This Weekend’s Highlights:
Friday, May 5
The Prom, directed by Todd Buonopane, featuring Vicki Lewis (Dee Dee Allen), John Sherer (Barry Glickman), Emily McNamara (Angie Dickinson), Richard E. Waits (Principal Hawkins), Matt Hill (Trent Oliver), Lillian Belle Doll (Emma Nolan), and Emily Pellecchia (Alyssa Green), with Kyle Javon Blocker, Christina Claire, Christie Dabreau, Markos Eugenis, Danny Feldman, Joshua Kring, Sealth Grover, Jillian Ann Lee, Amanda Leigh Lupacchino, Laura Renee Mehl, Lauren Rathbun, Quincy Southerland, Alexandra Tarsinov, Matt Walsh, Grace Wolf, Nikki Yarnell and Hunter Yocom, opens at Deal, NJ’s Axelrod PAC.
Rogue Machine Theatre‘s can i touch it, world premiere by francisca da silveira, directed by Gregg T. Daniel, featuring Safiya Fredericks (Shay), Suzen Baraka (Meeka/Beth), Iesha Daniels (Ruth/Lili), Scott Victor Nelson (Mark/Nicky/Leo), opens at LA’s Matrix Theatre.
Days of Wine and Roses, world premiere by Craig Lucas & Adam Guettel, directed by Michael Greif, featuring Kelli O’Hara, Brian d’Arcy James, Steven Booth, Sharon Catherine Brown, Bill English, Nicole Ferguson, Olivia Hernandez, Byron Jennings, David Jennings, Ted Koch, Ella Dane Morgan, Scarlett Unger, and Kelcey Watson, begins previews at Off-Broadway’s Atlantic Theater Company.
Exclusion, by Kenneth Lin, directed by Trip Cullman, featuring Tony Nam, Josh Stamberg, Michelle Vergara Moore, Karen Li, Jonathan Feuer, and Ryan Dalusung, begins previews at DC’s Arena Stage.
Speakeasy Stage‘s The Prom, directed by Paul Daigneault, featuring Mary Callanan, Johnny Kuntz, Amy Barker,Emily Cochrane, Abriel Coleman, Nate Haydel, Tori Heinlein, Liesie Kelly, Meagan Lewis-Michelson, Nolan Montgomery, Brogan Nelson, Nicholas Joseph C. Ochoa, Nina Osso, Anthony Pires, Jr., Victor Carrillo Tracey, Jared Troilo, and Lisa Yuen, begins previews at Boston’s Calderwood Pavilion.
Saturday, May 6
Judy on TV!: Celebrating “The Judy Garland Show” concert, written & directed by Dick Scanlan, featuring Aisha de Haas, Gabrielle Stravelli, Alysha Umphress, and Max Von Essen, opens at NYC’s 92Y.
Celebration Theatre‘s A New Brain, by William Finn & James Lapine, directed by Khanisha Foster, featuring Amanda Kruger (Gordon Schwinn), Yassi Noubahar (Roger Delli-Bovi), Gina Torrecilla (Mimi Schwinn), Sadé Ayodele (Rhoda), Richardson Cisneros-Jones (Mr. Bungee), Whitney Avalon (Lisa), Jason Ryan (The Minister), Mitchell Johnson (Dr. Jafar Berensteiner), Gabi Van Horn (Nurse Nancy/Waitress), and Ryan O’Connor (Nurse Richard), Hannah Crews, Tal Fox, Emily King Brown, Laura Obiorah, Jason Ryan, Sal Sabella, and Mitchell Johnson, opens at LA’s LGBT Center.
Rogue Machine Theatre‘s can i touch it ?, world premiere by Francisca Dasilveira, directed by Gregg T. Daniel, featuring Safiya Fredericks (Shay), Suzen Baraka (Meeka/Beth), Iesha Daniels (Ruth/Lili), Scott Victor Nelson (Mark/Nicky/Leo), opens at LA’s Matrix Theatre.
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, by Christopher Durang, directed by Victoria Pearlman, featuring Brad Greenquist, Cyndy Fujikawa, Martha Hackett, Miranda Wynne, Zach Kanner, and Tania Getty, opens at Venice, CA’s Pacific Resident Theatre.
Ebony Rep‘s Ain’t Misbehavin’, directed by Wren T. Brown, featuring Yvette Cason (Nell), Wilkie Ferguson III (Andre), Connie Jackson (Armelia), Marty Austin Lamar (Ken), and Natalie Wachen (Charlayne), opens at LA’s Nate Holden PAC.
