Pete Simpson

Off-Broadway Review: “Indian Princesses” at The Atlantic Theater (Through Sunday, June 7, 2026)

The YMCA’s “Indian Princesses” program—rebranded in recent years as “Adventure Princesses”—bills itself as wholesome father-daughter bonding through Native-inspired activities. Playwright Eliana Theologides Rodriguez knows better. Her grandmother and great-grandmother were forced through assimilation schools designed to sever Indigenous families from their heritage, language, and identity. What the YMCA packages as “family fun” is cultural appropriation built on the machinery of…

Off-Broadway Review: “Measure for Measure” at the Public’s LuEsther Theater

“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” – Luke 6:38 William Shakespeare’s plays have been abridged, modernized, and retold in every conceivable fashion. As the time for curtain approaches for “Measure…