Working within the conventions of the mismatched two-hander, Sophie McIntosh continues her subversion of genre with Road Kills, which pairs a kind-hearted carrion collector with a bratty college student fulfilling a six-week community service sentence. It also reteams the playwright with the director Nina Goodheart, with whom she operates the Good Apples theater collective. As in last year’s surreal cunnicularii, the two collaborators create a world of both great, heightened theatricality and poignant, earthy humanity. 

The play’s sights are set on a series of Saturday sessions between Owen (D.B. Milliken) and the recalcitrant Jaki (Mia Sinclair Jenness). Details around the events which led her to this punishment are, of course, only gradually revealed, but it is made quickly evident that the young’un’s carelessness has landed herself in legal hot water which her family lawyers have significantly cooled for her. That privilege notwithstanding, she still tries to shirk her responsibilities as they clean up roadkill along desolate Wisconsin highways; Owen does most of the dirty work, she “spots” from the side.

Road Kills functions perfectly as the odd-couple situation it proposes, its characters learning from and about each other through furtive, often funny, interactions. When they’re called to scoop up a dearly departed dog, for example, he sees her lash out at its owner (Michael Lepore) in a way that hints at more than misdirected teen anger. But that incident gives way to the play’s larger meditations on duty, carelessness and compassion. And its setting in McIntosh’s home state seems personal and symbolic without condescending toward any notion of the middle country’s heartland.

Rather, the expansiveness of its roads – rendered in Junran “Charlotte” Shi’s pleasing set as an infinite stretch, with the audience seated longways across one of its sides – suggests an ongoingness of the play’s themes and characters.

A preternatural master of mood, Goodheart reassembles some of the cunnicularii team (including Milliken) to create a similarly cinematic effect. Paige Seber’s lightning comes in striking flashes or gradual, ominous fades. The pink Stanley cup which costumier Saawan Tiwari provides Jaki conveys just about everything necessary to get on her page. And between each scene, Max Van’s sound sketches each roadkill’s demise through disembodied cabin conversations, sketching portraits of the casual recklessness Owen has deigned himself to clean up.

Unlike Jaki, who fights against a predetermined life within her powerful family’s company, Owen picks up his late old man’s job with pride. His incredible patience with her is a window into the monk-like existence he shares with his aging mother, though the play is too smart to let this be a simple question of humility versus obstinance. (Milliken, who immediately scans as genuinely sweet, as well as the expressively-eyed Jenness, also acquit themselves of playing into their roles’ simplest attributes, finding deeper dimensions for each.)

It wouldn’t be a McIntosh play if it didn’t also acutely explore women’s impossible circumstances. This thread is pulled towards the end of the 80-minute production, almost as a bonus tie-in to the rest of her growing (and consistently excellent) oeuvre. Until then, Road Kills doesn’t coast, so much as journey imperceptibly through thematic terrain that might seem to bend, but which the writer’s firm hand navigates straight through.

Road Kills is in performance through September 6, 2025 at the Paradise Factory on East 4th Street in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here.

Ava: The Secret Conversations is that unfortunate sort of play where the protagonist’s agent introduces himself by announcing: “I’m only your agent, what do I know?” 

Or where said agent helpfully reminds his client, tabloid journalist Peter Evans (Aaron Costa Ganis), that his kids are heading to a fancy prep school—a costly expense that co-writing film legend Ava Gardner’s memoirs could help pay for. 

“That school costs money,” he notes, usefully explaining Peter’s motivation. 

Or where even Gardner herself, portrayed by Oscar and Emmy-nominee Elizabeth McGovern, informs her third husband Frank Sinatra (Ganis again) of his own marital history. 

“I am not Nancy, your New Jersey House Frau,” Gardner reminds Frank. “You divorced her, remember?” 

Yes, Frank would tend to remember that. But these awkward exchanges are typical of Secret Conversations, a clumsy new play making its off-Broadway debut at New York City Center through September 14. In all three scenes, both parties are aware of the information being shared. But it is stated anyway, lest the audience be cruelly forced to suss out context clues. 

