Billy McEntee

Billy McEntee is a Brooklyn-based writer. He’s a freelance arts journalist (Time Out New York, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Interview, Vanity Fair) and Drama Desk-nominated theatermaker of The Voices in Your Head, staged in 2024 at St. Lydia’s, and the “recommended” (Vulture) Slanted Floors, staged in 2025 in a Greenpoint apartment.

As Theater Editor of the Brooklyn Rail, Billy started Rail Shorts, a biannual series publishing mini-plays, and contributes monthly essays analyzing new works, particularly experimental plays with shorter runs that receive less coverage. These responses aim to crack open a play to reveal its dramaturgy, rigor, and intention.

Billy is a Silvers Grant awardee and the inaugural Helbing Fellow for the American Theatre Critics Association. He also teaches with The School of The New York Times and is the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival’s director for the Institute of Theater Journalism and Advocacy. Billy graduated cum laude from Boston College and loves his home state, New Jersey.

Get in touch @billymcentee or williamjude92@gmail.com.

Photo by Jake White

Billy McEntee is a freelance critic and reporter with a decade of experience covering theater, film, TV, books, queer culture, and more. He is a 2025 Silvers Grant awardee, given to a long-form journalism project and named after a founder of The New York Review of Books. Some favorite clips that have sparked controversy, humor, and appreciation are below:

Time Out New York and Boston College Magazine cover stories
The Boston Globe op-ed about how Conclave was 2024's gayest film
The Washington Post essay about Junebug on its anniversary
San Francisco Chronicle Q&A with Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer-winning author of Less
Interview Q&A with Theresa Buchheister, The Brick’s former artistic director
Vanity Fair feature on Lynn Nottage, the only Black female playwright with two Pulitzers
American Theatre profile of Nicki Cochrane, the website's most-read article in 2024
them essay about Paul Mescal’s character’s depression in Aftersun
Observer ranking of Off-Broadway’s bathrooms
The Brooklyn Rail essay on Jim Parsons’ characters rarely having sex, analysis of mall culture in one experimental play, and the first profile of playwright Will Arbery

Billy McEntee creates site-specific theater, experiential events, and homemade murder mysteries.

Photo from a performance of The Voices in Your Head.

Photos by HanJie Chow

Slanted Floors
Created and Produced by Billy McEntee
Directed and Associate Produced by Ryan Dobrin
A Greenpoint apartment, Sep–Oct 2025
A sold-out and site-specific play starring Kyle Beltran and Adam Chanler-Berat, Slanted Floors invited an audience of six to witness the surreal in one freelancer’s day, share in the meal of two partners dining, dishing, and dreaming, and behold the un-remarkability of queer domesticity.

“Recommended — Slanted Floors gearshifts suddenly and miraculously into mysterious realms. Among plays I’ve seen this year, the haunting simplicity of this one’s closing image is tough to beat. I hope they keep doing this show for as long as they’re willing to keep making that soup.”
–Jackson McHenry for Vulture

“Slanted Floors is currently New York’s most unique and exclusive piece of theater and shows the power of evoking the ordinary to unpeel something profound.”
–Tim Teeman for The Daily Beast

“Very compelling. To quote an audience member I overheard outside after the show, Dobrin and McEntee are 'the dream team of small space theatre,' and it shows in this piece.”
–Allie Marotta for No Proscenium

Photos by HanJie Chow

The Voices in Your Head
Co-created by Grier Mathiot and Billy McEntee
Directed by Ryan Dobrin
St. Lydia’s, Jan 2024 and Sep–Oct 2024 (produced by Egg & Spoon Theatre Collective)

A sold-out, extended, site-specific dark comedy, The Voices in Your Head is about a support group for people who share a bizarre bond. The play was nominated for the 2025 Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience.

“A bracing reminder of how exhilarating a show can be when it connects one person — onstage, in the audience — with the world.”
–Elisabeth Vincentelli for The New York Times

“Warm, witty, bonkers. If you need a morsel of sweet weirdness, acted by top-shelf Off-Off megastars, try The Voices in Your Head.”
–Helen Shaw, The New Yorker critic

“The play eases you into the rhythms of its little community, pivots into wider ruminations on death, and then breaks into an energetic and cathartic finale.”
–Jackson McHenry for Vulture

Photo from a performance of Geraldine Realigned.

Photos by HanJie Chow

Geraldine Realigned Drives from Gay Place to Gay Place and You’re in the Car Too
Co-created by Cam Cronin and Billy McEntee
Directed by Ryan Dobrin
The Brick, Feb 2023 and May 2024

A one-person show with a twist, this vulnerable comedy asks how do we get to where we want to go? A communion, road trip, and pilgrimage-turned-presentation-turned-performance, Geraldine Realigned covers a lot of gay ground in 60 minutes. Buckle up for a ride like no other.

“A work about self-actualization, competing human desires, conversations not had, and making peace with parts of yourself you’d rather think away.”
–Eve Bromberg for Culturebot

Photo from a performance of Amazon Trust.

Photos by Robbie Nero

Amazon Trust
Written by Billy McEntee
Creative Directed and Produced by Matthew Dailey
Experiential Marketing by Autumn Communications
105 Wooster Street, May 2024

Online gossip girl DeuxMoi narrated an immersive, invite-only event about how to detect fraud while shopping with Amazon. Audiences walked through five unique rooms to watch different scenes and choreographed dances to test their knowledge of online scams.

Kill Your Friends
Billy creates bespoke murder mysteries for parties of five and up — get a sense of the fun here! These events cost $25 per person and consist of a three-act structure, mapped out with the party organizer for turnkey ease. Previous themes include White Lotus: Thailand, the Paris Olympics, a farmers market, The Real Housewives of Williamsburg, a ten-year reunion for a failed CW show, and more. You pick the theme, and then you kill your friends. Email williamjude92@gmail.com for more info.