My favorite new plays of the 2019-2020 (non-Broadway) theatre season:
SUMMA CUM LAUDE
- Lucas Hnath’s Double Trouble: Dana H. AND The Thin Place (Center Theatre Group @ Kirk Douglas) / (Playwrights Horizons)
- Wild Bore (NYU Skirball)
- Is This A Room (Half Straddle @ Vineyard)
- one in two (New Group @ Signature)
- Eraser Mountain (chelfitsch @ NYU Skirball)
- The Michaels (Public)
- Keep (St. Ann’s Warehouse)
- Greater Clements (Lincoln Center)
- Get on Your Knees (Abingdon Theatre Company @ Cherry Lane)
- White Noise (NYU Skirball)
- Before the Meeting (Williamstown Theatre Festival)
- The Fez & The Sandalwood Box (Flea)
- The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes (Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival)
MAGNA CUM LAUDE
- Black Exhibition (Bushwick Starr)
- The Plot (Yale Rep)
- Feos (Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival)
- History of Violence (St. Ann’s Warehouse)
- Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven (LAByrinth Theater Company @ Atlantic)
- Douglas (Daryl Roth Theatre)
- King Philip’s Head Is Still on That Pike Just Down the Road (Clubbed Thumb @ Wild Project)
- Little Women (Primary Stages @ Cherry Lane)
- You Never Touched the Dirt (Clubbed Thumb @ Wild Project)
- Manmade Earth (600 HIGHWAYMEN / Crossing the Line Festival @ Invisible Dog Art Center
- Continuity (MTC)
- Anatomy of a Suicide (Atlantic)
- Mojada (Public)
- The End of Eddy (Next Wave @ BAM)
- User Not Found (Next Wave @ BAM)
- Paris (Atlantic)
- The White Chip (59E59)
- Eureka Day (Colt Coeur @ Walkerspace)
- For the Act 1 closer alone…
- runboyrun & IN OLD AGE (NYTW)
CUM LAUDE (AKA: everything else I saw, listed alphabetically)
- A Hunger Artist (Connelly Theater)
- A Woman of the World (The Acting Company @ 59E59)
- American Moor (Red Bull @ Cherry Lane)
- BAD NEWS! i was there… (NYU Skirball)
- Barber Shop Chronicles (Next Wave @ BAM)
- Bella Bella (MTC)
- BLKS (MCC)
- Cartography (New Victory)
- Distances Smaller Than This Are Not Confirmed (Chocolate Factory Theater @ Abrons Arts Center)
- Dr. Ride’s American Beach House (Ars Nova @ Greenwich House)
- Dracula (CSC)
- Dropping Gumballs on Luke Wilson (Working Theatre @ A.R.T. NYC)
- Dust (Next Door NYTW)
- Entangled (The Amoralists @ A.R.T. NYC)
- Fern Hill (59E59)
- for all the women who thought they were Mad (Soho Rep)
- Frankenstein (CSC)
- Georgia Mertching Is Dead (Ensemble Studio Theatre)
- Goodnight Nobody (McCarter)
- Hamnet (Next Wave @ BAM)
- Harry Townsend’s Last Stand (@ City Center)
- Heroes of the Fourth Turning (Playwrights Horizons)
- House Plant (Next Door NYTW)
- How to Load a Musket (59E59)
- Imagining Madoff (New Light Theater Project @ Theatre Row)
- In Many Hands (Next Wave @ BAM)
- Incantata (Irish Rep)
- jazz singer (Abrons)
- Kingfishers Catch Fire (Irish Rep)
- Lockdown (Rattlestick)
- Long Lost (MTC)
- Make Believe (2ST)
- Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Lookingglass Theatre Company @ McCarter Theatre Center)
- Maz and Bricks (Fishamble / Origin’s 1st Irish @ 59E59)
- Medea (BAM)
- Mirros (Parity Productions @ Next Door NYTW)
- Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow (MCC)
- Mothers (Playwrights Realm @ The Duke)
- Native Son (Acting Company @ The Duke)
- No One Is Forgotten (@Rattlestick)
- Nomad Hotel (Atlantic)
- Notes on My Mother’s Decline (The Play Company @ Next Door NYTW)
- Novenas for a Lost Hospital (Rattlestick)
- Open (All For One @ The Tank)
- Our Dear Dead Drug Lord (2ST @ WP Theater)
- PATHETIC (Minor Theater @ Abrons)
- Power Strip (LCT3)
- Proof of Love (NYTW @ Audible/Minetta Lane Theatre)
- Public Servant (Theater Breaking Through Barriers @ Theatre Row)
- Queens Row (New York City Players @ The Kitchen)
- Reborning (Soho Playhouse)
- Reparations (Billie Holiday Theatre)
- Rinse, Repeat (@Signature)
- salt. (Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival)
- Seared (MCC)
- STEW (Page 73 @ Walkerspace)
- Square Go (Brits Off Broadway @ 59E59)
- Sunday (Atlantic)
- Terra Firma (The Coop @ Baruch Performing Arts Center)
- The Confession of Lily Dare (Primary Stages)
- The Half-Life of Marie Curie (Audible @ Minetta Lane)
- The New Englanders (Manhattan Theatre Club)
- The Perplexed (Manhattan Theatre Club)
- The Pink Unicorn (Out of the Box Theatrics @ The Cell)
- The Rolling Stone (Lincoln Center Theater)
- The Second Woman (Next Wave @ BAM)
- The Transfiguration Of Benjamin Banneker (La Mama)
- The Truth Has Changed (Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival)
- The Underlying Chris (2ST)
- The Unknown Dancer in the Neighborhood (Public Theater’s Under the Radar @ the Japan Society)
- the way she spoke (Audible @ Minetta Lane)
- TJ Loves Sally 4 Ever (JACK)
- Toni Stone (Roundabout)
- Underneath the Skin (NYU Skirball)
- [Veil Widow Conspiracy] (National Asian American Theatre Company @ Next Door NYTW)
- Why? (TFANA)
- Wives (Playwrights Horizons)
