January 2025: Parenting and Abandonment
A belated New Year's greeting as my December-January shows took a while to wrap-up. Praying the terrible drama drought of 2024 comes to an end soon!
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: My Man Kono at ART/NY Theater - Exeunt Magazine NYC
From the silent age of cinema to the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Philip W. Chung’s play, My Man Kono, about real life figure Toraichi Kono, gives a unique perspective on Kono’s experiences being Japanese in America in the first half of the twentieth century. It’s a fascinating slice of history from a volatile era—but the play’s narrow lens on Kono and Charlie Chaplin’s working relationship and a limiting retrospective structure pushes some rich cultural history to the backend of th...
Review: English at Todd Haimes Theatre - Exeunt Magazine NYC
The process of learning a new language can be an act of invasion. Shaping your mouth, tongue, and brain for this new form of expression starts to change who you are behind the voice speaking. And learning English in this global economy is becoming less of a choice and sometimes it is a political necessity.
In Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, English, about students in an English class in Iran, it is hard not feel a profound loss at the end of the play knowing how language creates gaps...
In Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, English, about students in an English class in Iran, it is hard not feel a profound loss at the end of the play knowing how language creates gaps...
December 2024: Found Family and Haunted Exes
Closing out a weak year of dramas...with dramas that started out promising or offer some good performances in less than stellar material.
Top 10 K-Dramas of 2024
I decided to do a Top 10 list based on what I saw this year (though they may have been released in another year). I really found it a rough year for dramas. A lot of these did not end up high in my lifetime rankings...which is really saying something about the shows that came out this year. But I feel like I can recommend them still.
the beautiful land i seek (la linda tierra que busco yo) at Pregones PRTT - Exeunt Magazine NYC
In Matthew Barbot’s play about Puerto Rican history, the beautiful land i seek (la linda tierra que busco yo), at some point West Side Story’s Maria is singing and crying over the body of Christopher Columbus surrounded by a whole lot of rolls of paper towels.
As you can imagine, this sets a certain satirical tone within this sincere and funny play that looks at political activism, Puerto Rican independence, and what generations of repeated colonization and oppression fosters. Director José Zaya...
As you can imagine, this sets a certain satirical tone within this sincere and funny play that looks at political activism, Puerto Rican independence, and what generations of repeated colonization and oppression fosters. Director José Zaya...
Review: This is My Favorite Song at Playwrights Horizons - Exeunt Magazine NYC
Comedian Francesa D’Uva’s father died in June 2020 from COVID. He was in a coma in a hospital on a ventilator where his family could not visit him.
It is not the easiest starting place for the autobiographical show, This is My Song. Frankly, D’Uva knows this.
She sings at one point “I don’t want to do this show.” But her “talent representatives” have pushed her to do so. Part of the show is about getting back on the creativity horse after her loss and trying to figure out how to be funny or do...
It is not the easiest starting place for the autobiographical show, This is My Song. Frankly, D’Uva knows this.
She sings at one point “I don’t want to do this show.” But her “talent representatives” have pushed her to do so. Part of the show is about getting back on the creativity horse after her loss and trying to figure out how to be funny or do...
October-November 2024: Love in the Big City et al
Love in the Big City really changes the landscape for gay representation in Korean drama. It is a true journey into gay culture as well as being a bittersweet story about looking for love.
Shit. Meet. Fan. at MCC Theater - Exeunt Magazine NYC
At some point in Robert O’Hara’s new play Shit. Meet. Fan. the audience is so riled up, laughing and gasping at every reveal, it feels like the heyday of the Jerry Springer show. O’Hara wants to set a trap to unconsciously lure the audience into a pleasurable wallowing in other people’s shit but then turn the spotlight back on the audience.
He says the play is “a blistering vulgar satire on Male Toxicity and White Privilege.” Those intentions are clear but he does not successfully skewer his s...
He says the play is “a blistering vulgar satire on Male Toxicity and White Privilege.” Those intentions are clear but he does not successfully skewer his s...
Maybe Happy Ending review at the Belasco Theatre, New York
Nicole Serratore is a freelance journalist, theatre critic, and attorney from New York City. She has written for the New York Times, Variety, the Village Voice, American Theatre magazine, TDF Stages, Flavorpill, and The Craptacular. She is Managing Editor of Exeunt NYC
Nicole Serratore is a freelance journalist, theatre critic, and attorney from New York City. She has written for the New York Times, Variety, the Village Voice, American Theatre magazine, TDF Stages, Flavorpill, and The Craptacul...
Nicole Serratore is a freelance journalist, theatre critic, and attorney from New York City. She has written for the New York Times, Variety, the Village Voice, American Theatre magazine, TDF Stages, Flavorpill, and The Craptacul...
Romeo + Juliet review at Circle in the Square, New York City starring Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler
Director Sam Gold’s blazing production of this version of Shakespeare’s tragedy leans on an irresistible pop-dance soundtrack from Jack Antonoff. The characters’ passions for sex and fighting are worn on their crop-top sleeves. Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler are a rapturous pair of star-crossed lovers, burning up in an overheated world.
Left on Tenth review at the James Earl Jones Theatre, New York, by Delia Ephron, directed by Susan Stroman
Screenwriter, playwright and novelist Delia Ephron made her name writing romantic comedies such as You’ve Got Mail alongside her sister, writer-director Nora Ephron. Her new play is based on her memoir of the same name, and her own unexpected late-in-life romance. Ephron discovers love in the aftermath of grief, and joy to lift her out of the grey – but the audience of Susan Stroman’s production doesn’t vicariously share the same thrill.
