This Weekend’s Highlights:
Friday, March 15
Sister Act, directed by Bill Buckhurst, featuring Beverley Knight (Deloris Van Cartier), Ruth Jones (Mother Superior), Lesley Joseph (Mother Superior at certain performances), Lesley Joseph (Sister Mary Lazarus), Lemar (Curtis Jackson), Clive Rowe (Eddie Souther), Lizzie Bea (Sister Mary Robert), Alison Jiear (Sister Mary Patrick), and Carl Mullaney (Monsignor O’Hara), with Caroline Bateson, Natalia Brown, Damian Buhagiar, Tricia Deighton, Lori Haley Fox, Lauren Hall, Chloe Hopcroft, Tom Hopcroft, Bradley Judge, Claudia Kariuki, Graham MacDuff, Castell Parker, Emma Ralston, Anne Smith, Michael Ward, and Jermaine Woods, opens at London’s Dominion Theatre.
Million Dollar Quartet, directed by Tim Seib, featuring Peter Oyloe (Johnny Cash), LJ Benet (Elvis Presley), Will Riddle (Carl Perkins), Garrett Forrestal (Jerry Lee Lewis), Summer Nicole Greer (Dyanne), Adam Poole (Sam Phillips), Benny Lipson (Brother Jay), and Lonn Hayes (Fluke), opens at Thousand Oaks Kavli Theatre.
The Spy Who Went Into Rehab, by Gregg Ostrin, directed by Cyndy Fujikawa, featuring Satiar Pourvesi, Jill Renner, Rachel Townsend, Stuart W. Howard, Alondra Andrade, and Cyndy Jujikawa, opens at Venice’s Pacific Resident Theatre.
Dead Man Walking opera, by Jake Heggie & Terrence McNally, starring Joyce DiDonato (Sister Helen Prejean), Ryan McKinny, and Susan Graham, airs at 9 PM ET on PBS (check local listings).
Saturday, March 16
The Outsiders, by Adam Rapp, Justin Levine, Jonathan Clay & Zach Chance, directed by Danya Taymor, featuring Brody Grant (Ponyboy), Brent Comer (Darrel), Jason Schmidt (Sodapop), Sky Lakota-Lynch (Johnny), Joshua Boone (Dallas Winston), Emma Pittman (Cherry Valance), Kevin William Paul (Bob Sheldon), and Dan Berry (Paul Holden), with Jordan Chin, Milena J. Comeau, Barton Cowperthwaite, Tilly Evans-Krueger, Henry Gendron, RJ Higton, Wonza Johnson, Sean Harrison Jones, Maggie Kuntz, Renni Anthony Magee, SarahGrace Mariani, Melody Rose, Josh Strobl, Victor Carrillo Tracey, and Trevor Wayn, begins previews at Broadway’s Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre.
Dear England screening, by James Graham, directed by Rupert Goold, featuring Joseph Fiennes, at 2 PM at UCLA’s James Bridges Theatre.
Deadly Stages, by Marc Castle & Mark Finley, directed by Finley, featuring Marc Castle, Tom Galantich, David Leeper, Dani Marcus, and Ellen Reilly, with Jonas Cohen, and Sarah Ellis, closes at Off-Broadway’s Theatre Row.
Hamlet, adapted by Mark Izzard, directed by Selena Cadel, starring Eddie Izzard, closes at Off-Broadway’s Greenwich House Theatre.
Hir, by Taylor Mac, directed by Steven Kunis, featuring Felicity Huffman ( Paige), Steffan Cennydd (Isaac), Thalía Dudek (Max), and Simon Startin (Arnold), closes at London’s Park Theatre.
This is not a time of peace, world premiere by Deb Margolin, directed by Jerry Heymann, featuring Charlotte Cohn (Alina), Roger Hendricks Simon (Hillel), Simon Feil (Alina’s Husband), Ken King (Alina’s lover), Frank Licato (Adolf Berle), Steven Rattazzi (Joseph McCarthy), and Richard Hollis (Russian Metallurgist), closes at Off-Broadway’s Theatre Row.