Ernest Shackleton Loves Me, by Joe DiPietro, Brendan Milburn, Val Vigoda & Ryan O’Connell, directed by Michael Unger, featuring Elisa Carlson (Kat) and Andrew Mueller (Ernest Shackleton), with Rae Robeson and Matt Miles, begins previews at Chicago’s Porchlight Music Theatre.
National Theatre Live’s Othello screening, starring Giles Terera, Rosy McEwen, and Paul Hilton, at 3 PM at UCLA’s James Bridges Theatre.
Colin Quinn: Small Talk closes at Off-Broadway’s Greenwich House Theater.
Marjorie Prime, by Jordan Harrison, directed by Dominic Dromgoole, featuring Anne Reid (Marjorie), Richard Fleeshman (Walker), Nancy Carroll (Tess), and Tony Jayawardena (Jon), closes at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory.
Sunday, May 7
Playwrights Horizons & MCC Theater‘s Wet Brain, by John J. Caswell, directed by Dustin Wills, featuring Frankie J. Alvarez, Ceci Fernández, Julio Monge, and Arturo Luís Soria, opens at Off-Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons.
The Goodbye Girl, by Neil Simon, Marvin Hamlisch & David Zippel, directed by Zippel, featuring Santino Fontana (Elliot), Sierra Boggess (Paula), Christopher Seiber (Character Actor), Debra thais Evans (Cosby), Lena Joshephine Marano (Lucy), Tara Radha Rajan (Melanie), Honor Blue Savage (Cynthia), Alyssa Isihara (Jenna), Emma Kantor Rhonda), and Jessica Ann Lawyer (Donna), with Daniel Pahl, Tony Collins, and Dan DeLuca, opens at Off-Broadway’s J2 Spotlight Theatre.
For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy, written & directed by Ryan Calais Cameron, featuring Mark Akintimehin, Emmanuel Akwafo, Nnabiko Ejimofor, Darragh Hand, Arune Halloh, and Kaine Lawrence, closes at London’s Royal Court Theatre.
J2 Spotlight Musical Theatre Company‘s Sugar, directed by Robert W. Schneider, featuring Chris Cherin, (Joe/Josephine), Andrew Leggiere (Jerry Daphne), Alexandra Amadeo Frost (Sugar Kane), Lexi Rhoades (Sweet Sue), Richard Rowan (Osgood Fielding III), and Orden Korenblum (Spats Palazzo), with Conor Coughlin, Caleb James Grochalski, Bobby MacDonell, Jordan Ari Bross, and Molly Samson, closes at Off-Broadway’s Theatre Row.
Melissa Li and Kit Yan in concert, closes at Lincoln Center‘s Clare Tow Theater.
A Stranger Sings, by Jonathan Hogue, directed by Nick Flatto, featuring Jamir Brown (Lucas), Jeremiah Garcia (Dustin), Caroline Huerta (Joyce/Will), Jeffrey Laughrun (Mike), Garrett Poladian (Steve/Jonathan), Harley Seger (Eleven/Nancy), SLee (Barb), and Shawn W. Smith (Hopper), with Jean Christian Barry), Dashiell Gregory, and Hannah Clarke Levine, closes at Off-Broadway’s Playhouse 46.
1776 national tour, all-female production, directed by Diane Paulus, featuring Shelby Acosta (Sec. Charles Thomson), Gisela Adisa (John Adams), Nancy Anderson (Thomas Jefferson), Tiffani Barbour (Andrew mcNair), Dawn Cantwell (Col. Thomas McKean), Julie Cardia (Stephen Hopkins), Joanna Glushak (John Dickinson),Anissa Marie Griego (Roger Sherman), Kassandra Haddock (Edward Rutledge), Shawn Hamic (Richard Henry Lee), Lisa Karlin, Connor Lyon (Martha Jefferson/Dr. Lyman Hall), Liz Mikel (Benjamin Franklin), Nykila Norman (Caesar Rodney), Oneika Phillips (John Hancock), Lulu Picart (Samuel Chase), Brooke Simpson (Courier), Sav Souza (Dr. Josiah Bartlett), Teisha Thomas (Abigail Adams/Rev. Jonathan Witherspoon), Zuri Washington (Robert Livingston), Gwynne Wood (George Read), and Candice Marie Woods (Joseph Hewes), with Amanda Dayhoff, Sara Gallo, Lisa Karlin, Kayla Saunders, Ariella Serur (Judge James Wilson), and Lillie Eliza Thomas, closes at LA’s Ahmanson Theatre.
