<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[jonathankalb]]></title><description><![CDATA[jonathankalb]]></description><link>https://www.jonathankalb.com/blog-1</link><generator>RSS for Node</generator><lastBuildDate>Sat, 06 Jun 2026 08:16:32 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://www.jonathankalb.com/blog-feed.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><item><title><![CDATA[Spring Roundup 2026]]></title><description><![CDATA[Daniel Radcliffe in Every Brilliant Thing, Hudson Theatre. Photo Matthew Murphy Once again, the forsythias are in bloom, and that means new openings are arriving way too fast for me to write full reviews on everything I see. Here, then, are some shorter takes, euphoric, admiring, and otherwise. Innocence The Metropolitan Opera Innocence by Kaija Saariaho, libretto by Sofi Oksanen, directed by Simon Stone. Photo: Karen Almond/Met Opera Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence is an extraordinarily haunting...]]></description><link>https://www.jonathankalb.com/post/spring-roundup-2026</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69e83ca08b2f11ff8e5ad9e2</guid><pubDate>Wed, 22 Apr 2026 03:52:59 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6f8aae_37d49de983f64ef6a261ceb344152cba~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Jonathan Kalb</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dog-Gone]]></title><description><![CDATA[Jon Bernthal as Sonny in Stephen Adly Guirgis's Dog Day Afternoon , directed by Rupert Goold, August Wilson Theatre. Photo: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman The new stage adaptation of Dog Day Afternoon  just opened on Broadway, directed by Rupert Goold, doesn’t seem sure who its target audience is. If you went not knowing the source material (though that’s hard to imagine)—Sidney Lumet’s classic 1975 film about a disastrously bungled bank heist, starring Al Pacino and John Cazale in...]]></description><link>https://www.jonathankalb.com/post/dog-gone</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69d57eb910427b2b314a559d</guid><pubDate>Tue, 07 Apr 2026 22:17:26 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6f8aae_d627acd1a450409589efe51cc6ad9b29~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Jonathan Kalb</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Big Fatuous Giant]]></title><description><![CDATA[Aya Cash as Jesse Stone and John Lithgow as Roald Dahl in Mark Rosenblatt's Giant , directed by Nicholas Hytner. Photo: Joan Marcus. Mark Rosenblatt’s new play Giant  is a sensational, admirable, and courageous effort to Make Anti-Semitism Despicable Again. MADA baseball caps coming soon. You read it here first. The play, just opened on Broadway after much acclaimed London runs in 2024 and 2025, is about the venomous, defiant, and utterly unrepentant anti-Semitism of the renowned British...]]></description><link>https://www.jonathankalb.com/post/big-fatuous-giant</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69cfc919462bc80100bf0796</guid><pubDate>Fri, 03 Apr 2026 14:21:24 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6f8aae_e15115b0edb544dea67014dc03328d7f~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Jonathan Kalb</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Beer and a Mop]]></title><description><![CDATA[Mary Beth Peil, Caroline Aaron, Noah Galvin, Chip Zien, and Peter Maloney in Jake Brasch's The Reservoir , directed by Shelley Butler at Atlantic Theater. Photo: Ahron Foster. Jake Brasch’s The Reservoir  tells the story of a charmingly self-deprecating, openly gay NYU theater student named Josh who is a chronically relapsing drunk. Josh wakes up after a blackout near his home in Denver, doesn’t know how he got there, and is reluctantly taken in by his fed-up, divorced mother. He spends the...]]></description><link>https://www.jonathankalb.com/post/a-beer-and-a-mop</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69aa28a23c512245e15a7f7f</guid><pubDate>Fri, 06 Mar 2026 01:17:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6f8aae_949b7484760849c1a4adf6d9d730313b~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Jonathan Kalb</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Monster Mash]]></title><description><![CDATA[Aigner Mizzelle (Lil) and Okieriete Onaodowan (Big) in Ngozi Anyanwu's The Monsters  at Manhattan Theatre Club's NY City Center Stage II. Photo: Christian Heino. Ngozi Anyanwu’s The Monsters  is a poignant and muscular two-hander about a Black brother and sister, estranged for 16 years, who reconcile over intensive training in MMA fighting. It’s a sweet play, directed by the author at MTC’s City Center, written in a spare, mellifluous vernacular that fits well with its athletic milieu and its...]]