This week, deputy editor Eben Shapiro of Time magazine published his list of “The 10 Best Theater Performances of 2021,” honoring “the best theater had to offer in this year when audiences returned, sometimes tentatively, to their seats and performers returned, most often triumphantly, to the stage.” His first pick was Only an Octave Apart at Brooklyn’s St. Ann’s Warehouse, in which the unlikely duo of cabaret singer Justin Vivian Bond and countertneor Anthony Roth Costanzo offered “a profoundly moving performance, with the audience collectively realizing how much we had missed the fizz of a live performance.”
Shapiro’s next two musical picks were a pair of Stephen Sondheim shows: Classic Stage Company’s Off-Broadway revival of Assassins and the Broadway transfer of the 2019 Olivier-winning West End revival of Company. Though Shapiro found the former production problematic, “the caliber of the cast and the soulfulness of their performances carried the day.” The latter production had “gorgeous sets, a killer 14-piece orchestra and Patti LuPone’s show-stopping ‘Ladies Who Lunch.’”
His final two musical picks were a pair of Jeanine Tesori shows: the Broadway transfer of the 2018 Olivier-nominated West End revival of Caroline, or Change and the Atlantic Theater Company’s premiere of Kimberly Akimbo. Shapiro, who’s seen two previous New York revivals of Caroline, found “this crackling production is my favorite today,” while Kimberly was “a near perfect night of theater … funny, sad and incredibly fresh.”