This year is barreling down towards the end so quickly. Why do some years move faster than others? The light is dimmer, the air is a bit heavier, and the theater is still vibrant in New York. This month were my sixth and seventh sets at West Side Comedy Club — Danielle, Eliza, Marlene, Debra, Katie, Claire, Susan, and Meredith in the audience, cheering me on this strange, exciting pursuit of mine. Thank you to each of you for showing up and supporting. Comedy keeps me honest; it demands rhythm, risk, and presence, not unlike any worthy pursuit. This time, it feels different for me. I still haven’t hit my year yet and I am more energized than ever to keep working out my material, my stories, and performance. At the same time as stand up, I am continuing to craft 60-minutes through a playwriting class with Kate Tarker full of some other great respective New York-based artists.
All the while, the season turned into winter before us with a beautiful snow fall. The city was encased in white and for a couple of hours, it felt as if I was living in quiet postcard. It quickly melted and become a slushy mess. It was my first real snow fall living in New York and it was magic. I ended the strong with a few performances and will have a great 2025 review as a follow up to this month’s review.
THEATER & COMEDY
November was stacked with performance. Bat Boy at New York City Center (⭐️⭐️⭐️) was a strange delight — campy, sharp, and unexpectedly moving. Childless Freak, a friend’s solo show, at UCB (⭐️) pushed at the edges of absurdity, while Jerrod Carmichael (⭐️⭐️⭐️) offered something entirely different: discomfort as art, intimacy as confrontation (rooted in his tradition of Rothaniel (on HBO). Jerrod left me calling out a fellow audience member uncomfortable and audibly gay bashing him. I stood up for me in the present and me in the future, as I know I will face backlash from people I make uncomfortable with my material. Though, I know I have made people uncomfortable most of my life for my mere existence. It was a stark reminder that most people are still uncomfortable even with the words around gay life and their assumptions around our lifestyle. I was proud of the woman for feeling confident enough to spill her distain with “our lifestyle.” I wanted to make sure she knew someone was listening to her.
Alex Edelman at Carnegie Hall (⭐️⭐️⭐️) was a masterclass in vulnerability and structure — proof that storytelling and stand-up are siblings, not cousins. I was empowered after the 60 minutes of material. I am so glad I was able to see him live, though I was one of the few people in the audience that understood his jokes around Evangelical America. He also has inspired me to go deeper into clowning, as he was a clown at a children’s hospital in Jerusalem (and still clowns to this day). (If you have not watched Just for Us on HBO, do yourself a favor and watch an Emmy-winning performance). I also caught Gimme a Sign by Bailey at Under St. Marks (⭐️⭐️) and Jokes and Poems with Mike Birbiglia and J. Hope (⭐️⭐️½), a reminder of how laughter and stanzas can share the same breath.
I saw Gruesome Playground Injuries (⭐️⭐️⭐️) with Kara Young (two time Tony winner) and a vibrant revival of Tony winning, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️) offered opposite poles of emotion — one raw and introspective, the other joyous and improvisational. Chess on Broadway (⭐️⭐️½) was somewhere in between, beautifully scored (and beloved by the Broadway community), but trapped in its own uneven story.December With December, comes the holiday shows. I was able to take in the 100th anniversary of the Rockettes at Radio City Hall with a remarkable gifted sixth row seat. The show is always a treat and this year (their 100th), I learned that Rockettes started in my hometown of St. Louis. I revisited an opera standby, Puccini’s La Boheme for my seventh time. You can start to hear the nuance after so many viewings of a classic. There is nothing like how The Met puts on a Parisian winter city Christmas market scene. It is pure joy with a real donkey and horse on stage!
