Today’s Highlights:
Unfriend, by Steven Moffat & Mark Gatiss directed by Gatiss, featuring Lee Mack (Peter), Sarah Alexander (Debbie), Frances Barber (Elsa Jean Krakowski), Nick Sampson (Neighbor), Muzz Khan (PC Junkin), Maddie Holliday (Rosie), and Jem Matthews (Alex), with Christopher Jordan, Cathy Walker, Charlie Richards, and Poppy Shepherd, re-opens at London’s Wyndhams Theatre.
Now Comes The Fun Part (The How-the-F*-Did-I-Get-This-Old-Musical) FREE readings, by Lynne Halliday, James Hindman, Jeffrey Lodin & Mark Waldrop, directed by Waldrop, featuring Klea Blackhurst, George Dvorsky, Rebecca Eichenberger, and Eddie Korbich, at 3 & 6:30 PM at Off-Broadway’s Pearl Studios. 
: boxoffice@yorktheatre.org
Red Bull Theater‘s The Revenge reading (online & in-person), by Edward Young, directed by Nathan Winkelstein, featuring Christian Coulson, Merritt Janson, Peter Macon, Ismenia Mendes, Matthew Rauch, and Alexandra Silber, at 7:30 PM at Off-Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons.
Claybourne Elder: If the Stars Were Mine concert, at 7:30 & 9:30 PM at DC’s Signature Theatre.
Women on Fire, written & directed by Chris Henry, featuring Gina Naomi Baez, Kathleen Chalfant, Charlotte Cohn, Maddie Corman, Linedy Genao, Julie Halston, Ann Harda, Melissa Leo, Kristolyn Lloyd, Lois Robbins, Dale Soules, Constance Shulman, Lianah Sta. Anna, Mary Testa, Desi Waters, with a dance ensemble of Emily Anne Davis, Kayla Hsu, Madison McLean, and Lily Sledge, closes at Off-Broadway’s Royal Family Performance Arts Space (45 West 46th Street, 3rd Fl.).
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GRACE NOTES Quiz: Fairy Tales by Jim Bernhard
How many of these fairies can you place in the shows in which they appear (or are mentioned)?
| 1. Tinkerbell | A. Shrek the Musical |
| 2. Fairy Goddess | B. A Hero Is Born |
| 3. Good Fairy | C. A Midsummer Night’s Dream |
| 4. Queen of the Fairies | D. Rodger & Hammerstein’s Cinderella |
| 5. Oberon, Titania, Cobweb, Peaseblossom, Moth, Mustardseed | E. Simple Simon |
| 6. Queen Mab | F. Peter Pan |
| 7. Sugar Plum Fairy | G. Pinocchio |
| 8. Marie, the Fairy Godmother | H. Sweet Charity |
| 9. Blue Haired Fairy Queen | I. Romeo and Juliet |
| 10. Blue, Purple, Armored, Rainbow, Silver, White, Bubble, Star, Golden Fairies | J. Iolanthe |
Scroll down for the answers…
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Reviews for Days of Wine and Roses at Broadway’s Studio 54:
New York Times (Laura Collins-Hughes): …What’s astonishing about this show, though — aside from the central performances, which are superb, and Guettel’s anxious, spiky, sumptuous score, which grabs hold of us and doesn’t let go — is the way its devastating chic snuggles right up to catastrophic self-destruction… For all the glossy come-hither of Michael Greif’s tone-perfect production, which opened on Sunday night at Studio 54, not for an instant does it glamorize the boozing itself. And yet we can sense the allure: how alcohol might become the one true thing that matters, smoldering wreckage be damned… ike a jazz opera melded seamlessly with a play. Deeper, wiser and warmer than it was in its premiere at Off Broadway’s Atlantic Theater Company last year, it is no longer so wary of melodrama that it’s afraid of feeling, too. Gone is the emotional aridity that kept the story at a strange remove…
New York Daily News (Chris Jones): … Days of Wine and Roses, explores a more complex dynamic: It’s advertising executive Joe, bereft of his parents and still traumatized by service in Korea, who introduces booze at an office party to Kirsten, the daughter of a dour Norwegian father (Byron Jennings, dour indeed), still mourning his wife… My admiration for Guettel’s talent is so great…so frequent, it almost feels like I should recuse myself… Suffice to say, his compositional gifts in the current Broadway realm are incomparable… That said, having now seen this musical…I think the show needed more songs that offer the kinds of existential inquiry that the subject matter suggests… The twin lead performances are musically exquisite and courageous to boot… Watching O’Hara in particular is to be drawn as ever to her voice but also to watch her explore self-destruction in a way few of her fans ever will have experienced…
