BROADWAY & ME QUICKIES

The Play: Prince Faggot; a speculative narrative that imagines that the now-11-year-old Prince George has grown up to be a gay man struggling to balance the responsibilities that come with being heir to the British throne and his desire to be true to himself and to the mixed-race man he loves Written by: Jordan Tannahill        Directed by: Shayok Misha Chowdhury One good thing: All six members of the cast are played by proudly queer actors and it’s great to see them in roles that so fully explore experiences like theirs without exploiting them or playing them just for laughs One not-so-great thing: The sex scenes are so intense that phones have to be locked in Yondr pouches before audience members can enter the theater—and although they’re beautifully lit and sensitively staged, those scenes don’t really need to be that explicit to make their point    

The Play: Beau: The Musical, a thirtysomething musician looks back at his youth, growing up as a gay kid in Tennessee during the ‘80s and ‘90s while trying to manage his sexual identity, his single mother’s love life and the relationships each of them has with the father who once abandoned her  Concept, book and lyrics by: Douglas Lyons               Music by: Ethan D. Pakchar & Douglas Lyons                                      Directed and choreographed by: Josh Rhodes One good thing: The toe-tapping country-rock score is terrifically performed by an onstage band lead by Matt Rodin and its members are just as entertaining when they double as the show's cast    One not-so-great thing:  It would have been great if the show had spent a little more time with the father/grandfather’s story because it’s one that’s not as fami...

The Play: Trophy Boys, the four-member debate team from an all boy’s high school is given one hour to come up with arguments to defend the prompt on why feminism is bad for women in this satire about patriarchal privilege and toxic masculinity that purposefully casts actors who were assigned female identities at birth to play the male roles. Written by: Emmanuelle Mattana        Directed by: Danya Taymor One good thing: Matt Saunders' set of a classroom at an elite private school for girls—complete with a gallery of she-roes on the wall—is so pitch-perfect that that you can almost smell the mix of book glue and Billie Eilish Eau de Parfum One not-so-great thing: The characters may be male but this is just a variation on the “angry young woman” play in which characters muse about how women are mistreated and then express their anger with some kind of ritualistic dance; Taymor calibrated it perfectly in the Tony-nominated “John Proctor is the Villain” but less so h...

The Play: Low Country,  two desperately lonely people—he’s on parole and struggling to regain visiting rights with his kid; she’s a failed actress who’s returned to their rural South Carolina town with some unfinished business of her own—have a first date that reveals secrets about their pasts and challenges their ability to move ahead unscathed Written by: Abby Rosebrock        Directed by: Jo Bonney One good thing: Babak Tafti and Jodi Balfour turn in committed—and very sexy—performances as the troubled couple One not-so-great thing: The ghost of Sam Shepard haunts this play that is less an homage and more a lesser imitation