This Weekend’s Highlights:
Friday, May 27
Bruce, world premiere by Richard Oberacker & Robert Taylor, directed & choreographed by Donna Feore, featuring Jarrod Spector, Hans Altwies, Eric Ankrim, David Menoit, Preston Truman Boyd, E. Faye Butler, Beth DeVries, Candice Song Donehoo, Jay Donnell, Alexandria J. Henderson, MJ Jurgensen, Justin Keyes, Ramzi Khalaf, Corinna Lapid Munter, Tomothy McCuen Piggee, Cullen R. Titmas, Brenna Mikale Wagner, Matt Wolfe, Geoff Packard, and Napoleon Maurice Douglas, with Kyle Nicholas Anderson, Brian Lange, and Sarah Rose Davis, begins previews at Seattle Rep.
“Great Performances: Keeping Company with Sondheim” documentary about the current Broadway revival of Company, airs at 9 PM on PBS (check local listings).
“Friday Night Vibes,” with special guests Jennifer Holliday and Loretta Devine, discussing their experience working on Dreamgirls, co-hosted by Tiffany Haddish & Deon Cole, airs at 8 PM on TBS (check local listings).
Saturday, May 28
The Realistic Joneses, by Will Eno, directed by Max Mayer, featuring Melissa Webber Bales, Terry Walters, Brian Letscher, and Bruce Nozick, opens at Venice, CA’s Pacific Resident Theatre.
Berkshire Theatre Group‘s Tony Yazbek in concert, at 7 PM ET at Pittsfield, CT’s Colonial Theatre.
Paula Poundstone Live! comedy show, at 8 PM ET at Sag Harbor’s Bay Street Theatre.
Which Way to the Stage, world premiere by Ana Nogueria, directed by Mike Donahue, featuring Sas Goldberg, Max Jenkins, Evan Todd, and Michelle Veintimilla, closes at Off-Broadway’s MCC Theater.
Lillias White: Divine Sass, a tribute to the Divine One – Sarah Vaughan closes at NYC’s 54 Below.
MCC Theater‘s Miscast 2022 Gala, featuring Uzo Aduba, Shoshana Bean, Raúl Esparza, Myles Frost, J. Harrison Ghee, Tamika Lawrence, Andrea Martin, Audra McDonald, Lea Michele, Kelli O’Hara, Steven Pasquale, Aaron Tveit, and more…, concludes streaming at 7 PM ET/4 PM PT.
Hello, Dolly!, directed & choreographed by Karen Azenberg, featuring Paige Davis (Dolly Levi), Kris Coleman (Horace Vandergelder), Alexander Mendoza (Cornelius Hackl), Michael J. Rios (Barnaby Tucker), Kelly McCormick (Irene Molloy), Hannah Balagot (Ermengarde), and Miles Woolstenhume (Ambrose Kemper), with Lucy Anders, Kyle Caress, Lenny Daniel, Alex Joseph Stewart, Andy Frank, Akina Kitazawa, Mandy McDonell, Kelsie Engen, Elizabeth Falk, Reba Johnson, Serena Kozusko, Evan Latta, Niki Rahimi, Makena Reynolds, Peter Surace, Preston Taylor, Aathaven Tharmarajah, Caden Tudor, and Fynn White, closes at Salt Lake City’s Pioneer Theatre.
Sunday, May 29
A Chorus Line, directed & choreographed by Luis Villabon, featuring Jonathan Van Dyke (Zach), James Vinson (Larry), Katie Van Horn (Cassie), Natalie Kastner (Sheila), Haley Ayers (Val), Daniella Castoria (Diana), Ava Cusitor (Judy), Presley Nicholson (Kristine), Kristen Daniels (Maggie), Ellery Smith (Bebe), Erika Harper (Connie), AJ Love (Mike), William Nelson (Richie), Johann Santos (Paul), Dorian Quinn (Don), Benji Godley-Fisher (Mark), Patrick Murray (Gregory), Ryan Mulvaney (Bobby), and Bryce Bayer (Al), with Samantha Borthwicke, Lucy Swinson, Kyle Urbaniak and Izzy Valdez Ayres-Kaplan, opens at La Jolla Playhouse.
