On November 3, 1979, members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party murdered five demonstrators in a march organized by the Communist Workers Party in Greensboro, North Carolina. The five union leaders and organizers soon became the faces of what would be known as the Greensboro Massacre.
César Alvarez’s musical The Potluck, presented by Soho Rep. and INTAR Theatre at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons, searches for meaning in the massacre’s aftermath. Alvarez (portrayed onstage by Anthony Alfaro) creates a meta-theatrical loop of uncertainty, acknowledging the $15,000 commission they received and unclear where to go with the story.
The multigenerational 12-person cast documents the process of creating the musical. What begins as a historical mystery soon becomes an introspective interrogation of Alvarez’s connection to the demonstration’s Marxist ideologies, which diminish their queer nonbinary identity. As Alvarez reflects on their personal connection to those lost and how they should be presented, the plot meanders.
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A séance with no plan for the afterlife
Alvarez’s parents were part of the Communist Workers Party and moved to New York several months before the massacre, then returned immediately after. Alvarez gets their name from two of those who died (Cesar Cauce and Jim Waller) and now seeks to understand these pivotal people in their life story.
Their mom’s documentary about the murder of her close friends, Red November, Black November, and plenty of other memorabilia, anchor the first act of The Potluck. Alvarez sings while photos of their younger self collide with news clippings of the event in videos designed by Stefania Bulbarella.
While Act 1 builds tension around a séance of the five led by Alvarez and their intern Moss (portrayed by Jasmine Rafael), Act II lacks a real-world narrative to give its ghosts a sense of purpose in the land of the living. Despite its loose ends, Sarah Benson’s direction builds entertaining vignettes with the ghosts.
Alfaro’s voice and Alvarez’s lyrics pierce through the work’s stagnation to capture haunting personal reflections about the emotional toll of telling the story of the massacre. Alfaro closes their eyes and sings, “inventing the act of making a nest for somebody.”
The Potluck creates an altar, welcoming the five to tell their story, but in the end, Alvarez never quite finishes setting the table.
Is ‘The Potluck’ worth seeing?
The Potluck summons its ghosts with real conviction, then spends its second act unsure what to do with the living around them.
- Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons, 416 West 42nd Street, New York City
- Notable performers: Anthony Alfaro, Jasmine Rafael, Barbara Walsh
- Running time: 2 hours and 30 minutes, including one intermission
- Performances through August 2, 2026
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