This Weekend’s Highlights:
Friday, February 4
NaTasha Yvette Williams begins her run as Zelma in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical at Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.
Saturday Night Fever, directed by Bill Kenwright, featuring Richard Winsor (Tony Manero), Olivia Fines (Stephanie), Kevin O’Dwyer (Bobby C), James Brice (Gus), Paul French (Double J), Michael Cortez (Joey), Jasmin Colangelo (Annette), Tosca Fischer (Connie), Lydia Bradd (Linda), Philip Aiden (Frank Senior), Marios Nicolaides (Frank Junior), Melody Jones (Flo Manero), and Faizal Jaye (DJ Monty), with Celeste Zollino, Ashley Luke Lloyd, Luca Rapisarda, James Wilkinson-Jones, Helen Gulston, and James Cohen, opens at London’s Peacock Theatre.
A.D.16, world premiere by Cinco Paul & Bekah Brunstetter, directed by Stephen Brackett, featuring Phoenix Best, (Mary Magalene), Ben Fankhauser (Jesus), Kelli Blackwell (Diana), Alan H. Green (Jacob), Jade Jones (Jessica), Jared Loftin (Nicholas), Calvin McCullough (Matthias), Adelina Mitchell (Ruth), Christian Montgomery (Bartimaeus), Da’Von Moody (Simeon), and Chani Wereley (Esther), with Alex De Bard, Sylvern Groomes, RJ Pavel, John Sygar, Kanysha Williams, Tiffany Ly Royster, and Chris Urquiaga, opens at MD’s Olney Theatre Center.
Something Rotten, directed by Richard Israel, featuring Aleks Pevec (Shakespeare), Justin Michael Wilcox (Nick Bottom), Randy Brenner (Nostradamus), Brittany Anderson (Bea Bottom), Frankie Zabilka (Nigel Bottom), Bella Gil (Portia), Eran Scoggins (Brother Jeremiah), Mitchell Johnson (Minstrel), Art Brown (Shylock), and Joe Hebel (Lord Clapman), with Madison Aisanaye, John Paul Batista, Amanda Carr, Joah Ditto, Augusto Guardado, Laura Leo Kelly, Drew Lake, Colden Lamb, Tyler Marshall, A J Morales, Isabella Silecchio, Scott Spraags, Julia Springer, and Racheal Yeomans, opens at CA’s Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza.
Coloropolis, world premiere by A.P. De La Caridad, directed by Travyz Santos Gatz & Tor Brown, featuring Brian Allman, Ben Anderson, Lemon Baardsen, Cassandra Carmona, Silas Jean-Rox, Sydney Jenkins, Jordan Klomp, Matt Lorenzo, Maia Luer, Matthew Monaco, Ignacio Navarro, Jazmine Nichelle, Bree Pavey, Mitch Rosander, and Sarah Sommers, opens at North Hollywood’s Loft Ensemble.
A Little Night Music, directed by Ryan O’Connor, featuring Zoe Bright (Madame Armfeldt), Peyton Crim (Frederick Egerman), Amanda Kruger (Henrik Egerman), Andrea Lara (Anderssen), Meredith Pyle (Linquist), Emma Rose (Fredrika Armfeldt), Alexa Rosengaus (Petra), Christopher Robert Smith (Count Carl-Magnus), Dekontee Tucrkile (Erlansen), Catherine Wadkins (Desiree Armfeldt), and Sarah Wolter (Charlotte Malcolm), with Lux Amaya and Ronni Paige, opens at LA’s Greenway Court Theatre.
Sam Harris: Openly Gray concert opens at Palm Springs’ The Purple Room.
English, world premiere by Sanaz Toossi, directed by Knud Adams, featuring Tala Ashe, Ava Lalezarzadeh, Pooya Mohseni, Marjan Neshat, and Hadi Tabbal, begins previews at Off-Broadway’s Atlantic Theatre Company.
Saturday, February 5
Anna Karenina, directed by Anthony Lau, featuring Isis Davis (Dolly), Nick Fletcher (Karenin), Solomon Israel (Stiva), Chris Jenks (Count Vronsk), Adelle Leonce (Anna), Douggie McMeekin (Levin), Sarah Seggari (Princess Betsy), and Tara Tijani (Kitty), begins previews at London’s Crucible Theatre.
