Nicole Serratore

I write about K-dramas, US and UK theater and my travels to and fro.

Nicole Serratore (she/her) is a New York City-based freelance journalist and critic.

She has written opinion pieces, reviews, and features for outlets such as the New York Times, American Theatre magazine, Variety, BAMbill, The Stage (UK), Time Out New York, the Village Voice, Exeunt magazine, TDF Stages, TheaterJones.com, Flavorpill, and The Craptacular.

She is the former Managing Editor of Exeunt NYC Inc., a longform theater criticism website. She is a current member of the Drama Desk and the Outer Critics Circle.

She was a co-host and co-producer of the Maxamoo theater podcast. She was a Fellow at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Critics Institute in 2015.

She has written about travel and world adventures for Shermans Travel and Frommers.com.

She has a B.F.A. in Film and Television from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She has a J.D. from Fordham University. She is a former film executive and producer. She once had a prize-winning cow.

Review: ||:GIRLS:||:CHANCE:||:MUSIC:|| at Vineyard Theatre - Exeunt Magazine NYC

For teen girls, finding your way in the world remains a complicated journey. For the characters in this new play, ||:GIRLS:||:CHANCE:||:MUSIC:|| by Eisa Davis, they might be facing more than their fair share of challenges.
And while we need more voices of young women on stage, Davis’ play just never seems to lift off the ground. Further, the world Davis creates might be a bit inaccessible if you don’t speak its musical language.
At a music camp in the Bay Area, Fax (Hillary Fisher) is a rule-fol...

Review: And Then The Rodeo Burned Down at Ars Nova - Exeunt Magazine NYC

From the start, there was a mysterious tension underlying physical theater duo Xhloe and Natasha’s show And Then The Rodeo Burned Down.
Ars Nova has been transformed into a something of a patchwork circus tent, covered with stars and draped in garlands of bandanas. On a round stage, with hidden doors, Xhloe and Natasha are donning clown make-up to the sound of Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5.”
Despite their white-faced, red-cheeked clown smiles, something was not as it seemed. Throughout their synchronou...

Review: Joe Turner's Come and Gone at Barrymore Theatre - Exeunt Magazine NYC

There is a thunder crack in the middle of August Wilson’s play Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. In that moment, the hairs on my neck stood up and a chill ran through my body.
You need not believe in god or any form of spiritualism. But there is a sense of the metaphysical that pulses through Wilson’s play and is well-captured by director Debbie Allen’s transportive production.
Originally written in 1988, it is the second chapter in August Wilson’s Century Cycle. Set in 1911, Bertha (Taraji P. Henson)...

Review: Fallen Angels at Todd Haimes Theatre - Exeunt Magazine NYC

Fallen Angels is a Noel Coward comedy centered around women, desire, friendship, and booze. It was wildly ahead of its time getting nearly banned when it was written in 1923 with its talk of premarital sex. While there is fizzy pleasure in the two female friends barely holding it together as they wait with bubbling anticipation of their past lover, something about Scott Ellis’ production just lags.
Set among bluebloods in London in 1928, Julia (Kelli O’Hara) sends her husband Fred (Aasif Mandvi)...

Review: Voyage Into Infinity at NYU Skirball - Exeunt Magazine NYC

I was looking forward to seeing Narcissister’s work again after a number of years. But this large scale take on “collapse” called Voyage Into Infinity, as part of the Under the Radar festival, just felt empty and repetitive.
It is meant to pay homage to the 1987 video (transferred to 16mm film) The Way Things Go by Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss where they filmed a series of actions using Rube Goldberg machines.

Review: Kanjincho at Japan Society - Exeunt Magazine NYC

It’s that time of year again. The January Theater festivals kick off and with it bring unique works from around the world.
As part of Under the Radar and presented by Japan Society, Kanjincho by Japanese theater company Kinoshita Kabuki is a modern take on a kabuki classic involving injustice, borders, mercy, and sacrifice.
In a moment where much of the world is hellbent on stopping people from crossing borders, this show knows it is speaking to certain xenophobic attitudes in Japan and around t...

Top 5 K-Dramas of 2025

I only saw about 25 K-dramas this year that I wrote about. And I'm not really sure 10 were worth mentioning. So many shows failed in their second half of the season including ones I started to recommend to people...and that might be more upsetting than ones that were just meh all along.But here are five worth checking out.

I only saw about 25 K-dramas this year that I wrote about. And I'm not really sure 10 were worth mentioning. So many shows failed in their second half of the season including...

November 2025: Found Family

I took a little pause in drama watching in November for a big trip to Spain for my birthday. It had been a WHILE since I had traveled to Europe. I started off in Barcelona with a focus on 20th century architecture. Now back to work and reality. And the couple of dramas I finally managed to finish.I truly wasn't sure what exactly The Murky Stream wanted to be. It feels mostly like a historical drama (prepare ye for sadness) and then a bit of a revenge tale. But at nine episodes with an abrupt end...

Review: Liberation at James Earl Jones Theatre - Exeunt Magazine NYC

Years ago, I got into an argument with a millennial-age man about feminism. His view was that women just had to wait until the “old sexist guys” died out and that time would come, eventually. And I recall asking, not without some anger, how long I should have to wait to be treated equally?
Generational conversations about feminism are central to Bess Wohl’s sweeping play Liberation about second wave feminism. In it, her Gen X narrator looks back at her mother’s generation of feminists and wants...

October 2025: Food, Comebacks, and Sexy Bodyguards

Had a fun month with a quick Are You Sure-themed trip to Connecticut. Glamping a la Jimin and Jungkook with less diarrhea but a spider bite. Stll have not encountered any AMAZING dramas lately but I'm watching a mix of old and new ones waiting for the next big hit.

Had a fun month with a quick Are You Sure-themed trip to Connecticut. Glamping a la Jimin and Jungkook with less diarrhea but a spider bite. Stll have not encountered any AMAZING dramas lately but I'm watching a mix of old and new on...

Review: The Honey Trap at Irish Repertory Theatre - Exeunt Magazine NYC

The history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland is a sticky subject to say the least. Leo McGann’s new play, The Honey Trap, focuses on the impact of that conflict on the British soldiers who were sent there. The result is a play with some implausible plot twists and an unfortunate flattening of complex subjects. Some of the most interesting elements are left to the fringe of the story being told.
In the present day, British solider Dave (Michael Hayden) has agreed to be interviewed by historian...

September 2025: Throwbacks

But when she gets injured while hiking and is rescued by Yoo Min-woo (Song Seung-heon) her heart beats like it never has before. Min-woo is just back from Italy (where he happened to meet Jung-ah) and has been nursing a broken heart since his fiancee died. Jung-ah has just decided Min-woo will fall for her, but he also finds himself inexplicably drawn to Hye-won. Hye-won is sweet but Jung-jae is boring, patronizing, and infantilizes her. He may have been in her life for a long time, but their re...

Review: The Wild Duck at TFANA - Exeunt Magazine NYC

Joan Didion wrote, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” For Ibsen, in The Wild Duck he speaks of characters telling themselves “life lies.” The characters in the play are surviving and managing, holding things together in their world with small (and big) lies that preserve their mental and physical peace. But Ibsen unleashes upon this peace a toxic truthteller who wreaks havoc on not only the tranquility but a family by pulling at the bonds between them. Unravelling these threads, has t...
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