After matching online, two strangers—Heléne Yorke (“The Other Two”) and Michael Zegen (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”)—meet in real life. The vibe is off, and the conversation is a mess. Yet something is keeping them in their seats. What begins as a typical date off the apps spirals into something unexpected in a bold new production of Strategic Love Play, the show that sold out in London and took the Edinburgh Fringe by storm. From “Succession” writer Miriam Battye and director Katie Posner comes the New York debut of the award-winning, razor-sharp “comedic tour de force” (The Guardian) that The Evening Standard calls “as gripping as a friend’s rapid-fire texts from a disastrous first date."
Yorke is a bit too loud, abrasive, and quick to laugh at her jokes — and she upsets the norms and rhythms of courtship that we’ve come to expect from decades of rom-coms. We can see it in Zegen’s stuttering responses, his self-conscious rubbing of his hands up and down his pant legs, and the way that she keeps throwing him off his game while still sparking his interest. Not that this guy has much rizz. He’s a self-described “nice normal person” who says he works at Mount Sinai, but immediately fesses up that he’s an auditor and not a doctor, who quickly admits he used a fake name on his profile, and who blurts out details about his most recent ex, a woman who dumped him after 16 months who remains a rent-free tenant in his brain.
Produced by Audible, Inc. and Chase This Production, the live performance of Strategic Love Play, with its humorous and contrary characterizations by the excellent Zegen and Yorke, will also be recorded and released at a later date on Audible, so if you can’t make it to Minetta Lane, you can listen to the audio version of the play at home and around the world, and find out if the time is right for them to heal their wounds and open themselves up to honesty, trust, and love again.
2024 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway Production Off-Broadway |
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