The Cherry Orchard, adapted & directed by Robert Falls, featuring Kate Fry (Lubov Ranyevskaya), Will Allen (Semyon Yepikhodov), Kareem Bandealy (Lopakhin), Janet Ulrich Brooks (Carlotta), Felipe Carrasco (Yasha), Stephen Cefalu (Petya Trofimov), Matt DeCaro (Boris Semyonoy-Pishchik), Christopher Donahue (Leonid Gayev), Amanda Drinkall (Dunyasha), Alejandra Escalante (Varya), Francis Guinan (Firs), Sam Hubbard (Stationmaster), John Lister (Postmaster), Bill Mcgough, Tyler Meredith, Flavia Pallozi, Tiffany Scott, Eric Slater, and Raven Whitley, closes at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre.
The Color Purple, directed by Timothy Douglas, featuring Majesha McQueen (Celie), Angela Wildflower (Shug), Taylor J. Washington (Sofia), Torrey Linder (Harpo), and David Aron Damane (Mister), with D’Marreon Alexander, Katelyn Bowman, Elise Frances Daniells, Arnold Harper II, Rajané Katurah, Ne’Lashee’, Caleb Mitchell, Elixis Morton, Domonique Paton, Brad Raymond, Steven C. Rich, Nathan Andrew Riley, and Christine Wanda, closes at the Denver Center PAC.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Maggie Mancinelli-Cahill, featuring Chauncy Thoms (Duke Theseus/King Operon), Yvonne Perry (Hippolyta/Queen Titania), Kyle Barvin (Puack), Kevin McGuire (Peter Quince), Oliver Wadsworth (Bottom), and David Girard (Egeus/Snug), Ethan Botwick (Lysander), Ellen Cribbs (Helena), Raya Malcolm (Hermia), Tamil Perisamy (Demetrius), John Romeo (Robin Starveling), Jovan Davis (Flute), Gabrielle Bazinet Douglas (Fairy), Josh DeMarco (Fairy), and Taylor Hoffman (Kafen Snout/Fairy), closes at Albany’s Capital Rep.
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Reviews for Oliver at NY City Center:
NY Times (Jesse Green): …the spooky sounds you hear as the Encores! production of Oliver! begins: brass murk, woodwind rasps and stringy insectlike buzzing. Has Lionel Bart’s musical…been turned into Sweeney Todd?… directed by Lear deBessonet, is certainly grimmer than any Oliver! I’ve seen… But the underlying high spirits of Bart’s adaptation…cannot long lie dormant… the boys — a wonderfully uncloying ensemble… Bart, at least in his lyrics, does not stint on bleakness; even the bouncy title song is violent, proposing various ugly fates for the boy who dares to ask for more food.,, terrific turns by Lilli Cooper as the proud doxy Nancy and Raúl Esparza as the criminal den leader Fagin — as well as a touching one by Benjamin Pajak in the title role..
New York Stage Review (David Finkle): …sure-as-shootin’ looks like another production the Encores! nabobs must be considering for a Main Stem transfer… [Esparza] (Fagin) plays the part with a more humorous edge and makes much of the man’s delight in the jewels he has amassed for his old age. It works a charm. At last Esparza, long missed, is back as good, if not better, than ever… Pajak, now 12, isn’t the revelation in this role he might have been if he hadn’t displayed his unmistakable talent as Winthrop in last season’s The Music Man, where he all but stole scenes from Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster…
New York Stage Review (David Finkle): …sure-as-shootin’ looks like another production the Encores! nabobs must be considering for a Main Stem transfer… 9-year-old Oliver Twist (Benjamin Pajak), here described as 11, and the larcenous Fagin (Raúl Esparza)…their performances… enhance the revival equally, the only fair way to approach this is alphabetically… This Fagin isn’t the completely evil menace previous Fagins have stressed. He plays the part with a more humorous edge and makes much of the man’s delight in the jewels he has amassed for his old age. It works a charm… Pajak…knows how to be vulnerable when that’s called for… The rest of the cast? Again, where to start?
