Mezzanine Theatre at A.R.T./New York Theatres Archives

Mezzanine Theatre at A.R.T./New York Theatres

House of Telescopes

April 19, 2024

Playwright Kairos Looney has given us a gift in these painfully beautiful moments. We explore a family’s various ways of approaching love for and duty to each other with the result that we are all human coming as no surprise. Where sometimes there are breaks in communication, it is not about who gets “to be the better person,” but more about how we find that way to erect that bridge that brings us all together again. [more]

The Convent

January 31, 2019

While Jessica Dickey’s "The Convent" may not have any new answers and may cover familiar material, it does so with such vitality and theatricality, that it becomes a memorable experience. Under the direction of Daniel Talbott, the seven actresses led by Samantha Soule and Wendy vanden Heuvel are compelling and expressive. By the time the play is over, the audience have experienced much that the inmates of the retreat have gone through. [more]

Folk Wandering

March 6, 2018

They’re friends in the present. Someone picks up yellowed newspaper articles from the past. Then we’re in New York City’s Lower East Side in 1911. We meet the spunky 13-year-old Roselia. She is the daughter of immigrants and her goal is to become a muckraking journalist. An exposé of the local butcher was one of her scoops that have been published. Her older sister is to marry a genial young man. Her parents are very affectionate but due to their hardscrabble circumstances it’s decided that after her impending 14th birthday, Roselia will leave school to join her mother and sister in working in a garment factory to bring in more money to the family. This heartbreaking thread is the most substantive, affective and dramatic of the three tales. The girlish and luminous Lena Hudson makes a great impact as Roselia. Kate Loprest’s practical but maternal characterization of the mother is perfect. “The House on Ludlow Street” is a haunting song that is woven through the narrative. [more]