></description><link>https://www.jonathankalb.com/post/monster-mash</link><guid isPermaLink="false">699a07bd8133563068c498af</guid><pubDate>Sat, 21 Feb 2026 19:39:23 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6f8aae_d99c25c2bda74f498d2fa41ecea6af0d~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Jonathan Kalb</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Bad Data]]></title><description><![CDATA[Karan Brar as Maneesh and Brandon Flynn as Jonah in Matthew Libby's Data , directed by Tyne Rafaeli, Lucille Lortel Theatre. Photo: T. Charles Erickson. At the risk of sounding smug, let me say: I have been yowling, since the early days of the internet, to anyone who would listen, about the dangers of relinquishing our personal data and privacy to tech companies. In all that time, the most demoralizing part of my campaign has been the generational divide in who  would listen. The young people...]]></description><link>https://www.jonathankalb.com/post/bad-data</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6977ac1e6e1e6fddb8199035</guid><pubDate>Mon, 26 Jan 2026 18:16:12 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6f8aae_8726781b05ce4566a5158e62c462e465~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Jonathan Kalb</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[What's Eating You]]></title><description><![CDATA[Carrie Coon as Agnes White in Tracy Letts's Bug , directed by David Cromer at MTC's Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. Photo: Matthew Murphy. Bug  is a thoughtfully creepy psycho-thriller, set in a Texas motel, about a seemingly likeable yet seriously deranged ex-soldier who plunges deep down the rabbit hole of imagined government conspiracies. It’s very sexy, with several scenes of frontal nudity, and its lead role was unforgettably originated two decades ago by a heartbreakingly young Michael...]]></description><link>https://www.jonathankalb.com/post/what-s-eating-you</link><guid isPermaLink="false">695fcc27a1d367a88393ad9c</guid><pubDate>Fri, 09 Jan 2026 03:57:39 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6f8aae_7b3e152a173347ddb0e52c2bc20e8052~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Jonathan Kalb</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Death and the Chatbot]]></title><description><![CDATA[June Squibb (Marjorie) and Cynthia Nixon (Tess) in Jordan Harrison's Marjorie Prime , directed by Anne Kauffman, Second Stage/Hayes Theater. Photo: Joan Marcus. Jordan Harrison’s  Marjorie Prime , a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, was first produced in New York at Playwrights Horizons in 2015. Back then, this excellent futuristic play about bereaved people using AI avatars of their deceased loved ones for comfort and companionship struck me as a remarkably imaginative thought experiment. I...]]></description><link>https://www.jonathankalb.com/post/death-and-the-chatbot</link><guid isPermaLink="false">693dde1542832d49aebd34cc</guid><pubDate>Sat, 13 Dec 2025 21:55:26 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6f8aae_43899867df06403eaa58464fef9dd21b~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Jonathan Kalb</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Aliens in Idaho]]></title><description><![CDATA[Laurie Metcalf as Sarah and Micah Stock as Ethan in Samuel D. Hunter's Little Bear Ridge Road , directed by Joe Mantello, Booth Theatre. Photo: Michael Brosilow. Watching Samuel D. Hunter’s Broadway debut, Little Bear Ridge Road , which was first staged last year at Steppenwolf, I found myself reflecting on how complicated it must be to be effectively branded America’s national poet of heartland bleakness. This has been Hunter’s inevitable lot, at least since the film of The Whale  won an...]]