Best known for her work on Downton Abbey, McGovern not only leads but also makes her playwriting debut with Secret Conversations, a two-hander (more or less) drawn from the Evans’ book of the same name. It is perhaps not surprising, given her relative inexperience, that the actress-turned-playwright stumbles on basic writerly tasks like disguising exposition within one’s dialogue. 

Much of that dialogue also feels leaden, while the overall structure of Secret Conversations proves baffling. The premise is solid: hack journalist (and aspiring novelist) Evans reluctantly takes the gig of writing Gardner’s life story, but the two clash as Gardner pushes to keep focus on her work over three sordid marriages. Seems a decent basis for a breezy if predictable 90 minute gab-fest. 

But McGovern’s text is unfocused, jumping around haphazardly from scene to scene. A sexual spark between Gardner and Evans is dangled, then quickly dropped. The pair’s disagreements around the book are never given specificity, leaving their final confrontation mostly confusing as a result. And a half-hearted meta-theatrical framework proves needless, adding nothing of impact to the play’s finale. 

McGovern does find a potent throughline in Garner’s variously awful and abusive husbands. She is unhesitant in painting all three—actor Mickey Rooney, musician Artie Shaw and Sinatra—as controlling, obnoxious buffoons. Taking on all three roles (plus Evans), Ganis acquits himself well. But director Moritz von Stuelpnagel’s transitions are rough, and these flashbacks often feel like they exist in an entirely different play. 

McGovern is often funny as Gardner, and sometimes even moving. She certainly should be credited for restraint, as despite Gardner’s wild reputation, McGovern refuses to ham it up or chew the scenery. Her performance is instead surprisingly quiet and disarmingly sensitive. In McGovern’s hands, Gardner is defined entirely by her supreme intelligence and a surprising shyness, not the unsavory mess of Hollywood history. That’s an intriguing approach, but McGovern needed a smarter play to help her really pull it off. 

Ava: The Secret Conversations is now in performance at New York City Center through September 14, 2025. For tickets and more information, visit here. 

Suddenly, Thomas! Thomas Doherty will make his New York stage debut in the current Off-Broadway revival of Little Shop of Horrors as Seymour beginning Sept. 5. He will star opposite Madeline Brewer as Audrey. 

Doherty was most recently seen in Hulu’s Tell Me Lies, and has just wrapped Hulu’s series Paradise season 2. He is perhaps best known for his role in HBO’s Gossip Girl reboot, and has been seen in Tina Fey’s Girls5Eva, Hulu's High Fidelity opposite Zoë Kravitz, HBO's Catherine The Great opposite Helen Mirren and Jason Clarke, and Disney’s Descendants film franchise.

“To have Thomas and Madeline Brewer paired together in these iconic roles of Seymour and Audrey brings a special kind of energy to our stage, and we can't wait for audiences to experience it live,” producer Tom Kirdahy said in a statement.

Brewer is continuing her run as Audrey in following her acclaimed turn as Sally Bowles in the Olivier Award-winning West End production of Cabaret at the Playhouse Theatre in London.  She earned a 2021 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, for her role as Janine in Hulu’s Emmy Award and Golden Globe-winning series The Handmaid’s Tale. 

Starring alongside Doherty and Brewer in the cast of Little Shop of Horrors are Jeremy Kushnier as Dr. Orin Scrivello DDS, Reg Rogers as Mushnik, Major Attaway as The Voice of Audrey II, Hailey Thomas as Ronnette, Savannah Lee Birdsong as Crystal, and Morgan Ashley Bryant as Chiffon. The company also includes Weston Chandler Long, Teddy Yudain, Mecca Hicks, Aveena Sawyer, Jeff Sears, Christopher Swan, David Colston Corris, Bryan Fenkart, Alloria Frayser, Jonothon Lyons, Noel MacNeal, Chani Maisonet, Johnny Newcomb, Jon Riddleberger, and Christine Wanda.

 Little Shop of Horrors runs at the Westside Theatre on West 43rd Street in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here.