Today’s Highlights:
Millennials Are Killing Musicals developmental production, by Nico Juber, directed by Ciara Renée, featuring Max Crumm (Nate/Atlas), Tiffany Engen (Jake’s Mom), Jakeim Hart (Dylan), Diana Huey (Katrina), Sheri Sanders (Nana Marie), Jae W.B. (Luna), and Brinie Wallace (Pacifica), with Jessie Alagna and Kathel Griffin, opens at Off-Broadway’s Theatre 71 (152 W. 71st St.)
Amas Musical Theatre‘s 54th Anniversary Gala Benefit Concert: Oh Henry, the music of Henry Krieger, directed by Bill Russell, featuring Erin Davie, Bobby Daye, Alexaner Bello, Dewitt Fleming Jr., Robert Joy, Kelvin Moon Loh, Marcy Harriell, Javier Ignacio, Jeff McCarthy, Christianne Noll, Emily Padgett, Neptune, David St. Louis, Lillias White, and Sally Wilfert, at 6 PM at Off-Broadway’s Theatre 555.
Dancers Over 40 Presents: We Think You’re Just Sensational, DAME-Angela! The Ensemble Salutes Angela Lansbury, A Panel and Performance event, hosted by Kurt Peterson, featuring performances by Sarah Rice, Kurt Peterson, and Karen Murphy, and a discussion with Sheridan Beecher, Anthony Marciona, Richard Sabellico, Sarah Rice, Karen Murphy, Pamela Hall, Jane Coleman, Rex Reed, Sondra Lee, Josh Ellis, Clark Bason, Charles Kirsch, Caroline Kirsch, Mary Zahn, Larry Fuller, and Diana Baffa-Brill, at 8 PM at Off-Broadway’s Actors’ Temple Theatre.
Classics Gone Mad benefit, hosted by Rosé, featuring Jay Armstrong Johnson, Frank DiLella, Linedy Genao, Julie Halston, Daniel K. Isaac, Nikki M. James, Celia Keenan-Bolger, and Will Roland, at 7 PM at Off-Broadway’s Classic Stage Company. 
Each performer will put a spin on some of Shakespeare’s most famous words with the audience helping to decide the direction of the script in night that is part-show and part-party.
Steve Ross: They All Fall in Love concert, at 7 PM at NYC’s Birdland.
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GRACE NOTES Quiz: The Rains Came by Jim Bernhard
Match these songs about rain with the musicals in which they appear:
| 1. Come Rain or Come Shine | A. My Fair Lady |
| 2. Don’t Rain on My Parade | B. 110 in the Shade |
| 3. It’s Raining on Prom Night | C. Follies |
| 4. Rain | D. Beautiful: the Carol King Musical |
| 5. Rain on the Roof | E. St. Louis Woman |
| 6. Raining in My Heart | F. Big River |
| 7. River in the Rain | G. Funny Girl |
| 8. The Rain in Spain | H. Once On This Island |
| 9. Walking in the Rain | I. Dames at Sea |
| 10. The Rain Song | J. Grease |
Scroll down for the answers…
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Nominations for the 12th Annual Off-Broadway Alliance Awards for the 2022-23 season have been announced. Click here for the complete list.
Winners in all categories will be announced on Wed. May 31, and the awards ceremony will take place on Tues. June 20 at 2 PM at Sardi’s.
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Barry Manilow & Bruce Sussman’s Harmony will begin previews Oct. 18 and open Nov. 13 at the Barrymore Theatre, directed & choreographed by Warren Carlyle.
Chip Zien (Rabbi), Sean Bell, Danny Kornfeld, Zal Owen, Eric Peters, Blake Roman, Steven Telsey, and more TBA.
The tale of the most successful entertainers you’ve never heard of. . . until now. In the 1920s and 30s, The Comedian Harmonists sold millions of records, made dozens of films, and sold-out the biggest theaters around the world. Their heavenly harmonies and musical comedy antics catapulted these six talented young men from singing in the subway tunnels of Berlin to international superstardom.
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New York City Opera (link TBA) will bring Ricky Ian Gordon & Michael Korie’s The Garden of the Finzi-Continis to Florence, Italy June 29 & 30 for two exclusive performances of selected scenes at the historic Villa La Pietra, with music direction by Dmitry Glivinskiy
Rachel Blaustein (Micòl Finzi-Contini), Won Whi Choi (Giorgio) Brian James Myer (Albert Finzi-Contini), and Jason Detwiler (Papà).
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Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, newly adapted by Amy Herzog, will premiere on Broadway in early 2024, with dates and a theater TBA, directed by Sam Gold.
Jeremy Strong (Doctor Thomas Stockmann) and more TBA.
