COLD WAR CHOIR PRACTICE
a play with music by Ro Reddick
directed by Knud Adams
music direction by Ellen Winter
with Alana Raquel Bowers, Will Cobbs, Crystal Finn, Nina Grollman, Andy Lucien, Grace McLean, Lizan Mitchell, Suzzy Roche, Ellen Winter
set design by Afsoon Pajoufar
lighting design by Masha Tsimring
sound design by Kathy Ruvuna
costume design by Brenda Abbandandolo
movement by Baye & Asa
stage managed by Christina M. Woolard
MCC + Clubbed Thumb + Page 73, 2026American Theatre Magazine: Feature
3 Views on Theater: Feature
AWARDS
(winner, nominated)
2026 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize
Obie Awards: Afsoon Pajoufar for Set Design
Outer Critics Circle Awards: John Gassner Award, Outstanding Lead Performer in an Off-Broadway Play
Off Broadway Alliance Awards: Best New Play
Lucille Lortel Awards: Outstanding Play, Outstanding Director, Outstanding Featured Performer, Outstanding Featured Performer, Outstanding Scenic Design
Drama League Awards: Outstanding Production of a Play, Outstanding Direction of a Play, Distinguished Performance
Drama Desk Awards: Outstanding Play, Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play, Outstanding Music in a Play
REVIEWS
[Critic’s Pick] “A brainy new comedy by Ro Reddick that’s infused with choral music and spiked with espionage. Directed by Knud Adams, and featuring a jewel-studded cast, the play finishes this year’s edition of Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks festival on a high.”
Laura Collins-Hughes, The New York Times
[The 10 Most Mind-Altering Theater Moments of 2026] “I had always believed that Clubbed Thumb productions needed a tiny Off Off Broadway incubator space to work. This deliriously comic moment in Adams’s luxe MCC transfer changed my mind. We should give these shows — and powerhouses like Mitchell and Finn — the biggest stages we’ve got.”
Helen Shaw, The New York Times
[8 Splendid Plays That Beg for an L.A. Production ASAP] “It was helpful to see Knud Adams’ nimble production after it transferred to MCC Theater — an ideal introduction to a startlingly original playwright at the dawn of a path-breaking career.”
Charles McNulty, The Los Angeles Times
“Knud Adams has picked up the torch of David Lynch like no other stage director before him. With the same deadpan creepiness lurking just under the wood-panel normalcy of life in America, Adams brings Ro Reddick’s exhilarating “Cold War Choir Practice” to perverse life.”
Robert Hofler, The Wrap
“Adams’s gift for emotional subtlety has been well illustrated, in recent seasons, by Primary Trust and English, but his flair for physical comedy is also on full display here, in ways that elevate the wry humor of Reddick’s script into full-blown Durangian absurdity.”
Loren Noveck, exeunt
[⭑⭑⭑⭑] “Adams’s ensemble cast, working in tandem, makes the whole experience as sweet and spicy as the Atomic Fireballs that are, appropriately enough, Meek’s favorite kind of candy. The company performs with mutually assured distinction.”
Adam Feldman, Time Out New York
[⭑⭑⭑⭑] “Thanks in large part to the inventive direction by Knud Adams (English), the witty, farcical play proves consistently amusing even while making serious points.”
Frank Scheck, New York Stage Review
[⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑] “The pitch-perfect cast is divinely directed by Knud Adams. Adams, who did such fine, delicate work on Sanaz Toossi’s English, lets his silly side shine here, and he and the ensemble find unexpected moments from start to finish.”
Randall David Cook, The Recs
”Director Knud Adams proves, once again, his deft ability to sculpt wildly dense material, assembling a first-rate acting company that knows exactly what world they’re living in, a kind of Venn diagram of kitchen sink drama and fantastical shape-shifting.”
Matthew Wexler, 1 Minute Critic
”Under Knud Adams’ artful direction and Baye & Asa’s creative movement, the choir gracefully embody more tertiary characters from a Soviet spy to a TV show guest. No movement is off-limits as McLean hides in plain sight against the wall in a campy covert pose, or the choir suddenly transforms into a bathroom stall.”
Ashley M. Thomas, 3 Views on Theater
”Knud Adams directs the gifted cast and helps define this universe of geopolitical threats and localized inner turmoil.”
Nicole Serratore, exeunt
[⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑] “Ro Reddick, fresh out of Brown’s MFA theatre program, knows what buttons to push, and how. In this tongue-in-cheek spy caper, she needles our collective complacency lightly, wittily.”
Sandy MacDonald, New York Notebook
World Premiere with Clubbed Thumb + Page 73, 2025
with Alana Raquel Bowers, Will Cobbs, Nina Grollman, Andy Lucien, Grace McLean, Lizan Mitchell, Mallory Portnoy, Suzzy Roche, Ellen Winter
(photos by Maria Baranova)