GRACE NOTES: Monday, October 3, 2022

Today’s Highlights:

Manhattan Theatre Club‘s Cost of Living, by Martyna Majok, directed by Jo Bonney, featuring Gregg Mozgala, Katy Sullivan, Kara Young, and David Zayas, opens at Broadway’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.

An Evening with Liz Callaway concert opens at Garrison, NY’s Philipstown Depot Theatre.

Almost Famous, by Tom Kitt, directed by Jeremy Herrin, featuring Chris Wook, Anika Larsen, Solea Pfeiffer, Drew Gehling, Rob Colletti, and Casey Likes, with Matt Bittner, Chad Burris, Gerard Canonico, Julia Cassandra, Brandon Contreras, Jakeim Hart, Van Hughes, Jana Djenne Jackson, Katie Ladner, Danny Lindgren, Erica Mansfield, Alisa Melendez, Emily Schultheis, Daniel Sovich, Libby Winters, and Matthew C. Yee, begins previews at Broadway’s Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre.

A Tectonic Cabaret, a benefit for Off-Broadway’s Tectonic Theater, directed by Timothy Koch, hosted by Billy Porter, with special guests Jason Robert Brown, Darren Criss, and Michael Urie, featuring Sasha Velour, Ashley De La Rosa, Hailee Kaleem White, Colin Barkell, Danielle Lee Greaves, Tasha Michelle. Akira Sky, Jordan White, and Benjamin Freemantle, at 7:30 PM at NYC’s Chelsea Factory.

Perfect Life industry reading, by Larry Hochman, Marky Elliot & Laurie Hochman, directed by Stephen Nachamie, with music direction by Bryan Blaskie, featuring Jonathan Mousset, Tess Primack, Harry Patrick Christian, Mia Scarpa, Morgan Smart, and Taylor Simon, at 4:30 PM in NYC. : PerfectLifeMusical@gmail.com

Rockers on Broadway: She Rocks benefit concert, featuring Jarrod Spector, Constantine Maroulis, Ari Groover, Tamika Lawrence, Ryann Redmond, Amanda Green, Morgan James, Alexa Ray, Lauren Molina, Jim Newman, Max Sangerman, Justin Sargent, and Bligh Voth, with Samantha Parrish, Sam Behr, The Braganza Sister, Isabelle Gottfried, Gracie McGraw, Avery Rehl, Matteo Russo, Gus Schonfeld, and Joshua Torchin, at 8 PM at NYC’s Le Poisson Rouge.

Jamie deRoy & Friends: Broadway at Birdland benefit concert, directed by Barry Kleinbort, with special guests Santino Fontana, Clint Holmes, Jason Kravits, Karen Mason, and Luba Mason, at 7 PM at NYC’s Birdland.

Ten Years of Broadway Records! Celebrating 54 Below’s 10th Anniversary concert, directed by Grace Aki, hosted by Robbie Rozelle, featuring Andy Karl, Orfeh, Christy Altomare Stephen Flaherty, Andrew Butler, Bobby Conte, Drew Gasparini, Hannah Elless, F. Michael Haynie, Michael Longoria, Chris McCarrell, Rob Rokicki, Analise Scarpaci, Milly Shapiro, Bailey Ryon, Samantha Williams, Ryan Bauer-Walsh, Elisa Galindez, Jeremy Walsh, Bailey Ryon, Nathan Salstone, Analise Scarpaci, and Millie Shapiro, at both 7 & at 9:30 PM at NYC’s 54 Below.

NYC’s 92Y‘s “Death of a Salesman: A Conversation” FREE event (both live & livestreamed), featuring Wendell Pierce, Sharon D Clarke, Andre De Shields, and Salamishah Tillet, with director Miranda Cromwell (director of the upcoming Broadway revival), at 7:30 PM at NYC’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (515 Malcolm X Blvd.)

Red Bull Theater‘s Podversation, with special guest F. Murray Abraham, focusing on The Merchant of Venice‘s Shylock, livestreams at 7:30 PM for FREE.

