Opening night on Monday will mean the end of Mr. Friedman’s mad dashes to the C train to juggle rehearsals; 11 days later, “Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play” begins previews at Playwrights Horizons. It is Mr. Friedman’s eighth collaboration with the Civilians, each of them directed (and in many cases created) by Steve Cosson. This piece, written by Anne Washburn, brings a macabre twist to the real-world interviews that have been a crucial component of Civilians pieces like “Gone Missing” and “In the Footprint.”Here, people’s hazy post-apocalyptic memories of one episode of “The Simpsons” yield the last surviving piece of culture, which morphs by the late-21st century into a surreal, pop-music-infused pageant.
The two-night revival of “Gone Missing” at New York City Center is both a very good show and a very bad, very cosmic joke. Because this documentary song cycle is about loss: of minds, rings, a dog, the hour badly spent. And the irretrievable loss, the one you can hear in pretty much every plink and strum from the onstage band, is the loss of the show’s composer, Michael Friedman, who died a year ago from AIDS-related complications. Which makes “Gone Missing” an accidental and indispensable elegy. https://www.stevecosson.com/