Media Archive

[Sara Porkalob’s Dragon Lady] was hilarious in several places and full of moving scenes about immigration and life.

“I felt like so many of the examples of art that was held out to me as something I should work toward did not reflect my experience. It did not reflect my family as people of color, as immigrants, as people who grew up poor, as women. It really forced me to acknowledge that my education was missing and there was a lack of theater, of narrative, that reflected my experience, and therefore the experience of a lot of people who looked like me,” she says. “I decided that if I’m going to change the landscape I may as well start with where I started, which is my family.”

This oddly compelling piece plays more like a social experiment in unforced compliance than theater, but it works in a way that never feels forced or hokey.

Abigail Browde and Michael Silverstone have created performances together under the name 600 HIGHWAYMEN since 2009.

Throughout this compelling play, “actorvist” Keith A. Wallace is in direct conversation with theatergoers — improvisational shit-talking, he calls it — to inspire radical empathy about how police violence traumatizes African Americans in communities across the country.

The Bitter Game is a strong reminder that live theatre is a powerful tool for invoking larger conversations and like life, theatre can be more when you don’t just passively participate.

“The Bitter Game” was simple and direct — and all the more damning for being so.

Performed as an interactive exercise that allows no one to maintain a distance, the show is a sharp reminder of the persuasive powers of live theater.