FEATURE: Top 10 of the 2010s
First: a lie. It’s actually 20.
For my podcast, “The Fabulous Invalid”, my co-host, Jamie Du Mont, and I decided that it would be fun to end the 2010s and ring in the 2020s by putting together our lists of our top ten favorite shows that we saw in the past decade (2010 to 2019).
Well, that was the idea. But it soon became too hard. So, we decided, instead, to do two separate lists: top ten plays and top ten musicals. Arbitrary? Yes. Necessary? You bet.
While the exact number is probably unknowable, I would venture to guess that I saw well over one thousand shows in the past decade—a period of time during which I lived in Washington, D.C. (until 2014), and spent two years siloed away on a presidential campaign (2015-2016).
And so, without further ado, below are my top ten favorite plays and musicals of the 2010s. You can also listen to me and Jamie talk through both of our lists on the latest episode of our podcast by clicking here.
Here’s to a great decade of theatre ahead!
ROB’S TOP TEN PLAYS OF THE 2010s
10. BootyCandy (2011, Woolly Mammoth)
Robert O’Hara’s satirical, semi-autobiographical play about growing up black and gay in America was among the most hilarious and earth-shattering pieces of theatre I’d ever seen when I caught the 2011 world premiere at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. O’Hara was ahead of the curve in the urgently-needed movement to bring voices and stories long-overlooked onto the mainstage, and seeing “BootyCandy” broadened my horizons as only good theatre can do.
9. The Inheritance (2018 London/2019, Broadway)
Playwright Matthew Lopez’s epic and novelistic contemporary adaption of E. M. Forster’s novel “Howards End” has the instant feel of being a modern classic. Set amid a group of gay men in present day New York grappling with the legacy of the AIDS crisis alongside piercing questions of identity and community, this two part, six act, six hour and 25 minute play features a superb ensemble company and striking design, and soars to extraordinary and memorable heights as it dramatizes the loss of a generation and the twin importance of found family and intergenerational friendship among gay men. Get tickets (read my review)
8. Significant Other (2015, Off-Broadway/2017, Broadway)
The experience of seeing Joshua Harmon’s comedy about a gay man navigating his late twenties, searching for love and community, and forging his own identity as his straight female friends marry off was like seeing my life reflected on stage. Gideon Glick gave a criminally underappreciated performance in a play that made me both laugh and cry, gave me comfort, and helped me navigate my own late twenties.
7. The Humans (2016, Broadway)
Stephen Karam’s 2016 play—a Tony Award winner for Best Play and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama—was the finest “kitchen table” play I saw in the decade; an intimate family drama that provided a piercing portrait of contemporary American life, it gave me chills and left me breathless. Director Joe Mantello’s pitch-perfect production featured Reed Birney, Jayne Houdyshell, Sarah Steele, Cassie Beck, Arian Moayed, and Lauren Klein—probably the finest ensemble assembled on Broadway in the last ten years.
6. A View from the Bridge (2015, Broadway)
Belgian auteur Ivo van Hove’s visceral re-imagining of Arthur Miller’s 1955 play “A View from the Bridge” for The Young Vic in London marked my introduction to this director’s signature style of theatre-making, one that I very much enjoy, when it came to New York. Stripped of any literal trappings, and performed with a palpably escalating tension that boiled over in a visually arresting moment of catharsis involving a shower of blood, few performances have ever left me as affected.
5. A Doll's House, Part 2 (2017, Broadway)
Laurie Metcalf, Jayne Houdyshell (in her second appearance on this list!), Chris Cooper, and Condola Rashad were simply brilliant under Sam Gold’s direction in playwright Lucas Hnath’s irreverent and ravishing continuation of Ibsen’s classic, picking up 15 years after Nora walked out. This play ranks among the greatest surprises of my theatre-going life. I walked into the theatre checking a box by seeing the latest new play on Broadway, and walked out 90 minutes later with my head spinning, so charged and blown away that I had to walk home to work off the energy. Hnath is a remarkable talent, and everything about this production was perfect. (read my review)
4. Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play (2012, Woolly Mammoth)
I have been privileged to see a handful of shows in my life that truly were game changers. Anne Washburn’s “Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play” is one of them. Set in a post-apocalyptic future, a group of survivors bond by reconstructing the famous “Cape Feare” episode of “The Simpsons”, which then becomes mythologized over the course of the next 75 years as the play spins into the future, examining the nature of art, culture, storytelling, and mythology.
3. The Damned (2018, Park Avenue Armory)
Ivo van Hove appears again on this list for his breathtaking and terrifying stage version of the eponymous 1969 Visconti film that was a visceral, tension-filled ritualistic dirge cataloging the fall of a fictional German industrialist family alongside the rise of The Third Reich. Van Hove’s expansive production at the Park Avenue Armory coursed with violence, sex, and brutality in extreme close-up, aided by two videographers who produced a corresponding film in real-time. This bold and memorable play reminded me that there is no limit to the potential of live theatre, and of the fierce urgency of art to counter evil. (read my review)
2. What the Constitution Means to Me (2018, Off-Broadway/2019, Broadway)
Heidi Schreck’s stunning and poignant, mostly-one woman play recounted her formative experience of wrestling with the constitution’s meaning as a teenager through the lens of her adult self, the women in her family, and the bitterly divided nation it serves. Part memoir, part civics lesson—at once bittersweet and beautiful—Schreck weaved a heartbreaking and humorous account of her relationship with her own citizenship that was profoundly moving and invigorating. Few evenings in the theatre have ever felt more vital, and few performances as brave. (read my review)
1. The Normal Heart (2011, Broadway)
The experience of seeing the 2011 revival of writer and activist Larry Kramer’s semi-autobiographical 1985 play about the early days of the HIV/AIDS crisis in New York City will forever haunt me. Joe Mantello (acting this time!), John Benjamin Hickey, and Ellen Barkin led an extraordinary ensemble cast in performing this emotionally gut-wrenching, urgent, and stridently political play under the expert direction of George Wolfe and Joel Grey. It was the only time I have ever been unable to move after seeing a piece of theatre. If art can change the world, “The Normal Heart” is exhibit A.