Hudson Stage‘s What Keeps Us Going reading, by Barbara Dana, directed by Austin Pendleton, featuring Anthony Arkin, Amelia Campbell, Lee Wilkof and Blythe Danner, at 7 PM ET at Armonk’s Whippoorwill Hall Theatre
Sam Harris: Openly Gray concert closes at Palm Springs’ The Purple Room.
Sunday, February 6
Rogue Machine Theatre‘s On The Other Hand, We’re Happy, by Daf James, directed by Cameron Watson, featuring Rori Flynn, Alexandra Hellquist, and Christian Telesmar, opens at LA’s Matrix Theatre.
Eden Espinosa & Seth Rudetsky in concert, livestreams at 8 PM ET here.
The Tap Dance Kid, adapted by Lydia Diamond, directed by Kenny Leon, with choreography by Jared Grimes, featuring Trevor Jackson (Uncle Dipsey), Adrienne Walker (Ginnie), Joshua Henry (William), Alexander Bello (Willie), Tracee Beazer (Carole), DeWitt Fleming (Daddy Bates), Shahadi Wright Joseph (Emma), and Chance K. Smith (Winslow), with Brinae Ali, Kurt Csolak, Aniya Danée, Zachary Downer, Francine Espiritu, Izaiah Montaque Harris, Madison Hilligoss, Ben Lanham, John Manzari, Jodeci Millhouse, Dario Natarelli, Janelle Neal, Justin Prescott, and Bethany Tesarck, closes at NY City Center Encores.
. Whisper House, by Duncan Sheik & Kyle Jarrow, directed by Steve Cosson, featuring Samantha Mathis, Alex Boniello, Jeb Brown, Wyatt Cirbus, Molly Hager, and James Yaegashi, closes at Off-Broadway’s 59E59 Theaters.
New York City Opera & National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, world premiere by Ricky Ian Gordon & Michael Korie, directed & choreographed by Richard Stafford, featuring Rachel Blaustein (Micól Finzi-Contini), Brian James Myer (Alberto Finzi-Cortini), Mary Phillips (Mama), Franco Pomponi (Papà), Anthony Ciaramitaro (Giorgio), and Matt Ciuffitelli (Malnate), with D’Marreon Alexander, Robert Balonek, Adam Cioffari, Peter Kendall Clark, Dani Goldstein, Spencer Hamlin, Kristee Haney, Rebecca Hargrove, Sarah Heltzel, Adam Klein, Meredith Krinkle, Melanie Long, Violet Paris, Gabe Ponichter, Sami Sallaway, Drew Seigla, Markos Simopoulos, Rosy Anoush Svazlian, Tim Roller, and Rachel Zatcoff, closes at NYC’s Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust (36 Battery Place).
Beauty and the Beast, directed by Jay Woods, featuring Porscha Shaw (Belle), Riley Brack (Beast), Jaysen Wright (Gaston), Lisa J. Estridge (Mrs. Potts), Anne Allgood (Madame de la Grande Bouche), Nicholas Japaul Bernard (Lumière), Arika Matoba (Chip), Reginal André Jackston (Maurice), Be Russell (Babette), John David Scott (LeFou), and Jason Weitkamp (Cogsworth), with Kate Ella Cook, Rebecca Cort, Alyza DelPan-Monley, Joel Domico, Candice Song Donehoo, Jose J Gonzales, Richard Gray, Nehemiah Hooks, Eric Polani Jensen, Danny Kam, Mallory King, Shanelle Leonard, Cheryse McLeod Lewis, U.J. Mangune, Trina Mills, Antonio D. Mitchell, Charles L. Simmons, Shelby Willis, Jonelle Margallo, cy Paolantonio, and Jimmy Shields, closes at Seattle’s Fifth Avenue Theatre.
The Thanksgiving Play, by Larissa Fasthorse, directed by Jessica Holt, featuring Ryan Clemens (Jaxton), Julian Stetkevych (Caden), Lauren Blumenfeld (Logan), and Jenny Hickman (Alicia), closes at Virginia Stage.
Yoga Play, by Dipika Guha, directed by Octavia Chavez-Richmond, featuring Octavia Chavez-Richmond (Romola), Andrea Cirie (Joan), Rishan Dhamija (Raj), Christopher Gurr (John), and Rocky Pak (Fred), closes at Syracuse Stage.
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Reviews for The Tap Dance Kid at NY City Center Encores!
