Today’s Highlights:
Steve Ross: A Salute to Spring concert, at 7 PM ET at NYC’s Birdland.
Joey Contreras: In The Works concert, with special guests Senzel Ahmady, Jacob Dickey, Sean Doherty, Ben Fankhauser, Cailen Fu, Keri René Fuller, Mia Gerachis, Doen’te Goodman, Gad Greer, Diana Huey, Leslie Hiatt, Oyoyo Joi, Nick Martinez, Denise Neumerkel, Henry Platt, and Noah Virgile, at 9:30 PM ET at NYC’s 54 Below.
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GRACE NOTES Quiz: Star-Crossed Lovers by Jim Bernhard:
Match these notable Romeos with the equally notable Juliets.
| 1. Laurence Olivier (1940) | A. Condola Rashad |
| 2. Orlando Bloom (2013) | B. Ellen Terry |
| 3. John Gielgud (1935) | C. Olivia de Havilland |
| 4. John Neville (1956) | D. Vivien Leigh |
| 5. Douglas Watson (1951) | E. Katharine Cornell |
| 6. Basil Rathbone (1934) | F. Peggy Ashcroft |
| 7. John Stride (1960) | G. Master Robert Goffe |
| 8. Leonardo di Caprio (1996 film) | H. Judi Dench |
| 9. Richard Burbage (ca.1595) | I. Clare Danes |
| 10. Henry Irving (1882) | J. Claire Bloom |
Scroll down for the answers…
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Reviews for The Minutes at Broadway’s Studio 54:
NY Times (Jesse Green): …Letts, a master of the American Macabre, makes something quite different of these middling workplace comedy ingredients…a deeply troubling play about history and horror… But even with nothing but admiration for what Letts is trying to do, and for his choice to engage the tools of genre to do it, I have many questions about the way it plays out for an audience. As directed by his frequent collaborator Anna D. Shapiro, The Minutes doesn’t quite nail its U-turn from expert comedy to jaw-dropping horror… in trying to use purely theatrical means to avoid the traps of didacticism that so many well-intentioned plays fall into, The Minutes instead falls into the trap of bad taste.
New York Daily News (Chris Jones): …this intense play now feels aimed not so much at Trumpism but at how small-town council and school board meetings are turning into war zones… One community at a time… Letts is continuing the theme that dominates his best-known work to date, August: Osage County… For a play written some five years ago, the work retains remarkable currency… As is typical with Letts, there is much black humor… a set from David Zinn that deliciously parodies small-town self-mythologizing, survives the venue… It’s an important play, a visceral theatrical experience about what has happened to retail American democracy and how this nation decides which stories about itself it wants to believe.
Variety (Naveen Kumar): …an astonishing feat from playwright and star Tracy Letts, not least for its brilliant finesse in orchestrating audience expectations and surprise. To go in knowing little or nothing about the play may be the purest way to experience its dramatic cunning. (Reader, be warned.). doesn’t trade in shocking secrets or revelations. It exposes the systems of delusion that blind people to truths buried in plain sight. It’s devilishly funny until it’s not… It is thrilling and essential theater that interrogates the present by laying bare how history is written. And it’s among the best new plays on Broadway in years… There’s a Christopher Guest quality to the everyday absurdities that pile up as the officials (if we must call them that) migrate into the room…
The Guardian (Alexis Soloski):… The particular meeting that unfurls, in real time, in The Minutes, flows from the brutal imagination of…Tracy Letts… For long stretches, The Minutes, is dull, which Letts seems to intend as a feature, not a bug… it involves a lot of speechifying, box-ticking, procedure for procedure’s sake. There are jokes, sure, though few of them seem especially effortful… in truth, the show is never all that dull, in part because Anna D Shapiro… has a true-blue acumen for pinpointing the talents of her cast… Letts positions The Minutes as allegory… a left-leaning Broadway audience will find sympathetic, particularly when delivered in the easeful environment of an expensive theater by a cast that’s mostly white and mostly male.
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Musical Theatre Guild will present a concert reading of How to Succeed Without Really Trying on Sun. May 1 at 7 PM PT at Glendale’s Alex Theatre, directed by Yvette Lawrence, with music direction by Dan Redfeld, and choreography by Cheryl Baxter.