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Reviews for Leopoldstadt at Broadway’s Longacre Theatre:

NY Times (Jesse Green): “Trouble… …the word that turns Leopoldstadt, the harrowing new Tom Stoppard play… from a domestic comedy into a Greek drama… Whether complacency is a moral failing, as Leopoldstadt seems to argue, is a vexing question.. Stoppard posits the Merzes, and their relatives-by-marriage, the Jakoboviczes, as golden examples of assimilation…. Antisemitic slights and violence are frequent enough that even the Merzes take notice… Stoppard takes dramatic irony — the audience’s grasp of what the characters cannot see — to such an extreme that it becomes the subject itself… Leopoldstadt” is not quite as tightly constructed as Arcadia, say, or Jumpers or Travesties; it has too many themes to wrangle, and some dense historical exposition is unconvincingly disguised as small talk… The acting is excellent across the board…

New York Daily News (Chris Jones): …Tom Stoppard…at 82 years old — comes home to the most personal question clearly still swirling around his mind: Was the erasure of his identity justified or an immoral act?… the breathtaking Leopoldstadt, a play that asks what we owe our own imperfect memories… a gorgeously sculpted and acted production directed by Patrick Marber, plays in front of an audience listening so intently that it barely moves a collective muscle… Leopoldstadt is an epic, formatively brilliant work… it explores the pleasures of mathematics as a mode of expression and its characters’ longing for love or happiness invariably collides with the raging intellectual war inside their own heads… Stoppard clearly loves these characters, and fears for them at every moment…

Broadway News (Diep Tran): …At a certain point in Leopoldstadt, I stopped trying to figure out who everyone was… moves at a languid pace… But then, when Leopoldstadt — which moves at a languid pace — reached its emotionally devastating coda in 1955, I realized that the point wasn’t to know every character. I won’t spoil what occurs in the powerful final scene, but it caused a feeling of loss so palpable that it was like all the oxygen had left the room… Leopoldstadt is a lot of play. It follows one extended Jewish family from 1899 to after the Holocaust… Leopoldstadt is massive in scope, tackling themes such as the cost of assimilation and how today’s casual prejudice is tomorrow’s genocide…

Theatermania (Zachary Stewart): …is assimilation really what Europeans want from newcomers? What does one give up in the effort to fit in? And can one assimilate too well, so that disdain for outsiders curdles into resentment of elites? These questions swirl around Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt… It gives us a harrowing sense of where we may be heading by reminding us of the not-too-distant past through the tragic story of one family… The fact that we’re able to quickly grasp so many names and relationships so quickly is a testament to both the economy of Stoppard’s writing and the deep impression left by the performances… Seth Numrich plays little Jacob…masking a deep sadness with aggressive puckishness. Uranowitz delivers a thrilling double performance as the cerebral Ludwig and his grandnephew Nathan…

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GRACE NOTES Quiz: Ten-Percenters, by Jim Bernhard

Match these theatrical agents and managers who are characters in plays or musicals (some real, some fictional) with the performers they represent:

1. Herbie	A. Michael Jackson
2. Max Detweiler	B. Dainty June and Her Farmboys
3. Rhonda Graam	C. Tina Denmark
4. Curtis Taylor, Jr.	D. School of Rock (band)
5. Joe Jackson	E. Barbara Streisand, Cher, Steve McQueen, Burt Reynolds, et al
6. Dee Anthony	F. The Von Trapp Family Singers
7. Summer Hathaway	G. The Dreamettes
8. Sylvia St. Croix	H. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show
9. Sue Mengers	I. Peter Allen
10. Charlie Davenport	J. Ike Turner

Scroll down for the answers…

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Broadway for Reproductive Rights in Concert, in support of the New York Abortion Access Fund, will take place (Live & Livestreamed) Sun. Oct. 9 at 9:30 PM at NYC’s Green Room 42, directed by Samantha Joy Pearlman, with music direction by Noriko Sunamoto.

Taylor Iman Jones, Anthony Lee Medina, Sarah Haines, Tess Primack, Dawn L. Troupe, Imani Pearl Williams, Julia Bain, Noa Luz Barenblat, Denali Bennett, Kelsey Anne Brown, Kyra Kennedy, Maya Musia, Samantha Joy Pearlman, and Aveena Sawyer.

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Video: Cast recording session for Broadway’s Into the Woods.

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National Black Theatre has announced casting for the workshop production of TyLie Shider’s The Gospel Woman, to run Nov. 9-13 at the Chelsea Factory, directed by Adrienne D. Williams, with music direction by Aaron Marcellus.