Sunday, March 17
A Shayna Maidel, by Barbara Lebow, directed by David Ellenstein, featuring Samantha Klein (Mama), Zarah Mahler (Lusia Pechnik), Eden Malyn (Rose Weiss), Josh Odess-Rubin (David Pechenik), Marina Schon (Hanna), and Joel Swetow (Mordechai Weiss), opens at Laguna Playhouse.
One of the Good Ones, world premiere by Gloria Calderón, directed by Kimberly Senior, featuring Lana Parrilla (Ilana), Carlos Gomez (Yoli), Nico Greethman (Marcos), and Santino Jimenez, opens at Pasadena Playhouse.
Bella Abzug: That Beautiful, Ballsy Broad Who Gave ‘Em Hell! staged reading, written & performed by Amy Simon, at 2 PM at LA’s Theatre West.
The Connector, by Daisy Prince, Jason Robert Brown & Jonathan Marc Sherman, directed by Prince, featuring Scott Bakula, Ben Levi Ross, and Hannah Cruz, with Joanna Carpenter, Max Crumm, George Dvorsky, Ashley Pérez Flanagan, Danielle Lee Greaves, Mylinda Hull, Daniel Jenkins, Cedric Lamar, Jessica Molaskey, Fergie Philippe, Eliseo Román, Ann Sanders, Kyle Sherman, and Michael Winther, closes at Off-Broadway’s MCC Theater.
The Script in the Closet, written & directed by Joyce Griffen, featuring Ruth Kavanagh (Lynn), Mark DeRocco (Lionel), Isaih Stannard (Carlton), Kristin Johansen (Valerie), Tom Staggs (Noah), Jada Delgado (Gladys), Charlotte Jones (Governess/Russian Call Girl), Tina Harper (Visiting Performer), Patrick Huang (Visiting Performer), and Carrie Wilder (Housekeeper), closes at Off-Broadway’s La MaMa.
Maiden Voyage, by Cayenne Douglass, directed by Alex Keegan, featuring Arianne Banda, Georgia Kate Cohen, Brenda Crawley, Shimali De Silva, Rachel Griesinger, Nataxha Hakata, Kait Hickey, and Tricia Mancuso Parks, closes at Off-Broadway’s Flea Theatre.
Private Jones, world premiere written & directed by Marshall Pailet, featuring Leanne Antonio (Gwenolyn/Evans), Deimoni Brewington (Bailey), David Aron Damane (Father/Drill Sergeant), Dickie Hearts (Henry), Johnny Link (Gomer Jones), Jake Loewenthal (Redvers), Vincent Michael (Edmund), and Erin Weaver (King), with Alex De Bard, Amelia Hensley, Georger Psomas, Emily Steinhardt, Ariel Friendly, Nicholas Hohrman, Stephen Russell Murray, and Hank von Kolnitz, closes at DC’s Signature Theatre.
A Tale of Two Cities, adapted by Brendan Pelsue, directed by Leora Morris, featuring Grant Chapman (Actor Track 5), Tiffany Hobbs (Actor Track 3), Tess Malis Kincaid (Actor Track 6), Joe Knezevich (Actor Track 8), Louis Reyes McWilliams (Actor Track 2), Lee Osorio (Actor Track 4), Brad Raymond ( Actor Track 7,) and Stephen Ruffin (Actor Track 1), with Brant Adams, Daniel Annone, Sean Dale, Rebecca Gunn, Danielle Montgomery, and Ryan Siegel, closes at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre.
Black Cypress Bayou, world premiere by Adele Calhoun, directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene, featuring Amber Chardae Robinson (Taysha Hunter), Brandee Evans (LadyBird “Lady” Manifold), Angela Lewis (RaeMeka “Meka” Manifold-Baler) and Kimberly Scott (Vernita Manifold), closes at LA’s Geffen Playhouse.
