Today’s Highlights:
Lincoln Center Theater’s The Skin of Our Teeth, by Thornton Wilder, with additional material by Branden Jacob Jenkins, directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz, featuring James Vincent Meredith (Mr. Antrobus), Roslyn Ruff (Mrs. Antrobus), Paige Gilbert (Gladys Antrobus), Julian Robertson (Henry Antrobus), Gabby Beans (Sabina), and Priscilla Lopez (Fortune Teller), with Eunice Bae, Terry Bell, Ritisha Chakraborty, William DeMeritt, Jeremy Gallardo, Avery Glymph, Donnetta Livinia Grays, Tyrone Mitchell Henderson, Maya Loren Jackson, Anaseini Katoa, Cameron Keitt, Megan Lomax, Kathiamarice Lopez, Lindsay Rico, Julian Rozzell Jr., Julyana Soelistyo, Phillip Taratula, Beau Thom, Alphonso Walker Jr., Adrienne Wells, and Sarin Monae West, opens at Broadway’s Vivian Beaumont Theatre.
The Vagrant Trilogy, by Mon Mansour, directed by Mark Wing-Davey, featuring Bassam Abdelfattah, Tala Ashe, Caitlin Nasema Cassidy, Ramsey Faragallah, Osh Ghanimah, Nadine Malouf, Rudy Roushdi, and Hadi Tabbal, opens at Off-Broadway’s Public Theater.
Keen Company‘s Light Up the Sky benefit reading, directed by Jonathan Silverstein, featuring Arnie Burton, Jasminn Johnson, Lauren Molina, Reg Rogers, Ari’el Stachel, Jason Tam, Tovah Feldshuh, Andrew Dawson, Kelly McAndrew, Matt Servitto, Allan K. Washington, and Kayce Wilson, at 7 PM ET at Off-Broadway’s Theatre Row.
For the First Time in Forever, The New York Pops 39th Birthday Gala concert, honoring Kristen & Bobby Lopez, conducted by Steven Reineke, featuring Samantha Barks, featuring Kristen Bell, Jaime Camil, Nikki M. James, Jennifer Barnhart, Stephanie D’Abruzzo, Santino Fontana, Jordan Gelber, Ann Harada, Mykal Kilgore, Caissie Levy, Rick Lyon, Rob McClure, Patti Murin, John Tartaglia, Andrew Rannells, Betsy Wolfe, Josh Gad, and Maggie Lakis, at 7 PM ET at Carnegie Hall.
54 Sings! Celebrating Feinstein’s/54 Below’s 10th Anniversary concert, directed by Scott Coulter, featuring Farah Alvin, Klea Blackhurst, Carole J. Bufford, Scott Coulter, Natalie Douglas, Aaron David Gleason, Tyce Green, Michael Holland, Larry Lelli, Lorinda Lisitza, Anthony Murphy, Kelli Rabke, Devin L. Roberts, Brian Charles Rooney, Lucia Spina, Michael T, and Justin Talkington, at 7 & 9:30 PM ET at 54 Below 
Only the 7 PM performance is also available for livestreaming.
TheaterWorksUSA‘s 2022 Spring Benefit concert, honoring Bonnie Comley & Stewart F. Lane, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Tom Costanzo, and Schele Williams, featuring Andréa Burns, Miguel Cervantes, Mandy Gonzalez, Jose Llana, Eric Peterson, Kate Wetherhead, Josh Breckenridge, Florencia Cuenca, Eden Espinosa, Jaime Lozano, Erick Petersen, Kate Wetherhead, The Broadway Inspirational Voices, and more, at 6 PM ET at NYC’s The Current at Chelsea Piers.
Karen Akers: Among My Souvenirs concert, with music direction by Alex Rybeck, at 7 PM ET at NYC’s Birdland.
You Send Me: The Songs and Soul of Sam Cooke concert, conceived by & starring Darius De Haas, with with Crystal Monee Hall, Phillip Johnson Richardson, and Avery Smith, closes at NYC’s 92Y.
**********************
Reviews for Funny Girl at Broadway’s August Wilson Theatre:
NY Times (Jesse Green): …As the [original] show developed, coiling itself around Streisand’s offbeat, aggressive, once-in-a-lifetime talent — not to mention her Brice-like nose, which shows up repeatedly in Bob Merrill’s lyrics — the odds of a truly successful successor diminished. And without a stupendous Fanny to thrill and distract, the musical’s manifold faults become painfully evident… To rip the bandage off quickly: Feldstein is not stupendous. She’s good. She’s funny enough in places, and immensely likable always. You root for her to raise the roof, but she only bumps against it a little… Her voice, though solid and sweet and clear, is not well suited to the music, and you feel her working as hard as she can to power through the gap. But working hard at what should be naturally extraordinary is not in Fanny’s DNA… The main elephant is the book, written by Isobel Lennart and fiddled with for this production by Harvey Fierstein, to no avail.
