This week the watchword is depth as the Review Crew brings us three pieces that have that.
You know, a lot of what passes for entertainment these days is just content, which does the diversion part of the word's meaning, but not so much the engaging part. While I was prepping these for publication I noted that these three pieces – one in NYC, one in LA, and one on NoPro's secret favorite medium the phone – not only hit the engage part but slipped right into art. Oopsie.
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The Liminary — (Los Angeles)
Last Call Theatre
$65 (general admission) or $80 (VIP); 1919 3rd Ave; May 1–16, 2026
Art as a form of resistance is a tradition as old as art itself. And when artists directly invite an audience to participate in the realization of their work, it becomes a form of solidarity. In The Liminary, audience participation isn't just a gimmick but a catalyst for community building at a time when its sorely needed. The Liminary is arguably the most political work yet from L.A.-based Last Call Theater, which rarely disappoints when it comes to immersive theatrical experiences designed to inspire as well as engage. This new production is no exception.
The show begins even before you enter the performance space, a lovingly decorated third-floor loft in a non-descript building on a quiet, residential street. The audience is conveyed to the space in small groups via freight elevator, creating a physical distance between the reality of the present and the show's dystopian future setting. You're not expected to leave the real world behind completely, though. The future of The Liminary is in constant conversation with the present in ways that are meaningful and insightful, if sometimes gut-wrenchingly uncomfortable. It's a future that, for anyone who's been paying attention to the news lately, feels scarily plausible. Which is the point, of course.
Set in the year 2042, the story takes place inside a safe house where a motley band of dissidents are sheltering from the authoritarian U.S. government. Immigration is outlawed, non-conformists are punished, families fear separation, and anyone labeled un-American can disappear without a trace. When a threat to the Liminary is revealed, the residents are faced with some crucial decisions. As with all Last Call productions, character arcs and major plot points are heavily influenced by their interactions with audience members.
The backdrop of The Liminary is made all the more chilling for how thoroughly conceptualized it is. Creative Lead and Director Liviera Lim drew inspiration from the true stories of immigrants and the cast members' own personal histories. All of these stories are waiting to be uncovered as the audience roams freely around the space and mingles with the characters and each other. They may be presented with a puzzle to solve in exchange for a bit of backstory or information that further informs the narrative. There are several paths to follow, but the uniformly talented ensemble is small enough that the threads often overlap and spread out in various directions. They unspool in increasingly rapid succession toward one of many multiple endings, tying everything neatly back together.
If there's one drawback to this robust pace, it's that it leaves little time to explore the detailed exhibits spread throughout the space. Unless you don't mind missing out on big chunks of the story or key character moments, there's not much of an opportunity to take it all in. It's a shame, because a lot of work and research clearly went into creating these supplemental materials and displays. There are newspaper articles, radio broadcasts, personal artifacts, and even a fully produced documentary setting up the alternate history of the future (it plays on a screen in a curtained-off area that's easy to miss). The idea to offer in-world stations where audience members can put together school supplies and hygiene kits to donate to real-life charities is laudable, but who has time when there's such a complex and utterly compelling show happening all around you? Once it's over, that's when the real work begins.
— Cindy White, Los Angeles Correspondent
Lucky Shot (Telephone)
[No Image Available]
Olivia Behr
Recommended donation of $25;
additional dates coming soon, follow on Instagram for updates
(Minor spoilers below.)
Nora, who is a little tipsy, is calling me on the phone. Except she doesn’t realize she’s calling me. Nora thinks she’s calling Lucy, a woman who she just met at the local bar, and does not seem to realize that she was given the wrong number (or perhaps she wrote down the wrong number after one too many drinks, I gently suggest). And that’s just how Lucky Shot, an interactive 1:1 piece conducted over the phone, starts.
Nora – played by Lennox Mutual co-creator Olivia Behr – quickly figures out I’m not her crush. She is a chatterbox and stays on the line for a good 25 minutes talking about her annoying neighbor Derek, what it was like to be instantly infatuated with Lucy, and how meager the prospects are in her small town, not just in romance but in life, in general. The conversation meanders as she shares her musical talents, her dreams of exotic vacations, and her wish to get married and get the hell out of dodge.
But will she be able to track down Lucy again? Should she give it the ol’ college try? Of course, the most effective part of Lucky Shot is when the other shoe inevitably drops. I won’t spoil it except to say that the sudden dramatic shift is remarkably effective and haunting (in a good way). I’m definitely keeping my ears open for whatever Behr has in store next.
— Kathryn Yu, Senior LA Reviewer & Executive Editor Emeritus
Lunch Dances (New York City)
Monica Bill Barnes & Company
Free; New York Public Library, Manhattan; March 16-28 & April 13-25
I work at the City College of New York. Everyone I’ve brought here mentions how beautiful it is, and I reply, “And the best part is that it belongs to you.” It’s public, so it belongs to everyone. This beauty in public things is the heart of Lunch Dances, an outstanding, free tribute to the New York Public Library by Monica Bill Barnes and Robbie Saenz de Viteri.
Lunch Dances, set through the Stephen A. Schwartzman building, has the audience don silent disco headsets and follow a porter as they deliver research materials to patrons in different parts of the library. Saenz de Viteri narrates the characters, setting, and research items as we watch the delivery, then the patrons and a group of porters dance together to a pop song to close the scene. You travel to seven locations before a climactic musical ending ties everything together.
The stories were beautifully wry and touching, and hearing them as voiceovers while watching scenes was seamless and magical.The dances had the quality of songs in musicals – capturing the emotion of the moment and amplifying through movement. All of this set in the stunning architecture of the Library was overwhelming.
But what I loved most about Lunch Dances was its commitment to the public. The scenes were small stories of the complexity of ordinary lives:their struggles, losses, and dreams. The choreography, set entirely to pop music, is idiosyncratic; performers were clearly encouraged to make their own unique expressions of emotions during the collective dance moments. The library was presented as it is – rule-driven, sometimes lacking, sometimes surprisingly helpful – but all within the clear mission to serve all patrons. And the piece takes place during library hours, so visitors and tourists are populating and using the spaces while you listen to your headset watching just one figure receive and flip through a book. In a scene about visitors to the city, real tourists cut through the room, walking through the performance and side-eyeing at you, the obstruction to their destinations.
I was moved to tears several times at how breathtaking this ordinary beauty in such a grand location was. Immersive, so often gated behind high ticket prices, can reinforce the myth that art is elite and exclusive. But Lunch Dances reminds us that beauty can just as powerfully be made for, of, and in spaces belonging to all of us.
— Nicholas Fortugno, New York Correspondent
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