The Club, world premiere by Chris Bohjalian, directed by David Saint, featuring Grace Experience (Marion Willows), Ryan George (Peter Kendricks), Ali Marsh (Anne Barrows), Brendan Ryan (John Willows), Samaria Nixon-Fleming (Angela Kendricks), Skyler Hensley (Olive Barrows), and Fred Weller (Richard Barrows), closes at NJ’s George Street Playhouse.
Thirst, by Ronán Noone, directed by Courtney O’Connor, featuring Aimee Doherty, Kate Fitzgerald, and Michael Kaye, closes at Boston’s Lyric Stage.
42nd Street Moon‘s Falsettos, directed by Dennis Lickteig, featuring Gary Brintz (Mendel), Will Biammona (Marvin), Cindy Goldfield (Charlotte), Ariela Morgenstern (Trina), Samuel Prince (Whizzer), and Madelyn Simon & Monica Yuval Weissberg (alternating as Jason), closes at San Francisco’s Gateway Theatre.
Guys on Ice, by Fred Alley & James Kaplan, directed & choreographed by Jeffrey Herbst, featuring Dan Klarer (Ernie), Steve Koehler (Lloyd), and Doug Mancheski (Marvin), closes at Milwaukee Rep.
Sweeney Todd, directed by Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, featuring Geoff Elliott (Sweeney Todd), Cassandra Marie Murphy (Mrs. Lovett), Jeremy Rabb (Judge Turpin), Josey Montana McCoy (Tobias Ragg), Kasey Mahaffy (Adolfo Pirelli), Joanna A Jones (Johanna), James Everts (Anthony Hope), Harrison White (Beadle Bamford), Amber Liekhus (Beggar Woman), and Josey Montana McCoy (Tobias), with Grace Albano, Samantha Atilano, Ella Blain (Ethan Clayton), Ariel Davis, Rachel K. Han, Sebastian Rodriguez, Sarah Randall Hunt, and Michael Solomon, closes at Pasadena’s A Noise Within.
POTUS:, Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, by Selina Fillinger, directed by Courtney Young, featuring Julie Cardia (Harriet), Michelle Liu Coughlin (Jean), Shannon Mary Dixon (Dusty), Ramika Katon Dongal (Chris), Cas Koenig (Bernadette), Emily Nash (Stephanie), and Marlo Denise Stroud (Margaret), closes at CA’s Coachella Valley Rep.
Footloose, by Dean Pitchford & Walter Bobbie, directed by Barry Pearl, featuring Larry Cedar, Robin DeLano, Brady Fritz, KelseyLee Smith, Casey Anne Apregan, James Beadlsey, Whitney Kathleen Vigil, Sammy Linkowski, Camie Del Rosario, Lauren Lorati, Michael Well, Christopher Robert Smith,Karen Macarah, Lisa Kyson, and Ceron Jones, with Mary Kate Chapman, Madison Miyuki Sprague, Michael Riskin, Melvin Biteng, Christopher Ho, Noah Heie, Coby Rogers, Laura Aronoff, Veronica Carolina Leite, Callula Sawyer, Lauren Barette, Arielle Dettmer, Almand Martin Jr., and Mathew San Jose, closes at Burbank’s Colony Theatre.
Coney Island Land or The Great Existential Actuality at The End of The Universe, world premiere by Timothy Braun, directed by Lucy Smith Conroy, featuring Tate Evans and Thoms Piper, closes at North Hollywood’s Theatre 68 Arts Complex.
