Today’s Highlights:
Kim’s Convenience, by Ins Choi, directed by Weyni Mengesha, featuring Paul Jun-Hyung Lee (Appa), Jean Yoon (Umma), Andrea Bang (Janet Kim), Simu Liu (Jung Kim), Andrew Phung (Kimchee Han), Benjamin Beauchemin (Gerald Tremblay), and Nicole Power (Shannon), opens at LA’s Ahmanson Theatre.
Spamalot, directed by Lucy Moss & Jamie Armitage, featuring Emma Elizabeth Smith (Catherine of Aragon), Nella Cole (Anne Boleyn), Kelly Denice Talro (Jane Seymour), Hailey alexis Lewis (Anna of Cleves), Alizé Cruz (Katherine Howard), Tasia Jungbauer (Catherine Parr), Tasia and Jungbauer (Catherine Parr), with Reese Cameron, Anna Hertel, Carlina Parker, and Abigail Sparrow, opens at LA’s Pantages Theatre.
The New Group‘s The Adding Machine, by Elmer L. Rice & Thomas Bradshaw, directed by Scott Elliott, featuring Sarita Choudhury, Michael Cyril Creighton, Daphne Rubin-Vega, and Jennifer Tilly, begins previews at Off-Broadway’s Theatre at St. Clement’s.
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Grace Notes Quiz: Let’s Party! by Jim Bernhard
1. In Carousel the townspeople celebrate the summer season with…a fish fry…a wienie roast…a clambake….a keg party
2. Two musicals, both based on a poem by Joseph Moncure March about a gathering in 1920s Manhattan, are called The ____ Party….Children’s….Wild…Late-
3. T. S. Eliot’s The Cocktail Party was written…in blank verse…in French…using A.I…without using the letter “o”
4. The Birthday Party was Harold Pinter’s first….play adapted into a Broadway musical…full-length play…play that starred Laurence Olivier…attempt at writing a play, written when he was twelve
5. Neil Simon’s The Dinner Party takes place in a restaurant in…Paris…New York…Beijing…Omaha
6. A Party With Betty Comden and ______ also starred Comden’s lyric-writing partner…Marvin Hamlisch…Alan Jay Lerner…Ogden Nash… Adolph Green
7. Noel Coward’s song “I Went to a Marvelous Party” was introduced in a revue called Set to Music by…Beatrice Lillie…Maggie Smith…Tallulah Bankhead…Gertrude Lawrence
8. “The Party’s Over” is from a Broadway musical by…Kander and Ebb…Frank Loesser…Jule Styne and Comden & Green…Cole Porter
9. The Boys in the Band takes place at a birthday party attended by…New York Philharmonic musicians…members of the boy band NSYNC…a group of gay men…the Beatles
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Ragtime has been extended through Aug. 2 at Broadway’s Lincoln Center Theatre, directed by Lear deBessonet.
Cassie Levy (Mother) Joshua Henry (Coalhouse Walker, Jr.), Brandon Uranowitz (Tateh), Colin Donnell (Father), Nichelle Lewis (Sarah), Ben Levi Ross (Mother’s Younger Brother), Shaina Taub (Emma Goldman), Anna Grace Barlow (Evelyn Nesbit), John Clay III (Booker T. Washington), Rodd Cyrus (Harry Houdini), and Nick Barrington (The Little Boy), with with Ellie May Sennett, and more.
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Dedication, written & performed by pianist Roger Peltzman, will run Friday May 1, ( 7:30 PM), and Sat. Apr. 2 (at 2:30 PM) at Theatreworks Hartford, directed by Jessi D. Hill.
The play combines monologues, images, live piano performance, and humor to tell the story of Roger Peltzman’s family before the war and his mother’s harrowing escape from the Nazi’s who raided the attic in which she and her family were hiding. It uses drama, humor, and powerful images and musical performance of everything from blues to Chopin. As the story unfolds, family photos, letters, and documents that survived the war are projected on stage.
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The 33rd annual Los Aneles Women’s Theatre Festival: The Strength We Carry will run Mar. 26-29 at LA’s Theatre 68 Arts Complex.
Click here to learn more.
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David J Glass’ Spare Parts has been extended through Apr. 30 at Off-Broadway’s Theatre Row, directed by Michael Herwitz.
Jonny-James Kajoba Rob McClure, Michael Genet, Matt Walker, and Langston Reese.
When a billionaire obsessed with immortality funds radical aging research, ethical lines blur, power dynamics implode, and a shocking secret comes to light—one that turns the quest for longer life into a chilling examination of identity, consent, and what it really means to be human.
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The world premiere of Julie Shavers’ The Baptist Witches of Shelbyville vill run Mar. 28 – Apr. 25 at Sherman Oaks’ Whitefire Theatre, directed by Daniel O’Brien.
Gigi Bermingham (Mama Moon), Mamie Gummer (Lucinda), Julie Shavers (Birdie Moon), Angelie Simone (Lottie Walker), Ashley Ward (Killy). When eldest daughter Lucinda Moon returns home to her small Tennessee town for the July 4th holiday, she is greeted not only by fireworks but by the same women who shaped her -and the memories she can’t shake. What’s on the family’s porch picnic menu? Dark comedy, tragic poetry, and moments of pure sonic bliss when the Moon family finds their old harmonies. They’re keeping a burger on the grill, and a tumbler of frosé cold, just for you.**** ********************
LA’s Geffin Playhouse has announced its 2026-27 season:
Dates TBA.
Purpose, by Branden Jenkins, directed by Phylicia Rashad, featuring the original 2025 Broadway cast: Harry Lennix, LaTanya Richardson Jacksoon, Jon Michael Hill, Glenn Davis, Alana Arenas, and Kara Young.
Liberation, by Bess Wohl. Cast TBA.
The Monsters, world premiere by Ngozi Anyanwu.
Closing Costs, by Grace Mcleod.
Wine in the Wildernesss, by Alice Childress, directed by LaChanze.
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Ro Reddik’s Cold War Choir Practice has been extended through Apr. 5 at Off-Broadways’ MCC Theatre, directed by Knud Adams.
Alana Raquel Bowers, Will Cobbs, Crystal Finn, Andy Lucien, Lizan Mitchell, Suzzy Roche, Nina Ross and Ellen Winter.
A young girl is embroiled in intrigue when her estranged uncle, a prominent Black conservative, brings his mysteriously ill wife home for the holidays. An explosion of roller disco, Reaganomics, espionage, and cults—underscored by the cryptic Syracuse, NY chapter of the Seedlings of Peace Children’s Chorus.
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Grace Notes Quiz Answers: Let’s Party! by Jim Bernhard