Theater Review (NYC): ‘Predictor’ by Jennifer Blackmer

Margaret “Meg” Crane was neither scientist nor engineer. But in the 1960s, still only in her 20s, this freelance graphic designer at the pharmaceutical and cosmetics company Organon invented something that changed the lives of millions of women and helped liberalize America’s sexist culture: the first home pregnancy test. Predictor, Jennifer Blackmer’s vital, deep, and hugely entertaining play about Chase and her invention, is in its New York premiere at AMT Theater through January 18, 2026.

The phrase “the magic of theater“ has bubbled in my brain since my first childhood experiences with the art. Predictor exemplifies how theater, more than any other art, can tell stories, including true ones like this, in ways that delight the senses and ignite the imagination, using obvious artifice to illuminate the real and true. In swiftly moving scenes and sharply crafted dialogue, directed with alacrity by Alex Keegan and performed by an inspired cast, Predictor powerfully conveys Crane’s multi-layered story. The play has been around for a few years, but this off-Broadway production deserves wider exposure, and perhaps a bigger stage.

Magically Real

Tony-nominated Caitlin Kinnunen delivers a poignant whirlwind of a performance as Crane. Surrounding her, a company of talented actors play a bevy of roles, switching among them instantaneously with changing locations (office, home, fanciful game show) and times (Crane’s time at Organon, her student years in a Catholic school, her raising by a religious mother and an indulgent father).

A prologue shows us Meg as a nonplussed contestant on a fictional game show called “Who Made That.” Blackmer presumably took the name from the title of a New York Times article from 2012 that discussed the development of the home pregnancy test without mentioning Crane. The article induced the inventor to come forward and set the record straight.

When the fictionalized Meg does just that on the game show, the action begins. The true story unfolds over two-plus intense hours that fly by.

As it tells Crane’s story the play reminds us of the halting evolution of what was accurately called women’s liberation. Women demanded freedom from paternalistic and misogynistic assumptions, restrictions, and control. Medieval ideas held sway: Women were too emotional to handle information about pregnancy and their bodies without supervision by doctors and husbands; pregnant women shouldn’t drink hot drinks (a belief that goes back to at least Baroque times); women should be wholly sedentary during pregnancy, etc.

All that was on top of the company’s worries about undermining its own lengthy lab testing business – it took weeks for women to get the results of these “rabbit” tests of the time – and the medical establishment’s concerns about taking this element of care away from doctors.

Colorful lighting and evocative sound help contextualize the mostly very short scenes and help smooth the many quick staging shifts. The speedy pace makes the rare long scene stand out in contrast, as when a young unmarried woman from the company’s typing pool (Jes Washington) comes to Meg hoping to benefit from the home pregnancy test, only to learn that it hasn’t even entered the testing stage much less hit the market.

In fact, a full decade passed between Crane’s prototype and the product’s release onto the U.S. market, thanks more to societal resistance than to plain-old bureaucracy.

Back to the Future

Different characters embody the conflicting forces surrounding Crane.

Her schoolmate and roommate Jody (Washington) pressures her to stand up for herself and defy the forces that disrespect her and hold her back. Messages she absorbed from her tightly wound mother (a heartbreaking Lauren Molina, who very nearly pirated the recent The Royal Pyrate) – whose own formative experience of pregnancy we glimpse in a powerful scene – keep intruding on her struggle for recognition.

A nasty marketing guru and an open-minded ad man brought on to help with product development display contrasting attitudes. One tries his darnedest to belittle Crane and hold her back; the other not only believes in her but becomes her real-life partner. Meg’s kind but professionally old-fashioned boss (John Leonard Thompson, who also plays her father) won’t hire her in a salaried position. But Crane persists.

Changes

At the center whirls Caitlin Kinnunen in an outstanding performance. Her sturdy Meg Crane combines assertiveness and vulnerability, determination and self-doubt, all tempered by an intelligent lovability. Her portrayal is an almost musical tour-de-force.

The production whizzes along with positive spirit and plenty of hilarity as it delves into the revolutionary social changes of the ‘60s and ‘70s. References to hippies and the free love movement, feminism, and the abortion wars, along with a soundtrack of contemporary hits – everything from Suzy Quatro to The Association – create a vivid framework.

Is there a teensy bit of preaching as the story swirls to a conclusion? OK, yes. But there’s so much fun along the way that it’s easy to stomach. And the lessons of the time, which Crane’s experience in some ways exemplify, are as important as ever.

“Tradwives” take note – you don’t really want to go back there.

Predictor is at the Off-Broadway AMT Theater through January 18, 2026. Tickets are available online.