Critic at Leisure

Hot tips for the new theater season

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A play is “embargoed”— not open for review — before its official opening. That means I’ll have to curb my superlatives for Playwrights Horizons’ “Bootycandy” until next week. By then it’s likely you may have trouble scoring a ticket for Robert O’Hara’s altogether audacious, brilliant satire on the tribulations of a young black youth who prefers books to throwing a ball and boys rather than girls. How will growing up with a tough, determined black momma define his world or maybe not? These are the author/director’s takes on preferences that molded his own life — skewered for maximum levity in a series of wildly comic vignettes.
My jaw still aches from laughing at one of the most memorable casts in any season — who open this one in a play currently scheduled until Oct. 12. Your game plan should be to visit playwrightshorizons.org immediately, book your tickets,and look into a season package while you’re on the site. Playwright “Packages” are incredibly nominal for a series of seven plays, with Heidi Schrech’s “Grand Concourse” scheduled up next (Oct. 17 to Nov. 30)
The new season promises choices that will surely reflect the nonprofit organization’s 43-year-old mission of supporting and developing American playwrights, composers and lyricists, and to the production of their new works. In the past, these have included venerable Tony winners “Clybourne Park,” “Grey Gardens” and “I Am My Own Wife,” and the original production of “Driving Miss Daisy!” A full review of “Bootycandy” next week, for sure!

On the near horizon

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