NY Times (Jesse Green): …Joshua Henry, playing William Sheridan, the conservative father of a Black family thrown into chaos by a son who wants to be a dancer, let loose with a tirade that ripped the fabric of the rest of the show to pieces, expressing with fury and unbridled terror the character’s disdain for what he sees as the performative Blackness of tap… It’s an astonishing performance, in the best way hard to watch… That The Tap Dance Kid is never sure which of the members of the Sheridan family it’s about — the focus seems to change every 10 minutes — is just one of the oddities afflicting this tonally bewildering but intermittently appealing 1983 musical…
Theatermania (Kenji Fujishima): In one respect, the new Encores! production of the 1983 musical The Tap Dance Kid… proves to be a fascinating rediscovery… Performed magnificently by Joshua Henry in this production, “William’s Song” deserves to be considered a standard too… Thankfully, there is more to celebrate in The Tap Dance Kid than just that one number, especially in this sparkling Encores! production directed by Kenny Leon… It’d be overkill to call The Tap Dance Kid a hidden gem. Krieger’s dynamic music sounds similar to his Dreamgirls score, but with less memorable tunes… sometimes clunky ways the show gestures toward social issues of gender and minority oppression.
AM New York (Matt Windman): …The musical, which has an undistinguished but pleasant score…by Henry Krieger and lyrics and the late Robert Lorick… opening night performance felt especially rough and under-rehearsed, even for Encores!… The entire production has an aggressively downbeat tone. Dialogue scenes drag on. And in spite of the pleasure of having a large orchestra playing the score, the vocal quality and sound design are very uneven… All this being said, “The Tap Dance Kid” has many standout moments…
Video: Production highlights.
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NYC Broadway Week, offering 2-for-1 tickets to more than a dozen musicals & plays, has been extended through Feb. 27!
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Lincoln Center has announced an expansive roster of FREE Spring performances, discussions, and civic activations:
New Edition of American Songbook entitled A World of Voices.
A Choose What You Pay ticketing model.
FREE virtual workshops and conversations.
In-person performances and activations on the Lincoln Center campus.
Virtual availability of Lincoln Center Moments, Passport to the Arts, and Lincoln Center Activate.
…and so much more…
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Ann Talman: The Shadow of Her Smile will take place Thurs. Mar. 31 at 9:45 PM ET at 54 Below, directed by Lina Koutrakos, with music direction by Alex Rybeck.
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Article: Marlee Matlin and Bradley Whitford discuss Sondheim, Sorkin, and “Wonderfully Sexual Middle-Aged Representation.”
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Ensemble Theatre Company will present David Cale’s Lillian, to run Mar. 3-13 (opening Mar. 5) at Santa Barbara’s New Vic, directed by Jonathan Fox.
Nancy Travis
Lillian, a bookish middle-aged British woman, falls for Jimmy, a man almost half her age. As life continues to throw curious curveballs, Lillian rises to each occasion, discovering a part of herself that laid dormant. Travis will play all the characters.
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Antaeus Theatre Company has announced its ClassicsFest series, to run Feb. 25-28 at Glendale’s Gindler Performing Arts Center, offering two staged readings each of three “modern classics” over the course of six days.
Three Sisters (Feb. 25 at 8 PM PT & Feb. 26 at 2 PM PT), newly adapted by Sara Rhul and directed by Nike Doukas.
The Hot L Baltimore (Feb. 26 at 8 PM PT & Feb. 27 at 2 PM PT), by Lanford Wilson, directed by Julia Fletcher.
Mud (Feb. 27 at 6:30 PM PT & Feb. 28 at 8 PM PT), by María Irene Fornés, directed by Jonathan Muñoz Proulx.
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CT’s Goodspeed Musicals presents its 16th Annual Festival of New Musicals readings (Mar. 18-20):
A House Without Windows (Mar. 18 at 7:30 PM ET), by Anna Ziegler & Anna Jacobs, directed by Jenny Koons, with music direction by Vadim Feichtner. Barbara Newhall Follett was the child prodigy author of a celebrated novel about a young girl who runs away from her family and vanishes into nature. Twelve years after its publication, on Dec. 7, 1939, Barbara walked out of her apartment with $30 and light overcoat, and was never seen or heard from again. She was 25 years old.