Roundabout Theatre Company‘s Birthday Candles, by Noah Haidle, directed by Vivienne Benesch, featuring Debra Messing (Ernestine Ashworth), John Earl Jelks (Matt/William), Enrico Colantoni (Kenneth), Crystal Finn (Joan/Alex/Beth), Susannah Flood (Alice/Madeline/Ernie), and Christopher Livingston (Billy/John), closes at Broadway’s American Airlines Theatre.
André De Shields concludes his run as Hermes in Hadestown at Broadway’s Walter Kerr Theatre.
Suffs, world premiere by Shaina Taub, directed by Leigh Silverman, featuring Shaina Taub (Alice Paul), Nikki M. James, Phillipa Soo, and Jenn Colella, with Jenna Bainbridge, Ally Bonino, Tsilala Brock, Hannah Cruz, Nadia Dandashi, Aisha de Haas, Stephanie Everett, Amina Raye, Holly Goould, Cassondra James, Jaygee Macapugay, Grace McLean, Susan Oliveras, Mia Pak, Liz Pearce, Monica Tulia Ramirez, J. Riley Jr., Angela Travino, Ada Westfall, and Aurelia Williams, closes at Off-Broadway’s Public Theater.
Little Girl Blue, written by & starring Laiona Michelle, directed by Devanand Janki, closes at Off-Broadway’s New World Stages.
Hadestown national tour, by Anais Mitchell & Rachel Chavkin, directed by Chavkin, featuring Nicholas Baraasch (Orpheus), Morgan Siobhan Green (Eurydice), Levi Kreis (Hermes), Kimberly Marable (Persephone), Kevyn Morrow (Hades), Belén Moyano (Fate), Bex Odorisio (Fate), and Shea Renne (Fate), with Lindsay Hailes, Chibueze Ihuoma, Will Mann, Sydney Parra, and Jamari Johnson Williams, Tyla Collier, Ian Coulter-Buford, Alex Lugo, Eddie Noel Rodríguez, and J. Antonio Rodriguez, concludes its LA engagement at the Ahmanson Theatre.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, directed by Gordon Greenberg, featuring Zachary Quinto (George), Calista Flockhart (Martha), Graham Phillips (Nick), and Aimee Carrero (Honey), closes at LA’s Geffen Playhouse.
Tambo & Bones, by Dave Harris, directed by Taylor Reynolds, featuring W. Tré Davis (Tambo), Tyler Fauntleroy (Bones), Tim Kopacz (X1), and Alexander Neher (X2), closes at LA’s Kirk Douglas Theatre.
The Play That Goes Wrong, directed by Matt DiCarlo, featuring Colton Adams (Trevor), Joseph Anthony Byrd (Jonathan), Ernaisia Curry (Annie), Michael Kurowski (Dennis), Matt Mueller (Christ), Kelly O’Sullivan (Sandra), Jarred Webb (Max), and Jonah D. Winston (Robert), with Caroline Chu, Drew Johnson, Russell Mernagh, and Brenann Stacker, closes at Chicago’s Broadway Playhouse.
Octet, by Dave Malloy, directed by Ann Tippe, featuring Adam Bashian, Kim Blanck, Alex Gibson, Justin Gregory Lopez, J.D. Mollison, Margo Seibert, and Kuhoo Verma, with Nicole Weiss, closes at CA’s Berkeley Rep.
All’s Well That Ends Well, directed by Shana Cooper, featuring Alegandra Escalante (Helena), Dante Jemmott (Bertram), Ora Jones (Countess of Roussillon), Emma Ladji (Dian), Frances Guinan (King of France), Elizabeth Ledo (Lavache), William Dick (Lafew), Patrick Agada (Second Lord Dumaine), Casey Hoekstra (First Lord Dumaine), Joseph Aaron Johnson (Rinaldo), Jeff Kurysz (First Soldier), Tanya Thai McBride (Mariana) and Pablo David Laucerica, closes at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre.
3-D Theatricals’ Newsies, directed by T.J. Dawson, featuring Dillon Klena (Jack Kelly), Allison Sheppard (Katherine), Rod Bagheri (Davey), Kyle Frattini (Crutchie), Norman Large (Joseph Pulitzer), Allen Everman (Governor Roosevelt), Carrie Compere (Medda Larkin), and Colton Dorman (Les), with Ryan Addison, Candice Rochelle Berge, Lucas Blankenhorn, Rorey Chavarria, Louis Reyes Chavez, James Everts, Jeff Garrido, David Kirk Grant, Callum Gugger, Brandon Taylor Jones, Philly Kang, Jonathan Kim, Anthony Klinner, Anneke May, Ryan Marks, Ariel Silvana Murillo, Daniel Peters, Matthew Rayan D.J. Smith, Scott Spraggs, Jenna Stocks, Rico Velazquez, and Paul Zelhart, closes at CA’s Cerritos CPA.
