Review: "Bad Practices" Make Great Theater

Bad Practices: Doctors vs. Lawyers

This May Sting

Written and directed by Cameron Darwin Bossert

and

Make Them All Pay

Written and directed by Cameron Darwin Bossert

Presented by Thirdwing at the Chain Theatre

312 W 36th St., Floors 3 and 4, Manhattan, NYC

September 24-October 4, 2026

Matthew Sanders. Courtesy of Spin Cycle.

It is one of those fruitful coincidences that hybrid theater company Thirdwing's new productions, This May Sting and Make Them All Pay, playing in repertory under the umbrella Bad Practices: Doctors vs. Lawyers, made their debut the same week that HBO series Last Week Tonight delved into the many misdeeds of UnitedHealthcare, examining some of the same issues, such as coding based on profitability rather than need and algorithms deciding when or if people receive care, that populate these plays. This May Sting focuses on the doctors side of Bad Practices' subtitle, and Make Them All Pay (suitable as a slogan for insurance companies as well as legal practices) on the lawyers; as a pair, they add to playwright, director, and Thirdwing founder Cameron Darwin Bossert's body of funny, deeply researched, and character-driven work, finding the comedy and humanity in the frequently absurd world of and around a for-profit health-care system that would be comedic in and of itself if its consequences weren't so deadly serious.

Thirdwing, founded in 2020, is a hybrid theater and streaming company with a mission to bridge theater and film, as well as to make traditional in-person theatergoing more affordable with a subscription model offering new content every month, either online, in-person, or both. Thus, the live stage plays This May Sting and Make Them All Pay are paired with a Bad Practices sitcom series, featuring the same characters, that streams on Thirdwing's digital platform (the first three episodes are available now, with the next two to debut in October). Patrons who purchase tickets for both live shows will receive a free digital download of the TV series, which is available for purchase separately for $11.99. Alternatively, for $59/ year or $7/ month, Thirdwing members receive 2 tickets for each live play, access to the streaming series, as well as the rest of Thirdwing's streaming library, and 2 tickets to any and every future Thirdwing performance or special event throughout the season. The Bad Practices stage plays and web series can be viewed in any order, or even as stand-alone pieces, and the fact that This May Sting and Make Them All Pay are running in rep on the third and fourth floors, respectively, of the Chain, with about half an hour between them, makes it easy to see both in one afternoon or evening, as we did. While it is not necessary to see them in a particular sequence, for those who want to see them in chronological order, This May Sting takes place one year before the web series and Make Them All Pay a year after.

Mary Monahan. Courtesy of Spin Cycle.

This May Sting is set in Sunfield Medical Practice in Ohio, run by ENTs Dr. Donald Lambon (Matthew Sanders) and Dr. David Eliot (Wesli Spencer). The set is divided into an exam room and a reception area, and the front desk is staffed by the no-nonsense Lucy Caback (Kate Warren), who handles appointments and billing with hilarious and sometimes acerbic honesty. Dr. Eliot founded the practice, importing Dr. Lambon from Cleveland, but a third office remains empty, contributing to the practice's financial struggles. The two partners present a contrast in types, with Dr. Eliot more reserved and precise than his colleague, but also perhaps more empathetic, as do the two patients whose troubles form the twinned backbone of the narrative. Slightly scattered Darlene Abbot (Mary Monahan), who has a snoring problem–or, more accurately, whose husband has a problem with her snoring–generally subsumes her anxieties into enthusiastic compliance (a trait that perhaps reflects on her marital situation as well). Darlene is seen by Dr. Lambon, who starts by recommending nasal spray but eventually works his way to minor surgery, which coincidentally allows him to play with a fun machine he has recently purchased–and treats the audience to a comic highlight in his discussion of the potential side effects. Larkin Vogel (Emily Tuckman), who becomes Dr. Eliot's patient, offers a rockstar contrast to the dressed-down Darlene not only in her glittery heeled boots and leather skirt but also in her resistant posture as a patient, an understandable attitude: as a singer in a band, her potential hearing loss is bound up with a fear of losing the art by which she defines herself. Other aspects of Larkin's medical history are emblematic of the way that the play hits some serious targets with its humor, as also, for example, in the sharp satire in Lucy's phone arguments with insurers and in how a funny exchange between the two doctors about microaggressions, played with impeccable comic timing by Sanders and Spencer, later finds an echo in Dr. Eliot's recalling the racism that he experienced as a Black med student. By the end of This May Sting, Darlene's cooperative attitude is severely challenged–allowing (Monahan as) Darlene to let loose in the process–as all of the play's various threads come smartly together in a riotous climax.

Arthur Lazalde. Courtesy of Spin Cycle.

There's a brief but satisfying crossover with This May Sting in Make Them All Pay, which shifts the focus to the lawyers on both sides of claims against the health care system. Dale Tomasin (Arthur Lazalde) and Peter Randolph (James Ferrari) are partners in a law practice that, like Sunfield Medical, is struggling financially, leaving them without even enough money to fix the leak in their office's ceiling. Also similarly to the Sunfield doctors, Dale and Peter present a contrast in personalities, Dale's habitual histrionics counterbalanced by Peter's deadpan, smoother-edged mien. When the play, which takes place in the conference room of their law office, begins, the pair are bringing a case against their long-desired target, Shrine Hospital, over a patient death, hoping that they can win the jury over with appeals to emotion and finally score a decent payday. The hospital's lawyer, Ed Greaves (Cal Gladen), sarcastic and a bit sleazy but also good at what he does, derides their case as weak and the lawyers themselves as ambulance chasers, while displaying no greater respect for jurors. An unexpected visit by Dale and Peter's former employee, the capable and driven Nina Santos (Alba Ponce de León), opens up new potential pathways for suing Shrine, a shift which eventually brings nurse Cindy Gardner (Rebecca Lovett), hired at "desperation wages" through another of those ubiquitous algorithms, into the case. Also part of the mix is Dr. Bud Schweitzer (Dikran Tulaine), the hospital's CEO, whose almost military bearing at an initial meeting looks quite different when he turns up drunk at one point. Dr. Schweitzer was a surgeon, but now, very much unlike Cindy, he no longer has direct interaction with patients. So along with the question of who will come out on top and whether that leak will get fixed, the audience is prompted to consider what blame people like Dr. Schweitzer bear if patient harms come less from intentionality than ignorance born of outsourcing responsibility to algorithms and private equity firms.

Across both of these terrifically acted ensemble pieces–each of which starts with a TV theme-tune-type musical cue and ends with a resolution that is surprising in the moment and seems inevitable in retrospect–characters are faced with choices between making a living or doing the right thing, while for the health care system as a whole, the choice is less between profit and ethics than profit and greater profit. Capitalism thus underlies many of the problems that surface in both This May Sting and Make Them All Pay, from malpractice (legal or medical), to having to stay in bad jobs, to the ripple effects of private equity's infestation of medical care (along with much of the rest of national life). There is much to satirize here, and Bad Practices does so with the skill of an ENT wielding a state-of-the-art radiofrequency probe and, thankfully, with a much better sense of humor.

-John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards