What to Send Up When It Goes Down (BAM/Playwrights Horizon) NYC Reviews and Tickets
About the Show
Production Covid-19 Safety ProtocolsMember Reviews (8)
See it if Are interested in socially relevant theatre. Believe that Black Lives Matter.
Don't see it if Don't want a group experience.
See it if you have means.
Don't see it if you have bitterness towards the current movement for black lives. Read more
See it if Activism “theatre” ritual; participatory; made it clear it’s by and for Black People; 2hrs. Strong ensemble.
Don't see it if Intentionally didactic and confrontational; Audience, under peer pressure, will have to stand in circle and “express” opinions to BLM; Read more
See it if This is really a must see. Beautiful and devastating ritual designed for the Black Community for a sense of healing in response to violence.
Don't see it if It is explained that White people are invited, but firmly expected to be respectful of the ritual. If you wish to ignore the current reality Read more
See it if It is very difficult to describe this performance that - as explained by the production - is presented for Black people. Heart rending.
Don't see it if The beginning is interactive and participatory.
See it if You appreciate theatre that pushes boundaries and challenge what you're comfortable with.
Don't see it if You prefer a traditional structure of a play, but also if you don't like theatre that challenges you.
See it if you're looking for profound and revolutionary theater, you want something completely different from anything you've experienced before
Don't see it if you prefer lighthearted traditional theater, dont like being confronted with intense grief, you enjoy being catered to as an audience member Read more
See it if You're upset with the state of the world and want to experience a moment of collective grief.
Don't see it if You aren't comfortable with audience participation
Critic Reviews (3)
"I’m reporting on a moment in time when I, a Black critic and a Black woman in America, felt the safest and most embraced by my Blackness in a theater...If you can’t imagine the comfort of being with people who look like you in a space where art is being made, it’s something like sipping from a steaming cup in the dead of winter: the warmth is precious, immediate and shocking all at once...It’s true that 'What to Send Up' feels less like a play than it does a series of cathartic experiences — which isn’t to say it isn’t beautiful theater, because it is still very much that."
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"Other shows tend to present themselves for judgment, careful to make the generalized 'audience' the center and beneficiary of the artists’ attention. Harris and White, though, stack their concern as concentrically as an atom, with Black martyrs at the center, the actors at the first orbital, the Black audience one valence further out, and the non-Black audience, spinning and watching from the outermost shell."
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"Through a series of masterful vignettes, precise movement, cultural dance, and glorious song lead by supreme vocalist Manning, Black participants are encouraged to reclaim their personal power by confronting and examining beliefs and practices associated with racism and racial bias. During the experience, there were sobs of agony, screams in anger, and later proclamations of victory and collective joy. What is meant to disrupt the pervasiveness of anti-Blackness and acknowledge the resilience of Black people hits the mark without sweeping the dirt under the rug."
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