A Night at the Barrow Street Theatre

Last night I saw three shows at the Barrow Street Theatre. Here's a summary review of what I saw: Nilaja Sun's No Child was hysterical and touching. It's about Ms. Sun's experience as a "Teaching Artist" at Malcolm X High School in the Bronx. A one woman show, she does fabulous impressions of herself, the other teachers, the janitor, and best of all, the students. The switches from one character to another are seamless and the facial expressions and mannerisms of each character are so distinct that it appears that it's not being acted by the same actor. The play's ridicule of the New York City school system are wonderful and unfortunately, realistic. It is something definitely worth seeing. 365 days 365 plays, a project of playwright Suzan-Lori Parks in which she wrote a play a day for a year, could have used some work. The preformances were good, but the plays were lacking something and were hard to follow. It was short and free, though, and was interesting, if nothing else. One of the highlights of the night was TJ and Dave. TJ Jagodowski and Dave Pasquesi are some of the most fabulous Improvers I've ever seen. They do an hour long, multi-character scene, with no previous planning. It's completely different each time, starting with just a stage and three chairs. They exchange characters and create new ones. It was plotless and wonderful, with great characterizations. They are definitely worth seeing, even if the show is really late.