Sara Holdren Author Archive
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Sara Holdren

Theater Critic
See all their articles from across New York Magazine
@swholdren
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Sara Holdren is a theater director and a critic at New York magazine and Vulture.

  1. Theater Review: Paradise Blue’s Powerful GritSomewhere between a truthful portrait of human suffering and a genre exercise.
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    Theater Review: A Heavyweight Long Day’s Journey Into NightWith Jeremy Irons and Lesley Manville.
  3. Theater Review: The Wild Ambition of Dance NationThe fierce lives of girls who want something more.
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    Theater Review: Caryl Churchill on Losing Revolutionary MomentumLight Shining in Buckinghamshire is itself a knotty, slow play.
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    Theater Review: Aristophanes’ The Birds, Gone Cuckoo in the Best Possible WayA life-affirming, madly colorful production of a 2,500-year-old play.
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    The Best Plays and Musicals of 2018 (So Far)From Tina Fey to Tennessee Williams.
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    Theater Review: Summer and Smoke Has That ‘Immaterial Something’A Tennessee Williams revival that’s deeply moving.
  8. awards
    The Tonys Make Me CrankyA critic wishes for better options come awards time.
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    Theater Review: The Iceman Cometh Requires More Rethinking Than ThisDoes it even earn its status as a classic?
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    Theater Review: Saint Joan, With Armor But Not Packing Much HeatThe fire’s set low.
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    Theater Review: The Travesties I’ve Been Waiting Decades to SeeRevisiting Tom Stoppard’s spectacular, dazzling intellectual swordplay.
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    Theater Review: The Spangly Pleasures of Summer: The Donna Summer MusicalIs it Ibsen? No. Does it work on its own terms? Absolutely.
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    Theater Review: Harry Potter and the Broadway SpectacleDeparts Kings Cross Station, arrives at 42 St-Times Square.
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    Theater Review: An Unaccustomed New Approach to My Fair LadyPutting Eliza in the driver’s seat.
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    Theater Review: Matthew Broderick As the Baddest Bad Guy, in The SeafarerAn actor known for friendly roles plays the Devil.
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    Theater Review: Of Tusks and Treachery, in Mlima’s TaleAn elephant’s-eye view of the illegal ivory trade.
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    Theater Review: Anthony Sher as a Slow-Burning, Intense King Lear“Sher is most fascinating to watch in the nooks and crannies.”
  18. theater review
    Theater Review: Can Carousel Be Brought Around?An impossibly gorgeous score, laid under a story that’s harder to love.
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    Theater Review: On the Road With Miss You Like HellA show I really wanted to like.
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    Theater Review: The Familiar Spin of This Flat EarthAn issue play with an anodyne conclusion.
  21. theater review
    On Wednesdays, We Do Two Shows: Mean Girls Self-Awarely Moves OnstageThe Plastics and the drama-club outcasts.
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    Theater Review: Angels in America Punches Through the Roof AgainThe Great Work returns.
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    Theater Review: Frozen Is in Place, to StayGuess which song brings down the house?
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    Theater Review: When Margaritaville Comes to Times SquareHow it got here, I haven’t a clue.
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    Theater Review: Why I Can’t Accept AdmissionsThe audience is manipulated toward cringe-inducing reactions.
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    Theater Review: In The Low Road, Adam Smith Envisions Pizza HutInspired by Paul Ryan’s rise in the 2012 presidential race, The Low Road is full of articulate fury, and articulate villainy.
  27. Theater Review: The Amateurs Reveals Its Inner PlaywrightSometimes it’s tricky to pinpoint the Big Question a playwright is wrestling with; other times, he just comes straight out and says it.
  28. Theater Review: Dramas Family and Global, in An Ordinary Muslim“Too Muslim for some, not Muslim enough for others,” one character laments.
  29. Theater Review: The Relevance of RelevanceIntergenerational, intersectional feminist conflict.
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    Theater Review: Edward Albee’s At Home at the Zoo, AgainIs a serviceable revival of a familiar play worth staging?
  31. Theater Review: Kings Falls Into the Relevance TrapWhen timeliness subverts timelessness.
  32. Theater Review: Is God Is Seeks the DivineAleasha Harris’s play is a rich gold mine. The production unearths only some of its riches.
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    Theater Reviews: Returning to Reims and In the Body of the WorldTwo deep dives: one into a philosopher’s memoir, the other into the playwright’s own reflection.
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    Theater Review: [PORTO] Gets the Urban Millennial Woman ExactlyIncluding that little voice in her head.
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    Theater Review: Martin McDonagh on a Dying Profession, in HangmenThe writer of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri returns with his latest play.
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    Theater Review: Diaghilev Gets the Stage-Biopic Treatment in Fire and AirTerrence McNally’s story of the Ballets Russes master’s life.
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    Theater Reviews: Cardinal and He Brought Her Heart Back in a BoxWhich would you rather experience: a play that’s too slick, or one that’s not quite slick enough?
  38. theater reviews
    Theater Reviews: Miles for Mary and The Homecoming QueenOne play tight and tense, the other shaggy and powerful. Neither is the one you’d think.
  39. Theater Review: Dark Flights of Fancy in Ballyturk’s Small TownIrish storytelling that goes to a scary place.
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    Theater Review: John Lithgow Talks, Reads, Charms Everyone SillyStories by Heart is warm but not gooey.
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    Theater Review: Mankind, Where Wokeness Conquers MostRobert O’Hara’s dark dystopian farce is more of a stance than a play.
  42. 23 Exciting Theater Productions Taking the Stage in 2018Highlighted by Frozen, Angels in America, Harry Potter, and the Denzel-led The Iceman Cometh.
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    Two Critics Review One Show: Farinelli and the KingA musical play about opera, reviewed by our theater and classical-music critics.
  44. Theater Review: An Enticing Twelfth Night for Beginners and Pros AlikeGateway-drug Shakespeare, in the best sense.
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    Theater Review: The Ensemble Triple Threat of Lucy Kirkwood’s The ChildrenThree actors take over the stage in this British import.
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    Review: Theater, Terror, and A Room in IndiaAriane Mnouchkine and Théâtre du Soleil come to the Park Avenue Armory.
  47. Theater Review: The Performances That Carry Once on This IslandIncluding an 18-year-old breakout star.
  48. year in culture 2017
    The 10 Best Theatrical Productions of 2017Shows that eschewed the great thematic temptations of 2017 and instead found transcendence in the execution of a deeply personal vision.
  49. theater review
    Theater Review: Describe the Night, a Tale of Russia and Fake TruthRajiv Joseph’s new play has a bear by the tail.
  50. theater review
    Adaptable, Yellow, and Porous Is He! SpongeBob Comes to BroadwayAnd don’t overlook Hundred Days at NYTW.
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