The stakes are life-and-death high in Michèle Aldin Kushner’s deeply moving, often laugh-out-loud funny, and honestly quite extraordinary World Premiere play Radio Galaxy.

It’s been a blue-collar life so far for suburban New Jersey teen Constantino “Tino” Castelletti (Rishi Golani), but all that is about to change.

And in fact change might be precisely what’s needed for the 17-year-old science nerd given his status as both the smartest boy in his high school and the school freak.

As to what that change ought to be, well that depends on whom you ask.

Tino’s auto mechanic dad Santo (Joseph McIntyre) would like nothing more than for his son to follow in his footsteps—a path made easy by Santo’s boss, who has seen Tino’s talent under a car and is eager to bring him on full-time after graduation.

Mom Lucy (Lesli Margherita), whose job at an assisted living facility involves changing bedpans and not much else, has higher hopes for her son, and they don’t involve abandoning his dreams the way Santo did when he gave up trying for a fishing boat captain’s license and settled for simply earning a living.

Then comes the day that a letter arrives from the sperm bank responsible for Tino’s conception, and enter the Jaykars, Raju (Sendhil Ramamurthy) and Daya (Meera Simhan), whose 6-year-old daughter Abha (Jordyn Rahman) is in dire need of a bone marrow transplant, and given that out of the ten and a half million donors across the country, not one of them is a match, maybe, just maybe …

If all of this sounds more than a bit like TV movie territory, you’d be right. (1992’s Desperate Choices: To Save My Child (1992) starred Reese Witherspoon as a 15-year-old girl with fatal leukemia whose only hope is a bone marrow transplant, and Patty Duke’s TV movie daughter needed one too in 1996’s To Face Her Past.)

Fortunately for audiences, Radio Galaxy resists Movie Of The Week cliches every step of the way, from the comedy Kushner mines from the quintessentially Italian-American Jerseyite Constantinos, to the marriage of Pasadena native Raju to born-and-raised-in-India Daya (a case of an arranged paring gone wonderfully right), to the magic realism that has Tino transported from his working class home up into a dreamscape where unexpected astral encounters just might take place.

Director Kimberly Senior brings out the very best from her all-around superb cast beginning with McIntyre, who may have started his career as a New Kid On The Block but now reveals bona fide acting chops as the gritty, not quite salt-of-the-earth Santo.

As for Margherita, fresh from her Performance Of The Year star turn in Sweeney Todd, the musical theater superstar gives Lucy so much power and depth and humor and heart, the Olivier Award winner dazzles without singing a single note.

Ramamurthy’s and Simhan’s powerhouse performances as parents at the end of their rope add urgency to the story Kushner has to tell, the former giving Raju equal parts intelligence and quiet determination, the latter on fire as a woman at the end of her wits and on the edge of reason.

Golani, whose performance in the National Tour of Jagged Little Pill had me singing the praises of his “to-die-for pipes,” proves himself a young actor to be reckoned with as the instantly likeable Santo, heartbreakingly torn between the life he knows and the one that just might lie ahead, and Rahman is a preteen charmer as quite literally the girl in Golani’s dreams.

Radio Galaxy looks absolutely sensational on the Lovelace Studio Theater stage thanks to the combined talents of scenic designer Takeshi Kata, lighting designer Josh Epstein, and above all projection designer Gabrieal Griego, who has us traveling to the far reaches of the universe, and Lindsay Jones’ sound design only adds to the magic.

Natalie Friedman is assistant director. Patrick Sabongui is fight choreographer. Bridget Rooney is production stage manager and Cassy Sottile is assistant stage manager. Casting is by Michael Donovan, CSA and Richie Ferris, CSA. Davidson & Choy Publicity are press representatives.

You don’t need to know the difference between a quasar and a pulsar to fall hard for Radio Galaxy at the Wallis.  It might just turn out to be the year’s best new play.

Lovelace Studio Theatre, Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd, Beverly Hills. Through November 22. Tuesday through Friday at 8:00. Saturday at 2:30 and 8:00. Sundays at 2:30. Also Sunday November 22 at 7:30.
www.thewallis.org

–Steven Stanley
November 13, 2026
Photos: Sean Daniels

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Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, Michèle Aldin Kushner, Wallis Annenberg Center For The Performing Arts