Today’s Highlights:
The Little Prince, adapted by Chris Mouron & Terry Truck, directed by Anne Tournié & Chris Mouron, featuring Lionel Zalachas (Little Prince), Aurélien Bednarek (The Aviator), Chris Mouron (The Narrator), Laurisse Sulty (The Rose/The Snake alternate), Adrien Picaut (The Businessman/The Switchman), Antony Cesar (The Vain Man), Andre Kamienski (The Drunkard), Marcin Janiak (The Lamplighter), Srilata Ray (The Snake), and Dylan Barone (The Fox/The King), with Marie Menuge, Joän Bertrand, George Sanders, William John Banks, Madison Ward, and Jayesh Palande, opens at Broadway’s Broadway Theatre.
New York Theatre Workshop‘s 2022 Annual Gala, directed by Kevin Cahoon, with special guests Anthony Rapp, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Shoshana Bean, Nikki M. James, Andy Mientus, Dina Martina, Somi Kakoma, Martha Redbone, The Bengsons, and the stars of Hadestown, at 6 PM ET at NYC’s Capitale.
The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center‘s 2022 Gala, honoring George C. White, featuring Norm Lewis, Heidi Blickenstaff, Joshua Henry, Tom Kitt, Stephanie D’Abruzzo, Tyler Bunch, Scott Richards, Paulette Haupt, and Ellie Ellsworth, at 6 PM ET at NYC’s Gotham Hall.
Debbie Gravitte plus one: with Stephen Schwartz concert, with special guests Sam Gravitte, Lindsay Pearce, and a surprise guest, at 7 PM ET at NYC’s Birdland.
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Reviews for Roundabout’s Birthday Candles at Broadway’s American Airlines Theatre:
NY Times (Maya Philips): …Noah Haidle’s Birthday Candles… tries to build poignancy and depth through moments that repeat like a record needle stuck in a groove. Instead, this…production gets caught in a superficial cycle of wannabe profundities and emotional pantomimes… Ernestine’s lovesick friend Kenneth (Enrico Colantoni, adorable at any age)… Most of the cast… struggle in the sunrise and sunset years… Vivienne Benesch’s direction exaggerates the methodical sentimentality of Haidle’s script, allowing broad, clichéd gestures to do shorthand work…
Daily News (Chris Jones): …If only Broadway, always obsessed with the young, better understood what it is missing… The wonderful new drama Birthday Candles, which stars Debra Messing of “Will and Grace” fame, is a perfect example… No young person could have written this play; the pain and discoveries of the author are all over every beautifully written line… Messing is exceptionally moving in this role… The best work in the show comes from two women, Crystal Finn and Susannah Flood…They’re both extraordinarily strong, vulnerable and rich.
Broadway News (Naveen Kumar): …combining staple observations about everyday existence…does not guarantee they’ll rise into more than mollifying fluff… The fine line between distilling so-called ordinary life and whipping up airy clichés is all but dissolved in this replay of one woman’s birthday over the course of many decades… There’s a truthfulness to the churn and cycle of Birthday Candles as a parable of aging… Haidle’s characters are at times so self-conscious about their place in the world that they cease to believably inhabit them.
Theatermania (Christian Lewis): Birthday Candles is very clear in its scope: 90 years in 90 minutes… it just felt like a disappointing bite of bland cake overcompensating with achingly sweet buttercream frosting… Noah Haidle’s play, while an interesting idea, feels generic and overly sentimental… it lacks sophistication and maturity, leaning into stock plot lines… I cannot help feeling so disappointed in Messing’s performance. Somehow, she never seemed to fit… this overly-hyped cake, which in reality is just a run of the mill vanilla cake made up of a single, unfrosted layer.
Video: Highlights
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Reviews for Daddy at London’s Almeida Theatre:
The Guardian (Arifa Akbar): …expect the unexpected in this bold, brawny, flamboyantly theatrical production… there is enough sophistication in the writing and in Danya Taymor’s direction for these elements to work to thrilling effect… A sensational first half hooks us into every last intrigue and all the actors work wonders… darker in the second half, and every other character feels skewed so that the drama becomes more feverish and surreal. This longer second part is less masterful than the first.
Independent (Isobel Lewis): …a masterpiece that doesn’t so much pull the rug from under you as yank it, then stick around to laugh at you lying on the floor, dazed and bewildered. Trust me: this is a show enhanced by a lack of expectations… If the Freud fodder didn’t make it clear, Harris’s play is undeniably provocative… Every element has been punctiliously designed to raise questions, whether about race, wealth, the media or the state of modern art… Danya Taymor’s production is overwhelming in the best way.
Time Out London (Andrzei Lukowski): …one of the great theatrical mysteries of modern times… Harris’s writing…so fizzingly original… For its first half, Danya Taymor’s production surges away as a whip-smart interrogation of personal and artistic integrity… It’s gloriously playful and strange: rock-solid storytelling and wet bodies meeting a wildly original hyperreal aesthetic… Having kept the story in motion with such thrillingly strange vigour, neither Harris nor Taymor manage to nail a killer ending to Daddy.
Video: Highlights
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GRACE NOTES Quiz: Support Your Local Sheriff, by Jim Bernhard.
Match these sheriffs with the plays or musicals in which they appear.
| 1. Sheriff Amos Legrand | A. August: Osage County |
| 2. Sheriff Bell | B. To Kill A Mockingbird |
| 3. Sheriff Bob Wells | C. The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas |
| 4. Sheriff Bones | D. Robin Hood |
| 5. Sheriff Deon Gilbeau | E. The Grass Harp |
| 6. Sheriff Ed Earl Dodd | F. Whoopee! |
| 7. Sheriff Hartman | G. Orpheus Descending |
| 8. Sheriff of Nottingham | H. Big River |
| 9. Sheriff Talbott | I. The Front Page |
| 10. Sheriff Heck Tate | J. The Scottsboro Boys |
Scroll down for the answers…
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2022 Olivier Awards. Click here for the complete list of winners.
