Here’s one thing you might not expect but I’m gonna say it at the top: Paranormal Activity is funny! Yes of course you will get your full share of screams, but playwright Levi Holloway has delivered a story that is equal parts humorous and eerie, and a ton of fun. 

Following a tour hitting major cities across the US, and currently running in London, Paranormal Activity officially opened on Broadway earlier tonight at the August Wilson Theatre and it's an impressive feat. I remember watching the original film—I was way too young—and being obsessed with the found footage franchise that relies on minimalism, and that’s where the stage show works. Its atmospheric set by Fly Davis when paired with Anna Watson’s lighting and Luke Halls’ video + projection design work incredibly well, without going overboard. 

Holloway returns to Broadway, following Grey House a few seasons back, in top form. The story is simple, Lou and James move to London for work, and I can’t really say much more… let’s just say things start to go awry. Holloway blends this modern day ghost story with themes of religion, mental health, and family in ways one might not expect. And while I think it could be tightened up a bit, it’s a smart, sharp script that allows the scares to breathe. His ability to build a strong sense of dread is admirable. 

I love being scared, and Paranormal Activity is by far the best entry for horror theatre we have seen on Broadway, perhaps ever? Illusions Designer Chris Fisher worked with Holloway and director Felix Barrett from the jump creating the story with them, and his work here is as impressive as ever, and the glee the audience gets at certain moments are of course the standout crowdpleasers. 

Barrett has assembled a top-notch ensemble who bring life to these roles that make it such a treat for the audience. This play demands a lot from its actors but Cher Álvarez and Travis A. Knight knock it out of the park. Eva Kaminsky and Shannon Cochran, I should mention, are also terrifying. 

Davis’ two story modular house design while attractive to look at, I don't think was designed for the space at all. Sitting Orchestra D in the center the other night, I had trouble seeing some moments upstairs, and if you sit on the far sides, you will surely miss others. While those seats are surely marked partial view, keep this in mind when purchasing your seats.

This is not your typical Broadway show, and I don’t expect it to find the typical Broadway audience, and how exciting. While on tour across the country, this production at numerous stops brought in the most amount of first time ticket buyers than ever before, and we need that more than ever right now. As a horror fanatic, yes I wanted them to go even further with the scares, but Barrett and Holloway have smartly devised a piece that works well for everyone and gets you thoroughly spooked. As fall and spooky season quickly approach, go get your heart rate pumping at Paranormal Activity, you surely won’t regret it. 

Paranormal Activity is now in performance at the August Wilson Theatre on West 52nd Street in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here.

After impressing with the surrealist cunicularii in 2024 and the tragi-comic Road Kills last year, Good Apples Collective have delivered another winner with benevolent, a moving and carefully wrought new work making its world premiere at IATI Theater through September 5. 

Set in a New York reformatory home in 1917, benevolent marks the latest collaboration between playwright Sophie McIntosh and director Nina Goodheart, who co-founded Good Apples. The play is more starkly naturalistic than McIntosh’s previous works, and does feel constrained at times by the solemnity of its period setting. But Goodheart’s sensitive production confirms this company’s precision in bringing tonally tricky, women-led stories to the stage. 

Set in a dismal basement laundry, benevolent follows four “fallen” young women forced to live and work in the oppressive Inwood Benevolent Home. Three longtime residents, Sarah (Rachel Ravel), Margaret (Chani Reese) and Emma (Mia Fowler), are joined by newcomer Abby (Livvy Marcus), a privileged girl sent temporarily to the home as punishment—and also, she cheerfully announces, to see “how the other half lives.”

The play’s drab set makes for a worrying first impression, suggesting we might be in for a chore-like history lesson. (Designer Junran “Charlotte” Shi does what she can with this black box space, drawing our focus to the ever-growing mound of laundry at its center.) But despite its setting, benevolent actually proves a warm and humorous work. The four women bicker and tease enjoyably as they scrub away at their washboards, each of them gradually dropping their guard and revealing subtly textured backstories. 

McIntosh lets the cruel indignities of a misogynistic society, along with the routine abuse in the benevolent home itself, live naturally in each woman’s lived experience. References to parental abandonment and assaults by male staff are almost tossed off, with a sigh and a forced smile. This is a relevant play, but never a didactic one. 

