Today’s Highlights:
The Outsiders, by Adam Rapp, Justin Levine, Jonathan Clay & Zach Chance, directed by Danya Taymor, featuring Brody Grant (Ponyboy), Brent Comer (Darrel), Jason Schmidt (Sodapop), Sky Lakota-Lynch (Johnny), Joshua Boone (Dallas Winston), Emma Pittman (Cherry Valance), Kevin William Paul (Bob Sheldon), and Dan Berry (Paul Holden), with Jordan Chin, Milena J. Comeau, Barton Cowperthwaite, Tilly Evans-Krueger, Henry Gendron, RJ Higton, Wonza Johnson, Sean Harrison Jones, Maggie Kuntz, Renni Anthony Magee, SarahGrace Mariani, Melody Rose, Josh Strobl, Victor Carrillo Tracey, and Trevor Wayne, opens at Broadway’s Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre.
Group Rep‘s Can’t Live Without ‘Em, by Lee Redmond, directed by Mareli Mitchel-Shields, featuring Bert Emmett (Thomas Axelrod), Paul Anthony Kelly (Dr. Payne), Jessica Kent (Tammy), and Cynthia Payo (Maureen Axelrod), with Danny Saolay, Holly Seidcheck, Daisy Staedler, and Jazz Strong, opens at North Hollywood’s Lonny Chapman Theatre.
Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine, by Lynn Nottage, directed by Martavius Parrish, featuring Felicia Curry (Undine – Apr. 18 – May 6), Kedren A. Spencer (Undine – Apr. 19 – May 19), Stephanie Pope (Mother), Evander Duck Jr. (Father), Sharon Hope (Grandma), Mariyea Jaclson (Stephie), Roland Lane (Flow), Tito Livas (Hervé), and Blake Russell (Accountant), with Kimberlee Walker, begins previews at Brooklyn’s Billie Holiday Theatre.
The Kingston Trio concert, featuring Mike Marvin, Tim Gorelankton, and Buddy Woodward, closes at North Holllywood’s El Portal Theatre.
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The world premiere of Florence Welch, Thomas Bartlett & Martyna Majok’s Gatsby will run May 23 – July 21 (opening June 5) at Cambridge’s A.R.T., directed by Rachel Chavkin, with music direction by Wiley DeWeese.
Isaac Powell (Gatsby), Charlotte MacInnes (Daisy), Ben Levi Ross (Nick), Cory Jeacoma (Tom), Eleri Ward (Jordan), Solea Pfeiffer (Myrtle), Matthew Amira (Wilson), Adam Grupper (Wolfsheim), and Sam Simahk (standby for Gatsby), with Nick Bailey, Kailey Boyle, Runako Campbell, Jada Clark, Joshua Grosso, Alex Haquia, Gabriel Hyman, Matt Kizer, Lorenzo Pagano, Chris Ralph, Christopher M. Ramirez, Shea Renne, Aliza Russell, Shota Sekiguchi, Maya Sistruck, Cameron Burke, Jacob Burns, Mia DeWeese, Paige Krumbach, and Justin Gregory Lopez.
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The cast album for Broadway’s Lempicka (which opens Apr. 14) will be released May 29 on most platforms.
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Off-Broadway’s Red Bull Theater will present its 20th Running of the Bulls annual gala on Mon. June 3 at 6 PM at NYC’s Bowery Hotel, hosted by Patrick Page, with a performance by Amber Gray.
Alfred Molina and K. Ann McDonald.
Special Guest & Presenters: Michael Cerveris, Robert Cuccioli, Paige Davis, Stephen DeRosa, Tovah Feldshuh, Zainab Jah, Mark Linn-Baker, Ismenia Mendes, Miriam Silverman, Julie Taymor, Mary Testa, John Douglas Thompson, Marc Vietor, and more TBA.
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Newsies will run May 21 – June 2 at Houston’s TUTS, directed by Ryan Scarlata, with music direction by Stephen W. Jones, and choreography by William Carlos Angulo.
Pierre Marais (Jack Kelly), Calien Fu (Katherine Plumber), Ben Diamond (Davey), Christina Wells (Medda Larkin), Graham Rowat (Pulitzer), Luis-Pablo Garcia (Crutchie), Bret Shuford (Snyder), Michael Alonzo (Oscar Delancey), and Hunter Burke (Morris Delancey) with Alex Aponte, Armani Brown, Ben Chavez, Sebastian Martinez, Cameron Sirian, Chris Tipps, Cole Zieser. Daniel Karash, Madeleine Bourgeois, Chase Fontenot, Trey Harrington, Mark Ivy, Miles Marmolejo, Chris Scurlock, Braden Tanner and Holland Vavra.
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Ophelia, written & directed by Stefan Marks, will run Apr. 12 – May 18 at the Odyssey Theatre.
Deborah Geffner (Mom), Tatus Langton (Her), and Stefan Marks (Son), with Amy Braddock.