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2022 Lucille Lortel Awards. Click here for the complete list of nominees.
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Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt will open next season (dates TBA), directed by Patrick Marber. The London production closed in Feb. 2020.
Vienna in 1900 was the most vibrant city in Europe, humming with artistic and intellectual excitement and a genius for enjoying life. A Tenth of the population were Jews. A generation earlier they had been granted full civil rights by the Emperor, Franz Joseph. Consequently, hundreds of thousands fled from the Pale and the pogroms in the East, and many found sanctuary in the crowded tenements of the old Jewish quarter, Leopoldstadt.
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Additional casting has been announced for the movie musical adaptation of “The Color Purple,” to be released Dec. 20, 2023.
Newly announced: Elizabeth Marvel (Miss Millie).
Previously announced: Fantasia Barrino (Celie), Danielle Brooks (Sofia), Taraji P. Henson (Shug Avery), Corey Hawkins (Harpo), H.E.R (Squeak), Colman Domingo (Mister), Halle Bailey & Ciara (sharing the role of Nettie), Aunjanue Ellis (Celie and Nettie’s mother), Louis Gossett, Jr. (Ol’ Mister), David Alan Grier (Reverend Avery), Tamella J. Mann (First Lady), Phylicia Pearl Mpasi (Young Celie), Deon Cole (Alfonso), Stephen Hill (Buster).
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Complete casting has been announced for Side Show, to run Apr. 22 – May 8 at the White Plains Performing Arts Center, directed by Frank Portanova, with choreography by Antoinette DiPietropolo.
Rebecca Kuznick (Violet), Emily Kristen Morris (Daisy), Jack Brewer (Buddy), Andrew Foote (Boss), Bronson Norris Murphy (Terry), and Miguel Ángel Vásquez (Jake), with Matthew Blum, Bríanna Brice, Logan Graye, Matt Henningsen, Keith Mankowski, Jenna Leigh Miller, Taylor Okey, David Neil Ossman, Alexander Rothfield, Emily Royer, Rebecca Skowron, and Rosie Staudt.
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The world premiere of Shaina Taub’s Suffs has been extended through May 29 at Off-Broadway’s Public Theater, directed by Leigh Silverman.
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.
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Cast changes have been announced for Moulin Rouge! at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre,.
Departing May 8: Natalie Mendoza (Satine), Aaron Tveit (Christian), Tam Mutu (Duke of Monroth), and Ricky Rojas (Santiago).
Beginning May 10: Ashley Loren (Satine), Derek Lena (Christian), Declan Bennett (Duke of Monroth), and Caleb Marshall-Villarreal (Santiago).
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Second Stage has announced that Take Me Out has been extended through June 11 at Broadway’s Hayes Theatre.
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The Play That Goes Wrong will run Apr. 13 – May 1 at Syracuse Stage, directed by Robert Hupp.
Seth Andrew Bridges (Jonathan/Charles), Rishan Dhamija (Robert/Thomas), Shabazz Green (Trevor), Kate Hammill (Annie), Angie Janas (Sandra/Florence), Jason O’Connell (Chris/Inspector), Blake Segal (Dennis/Perkins), and John Tufts (Max/Cecil/Gardner), with Stella Bunch, Jessica Cerreta, Jaemon Crosby, Shabazz Green, Taylor Hendricks, and Derek Powell.
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André De Shields (Hermes) will depart Hadestown on May 29 at the Walter Kerr Theatre.
His replacement is TBA.
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& 
Joe Iconis’ “Album” will be released June 17, featuring 70+ collaborators. 
here.
Collaborators: Aaron Tveit, Andrew Rannells, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Krysta Rodriguez, Kerry Butter, Danny Burstein, Annie Golden, George Salazar, Will Roland, Andrew Barth Feldman, and many more.
LA Concert: (June 22) at LA’s Bourbon Room (link TBA). Performers TBA.
NY Concert: (July 9-11) at 54 Below Performers TBA.
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& 
The New York Theatre Community (24 institutions) will come together Sat. Apr. 16 to livestream online readings & conversations from 10 AM – 10 PM ET via HowlRound, in support of Ukraine.
Abrons Arts Center, CUNY Stages, Here Arts Center, La MaMa, Mabou Mines, Ma-Yi Theater Company, New York Theater Workshop, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, PEN America, PS21, Park Avenue Armory, Theatre Without Borders, Brooklyn Academy of Music, National Black Theater, Noor Theatre, Play Company, The Public Theater, Segal Theatre Center, The Shed, Torn | Page, Ukranian Actors of New York, and The Watermill Center | Robert Wilson.
With a particular focus on the devastation of the Donetsk Drama Theatre Mariupol bombing, which killed over 300 people taking sanctuary, the event will feature readings from poets, playwrights, and novelists that captrue the community’s reaction to the crisis in Ukraine. The Public Broadcasting Station of Ukraine will also livestream the event for all Ukrainians.
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GRACE NOTES Quiz answers: Support Your Local Sheriff
1-E. Sheriff Amos Legrand – The Grass Harp
2-H. Sheriff Bell – Big River
3-F. Sheriff Bob Wells – Whoopee!
4-J. Sheriff Bones – The Scottsboro Boys
5-A. Sheriff Deon Gilbeau – August: Osage County
6-C. Sheriff Ed Earl Dodd – The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
7-I. Sheriff Hartman – The Front Page
8-D. Sheriff of Nottingham – Robin Hood
9-G. Sheriff Talbott – Orpheus Descending
10-B. Sheriff Heck Tate – To Kill A Mockingbird