Two extended moments of surprising intimacy—a pair of scenes that elegantly mirror one another—elevate benevolent beyond the familiar beats of its narrative. In the first, the camaraderie of Margaret and Sarah, the two troublemakers of the group, develops touchingly (no pun intended) into a more intimate bond. The scene is beautifully played by performers Ravel and Reese, most especially in the genuine delight that both women take in this shared moment of discovery. 

In the second scene, the comparatively discreet Emma reveals her own closely-guarded history to the open-hearted Abby. Both moments see these wary personalities opening themselves up; in both, there is a physical closeness unique to the bond of womanhood. Goodheart guides these parallel moments expertly—the performances are wrenching, and always truthful. 

The plot developments in benevolent are heavily telegraphed, and mostly unsurprising. The physical production is also disappointing in some respects, though it scarcely matters with performances of this caliber. Goodheart does get a huge assist from sound designer Max Van, who lays in distant screams and disturbing soundscapes (playing over scene transitions) that tell us everything we need to know about life on the floors above. For all its dreariness, this laundry is actually an escape—a refuge, of a kind. And when it is ultimately lost, we share in these women’s pain at the unique cruelty of the injustice.

For tickets and more information, visit here.

After impressing with the surrealist cunicularii in 2024 and the tragi-comic Road Kills last year, Good Apples Collective have delivered another winner with benevolent, a moving and carefully wrought new work making its world premiere at IATI Theater through September 5. 

Set in a New York reformatory home in 1917, benevolent marks the latest collaboration between playwright Sophie McIntosh and director Nina Goodheart, who co-founded Good Apples. The play is more starkly naturalistic than McIntosh’s previous works, and does feel constrained at times by the solemnity of its period setting. But Goodheart’s sensitive production confirms this company’s precision in bringing tonally tricky, women-led stories to the stage. 

Set in a dismal basement laundry, benevolent follows four “fallen” young women forced to live and work in the oppressive Inwood Benevolent Home. Three longtime residents, Sarah (Rachel Ravel), Margaret (Chani Reese) and Emma (Mia Fowler), are joined by newcomer Abby (Livvy Marcus), a privileged girl sent temporarily to the home as punishment—and also, she cheerfully announces, to see “how the other half lives.”

The play’s drab set makes for a worrying first impression, suggesting we might be in for a chore-like history lesson. (Designer Junran “Charlotte” Shi does what she can with this black box space, drawing our focus to the ever-growing mound of laundry at its center.) But despite its setting, benevolent actually proves a warm and humorous work. The four women bicker and tease enjoyably as they scrub away at their washboards, each of them gradually dropping their guard and revealing subtly textured backstories. 

McIntosh lets the cruel indignities of a misogynistic society, along with the routine abuse in the benevolent home itself, live naturally in each woman’s lived experience. References to parental abandonment and assaults by male staff are almost tossed off, with a sigh and a forced smile. This is a relevant play, but never a didactic one. 

Two extended moments of surprising intimacy—a pair of scenes that elegantly mirror one another—elevate benevolent beyond the familiar beats of its narrative. In the first, the camaraderie of Margaret and Sarah, the two troublemakers of the group, develops touchingly (no pun intended) into a more intimate bond. The scene is beautifully played by performers Ravel and Reese, most especially in the genuine delight that both women take in this shared moment of discovery. 

In the second scene, the comparatively discreet Emma reveals her own closely-guarded history to the open-hearted Abby. Both moments see these wary personalities opening themselves up; in both, there is a physical closeness unique to the bond of womanhood. Goodheart guides these parallel moments expertly—the performances are wrenching, and always truthful. 

The plot developments in benevolent are heavily telegraphed, and mostly unsurprising. The physical production is also disappointing in some respects, though it scarcely matters with performances of this caliber. Goodheart does get a huge assist from sound designer Max Van, who lays in distant screams and disturbing soundscapes (playing over scene transitions) that tell us everything we need to know about life on the floors above. For all its dreariness, this laundry is actually an escape—a refuge, of a kind. And when it is ultimately lost, we share in these women’s pain at the unique cruelty of the injustice.

For tickets and more information, visit here.