Stories

Rakie Ayola, a powerhouse of the British stage and screen, is barreling toward an ADR session in an Uber for a film she can’t quite talk about yet. It’s a chaotic (and amusing) backdrop for a conversation with Clementine Melvin about The Authenticator, the comic thriller she is currently starring in at The National, that follows two Black academics tasked with verifying the journals of an 18th-century enslaver. Ayola speaks of the playwright Winsome Pinnock’s specific brilliance with warmth, noting, “Every thought Winsome has ever had about the relationship between colonialism and enslavement is in there, but perhaps not from the point of view you’re used to hearing.”

For Ayola, tackling a play that deals with this history brings a certain baggage. She notes that at times, “it’s a bit like finding yourself laughing at a funeral.” It’s a delicate balance; she describes a rehearsal process that required a mental sign over the door, granting the cast permission to find the humor in the dark so they could confront the history without being consumed by it.

The Authenticator in on through May 9th.

The ecstatic, high-energy revival of Cats: The Jellicle Ball at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York reimagines the feline competition at the heart of the show’s episodic string of character numbers as a night in the New York City ballroom scene. Glamour cats of all stripes strut their stuff in the hopes of being named “The Jellicle Choice,” an homage to the generations of self-made ballroom performers that is both fierce and tender. In this interview, the show’s celebrated costume designer and activist Qween Jean talks to Kate Purdum about how her work designing on Broadway is “dedicated to the legacy” of her ancestors who “had to quite literally fight for a space in this world.” 

The fabulous and endlessly dynamic costumes are the result of intimate collaboration between Jean and the performers: “This is the Olympics, darling, of performance!” The artists had a whole year to come up with their “effects”—the term for visual presentation in ballroom—and the result is a unique visual world for each artist that very much honors the authentic history of the community.

Qween Jean’s hope that every audience member feels like they are part of a magical ball at the Broadhurst Theatre every night is well and truly realized through a production that personifies the idea that “joy is human medicine that can heal even the most broken heart.”

Cats: Jellicle Ball at the Broadhurst Theatre is on through September 6.

When Arthur Miller plays are revived, they don’t reflect contemporary time or mores in the way that other writers might. Broken Glass takes place at the dawn of World War II, All My Sons takes place in the wake of it; The Crucible takes place during the Salem Witch Trials. And yet, it’s through this adherence to time and context that Miller’s work is able to feel so resonant and powerful decades after the plays were first performed. Now, in 2026, a wave of revivals are gripping The West End and Broadway; whether it’s the recent, starry production of All My Sons; a new iteration of Broken Glass, and, over on Broadway, Death of a Salesman. And more than that, Miller’s work is being considered with a new, explicitly contemporary eye; the post-Crucible drama, John Proctor is the Villain, took New York by storm in 2025 and is on in London at the Royal Court throughout the spring.