NY Daily News (Chris Jones): …thanks to the wily hand of Harvey Fierstein, the book has been cleverly retrofitted… Watching the performance of this 28-year-old actress actually feels like a living referendum on what now makes a great lead performance in a classic musical comedy. Feldstein struggles mightily with the internal vocal demands of numbers like “Don’t Rain on My Parade” and “People,” her voice coming and going… Fierstein and Mayer have wisely decided to make this more a story of a young woman with no filter, a woman whose musical-comedy talent is lived in every moment of her life and who simply cannot help but be herself… Streisand was merely a more intense form of luminescence. In this case, Feldstein’s appearance does demonstrably contrast sharply with the ensemble that surrounds her, which the show uses in deft ways to build up this message of Fanny Brice as an everywoman…
Broadway News (Naveen Kumar): …it’s no exaggeration to say that a star is being born at the August Wilson Theatre, where Beanie Feldstein toplines a winning revival with her own distinct cache of wit and charisma… Feldstein doesn’t allow herself to be overshadowed by the role’s legacy, but rather pratfalls into the spotlight to make it her own… a relentlessly appealing Ramin Karimloo… Feldstein is a dynamite comedian, nimble and curious and varied in her strategies to get the laugh… her voice has the power, beauty, and bravado… Karimloo’s Nick is suave in a guileless way that makes it tempting to believe Fanny may have actually found a good guy. The red flags are all there… but recede beneath the dreamy haze of Karimloo’s charm… The book revision from Harvey Fierstein… adds dimension and goes for more direct yuks, with a Fanny who’s more headstrong but still hopelessly romantic.
Hollywood Reporter (David Rooney): …a perky and appealing Beanie Feldstein… she has a lovely, light singing voice in a part that often calls for big-belt power, and she reads girlish, never quite selling the consuming hunger that propels Fanny to stardom… Feldstein leans hard on the comedy with enormous charm, but she struggles to locate the raw vulnerability of Fanny in later years, as her marriage to inveterate gambler Nick Arnstein (Ramin Karimloo) falls apart… Neither director Michael Mayer nor script doctor Harvey Fierstein has solved the problems of the creaky book… The show feels patchy and episodic and it needs a knockout, roof-raising lead to paper over the cracks… at close to three hours, this sluggish production needs no padding, even if it improves on the more skeletal staging that Mayer and Fierstein test-drove in London…
**********************
GRACE NOTES Quiz: Directed by….by Jim Bernhard
Name the original Broadway director of each of these shows by Rodgers and Hammerstein:
1. Oklahoma! (1943)…James Hammerstein…Agnes de Mille…Rouben Mamoulian…Moss Hart
2. Carousel (1945)…Rouben Mamoulian…George Abbott…Oscar Hammerstein II…George S. Kaufman
3. Allegro (1947)…Elia Kazan…Rouben Mamoullian… Agnes de Mille….Tyrone Guthrie
4. South Pacific(1949)…Joshua Logan…Harold Prince…Howard Lindsay…Michael Kidd
5. The King and I(1951)….Yul Brynner…Richard Rodgers…Vincente Minnelli… John Van Druten
6. Me and Juliet (1953)…Hassard Short…George Abbott…Alfred Lunt…Abe Burrows
7. Pipe Dream (1955)…Eva Le Gallienne…Jerome Robbins… George Balanchine…Harold Clurman
8. Flower Drum Song (1958)…Gower Champion…Bob Fosse…Gene Kelly…Fred Astaire
9. The Sound of Music (1959)…Vincent J. Donehue…Mike Nichols…Christopher Plummer…George Spelvin
10. Cinderella (2013)…Michael Bennett…Susan Stroman…Twyla Tharp…Mark Brokaw
Scroll down for the answers…
**********************
Due to COVID delays, nominations for the 2022 Tony Awards will now be announced May 9.
The awards ceremony will remain, as scheduled, on June 12.
**********************
Roundabout Theatre has announced its updated Off Broadway 2022-23 season:
You Will Get Sick (Fall 2022), world premiere by Noah Diaz. 
