Staff Picks’ Picker’s End-o-Year Lists

Dec 20

Dear Staff Picks Readers-

We want to thank you for following our Picks as we ponder, write, attend, and respond to the wide world of performance going on around us. It has been a wonderful way to learn about artists and venues for all of us, as well! Every week we are amazed and delighted by the wide-ranging Picks of the Staff. As we round out 2023, we wanted to participate in the honored tradition of making end-of-year lists, so here we go! Some will be shared today and some next week. We must note that Staff are only making Lists from their own Picks. Staff Picks began in June AND often Staff would not Pick a show that had already been Picked. Some Pickers may make other lists on their own socials that cover the full year and maybe movies, too... Next week, we will also share some exciting Previews for 2024 here on the ol' Soap Box, too! Have fun reading and share your lists with us, if you like!

-Staff Picks

The staff were asked their top five shows (1-5):

Billy McEntee:
1. Odyssey 1: Telemachus at Home
2. Grief Hotel
3. Sad Boys in Harpy Land
4. cryptochrome
5. How to Make a Revolution Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

hillary gao:
1. Boy mother / faceless bloom
2. Faust (The Broken Show)
3. Prometheus Firebringer
4. Timelapse
5. TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH / 땅끝까지

Theresa Buchheister:
1. The Dastardly Thornes v. The Town of Goldhaven
2. Disney Adult
3 . Faust (The Broken Show)
4. Dance Die Crucify
5. would you set the table if I asked you to?

Travis Amiel:
1. SHABOOM!
2. Sad Boys in Harpy Land*
3. KŌSA
4. In Hell with Jesus/Top 40
5. O Come Let Us Adore Them

*(Top because I was able to discuss this the most with people I loved)

Lena Engelstein:
1. Sad Boys in Harpy Land @ Abrons & Playwrights by Alex Tatarsky
2. Food @ BAM by Geoff Sobell
3. Weathering @ the NYLA studio showing APAP 2023 by Faye Driscoll
4. Open Mic Night by Peter Mills Weiss & Julia Mounsey;
5. The Rite of Spring @ The Armory by Pina Bausch

…and asked what they were saddest they could not attend…

Billy: I did not attend any La Mama shows this year, and that is a sin.
hillary: im a pause im a fiction im a pervert im a dream: Barnett Cohen
Theresa: BAC Open House
Travis: CEREMONIA
Lena: Psychic Self Defense

…and what the weirdest moment they saw was…

Billy: Letting my mind wander to stop interpreting the text in The Complaint Society
hillary: A fully cooked chicken being held (fisted? if I remember correctly) during Chicken Sister.
Theresa: reverse strip tease in Disney Adult
Travis: Every second of SHABOOM!
Lena: This category is so daunting. Every single day is the strangest experience of my life.

…and their biggest revelation…

Billy: Discovering, only when Becca Blackwell was before me in a vagina costume, that I did not know where a clitorist was.
hillary: Matthew Antoci and Meaghan Robichaud’s remix of “They Wanna Fuck” (by Kim Petras) during MEOW.
Theresa: Can Yasar playing huge Steinway piano and singing as part of the VISA Mon Amor event at Prelude
Travis: The way that time figurateively slowed down in KŌSA
Lena: Of all the weeks of the year, I take the best care of myself during the ones in which I am performing (baths after every night, eating well, sleeping enough) except for the 3 hours after a show where I smoke and drink and scream at a bar.

…and a category they feel is missing…

Theresa: Trend I Want To Support - Creating ambitious and opinionated design outside of the trappings of proper theater.
Travis: Most Uncomfortable (in a good way) Moment: Crackhead Barney's crowdwork in this house is not a home.

Staff Picks