WELCOME to #TheatreClique — my emphatically intermittent newsletter dedicated to encouraging you to click out to some of the most interesting, intriguing & noteworthy writing about drama, theatre & performance (at least, so says me)…

This Week's #TheatreCliquery:

This installment of #TheatreClique clicks out to pieces that highlight the performance of mourning; the expectations of the non-profit industrial apparatus; and the peculiar intimacies of the internet era — with commentary on Moment of Silence, Bat Boy: The Musical, Martha@BAM - The 1963 Interview, and National Theatre Live’s presentation of Mrs. Warren’s Profession. And for this week’s opener, in a small gesture of recognition to World AIDS Day, I lift this remarkable time capsule from the epidemic’s first decade — a 1989 feature story from New Jersey Public Television’s State of the Arts — that offers a snapshot view of “AIDS in the Arts: Text & Subtext” in the work of artists like Jenny Holzer, Bill T. Jones, Wendy Wasserstein, and Everett Quinton, among others …and if clicking the embedded image below routes to an error message, try clicking here.

EDITOR’S NOTE: whenever possible, whenever linking to paywalled pieces, I try to “gift” the article to #TheatreClique readers. In other words, clicking out to articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Atlantic, and Wall Street Journal should neither present hassle nor burn through your current allotment of free views. Here’s hoping more outlets — hello LATimes! hi NewYorkMagazine! yo NewYorker!— adopt similar technologies for subscribers soon...

#NowClickThis…

Wherein I highlight a handful of the most click-worthy links I’ve encountered in the last few…

• American Theatre — in recognition of World AIDS Day — reminds us of this vivid 1993 reflection by performance scholar Elinor Fuchs on the particular power of The Names Quilt as “a more relaxed, more inclusive, more sensual, more human, more theatrical than anything previously imagined in the protocols of mourning”;

• The New York Times contributor Erik Piepenburg ponders how “this year at least six theater productions have used [a particular “F-word] in their titles, and it doesn’t feel like a coincidence”;

• at NonProfit AF, artist/advocate Vu Le goes all in on the toxically “tedious and paternalistic requirements for ‘accountability’” within the administrative apparatus of non-profit funding;

• at Hyperallergic, freelance arts writer Clara Maria Apostolatos reviews the El Museo del Barrio’s retrospective of performance artist Coco Fusco noting how Fusco has “inhabited a succession of roles — museum specimen, interrogator, colonial queen, subaltern laborer — to expose the systems that produce them”;

• ClubbedThumb’s “End of Year” Fundraising letter gives listens to playwrights Liza Burkenheimer, Abe Koogler, and Ro Reddick talk together about the experience of first developing their recent plays in an Off-Off-Broadway festival setting and then seeing them “transfer” to extended runs at at major Off Broadway theatre;

• and at Caftan Chronicles, writer Tim Murphy gets into with the incredibly smart and unrelentingly funny multi-hyphenate Mike Albo about the dimensions (and limitations) of intimacy in the digital/internet era;

Thoughts from That One Theatregoer Who Likes Pretty Much Everything:

Wherein I offer capsule commentaries on what I liked best — my HIGH-LIKES if you will — about the shows I’ve recently engaged...

#155: Moment of Silence

Written by Mohammad Yaghoubi, in an English translation by Yaghoubi and Torange Yeghiazarian • Directed by Nikoo Mamdoohi, with Dramaturgy by Q-Mars Haeri • Princeton • Lewis Center for the Arts : Berlind Theatre • October 2025.

Celebrated Iranian playwright Mohammad Yaghoubi’s extraordinary 2001 play Moment of Silence’s simple conceit activates a boldly theatrical portrait of Iran’s turbulent sociopolitical history since the 1979 revolution. Basically, Shiva keeps falling asleep — for three or four years at a time — and, with each new awakening, she discovers how her family, her city, and her world have been transformed by the sociopolitical changes of that historical moment in time. Interspersed with Shiva’s story is that of playwright/activist Hasti, who is struggling to finish her new play — the one about a woman named Shiva who keeps falling asleep — but Hasti is distracted by her increasing certainty that her actions are being surveilled by the government. Yaghoubi’s play unfolds across these twined storylines with a disarmingly light touch. Scenes of everyday domestic tenderness and strife continue even as the world beyond Shiva’s (and Hasti’s) home is increasingly (and, often, terrifyingly) transformed. Yaghoubi’s deft delicacy allows the stomach punch of the play’s titular climactic scene to land with a force I find am still feeling. Directed here with elegant grace by Nikhoo Mamdoohi (and with expert dramaturgical support by Q-Mars Haeri), and with thrilling design work throughout — a hauntingly beautiful set by Omid Akbari, deliciously specific costumes by Afsaneh Aayani , and staggeringly effective lights by Alexander Picoult. Quite simply, Yaghoubi’s Moment of Silence is a play that should be known (and staged) everywhere, perhaps especially in the United States, perhaps especially right now.1

See also:

• at JerseyArts, artist/writer Gina Marie Rodriguez profiles the intra-institutional collaboration that brought Moment of Silence to the Princeton stage;

• The Lewis Center for the Arts highlights the program’s efforts to bring lesser heard voices and stories to American stages.

#156: Bat Boy: The Musical

Book by Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming • Music and Lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe • Directed by Alex Timbers • NYC : Off-Broadway • Encores! at City Center • November 2025.