Macbeth, 2019 all-female production, directed by Erica Schmidt, featuring Isabelle Fuhrman, AnnaSophia Robb, Sharlene Cruz, Sophie Kelly-Hedrick, Ismenia Mendes, Lily Santiago, and Ayana Workman, concludes streaming at Off-Broadway’s Red Bull Theater.
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Reviews for Fat Ham at Off-Broadway’s Public Theater:
NY Times (Maya Phillips): …I’m not reviewing another run-of-the-mill adaptation of Hamlet; Fat Ham, James Ijames’s outstanding transformation of Shakespeare’s tragedy into a play about Black masculinity and queerness, both echoes Hamlet and finds a language beyond it… Fat Ham pokes fun at the theatricality of Hamlet’s anguish… Just a few weeks ago Fat Ham was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for drama despite having never had an in-person production… Ijames…steals the bones of the original and sloughs off the excess like the fatty bits on a slab of meat. He crafts his own story and then within it makes space for Shakespeare again… The effect is stunning, making the play a living text, moving between Hamlet, the story happening on the stage and the world beyond the fourth wall.
Washington Post (Peter Marks): Here’s to the playwrights who quip. And yes, please, everybody laugh, because things are terrible right now, and we can all use the kind of release activated by being with other people and sharing an hour or two of funny respite… Chief among the blessed humorists at the moment: James Ijames, whose divine comedy Fat Ham… a terrific corps of seven actors who plant their feet firmly in Ijames’s cheeky turf… It is all unabashedly entertaining … the finale in Fat Ham is groove-in-your-seat exuberant… One of the pleasures of “Fat Ham” is its wry act of appropriation; there’s affection, not snark, in Ijames’s embrace of the canon so that the contemporary frictions among the reimagined characters propel the play winningly into social satire.
Theatermania (Christian Lewis): …a loose retelling of Hamlet, is an adaptation that does not care about fidelity, nor really about Shakespeare for that matter. This disavowal may seem blasphemous, but it allows Ijames to take Hamlet in directions it has never gone, letting the play become a vehicle for something new, something dare I say even better. In Ijames’s hands, Shakespeare’s text about a brooding, fake-mad, mother-obsessed, father-avenging prince of Denmark becomes a play celebrating Blackness, specifically radical Black queer softness. Ijames makes deft use of Shakespeare, such that all the major characters and plot points are there and the play is dramaturgically very similar, such that you can always generally tell where you are in the Hamlet multiverse.
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Rufus Does Judy, performing the Judy Garland’s classic 1961 concert, starring Rufus Wainwright, will run June 5, 7, 8 & 10 (at 5 & 7:45 PM ET for all performance dates) at NYC’s City Winery.
Justin Vivan Bond, Laura Benanti, Lorna Luft, Molly Ringwald, and Sharon D. Clarke.
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The Pajama Game will run June 2-19 (opening June 4) at San Francisco’s 42nd Street Moon, directed by Annie Potter, with music direction by Armando Fox and choreography by Renee DeWeese.
Nicholas Yenson, Nicole Tung, Katherine Stein, Tiana Paulding, Ben Jones, Renee Deweese, Jesse Caldwell, Tony Conaty, Tracy Camp, Ashley Garlick, James Mayagoitia, Nick Nakashima, and Daniel Thomas.
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Video: “Stars in the House” celebrates Encore’s Into the Woods, featuring Sara Bareilles, Gavin Creel, Jordan Donica, Ta’Nika Gibson, and Brooke Ishibashi. (1:38:42)
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Lincoln Center Theater will present The Nosebleed July 16 – Aug. 28 (opening Aug. 1) at the Claire Tow Theater, written & directed by Aya Agawa.
Aya Ogawa, Drae Campbell, Ashil Lee, Saori Tsukada, and Kaili Y. Turner.
