Liberation by Bess Wohl has opened on Broadway and critics are weighing in. Read their reviews below.
The play, which made its world premiere Off-Broadway via Roundabout Theatre Company earlier this year, has brought its full original company to Broadway. Whitney White (The Last Five Years) again directs, after staging the Off-Broadway run.
The work centers on a group of women who gather to talk, during the second wave feminist movement of the 1970s, about changing their own lives and the world. Fifty years later, one of their daughters looks to the past for answers when she finds history repeating itself. The premiere production won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway play. The original Off-Broadway company was honored by both the Drama Desk and the NY Drama Critic’s Circle for Best Ensemble Performance. See what critics had to say about its Off-Broadway run here.
READ: 5 Reasons to See Liberation on Broadway
Read the reviews below.
- 1 Minute Critic (Lindsay B. Davis)
- AM New York (Matt Windman)
- Cititour (Brian Scott Lipton)
- Culture Sauce (Thom Geier)
- Daily Beast (Tim Teeman)
- Entertainment Weekly (Emlyn Travis)
- The Guardian (Adrian Horton)
- Lighting and Sound America (David Barbour)
- New York Daily News (Chris Jones)*
- New York Magazine / Vulture (Jackson McHenry)*
- New York Notebook (Sandy MacDonald)
- New York Stage Review (Melissa Rose Bernardo)
- New York Stage Review (Roma Torre)
- New York Theater (Jonathan Mandell)
- New York Theatre Guide (Amelia Merrill)
- New York Times (Elisabeth Vincentelli)*
- PureWow (Danielle Long)
- The Recs (Randall David Cook)
- TheaterMania (Rachel Graham)
- Time Out New York (Adam Feldman)
- Washington Post (Naveen Kumar)*
- The Wrap (Robert Hofler)*
*This review may require creating a free account or a paid subscription.
Playbill will continue to update this list as reviews come in.
The production features Tony nominee Betsy Aidem (Prayer for the French Republic, Leopoldstadt) as Margie, Audrey Corsa (Poker Face, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) as Dora, Kayla Davion (Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, Waitress) as Joanne, Susannah Flood (Birthday Candles, The Cherry Orchard) as Lizzie, Kristolyn Lloyd (1776, Dear Evan Hansen) as Celeste, Irene Sofia Lucio (Slave Play, Wit) as Isidora, Charlie Thurston (Here There Are Blueberries, Wedge Horse) as Bill, and Adina Verson (Indecent, Only Murders in the Building) as Susan. The production understudies are LeeAnne Hutchison, Matthew Russell, and Kedren Spencer.
The production also features set design by three-time Tony winner David Zinn (Stereophonic, SpongeBob SquarePants, The Humans) with costume design by Drama Desk nominee Qween Jean (Cats: "The Jellicle Ball"), lighting design by Drama Desk nominee Cha See (Oh, Mary!, That Day in Amsterdam), sound design by two-time Tony nominee Palmer Hefferan (John Proctor is the Villain, The Skin of Our Teeth), and hair and wig design by Special Tony winner Nikiya Mathis (Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, Purpose). The intimacy director is Kelsey Rainwater, the vocal and dialect coach is Gigi Buffington, and the production stage manager is Erin Gioia Albrecht.
Though it is the Roundabout production that transferred to Broadway, the non-profit is not on the producing team, which includes Daryl Roth, Eva Price, Rachel Sussman, and Jenny Gersten.