Crosswords
Written by AJ Rose, Directed and Produced by Megan Lummus
Presented by The New York City Fringe Festival
April 3rd @ 6pm, April 4th @ 10:20pm, April 5th @ 8:40pm, April 10th @9:20pm, and April 11th @ 7:00pm
It is the summer of 1969 in California, where significant historic events like the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, Woodstock, and the Stonewall Riots are taking place. Revolution and rock and roll all take a back seat in a new play by AJ Rose, Crosswords, where a serial killer lurks in suburbia. There is something so murky and dark when innocent lives are taken by the hand of an unknown killer. There is not a single moment in time historically where serial killers overshadow monumental events, because fear is the strongest emotion if you let it rule you.
The scene design is perfectly tailored to married couple Val (Katherine McCrackin) and Gene (Beck Barsanti). Simple chairs and a table effectively convey a couple’s dining room, but the constant barrage of newspapers flung all over the floor pierces into your visual senses. The play examines the haunting portrayal of a couple desperately trying to solve crossword puzzles to determine the notorious serial killer’s next move. Projections of crossword images strewn across in red, black, and white letters all amplify the severity of needing to find answers. The tone of the play is all hidden in the scenery.
As Val and Gene frantically try to solve the killer’s next move, they are always shadowed by a female and male radio host who always lurk around them on the stage. Their presence is a reminder of the maddening effects of how the mind can wander when fear takes hold. There is never a moment of relief, and the tension is quite fixed in how Val and Gene almost manically try to decipher codes. Director Megan Lummus stages the actors in such a way that you experience dread, wondering if the killer will make his way on stage at some point and have his way with his new victims. From pacing in circles to the radio hosts following Gene and Val to confront head on, the physicality of how steps are taken around the stage all create a claustrophobic sense of pending doom.
What eventually unfolds is the unraveling of a marriage neatly wrapped in presenting as idyllic. In the fear and scrutiny, Gene and Val hold a mirror to one another in realizing their flaws. Gene’s fixation on a 19-year-old girl at the library becomes a point of discontent when he wonders where the innocence of his own wife leaves and the woes of life dampen her spirit.
While engaging and thought provoking, there were times where the repetitiveness of the need to decipher crosswords took us away from wanting more action to unfold. It was when Gene and Val further broke down their own marriage that we were finally making more progress toward a potential resolution, or not. The radio hosts were entertaining distractions in how they played the roles of ever so familiar 1960s commercials. What set the work apart was how the ending leaves us in further suspense.
There will never be a time where we will be serial killer free. No matter what events take place in the world, like the great white shark, a serial killer taps into the deepest parts of our fear rooted in the unknown and the possibility of becoming prey. Crosswords is not a only a mystery but an homage to our very own morbid fascinations. Who is the serial killer after all?
Click HERE for tickets.
Review by Bianca Lopez.
Published by Theatre Beyond Broadway on April 15, 2026. All rights reserved.
