times. There’s certainly ample truth in that, as many who have lived through grief or recovery can attest. That’s not primarily why I personally attend church and maintain a connection to organized religion, despite—or perhaps because of—regular fluctuations in the status of my faith.
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4 weeks ago | 
americantheatre.org | Rob Weinert-Kendt
The great American playwright Terrence McNally lived on 9th Street in New York City’s Village for 24 years, many of them with his husband, theatre producer Tom Kirdahy, until McNally died of Covid in early 2020.
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4 weeks ago | 
americantheatre.org | Rob Weinert-Kendt
It’s never the wrong time for Molière, of course. But is it possible that our current era of DOGE and MAGA, of brazen corruption and camp Americana, is uniquely suited to the acerbic social satires of the 17th-century farceur who gave the world a veritable shooting gallery of schemers, hypocrites, and narcissists as colorful as they are contemptible? Two new productions in New York City take the spirit if not the letter of Molière as their guiding light.
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1 month ago | 
americamagazine.org | Rob Weinert-Kendt
Fan service isn’t just for Marvel movies.
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1 month ago | 
americantheatre.org | Daniella Ignacio |Rob Weinert-Kendt
Call it a Friday night massacre: On the evening of May 2—just hours after the Trump administration released a proposed budget that would entirely eliminate the both the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), among dozens of other federal agencies—hundreds of arts organizations of all sizes and kinds across the U.S. received emails from the NEA withdrawing pending grants and terminating existing ones, in amounts ranging from $10,000 to...
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1 month ago | 
americantheatre.org | Rob Weinert-Kendt
WASHINGTON, D.C.: President Trump has released a 2026 budget proposal which includes, among many deep cuts to federal spending, the wholesale elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, as well as several other federal and regional cultural agencies.
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1 month ago | 
americantheatre.org | Rob Weinert-Kendt
Emotions are running high backstage at an off-brand bilingual tour of the Rodgers & Hammerstein classic Oklahoma! In Christin Eve Cato’s wild, frank new play O.K.! (at New York City’s INTAR Theatre May 10-June 8), Melinda, an actor, finds out she’s pregnant and has doubts about going through with it. Her castmates—young, salty Elena and soulful, jaded Jolie—have plenty of opinions to share, as do a few supernatural visitors.
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2 months ago | 
americantheatre.org | Rob Weinert-Kendt
My first question for playwright Shayok Misha Chowdhury and his physicist mother, Bulbul Chakraborty—who appear together in Rheology, a beautiful and disarming 75-minute meditation on mortality and family at the Bushwick Starr through May 10—was a simple one: How on earth did you rope your mom into this?
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2 months ago | 
americamagazine.org | Rob Weinert-Kendt
Loading... Click here if you don’t see subscription options“John Proctor Is the Villain” depicts a quintet of teenage girls with remarkable acuity and clear-eyed sympathy. (Photo courtesy of DKC O&M). The #MeToo movement that burst into wide public currency in 2017 gave a name, and a hashtag, to the old and pervasive crimes of sexual assault and harassment, particularly of women and girls by men in positions of social power.
