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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Third Bird by Isaac Mizrahi and Nico Muhly

Lindsey Jones, Norton Owen, Derrick Arthur, Brian Lawson, and Marjorie Folkman in Third Bird.

Dec 15–16, 2023
1071 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10128

As director and narrator, the fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi has had such a success with the delightful children’s classic Peter & the Wolf that he has, 15 years on, devised a sequel. Third Bird features the same glorious cast, regulars with the likes of Pam Tanowitz and Twyla Tharp; the same Mizrahi costumes, accessorized with outlandish beaks and claws; the same enterprising producer and intimate locale (Works & Process at the Guggenheim); the same choreographer, John Heginbotham, whose sweet, low-key camp sensibility is a nifty match for Mizrahi and this endearing story; and the same musical attunement to each animal’s special wild nature. What’s new is the libretto—by Mizrahi, who’s had his hand in theater longer even than in fashion—and the score. If anyone is up to the task of a Prokofiev sequel, it would be the composer Nico Muhly, imaginative enough to send a whole anarchic flock of third birds flying. —Apollinaire Scherr