Sara Holdren Author Archive
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Sara Holdren

Theater Critic
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@swholdren
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Sara Holdren is a theater director and a critic at New York magazine and Vulture.

  1. theater review
    Out to Sea and Back With Swept AwayThe story of a whaling expedition that turned horrifying, musicalized by the Avett Brothers.
  2. theater review
    Shit. Meet. Fan. Tells Us Lots That We Already KnowNeil Patrick Harris and Jane Krakowski star in Robert O’Hara’s self-described “blistering vulgar satire.” It delivers one of those three things.
  3. theater review
    The Lighter Side of Christian Nationalism: Tammy FayeSpinning an evangelist grifter into a camp icon and sorta-feminist heroine is a little hard to take right now.
  4. theater review
    King Lear at the Fountain of YouthKenneth Branagh’s production is fleet and facile.
  5. theater review
    When Robots Meet Cute: Maybe Happy Ending“It might feel like 2064 on the surface, but in its nostalgic, rechargeable heart, the show parties like it’s 1999.”
  6. theater review
    Octavia Chavez-Richmond, Karen Lugo, Ugo Chukwu, Alina Troyano, and Will Dagger in 'Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!'
    Soho Rep Closes Out the House With Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!It’s the final show at Walkerspace, and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and Alina Troyano’s play is a wild goodbye whoop.
  7. theater review
    Worlds on the Brink: Walden and A Woman Among WomenAmy Berryman and Julia May Jonas invoke and gut renovate Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller (not to mention Thoreau).
  8. theater review
    Theater of the ApocalypseIn the Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot and HOTHOUSE put their characters in surreal settings as the world burns.
  9. theater review
    Kissing by the Book: Connor and Zegler in Romeo & JulietA production that’s all shimmer with little grasp of Shakespeare’s words. (Plus: The silly joys of Drag: The Musical.)
  10. theater review
    A Madly Showy Sunset Blvd.As Norma Desmond, Nicole Scherzinger is gargantuan and almost feral.
  11. theater review
    Adam Driver Going Huge: Hold on to Me DarlingHe takes a role in hand as if it were an old carpet, shamelessly beating the dust out of it.
  12. theater review
    Truth, Meet Power: Erika Sheffer’s VladimirOn 20 years of Putinism.
  13. theater review
    Drama Afloat in Red Hook: The Wind and the RainA play about Sunny’s Bar and the world it embodies.
  14. theater review
    Stage, Managed: A TV-Star-Driven Our TownKenny Leon’s production is gentle where it could bite.
  15. theater review
    What’s In a Name? Surface and Substance In The Counter and Dirty LaundryMeghan Kennedy goes deep in a diner, and Mathilde Dratwa gets personal with grief.
  16. theater review
    Is the Safety Not Guaranteed Musical What You Wish For?Guster’s singer-songwriter Ryan Miller tries his hand at musical theater.
  17. theater review
    The Best of All Possible Intentions: Yellow Face and Good BonesDavid Henry Hwang and James Ijames on places where idealism runs up against success.
  18. theater review
    Doing Less With More: The Hills of CaliforniaJez Butterworth’s latest play, directed by Sam Mendes, is an array of overfamiliar archetypes and under-thought choices.
  19. opera review
    Moral Complexity at the Met: Jeanine Tesori’s GroundedOur theater and music critics discuss the new opera about drone warfare and the people who wage it.
  20. theater review
    In Praise of Difficult Women: Medea Re-Versed and Blood of the LambAn ancient play reimagined in rap rhymes and a cautionary tale about post-Dobbs America.
  21. theater review
    Sean Bell and Kate Mulgrew in 'The Beacon.'
    The Beacon Needs Its Heat Turned Slightly Lower“One can’t be moved, or even really engaged, when a writer keeps saying, ‘See what I did there?’”
  22. theater review
    Mama Grizzlies Tear Into Lunch in oh, HoneyIn Jeana Scotti’s play, everyone’s got a son facing sexual-misconduct accusations, and the waitperson is taking notes.
  23. theater review
    Counting and Cracking Is a Joyous Generational Square-offPlus a smart new play, ‘The Ask,’ at the Wild Project.
  24. theater review
    The Roommate Barely Unpacks Its Own BoxesIt settles in, and then it’s gone.
