NYT CRITICS’ PICK “A vibrant and expansive comic drama with heaving humanity, surging vitality and diversity! This coproduction operates on a scale seldom encountered Off Broadway. Its teeming expansiveness rivals that of The Ferryman.” — Ben Brantley, The New York Times “Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven is the funniest, saddest play of the year, with at least a dozen characters who go straight to your heart; a female Iceman Cometh for this century. The cast, under Ortiz’s direction, is uniformly brilliant. Never has the stage at Atlantic Theater Company been more alive with action.” — Robert Hofler, The Wrap “Bursting with emotional life. The characters’ rich humanity comes through loud & clear onstage, forcing us to confront a reality we might otherwise choose to avoid.” — Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter HALFWAY BITCHES GO STRAIGHT TO HEAVEN world premiere co-production with LAByrinth Theater Company EXTENDS AGAIN! NOW THRU JAN 5 ONLY ★★★★★ “Guirgis is a street poet of the underbelly.” — Steven Suskin, New York Stage Review “Some of the best actors in New York giving unforgettable performances. Halfway Bitches is not only worth your time, but leaves you wanting more. Refreshingly, there is nothing politically correct or precious about it.” — Zachary Stewart, TheaterMania “I suggest you immediately grab a ticket for the deeply humane & ultimately heart-wrenching Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven. It’s easily one of the best plays of 2019.” — Brian Scott Lipton, Theater Pizzazz “You gotta go see it.” — Margret Echeverria, New York Theatre Guide Photos by Monique Carboni & Ahron R. Foster. Pictured (in alphabetical order): Victor Almanzar, David Anzuelo, Elizabeth Canavan, Sean Carvajal, Patrice Johnson Chevannes, Liza Colón-Zayas, Esteban Andres Cruz, Wilemina Olivia-Garcia, Neil Tyrone Pritchard, Andrea Syglowski, Benja Kay Thomas, Viviana Valeria, Pernell Walker, Kara Young.

HALFWAY BITCHES GO STRAIGHT TO HEAVEN

Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven.

“Halfway Bitches” is a female “Iceman Cometh” for the 21st century, but watching it doesn’t feel like five hours — or even three. You may feel you’ve had just enough time to get to know, and care about, these women. Guirgis ends with a simple line that all New Yorkers hear half a dozen times a day on the street. After seeing Guirgis’ play, you will never look at that homeless person quite the same way.

Best Lists: ‘When They See Us’ (Netflix) Ava DuVernay’s striking miniseries gives voice to the so-called Central Park Five, a group of five black and Latino youths wrongly convicted of assault in one of the biggest trials of the 1980s. With an extremely talented group of young actors as the falsely accused adolescents – Asante Blackk, Caleel Harris, Ethan Herisse, Emmy-winner Jharrel Jerome and Marquis Rodriguez – the series brings the story to the screen as a brutal, unrelenting tragedy.

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PERNELL WALKER

‘Is This a Room’ A pause-for-pause, cough-for-cough rendering of the F.B.I. transcripts of the first interrogation of the federal contractor Reality Winner, who is now serving a more than five-year sentence for whistle-blowing. The director Tina Satter turned this exercise in theater vérité, in which the blandest conversational clichés come loaded with unspecified menace, into a Kafka-like nightmare with a tension level worthy of Hitchcock. And as the beleaguered, unwittingly self-sabotaging Winner, Emily Davis gave one of the season’s most riveting performances.

Their host is the splendid nonconformist Fefu (Amelia Workman), a vision in a Louise Brooks bob and tawny banker’s vest, who shocks some of her guests with her swaggering riotousness. She provocatively calls women “repulsive,” though she then explains that she’s fascinated by the “underneath” of things where the slimy insects live. And her favorite game is to fire a shotgun at her unseen husband, who then must fall down wherever he is. It’s a blank cartridge, Fefu thinks, though who can be sure? “He’s up!” she cries merrily, looking down the lawn, after the thunderclap of the gun. If Workman hadn’t taken the part, their second choice was probably the ghost of Katherine Hepburn.

Fefu and her friends has been extended til 12/12 Theater for a New Audience