Vinson Cunningham
Vinson Cunningham joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 2016. Since 2019, he has served as a theatre critic for the magazine. In 2020, he was a finalist for a National Magazine Award for his Profile of the comedian Tracy Morgan. His writing on books, art, and culture has appeared in the Times Magazine, the Times Book Review, Vulture, the Awl, The Fader, and McSweeney’s, where he wrote a column called “Field Notes from Gentrified Places.”
Cunningham previously served as a staff assistant at the Obama White House.
The Dance of Death in “The Comeuppance”
In Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s new play, at Signature Theatre, friends gathering for their twenty-year high-school reunion are each inhabited by the Reaper himself.
The Big City Stars on Broadway
In “New York, New York,” directed by Susan Stroman, and “Good Night, Oscar,” starring Sean Hayes, the city is both the setting and a lead character.
“The Phantom of the Opera” Takes a Final Bow
Vinson Cunningham, Helen Shaw, and Michael Schulman revisit Andrew Lloyd Webber’s mega-musical.
The Country Corn of “Shucked”
Despite its lack of unitary purpose, this new musical comedy, with songs by Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, is idiotic in the best possible way.
The Wounded Bluesmen of “Hang Time”
In Zora Howard’s play, at the Flea, three Black men hanging in midair discuss their world views, seemingly stuck in the gray gap between life and death.
Sex, Love, and the State of the Rom-Com
Alexandra Schwartz, Vinson Cunningham, and Naomi Fry discuss a genre in crisis.
Finding Laughs Amid the Gray, in Beckett’s “Endgame”
At the Irish Repertory Theatre, John Douglas Thompson and Bill Irwin wring moments of superb physical comedy from two characters who struggle to move.
LeBron James’s Incredible, Unsuspenseful Chase for the Scoring Record
Watching him on the stage of Madison Square Garden again invited the inevitable question: is this the greatest player the game has ever seen?
Bill Walton Throws It Down
The N.B.A.’s august hippie ambassador brings his spacey, hyper-fluent patter to a new kind of sports broadcast.
“The Appointment” Skewers the Hypocrisy of the Abortion Debate
This raucously pro-choice musical, by the Philadelphia-based theatre collective Lightning Rod Special, sniffs out taboos and hunts them down at the pace of a sprint.
Denis Johnson and Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Drinking Games
Both Johnson’s “Des Moines” and Guirgis’s “Between Riverside and Crazy” feature alcohol as a spur and a conduit to otherwise fugitive knowledge.
Teen-Age Religion, in “Your Own Personal Exegesis”
A very funny, moving new play looks at the foibles of a Protestant youth group. Plus: Adrienne Kennedy’s Broadway début, with “Ohio State Murders.”
The Most Memorable Theatre of 2022
The shows we couldn’t stop thinking about had a way with words.
Gender Critique Meets Lewd Spectacle in “The Patient Gloria”
Gina Moxley’s play examines the sexual and behavioral strictures on women through the lens of psychotherapy circa 1964.
“My Broken Language” Reinvents the Memoir
Quiara Alegría Hudes adapts her autobiography for the stage, showing how the arts we attend to, and the people we know, make us who we are.
David Hare Repaves the Story of Robert Moses
“Straight Line Crazy,” the British playwright’s portrait of the tsarist urban planner, scrupulously declines to portray Moses as blinkered and corrupt.
Willy Loman’s Blues Get a Jazz Tuning
In a new Broadway revival of “Death of a Salesman,” the actor Wendell Pierce makes the melody of a sentence carry meaning beyond its words.
María Irene Fornés and the Garden of Our Potential
“Mud” and “Drowning,”two plays directed by JoAnne Akalaitis, with new music by Philip Glass, probe humanity’s desire for knowledge.
Immigrants and Refugees Seeking a Home
In “american (tele)visions,” a family from Mexico spends more time at Walmart than in their trailer, and Little Amal, a twelve-foot-tall puppet of a ten-year-old Syrian refugee, roams Harlem.