  25. theater review
    Apps, Drinks, and Drama at Table 17Kara Young eats, spectacularly.
  26. theater review
    Christopher Bannow and Anthony Roth Costanzo in 'The Marriage of Figaro.'
    The Marriage of Figaro, Almost Solo and Fully AlfrescoThe countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo sings every part as his co-stars lip-sync.
  27. fall preview 2024
    18 Plays and Musicals We Can’t Wait to See This FallThe season of the diva is upon us.
  28. theater review
    Empire: The Musical Stacks Up 102 Stories, Every One a ClichéA cringey new musical about the rise of the Empire State Building.
  29. theater review
    Oh, Mary! Is Excellently UncivilCole Escola’s Mary Todd Lincoln farce transfers uptown, preserving the union between absurdity and hilarity.
  30. theater review
    From ERS's Ulysses.
    ERS’s Ulysses Is a Little Stately, a Little PlumpThink you’re escaping and run into yourself.
  31. theater review
    Kathleen Tolan, Connie Schulman, and Lizbeth Mackay in Clubbed Thumb's 2024 production of FIND ME HERE.
    Three-Sister Harmony in Find Me HerePlus an array of short-run summer shows to watch for if they return.
  32. theater review
    The Drag-Ball Cats Is GoodWell, now, how about that!
  33. theater review
    Looking Back at Bad Men: Dark Noon and Pre-Existing ConditionColonialism and abuse, addressed onstage.
  34. theater review
    Return of the Musical Rumble: The OutsidersDoes the Tony Award-winning stage adaptation stay gold?
  35. theater review
    An Estate That Divides: Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s AppropriateSarah Paulson is furious and fearsome in this Tony Award-winning play.
  36. theater review
    Lindsay Mendez, Jonathan Groff, and Daniel Radcliffe in Merrily We Roll Along.
    Here’s to Them. Who’s Like Them? Damn Few.Turns out what Merrily We Roll Along needs most is three actors who can really bring it home, and here they are.
  37. theater review
    Stereophonic Moves to Broadway, and Thunder HappensThe Tony Award-winning play is a love song, bittersweet and wounded and ferociously loyal, to the act of making art.
  38. theater review
    A Vintage Satire That Still Has Sting: Purlie Victorious ReturnsOssie Davis’s plantation farce retains its wit and snap.
  39. theater review
    Feeling the Illinoise, This Time Through MovementSufjan Stevens’s album becomes a transcendent theater-dance-music piece.
  40. theater review
    Can You Teach an Old Sport New Tricks? The Great Gatsby on Broadway.Singing through the ash dump.
  41. theater review
    Time Out of Mind: The Welkin and HilmaTwo plays that mess with your sense of now.
  42. theater review
    Coach Coach Goes to Camp CampDoes Bailey Williams’s wellness-industry satire self-actualize?
  43. theater review
    Here There Are Blueberries Keeps This Moment at Arm’s LengthAs powerful as this Pulitzer-finalist play about Auschwitz is, it studiously avoids the conversations people are having right now.
  44. theater review
    The Beautiful Oddness of Shimmer and HerringbonePlus: Peregrine Teng Heard’s Redemption Story.
  45. theater review
    The On-and-Off Sparks of The Keep Going SongsAbigail and Shaun Bengson’s music-theater piece soars when it’s not trapped in twee.
  46. theater review
    Staff Meal Deserves Five Stars on YelpA play about restaurant-making that’s likely to resonate with any underpaid, overwhelmed, hyperpassionate, exhausted creator.
  47. theater review
    Stomping As They Climb in JordansIfe Olujobi’s claws-out satire doesn’t quite reach the tragic potential of its DEI-in-the-workplace premise.
  48. theater review
    The New Uncle Vanya’s Aims Are OffSteve Carell & Co. are individually appealing in Heidi Schreck’s translation, but the show itself never comes to life.
  49. theater review
    Putin Has a Lean and Hungry Look in PatriotsThe Crown creator Peter Morgan’s new play redirects his eye for palace intrigue to the power dynamics of post-Perestroika Moscow.
  50. theater review
    Eddie Redmayne as the Emcee in Cabaret.
    Dancing on the Surface in Cabaret and OrlandoAtmosphere is all in the loose hustle and bustle of a pre-show, but in a play proper, it can only carry you so far.
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