10 out of 12 NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (10)
See it if you enjoy plays about the theatre—especially those that take place before the audience enters.
Don't see it if you don't like backstage stories.
See it if you want a glimpse at the backstage drama of putting up a drama. Very inventively staged.
Don't see it if you want clear, linear storytelling. The theatrical techniques used were much more compelling than the actual play.
See it if you like to peek behind the scenes, enjoy theatre people, like things meta.
Don't see it if you don't think you could give yourself over to not knowing what's going on every minute, don't like backstage dramas/comedies.
See it if you've ever endured a tech rehearsal.
Don't see it if listening to a stage manager run a rehearsal/call a show sounds like torture to you.
See it if you work in theatre, want to know how theatre works, or just love theatre and used to do it.
Don't see it if backstage shenanigans make you bored, you think backstage drama should be obvious and uncomplicated, you have no interest in theatre.
See it if you like feeling like you're backstage at a show
Don't see it if you need more structure in your plots
See it if You've ever worked on a play in any capacity or curious re: "the process" of theatre. This is Theatre as act of production and of obligation
Don't see it if You don't care about the meta or behind the scenes aspects of theatre, and want a more clear-cut beginning, middle and end.
See it if You are a theater person, you always wondered how shows are created, you love backstage antics
Don't see it if You like traditional narrative structure, you hate inside jokes, you didn't like when the Man Behind the Curtain was revealed
Critic Reviews (18)
"The show is at its best when something like accidental art happens, in which restlessness and exasperation mix spontaneously and combustibly with the unassembled elements of the play...It does give us an enchanting denouement. I won’t spoil it for those of you willing to swim through the ocean of ennui leading up to it. But I can say that the evening’s accumulated frustrations blend joyously into a wholly original love song to the maddening art of the theater."
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"Boredom is a component of '10 Out of 12.' The density of information and layered narrative is thrilling, yet at more than two-and-a-half hours, it’s still an endurance test. But if, like this critic, you served in the trenches of Off-Off Broadway, particularly in the ’90s, this backstage tour will be all at once a familiar haunt and a devilish maze."
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"Exceptionally funny and moving...The entire cast, under the jaw-droppingly fine direction of Les Waters, is dead-on. And it’s quite amazing to see Washburn pull the rabbit of real theater out of an obviously trick hat. My problem is that the rabbit is not very consequential...Cutting some of the conventional conflict might have helped keep the focus on what is so beautifully unusual about it."
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"You don’t have to be a theater geek to appreciate the human behavior on display...The show goes on too long — and maybe that’s on purpose...Between digesting what’s going on before our faces and being fed into our ear, '10 Out of 12' assumes stereophonic, if not symphonic, dimensions. As an audience member, you’ll look at shows with fresh eyes and ears — and marvel that any acting goes on at all."
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'10 Out of 12' is an excruciatingly detailed and totally realistic rendering of an all-night technical rehearsal at some small, unnamed downtown theater. Les Waters wrangles the 14-person ensemble with a sure hand and a keen sense of irony...The whole thing is terribly funny."
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"With everything that happens behind the scenes, it’s a miracle theater ever makes it to an audience. At least that’s the impression we get from '10 Out of 12...' Shockingly, for a show that’s basically about drudgery, '10 Out of 12' isn’t boring at all, though it goes on a little long...The one person missing is the fictional play’s author. Too bad: She’s missing a good show."
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"Les Waters’ fluid production hits a few easy targets along the way and as it crosses the 2.5 hour mark, the feeling of ennui settles in the audience as easily as those in an actual tech rehearsal...But Washburn and Waters truly nail the small details: the funny dances actors do to amuse themselves in lulls, the small talk about foodstuffs, the languishing regret of missed projects. It’s moments like these that keep '10 Out of 12' at a solid 8 out of 10."
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"'10 out of 12' takes the distinctly unglamorous form of an extended technical rehearsal off-Broadway. The result is occasionally as soporific as it sounds, but no one can accuse the playwright of presenting a false or romanticized version of the stage. '10 out of 12' is steadfastly, almost unsettlingly real...It's not pretty or exciting, but any true fan should understand how the theatrical bratwurst is stuffed."
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