How Are Reviews for Wallace Shawn's What We Did Before Our Moth Days Off-Broadway?

Scott Rudin and Barry Diller co-produce the title, which reunites Shawn with director and longtime collaborator André Gregory.

March 06, 2026 By Margaret Hall

Josh Hamilton and Maria Dizzia in *What We Did Before Our Moth Days* (Julieta Cervantes)

Wallace Shawn's What We Did Before Our Moth Days opened Off-Broadway March 5, and the reviews are rolling in. The production has already extended its run at the Greenwich House Theater, where it will continue through May 10. The production began performances February 4.

The project reunites Shawn with director and longtime collaborator André Gregory, who is directing the new work. Their artistic partnership dates back to Shawn's Our Late Night, directed at Off-Broadway's Public Theater in 1975.

The new work focuses on the many facets of love, with a father, mother, son, and the father's long-time mistress telling the intimate story of their lives. The cast features Hope Davis, Maria Dizzia, John Early, and Josh Hamilton.

Read the reviews below.

Culture Sauce (Thom Geier)

Exeunt NYC (Loren Noveck)

New York Magazine/Vulture (Sara Holdren)*

New York Stage Review (Frank Scheck, Michael Sommers)

The New York Times (Helen Shaw)*

New York Theatre Guide (Kyle Turner)

TheaterMania (Zachary Stewart)

The Wall Street Journal (Charles Isherwood)*

The Wrap (Robert Hofler)*

*This review may require creating a free account or paid subscription.

Playbill will continue to update this list as reviews come in.

Concurrently with Moth Days, Shawn is also reviving his solo show The Fever, performing the work twice weekly on Sunday and Monday evenings at Greenwich House Theater. The Fever, which premiered with Off-Broadway's Public in 1990 and won the 1991 Obie Award for Best Play, sees Shawn becoming a nameless narrator in a squalid hotel room in a poor nation rife with political repression. As he recovers in solitude, he is forced to confront his own privilege and complicity in the outside world's atrocities.

The projects are under the leadership of co-producers Scott Rudin and Barry Diller. Rudin has been largely absent from the industry since reports emerged of his abusive behavior to subordinates behind the scenes. Though such reports have been published periodically over his career, Rudin stepped away from his professional life following 2021 articles in The Hollywood Reporter and New York Magazine. Published in the wake of the #MeToo movement, both resulted in renewed calls for Rudin to be barred from the industry. Rudin ultimately announced that he would “step back” from Broadway productions and film projects and resign from The Broadway League, installing Kate Horton as executive producer of his then-developing Broadway revival of The Music Man. That revival would open at the Winter Garden Theatre in 2022 starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster. What We Did Before Our Moth Days follows Rudin's return to Broadway producing, also with Diller: Little Bear Ridge Road with Laurie Metcalf. The two are also behind the upcoming Broadway revival of Death of a Salesman, set to star Metcalf and Nathan Lane.

Shawn and Gregory's past projects include My Dinner With Andre, Vanya On 42nd Street, Uncle Vanya, and The Designated Mourner. Shawn is also co-producing this Off-Broadway staging.

The production features scenic and costume design by Riccardo Hernández, lighting design by Jennifer Tipton, sound design and original music by Bruce Odland, and projection design by Bill Morrison.