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Reviews for The Notebook at Broadway’s Schoenfeld Theatre:
NY Times (Jesse Green): Romantic musicals are as personal as romance itself. What makes you sigh and weep may leave the person next to you bored and stony. At The Notebook, I was the person next to you… Love is powerful. Dementia is sad. The result can be heartbreaking… Or maybe, seen with a cold eye, meretricious… The musical, unwilling except at the margins to alter a plot so beloved — or at least so familiar — tries to distinguish itself… In any case, the de-slicking was a mistake; it turns out that the Hollywood varnish was the only thing holding the picture together. In its place, the musical makes few convincing arguments for a separate existence… Certainly Michaelson’s relentlessly mid-tempo songs do not… When songs provide so little information, barely differentiating the characters let alone advancing the plot, a musical tends to sag… Brunstetter, hacking through the story with a scythe to make room, has left bald stumps everywhere…
New York Daily News (Chris Jones): …she with the snooty, dismissive parents, far meaner than the ones in “Dirty Dancing,” he with the soft hands and warm smile and the bad-boy gestalt — to the zeitgeist… To the great credit of everyone involved, “The Notebook” also delivers unexpectedly sophisticated theatricality with the requisite supercharging of the tear ducts, not withstanding an archly familiar narrative… There are two main reasons why this show works. Most important is the songwriter Ingrid Michaelson…whose lyrics eschew the mawkish pitfalls in favor of simple, direct communication of intense but familiar emotions through melody and song… characters sing what regular people feel in those circumstances. And while Michaelson’s music is more folk-roots-bluegrass-country than traditional Broadway, it’s what this material needed…
Theatermania (Zachary Stewart): …Musical theater is all about big emotions expressed through even bigger voices, and The Notebook has plenty of both. Bekah Brunstetter, a writer and producer of the tear-soaked TV drama This Is Us, hews much closer to the novel with her dramatically sound and smartly enhanced book… Her major revision is to update the central couple from the GI generation to the Baby Boom generation, allowing the frame of the story to exist here and now — and perhaps directly brush up against the experiences of people in the audience… My detachment may have been prompted by Ingrid Michaelson’s score, a parade of confessional power ballads that are pretty in the moment, but evaporated from my memory by the time I stepped out onto 45th Street… No one in the cast interprets this material better than Joy Woods, who plays the adult version of Allie…
Theatrely (Juan A. Ramirez): …sweet, golden-haze-of-summer score by Ingrid Michaelson and genial performances from its three duos that play the central couple Noah and Allie through puppy-love adolescence… Bekah Brunstetter’s book cleverly has actors playing significant people from Allie’s past… Michael Greif and Schele Williams’ shared direction match Michaelson’s ability to capably blur the line between past and present, and what’s lost at each generational turn… the show’s best number, a standalone ballad titled “What Happens,” cautiously yearns for updates on a former lover’s life…
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Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre has announced its 2024-25 season:
Noises Off (Sept. 12 – Oct. 27), directed by Anna D. Shapiro, featuring Audrey Francis, Francis Guinan, Ora Jones, James Vincent Meredith, and Karen Rodriguez.
Leroy and Lucy (Oct. 24 – Dec. 15) world premiere by Ngozi Anayanwu, directed by Awoye Timto, featuring Jon Michael Hill. 
A musician and a stranger meet at a crossroads on a dark Mississippi night.
Fool for Love (Jan. 30 – Mar. 16, 2025), directed by Jeremy Herrin.
The Book of Grace (Mar. 27 – May 18) by Suzan-Lori Parks, directed by Steve H. Broadnax III, featuring Glenn Davis. An explosive family portrait
You Will Get Sick (June 5 – July 13), by Noah Diaz, directed by Audrey Francic, featuring cliff Chamberlain, Amy Morton, and Namir Smallwood.
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A Train, written & performed by Annie Torsiglieri, will run Apr. 10-28 at Ventura’s Rubicon Theatre, directed by Risa Brainin.
A play-with-music about a mother’s journey on the autism train. Told with humor, insight and a few choice expletives.
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The 24 Hour Plays, which brings together a group of artists to produce theatrical works which are written, rehearsed, and performed in 24 hours, will take place Mon. Mar. 18 at 8 PM Hollywood’s Hudson Theatres.
Writers: Mark Wilding, Rachel Axler, Sofya Levitskey-Weitz, Matt Schatz, and christopher oscar peña
Directors: Sherri Eden Barber, Jaki Bradley, Jacquelyn Landgraf, Nick Lieberman, Casey Stangl, and Kate Sullivan.
