Minor Theater: Pity Whore

Pity Whore is a new play by Julia Jarcho, set to receive its world premiere at NYU Skirball in New York. Minor Theater, the company Jarcho leads as artistic director, made the production, and NYU Skirball presents it in partnership with the Under the Radar festival. It is a limited engagement of four days in January 2027.

The play is a riff on John Ford's Jacobean tragedy 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, which was published in 1633. Jarcho lifts Ford's story into the present day and keeps its central pairing of a brother and sister. The result is a tragedy with a streak of black comedy running through it, a mix NYU Skirball sums up as terror, sex and very dark laughs.

The season at NYU Skirball has 16 productions, and its through-line is artists returning to canonical works to see how they speak about power, politics, ritual, grief and violence today. Pity Whore is the January entry, and it is Jarcho's first production at the venue.

Annie works as a server at the Cheesecake Factory. Her brother Gio is away at college, and she travels there to see him. The play is set in the present day, on the campus where he studies. Annie comes across as the cute one, Gio as the sad one, and their mother is a character in the piece as well.

During Annie's visit, the tenderness and longing between the siblings drift toward the taboo and the grotesque. The official description is blunt about all of this, so read the content warning below before you book.

Jarcho's plays often start from an older work. Pathetic, staged at Abrons Arts Center in June 2019, reworked Racine as a teen drama. Marie It's Time, presented with HERE Arts Center in September and October 2022, was a piece for three performers, with songs, that took on Büchner through the murdered Marie. Pity Whore continues that habit with a Jacobean source.

Humor is the constant. Minor Theater describes its plays as pieces in a minor key made with dark humor, and the presenters call the comedy here unhinged.

As of October 2026, the festival's credits list Susannah Perkins as starring, and the company's announcement photo shows her in the production. Further cast members have not been named, so check the official website for the full company closer to the dates.

Pity Whore is billed as a world premiere. The first performance is set for January 13, 2027, which NYU Skirball marks as opening night.

Mark Russell founded Under the Radar in 2005. From 2006 to 2022 the festival was based at the Public Theater, and after the Public suspended it in 2023 it was revived with the production company ArKtype. The 2027 edition is the festival's 22nd, with a program of more than 30 works.