I’m all in on FOX’s new sports drama about the first woman to play Major League Baseball. There’s something about the recipe of non-procedural, non-genre, non-soap dramas that network TV hasn’t gotten right in years outside of the work of Jason Katims. Creator Dan Fogelman has offered up two possible solutions this fall and, though […]
Filament Incubator is presenting 8 plays in 8 months, creating opportunities for young playwrights to get their work on its feet and in front of an audience. The ambition of that is remarkable and, no matter the merit of any particular production in said slate, it’s an overall extremely impressive feat. It therefore pains me […]
A lot of Royal Court’s Upstairs programming is too dry for its own good. Not this. Nathaniel Martello-White’s Torn wears complexity on its sleeve. Angel arranges a circle of seats and then her family into a room, like an AA meeting, and wants to tackle the wrongs in her life. We don’t know […]
Since its premiere, Brooklyn Nine-Nine has consistently been one of the best ensemble comedies on network TV. Which made its decision to start Season 4 focusing on only two of its main characters incredibly gutsy. By mixing up the usual formula and taking Jake and Holt out of New York, and putting them in suburban […]
Little Night Music All I knew about A Little Night Music going in was “Send in the Clowns”, arguably the crown jewel of Sondheim’s canon. It would have been best to leave it that way. It turns out that Hugh Wheeler’s book has none of the subtle ache or bittersweet poetry of the musical’s standout […]
Click Here to read previous instalments of Skinner Box Storytelling. Everything I’m playing right now is an MMO in some form or another. From the one great success of the genre, World of Warcraft, to the only shooter hybrid to really work, Destiny, and the licensed mega properties of Star Trek and Star Wars. Star […]
Taking inspiration from the many music legends who lost their lives at an early age, 27 is a brand new rock musical from debutant Sam Cassidy that, while boasting a decent original score, sadly plods its way through a particularly sub-par book that not even its undoubtedly talented cast can recover into something believable or […]
NBC’s new family drama This Is Us is being marketed as the new Parenthood. The fact that Parenthood had to die so this could live has to be one of the great tragedies of the modern television age. Where that show was honest and nuanced, this one is contrived and obvious. Naturalistic dialogue is replaced […]