Between Riverside and Crazy at 1st Stage in Tysons

Stephen Adly Guirgis's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Between Riverside and Crazy is now on stage at 1st Stage in Tysons, Virginia, and if you only see one show before it closes on March 15, make it this one. This is simply exceptional theatre - raw, deeply human, and impossible to forget.

Between Riverside and Crazy at 1st Stage Theatre

The play centers on Walter "Pops" Washington, a retired Black New York City police officer and widower who was shot six times by a white rookie cop while off-duty years earlier. Rather than settle his lawsuit against the NYPD and pocket the money, Walter has spent years demanding something the department refuses to give: a full apology and an acknowledgment of racial bias. His rent-stabilized apartment on Riverside Drive has become both his fortress and his prison, filled floor to ceiling with the accumulated weight of a life suspended in grief and resistance. Living under his roof are his son Junior, recently paroled and pulled between his better and worse instincts; Junior's girlfriend Lulu, who burns brightly with her own unmet needs; and Oswaldo, a recovering addict ninety days sober and trying to hold himself together. They call Walter "Pops," and that says everything about the unlikely family they've become.

The tension at the center of the story comes to a head when Walter's former partner, Detective O'Connor, and her fiance, Lieutenant Caro, arrive for what looks like a friendly dinner but is anything but. Their real mission is to pressure Walter into signing away his lawsuit, and they are not above using his illegal subletting arrangement and Junior's record as leverage. The confrontation that follows is palpably tense and mesmerizing - a scene in which every character is deeply flawed, nobody is clearly right or wrong, and the desire to survive at the expense of morals feels wholly believable.

Director Jose Carrasquillo handles Guirgis's complex, episodic structure with apparent ease. The playwright has a gift for constructing isolated worlds around each of his characters and then letting those worlds collide only when the explosion will be most devastating - an authorial strategy that this production handles spectacularly. The dialogue, profane and fast-paced and achingly honest, reflects the texture of lives lived under systems designed to grind people down.

Addison Switzer's portrayal of Walter is the beating heart of the production, and it carries additional emotional weight given the circumstances of this particular run. William T. Newman Jr., a beloved member of the 1st Stage community and its board, was originally cast in the role and passed away unexpectedly during rehearsals. Switzer stepped in and delivers a performance that is both deeply nuanced and thoroughly memorable - capturing the stubborn dignity, the genuine kindness, and the buried vulnerability of a man who refuses to be moved. The production opens with a tribute to Newman, the audience asked to stand and applaud the empty stage, a moment that is poignant and beautiful, casting the themes of loss and resilience in an especially immediate light.

The entire ensemble performs with fierce commitment to their characters and to each other, creating the feeling of a real, lived-in family unit. Fabiolla Da Silva as the Church Lady is equal parts hilarious and pivotal, her scenes with Switzer awakening something in Walter that years of struggle had all but extinguished. Tony Cisek's scenic design - a rent-controlled apartment packed from floor to ceiling with furniture, boxes, lamps, and the detritus of decades - is a visual metaphor that brilliantly externalizes Walter's stagnation and the chaos that surrounds him.

Between Riverside and Crazy offers no easy answers about race, policing, or what it costs to hold the line for something you believe in. It is the kind of play that stays with you long after the lights go down. Performances run through March 15, 2026 at 1st Stage, 1524 Spring Hill Road, Tysons, VA. Tickets are $55 general admission, with limited availability at $40 and $25, and $15 for students, educators, and military. Tickets can be purchased at 1ststage.org or by calling (703) 854-1856.