★★★★☆ Playwright Lynn Nottage’s lighter side is nicely served by Signature Theatre’s revival
Off-Broadway
Noura: On Marriage, Motherhood, Refugees, and Family
★★★★☆ Versatile playwright-performer Heather Raffo continues to explore her Middle Eastern heritage with a Christmas-set family drama
The Jungle: Masterful, Timely, and Devastating Living Theater
★★★★★ This latest excellent UK import brings the European Refugee Crisis to our shores
The Jungle: As the World Burns, These Refugees Still Have Hope
★★★★★ This dynamic, extraordinary British import confronts our global crisis and offers insight but no answers
Slave Play: Gabbing Too Much About Sexual Dysfunction and Racism
★★☆☆☆ Steamy sex scenes evaporate into hot air in newcomer Jeremy O. Harris’ debut drama
The Hello Girls: Perky, Pertinent World War I Musical Is Welcome
★★★★☆ Songwriter Peter Mills and Prospect Theater Company celebrate pioneering Great War telephone operators
The Dead, 1904: Dubliner Sisters Invite You to an Immersive Christmas Dinner
★★★★☆ Melissa Gilbert is among the guests attending a holiday dinner drawn from a famous James Joyce story
Two By Friel: Love Stories, Fleeting and Bittersweet
★★★★☆ Director Conor Bagley pairs lovely, haunting accounts of innocence and experience by Brian Friel
The Hard Problem: Puzzling Over Beautiful Enigmas, the Mind and Heart
★★★★★ In Tom Stoppard’s brilliant, moving new play, very smart people grapple with very big questions
The Hard Problem: Tom Stoppard Presents and Cleverly Solves His Latest Theater Problem
★★★★☆ Consciousness is on the playwright’s mind, whether and where that mind might be located, as one young, smart woman sees it