David Finnigan’s performance piece on the climate crisis, Deep History, now playing at the Public Theater after stops elsewhere, including the Edinburgh Fringe, will inevitably be compared to a TED talk: Finnigan is scientifically fluent and uses images from his laptop (video design by Hayley Egan) to craft a deeply informed narrative of climate and human history, with some autobiography and whimsy mixed in. TED talks can be engaging, of course, and Finnigan is certainly that; but this description also sells Finnigan short. There is theatricality at work in the 65-minute piece, directed by Annette Mees, particularly a twist in the storytelling that revolves around the gap between 2019 (when the piece was written) and the time when it is performed.

Tina Packer’s Women of Will is meant to be an educational performance piece that explores Shakespeare’s trajectory as a writer through the lens of his female characters, diving into issues of gender and power. The piece has had various productions over the years and was published as a book in 2015 (subtitled Understanding Shakespeare’s Female Characters). Eric Tucker, the artistic director of Bedlam, who has directed the show before, now directs what he has referred to as Women of Will 2.0, for a limited engagement at the West End Theatre.

Playwright Lynn Riggs is best remembered for Green Grow the Lilacs (1931) because it was the basis for Oklahoma! (1943). Now his play Sump’n Like Wings is having its New York debut 99 years after it was written. Such resurrection of a forgotten work is the core mission of the Mint Theater, as are the deep research and care that inform its meticulously crafted productions.  

Distant Thunder arrives Off-Broadway with the distinction of being the first mainstream Native American musical to be staged in New York. Written by Lynne Taylor-Corbett (book) and her son Shaun Taylor-Corbett and Chris Wiseman (music and lyrics), this musical soars with an indigenous cast.

Director David Cromer has the ability to conjure expansive worlds from small, banal settings: For Meghan Kennedy’s The Counter, the set (designed with remarkable detail by Walt Spangler) occupies only a part of the space available on the stage of Roundabout’s Laura Pels Theatre. As he did with A Case for the Existence of God at Signature Theatre, Cromer encloses the characters in order to open them up. Of course, in order to perform this low-key magic, there must be sharply drawn, deeply human characters to work with.

At first glance, Hannah Gadsby’s Woof! feels like a show strung together with seemingly disparate threads, starting with the performer’s entrance on to the stage at the Abrons Arts Center’s Henry Street Settlement Playhouse, where Gadsby, who uses they as a pronoun of choice, opens the show with a statement about whales, of all things. The topics Gadsby covers range from popular culture to sociopolitical commentary to gender-identity politics. A newcomer to the comedian’s work might wonder how Gadsby would eventually tie these thoughts together, but their stand-ups often veer more toward TED Talk territory than a traditional stand-up structure. Still, as Gadsby promises the audience of Woof! at one point, there is a theme to all this.