Sara Holdren Author Archive

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Sara Holdren

Theater Critic

See all their articles from across New York Magazine

Sara Holdren is a theater director and a critic at New York magazine and Vulture.

two critics one show Nov. 11, 2018

Is Mike Birbiglia’s The New One a Broadway Show or Standup? Our Critics Discuss.Sara Holdren and Jesse David Fox compare notes.
theater review Nov. 8, 2018

Theater Review: King Kong, Who’s There?Besides the giant mechanical ape and the 14 puppeteers who keep him going, that is.

theater review Nov. 8, 2018

Theater Review: Eve’s Song, Long on Relevance and Short on Dramatic CraftAnother story of good theatrical intentions that don’t hold up a play.
theater review Nov. 5, 2018

Theater Review: The Indignities and Glories of Female Adolescence in Usual GirlsAnd the dangers those girls face.
theater review Nov. 5, 2018

Theater Review: The Thanksgiving Play Is All Stuffing, No HeartAnd it’s a turkey.
theater review Nov. 4, 2018

Theater Review: The Good Intentions of American SonGoodhearted does not mean good.
theater review Nov. 2, 2018

Theater Review: A Slightly Tamed Torch Song Returns to BroadwayA second viewing reveals its wit but also its facile turns.
theater review Oct. 30, 2018

Theater Review: Days of Rage Gives Us 1969 Radicals Without Actual RadicalismFence-straddling at the barricades.
theater review Oct. 30, 2018

Theater Review: Good Grief Is a Memory Play in a Hall of MirrorsNgozi Anyanwu’s play shifts and reframes the way real memories do.
theater review Oct. 28, 2018

Theater Review: Thunderbodies Is the Latest Political-Catastrophe Dramatic FarceReaching for the satiric punch of Brecht or Jarry.
theater review Oct. 26, 2018

Theater Review: At the Far End of America, Lewiston/Clarkston Finds a CostcoA play in two parts, plus barbecued chicken.
theater review Oct. 25, 2018

Theater: Elaine May Keeps It Together While Falling Apart in The Waverly GalleryA character’s slide into dementia has ripple effects on her family.

theater reviews Oct. 24, 2018

Theater Reviews: The Joys and Troubles of the Teaching PlayPlot Points in Our Sexual Development and India Pale Ale epitomize the ends of the spectrum.
theater review Oct. 21, 2018

Theater Review: Livestock and Stock Types in The FerrymanIt pushes every high-drama button and checks every shamrock-shaped box, and yet …
theater review Oct. 19, 2018

Theater Review: Gloria: A Life Is Not a Bio-Play, and That’s a Good ThingIt’s a story circle, incorporating multiple lives in every color, and it brought me to tears, more than once.
theater review Oct. 18, 2018

Theater Review: Truthiness on Trial, in The Lifespan of a FactDaniel Radcliffe checks facts; Bobby Cannavale thinks he’s entitled to his own.
theater review Oct. 17, 2018

Theater Review: A Cranky Teen Joan of Arc in Mother of the MaidWith Glenn Close as her mommmmmm!
theater review Oct. 16, 2018

Theater Review: An Unsturdy Apologia“It’s less a drama of ideas than it is a collection of cheap, self-satisfied notions.”
theater review Oct. 15, 2018

Theater Review: On Being Queer and Black in America, in Fireflies“It feels like going to church — the kind of church where the minister thunders and rhapsodizes, aiming both to appall and exalt.”
theater review Oct. 11, 2018

Theater Review: Can Cabaret Songs Be a Tool of Liberation?’Midnight at the Never Get’ asks whether pretty songs have any place in a hard politicized world.
theater review Oct. 10, 2018

Theater Review: The Diva Soul of Black LightDaniel Alexander Jones brings it.
theater review Oct. 8, 2018

Theater Review: An Oklahoma! Where the Storm Clouds Loom Above the PlainExcavating the messy America beneath the beautiful morning.

theater review Oct. 3, 2018

Theater Review: Bill Irwin Takes a Sprightly Bounce Through BeckettIn ‘On Beckett,’ the elastic performer explains just how those lines work, in word and movement.
theater review Oct. 1, 2018

Theater Review: Girl From the North Country Shows Another Side of Bob DylanA much slower and less joyful one.
theater review Sept. 30, 2018

