Today’s Highlights:
Lincoln Center Theater‘s The Gardens of Anuncia, by Michael John LaChiusa, directed & choreographed by Graciela Daniele, featuring Priscilla Lopez (Anuncia), Enrique Acevedo, Andréa Burns, Eden Espinosa, Tally Sessions, Mary Testa, and Kalyn West, opens at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater.
National Yiddish Theatre Folskbiene‘s Amid Falling Walls, by Zalmen Mlotek & Ayram Mlotek, directed by Motl Didner, featuring Steven Skybell, Abby Goldfarb, Avram Mlotek, Daniella Rabbani, John Reed, Eli Mayer, Yael Eden Chanukov, Jacob Ben-Shmuel, and Dani Apple, opens at Off-Broadway’s Museum of Jewish Heritage.
Billie the Kid semi-staged performance, by Conway McDermott & Gez Mercer, directed by Kerry Kyriacos Michael, featuring Natasha J Barnes, Kymberley Cochrane, Harvey Ebbage, Ki Griffin, Beth Hinton-Lever, Tony Jayawardena, Rob Kershaw, Ryan Kopel, Phoebe-Loveday Raymond, Aharon Rayner, Olivia Saunders, Jodie Steele, Yuki Sutton, Hannah Victoria, and Yasmin Wilde Natasha Barnes, at 7:30 PM at London’s Vaudeville Theatre (also Nov. 27).
Fifty Key Stage Musicals Concert! Part 5, both live & livestreamed, featuring Carole Demás, Willy Falk, Sandy Faison, Jenn Gambatese, Eric Michael Gillett, Mark Jacoby, Jayson Kerr, Christiane Noll, Lee roy Reams, Elena Shaddow, Jane Summerhays, and F. Antonio Urrutia III, at 7 PM at NYC’s 54 Below.
Michael Orland and Friends open mic night concert, hosted by Orland & Marissa Jaret Winokur, at 7 PM at Las Vegas’ Smith Center.
Karen Akers: Water Under the Bridge concert, at 7 PM at NYC’s Birdland.
Antaeus Theatre Company‘s SHE, world premiere by Marlow Wyatt, directed by Andi Chapman, featuring Camille Ariana Spirlin (Sojourner Freeman), Lorenz Arnell (Davie Mansaw), Karen Malina White (Bernice), John Chaffin (Mr. Lonnie), Veronica Thompson (Miss Jane), and Gerard Joseph (Othalee), closes at Glendale’s Kiki & David Gindler Performing Arts Center.
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GRACE NOTES Quiz: Stars of Stratford-upon-Avon by Jim Bernhard:
The 1959-61 resident company at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, included the following actors. Match them with the roles they played:
| 1. Charles Laughton | A. Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream |
| 2. Laurence Olivier | B. Shylock in The Merchant of Venice |
| 3. Paul Robeson | C. The Duchess in the Duchess of Malfi |
| 4. Christopher Plummer | D. Lear in King Lear |
| 5. Peter O’Toole | E. An Amazon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream |
| 6. Peggy Ashcroft | F. Volumnia in Coriolanus |
| 7. Albert Finney | G. Othello in Othello |
| 8. Vanessa Redgrave | H. Coriolanus in Coriolanus |
| 9. Diana Rigg | I. Edgar in King Lear |
| 10. Edith Evans | J. Richard in Richard III |
Scroll down for the answers…
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Reviews for Hell’s Kitchen at Off-Broadway’s Public Theater:
NY Times (Jesse Green): …it’s not really surprising that an enormously ambitious new musical like Hell’s Kitchen, the semi-autobiographical jukebox built on the life and catalog of Alicia Keys, disappoints after the mid-show break, tumbling directly into the potholes it spent its first half so smartly avoiding. What’s surprising in this promising show, which opened at the Public Theater on Sunday with the obvious intention of moving to Broadway, is how thrilling it is until then… But Keys, working with the playwright Kristoffer Diaz and the director Michael Greif, steps around most of those pitfalls in the show’s first hour, setting up the story with notable verve and efficiency… the first act does the work of ambitious first acts everywhere: expanding the show’s horizon to the larger world in which the action takes place… By keeping a very narrow focus on just a few weeks in Ali’s life, “Hell’s Kitchen” chooses the possibility of dramatic depth over career highlights…