></description><link>https://www.jonathankalb.com/post/aliens-in-idaho</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69378db51d422bb0eb1a3510</guid><pubDate>Tue, 09 Dec 2025 03:06:56 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6f8aae_6c8899e7cecb490895a20e789b6ace66~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Jonathan Kalb</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[#Me Too Oedipus]]></title><description><![CDATA[Oedipus , created by Robert Icke after Sophocles. Mark Strong (Oedipus) and Lesley Manville (Jocasta). Photo: Julieta Cervantes The British directing star Robert Icke specializes in contemporary adaptations of classics. He writes and directs them, proudly insisting that they only deserve attention if they hold their own as current plays. No foreknowledge of the originals should be needed. “When you deliver a classic,” he says, “your primary responsibility is to try and catch some of the...]]></description><link>https://www.jonathankalb.com/post/me-too-oedipus</link><guid isPermaLink="false">691bf183dd35cb65e8696cd3</guid><pubDate>Tue, 18 Nov 2025 04:30:07 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6f8aae_83d532f7fa82463fa2891779ab8db718~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Jonathan Kalb</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dupes of Hazard]]></title><description><![CDATA[Archduke  by Rajiv Joseph, directed by Darko Tresnjak, Laura Pels Theatre. L to R: Patrick Page, Jason Sanchez, Adrien Rolet, Jake Berne, Kristine Nielsen. Photo: Joan Marcus. The farcical premise of Rajiv Joseph’s play Archduke —just opened at the Roundabout’s Laura Pels Theatre—is that the young men who sparked World War I by assassinating the Archduke Franz Ferdinand were actually starving, terminally ill consumptives bribed and duped into becoming suicidal terrorists. The madman...]]></description><link>https://www.jonathankalb.com/post/dupes-of-hazard</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6917800a1f276a0fa61d8afe</guid><pubDate>Fri, 14 Nov 2025 19:26:16 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6f8aae_042ee3869e444f88873b7b6051fed3ca~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Jonathan Kalb</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Nearly Finished]]></title><description><![CDATA[Endgame  by Samuel Beckett, directed by Garry Hynes. A Druid Theatre production at the Irish Arts Center. Set by Francis O'Connor. Photo: Ros Kavanagh. With a depressingly vacuous, celebrity-circus Waiting for Godot   sucking up so much oxygen on Broadway, it’s a delight and relief to see Samuel Beckett produced at the Irish Arts Center by gifted and steely artists with proven talent at plumbing his work. The indomitable Garry Hynes, a Tony-winner and leader of Galway’s Druid Theatre for 5...]]></description><link>https://www.jonathankalb.com/post/nearly-finished</link><guid isPermaLink="false">690ab2b6988cdeb684f71dcb</guid><pubDate>Wed, 05 Nov 2025 02:27:42 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6f8aae_818d17e78ef047588c603f96c3d9b864~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Jonathan Kalb</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Checking the Boxes]]></title><description><![CDATA[Lacrima , written and directed by Caroline Guiela Nguyen. Set design by Alice Duchange.  Photo : Jean-Louis Fernandez I went to Caroline Guiela Nguyen’s Lacrima  at BAM with great eagerness and curiosity. This was a major new work by the only woman with serious clout in the French theater (she is artistic director of the Théâtre National de Strasbourg). This much-acclaimed artist of Vietnamese, North African and French heritage wrote and directed Lacrima , a three-hour, intermissionless piece...]]></description><link>https://www.jonathankalb.com/post/checking-the-boxes</link><guid isPermaLink="false">68fed769dc39b5e10eb04e10</guid><pubDate>Mon, 27 Oct 2025 02:36:59 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6f8aae_45c9c411377446e29d6894fc41dc3653~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Jonathan Kalb</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Barbarians in Midtown]]></title><description><![CDATA[Ragtime , directed by Lear DeBessonet, Vivian Beaumont Theater. Photo: Matthew Murphy The Terrence McNally/Stephen Flaherty/Lynn Ahrens musical Ragtime  is not the subtlest theater contraption. Premiered on Broadway in 1998, it’s a big, galumphing machine with very big things to say about America; multiple, interwoven storylines; whimsical interactions of fictional and historical characters; and a 30+ member ensemble. I remember thinking back in 1998 that it was a miracle this show didn’t...]]