The initial impression I had of Cold War Choir Practice, Ro Reddick’s 2026 Susan Smith Blackburn prize-winner, was that it had a severe case of the cutes. The impression remained throughout. Furthermore, it seemed as if the overwhelming cutesie-poo content was intended to pass for satire.
The intermissionless work is promoted in a preliminary release as an “explosion of roller disco, Reaganomics, espionage, and cults, underscored by the cryptic Syracuse, NY, chapter of the Seedlings Children’s Chorus.” Which is as good a summary as might be offered, although among other elements it doesn’t include a more exact description of the Seedlings Children’s Chorus or its several references to 20/20, the long-running Barbara Walters news program.
The action takes place on Afsoon Pajoufar’s capacious view of a roller rink interior, furnished without the rink for actual skating but with a lit Christmas tree to indicate the season. (No one actually skates.) The program indicates it’s “(mostly)” December 1987, back in the day when Russia’s Mikhail Gorbachev was introducing perestroika and thus establishing the work’s political atmosphere.
[Read Frank Scheck’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
Be aware that the Cold War Choir Practice cutes quotient is much embodied by a three-member choir (the always wonderful Grace McLean with the always wonderful Suzzy Roche and here-wonderful Nina Ross). From start to finish the trio slinks in and out delivering, by the end, 13 Ro Reddick songs, including “The Farmer and The Businessman” and “Milkshake for Peace.” You read that right, and, yes, there is a prop milkshake. (My mouth was watering for the real thing.)
When the Choir retreats from the stage or sometimes remains hugging a wall or some such pose, Reddick unfolds the story of 10-year-old Meek (played by adult Alana Raquel Bowers), who lives with former Panther and now Roll-A-Rama owner dad Smooch (Will Cobbs) and grandmother Puddin (Lizan Mitchell) as well as often being visited by uncle, White House aide Clay (Andy Lucien). Also in frequent attendance is Clay’s chronically unwell wife Virgie (Crystal Finn).
Exactly what the story is meant to be about is evasive at best. Meek’s understanding of what’s occurring around her involves what she takes in of her sharp-tongued grandmother’s attitudes. Also, as she’s in the midst of the Cold War thaw, she becomes friendly with S+S, a Russian (Ross), who invites Meek to involve herself in some sort of conspiracy that challenges audience understanding. More cuteness: S+S addresses Meek as Meeksnaya.
It may be that Reddick is more bent on what brothers Smooch and Clay are about. For a few of the script’s pages it appears that how Black men are evolving in this changing D.E.I. world is a meaningful theme. That’s a certainly welcome implication.
To that end and during the gathering action, such as it is, Smooch challenges Clay by insisting his reclaiming Roll-A-Rama is his successful attempt to resurrect their worsening neighborhood. It’s his contribution to the all-encompassing Black community. Clay replies that his White House obligations represent taking steps forward in the move toward Black advancement. Both arguments seem—and are—positive.
The play’s explosive element (spoiler alert) is a literal explosion, the outcome of a mysterious device the severely under-the-weather Virgie takes to carrying around. That it goes off, destroying the roller rink, looks to be the climactic development that Reddick feels she needs to unleash. The event gives lighting designer Masha Tsimring and sound designer Kathy Ruvuna an opportunity to show what they can do, and they seize it.
So much of what busily precedes and follows this as Meek ruminates, brothers Smooch and Clay confront each other, Puddin complains and accuses, and Virgie’s frame of mind devolves doesn’t seem to make cohesive sense. Towards the end Smooch is sufficiently at a loss about proceedings to blurt, “I never liked that choir. Got you singing them fucked up songs.”
In the end, audience members may be sharing the “What’s really going on?” query and not coming to a satisfied conclusion. Reddick’s dropping the notion of ballistics into the fracas, perhaps to give Cold War Choir Practice a contemporary tang, doesn’t come to much, either.
Through it all the agreeable cast members do whatever they can with the material—choir members McLean, Roche, Ross repeatedly lurking and larking—but it may be director Knud Adams (with the property since its Clubbed Thumb and Page 73 development) is too committed to the overplaying that the outcome is so tiring.
Cold War Choir Practice opened March 10, 2026, at the MCC Theater Space and runs through March 29. Tickets and information: mcctheater.org