New York Post (Johnny Oleksinski): To watch Hell’s Kitchen…is to experience euphoria followed by enormous frustration over and over again… How can we not feel elated being there for the star-is-born moment of actress Maleah Joi Moon, who makes an earth-shaking professional debut as 17-year-old Ali, a fictional stand-in for Keys? Moon’s sheer presence is a wow and her voice is sublime, as is that of everybody in the megawatt cast… It’s when the singing stops that this show with its sights set on Broadway is no longer on fire… directed with 1990s edge by Michael Greif, is set during a few crucial weeks of Keys’ teen years living in the title Manhattan nabe where she caught the music bug, developed a crush on a (uncomfortably older) boy and fought with her hardworking mother, here called Jersey (Shoshana Bean)….The key here was to make Ali’s personal triumphs and tragedies feel as gargantuan to us as they do to her… Alas, they don’t… The sedate plot amounts to a wisp of a romance with an underdeveloped house painter named Knuck (Chris Lee) and a few piano lessons. But, oh, the songs…The heart of “Hell’s Kitchen” is Kecia Lewis as Ali’s stern piano teacher Miss Liza Jane, who shatters us at the end of Act 1 with “Perfect Way To Die.” And the throbbing pulse is the fierce ensemble, who are full of fire when they dance Camille A. Brown’s thrilling choreography…
Theatermania (Zachary Stewart): …it is easily the best new musical at the Public since Hamilton… Diaz’s book, under the sensitive direction of Michael Greif, unfolds like a particularly engaging memoir — voicy, candid, and clear in its perspective…. The songs, drawn from the Keys catalogue, serve particularly well to convey Ali’s wonder and exuberance, even as Diaz’s book interjects with quibbles… Everyone in the cast delivers knockout interpretations of this music: Lewis has a powerful alto that we feel in our chests, and by the time she finishes an emotional rendition of “Perfect Way to Die,” we also feel a catch in our throats. Bean absolutely wails in “Pawn It All,” while Dixon’s voice on “Not Even the King” is the aural equivalent of an inviting smile from a handsome stranger on a busy city street. Their “Fallin’” is among the sexiest and best-acted musical theater duets I’ve ever witnessed…
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Reviews for Scene Partners at Off-Broadway’s Vineyard Theatre:
NY Times (Jesse Green): “Acting Like a Maniac” is not your typical acting class: You have to sign a personal injury waiver to join it. But then Meryl Kowalski, with that double whammy of a theatrical name, isn’t your typical student… with the transcendent Dianne Wiest as Meryl… Twee, snarky, meta, manic, maddening and yet eventually poignant, the play is a moving target, its tone as hard to pin down as its facts… it’s often impossible to tell whether what we’re watching is Meryl’s life, a film about her life, a dream about the film, a hallucination of the dream, or some other nesting doll of narration… If the authorial bait-and-switch too often feels like throat-clearing, it does serve a purpose, building around the story a border that is also a blur… part of a genre you might call the absurd picaresque… Yet the process of making the banal fascinating is, it seems, Caswell’s point…
Theatermania (Zachary Stewart): …I wasn’t equally compelled by every underdeveloped idea and dramatic non sequitur in this world premiere… this play about a 75-year-old woman named Meryl Kowalski (Dianne Wiest) who moves to Hollywood in 1985 to pursue stardom. Characters disappear and reappear (sometimes in the same body, sometimes not), accents change without explanation, and all rules of time and physical space are malleable. But there is no underlying tension that forces you to sit up and pay attention — no feeling you’re about to grasp a great mystery just before it slips through your fingers. It’s less Mulholland Drive than it is politely listening to someone recount a strange dream and silently wondering when it will end…
Theatrely (Juan A, Ramirez): Earlier this year, John J. Caswell, Jr.’s excellent Wet Brain continued his fascination with inventively staged plays which use paranormal elements… to explore family trauma, addiction, and shaky personal narratives. His latest, Scene Partners, starring a courageous Dianne Wiest at the Vineyard Theatre, aims to destabilize these themes by doubling down on the pop culture connections and structural transgressions… Directed by Rachel Chavkin, it’s a daring, very watchable effort that demands attention be paid to Caswell’s work, even if this current presentation misses the mark… But while Wiest gives it her all, her character, as well as the play’s themes, call for serious drama and are answered with camp melodrama…
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Laguna Playhouse has announced upcoming holiday events:
The Skivvies – Best in Snow ( Dec. 11-12 at 7:30 PM), featuring Lauren Molina & Nick Cearley, along with special guests Eric Altemus, Scott Barnhardt, Emerson Collins, Lauren Elder, Jared Gertner, Emma Hunton, Blake McIver, Veltria Roman, and Kirsten Vangsness.