What the Constitution Means to Me Is Personal, Political, and Uncannily TimedRecollections of high-school oratory have never felt so of-the-moment.
theater review Sept. 27, 2018

Theater Review: Crooked Billiards and Straight Shooting in The NapSnooker as a vehicle for bright, fast comedy.
theater review Sept. 26, 2018

Theater Review: Uncle Romeo Vanya Juliet Sets a Gun on Shakespeare’s MantelSetting a gun on Shakepeare’s mantel.
theater review Sept. 25, 2018

Theater: Is Theresa Rebeck Mad for Sarah Bernhardt, or Only Pretending to Be?Is Theresa Rebeck mad for Sarah Bernhardt, or only pretending to be?
theater review Sept. 24, 2018

Theater Review: Craig Lucas’s I Was Most Alive With You Aims HighAnd it mostly succeeds on its own terms.
theater review Sept. 20, 2018

Theater Review: The Hard Facts of Backroom Politics in The TrueA showcase for Edie Falco, who makes the most of it.
theater reviews Sept. 16, 2018

Theater Reviews: A Vanya in Our English, and an Emperor Present But Not SeenRichard “Apple Family” Nelson brings his natural-language approach to Chekhov. Plus, a look at Haile Selassie’s last days in power.
theater review Sept. 12, 2018

On Collective Rage and Ironic DetachmentThe trouble with archness.

theater review Aug. 16, 2018

Theater Review: Pretty Woman and the Trouble With Onstage NostalgiaStrong performances in service of … what, exactly?
theater review Aug. 13, 2018

Theater Review: Direct From Exit 9, It’s Gettin’ the Band Back TogetherJammed with broken heroes on a last-chance power drive.
theater review July 31, 2018

Theater Review: It’s Always Sunny in This Twelfth NightIn the park, not a cloud in the sky.
theater review July 30, 2018

Theater Review: On Fertile Ground With The House That Will Not StandA wildly ambitious bilevel play, a family drama that spirals out into giant issues of slavery and race.
theater review July 26, 2018

Theater Review: The Go-Go’s Go to Grad School in Head Over HeelsJust keeps going strong.
theater review July 24, 2018

Theater Review: The Conventional Spin of This Ain’t No DiscoPacked up and ready to go.
theater review July 23, 2018

Theater Review: Straight White Men Dares to Be ComplicatedIn the whirl of glibness and fury that is identity politics, Young Jean Lee has that rare quality: nuance.
theater review July 18, 2018

Theater Review: Ivo van Hove’s The Damned Pulls the World Into the ArmoryTheater Review: Ivo van Hove’s The Damned Pulls the World Into the Armory
theater review July 16, 2018

Theater Review: Jump Cuts and Auteur Wannabes, in Fire in Dreamland Rinne Groff’s play about not-quite-successful art-making.
theater review July 12, 2018

Theater Review: Mary Page Marlowe Is a Simple CarbohydrateTasty enough, familiar, not especially filling.

theater review June 17, 2018

Reviewing Fairview, a Play That Almost Demands That I Not Do SoIt ruthlessly interrogates white audiences about how they discuss nonwhite life.
tonys 2018 June 8, 2018

5 Long-Shot Votes I’m Casting for the Tony AwardsThey’re not likely to win, but I loved these performances and productions.
theater review June 4, 2018

Theater Review: Geopolitics and the Pick and Roll, in The Great LeapA basketball story that runs through Tiananmen Square.
theater review May 31, 2018

Theater Review: Can The Boys in the Band Work in 2018?“Yes. No. It’s complicated.”
tonys 2018 May 29, 2018

Tom Hollander Talks Playing a ‘Grumpy’ and ‘Immortal’ Brit on American Stages“He’s a sort of Brexiteer.”
theater review May 23, 2018

Theater Review: Watching The Beast in the Jungle DanceA Henry James adaptation with energetic choreography by Susan Stroman.
May 22, 2018

Theater Review: A Well-Scrubbed Our Lady of 121st StreetPhylicia Rashad directs an actor-friendly production.
theater review May 22, 2018

Theater Review: In Spandex and Sweat, Singlet Goes Its Own WayA production at the Bushwick Starr that is like nothing else out there.