The Figs

Hot off a well-deserved wave of recognition for the musical juggernaut of Hamilton in 2015, director Tommy Kail returned to The Public Theater one year later to direct Dry Powder, playwright Sarah Burgess’ buzzy satire of high finance. The cast was star-packed: John Kransinski, Claire Danes, Hank Azaria. The high-intensity Wall Street setting offered rich potential. Yet the resulting production was sleek, flashy and utterly lifeless, an attempted comic-thriller that sputtered from scene one.

As if to drive the point home, Kail returned to The Public again in 2018 with Burgess’ follow-up Kings and delivered an even sleepier production, slack-paced and unexciting. Around the same time, Kail did do fine work with a Nia Vardalos-led and adapted Tiny Beautiful Things (despite much resistance, I was very moved). But the less said about his revival of Anna Christie at St. Ann’s Warehouse earlier this year, the better. 

All of this to say: Thomas Kail is a very talented individual, and I’m not entirely convinced that Thomas Kail should be directing plays. 

Certainly not on the evidence of Proof, another star-led production opening tonight at the Booth Theatre. David Auburn’s elegant and moving 2000 play, which earned both the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2001, is a gorgeous piece of writing. Pitched at full force, it can rip your heart out. But Kail’s spiritless revival fails to tap into the play’s specific collision of expansive ideas and fervid emotion.  

Proof centers on Catherine (Ayo Edebiri), the young daughter of mathematical genius Robert (Don Cheadle). Robert has recently died following a long illness, and after two years as his caretaker, Catherine is exhausted.

Catherine is also, in the eyes of her sister Claire (Kara Young), growing mentally unstable—perhaps in a manner similar to their father. That Catherine spends the play’s first scene debating her dead father at length would seem to back up Claire’s concern. But the despondent Catherine does find some comfort with Hal (Jin Ha), a kind-hearted former student of her father's. That is, until the unclear origins of a mathematical proof discovered in the house set the two at odds. 

Proof is a solidly-built kind of play, talky and reflective. Its sections of quiet melancholy do demand a quiet stillness, which is this production’s default mode. But at its best, Proof can also be an exhilarating ride. The open question of Catherine’s sanity should hover uncertainly, injecting tension into even the most quotidian conversations. Meanwhile the specter of a genius father, his legacy straining the bond of two distant but loving sisters, can provide a painful emotional core. 

Hell, the New York Times described the original Broadway production of Proof as moving like a “psychological thriller.” Under Kail’s direction, it feels closer to “Lifetime Original.” This revival is frustratingly inert; the play’s layered, tricky confrontations glide by with little weight or significance. 

Edebiri is a gifted comic actor, and does find a surprising sweetness in Catherine. Making her Broadway debut, Edebiri is at her strongest in lighter moments opposite Ha, particularly the pair’s endearing flirtations in the play’s first act. Edebiri and Ha have a comfortable chemistry, and Catherine and Hal’s deepening bond feels comfortable, and sweet. 

But when Catherine needs to be hovering on the edge of breakdown, Edebiri feels lost. She ends up falling back on some unfortunate tics, chiefly a staccato line delivery and big, bulging eyes. It always feels forced, and the notion that secret genius lies underneath these eccentricities is never felt. 

It is also not plausible, here, that Claire would view her sister as requiring hospitalization. Kara Young, a star, strains to make sense of Claire without a strong Catherine to bounce off of. Young is also suppressing her typical liveliness and verve for a more pent-up, internal character. She is somewhat miscast here, but it’s intriguing to see Young push herself in a different direction. Ultimately, one could never be bored watching her on stage.

Cheadle is obviously a formidable actor, and brings effortless presence. He finds an easy charm in Robert’s lucid moments. But Cheadle struggles with the play’s long monologues, which tend to fade into nothingness as he lets the words drift away from him, floating off when they should land forcefully. 

A smart set by Theresa L. Williams does suggest intriguing ideas around order, inspiration and controlled chaos, ideas that never quite cohere in this disappointing revival of a great play.

Proof is now in performances at the Booth Theatre on West 45th Street in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here.

In an era where regional theatre seasons are looking bleaker and bleaker, the Huntington in Boston has come out strong with a bold 2026/2027 season including new world premieres putting Boston on the map. 