Old Stories, Retold, Reveal New Truths
“Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski” recounts the findings of a heroic Polish diplomat during the Holocaust; “Marie It’s Time” riffs on Georg Büchner’s “Woyzeck.”
The Dance of Death in “The Comeuppance”
In Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s new play, at Signature Theatre, friends gathering for their twenty-year high-school reunion are each inhabited by the Reaper himself.
The Big City Stars on Broadway
In “New York, New York,” directed by Susan Stroman, and “Good Night, Oscar,” starring Sean Hayes, the city is both the setting and a lead character.
“The Phantom of the Opera” Takes a Final Bow
Vinson Cunningham, Helen Shaw, and Michael Schulman revisit Andrew Lloyd Webber’s mega-musical.
The Country Corn of “Shucked”
Despite its lack of unitary purpose, this new musical comedy, with songs by Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, is idiotic in the best possible way.
The Wounded Bluesmen of “Hang Time”
In Zora Howard’s play, at the Flea, three Black men hanging in midair discuss their world views, seemingly stuck in the gray gap between life and death.
Sex, Love, and the State of the Rom-Com
Alexandra Schwartz, Vinson Cunningham, and Naomi Fry discuss a genre in crisis.
Finding Laughs Amid the Gray, in Beckett’s “Endgame”
At the Irish Repertory Theatre, John Douglas Thompson and Bill Irwin wring moments of superb physical comedy from two characters who struggle to move.
LeBron James’s Incredible, Unsuspenseful Chase for the Scoring Record
Watching him on the stage of Madison Square Garden again invited the inevitable question: is this the greatest player the game has ever seen?
Bill Walton Throws It Down
The N.B.A.’s august hippie ambassador brings his spacey, hyper-fluent patter to a new kind of sports broadcast.
“The Appointment” Skewers the Hypocrisy of the Abortion Debate
This raucously pro-choice musical, by the Philadelphia-based theatre collective Lightning Rod Special, sniffs out taboos and hunts them down at the pace of a sprint.
Denis Johnson and Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Drinking Games
Both Johnson’s “Des Moines” and Guirgis’s “Between Riverside and Crazy” feature alcohol as a spur and a conduit to otherwise fugitive knowledge.
Teen-Age Religion, in “Your Own Personal Exegesis”
A very funny, moving new play looks at the foibles of a Protestant youth group. Plus: Adrienne Kennedy’s Broadway début, with “Ohio State Murders.”
The Most Memorable Theatre of 2022
The shows we couldn’t stop thinking about had a way with words.
Gender Critique Meets Lewd Spectacle in “The Patient Gloria”
Gina Moxley’s play examines the sexual and behavioral strictures on women through the lens of psychotherapy circa 1964.
“My Broken Language” Reinvents the Memoir
Quiara Alegría Hudes adapts her autobiography for the stage, showing how the arts we attend to, and the people we know, make us who we are.
David Hare Repaves the Story of Robert Moses
“Straight Line Crazy,” the British playwright’s portrait of the tsarist urban planner, scrupulously declines to portray Moses as blinkered and corrupt.
Willy Loman’s Blues Get a Jazz Tuning
In a new Broadway revival of “Death of a Salesman,” the actor Wendell Pierce makes the melody of a sentence carry meaning beyond its words.
María Irene Fornés and the Garden of Our Potential
“Mud” and “Drowning,”two plays directed by JoAnne Akalaitis, with new music by Philip Glass, probe humanity’s desire for knowledge.
Immigrants and Refugees Seeking a Home
In “american (tele)visions,” a family from Mexico spends more time at Walmart than in their trailer, and Little Amal, a twelve-foot-tall puppet of a ten-year-old Syrian refugee, roams Harlem.
Old Stories, Retold, Reveal New Truths
“Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski” recounts the findings of a heroic Polish diplomat during the Holocaust; “Marie It’s Time” riffs on Georg Büchner’s “Woyzeck.”