The autobiographical work explores the troubled relationship between Ogawa and her late father through a series of vignettes.
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C.P. Taylor’s 1981 play Good will run Oct. 6 – Dec. 24 (opening Oct. 12) at the Harold Pinter Theatre, directed by Dominic Cooke.
David Tennant, Elliot Levey, and more TBA.
A WWII drama about a German professor who must rationalize his decision to join the Nazi party.
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Nilo Cruz’s Anna in the Tropics will run June 28 – July 24 (opening July 2) at Sag Harbor’s Bay Street Theatre, directed by Marcos Santana.
Christian Barillas (CheChe), Maria Isabel Bilbao (Marela), Serafin Falcon (Santiago), Iliana Guibert (Ofelia), Gullermo Ivan (Paloma/Eliades), Anthony Michael Martinez (Juan Julian), and Christine Spang (Conchita).
The play centers on a sultry and steamy cigar factory in 1929 Tampa, where the lives of a Cuban-American family are challenged by the vices and temptations that surround them. the factory owner, Santiago, wrestles with a gambling addiction that’s emboldened by his half-brother, while his daughters, unhappy in their respective relationships, long for the affection of the factory’s handsome lector. Romance, lust, and jealousy collide as the family confronts the discontent in their lives, as a wave of modernization threatens to dispel the very traditions they hold hear.
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Chicago’s Porchlight Music Theatre has announced its free outdoor concert series, Broadway in Your Backyard, to run July 19 – Sept. 6 at various outdoor venues, directed by Michael Weber, with music direction by Justin Akira Kono.
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RIP: Ray Liotta passed away in his sleep yesterday at the age of 67.
After graduating college, he moved to New York City, where he worked for the Shubert Organization as a bartender before shifting to the world of soap operas and film.
In 1986, he leapt to prominence in “Something Wild,” which earned him a Golden Globe nomination. In 1989, he played Shoeless Joe Jackson in “”Field of Dreams, prior to stepping into his career-making role, Henry Hill in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas.”
Ray formed a niche for himself as a leading figure in films such as “Unlawful Energy,” “Unforgettable,” “The Rat Pack,” “Phoenix,” and “Corrina,” before eventually transitioning into self-referential voiceover roles in “Grand Theft Auto,” “The Bee Movie,” and “Phineas and Ferb.”
Mr. Liotta returned to New York in 2004 to play Mike in Stephen Belber’s Match on Broadway opposite Frank Langella.
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Video: The cast of Broadway’s SIX (Brittany Mack, Abby Mueller, Samantha Pauly, Joy Woods, Andrea Macasaet, and Nicole Kyoung-Mi Lambert) performs “Get Down.”
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Stephen Flaherty & Lynn Ahrens’ Knoxville, adapted & directed by Frank Galati, following its world premiere run at FL’s Asolo Rep, will release its original cast album this Fall (date TBA), available digitally and on CD.
Jason Danieley, Hannah Elless, Paul Alexander Nolan, Ellen Harvey, Nathan Salstone, and Joel Waggoner, with Jack Casey, Sara Aili, Abigail Stephenson, Natalie Venetia Belcon, Dwelvan David, Scott Wakefield, William Parry, and Barbara Marineau.
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Timothy Allen, Elyssa Samsel & Kate Anderson’s Between the Lines will run June 14 – Oct. 2 (opening June 26) at the Tony Kiser Theatre, directed by Jeff Calhoun, with choreography by Paul McGill, and music direction by Daniel Green.
Arielle Jacobs (Deliah), Jake David Smith (Prince Oliver), Vicki Lewis (Ms. Winx/Jessamyn Jacobs/Mrs. Brown/Kyrie), Hillary Fisher (Allie/Princess Seraphima), Will Burton (Frump/Ryan), Jerusha Cavasos (Janice/Marina), John Rapson (Dr. Ducharme/Rapskulio), Wren Rivera (Jules/Ondine), Sean Stack (Martin/Troll/Dad/Delivery Person), and Julia Murney (Grace/Queen Maureen), with Heather Ayers, Dan Hoy, Martin Landry, and Aubrey Matalon.
The musical follows Delilah, an outsider in a new school who seeks comfort in the pages of her favorite book, where she feels heard and understood. Soon, the lines between reality and fantasy begin to blur, and she has to confront whether she has the power to rewrite her own story.