Following its 2022 presentation as an MFA thesis project in Columbia University’s New Plays Festival, Johnny G. Lloyd’s birthday birthday birthday is now playing a limited engagement at The Tank as part of its Core Production series, supporting new work by emerging artists. In it, best friends Marissa and Clark share a birthday, celebrate it together every year at a party with their close circle of “musketeers,” and will do what it takes to continue that tradition forever. Directed by Will Steinberger with pacing that changes from frenetic to increasingly contemplative, as suited to their progressive ages, the story of the everlasting bond between two people of different races, classes, and sexual orientations takes an unexpected twist as they move through the decades of their lives.
A terrific cast of six embodies the diverse characters, how they relate to each other, and how they change over time in their speech patterns, demeanors, thoughts, and identities, as they mature from the wild college partying and drunken revelry in 2010, at the age 21, to a 2020 celebration in the back room of a lively bar at 31, when they’ve become immersed to their professional careers, to a small private bar in 2030, as they turn 41 and begin to feel their age, and a while from now, all signaled by transitions in the period-style set and props by Anna Grigo, age-appropriate costumes by Tina McCartney, dramatic shifts in lighting by David De Carolis and sound by Brian Hickey, and a futuristic ending that thrusts the entire narrative into a different perspective (no spoilers here, but it’s very much in keeping with the progression we’re experiencing in our current culture).
Leading the way are Portland Thomas and Justin Ahdoot as BFFs Marissa and Clark, who share an unbreakable connection, supported by Dana Berger as the out-of-control and confrontational partier Juliette, Omari Chancellor as their more sensible friend Dustin, to whom Marissa is attracted, and Anita Castillo-Halvorssen as the quieter Amanda, a Latine with parents in Florida, who doesn’t partake in the alcohol or drugs enjoyed to excess by the others. And Remy Germinario, as the sequence of three of Clark’s young lovers in the different decades – Hayden, Tyler, and Blaine, who, indicative of his taste in men, all resemble one another in looks and circumstances – gives each a distinguishing voice and bearing (the other “musketeers” agree that Blaine is the nicest and I’m sure you’ll all agree that Hayden is the most absolutely hilarious).
Every one of the thoroughly engaging and entertaining actors masterfully delivers the riotous laughs, emotional outbursts, and injudicious attitudes of their characters’ youth, the more reflective awareness they develop as adults (though not without an occasional misstep or blowup), and the significant decisions that ultimately define who they are, what they want, and how they remember their friends and lives, in a densely packed, funny, and thought-provoking work that considers such important issues as racism, privilege, and acceptance, sustained and broken friendships, with Lloyd’s overarching taste for comedy and underlying purposeful search for the meaning of life, aging, the limited time we have, and what the future could hold.
If you want a show that will keep you laughing and make you think, while encouraging us to remember the good times, birthday birthday birthday is one you should see and celebrate.
Running Time: Approximately 90 minutes, without intermission.
birthday birthday birthday plays through Saturday, April 19, 2025, at The Tank, 312 West 36th Street, NYC. For tickets (priced at $28-53, including fees), go online.
