Today’s Highlights:
Ohio State Murders, by Adrienne Kennedy, directed by Kenny Leon, featuring Audra McDonald (Suzanne Alexander), Bryce Pinkham (Robert Hampshire), Lizan Mitchell (Mrs. Tyler/Miss Dawson/Aunt Lou), Mister Fitzgerald (David/Val), and Abigail Stephenson (Iris Ann), with Brett Diggs, Brooke Gardner, Christina Pedersen, and Gayle Samuels, opens at Broadway’s James Earl Jones Theatre.
Mandela, world premiere by Laiona Michelle, Greg Dean Borowsky & Shaun Borowsky, directed by Schele Williams, featuring Michael Luwoye (Nelson Mandela), Danielle Fiamanya (Winnie Mandela), Gregory Armand (Vusi), Zion Battles (Bongani), Earl Carpenter (Prime Minister), Stewart Clarke (Warden), Hanna Dimtsu (Nomsa), Lerato Gwebu (Adelaide Tambo/Evelyn Mase), Prudence Jezile (Praise Singer), Akmed Junior Khemalai (Walter Sisulu), Blue Makwana (Gugu), Kayleigh McKnight (Susan/Erika), Posi Morakinyo (Thembi Mandela), Sneziey Msomi (Albertina Sisulu/Maki Mandela), Nomfusi Ngonyama (Zeni Mandela), Ryan O’Donnell (Joe Slovo), Adam Pearce (Kobus), Bolthale Phora (Kgatho Mandela), Shiv Rabheru (Ahmed Kathrada), Will Richardson (Piet), Leanne Robinson (Zindzi Mandela), and Ntsikelelo Nicholas Vani (Oliver Tambo), opens at London’s Young Vic.
Newsies, directed & choreographed by directed & choreographed by Matt Cole, featuring Michael Ahomka-Lindsay (Jack Kelly), Bronté Barbé (Katherine Plumber), Moya Angela (Medda Larkin), Samuel Bailey (Specs), Josh Barnett (Race), Cameron Blakely (Joseph Pulitzer), Jack Bromage (Tommy Boy), Alex Christian (Buttons), Arcangelo Ciulla (Ike), George Crawford (Morris Delancey), Ross Dawes (Snyder), Joshua Denyer (Mush), Ross Dorrington (Splasher), Matthew Duckett (Crutchie), Jacob Fisher (Albert), Jamie Golding (Wiesel), Damon Gould (Finch), Alex James-Hatton (Oscar Delancey), Barry Keenan (Nunzio), Ryan Kopel (Davey), Sion Lloyd (Bunsen), George Michaelides (Romeo), Mukeni Nel (Jo Jo), Joshuan Nkemdilim (Elmer), and Mark Samaras (Mike), Matt Trevorrow (Henry), with Nesim Adnan & Haydn Court & Oliver Gordon & Ethan Sokontwe (alternating as Les), along with Imogen Bailey, Zack Guest, Jordan Isaac, and Bradley Trevethan, opens at London’s Troubadour Wembley Park.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: A Holiday Panto, by Kris Lythgoe, directed by Bonnie Lythgoe, featuring Olivia Sanabia (Dorothy), Barry Pearl (The Wizard), Desi Dennis-Dylan (Glinda), Ashley Bruce (The Wicked Witch), Doran Butler (The Scarecrow), Patrick Davis (Tinman), and Andrew Metzer (The Lion), opens at Laguna Playhouse.
The Twelve Dates of Christmas, by Ginna Hoben, directed by Laura Agudelo, featuring Emel Ertugrul (Mary), opens at Virginia Stage. Company.
Rogue Machine Theatre‘s Little Theatre, world premiere by Justin Tanner, directed by Lisa James, featuring Ryan Brophy (Danny), Zachary Grant (James), and Jenny O’Hara (Monica Menlo), opens at LA’s Matrix Theatre.
