The Practical Details
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Stage Door
Full guide →When to go. Head straight out at curtain call. Two-show days are the worst bet at both performances — the cast rests through the matinee and is spent by the evening. A Sunday matinee is the best single bet, because it is a one-show day. In bad weather the barricades sometimes never go up at all.
Who comes out. Anywhere from nobody to most of the cast. Nobody can tell you in advance which three — not us, not the theatre. Treat any list that claims otherwise with suspicion.
What to bring. Tonight’s Playbill and a fine-tip Sharpie, held open to the page you want signed. Ask before you photograph anyone, and keep the pavement clear — it is a working door, not a red carpet.
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The Lowdown
Four actors. Nineteen roles. One of Shakespeare's meanest, most airtight tragedies, played in a converted church on West 86th Street with eighty seats in it. Bedlam has been pulling this trick for years — strip a classic down to almost nothing and somehow the thing gets bigger — and their Othello was one of the best-reviewed small-cast Shakespeares of the spring.
It comes back for three weeks in November. Eric Tucker directs and performs, alongside Susannah Hoffman, Susannah Millonzi and Ryan Quinn, and the four of them hand parts around so quickly that you stop keeping score and simply watch Iago go to work. And he really does go to work here: no set to hide behind, no costume changes to cover the seams, just an arm's length between you and a man talking himself into wrecking several lives.
The West End Theatre holds eighty people, the run is November 7 through 29, and Bedlam sells out. If you have been meaning to find out what the fuss is about with this company, a four-person Othello in a room that size is the way in.
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Our full verdict on Othello is coming soon. Reader lottery reports below have the on-the-ground intel in the meantime.
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