Raven Snook

Audiences frequently confuse Dael Orlandersmith with the characters she writes and performs. Originally solely an actress, the New York City native began penning her own plays in the mid-90s such as Monster , The Gimmick and Pulitzer Prize finalist Yellowman . Superficially at least, she and her characters do seem to have a lot in common — they’re all brilliant black women trying to transcend di

In a new family musical, director Colman Domingo doesn’t sugarcoat slavery or racism — Although A Band of Angels is based on Deborah Hopkinson’s picture book of the same name and mounted by the New York City Children’s Theatre, the musical is far from child’s play. A tribute to the historic Fisk Jubilee Singers — […]

Why I was almost as excited about Josh Grisetti’s Broadway debut as he was — For any performer, making it to Broadway is usually a dream come true. But for Josh Grisetti, currently costarring in the campy musical comedy It Shoulda Been You, it was the end of a very long nightmare. Okay, fine, I’m […]

Tom Hewitt plays a bad guy with a soft side in Doctor Zhivago — Welcome to Building Character, our ongoing look at performers and how they create their roles When Tom Hewitt admonishes the adolescent daughter of his paramour to “Pull your stockings up, Lara; it’s distracting,” you learn everything you need to know about […]

Seeing the revival of Wendy Wasserstein’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play reminded me of how much it influenced my life — I’m always a bit anxious when I go to a Broadway revival of a show that I loved in its original incarnation. First off, it makes me feel old (or, more accurately, middle-aged—I suspect I’ll be […]

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Welcome to Building Character, our ongoing look at performers and how they create their roles When Mary Louise Wilson urges the audience to “Repent, repent, repent!” in Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of the screwball musical comedy On the Twentieth Century, everyone bursts out laughing. That’s because her character, a seemingly sweet little old heiress, Letitia […]

On the surface, Lucy Thurber’s new drama The Insurgents, now at the Labyrinth Theater Company, recalls her previous work. Like last year’s Obie-winning five-play cycle The Hill Town Plays, which chronicled the turbulent life of an author who (like the playwright herself) escaped an upbringing of poverty and strife in a small northeast town, The […]

Director Michael Longhurst isn’t big on naturalism—at least not for the shows he helms. That’s part of why he and playwright Nick Payne work so well together. Over the past three years, the British compatriots have collaborated on a number of thought-provoking productions. Now they’re both making their Broadway debuts with Manhattan Theatre Club’s Constellations, […]