Theatermania (David Gordon): …this new musical from The Light in the Piazza scribes Adam Guettel (score) and Craig Lucas (book) is banking on its chief assets — a pair of gut-wrenching performances of a lifetime from stars Kelli O’Hara and Brian d’Arcy James — to make it through the dark days of winter. And they certainly deliver… Lucas charts the couple’s mutual destruction and paints a heartbreaking portrait of how difficult it is to right your own ship… t’s not what I would call a “feel good” musical, but it has become a “feel everything” musical… I still think the book lacks a few additional moments of revelation…
Time Out (Adam Feldman): … the result is ambitious, artful and musically sophisticated… this piece is more intimate and interior in scope, at times nearly claustrophobic… Guettel’s score has the feel of a chamber opera… ambitious, artful and musically sophisticated…. this piece is more intimate and interior in scope, at times nearly claustrophobic… Guettel’s score has the feel of a chamber opera. For moments of drunken euphoria, it dabbles in cocktail jazz: Passages in “Evanesce” sound like vocalese, and in “Are You Blue?” O’Hara scats bebop to herself. But most of it takes an art-song approach, eschewing strong melodies in favor of moment-to-moment expression; some of the lyrics rhyme, some don’t… couldn’t ask for better interpreters than O’Hara and James…
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Pittsburgh CLO has announced its 2024 Summer season. Creative teams and casting TBA.
Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill (May 17 – June 30)
West Side Story (June 11-16)
The Color Purple (June 25-30)
The Music Man (July 9-14)
Young Frankenstein (July 19 – Sept. 1)
Seussical (July 30 – Aug. 4)
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James McDonald, David Voss, Robert Gerlach &Ed Linderman’s Something’s Afoot will run Mar. 1-24 at Seattle’s Fifth Avenue Theatre, directed & choreographed by Bill Berry, with music direction by Beth Grimmett-Tankersley.
Porscha Shaw (Lettie), Brandon O’Neill (Flint), Ashley Lanyon (Hope Langdon), Yusef Seevers (Dr. Grayburn), Adam Standley (Nigel Rancour), Anne Allgood (Lady Grace Manley-Prowe), Allen Fitzpatrick (Colonel Gillweather), Sarah Rudinoff (Miss Tweed), Jonathan Luke Stevens (Geoffrey), and Jason Weitkamp (Clive), with Bianca Raso, Cassi Q Kohl, Karen Skrinde, Harter Clingman, and Jonathon Royse.
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Tom Snow, Dean Pitchford, Kenny Loggins & Walter Bobbie”s Footloose: The Musical will run Mar. 1-17 (opening Mar. 2) at Burbank’s Colony Theatre.
Casting and creative team TBA.
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Steve Ross: Moonlight & Love Songs will take place Mon. Feb. 19 at 7 PM at NYC’s Birdland.
Nina Wachenfeld
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The world premiere of Samuel D. Hunter’s Little Bear Ridge Road will run June 13 – July 21 (opening June 23) at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company, directed by Joe Mantello.
Laurie Metcalf (Sarah), John Drea (James/Kenny), Meighan (Paulette/Vicki), and Micah Stock (Ethan).
The play takes place in the outer limits of rural Idaho. The last two members of the Fernsby family tree, an estranged aunt and nephew, reunite to sort the mess left behind after a troubled father’s passing. As their relationship begins anew. the two reluctant Fernsbys, separated by age and experience, start to understand the joys and perils of letting someone else into your own story.
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The world premiere of Fatherland, written & directed by Steven Sachs, will run Feb. 25 – Mar. 30 at the Fountain Theatre.
Ron Bottitta, Patrick Keleher, Anna Khaja, and Larry Poindexter.
The true story of the eighteen-year-old son who turned in his father to the FBI because of his dad’s role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Fast-moving, powerful, and theatrical, Fatherland erupts verbatim from official court transcripts, case evidence, and public statements.
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Backstage Babble will celebrate “A Week of Wine and Roses,” hosted by Charles Kirsch. All episodes of Backstage Babble can be accessed here.
Craig Lucas (Jan. 30), and Kelly O’Hara (Feb. 2).
