My Joy is Heavy Directed by Rachel Chavkin '08 Dazzles Crowds
My Joy is Heavy, a new show directed by Theatre alum Rachel Chavkin '08, has been enjoying a popular run at New York Theatre Workshop, where it was recently extended due to popular demand. The musical memoir, created by and starring Obie-winning duo The Bengsons, follows the lives of a married couple in the wake of an unexpected loss.
The production follows Abigale and Shaun Bengson, having moved from New York to Vermont at the outset of the pandemic with their young son, Louie. Now living out of the city, the narrative follows the family as they try to have another baby, but when a positive pregnancy test comes, they are plagued with worry instead of what they had hoped would be excitement due to their past experience with miscarriage. Not only does the show deal with grief, pregnancy, and loss, but also isolation and chronic pain.
TimeOut gave the show four stars writing that, “The songs in My Joy Is Heavy cover a lot of stylistic ground: There are soupçons of hip hop and ska, and an amusing Alpine excursion includes ululations and some yodelish vocal doodling. But their default mode is a dramatic folk that is ideally suited to Abigail’s powerfully focused and emotive soprano. She’s intense, with a shock of grey in her wild curly hair; Shaun’s affect is mild and supportive, the easel to her impasto oil painting.”
Rachel Chavkin is a director, writer, and artistic director of Brooklyn-based experimental collective the TEAM, whose work has been seen all over New York, the US, and internationally, and whose consensus-driven writing process was the subject of a feature length documentary by Emmy Winner Paulette Douglas. She won the Tony Award for her work on Hadestown. She is a three-time Obie Winner, and received Tony and Lortel nominations and a Drama Desk Award for Dave Malloy’s Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 (Broadway, Ars Nova, A.R.T.). London: Mission Drift, National Theatre; American Clock, Old Vic. Select New York and regional: Marco Ramirez’s The Royale (Obie Award, Drama Desk, and Lortel noms.), LCT; Malloy’s Preludes, LCT3; Bess Wohl’s Small Mouth Sounds, Ars Nova, national tour; Carson Kreitzer’s and Matt Gould’s Lempicka, Williamstown Theatre Festival, La Jolla Playhouse; The Royal Family, Guthrie Theater; and multiple collaborations with Taylor Mac. This spring Chavkin is co-directing How to Defend Yourself with playwright Liliana Padilla and Steph Paul at NYTW, and Larissa FastHorse’s The Thanksgiving Play on Broadway with 2ST. Her first short film, Remind Me, was an official selection of the Venice and Beverly Hills Film Festivals. 2017 Smithsonian Award for Ingenuity. Proud NYTW Usual Suspect and Member SDC.
My Joy is Heavy, extended by popular demand, will close April 12. Get tickets here.