Archduke at Roundabout Theater ⭐️⭐️ ⭐️ A 2017 play by the same writer of Gruseome Playground Injuries, Rajiv Johnson, explores the radicalization of the assassins of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and ultimately an disastisfying ending. Costumes and set were great with some great young actors filling out some unfinished characters. I think they did their best with the material. It was an interesting query in what we might consider a version of the early 20th century incel. The F*****s and their Friends Between Revolutions at Armory⭐️Based on a beloved essay from 1975 of a queer fantastical imagination of Larry Mitchell and illustrations by Ned Asta. The essay has been part of my life for quite some time as Larry wrote it after a visit to the Castro District. Imagine, this was Pre-AIDS, and there was a quiet revolution building. There was love between men in the quiet alleyways and Victorian closets of San Francisco. A love I experienced in my time in the city by the bay, a love that I try to tap into through time and space. It is a love that I try to hold onto in the age of an America culture that doesn’t want to hear about our love, create fear around our bodies across genders, and create laws that prevent me from having a full life. It must have been beautiful - in the quiet, dark corners, there could be love expressed without fear of a murderous disease that destroyed a generation of my brothers. I try to channel the spirit of the 70s, before a plague took so many. Regardless of American laws, regardless of leaders across institutions that advocate for puritanical and nuclear family, regardless of your quiet religious fervor, we will continue to love in glorious spite of you. For this show at the Armory, I was disappointed with the investment in time, energy, and talent. The performance landed flat and was confusing. The production wasn’t sure what it was. Was it a dance piece? Was it an opera? I don’t mind non-linear storytelling, but for the source material to be so challenging, hopeful, and unapologetically queer - I was left wanting more from this piece. Read the essay, please. It is magical. Beau: The Musical ⭐️⭐️ ⭐️I love being surprised by Off-Off Broadway pieces. This musical has been being worked on for about eight years. Sadly, I don’t think it will ever travel or get its Broadway moment for lots of reasons. Maybe some pieces are their best off-broadway? Scale and amplification isn’t always the goal? Beau is a net new story and music, let alone a “challenging” story to some. But, I connected to it in a deep way. As an audience member, you are transported into a Nashville bar and the band is about to play. Rather than a regular set, you are whisked away into a compelling story of a young man searching for a father-figure (who isn’t) and find a kind soul trying to forgive the sins of his past. One of my favorite Broadway stars, recently Tony nominated, Jeb Brown takes on quite a role and he is worth the price of admission to hear him up close. Beau is an interesting and all too common story, and not told enough. I was glad my friend took me as it is playing just down the street at The Distillery at St Lukes on West 46th (playing through Jan 4). Listen to the first recording of the show here. Tracy Lett’s new much-hyped revival of Bug⭐️ ⭐️This revival featuring Tracy Lett’s wife Carrie Coon and Namir Smallwood. I love Tracy Lett’s writing because it never lets you off the hook as an audience member. This one doesn’t let you out of a hotel room outside Oklahoma City. I am not sure if this 2009 play is what we need right now on Broadway, but of course the star power is driving this production. I think it will have a short run on Broadway as I think most people like their delusional, violent content streaming via streaming services on the comfort of their couch, rather than a night at the theater. I might be wrong, but it isn’t worth the price of the ticket for 45 seconds of theatrical magic.
VISUAL ART
Early November brought a visit to The Met and a stunning Rauschenberg exhibition at the Guggenheim, followed by Joan Mitchell at David Zwirner, Agnes Martin at Pace, and Wifredo Lam (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️) at MoMA, whose luminous forms haunted my own dreams lately.
At the Whitney, I finally saw Calder’s Circus, marveling at how something so playful could feel so spiritual. November taught me that reflection doesn’t always arrive as revelation. Sometimes it’s a quiet look across the table, a walk through half the city, or a hand still reaching for light
.December On Christmas Day, my friend took me to one of her traditions, a winter concert at the Museum on Eldridge Street (the oldest snyagogue in the United States). The temple went through a 20 -year restoration completed in 2007 and wow, what a job they did! It was a beautiful restoration of 19th and 20th handiwork and craft. I got up to The Met’s cloisters and visited a new exhibit, Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages. I would consider medieval art one of my weak points among many in art history. Another visit to Wifredo Lam’s When I don’t Sleep, I Dream has quickly entered my lexicon as a must-see and one of my favorite exhibits of 2025. He created a strong visual language and welcomes the viewer into a fantasy that both terrifies me and comforts me in the same way. I have found myself running over to MoMA near closing times and visiting some of my favorite canvases and being alone with them. His mastery of coloring and structure quickly puts him into the likes of Picasso and George Braque. I do love when an institution takes time and a risk on an unknown artist (to the American audience) and creates an exhibit that stays with us that is strong enough to disrupt the art historical canon. It happens rarely, but I do think MoMa did it with this exhibit.
Sidenote: Maybe it might be a good sign as this was co-curated by Christophe Cherix, The newly appointed David Rockefeller Director (along with The Estrellita Brodsky Curator of Latin American Art, with Damasia Lacroze, Curatorial Associate, Department of Painting and Sculpture, and Eva Caston, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Drawings and Prints). Mr. Cherix doesn’t seem like the biggest risk taker and is once again another white, straight, older, male that is a master fundraiser. I guess that is all we have ever looked for in American leadership (as we look to the Philadelphia Art Museum new appointment after ousting a younger woman for a branding faux paux). Alas, I think I might be the only one that cares about who might be leading our cultural institutions in a time when fear is taking hold at all classes, the rich and the poor. I resist, possibly quietly to most people, but I resist the temptation to give up on accountability for our leaders in civic institutions.
WHAT I’M EXCITED ABOUT IN JANUARY 2026 - Becoming a clown. - Continuing a playwriting course with Kate Tarker- All Out with Mike Birbiglia and other comics! - Oklahoma! live at Carnegie Hall - Porgy & Bess at The Met - Ulyssesat The Public- Caravaggio and Bellini at The Morgan Library
GREGORY MEANDER LIVE PERFORMANCESJanuary 31st at Westside Comedy Club at 6 PM Get your tickets now! It is cheaper in advance - write Gregory Meander. February 24th at Pete’s Candy Store TBA “Love Bombed” is the theme and I share a 8-9 minute story.
