

- PlayMakers photo by Jon Gardiner
- Matthew Carlson and Marianne Miller in Angels in America
The good side? Another theater season, another blockbuster-level show as ANGELS IN AMERICA gets underway at PlayMakers Rep.
The questionable side? For the second season running, PlayMakers’ performance schedule for said blockbuster creates—oops!—an embargo that essentially keeps the region’s critics gagged during the first two weeks of the run.
As they say, once is an accident. Twice… and it begins to look like company policy.
The still unfolding story of SPIDERMAN: TURN OFF THE DARK has raised a number of potentially useful questions. Just how “sacred” should preview performances be considered? Under what circumstances is the convention conceivably being abused? And what is the appropriate response from the media under those circumstances?
As we and our editors are mulling these questions over…
Dear Readers: Now, it really comes down to you.
For the next week, the public critical conversation on PlayMakers Rep’s ANGELS IN AMERICA is entirely in your hands.
If you saw it or will see it during its opening weeks, please share your responses, below. If you didn’t see it, but know someone who did or will, please send them our way.
We’re just wondering. What’s ANGELS IN AMERICA like? What does it make people feel, and think?
We only ask because we believe a show of this magnitude deserves a lively, full and public critical conversation—one that begins well before the third week of a six-week run.
Post your responses in the comments, below.
And thank you for continuing the public conversation on the arts—while we observe conventions that prevent us from doing so ourselves. For the moment, anyway.