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The world premiere of Becoming a Man, written & directed by P. Carl & Diane Paulus, will run Feb. 16 – Mar. 10 (opening Feb. 21) at Cambridge’s A.R.T.
Petey Gibson (Carl), Justiin Davis (Eddie), Elena Hurst (Lynette), Christopher Liam Moore (Carl’s Father), Stacey Raymond (Polly), Susan Rome (Carl’s Mother), and Cody Sloan (Nathan).
For fifty years, P. Carl lived as a girl and then a queer woman, building a career and a loving marriage while waiting to realize himself in full. When he decides to affirm his gender, his transition puts everything—family, career, friendships—at stake.
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Theater Resources will present the next edition of TRU Voices New Plays Reading Series, with each reading followed by a talkback Casting TBA. All readings will be available to stream for a limited time.
1920 (Feb. 11 at 4 PM), by Scott Sublett, directed by Christopher Scott. The night 36-year-old Eleanor Roosevelt confesses her bisexuality to her handsome, still healthy, 37-year-old husband, they teeter on the verge of divorce, but out of their conflict they forge a new kind of marriage – and political alliance. Issues of sexual identity and fluidity are normalized by putting them into the historical context of the most famous “power couple” in American history. Like “Hamilton,” “1920” explores the flawed and fascinating human side of our national heroes.
Rolling with the Punches (Feb. 25 at 4 PM), by Joel S. Bailey, directed by Ben Rauch. Jo, a wheelchair-bound 20-something, lives largely confined to a second story walk-up, but when her mother’s boyfriend moves in, Jo’s life is turned upside-down. Her poor judgment causes a serious accident, and Jo is wrongly placed in the infamous asylum, Dunning State Hospital. Her treatment motivates her to fight for the repeal of Chicago’s archaic ‘Ugly Law’, (deformed and unsightly people must stay out of sight from the public). The law’s repeal in 1974 remains a milestone in the Civil Rights movement for the disabled.
Un Hombre: A Golem Story (Feb. 25 at 4 PM) by Stephen Kaplan, directed by Fara Alvin, featuring Natascia, Tom Jones, and Ben Sadowsky. A modern-day golem story about Rebecca Wolfson, a recently widowed single mother who is struggling to resume her creative life as a sculptor after the untimely death of her husband. She makes a clay man that comes to life to serve as a Bar Mitzvah and Spanish tutor for her 12-year-old son, Josh, who is grappling with his own grief and loss. As mother and son embrace the magic of this seemingly perfect solution to their problems, the clay man begins questioning his own existence and purpose, forcing all three to confront the truths they’ve all been avoiding.
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New York City Opera presents Caruso and His Songs on Wed. Feb. 21 at 7:30 PM at Carnegie Hall.
Mark Milhofer and pianist Marco Scolastra
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42nd Street Moon will present Falsettos Feb. 29 – Mar. 17 at San Francisco’s Gateway Theatre, directed by Dennis Lickteig, with choreography by Leslie Waggoner, and music direction by Dave Dobrusky.
Casting TBA.
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The world premiere of Jon Klein’s Faithless will run Feb. 23 – Apr. 7 (opening Mar. 1) at Burbank’s Victory Theatre Center, directed by Maria Gobetti.
John Idakitis, Jon Sprik, Melissa Ortiz, Joseé Gourdine
In this comedy/drama,Gus, an aging atheist, is recovering from cancer, and is forced to deal with two grown stepchildren: a Presbyterian minister who is suffering from a crisis of faith, and a young woman who seems to have had a glimpse of the afterlife after a head injury. he is also dismayed by his adopted child, a teenager who suddenly decides she’s like to be a nun.
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GRACE NOTES Quiz answers: Fairy Tales by Jim Bernhard
1-F. Tinkerbell – Peter Pan
2-E. Fairy Goddess – Simple Simon
3-H. Good Fairy – Sweet Charity
4-J. Queen of the Fairies – Iolanthe
5-C. Oberon, Titania, Cobweb, Peaseblossom, Moth, Mustardseed – A Midsummer Night’s Dream
6-I. Queen Mab – Romeo and Juliet
7-A. Sugar Plum Fairy – Shrek the Musical
8-D. Marie, the Fairy Godmother – Rodgers &Hammerstein’s Cinderella
9-G. Blue Haired Fairy Queen – Pinocchio
10-B. Blue, Purple, Armored, Rainbow, Silver, White, Bubble, Star, Golden Fairies – A Hero Is Born