Kala Ross (Ruth), Carla R. Stewart (Orpah), Charles E. Wallace (Fowler), Ronald Emile (Wino), and Wendell Jordan (Benjamin/Bidder).

Set in Plainfield, New Jersey in the the early 1970s, this is the story of sisters Rugh and Orpah Fowler, who must find a way to set aside their differences – including a feud stemming from a demo that helped launch Orpah’s award-winning R&B career – if they are to help their aging father keep the family church from foreclosure.

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Marilyn Maye in an all-new concert will run Oct. 12-22 (all at 7 PM) at NYC’s 54 Below, with a livestream option on as well on Oct. 22 here.

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A service for Camille Saviola, who passed away nearly one year ago, will take place on Sun. Oct. 23 at 3 PM at Ridgewood, NJ’s Feeney Funeral Home.

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The Rocky Horror Skivvies Show, starring Nick Cearley and Lauren Molina, will return Wed. Oct. 26 at 8 PM at PA’s Bucks County Playhouse.

Nick Adams, Tamika Sonja Lawrence, Travis Kent, Eric Ulloa, Pablo Torres, Diana Huey, and Rob Morrison, plus band members Nathan Ellman Bell, Andy Gutauskas, and Rob Morrison.

The concert will feature re-imagined arrangements of songs from Richard O’Brien’s cult musical.

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Rupert Holmes’ All Things Equal – The Life and Trials of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, will launch Oct. 5 at St. Petersburg’s Free Fall Theatre, directed by Laley Lippard. Click here for the complete tour schedule.

Debbie Wileman

The piece offers each theatre-goer the chance to better know this woman, her yearning for equality, and her love for this nation’s precious institutions: Ruth … Justice … and the American way.

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Ann Kittredge: reIMAGINE will take place Sun. Oct. 23 at 7 PM at NYC’s Laurie Beechman Theatre, with music direction by Christopher Denny.

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Damn Yankees will run Oct. 14-30 (opening Oct. 15) at Long Beach’s Musical Theatre West, directed by Cynthia Ferrer, with choreography by Alexis Carra Girbés, and music direction by Matthew Smedal.

Lesli Margherita (Lola), Norman Large (Joe Boyd), James Olivas (Joe Hardy), Jeff Skowron (Mr. Applegate), Teri Bibb (Meg), Katie Brown (Doris), Julie Cardia (Sister), Aurelia Michael-Holmgren (Gloria Thorpe), Kevin Symons (Welch), Matthew Henerson (Van Buren), Josh Alvarez (Smokey), Richard Bulda (Sohovick), Alejandro MullerDahlbert (Mickey), Daniel John O’Connor (Rocky), Logan Rice (Bryant), Brandon Keith Rogers (Henry), and Julian Xavier (Vernon), with Marissa Ruth Mayer and Monika Peña.

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Beau Willimon’s Farragut North will run Oct. 13 – Nov. 5 (opening Oct. 14) at North Hollywood’s Theatre 68, directed by Peter Allas.

Chris Wong, Jack Esformes, Camryn Mann, Amy Motta, K.J. Powell, David Reyes, and Michael Rubenstone.

A play about behind-the-scenes election intrigue. No trick is too dirty, no lie is too outrageous, no spin is too ingenious if it gets your candidate over the top. Titled after the Metrorail stop closest to Washington D.C.’s geographic center for think tanks, lobbyists, power plays and spin-doctoring. A classic tale of hubris set against a contemporary landscape.

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Jason Graae has announced dates for his next show, Jason Graae’s Graaetest Hits, with music direction by Gerald Sternbach.

Oct. 21 at 8 PM at North Hollywood’s El Portal Theatre.
Oct. 28 & 30 at 7 PM at NYC’s Green Room 42.

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Sag Harbor’s Bay Street Theater has announced that submissions are now open (through Nov. 15) for its 9th annual Title Wave: 2023 New Works Festival, which will take place May 5-7, 2023.

The festival is a unique showcase of cutting-edge theater, complete with staged readings, talkbacks, and critical discussion.To access the 2023 New Works.

Click here for the submission guidelines and to submit.

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Ventura’s Rubicon Theatre Company‘s Starry Soiree (link TBA) will take place Sat. Oct. 8 at 6 PM in the garden of a local arts champion with Rubicon staff members Kirby and Beverly Ward.