Ideation NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (119)
See it if you enjoy powerful ensemble acting, great writing, effortless invisible directing, and increasingly high stakes drama.
Don't see it if you prefer lighter, less dramatic fare.
See it if You want to see a bunch of paranoid project managers think out how to do a strange project that could be parallel to a project during WW II.
Don't see it if You want some song and dance show. This play happens all in one room and there was no satisfying ending to the story.
See it if You like smart, intriguing, suspenseful theater!
Don't see it if You don't like straight plays.
See it if you enjoy logic puzzles, hypotheticals, and clever writing.
Don't see it if you don't like open endings.
See it if you frolic in details but still know which way the wind blows.
Don't see it if you don't see metaphor easily.
See it if You enjoy suspense and drama. It was very captivating and made you think.
Don't see it if If you don't like open endings.
See it if you like topical plays that address moral questions, you like language-driven fast-paced one acts, you like to be left thinking
Don't see it if you like complete closure in plays, you don't like workplace dramas, you want light fare
See it if you want to be a management consultant, want to laugh a bit at the sometimes absurdity of corporate work life.
Don't see it if you are uncomfortable with ambiguity or no clear ending
Critic Reviews (30)
"'Ideation' is fast-paced, entertaining and witty as it bounces around its profound subject, how do we know anything for sure? How can we trust anybody? The characters reflect stereotypes in a humorous way but are individually drawn and distinct, fast talking but fully motivated...These are smart people who see the humor as well as the invitation to disaster in their preposterous dilemmas, making for an enjoyable and thought-provoking play."
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"In Loeb’s mordant take on corporate culture, a process that begins as problem-solving quickly descends into an exercise in collective hysteria. Though not all of 'Ideation' works, its desperate characters are creepily fun to watch...Loeb has a keen ear for the empty jargon and forced chumminess of boardroom life, but the same provocative premise would be better served in a leaner, one act edition. Performance-wise, however, 'Ideation' is solid and imaginative."
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"Must-see theater…What we think it’s going to be, a corporate drama, becomes one of the best explorations about humanity and its decisions I’ve ever experienced…The way these actors portray each person is something to behold…But none of that would have worked without Costello putting it all together like a great orchestra master…This smart play which entertains and educates, makes you question yourself and then analyze those around you."
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"Aaron Loeb's engrossing, bizarre, dark play...The ensemble of actors is excellent, utterly believable, they inhabit their souls, in some cases very damaged souls. All of them appear willing to sell out whatever souls they ever had. Director Josh Costello leaves no doubt that the events that transpire could be true...Aaron Loeb establishes perfectly the moral conundrum."
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"An excellent 90-minute drama...Josh Costello has assembled five brilliant Bay Area actors to keep the audience on their toes, and they succeed in making this a taut production."
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"There's not quite enough fear amid the jocular one-upmanship, and the second half of the show spins its wheels a bit. A greater sense of possible imminent risk would heighten the play's intensity. Still, 'Ideation' captures the power of language to conceal as much as it reveals, and that's a potent thrill all its own...With its unsettling echoes, 'Ideation' urges us to consider what we know and what we are trying hard not to know about the world we live in."
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"At times it's a bit too easy to take as an unsettling satire on the corporate monsters among us. Loeb's moral comedy would hit harder if he made us feel more complicit in the team's groupthink. But it's already a very funny, sharply staged and brightly performed piece. True to its title, 'Ideation' is bound to make you think."
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"The devilishly funny and demonically dark comedy about management consultants is as sidesplitting and, if anything, more deeply disturbing than it seemed at first encounter...Director Josh Costello has honed the pacing to a fine edge. And the much elevated design package substantially if subconsciously raises the social, political and ethical stakes."
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