Hot (Mar. 19 at 7:30 PM ET), by Lynne Shankel & Sara Cooper, directed by Ann M. Yee. A darkly comic, through-composed feminist adaptation of Helen of Troy featuring an all-woman+ cast. It exposes and examines the commodification women face throughout our lives as Helen is first sexualized, then held to unrealistic beauty and gender-based standards, and finally vilified and discarded – until she decides to stand up and take back her power.
The Gunfighter Meets His Match (Mar. 20 at 1 PM ET), by Abby Payne.
A Wild West boom town, famous for the legend of a brilliant Gunfighter, is stirred up by the arrival of a young ranch hand on a mission to understand the truth behind the Gunfighter stories. As mysterious pas and present meld and the Gunfighter returns to protect his long lost love, he and the townsfolk must face their ghosts.
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MasterVoices presents a concert staging of Anyone Can Whistle on Thurs. Mar. 10 at 7 PM ET at Carnegie Hall, directed & conducted by Ted Sperling, with choreography by JoAnn M. Hunter.
Vanessa Williams (Cora Hoover Hooper), Elizabeth Stanley (Fay Apple), Santino Fontana (J. Bowden Hapgood), Douglas Sills (Comptroller Schub), Eddie Cooper (Treasurer Cooley), and Michael Mulheren (Police Chief Magruder), with more TBA.
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Netflix will stream Jason Robert Brown’s “13: The Musical” with an adapted book by Dan Elish. The released date is TBA.
Debra Messing, Rhea Perlman, Josh Peck, Peter Hermann, Eli Golden, Gabriella Uhl, JD McCrary, Frankie McNellis, Lindsey Blackwell, Jonathan Lengl, Ramon Reed, Nolen Debuc, Luke Islam, Shechinah Mpumlwana, Kayleigh Cerzo, Wyatt Moss, Liam Wignall, and Khiyla Aynne.
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Hamilton will close Mar. 20 at LA’s Pantages Theatre.
There are now orchestra seats for $49 & $69 for performances from Feb. 9 – Mar. 18, using code BIHLAU. Click the link above to purchase tickets.
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The Public Theater has announced its Summer 2022 season of Free Shakespeare in the Park. Performance dates and casting TBA.
Richard III, directed by Robert O’Hara, starring Danai Gurira (Richard III).
As You Like It, adapted by Shaina Taub & Laurie Woolery, directed by Woolery, with choreography by Sonya Tayeh, and featuring Darius de Haas (Duke Senior), Joel Perez, and Shaina Taub (Jaques).
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Irish Rep‘s 2022 Gala, entitled A Tribute to Our Pal: The Musicals of Harold Prince, will take place Mon. June 13 at 7 PM ET at NYC’s Town Hall, directed by Charlotte Moore, with music direction by John Bell.
Loretta Brennan Glucksman
Performers TBA.
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A musical adaptation of “Smash” is expected to have a workshop this summer, with lead producers Steven Spielberg, Robert Greenblatt, and Neil Meron. A Broadway opening is expected in 2024, with the show being titled either Smash, A New Musical …or… Smash: The Musical.
The stage adaptation will feature only the show’s original music including “They Just Keep Moving the Line, “Let Me Be Your Star,” and more, and most likely with a few new songs added.
The musical will follow writers Julia and Tom as they create Bombshell, but the storyline will differ.
Click here to read the full story.
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Keen Company presents the world premiere of Peter Gil-Sheridan’s This Space Between Us, to run Feb. 22 – Apr. 2 (opening Mar. 9) at Theatre Row, directed by Jonathan Silverstein.
. Glynis Bell, Alex Chester, Joyce Cohen, Ryan Garbayo, Tommy Heleringer, and Anthony Ruiz.
A new comedy. Nobody understands why Jamie wants to leave his cushy law office to work for a non-profit. His boyfriend is concerned, his best friend is confused, and his conservative Cuban-American family are sure they know what’s best. As Jamie announces his plans to serve those less fortunate, on shocking afternoon at the racetrack sparks unexpected and irreversible consequences for them all.
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“The Color Purple” movie musical, directed by Blitz Bazawule, has announced initial casting:
Fantasia Taylor (Celie) and Danielle Brooks (Sofia).
Timeline, additional casting, release date and further details TBA.
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To Steve with Love: Liz Callaway Celebrates Sondheim will run Mar. 23-26 at 54 Below.
There are plans to livestream the final show on Mar. 26, but the details are not yet confirmed.