ROB’S TOP TEN MUSICALS OF THE 2010s
10. Soft Power (2018, Los Angeles/2019, Off-Broadway)
David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori’s brilliant reckoning with the promise and failures of American democracy through the lens of the 2016 election took the form of a play that becomes a musical, in a clever reversal of, and comment on, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “The King and I”. This is my kind of show: adventurous in form, political in content, fabulously entertaining, and deeply moving. I hope it has another life in 2020 or beyond. (read my review)
9. First Daughter Suite (2015, Off-Broadway)
I am an admitted partisan for the work of composer/lyricist/playwright Michael John LaChiusa. This original quadriptych musical took a look at the lives of America’s First Daughters, and their First Lady mothers (a follow up to LaChiusa’s 1993 work, “First Ladies Suite”), in stylistically and tonally diverse vignettes that were poignant, tragic, humane, and farcical, performed by an exquisite cast including Mary Testa, Alison Fraser, Barbara Walsh, Rachel Bay Jones, Caissie Levy, Betsy Morgan, and more. Listen to the cast album for a glimpse at the brilliance of this unheralded work.
8. Oklahoma! (2010, Arena Stage)
The first of two appearances on this list, Molly Smith’s ebullient, racially-diverse “Oklahoma!” for Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. marked my reintroduction to this Rodgers & Hammerstein classic. Performed in the round, this outstanding production was a revelation befitting the revolution it sparked in 1943. I can still smell the raw wood of Eugene Lee’s set.
7. The Scottsboro Boys (2011, Broadway)
One of legendary songwriting duo Kander and Ebb’s final collaborations, director Susan Stroman helmed this bold and provocative musical re-telling of the real-life story of the Scottsboro Nine—nine black boys falsely accused of raping two white women in the Jim Crow South—in the form of a minstrel show. Tragically underappreciated at the time of its debut, I look forward to seeing a marquee revival in the decades ahead. (read my review of the 2018 revival at Signature Theatre)
6. A Strange Loop (2019, Off-Broadway)
Dramaturgically breathtaking and at once hilarious and heartbreaking, Michael R. Jackson’s self-referential musical by and about “a black, queer man writing a musical about a black, queer man who’s writing a musical about a black queer man who’s writing a musical about a black queer man” shattered critical expectations and challenged societal limitations around what a queer black man’s story can and should be about, demonstrating what musical theatre can be and do. And it introduced us to national treasure Larry Owens. Listen to the spectacular cast album. I’ve got my fingers crossed for a return in 2020. (read my review)
5. The Band's Visit (2016, Off-Broadway/2017, Broadway)
This intimate, flawless musical adaptation of the eponymous Israeli film was “the little musical that could”, premiering at Atlantic Theater Company before making the leap to Broadway and winning a whopping ten Tony Awards. Haunting, simple, and deeply moving, this adult musical was an oasis amid a decade-long desert of jukebox recycling and mass produced teenage-aimed entertainment, featuring David Yazbek’s best score to date, and giving us the gift of Katrina Lenk. (read my review)
4. Caroline, or Change (2018, London)
Director Michael Longhurst’s 2017 Chichester Festival Theatre revival of playwright Tony Kushner and composer Jeanine Tesori’s 2004 musical masterpiece made me fall in love again with one of my favorite musicals, and one of the best ever written. The magic of Kushner and Tesori’s writing was matched by the inventiveness and vibrancy of Longhurst’s production, and the story itself, about the pain of progress, never felt more relevant. Luckily, this production comes to Broadway in the spring. Get ready to hear the name Sharon D. Clarke a lot. (read my review from London)
3. Oklahoma! (2018, St. Ann's Warehouse/2019, Broadway)
Without changing a word, director Daniel Fish’s “Oklahoma!”—making its second appearance on this list—completely deconstructed this canonical and totemic masterpiece, highlighting the darker themes of violence and injustice that have always been simmering just beneath the sunny melodies and gleeful optimism of its characters. Sexually charged and presented with a striking naturalism, this daring re-imagining of a classic set the high water mark for how to revive a golden age musical. It runs through January 19th on Broadway. See it, or live to regret it. Get tickets (read my review)
2. Hello, Dolly! (2017, Broadway)
Jerry Zaks’ gloriously perfect revival of Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart’s musical masterpiece—arguably “Broadway’s greatest musical”—was the salve that got me through the horror of 2017. As Dolly Levi, Bette Midler was simply transcendent, Bernadette Peters invented stairs, and Donna Murphy was a musical theatre dream. Whenever I needed a pick me up, I went to the Shubert Theatre, and this production reminded me why I love musicals. (read my review)
1. Follies (2019, London)
In 2019, I caught the return engagement of Dominic Cooke’s magnificent 2017 revival of Sondheim and Goldman’s 1971 musical masterpiece at the National Theatre in London. This production, in the vast expanse of the Olivier Theatre, featured a cast of 40 and an orchestra of 21, and may very well be the defining “Follies” of our time—as close in scale and vision to the iconic, original Hal Prince/Michael Bennett production as we are likely to ever see again. More so than nearly any musical I know, awash in metaphor and intellect, the imagery of “Follies” is as important as the text, and Cooke and his collaborators nailed both. I’m hoping for a 50th anniversary Broadway transfer in 2021. (read my review)