Actors: Rachel Bloom, Kayla Foster, Alice Kremelberg, and TJ Linnard , Jermaine Fowler, River Gallo, Olli Haaskivi, Erika Henningsen, Patrick Heusinger, Gillian Jacobs, Vella Lovell, Sarah Natochenny, Jessica Rothe, Josh Ruben, Rich Sommer, Josie Totah, Sasheer Zamata, Mamoudou Athie , Mark Feuerstein, Alexander Flores, Bella Heathcote, Nora Kirkpatrick, Andrew Leeds, Tawny Newsome, Artemis Pebdani, Lindsey Kraftand Trash Pals.
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Make Me Gorgeous!, The True Story of Kenneth “Mr. Madam” Marlowe, written & directed by Donnie, continues through Sun. Mar. 24 at Theatre at St. Lukes.
Darius Rose
The fabulous and incredible true story of Kenneth Marlowe, an oft-overlooked trailblazer in LGBTQ+ history. Described as one of mid-Century America’s gayest and most openly homosexual personalities, Marlowe took on many roles in life. Kenneth was a private hairdresser to the stars; the madam of a notorious gay prostitution ring in Hollywood; an author; a hustler; a female impersonator; a private in the U.S. Army; a call boy; a Christian missionary; a mortuary cosmetologist; a newspaper columnist … and for the final decade of an incredibly lived life, Marlowe was a woman, having transitioned to become Kate Marlowe.
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Sirius XM : Merrily We Roll Along will take place Tues. Mar. 19 at 2:30 PM at Broadway’s Hudson Theatre, hosted by Seth Rudetsky.
Click here for your chance to win tickets.
Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff, Lindsay Mendez, Krystal Joy Brown, Katie Rose Clarke, and Reg Rogers.
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Celebration Theatre will present it Celebration Honors Gala will take place Sat. Mar. 23 from 2-5 PM at LA’s LGBT Center.
Boni Alvarez, Sock Whitmore, Reggie Lee, Amanda Kruger, Daniel Chung, Allen Lucky Weaver, David Tran, Edwin Osaze, a capella group 8TPS, Kyle Montgomery, and John Erickson.
Hann Crews, Sade Ayodele, Mitchell Johnson, Tom DeTrinis, Parnell Damone Marcano, Constance Jewell Lopez, Donald Turner, Jason Bornstein, and Lyle Colby Mackston.
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Houston’s Theater Under the Stars has announced its 2024-25 season:
Dear Evan Hansen (Sept. 10-23), directed & choreographed by Dan Knechtges.
Little Shop of Horrors (Oct. 22 – Nov. 3),
The Ugly X-Mas Sweater Musical, by Dan Knechtges and Megan Larche Dominick. The leaders of Regalia Uniforms invite you to help them save their beloved company from a takeover by an international conglomerate by making the best ugly xmas sweater ever. Come dressed in your ugly Christmas sweater, sing along and walk the runway with us!
Frozen (Dec. 10-24)
Mean Girls (Jan. 28 – Feb. 9, 2025)
Waitress (Apr. 15-27
In The Heights (May 20 – June 1)
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Gingold Theatrical Group will present a reading of Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession on Mon. Mar. 18 at 7 PM at NYC’s Symphony Space, directed by Lily Cantor Riopelle.
Tina Benko (Mrs. Kitty Warren), Katherine Romans (Vivie Warren), Jason Veasey (Praed), Jay O. Sanders (Crofts), Robert Elijah Kollman (Frank Gardner), Arnie Burton (Reverend Sam Garder, and Fareeda Pasha (Narrator).
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The Hollywood Bowl will open its 2024 season on June 23 at 7:30 PM with Opening Night at the Bowl: Henry Mancini 100th Celebration.
Cynthia Erivo, Michael Bublé, Dave Koz, and Monica Mancini.
Click here for the complete season.