The word maximalist has had a fairly brief but increasingly annoying heyday, and I would like it to end now.

Maybe it's just a journalist's response, but when I see a play that makes me curious about something, I often wish I could talk with the playwright. And at Tom Noonan's "What Happened Was..." tonight at Minetta Lane, that wish came with an ache.

I’m always amazed chuds use the NYC subways as the height of terror when I’ve never witnessed more spontaneous acts of kindness between strangers than on the streets of New York, particularly on the subway.

The Broadway theaters that have staff out front shouting orders at the arriving audience members, though most of them have done nothing wrong — do they not know that people really, really don’t like being yelled at and/or treated like cattle? There is a better way.

It may not work trying to do this here, but: I mistakenly bought two tickets for the wrong night to see the Improvised Shakespeare Company. If any NYers are interested, lmk & the tix are yours. They make up a play on the spot! Tonight at 7 at Brooklyn Improv in Wmsburg: www.improvisedshakespeare.com

Pretty sure the great enshallowment is a twin to the enshittification. They are related for sure, anyway.

A couple of major shows this spring have characters from the Upper Midwest saying Wisconsin. Another has characters from Missouri saying Missouri. Just, you know, always good to make sure to use the local pronunciation. Otherwise a little crack forms in the illusion.

What a knockout this "Death of a Salesman" is. (Baffled nitpick: What's up with the giant coffee cup?)

‘The Adding Machine’ Review: A Man Is Made Redundant

On "The Adding Machine," starring Daphne Rubin-Vega as Mr. Zero, at the New Group. (gift link) www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/t...

Press release text: Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater Cancels 2026 Season, will suspend operations on June 1 Wellfleet MA – Citing rising costs and fundraising challenges, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater has cancelled its upcoming season and will suspend regular operations on June 1, 2026, as theater leadership works to develop a path forward for the 42-year-old professional non-profit theater company and its home, The Julie Harris Stage.   “This was an incredibly difficult decision for all of us involved,” says Christopher Ostrom, WHAT’s Producing Artistic Director. “The regional theater model is built on a healthy balance of both contributed and ticketing income.  Since re-opening from the pandemic closure in 2021, we have faced steadily rising costs in an increasingly challenging philanthropic environment.  For WHAT, and many organizations across the country, this model has proven unsustainable.” He adds, “We are incredibly grateful for everyone who has joined us for a performance, made a contribution, or spent time with us in this remarkable space.  My hope is that this will be a brief intermission while we set the stage for our next act.”

Rotten news from Cape Cod, where Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater has canceled its 2026 season.

I have been told that my chief suspect is the responsible party: Bill Berloni.

Some of you didn't grow up playing in the old overgrown graveyard and ruined 14th century Abbey next door, with graves and tombs about four metres from your bed, and it shows

Sometimes you comb through the whole program in search of a hidden credit for the animal trainer (and ideally also for the animal) and come away utterly foiled, which is too bad when a moment is elegantly staged and you want to find out who’s responsible.

Same.

“Cats: The Jellicle Ball” has blossomed *luxuriantly* on Broadway. My goodness. I didn’t love it downtown. I do now.

I’d very much like a mosaic cat hat. Also those kitty claw boots.

And I recommend seeing it with Jeremy Harris in your sightline. A spirited guest judge + equally pumped spectator.

"I’ve just come back from Broadway, where I did Oedipus," she said. "Virtually the whole audience will take out their phones at the end of the evening. Why can’t they let it live in their souls for five minutes? "It’s like people need to take a photo of the curtain call to prove that they’ve seen it. You don’t have that so much in the UK, but it’s starting to filter in." Manville highlighted that Les Liaisons Dangereuses begins with an announcement instructing audiences not to take photographs, but said it was an issue she still felt "strongly" about. "Come on, it’s theatre," she said. "Let’s take the digital out of it just for a moment. We’re all in this room. We’re telling you a story, you’re listening. Clap or don’t clap, but don’t stick up your phone in our faces. I find it insulting."

Lesley Manville’s striking take on curtain-call manners on Broadway, in The Stage. “Why can’t they let it live in their souls for five minutes?” www.thestage.co.uk/news/lesley-...

Just saw a little blond boy strike a perfect Macaulay Culkin pose in front of the Plaza while his dad took a picture, and now I'm wondering: How have I never seen that before?

You know what doesn't get its support unceremoniously pulled by a tech company? Fuckin' books, brother

When Tony Awards hosts are announced, I always wonder: What projects do they have incubating? Pink hosting the Tonys reminded me that years ago, when I asked a Tony-winning director who she’d like to work with, she said Pink.

A man (Luke Murphy) wrestles with the land (Tyler Carney-Faleatua, in a sod costume) in a scene from Murphy’s dance-theater piece “Scorched Earth.”

It’s the land itself that gets you in Luke Murphy’s rural Irish noir, “Scorched Earth,” at St. Ann’s Warehouse. Mesmerizing dance theater. Like the very different “Kenrex,” coming up at the Lortel, it involves a small town, an unexplained death, closed-mouthed neighbors….

📸 Teddy Wolff

One of my neighbors, in another building, is blasting “Ave Maria,” which, honestly, feels cinematic in a very NYC way.

It really is wild, what kind of danger it takes to get a screaming headline, with recreational reading bumped down the page.

Coming out of the theater, hearing people murmur, "There's a ceasefire. There's a ceasefire."

Absolutely mind-blowing that not enough people remembered this feeling from last time.

The other way a whole civilization dies is by committing war crimes

Another of the Poems on the Underground, which caught my eye a few months ago: W.H. Auden’s “Epitaph on a Tyrant,” from January 1939.

Text of "Poem (I lived in the first century of world wars)" by Muriel Rukeyser. Text is online at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47657/poem-i-lived-in-the-first-century-of-world-wars

Muriel Rukeyser, always but especially today. Full text at www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47657/...

‘Becky Shaw’ Review: Funny vs. Likable? Funny Wins.

On the well timed return of Gina Gionfriddo’s comedy “Becky Shaw,” and on being “likable enough” — or maybe, boldly, not at all. (gift link) www.nytimes.com/2026/04/06/t...

This is unbelievably bleak