Anon(ymous) When Naomi Iizuka wrote Anon(ymous) in 2006, there were 8.4 million refugees registered with the UN. By the end of 2015, there were 21.3 million. Those numbers seem enormous, but of course they all represent someone: a mother, a son, a daughter, you or me, yearning for a home that no longer exists. Politicians love to paint immigrants as terrorists or a problem that must be dealt with, but conveyed through the lens of Homer’s Odyssey, this production helps us see the people behind both the photographs and the propaganda. Directed by Rocco Renda for the Cuckoo’s Theater Project, it’s a diversely cast and imaginative show employing physical theater and powerful sound and light design that make you realize anyone could become anonymous. —A.J. Sørensen
Nick & Gabe: American Champions In Nick and Gabe’s America, everything is bigger, better, faster—like an athlete on steroids. So it’s no coincidence that over the course of this one-hour sketch-comedy revue one of the more prominent motifs is lampooning SportsCenter’s Top 10 Plays, thunderous dunks and all. On the one hand it’s a joke about redundancy; on the other hand it’s about domination. That sense of supremacy resonates throughout this mockery of democracy, with some of the more biting quips coming at the expense of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (“We’re definitely not still in Iraq”) and the failure to close Guantanamo Bay. This may sound like stale material, but astute observations about chants of “USA,” along with original gems like ditties about our national parks and a group called the Beach Brothers, make this show worth your hard-earned American dollars. —Matt de la Peña