A young man tries to handle a life-changing diagnosis, as he goes on a journey with an older woman who helps him break the news to his love ones.
the bandaged place (Fall 2022), world premiere by Harrison David Rivers, directed by David Mendizábal. The story of a talented dancer struggling to heal after an assault to his journey to reconcile with his family.
The Wanderers (Winter 2023), by Anna Ziegler, directed by Barry Edelstein. The play delves into marriage through newlyweds Esther and Schmuli, who are Orthodox Jes, and Abe, a married, Secular Jew whose marriage is challenged by and out-of-the-blue email from a movie star.
Primary Trust (Winter 2023), world premiere by Eboni Boothe, directed by Knud Adams. The play explores the journey of Kenneth, a 36-year-old bookstore worker who must face the world he as avoided when he is laid off.
Covenant (Winter 2023), by York Walker. The story of a struggling musician as he returns home to Georgia, which brings folklore, a deal with the devil, and an exploration of the line between rumor and truth into contention against the backdrop of a small town.
**********************
Hello, Dolly will run May 13-28 at Salt Lake City’s Pioneer Theatre, directed & choreographed by Karen Azenberg, with music direction by Phil Reno.
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.
**********************
Off-Broadway’s Jersey Boys, directed by Des McAnuff, will close May 22 at New World Stages, which recently celebrated its 1,000th performance.
Jonathan Cable (Nick Massi), Aaron DeJesus (Frankie Valli), CJ Pawlikowski (Bob Gaudio), and Johne Rochette (Tommy DeVito), with Dianna Marie Barger, Tristen Buettel, Alex Dorf, Andrew Frace, John Gardiner, Rory Max Kaplan, Joey Lavarco, Austin Owen, Michelle Rombola, Paul Sabala, and Kit Treece.
**********************
Chicago Shakespeare Theatre has announced its 2022-23 season:
The Notebook (Sept. 6 – Oc.t 16), world premiere by Bekah Brunstetter & Ingrid Michaelson, directed by Michael Greiff & Schele Williams.
Measure for Measure (Oct. 21 – Nov. 27), directed by Henry Godinez.
Wuthering Heights (Jan. 26 – Feb. 19), ), reimagined by Emma Rice.
The Comedy of Errors (Mar. 10 – Apr. 16), directed by Barbara Gaines.
One more production TBA…
**********************
Jeff Harner – Because of You: Fifties Gold will take place Sun. May 8 at 7 PM CT at Chicago’s Davenport’s Piano Bar & Cabaret.
**********************
3-D Theatricals‘ Newsies will run May 13-29 (opening May 14) at CA’s Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, directed by T.J. Dawson, with choreography by Chaz Wolcott, and music direction by Julie Lamoureux.
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.
**********************
IAMA Theatre Company presents the world premiere Nina Braddock’s Untitled Baby Play will run May 26 – June 27 at the Atwater Village Theatre, directed by Katie Lindsay.
Sonal Shah (Penny), Laily Ayad (Meredith), Sarah Utterback (Eden), Courtney Sauls (Gillian), Anna Rose Hopkins (Natalia), and Jenny Soo (Clara).
Libby is having a baby, and a group of friend is planning her shower over email. What starts out as a comedy of manners for the digital age deepens as her longtime friends from childhood and college deal with cyber miscommunications and email chain snubs, even as they face their own existential angst surrounding the “baby question.”
**********************
Workshop readings of Private Gomer Jones, written & directed by Marshall Pailet, will take place today in NYC, with choreography by Misha Shields, and music direction by Madeline Benson.
Ashley Pérez Flanagan, Henry Walter Greenberg, Pomme Koch and Sarah Stiles, and will feature Christina Marie Cogswell, Laura Dadap, David Aron Damane, Brandon Espinoza, Dickie Hearts, Sarah Killough, Jared Loftin, and Cash Maciel.
A young WWI soldier has suffered profound hearing loss. Hiding his deafness, Gomer displays remarkable skill as a sniper – a skill that carries him from his home in Wales to the Western front. As he bonds with the colorful characters in his unit, he must face the brutality of war, and wrestle with the nature of violence.
**********************
GRACE NOTES Quiz answers: Directed by….
- Oklahoma! – Rouben Mamoulian
- Carousel – Rouben Mamoulian
- Allegro –Agnes de Mille
- South Pacific –Joshua Logan
- The King and I– John Van Druten
- Me and Juliet – George Abbott
- Pipe Dream– Harold Clurman
- Flower Drum Song –Gene Kelly
- The Sound of Music –Vincent J. Donehue
- Cinderella –Mark Brokaw