Sister’s Christmas Catechism (Dec. 20-21 at 7:30 PM), with a cast TBA. 
Retelling the story of the nativity, as only Sister can, this hilarious holiday production is bound to become a yearly classic. Employing her own scientific tools, assisted by a local choir as well as a gaggle of audience members, Sister creates a living nativity unlike any you’ve ever seen.
Listen to the Seventies (Dec. 31 at 1 PM), featuring Jason Feddy & Molly Bergman..
A Groovy New Year’s Eve! (Dec. 31 at 7 PM), starring Rita Rudner.
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Elton John, Jake Shears & James Graham’s Tammy Faye will open on Broadway during the 2024-25 season, directed by Rupert Goold, with choreography by Lynn Page. Click here for the show’s website.
Exact dates, casting, and additional information TBA.
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All The Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain, written & performed by Patrick Page, will now run through Feb. 25, 2024 at Off-Broadway’s DR2 Theatre.
The piece turns Page’ attention to the twisted motivation and hidden humanity at the heart of Shakespeare’s greatest villains. Moving swiftly through the Shakespeare canon, Page illuminates the playwright’s ever-evolving conception of evil by delving into more than a dozen of his most wicked creations. Thrilling, biting, hilarious, and enlightening, what Page delivers is a masterclass on the most terrifying subject of them all: human nature.
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The world premiere of David Rossmer & Dan Lipton’s The Perfect Mate will run Feb. 2 – Mar. 17, 2024 at Pittsburg CLO, directed by Carolyn Cantor, with choreography by Whitney G-Bowley, and music direction by Greg Anthony Rassen.
TBA.
What if when you’re ready for true love you could design your perfect mate? Joan Sweete has always been drawn to the old-fashioned idea of true love with one person, which puts her at odds with the wild west of romance in 2063. When she’s chosen to try out the Perfect Mate, an emotionally savvy humanoid partner, she thinks she has found her match – but it turns out perfection isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
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Sam Clark, Gus Mayopoulos & Dylan MarcAurele’s Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins: An Unauthorized Parody Musical will take place Sun. Dec. 10 at 5 PM at NYC’s Caveat.
Olivia Miller, Zofia Weretka, Mayopoulos, and Sam Clark.
An hilarious and irreverent new musical about a centuries-old Hanukkah folktale, and a decades-old beloved children’s book written by an acclaimed author who we hope won’t sue us.
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Abingdon Theatre Company‘s ‘Til Death, currently in previews, will open Nov. 30 and close Dec. 23 at Theatre Row, directed by Chad Austin.
Judy Kaye, Robert Cuccioli, Michael Lee Brown, Whitney Morse, Dominck LaRuffa Jr., and Amy Hargreaves.
A story of personal loss centering a mother’s choice that uncovers some hidden family secrets.
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D.C. Anderson will perform his new album, “All Is Calm, All is Bright” on Mon. Dec. 11 at 7 PM at Off-Broadway’s Urban Stages, as part of the Winter Rhythms concert.
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The world premiere of Jen Silverman, Dane Laffrey & Mike Donahue’s Highway Patrol will run Jan. 20 – Feb. 18, 2024 at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, directed by Donahue.
Dana Delany (Dana), Don-Marie Jones (Andi), and Thomas Murphy Molony (Cam).
TIMESTAMP: October, 2012: “@DanaDelany, Are you married? If not, I’d marry you.” When Cam, a 13-year-old fan in a desperate medical situation captures actress Dana Delany’s attention on Twitter, she’s quickly swept into an intense, around-the-clock online friendship. But when Cam starts receiving messages from beyond, Dana is thrust into a world where unexpected revelations raise the question of how far we go to love and be loved.
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GRACE NOTES Quiz answers: Stars of Stratford-upon-Avon
1-D. Charles Laughton – Lear in King Lear
2-H. Laurence Olivier – Coriolanus in Coriolanus
3-G. Paul Robeson – Othello in Othello
4-J. Christopher Plummer – Richard in Richard III
5-B. Peter O’Toole – Shylock in The Merchant of Venice
6-C. Peggy Ashcroft – The Duchess in The Duchess of Malfi
7-I. Albert Finney – Edgar in King Lear
8-A. Vanessa Redgrave – Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
9-E. Diana Rigg – An Amazon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
10-F. Edith Evans – Volumnia in Coriolanus