Mom is moving into memory care and wants her middle-aged son to procreate before she goes.
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A Complicated Woman, by Ianne Fields Stewart, Jonathan Brielle & Sam Salmond, will run May 10 – June 2 (opening May 29) at CT’s Goodspeed Terris Theatre, directed & choreographed by Jeff Calhoun, with music direction by Debra Barsha
Nora Brigid Monahan (John/Jean), L Morgan Lee (Nina Mae), Christian Brailsford (L Morgan Lee), Klea Blackhurst (Myrtle), Danny Rutigliano (Lee Shubert), Dashiell Gregory (Carl), Zachary A. Myers (Muhlaysia), and Arewà Basit (Diamond), with Bryan Munar and Siena Rafter.
John Kenley was a theatre impresario who brought Hollywood stars like Gene Kelly and Ann Miller to Ohio’s summer stock stages. But when summer ended, he wintered in Florida where John disappeared… and Jean came to life. A Complicated Woman is a new musical that features a Golden Age score and a gender-diverse cast. Join us for the intriguing story of a theatre legend who had to navigate the joy, pain and pitfalls of leading a double life.
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Ronnie Larsen’s The Actors will run Apr. 27 – June 1 (opening May 8) at Theatre Row, directed by Stuart Meltzer.
Jason Guy, Jeni Hacker, Ronnie Larsen, Allen Lewis Rickman, and Gabriell Salgado.
A lonely man, grief-stricken by the death of his parents, hires actors to come to his apartment a few times a week to play his family. But what happens when the lines between theatre and reality begin to blur – and the actors overstay their welcome?
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Forever Plaid will run Apr. 18 – May 5 at San Francisco’s 42nd Street Moon, directed & music directed by Daniel Thomas.
Edu Gonzalez-Maldonado, Justin P. Lopez, Kevin Singer, and Matt Skinner.
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Off-Broadway’s Red Bull Theater has announced its running of the Red Bulls gala on Mon. June 3 at 6 PM at NYC’s Bowery Hotel, hosted by Patrick Page.
Alfred Molina and K. Ann McDonald.
Special guests, performers, and more TBA.
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Sag Harbor’s Bay Street Theatre has announced its 10th Annual Title Wave: 2024 New Works Festival, to run May 17-19. Casting TBA.
The Ordeal of Water (May 17 at 8 PM), by Stephanie Alison Walker. It’s 1978 in San Pedro, California and 20-year-old Margo Strand, with her Farrah Fawcet hair and her deceased daddy’s union book, is stoked about her first day working as a longshoreman at the Port of Los Angeles. She’s ready to experience what her daddy loved so much about this place and she’s counting on bonding with Ray Rosas, the only other woman the waterfront who has braved this male-dominated world for two years on her own. What Margo does not expect is to not only alienate Ray, but be lured to the lonely bowels of a container ship by her male co-workers and locked inside with Ray just before the ship leaves the port for Shanghai. Worst first day ever.
Polar Bears, Black Boys & Prairie Fringed Orchids (May 18 at 2 PM), by Vincent Terrell Durham. A liberal white couple throws open the doors of their renovated Harlem brownstone and hosts a cocktail party for their African American neighbors. The guests are a Black Lives Matter activist, his plus-one, a Black bookstore owner, and the mother of a slain 12-year-old boy. A well-intentioned night of community devolves into intense debates, pointed accusations, and a shocking revelation of implicit bias.
Dutch Master: A Musical (May 18 at 8 PM), by Jeffrey Stock & Marc Acito. A true story of an art forger with the soul of a fine artist and the morals of a con artist who pulls off one of the most audacious frauds of the 20th century. But when one of his fake Vermeers is bought by the Nazis, he finds himself on trial for treason, painting for his life.
House of India (May 19 at 3 PM), by Deepak Kumar. In memory of her late husband, Ananya runs “House of India”, the last remaining restaurant in a once-flourishing Asian strip mall outside of Cleveland. All around her are pressures to change – from her finances, from her kids, and most persistently, from Jacob, a Thai-American entrepreneur who is determined to convert the traditional restaurant into a nationwide fast-casual Indo-fusion franchise (think: Indian Chipotle). When the restaurant is vandalized, Ananya must make a choice: give up on her husband’s “American dream” and close up shop, or compromise on her values to stay afloat? A play about South Indian food, familial expectations, and figuring out what really makes a “House” a home.
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Rob Ulin’s Judgement Day will run Apr. 23 – May 26 at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel.
Jason Alexander, Daniel Breaker (Father Michael) and Candy Buckley (Angel), with Maggie Bofill, Olivia Denise Dawson, Joe Dempsey, Michael Kostroff, Ellis Myers, and Meg Thalken.
Sammy Campo is a staggeringly corrupt, morally bankrupt lawyer who’s threatened with eternal damnation by a terrifying angel after a near-death experience. In a desperate attempt to redeem himself, Sammy forms an unlikely bond with a Catholic priest who is having his own crisis of faith.