Travis Leland (Finch), Chelsea Morgan Stock (Rosemary), Thomas Ashworth (Biggley), Joshua Finkle (Frump), Melissa Fahn (Hedy), Katie DeShan (Smitty), James Gleason (Twimble / Womper), Todd Gadiusek (Gatch), Bryan Chesters (Bratt), Kim Yarbrough (Miss Jones), Jennifer Bennett (Miss Krumholz), and Susan Edwards Marting (Voice of the Book, with Nancy Lam, Sharon Logan, Kevin Matsumoto, Mark Reis, Brent Schindele, and Paul Wong.
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Bedlam has announced casting for its Do More: New Plays series, which will run Apr. 29 – May 1 at the Connelly Theater.
Sparks Fly Upward (Apr. 29 at 7 PM ET), by Eleanor Burgess, directed by Zachary Elkind, featuring Gregg Mozgala, Jordan Boatman, Evelyn Spahr, and Leland Fowler.
The Good John Proctor (Apr. 30 at 3 PM ET), by Talene Monahon, directed by Cristina Angeles, featuring Midori Francis, Susannah Perkins, and Tavi Gevinson.
Mother Says She’s Shocked (Apr. 30 at 7 PM ET), by Emily Breeze, directed by Katherine Wilkinson, featuring Violeta Picayo, Zo Tipp, Masha Breeze, Danielly Purdy, Zoe Goslin, Donnie Cianciotto, Nora Kaye, Anik Zarkos, and Renelle Wilson.
love i awethu further (May 1 at 3 PM ET) by a.k. payne, directed by Jacob Basri, featuring Abigail C. Onwunali, Tavia Elise Hunt, Whitney Andrews, Janiah Francois, Maggie McCaffrey, Tyler Cruz, Jasminn Johnson, and N’yomi Stewart.
Dennis (May 1 at 7 PM ET), written & directed by Zack Fine, featuring Steve Epp, Richard Thierrot, Luis Quintero, Luis Moreno, Merritt Janson, Leland Fowler, and Andy Grotelueschen.
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Richard Hester’s “Hold, Please: Stage Managing A Pandemic” is now available in Paperback, Kindle, and on Audible Audiobook here.
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Ariana DeBose will executive produce & star in Jen Rivas-DeLoose’s “Two and Only.” Timeline, casting, and additional information TBA.
A bisexual, Latinx twist on 1997’s “My Best Friend’s Wedding.”
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Sondheim Unplugged will take place Sun. Apr. 24 at 7 PM ET at NYC’s 54 Below, with music direction by Joseph Goodrich.
Lorna Dallas, Ramona Mallory, Sally Mayes, and Sarah Rice.
John Treacy Eagan, Aaron Ramey, Brian Charles Rooney, Lucia Spina, and Donna Vivino.
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Dave Harris’ Tambo & Bones will run May 1-29 (opening May 8) at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, directed by Taylor Reynolds.
W. Tré Davis (Tambo), Tyler Fauntleroy (Bones), Tim Kopacz (X1), and Alexander Neher (X2).
A rags-to-riches hip-hop odyssey, Tambo and Bones are trapped in a minstrel show. It’s mad hard to feel like a real person when you’re trapped in a minstrel show. Their escape plan: get our, get bank, get even.
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Jeremy Jordan in concert will take place Sat. May 14 at 7 PM ET at Palmetto, GA’s Art Farm at Serenbe.
Jordan will perform songs that defined his rise from regional theatre in in Connecticut to the Broadway stage and the big screen.
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Boston’s Lyric Stage has announced its 2022-23 season:
Fabulation or, The Re-education of Undine (Sept. 16 – Oct. 9), by Lynn Nottage, directed by Dawn M. Simmons. From the penthouse to the mom’s house. A rags-to-riches story asking if you can ever really go home again.
The Play That Goes Wrong (Nov. 11 – Dec. 4), directed by Fred Sullivan Jr.
Preludes (Jan. 6-19, 2023), by Dave Malloy, directed by Courtney O’Connor, with music direction by Dan Rodriguez. A musical fantasia, which unfolds in the hypnotized mind of composer and virtuoso pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff as he attempts to overcome his writer’s block following a disastrous premiere of his Symphony No. 1 in D minor.