Set in a small Norwegian spa town, the play is about Doctor Thomas Stockmann, a man of principles who discovers that the spa’s water is poisoned. He naively expects the mayor to greet the truth with gratitude, but the town’s political machine will brook no threat to its prosperity, even if it means letting thousands of people be sickened. The doctor becomes a whistleblower, and the public campaign against him mounts, setting up a moral battle between a lone truth teller and a society desperate for self-preservation.
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MasterVoices has announced its 2023-24 season, directed & conducted by Ted Sperling, with choreography by Doug Varone. Casting TBA.
The Frogs (Nov. 4 at 2 & 7 PM) at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theatre, revised by Nathan Lane. Originally written to be performed in a swimming pool at Yale, the work will be produced here in its revised iteration. Te piece follows Dionysos and his servant Xanthias as they travel to Hades and back to rescue one of the great artists to save mankind.
To My Arms / Restore (Mar. 22-23, 2024), a co-presentation with Doug Varone and Dancers performed to Composer Nico Bentley’s Handel Remixed, set to a suite of exquisite operatic arias by Handel and his choral work Dixit Dominus.
The Grapes of Wrath (Apr. 17 at Carnegie Hall), by Rickey Ian Gordon & Michael Korie, featuring the ensemble.
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Complete casting has been announced for Stefano Massini’s The Lehman Trilogy, adapted by Ben Power, to run June 13 – July 16 at Boston’s Huntington Theatre, directed by Carey Perfloff.
Firdous Bamji (Mayer Lehman), Joshua David Robinson (Emanuel Lehman), Steven Skybell (Henry Lehman), and Jo LaRocca (Musician), with Kadahj Bennett, Matthew Bretschneider, Todd Brunel, and Scott Wentworth.
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Off-Broadway’s New York Theatre Workshop has announced its 2023-24 season:
The Refuge Plays (Fall), world premiere by Nathan Alan Davis, directed by Patricia McGregor. An intergenerational saga that follows a single Black family over 70 years.
Merry Me (Fall), world premiere by Hansol Jung, directed by Leigh Silverman. An intoxicating queer cocktail of restoration comedy and the Greeks, served with a heavy garnish of ridiculous. On an island not far away from the vulnerable coasts of the enemy state, a mysterious blackout has left the Navy restless and itching for action. Lieutenant Shane Horne has occupied her time satisfying the libidinous needs of all the women on the base—including the jealous general’s wife. But her own merries will not… come. Meanwhile a famed Angel re-descends to amend her previous prophesy, sending the Navy’s psychiatrist on an epic quest to save humanity. Will the general discover the affair? Will the earth be saved? Will they ever be merry enough?
I Love you so much I could Die (Winter 2024), by Mona Pirnot, directed by Lucas Hnath. Part concert, part play, intricate and intimate, wry and tender, elemental and wholly unforgettable with monologues performed by a computer and songs performed by the playwright.
Here There are Blueberries (Spring 2024), by Moisés Kaufman & Amanda Gronich, directed by Kaufman. In 2007, a mysterious album featuring Nazi-era photographs arrived at the desk of a U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum archivist. As curators unraveled the shocking truth behind the images, the album soon made headlines and ignited a debate that reverberated far beyond the museum walls. Based on real events, the play tells the story of these historical photographs—what they reveal about the perpetrators of the Holocaust, and our own humanity.
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Initial casting has been announced for Chess, to run July 5-11 at the St. Louis Muny, directed & choreographed by Josh Rhodes, with music direction by Jason DeBord.
Jessica Vosk (Florence Vassy), Jarrod Spector (Frederick Trumper), John Riddle (Anatoly Sergievsky), Rodney Hicks (Walter de Courcey), Tally Sessions (Alexander Molokov), Phillip Johnson Richardson (Arbiter), and Taylor Louderman (Svetlana Sergievkaya), with more TBA.
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Red Bull Theater will present a benefit reading of Nathan Winkelstein’s Medea: Re-versed for one performance only on Sun. May 21 at 7:30 PM at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, directed by Winkelstein.
Jason Bowen, Mark Martin, Luis Quintero, David Ryan Smith, Debbie Tjong, Skyler Volpe, and Sarin Monae West.
An ice-cold, high-octane adaptation of Euripides’ play written in battle rap verse, this brand new hip-hop version of Medea sheds contemporary light on the classic tragedy. This story reignites the sacred rage of our ancestors and explores the destruction that comes when a society suppresses and silences women.
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Video: Dame Edna performs “Losing My Mind”
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GRACE NOTES Quiz answers: The Rains Came
1-E. Come Rain or Come Shine – St. Louis Woman
2-G. Don’t Rain on My Parade – Funny Girl
3-J. It’s Raining on Prom Night – Grease
4-H. Rain – Once On This Island
5-C. Rain on the Roof – Follies
6-I. Raining in My Heart – Dames At Sea
7-F. River in the Rain – Big River
8-A. The Rain in Spain – My Fair Lady
9-D. Walking in the Rain – Beautiful: the Carol King Musical
10-B. The Rain Song – 110 in the Shade