Ye Bear & Ye Cubb, byWilliam Darby, directed by Ryan Emmons, featuring Amara J. Brady (Tavernkeeper/Justice), Julie Congress (Ursa Day), Steven Conroy (William Darby), Erin Lamar (Philip Howard), Anthony Michael Martinez (Cornelius Watkinson), and Joseph Medeiros (Edward Martin), begins previews at Off-Broadway’s 59E59 Theaters.
Troubadour Theater Company‘s Die Heart, world premiere adapted & directed & choreographed by Matt Walker, featuring Beth Kennedy, Rick Batalla, Mike Sulprizio, Cloie Wyatt Taylor, Chelle Denton, Luis Martinez, John Paul Batista, Bob Moran, Isaac Robinson-Smith, Heather Youmans, Philip McNiven, and Matt Walker, previews at Burbank’s Colony Theatre.
Porchlight Revisits The Apple Tree (by Sheldon Harnick, Jerry Bock & James Coopersmith), directed Frankie Leo Bennett, Jamal Howard, and Laura Savage, featuring Jonah Cochin, Madison Denault, Susan Hofflander, Shea Hopkins, Ruchir, Khazanchi, Michael Mejia, Leah Morrow, Emma Rosenthal, and Ciarra Stroud, closes at Chicago’s Porchlight Music Theatre.
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Reviews for Orlando at London’s Garrick Theatre:
New York Times (Matt Wolf): The play comes perfectly matched with its leading player in Orlando, a freewheeling take on Virginia Woolf’s gender-bending novel… Neil Bartlett’s breezy adaptation of its 1928 source is playful, and ultimately moving, but the director Michael Grandage owes much of the production’s success to its galvanizing star, Emma Corrin…[who] is more than game for whatever the play requires… the play comes blessed with an actor who can project confidence one minute, and surrender to uncertainty the next.
Evening Standard (Nick Curtis): … Emma Corrin’s captivating performance… Corrin gives us a flash of male genitals at the start and a sumptuously naked back when Orlando becomes female. Orlando generally observes goings-on with an amused detachment… We’re asked to contemplate gender, sexuality and the way social attitudes towards women had changed little by the time of Woolf’s death, or even beyond… Neil Bartlett’s script mixes in historical and contemporary speech and a few in-jokes… It’s tricksy stuff, but Corrin largely anchors it, deftly fluctuating between masculine and feminine, always riveting to watch…
The Independent (Thomas Messner): Neil Bartlett and Michael Grandage’s new adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s classic ‘biography’, the titular poet – and, for that matter, the surrounding production – never seems more blissfully at ease than when holding the stage all by their lonesome. As played by Emma Corrin, Woolf’s era-traversing, androgynous hero is a fount of wide-open curiosity, callow mischief and sly wit… Over the course of this journey from naivete to self-knowledge, Corrin skilfully highlights the small ways in which Orlando has changed and, more importantly, all the ways in which they have stayed the same, from one sex to another and over many years…
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Complete casting has been announced for Andrew Lloyd Webber, Emerald Fennell & David Zippel’s Bad Cinderella, which will begin previews Feb. 17 and open Mar. 23 at the Imperial Theatre, directed by Laurence Connor, with choreography by JoAnn M. Hunter.
Linedy Genao (Cinderella), Carolee Carmello (Stepmother), Grace McLean (Queen), Jordan Dobson (Sebastian), Morgan Higgins (Marie), Sami Gayle (Adele), Christina Acosta Robinson (Godmother), and Savy Jackson (Cinderella alternate), with Raymond Baynard, Michael Baerga, Lauren Boyd, Tristen Buettel, Kaleigh Cronin, Josh Drake, Ben Lanham, Angel Lozada, Cameron Loyal, Mariah Lyttle, Sarah Meahl, Christian Probst, Larkin Reilly, Julio Rey, Lily Rose, J. Savage, Tregony Shepherd, Dave Schoonover, Paige Smallwood, Aléna Watters, Alyssa Carol, Gary Cooper, Robin Masella, Michael Milkanin, Chloe Nadon-Enriquez, and Lucas Thompson.