Next April will see the world premiere of Unorthodox based on the best-selling memoir written by Deborah Feldman. Three Broadway heavy hitters are healming the new musical including composer Benj Pasek (EGOT winner, Dear Evan Hansen, La La Land, Only Murders in the Building); composer Shaina Taub (two-time Tony winner for Suffs); and playwright Joshua Harmon (Tony nominated for Prayer for the French Republic). Jordan Fein, who’s daring Into The Woods at London’s Bridge Theatre turned into one of my favorite performances this year, is set to direct. 

Deep in the heart of Brooklyn, Devoiri, just seventeen, enters an arranged marriage in the Hasidic Satmar community. Sixty years earlier, her grandmother Fraida arrives in America at roughly the same age, alone, to begin a new life. In parallel journeys, one woman decides to join this devout world, while another awakens to the realization that she wants to try and leave. Based on the best-selling memoir, Unorthodox is an intimate and emotionally resonant new musical about the impossible choices we face trying to do what is right for our children – and ourselves.

“We are close friends who had been searching for something to write together. When we discovered this story, we knew it was the one we wanted to tell, as it's full of complex characters in extraordinary circumstances making impossible choices. Collaborating on this show has been a genuine joy, we are grateful to The Huntington for the chance to see it realized, and eager to share it with audiences,” said Pasek and Taub. 

The season also includes another musical world premiere with the joyous finale to Mfoniso Udofia’s nine-play Ufot Family Cycle, a final chapter two years in the making.

Audiences can also look forward to regional premieres of internationally acclaimed titles, like Aaron Sorkin’s (The West Wing, A Few Good Men) soaring adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Appropriate) Tony- and Pulitzer-winning play Purpose, as well as a new comedy from Massachusetts-raised playwright Talene Monahon.

When Christy Borg, a creative director at Broadway advertising agency Serino Coyne, got word she’d get to work on the key art for the new Off-Broadway revival of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, she knew immediately: “oh, this one’s really fun.”

Key the first thing you see when you’re handed a Playbill, stop at a marquis, or walk through Schubert Alley. Broadway’s key art is at the center of a show’s brand identity — and capturing its essence is no small task. Borg likens the process to being a museum curator; it’s all about coming up with the right concept and finding the right people to bring it to life.

For Spelling Bee, she gave special consideration to finding the right balance between paying homage to the beloved original while highlighting the new revival’s energy. 

“It's the first major revival in 20 years,” Borg said. “We want to make sure we're honoring the legacy of William Finn, but we have a new creative team behind this property. We have new costume designs and new scenic design, a new director at the helm of this production, so how do we find the sort of balance between honoring the original and making it clear that this was  a new thing.”

Borg and her team wanted to toe the line between the art feeling youthful and playful without feeling juvenile. The original key art features clay figures by an artist named Amy Vansgaard — and Borg wanted to maintain the “bespoke-ness” from the original. So, she came across a pair of artists from Amsterdam who go by the name GoodDog.TV at Kat Studios, otherwise known as Jonas Nunes and Katarina Alves.

“We all just immediately fell in love with their style and their energy and the way that they crafted their character work and that sort of thing,” Borg said. “We really fell in love with this idea of all the hands fighting for that trophy. It's a way of bringing those characters to the forefront of the art without specifically being about any one actor or character specifically.”

In deciding the color scheme, the team decided the Spelling Bee blue felt like the perfect playful energy, while still feeling like “school.” It also served as a strong contrast to the characters — the pink in Olive's jacket, the red in William's socks, and the gold of the trophy stick out.

In the 15 years Borg has been in this line of work, the process of creating key art has changed drastically. Before digital ruled, key art primarily lived on window cards and posters; now, everything needs to be scalable and work on screens big and small. How does the art move? How will it feel to see it on a walk through Times Square or when scrolling on your feed? 

But some things remain the same: that euphoric feeling of seeing the work pay off when audiences can connect with the key art.

“It's very humbling to then step outside and look up in the middle of Times Square and see  there's a giant billboard with what we've been working on for the past several months and weeks,” Borg said. “It is certainly one of my favorite moments in the entire process is that moment of launch because then it's like, you finally release it to the world and you kind of get to see it in action.”