></description><link>https://www.jonathankalb.com/post/barbarians-in-midtown</link><guid isPermaLink="false">68f4647076646ed86e43771d</guid><pubDate>Sun, 19 Oct 2025 04:21:04 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6f8aae_bbcd54df148d4557b7c43802321e6aa2~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Jonathan Kalb</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Bloody Ignorant Apes]]></title><description><![CDATA[Keanu Reeves (Estragon) and Alex Winter (Vladimir) in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot , directed by Jamie Lloyd. Photo: Andy Henderson Absurd as it may seem, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot , a demanding play about existential despair and cosmic futility first performed in 1953, has just opened on Broadway for the fifth time. Godot  is the sole Beckett work that Broadway’s glitz-and-glamor-merchants have ever bet big money on, and three of those bets have occurred in the last sixteen...]]></description><link>https://www.jonathankalb.com/post/bloody-ignorant-apes</link><guid isPermaLink="false">68ed9067286ecf9769e33789</guid><pubDate>Tue, 14 Oct 2025 00:05:39 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6f8aae_47a3b4466d2b41cfa358fa89f7f9e503~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Jonathan Kalb</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Taking a Hit]]></title><description><![CDATA[Will Harrison (center) with (l to r) Lucy Taylor, Piter Marek, Jacob Orr, Cody Kostro, Kim Fischer, Camila Cano-Flavia in Manhattan...]]></description><link>https://www.jonathankalb.com/post/taking-a-hit</link><guid isPermaLink="false">68e564f1a062988b03731e98</guid><pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2025 19:24:52 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6f8aae_de7f90ceec384e829c46ad1b13109d09~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Jonathan Kalb</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Welcome to the Machine]]></title><description><![CDATA[Elizabeth Yeoman (The Inmate) and Elizabeth Marvel (A Lawyer) in Tim Blake Nelson's And Then We Were No More , directed at La MaMa by...]]></description><link>https://www.jonathankalb.com/post/welcome-to-the-machine</link><guid isPermaLink="false">68d9bf69ef091a1617e2236e</guid><pubDate>Sun, 28 Sep 2025 23:18:49 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6f8aae_bc21ac3b062d46849ea7536916f187ef~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Jonathan Kalb</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Man Out of the Blue]]></title><description><![CDATA[John Krasinski as Roger in Penelope Skinner's Angry Alan , directed by Sam Gold. Photo: Jonny Cournoyer Angry Alan  is an ickily pointed...]]></description><link>https://www.jonathankalb.com/post/man-out-of-the-blue</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6878021f036729d520b0bfa8</guid><pubDate>Wed, 16 Jul 2025 20:00:36 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6f8aae_e720becb20734cf2869edf2bb5a309e4~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Jonathan Kalb</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[School Camp]]></title><description><![CDATA[Terry Hu (David), Louisa Jacobson (Jared), Emmanuelle Mattana (Owen), and Esco Jouléy (Scott) in Mattana's Trophy Boys , directed by...]]></description><link>https://www.jonathankalb.com/post/school-camp</link><guid isPermaLink="false">68752c8049b18336a6052dcb</guid><pubDate>Mon, 14 Jul 2025 16:29:58 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6f8aae_ac4bd9e6f949415481387c0a54241052~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Jonathan Kalb</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Off-Limits Love]]></title><description><![CDATA[Babak Tafti and Jodi Balfour as David and Tally in Abby Rosebrock's Lowcountry. Photo: Ahron R. Foster Abby Rosebrock’s Lowcountry , a...]]></description><link>https://www.jonathankalb.com/post/off-limits-love</link><guid isPermaLink="false">68620280228c788692f53b8d</guid><pubDate>Mon, 30 Jun 2025 03:37:26 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6f8aae_d983612a2f1f4470bfc75e1f206d4c27~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Jonathan Kalb</dc:creator></item></channel></rss>