This modern retelling of the classic fairytale is set in the exceptionally beautiful kingdom of Belleville. Our Cinderella is no longer the damsel in distress who needs saving. She finds herself and her prince in new circumstances which cause them to rethink what “happily ever after” really means.
Video: Meet the cast.
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Ted Dykstra & Richard Greenblatt’s 2 Pianos 4 Hands continues through Jan. 1 at CA’s North Coast Rep, directed by Tom Frey.
Jefferson McDonald and Matthew McGloin
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Doug Wright’s Good Night, Oscar will run Apr. 7 – Aug. 27 (opening Apr. 24) at the Belasco Theatre, directed by Lisa Peterson.
Sean Hayes (Oscar Levant), Emily Bergl, (June Levant), Peter Grosz (Bob Sarnoff), Ben Rappaport (Jack Paar), and John Zdrojeski (George Gershwin), with Marchant Davis, Alex Wyse, Sam Bell-Gurwitz, Postell Pringle, and Max Roll.
Oscar Levant: Hollywood actor, concert pianist, and the most subversive wit ever to appear on television during its Golden Age. It’s 1958 and Jack Paar is hosting “The Tonight Show.” He’s booked his favorite guest, a pundit as hilarious as he is unpredictable: Oscar Levant, who once famously proclaimed, “There’s a fine line between genius and insanity, and I have erased that line.” In 90 short minutes, Oscar will have audiences howling, censors scrambling, and – when it’s all over – America will be just a little less innocent than she was before.
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Porchlight Music Theater‘s Chicago Sings Broadway Pop will take place Mon. Mar. 27 at at the House of Blues Chicago (start time TBA), directed by Michael Weber.
Performers TBA.
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Broadway Cares‘ in-theatre Red Bucket Fall Fundraising Campaign, which asks Broadway and national touring audiences to donate to the theatrical non-profit as they leave the theatre, raised $5,107,791, with the Hugh Jackman-Sutton Foster-led revival of The Music Man breaking an all-time record and raising $2,002,612.
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Ben Elton’s We Will Rock You will return to the London Coliseum June 2 – Aug. 27, 2023, directed by Elton.
Casting TBA.
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The New Group‘s world premiere production of The Seagull/Woodstock, NY, adapted & directed by Scott Elliott, will run Feb. 27 – Mar. 26 (opening Feb. 28) at the Signature Center.
David Cale, Patrick Foley, Hari Nef, Daniel Oreskes, Parker Posey, Bill Sage, Aleyse Shannon, Amy Stiller, Nat Wolff, and more TBA.
A group of New York theatre people retreat to a house in the Hudson Valley hoping to get away from it all—except they can’t seem to escape the ambitions, rivalries, and fragile egos that follow them everywhere.
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The Directors Company will present a private industry reading today of the new musical Inventions for Piano at NYC’s Theatre Center, directed by Annette Jolles, with music direction by Will Curry. 
For more information: info@directorscompany.com
Tally Sessions, Sally Wilfert, Cassondra James, Shereen Pimentel, Howard McGillin, Michael Winther, Leah Horowitz, Jennifer Smith, Liam forde, Wade McCollum, and Gabra Zackman.
The musical follows a record producer who, after seeing his wife collapse onstage during a concert, sets out to salvage her career, transforming her into one of the world’s most acclaimed pianists.
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Video: Emma Thompson performs “Smell of Rebellion” in the film version of “Matilda The Musical,” which will be released in movie theaters Dec. 9, with a Netflix release on Dec. 25. Video starts at 5:45.
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The New York Times responds to the KPOP review controversy.
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The return engagement of Alice Yorke, Eva Steinmetz, Scott R. Sheppard & Alex Bechtel’s The Appointment will run Jan. 12 – Feb. 4 (opening Jan. 19) at the WP Theatre, directed by Steinmetz, with choreography by Melanie Cotton, and music direction by Bechtel.
Katie Gould, Jamie Maseda, Lee Minora, Brett Ashley Robinson, Scott R. Sheppard, Danny Wilfred, and Alice Yorke.
A satirical musical examining “the absurdity and hypocrisy of the American abortion debate.”