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Reviews for shadowland at Off Broadway’s Public Theater:
NY Times (Naveen Kumar): There are mothers who will tell you, no matter the circumstance, exactly what’s what. Even as the sky crashes down, they’ll judge your evacuation outfit and then remind you who’s to thank that you’re still standing on two feet. In Erika Dickerson-Despenza’s shadow/land… that unfiltered candor is both a loving reflex and the lifeline for an endangered legacy… It’s a collision course that Dickerson-Despenza and the director Candis C. Jones render in 90 dread-filled, soul-seeking minutes… It may be that the play tries to take on too much, feeling at times more like a treatise than a character-driven drama, but that’s partly because so much is in danger of being lost…
New York Theater (Jonathan Mandell): …the productions feel like a useful lesson in the theatrical arts… The soundscape is still important, but it’s primarily the soundscape of language, a poetic gumbo thick with what the playwright herself calls “the weight and rhythm” of local allusions and regional Black vernacular — always pleasing to the ear even when not every word is clear… the poetry is now enhanced – indeed, at times made palpable… Lizan Mitchell, who played Magalee so persuasively in the audio drama, is back, ably aided by Joniece Abbott-Pratt as Ruth, her exasperated daughter trying to get her to face what she sees as their harsh reality…
Theatrely (Juan A. Ramirez): …a tremendous new work. As the first installment of an epic 10-play ‘Katrina cycle,’ it signals the beginning of what promises to be a staggering achievement in theatre which concerns itself with race, ecology, queer feminism, and human displacement… an indispensable new voice… It is an hour and sixteen minutes long.That’s apparently how long it takes for Dickerson-Despenza, the Public’s Tow Foundation Playwright-in-Residence, to prove herself an indispensable new voice… she achieves that Southern gothic brilliance so often attempted, yet seldom achieved, of reaching back into the past from the muddy waters of the present. What she finds is an uncertain future as uncompromising as it is powerful, and makes for a beguiling listening experience…
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Video: Bernadette Peters, Carol Burnett, and Tony Roberts sing a Sondheim medley.
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An invitation-only staged reading of Joe DiPietro, Ryan O’Connell & Val Vigoda’s Miss Foxhole 1975 will take place on May 10 at CA’s La Mirada Theatre, directed by Kari Hayter, with music direction by Ryan O’Connell.
Bella Hicks (Jill), Jenna Byrd (Erica), Jenna Lea Rosen (Kimmy), Wyn Moreno (Wendell), Andy Umberger (Captain Mitchell), Trent Mills (Cadet Bukowski), Adrian Villegas (Babyface), James Everts (Cadet), James Tolbert (Cadet), and Zach Santolay (Cadet), with James McHale (stage directions).
Based on a true story, the musical is set in summer 1975 as 20-year-old Jill Morgenthaler joins the first class of women admitted to cadet training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. But she and her fellow females are confronted by one unanticipated challenge after another, including an order to participate in a beauty pageant.
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Principal casting has been announced for West Side Story, to run July 15-21 at the St. Louis Muny, directed by Rob Ruggiero, with original Jerome Robbins’ choreography reproduced by Parker Esse, and music direction by James Moore..
Christian Douglas (Tony), Kanisha Feliciano (Maria), Jerusha Cavaz0s (Anita), Yurel Echezarreta (Bernardo), Sean Harrison Jones (Riff), and Ken Page (Doc), with more TBA.
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Commonwealth Shakespeare Company has announced complete casting for Macbeth, to run July 19 – Aug. 6 at the Boston Common, directed by Steven Maler.
Faran Tahir (Macbeth), Joanne Kelly (Lady Macbeth), Marianna Bassham (Malcolm), Jesse Hinson (First Witch), Nael Nacer (Macduff), Maurice Emmanuel Parent (Banquo), Joe Penczak (Duncan/Siward), Daniel Rios Jr. (Ross), Fred Sullivan Jr. (Sergeant/Porter/Doctor), and Eviva Rose (Young Macduff), with Lily Ayotte, Nick Baum, John Blair, Elijah Brown, Annika Burley, Alexa Cadete, Jack Greenberg, Jessica Golden, Bella Grace Harris, Cleveland Nicoll, and Xander Viera.
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Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking will run May 31 – June 4 at the The Other Palace, directed by Jenny Sullivan.
Linda Purl
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Video: The Broadway cast of Shucked performs “Best Man Wins” on the “Today Show.”
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The national tour of Six will run June 13-25 at Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center, directed by Lucy Moss.
Khaila Wilcoxon (Catherine of Aragon), Storm Lever (Anne Moleyn), Natalie Paris (Jane Seymour), Olivia Donalson (Anna of Cleves), Courtney Mack (Katherine Howard), and Gabriela Carrillo (Catherine Parr), with Marilyn Caserta, Kelsee Kimmel, Erin Ramiriz, Cassie Silva, and Kelly Denice Taylor.