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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.

Mildly Bitter's Musings •

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...
Mildly Bitter's Musings •

November-December 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...
Exeunt Magazine NYC •

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...
Mildly Bitter's Musings •

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...
Exeunt Magazine NYC •

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...
Mildly Bitter's Musings •

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...
Exeunt Magazine NYC •

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...
Exeunt Magazine NYC •

Review: Can I Be Frank? at Soho Playhouse - Exeunt Magazine NYC

Near the start of the show, Can I Be Frank?, queer, nonbinary performer Morgan Bassichis calls to stage manager Gloria in the booth to make notes and changes to the show.
They say what we are watching is a work-in-progress and they are belatedly scrambling to give the audience more context for a Frank Maya monologue they are performing about Liberace.
But the shambolic fumbling is scripted. As for the needed context, I guess I needed a lot more.
Can I Be Frank? is a one-person show written and p...
Mildly Bitter's Musings •

June 2025: Suffering Alone, Stalkers, Borrowed Eyes

All seven members of BTS returned from the military this month. We finally got to peep Min Yoongi at J-Hope's concert and then see his full FACE upon the first OT7 live announcing they will work on an album and a world tour for next spring. My savings account is ready. I also saw Stray Kids during their world tour in NY. We had some adverse weather conditions but after the nightmare of Ateez's NY show last summer we were ready for this one. A good time was had by all. One of my closest friends m...
Exeunt Magazine NYC •

Review: Out of Order at East Village Basement - Exeunt Magazine NYC

Carl Holder’s show Out of Order leaves its structure to the fates.
Dubbed “an interactive parlor game,” Holder writes a series of prompts on index cards.  They fall from the ceiling scattering. He opens them up in whatever order he finds them and performs the tasks as he comes to them.
He says this was his approach to turning 40 and dealing with writer’s block. He couldn’t write a play, so he’s created this performance-by-lotto instead.
The instructions on the cards range from character prompts...
Exeunt Magazine NYC •

Review: Cold War Choir Practice at Clubbed Thumb - Exeunt Magazine NYC

Ro Reddick’s Cold War Choir Practice is a Reagan-era time capsule of 1980s nuclear threats, self-actualization cults, spies and toy fads (Pound Puppies!). Between eccentric songs about Christmas and Armageddon, this spirited play with music, is also about power, resilience, and Black community. With a winning performance from Alana Raquel Bowers, it is also a pathway into the mind of a young Black girl managing anxiety, family, and disappointment.
Set in Syracuse in 1987, 10-year-old Meek (Alana...
Exeunt Magazine NYC •

Review: Bus Stop at Classic Stage Company - Exeunt Magazine NYC

Midori Francis gives a layered, glittering performance in William Inge’s Bus Stop, in a co-production from NAATCO, Classic Stage Company, and Transport Group. While it may not be a complete heartstopper of a play, there are flickering moments of human frailty in this dramedy of lonely, lost folks stuck at a roadside diner for a night in a snow storm. Director Jack Cummings III’s production offers some subtle performances even if Inge’s material is more on-the-nose.
It is 1955 in Kansas. Still-ma...
M •

February-March 2025: Comic Book Violence, Inner Children, and Bad Princes

Life got away from me with concerts, surgery, and a busy work project. Saw J-Hope's solo show, Hwasa's world tour, and got very buried in my job. But there were a few dramas I wanted to talk about from February and March.Study GroupHappy to see Hwang Min-hyun in a more playful, action-comedy role in this high octane high school drama that feels a bit like Muppet Babies Fight Club.Everything in this show plays delightfully against type. It is centered around a nerdy high school student, Yoon Ga-m...
Exeunt Magazine NYC •

Review: The Picture of Dorian Gray at The Music Box - Exeunt Magazine NYC

In a swirl of sweat, wigs, and live projections, Sarah Snook plays a flurry of Oscar Wilde’s characters—26 to be exact—in the campy take on hedonism, vanity, morality, and sin that is The Picture of Dorian Gray.
This tech-centric production is full of anachronisms, self-awareness, and excess. Adaptor and director Kip Williams wants to put the idea of the performance of life at the center of the piece. Though with a celebrity on stage, it shifts the focus. It becomes less about our performative s...
Exeunt Magazine NYC •

Review: Good Night and Good Luck at Winter Garden Theatre - Exeunt Magazine NYC

The screen-to-stage adaptation of Good Night and Good Luck ends up being a good fit for theater. The play is snappy while still a bit lecturing, frustrating and yet fascinating. Director David Cromer captures the movement and verve of live television on stage and layers the stage in a way that mimics edits in cinema seamlessly. The ensemble piece about this moment in history provides a solid dose of drama, though the play strains when it tries to connect to our present moment.
The play, written...
Exeunt Magazine NYC •

Review: Ghosts at Lincoln Center Theater - Exeunt Magazine NYC

Playwright Henrik Ibsen is known for writing some remarkable women for the stage including Nora Helmer and Hedda Gabler. While his play Ghosts might be less well-known, it boasts of another unique creature faced with terrible choices in a world stacked against women. Irish playwright Mark O’Rowe’s new adaptation of Ghosts distills Ibsen’s vision further along with Lily Rabe’s resilient and caustic performance.
O’Rowe’s version of the play is more minimalist in language than Ibsen’s so the tragic...
Exeunt Magazine NYC •

Review: Redwood at Nederlander Theatre - Exeunt Magazine NYC

With the massive projection screens being used in the new musical Redwood, I had an unexpected flashback to my childhood. I remember seeing a 360-degree immersive documentary in Walt Disney World.  As I recall, it was some sort of travelogue (was it about Canada? America?). It was a little dizzying and confusing because you did not know which way to look and with no narrative (or none I can remember) I recall tiring of it after a bit.  The coolness of the experience wore off.
I may have left Red...
Exeunt Magazine NYC •

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...
Exeunt Magazine NYC •

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...
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