{"id":130906,"date":"2026-02-12T03:57:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T03:57:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/130906\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T03:57:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T03:57:23","slug":"manhattan-theatre-club-off-broadway-premiere-of-the-monsters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/130906\/","title":{"rendered":"Manhattan Theatre Club Off-Broadway Premiere of THE MONSTERS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Read reviews for Manhattan Theatre Club’s\u00a0Off-Broadway premiere of The Monsters, written and directed by Ngozi Anyanwu<\/a>.\u00a0The Monsters is about two siblings, LIL and BIG, who reunite after a long time apart and must wrestle with their pasts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The production stars\u00a0Aigner Mizzelle<\/a>\u00a0as LIL and Okieriete Onaodowan<\/a>\u00a0as BIG.<\/p>\n

The Monsters will run through February 11, 2026 \u00a0at NY City Center Stage (ii)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\t
\n \"Review
\n Amelia Merrill, New York Theatre Guide:<\/a> Playwright Ngozi Anyanwu is very precise with information. Her play The Monsters, which she also directs for Manhattan Theatre Club, carefully controls the flow of backstory, releasing trickles of context here and there as her characters decide whether to trust each other.
\n \n<\/p>\n

\t\"Review
\n
\n Alex Simmons, Stage and Cinema:<\/a> The Monsters is a layered, emotionally muscular play powered by two formidable performances and technical flair that matches a script full of duels and drama alike. While some viewers may find a personal cultural connection in the big-brother\/little-sister dynamic \u2014 with racial and generational trauma present without ever being spelled out \u2014 the play lands squarely on universal terrain: abandonment, abuse, and self-loathing. <\/p>\n

\t\"Review
\n
\n Jerry Portwood, One-Minute Critic:<\/a> Both actors trained extensively with former UFC fighter Sijara Eubanks, who brings her years of experience to add verisimilitude to their reenactment of the physical demands of jiu-jitsu, boxing, and taekwondo on display. One can feel exhausted just watching them work out on Andrew Boyce\u2019s spare gym-like set.<\/p>\n

\t\"Review
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\n Jonathan Mandell, New York Theater:<\/a> Written and directed by Ngozi Anyanwu, \u201cThe Monsters,\u201d a two-hander opening tonight at New York City Center in a production by Manhattan Theater Club, tracks the off-and-on, up-and-down evolution of a relationship that manages to be both unsentimental and sweet.
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\t\"Review<\/p>\n

Average Rating:
\n\t\t80.0%<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Read reviews for Manhattan Theatre Club’s\u00a0Off-Broadway premiere of The Monsters, written and directed by Ngozi Anyanwu.\u00a0The Monsters is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-130906","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-manhattan","9":"tag-manhattan-headlines","10":"tag-manhattan-news","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-nyc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}