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December 17, 2025 
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Dear Theater Fans,
Michael Paulson traveled to theaters in Florida and Wisconsin — quite different in many ways — to get a better sense of something they have in common: They are thriving at a time when other regional theaters are struggling.
Milwaukee Repertory Theater strives to live up to its three goals: to entertain, provoke and inspire. Over in Naples, Fla., Kristen Coury of Gulfshore Playhouse says this about her theater’s success: “My first covenant is with the audience, and I care about what they think,” she told Michael. “People don’t want to spend money on a show they don’t think they’re going to like.”
Also this week, a couple of personal reflections: First, the actor Tom Hanks shared his thoughts about the thrilling — yet frustrating — yearslong experience of writing an Off Broadway play (“This World of Tomorrow,” which he wrote with James Glossman). Then Robin Pogrebin, one of our Culture reporters, wrote about seeing Bess Wohl’s Broadway play “Liberation” with her mother, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, a pioneer of the women’s movement who was interviewed by Wohl during the play’s development. “She really captured who we were and what we did and what we felt we were doing, and also what we feel has been lost,” Letty said.
And in her review of “Anna Christie,” Laura Collins-Hughes wrote that Michelle Williams is delivering a smart performance as a woman whose past threatens her future in Thomas Kail’s “luminous and mesmerizing revival of Eugene O’Neill’s 1921 drama.”
Please reach out to me at theaterfeedback@nytimes.com with suggestions for articles or to offer your thoughts about our coverage. And urge your friends to subscribe to this newsletter.
Have a wonderful week,
Nicole Herrington
Theater Editor
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IN HIS WORDS: TOM HANKS ON ‘THIS WORLD OF TOMORROW’ |
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