Good golly, I just adore Bat Boy: The Musical. An archly irreverent political allegory about how the steadfast dedication to family and community “values” authorizes corrosive hypocrisy at the expense of the scapegoated “freaks” among us? And one that brilliantly deploys (and incisively parodies) canonical musicals and their storytelling tropes with each and every musical number? Indeed, having seen the 2001 Off-Broadway production and a quite excellent college production a couple years later, I’ve long thought the far darker & more perverse Bat Boy should have enjoyed the mainstream acclaim enjoyed by its twisted GenX musical theatre siblings, Urinetown and AvenueQ. But alas. Bat Boy will forever be the Jan to Urinetown’s Marcia and AvenueQ’s Cindy. But thankfully, the Encores staging confirmed that my affection for Bat Boy is well and truly deserved. Taylor Trensch (as the Edgar the Bat Boy) and Christopher Siebert (as the duplicitous Dr. Parker) are ideally suited to their respective roles and it’s a delight to see Kerry Butler (the original surly teen daughter Shelley) become mother Meredith. Alex Timbers’s direction plucks every storytelling note with the necessary balance of sincerity, cynicism, and wry intelligence — never playing the “joke” and thereby always allowing the layered commentary (and comedy) to unfurl with both delight and horror. Did I mention that I love this musical?

See also:

• Bloomberg’s Chris Rovzar wonders whether high-profile “revisals” of musicals like Bat Boy might cue a trend wherein, “rather than taking a gamble on completely new works, producers are searching for familiar titles with built-in audiences that can be made new again” — note the gift link to this article expires on 12/9.2 •

• in a fun and free-wheeling conversation Theatrely’s Kobi Kassal talks to stars Taylor Trensch and Kerry Butler about whether New York is ready for the return of Bat Boy.

#157: Martha@BAM—The 1963 Interview

Conceived, Directed and Staged by Richard Move • NYC : Off-Broadway • BAM : Fisher Space • November 2025.

Witnessing Richard Move inhabit Martha Graham — as a person, as a persona, as a personage, as a performer — is simply an alchemical wonder. In this iteration of Move’s ongoing (indeed possibly lifetime) performance work “as” Martha, Move offers a para-documentary reenactment of Graham’s 1963 interview with dance critic Walter Terry at the 92nd Street Y. With the support of the brilliantly funny Lisa Kron (enacting Walter Terry with charismatic precision) and two expert dancers (Catherine Cabeen and PeiJu Chien-Pott), Martha@BAM offers not only a meticulous tutorial in Graham’s enduringly influential movement vocabulary/philosophy but also an arch commentary on Graham’s exultation in the distinctly midcentury mode of “modern” genius in which Graham flourished. But the thrill of this piece, as much as it is ostensibly “about” Martha Graham, is also about theexhilarating visual, physical, and vocal thrills stirred by whatever it is that Richard Move is doing when they inhabit — inhabit? impersonate? embody? channel? become? resurrect? — Martha. Move’s work as Martha is an undeniable marvel to behold — as emotionally rich as it is intellectually stimulating, as vocally accomplished as it is physically masterful, and perhaps as wondrous a twining of the spirit, craft, and artistry of performance as I have ever experienced.

See also:

• TheNewYorker’s Hilton Als reflects on how Richard Move “having lived with Martha so long, and with such love—[takes] us to places with their artistry and Graham-fuelled dreams that we couldn’t even imagine”;

• ExeuntNYC’s Loren Noveck considers Marth@BAM “a creative approach to archival material, a way to hear Graham talk about some of her most famous work, [and] a fascinating way to spend an hour.”

#158: Mrs. Warren’s Profession (NTLive)

Written by George Bernard Shaw • Directed by Dominic Cooke • National Theatre Live @ Princeton Garden Theatre (Princeton NJ) • November 2025.

I include my encounter with the National Theatre Live production of George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession as being part of my theatregoing diary for three main reasons. First, I’m staunch in my resolve that my engagement with what I have elsewhere called “remote theatre” stands as an essential, legitimate and valuable part of my theatregoing practice. Next, I chose to attend this presentation not because I wanted to see a movie but because I wanted to see a this production of this play. Finally, thanks to the NTLive production apparatus (and the sniffling, snoring, and candy-crinkling behavior of my fellow audience members), my experience of this presentation felt very much like a theatregoing experience. But to turn to the production itself: director Dominic Cooke’s decision to present the play’s series of scenes on a simple, ever-so-slightly raked round platform introduces a compelling measure of visual abstraction, which was amplified by his introduction of a “chorus” of sorts — eight or maybe ten women, of varied ages and races and body types, all attired in bedclothes — to elegantly enact the silent labor of scenic transitions. The intermittent but watchful presence of these laboring women recasts the play’s emphatically abstracted ruminations about the economics/ethics/morality/etcetera of the labor of sex work into a different theatrical register. Indeed, this simple — some might say gimmicky — production conceit, in tandem with the expertise of the actors, allowed me to both hear and feel new textures in a play that I know and admire quite well. I left the Princeton Garden Theatre abuzz — with emotions, with ideas, with excitement. Which is what I crave from theatregoing, whether in person or “remote.”

See also:

• Seen & Heard International’s Jim Pritchard reflects on how Mrs. Warren’s Profession is “[p]erhaps the play is of its time, particularly having stuck with setting it in its time [with] arguments [that] provide much food for thought and resonate through to 2025”;

• The Scoop’s Lisa Parsons praises Cooke’s directorial conceit for “ask[ing] us to look beyond the obvious to the realities lurking in the shadows.”

TRANSPARENCY DISCLOSURES for #251201: Tim Murphy is a longtime pal. I serve on the board at ClubbedThumb. Alexander Picoult is among my current Princeton advisees.