The highly successful first season of “The Pitt” focused on ratcheting up tension. The healthcare professionals at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center worked through a high-intensity shift that culminated in a mass shooting. The result was thrilling, with the season winning a laundry list of Emmys and receiving largely positive reviews.

“Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812,” a 2012 musical adaptation of a 70-page section of Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” begins with distraction. The opening of its first song—“There’s a war going on/ Out there somewhere,/ And Andrey isn’t here”—casts a shadow over the chaotic and frivolous series of opera performances, balls, and botched love affairs that follow. Somewhere, a war is happening. But in many ways, the lives of those who aren’t fighting in it continue on as usual.

“The Deerboro Ripper,” an original student-written musical presented by First Stages, transports its audience to a small town where murder is a viable political strategy.

The Columbia Musical Theatre Society presented “Spring Awakening,” from Nov. 14 to 15, bringing a show forever cursed by a brilliant score paired with a mediocre book to the Minor Latham Playhouse. The production, directed by Kamila Boga, GS ’26 was tight, fast-paced, and full of the characteristic infectious energy that has encouraged audiences to overlook the play’s shortcomings since it first premiered in 2006.

The characters of Greek tragedy have often been reimagined into various modern contexts, but few are as visually or thematically striking as that of the Barnard theater department’s production of Euripides’ “The Trojan Women,” directed by Tea Alagić.

At Sunday’s 77th Emmy Awards, Columbia alumni made their presence known with nominations across 13 categories.

Shakespeare and gospel music may not seem like the most obvious combination, but “Pericles,” performed from Aug. 29 through Sept. 2 as a public works concert experience at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, would beg to differ.

Columbia Musical Theatre Society’s “Ride the Cyclone” begins with death—six deaths, to be precise—and ends with life.

Mary Shelley was famously inspired to write “Frankenstein”—the tale of a monster and the man who created him—because of a ghost story competition. “Alive: The Mary Shelley Musical,” a First Stages production with music and lyrics by Daniella Sapone, BC ’25, a book by Madeleine George, BC ’23, and direction by Bailey Stephen, CC ’25, concerns itself with that fateful spark of creation, following the eponymous Shelley through her initial inspiration at an estate near Lake Geneva and the subsequent success of one of the most famous novels ever written.

“Yellowjackets,” which finished its third season on April 11 and was created by Ashley Lyle, CC ’02, SoA ’07, and Bart Nickerson, has one of the best pilots in recent TV history. In a memorable sequence, teenage soccer star Taissa, played by Jasmin Savoy Brown, conspires with some of the other players during practice to freeze out one of their weaker teammates, Allie, on the field. They refuse to pass her the ball and cut her off every chance they get. The plan works until Allie, frustrated and broken down, trips and breaks her leg—an injury that leaves her screaming on the field with shards of bone protruding from her shin.