Today’s Highlights:
West End Musical Celebration – Live at the Palace, with music direction by Richard Beadle, featuring Sophie Evans, Alice Fearn, Ben Forster, Rachel John, Shanay Holmes, Trevor Dion Nicholas, and Layton Williams, opens live at London’s Palace Theatre.
Turn Back Time: Ben & Dee Rock the 70s, 80s and Beyond outdoor concert, featuring Ben Clark and Dee Roscioli, opens at CT’s Goodspeed by the River.
Marys Seacole (2019 Lincoln Center Theater production), by Jacki Sibblies Drury, directed by Lileana Blaine-Cruz, featuring Gabby Beans, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Marceline Hugot, Karen Kandel, Ismenia Mendes, and Lucy Taylor, begins FREE streaming at 7 PM ET on Broadway on Demand.
Manhattan Theatre Club‘s Spring Gala, NYC 
MTC, with special guests Lewis Black, Gale A. Brewer, Mark Brokaw, Blair Brown, David Cromer, Fiona Davis, Edie Falco, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Darren Goldstein, Rupert Goold, James Graham, Anchuli Felicia King, Tom Kirdahy, Nathan Lane, Ayodele Maakheru, Junior Mack, Eden Marryshow, Bryonha Marie Parham, Mary-Louise Parker, Debra Jo Rupp, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Benjamin Scheuer, Simon Stephens, R.L. Stine, Paco Tolson, Roma Torre, Meredith Viera, Jason Michael Webb, Richard Wesley, Florian Zeller, and more, begins FREE streaming at 7 PM ET.
“Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar: The Clever Chemist Matter” benefit broadcast, by Jack Johnstone, directed by Jonathan Silverstein, featuring Santino Fontana, George Abud, Ali Ewoldt, Ted Koch, Susan Malloy, John-Andrew Marrison, Steven Ratazzi, and Jay Russell, livestreams at 7 PM ET at Off-Broadway’s Keen Company (and available through June 14)
New Classics: Songs from the New Golden Age of Musical Theater cabaret, featuring songwriters Lerner & Loewe, Rodgers & Hammerstein, and Stephen Sondheim, Lynn Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty, Henry Krieger & Bill Russell, Michael John LaChiusa, Jason Robert Brown, William Finn, Lucy Simon & Marsha Norman, Jeanine Tesori & Dick Scanlan, Andrew Lippa, David Yazbek, and Adam Guettel, performed by Gavin Creel, Nikki Renée Daniels, and Norm Lewis, with Amanda Castro, Jenn Gambatese, Jo Lampert, and Heath Saunders, streams for FREE at 7 PM CT at Lyric Opera of Chicago.
Steven Brinberg’s On A Clear Day You Can See SIMPLY BARBRA Forever… in person concert, with special guests Ryan Silverman and Cameron Johnson, at 7 PM ET at NYC’s Green Room.
“In the Heights” film released in movie theaters and on HBO Max.
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Video: Stars in the House, a Game Night, with special guests Kate Baldwin, Gavin Creel, Taylor Trensch, and Beanie Feldstein. (1:46:30)
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To Kill a Mockingbird will resume performances on Oct. 5 at the Shubert Theatre.
Jeff Daniels (Atticus Finch) and Celia Keenan-Bolger (Scout Finch), with more TBA.
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Nikkole Salter’s Lines in the Dust will stream on demand July 8 – Aug. 8 at New Normal Rep, directed by Awoye Timpo.
Jeffrey Bean, Melissa Joyner, and Lisa Rosetta Strum.
2010, Essex County, NJ. When Denitra loses the charter school lottery for her daughter, she must find another way to escape from their underperforming neighborhood school. The answer seems like a risk well worth taking, but may end of requiring a bigger sacrifice than she ever could have imagined. Set over a half-century after Brown Versus the Board of Education, the play questions how far we’ve come and more importantly, where we go from here.
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Off-Broadway’s New York Theatre Workshop has announced its 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons:
2021-22 Season:
Semblance (Aug. dates), by Whitney White. In your everyday life, how do you encounter Black women? As the first voice you hear when you bump your favorite new song? A millisecond of eye contact with the lady who made your salad? A brief conversation with the woman watching your kids? Perhaps you simply have to look in the mirror.
Sanctuary City (Sept.), by Maryna Majok, directed by Rebecca Frecknall. DREMers, Love(r)s. Life-long friends. Negotiating the promise of safety and the weight of responsibility, they’ll fight like hell to establish a place for themselves and each other in America.
New Project – title TBA (Oct.), by Kristina Wong, directed by Chay Yew. Pm Dau 3 pf the COVID-19 pandemic, Kristina Wong began sewing masks out of old bedhseets and bra straps on her Hello Kitty sewing machine. But, before long, she was leading the Auntie Sewing Squad. It was a feminist care utopia forming in the midst of crisis. Or was it a mutual aid doomsday cult.