The Great Leap (Feb. 24 – Mar. 29), by Lauren Yee. Every game is a second chance.
Sister Act (Apr. 7-30), directed by Leigh Barrett.
Rooted (June 2-25), by Deborah Zoe Laufer, directed by Courtney O’Connor. When you find yourself up a tree, something is bound to take root.
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SpeakEasy Stage will present Matthew López’s The Inheritance (Parts 1 & 2) to run in rep Apr. 22 – June 11 (opening June 2) at Boston’s Calderwood Pavilion, directed by Paul Daigneault.
Eddie Shields (Young Man 9 / Eric Glass), Jared Reinfeldt (Toby), Benjamín Cardona (Young Man 2 / Jason 1 / Paul / Doorman), Brandon Curry (Young Man 6 / Trisan / Stage Manager), Travis Doughty (Young Man 3 / Young Henry), Kees Hoekendijk (Young Man 5 / Charles Wilcox / Peter West / Toby’s Agent), Ricardo “Ricky” Holguin (Young Man 8 / Jason 2), Greg Maraio (Young Man 7 / Jasper), Paula Plum (Margaret Avery), Jo Michael Rezes (Young Man 4 / Young Walter), Dennis Trainor Jr. (Henry Wilcox), Mishka Yarovoy (Young Man 1 / Adam / Leo), and Mark H. Dold (Morgan / Walther).
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RIP: Jay Binder, Broadway casting director, died peacefully at home on Apr. 15 at the age of 71. A memorial will be announced soon.
Over the course of his four-decade career, Jay cast nearly 100 Broadway productions, including The Lion King, A Gentlemen’s Guide to Love & Murder, Dames At Sea, Nice Work If You Can Get It, Gypsy, The King and I, Beauty and the Beast, Lost in Yonkers, and Jerome Robbins’ Broadway.
In additional, he was fortunate enough to cast every Neil Simon play from 1990 – 2009.
Jay was also one of the founders and a driving force behind the highly-acclaimed Encores! Great American Musicals in Concert series at NY City Center. His work casting this series led to the revival of Chicago.
For television, he cast “I’ll Fly Away” and was the East Coast CD of Warner Brothers Television for five years.
Jay also cast the films “Six by Sondheim,” “Hairspray,” “Dreamgirls,” “Chicago,” and “Nine.”
…..and so much more….
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Afterglow, written & directed by S. Asher Gelman, will begin previews Apr. 28 and open May 5 at Hollywood’s Hudson Theatre.
Noah Bridgestock (Josh), James Hayden Rodriguez (Alex), and Nathan Mohebbi (Darius).
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Bay Street Theatre presents Scooter Pietsch’s Windfall, to run May 31 – June 19 (opening June 4), directed by Jason Alexander.
Spencer Garrett (Glenn Brannon, Ro Boddie (Galvan Kidd), Badia Farha (Kate Rearden), Abigail Isom (Hannah Higley), Talia Thiesfield (Jacqueline Vanderbilt), and Dylan S. Wallach (Chris Hart).
Five office workers bet all their money on a one-billion-dollar lottery to escape their maniacal boss, but find themselves divided over the possibility of winning the jackpot.
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& 
10 Years of 54 Sings! Celebrating Feinstein’s/54 Below’s 10th Anniversary will take place Mon. Apr. 25 at 7 & 9:30 PM ET at 54 Below, directed by Scott Coulter. 
Only the 7 PM performance will be both live & livestreamed. The 9 PM performance is live only.
Lucia Spina and Keli Rabke.
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GRACE NOTES Quiz answers: Star-Crossed Lovers
1-D. Laurence Olivier (1940) – Vivien Leigh
2-A. Orlando Bloom (2013) – Condola Rashad
3-F. John Gielgud (1935) – Peggy Ashcroft
4-J. John Neville (1956) – Claire Bloom
5-C. Douglas Watson (1951) – Olivia de Havilland
6-E. Basil Rathbone (1934) – Katharine Cornell
7-H. John Stride (1960) – Judi Dench
8-I. Leonardo di Caprio (1996 film) – Clare Danes
9-G. Richard Burbage (ca.1595) – Master Robert Goffe
10-B. Henry Irving (1882) – Ellen Terry