September 2024: Meh Romance
I feel like my drama slump kind of continues. SIGH. There have a been a slew of recent romance dramas but they all started to blur together. Love Next DoorI could not help but see some parallels between Love Next Door and the recent series, Doctor Slump. Here, childhood neighbors Bae Seok-ryu (Jung So-min) and Choi Seung-hyo (Jung Hae-in) haven’t seen each other in a long time. Seok-ryu has been working for a prestigious tech company in the US and is engaged. But she shows up unexpectedly back i...
My Favorite K-Dramas Ranked
A ranking of the K-dramas I have watched and written about
Review: Yellow Face at Todd Haimes Theatre - Exeunt Magazine NYC
In David Henry Hwang’s play Yellow Face, the playwright is weighing all sorts of contradictions in fictionalized version of himself and wrestling with generational perspectives on Asian American activism and identity. This 2007 play, revived now in a production directed by Leigh Silverman, is a semi-autobiographical satire but also an interrogation of yellow face casting, Asian American identity, and the oppressive force of white America on Asian Americans.
It is funny and messy, and not withou...
It is funny and messy, and not withou...
August 2024: Drama Slump Continues
Review: The Voices in Your Head at St. Lydia's - Exeunt Magazine NYC
If life can take many different forms, it makes sense that so can grief. There is no one way to process loss. But The Voices in Your Head, created by Grier Mathiot and Billy McEntee, reminds us that sometimes humor can be a tonic, especially at this “anti-grief” support group.
With an audience of around 20, held in an inclusive church in Brooklyn, St. Lydia’s, it’s an intimate site-specific setting (it becomes St. Lidwina’s in the play). We are seated in the support group circle (though there is...
With an audience of around 20, held in an inclusive church in Brooklyn, St. Lydia’s, it’s an intimate site-specific setting (it becomes St. Lidwina’s in the play). We are seated in the support group circle (though there is...
Review: Table 17 at MCC Theater - Exeunt Magazine NYC
Set around a reunion of exes this new play lacks the fun and sparks it needs. Nicole Serratore reviews. I’ve often wondered why there aren’t more romance plays. Sadly Douglas Lyons’s comedy-romance Table 17 does not make the strongest case for them. Even with the always riveting Kara Young, the play is a shallow exploration of relationships, love, and romance. With wispy characters, mild laughs, and cringey dialogue, it’s hard to root for this couple at all.
Jada (Kara Young) and Dallas (Biko Ei...
Jada (Kara Young) and Dallas (Biko Ei...
June-July 2024: A Drab Summer of Dramas
What the hell have I been watching all summer? I cannot think of any other time since I started my K-drama journey that I have floundered for so long looking for a show to catch my attention. Even my Korean teacher was complaining about this so I feel like it's not just me. We're having a dud summer of dramas. In less of a review and more of an issue of record-keeping, these are the shows I poked around with this summer but (mostly) could not finish.Missing Crown PrinceThis is the one show I man...
Review: someone spectacular at The Pershing Square Signature Center - Exeunt Magazine NYC
Looking back on 2024, I have inadvertently programmed myself a cycle of grief plays. How did this happen? Perhaps in the aftermath (ongoing) COVID pandemic it is a subject that more playwrights have gravitated towards unpacking lately.
My mileage with these plays has varied greatly. From the strangely funny Grief Hotel to the awkwardly, mystical Find Me Here to the memoir-style of Lorenzo to this new play, someone spectacular by Doménica Feraud, which tries to be funny and a little mystical, but...
My mileage with these plays has varied greatly. From the strangely funny Grief Hotel to the awkwardly, mystical Find Me Here to the memoir-style of Lorenzo to this new play, someone spectacular by Doménica Feraud, which tries to be funny and a little mystical, but...
Review: Inspired by True Events at Theatre 154 - Exeunt Magazine NYC
Zig-zagging through theatrical genres and styles this new play does not know where to land. Nicole Serratore reviewsStage managers handle a lot. In this new play by Ryan Spahn, Inspired by True Events, the stage manager at Rochester Community Theater ends up dealing with issues well outside the bounds of what Equity expects and then some. She may be cleaning up the green room, brewing coffee, and chasing away mice but there are much bigger problems in store.
Falling somewhere between a real-time...
Falling somewhere between a real-time...
Review: Isabel at Abrons Arts Center
reid tang’s new play exists in a jiggly universe full of unpredictable concepts and images but meaning is harder to ascribe to it. Nicole Serratore reviews.
reid tang’s play Isabel is awash with unpredictable images and concepts. Time is not linear. The play is constantly redefining that which we see. For instance, a human sibling once known as Harriet using “he” pronouns might suddenly become a backpack named Loaves Chapman who is a “she.” One must give into the play’s jiggly universe and the
reid tang’s play Isabel is awash with unpredictable images and concepts. Time is not linear. The play is constantly redefining that which we see. For instance, a human sibling once known as Harriet using “he” pronouns might suddenly become a backpack named Loaves Chapman who is a “she.” One must give into the play’s jiggly universe and the
Review: Find Me Here at Clubbed Thumb
Crystal Finn’s new play, Find Me Here, is full of characters searching for meaning in life and death but it is less legible in what it delivers in that quest. It is a jumbled amalgamation of characters musing on big themes in personal ways, but the mystical energy in the play just fizzles in Caitin Sullivan’s muted production.
Three sisters have gathered to read their father’s will. Deborah (Kathleen Tolan) has been in a cult for 30 years and is estranged from her late parents and her sons. Nan
Three sisters have gathered to read their father’s will. Deborah (Kathleen Tolan) has been in a cult for 30 years and is estranged from her late parents and her sons. Nan
May 2024: Time Travel, Superpowers, and Serial Killers
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