Today’s Wall Street Journal contains my annual best-of-the-year theater column:
Lots of excellent revivals, several impressive new plays, two terrific new musicals—most of them produced off Broadway or out of town: That’s the shorthand story of theater in America in 2016. Many big-buzz Broadway shows, in particular “The Front Page” and “The Humans,” missed fire, but I saw plenty of great stuff elsewhere….
Among those present:
• Company of the year. Writers Theatre of Glencoe, Ill., produced Arcadia and Company to superlative effect in its brand-new two-stage complex designed by Jeanne Gang and Studio Gang Architects, the finest piece of theatrical construction to open in the U.S. in the past decade.
• Best performance in a play. Annie Purcell was fiercely intense as Isabella in Davis McCallum’s Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival production of “Measure for Measure.”
• Best new play. Mike Bartlett’s “Love, Love, Love,” produced off Broadway by the Roundabout, is the strongest stage comedy since The Real Thing.
To read about my other picks, go here.