Cold War Choir Practice ★★★★★

Cold War Choir Practice is opening Off-Broadway at an eerily serendipitous time. After a successful run at SummerWorks this past June, this delightfully wacky and boldly clever show — now running at MCC Theater, which shares co-producing honors with Page 73 and Clubbed Thumb — returns at a moment when the country is immersed in a war that is far from cold. And wouldn’t you know it? Russia is involved, providing intelligence to help Iran target U.S. forces.

As history repeats itself, the only things that seem to change are the players — which may be what inspired Ro Reddick to write this remarkably fresh play with music about Russians trying to extract intelligence from, of all people, Meek (Alana Raquel Bowers), a 10-year-old Black girl living with her father Smooch (Will Cobbs) and grandmother Puddin (Lizan Mitchell) above the family’s Roll-a-Rama skating rink in 1987 Syracuse, New York.

Neither the family nor the rink are thriving under the supply-side economic policy known as Reaganomics, but it’s December, and Meek understandably has a wish list for Santa: a Pound Puppy, a Speak & Spell, and a nuclear radiation detector for her fallout shelter.

SMOOCH: What I tell you ‘bout that fallout shelter? You been touchin my desk?

MEEK: I have to put heavy stuff against the wall to protect against a nuclear blast –

SMOOCH: Move my desk again and Imma put a butt whoopin on that Christmas list. Go get your stuff for choir practice.

The choir, a trio of women played by Grace McLean, Suzzy Roche, and Nina Ross, led by Choir Leader Ellen Winter, isn’t your normal ensemble of cheery vocalists. As described by Reddick (who also composed the show’s superb songs) in the script, the choir is “a spooky organism that shapeshifts around the family. They carry the off-kilterness of the world along with its darkness.”

And they’re everywhere. This play has a lot of music (wait till you hear the delectable “Milkshake for Peace”), and this chorus fluidly changes characters as they flow in and out of this family’s business (one of the trio actually plays the Speak & Spell), often unpredictably and hilariously.

Also running around the house from Washington, DC are Meek’s conservative uncle Clay (Andy Lucien) and aunt Virgie (Crystal Finn). Clay works in national security and carries a briefcase full of important state secrets. In a rush to get back to work, he’s driven six hours to dump his nearly comatose wife off with his mom so she can be supervised. Smooch, a former Black Panther who can’t abide his brother, isn’t having it, not that Virgie really takes notice.

A severely haunted and dehydrated ex-cult member, Virgie is the most entertaining dysfunctional ‘80s housewife seen on a New York stage since Harper in Angels in America, and watching her try to find her footing in this unfamiliar setting lifts this show into blissful orbit. The ever-wise Puddin (“Puddin’s on high alert!”) is on to her, though, and assigns Meek to keep an eye on her aunt.

VIRGIE: Please stop staring at me. It’s unnerving.

MEEK: Gran’ma told me to watch you. She told me to watch you so you don’t drink anymore of her water.

VIRGIE: I don’t want anymore of her water –

MEEK: Good. ‘Cause you can’t have it. You rich?

Clay and Virgie are, as is this play: rich in structure, characters and surprises. Cold War Choir Practice, which co-won the 2026 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize two weeks ago, is a balm for these unruly times, and the pitch-perfect cast is divinely directed by Knud Adams. Adams, who did such fine, delicate work on Sanaz Toossi’s English, lets his silly side shine here, and he and the ensemble find unexpected moments from start to finish. At play’s end, Puddin says “Somebody gotta get in the spirit,” and thanks to the cast and crew of this fantastic show, it’s the audience that gets the lift.