On Sugarland (Winter 2022), world premiere by Alesha Harris, directed by Whitney White. Sugarland is on precarious soil – three mobile homes line a southern cul-de-sac replete with years and years of decorative folk-art treasures and keepsakes. Twelve-year-old Sadie calls on generations of matriarchal ancestors to find the truth about her mother while denizens of Sugarland rise each day to holler for the dead – conscripted soldiers lost to a greedy war – in a ritual reclamation of timeless grief.
Dreaming Zenzile (Winter 2022), by Somi Kakoma, directed by Liliana Blain-Cruz. At her final concert, South African musical legend and activist Miram Makeba delivers the performance of her life, raising the conscience and the conciousness of a people. But the ancestors are calling – transporting her through the music and fractured memories of her past on a spiritual journey of reconciliation.
2022-23 Season:
Three Sisters (dates TBA), adapted by Clare Barron, directed by Sam Gold.
american (tele)visions, (dates TBA), by Victor I. Cazares, directed by Rubén Polendo. A long, long time ago – the ’90s – in a Walmart far, far away, Erica, our Hero of Ages Lost, pushed her shopping cart – that most sacred ancient vessel of capitalism – through the aisles of a memory play.
How to Defend Yourself (dates TBA), by Liliana Padilla, directed by Rachel Chavkin, Liliana Padilla & Steph Paul. After a sorority sister is raped, seven college students gather for a DIY self-defense workshop. They learn to use their bodies as weapons. They learn to fend off attackers. They learn “not to be a victim,” Self-defense becomes a channel for their rage, anxiety, confusion, trauma, and desire – lots of desire.
The Half-God of Rainfall (dates TBA), by Inua Ellams, director TBA. When Daemi, the half Nigerian-mortal, half Greek-god, is angry, rain clouds gather. When he cries river burst their banks. And the first time he takes a shot on a basketball court, the deities of the land wake up.
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The American Theatre Wing will offer a free streaming presentation of the its 2017 Centennial Concert and Gala June 13-19 on BroadwayHD. 
The paywall will be removed on June 13.
Tony Bennett
Brian Stokes Mitchell, Heather Headley, Santino Fontana, Norm Lewis, Beth Malone, Rebecca Luker, Laura Osnes, and more TBA.
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The upcoming musical film adaptation of “Better Late Than Ever” is currently in development. Additional information TBA.
Lisa Kudrow (Aunt Heidi) and more TBA.
The film follows the story of 13-year-old Pittsburgher Nate Foster. Nate sneaks off with his best friend Libby to a major musical audition in the Big Apple after not being cast in their school place. Nate meets up with Aunt Heidi by accident and changes the course of the story.
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The Broadway League presents Broadway Celebrates Juneteenth, a 90-minute event to take place Sat. June 19 in Times Square (Broadway between 43rd & 44th Streets, from Noon – 1:30 PM ET – rain or shine).
The program will feature cast members from many Broadway shows, with special appearances by Lillias White, Ben Vereen, and more TBA.
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The newest “Backstage Babble,” with Charles Kirsch, is now available here, as well as on Spotify and Audible.
Grover Dale, who will discuss his career and relationships with Anthony Perkins, Larry Kert, and Anita Morris.
In celebration of Pride month, Babble is releasing a series of episodes with LGBT artists.
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E. Dale Smith’s Fruma-Sarah (Waiting in the Wings) will run July 1-25 (opening July 8) at the cell, directed by Braden M. Burns.
Jackie Hoffman (Ariana Russo) and Kelly Kinsella.
As Ariana Russo sits backstage awaiting her entrance as Fruma-Sarah in a community theater production of Fiddler on the Roof, tethered to the fly system overhead, she prepares to navigate her hour-long exile to stage left alone when she meets Margo, a feisty substitute fly captain for the night. Set in real time, while the production is happening onstage, the wait begins to wear on Ariana, exposing the deep cracks in her facade.
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Video: Pedro Pasquale and Ewan McGregor on the evolution of “Star Wars” (31:18)
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Chicago’s Goodman Theatre has announced its 2021-22 season:
I Hate It Here (July 15-18 live online), by Ike Holter, directed by Lili-Anne Brown. If there’s one thing Americans can agree on, it’s that 2020 was not the best way to begin a new decade. Ike Holter as who we are in a world on the brink of explosion.
School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play (July 30 – Aug. 29), by Jocelyn Bioh, directed by Lili-Anne Brown.
American Mariachi (Sept. 18 – Oct. 24), by José Cruz Gonzáles, directed by Henry Godinez. A funny, heart-warming story of an all-female mariachi band in an era when this defied social norms.
Fannie, The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer (Oct. 15 – Nov. 14), by Cheryl L. West, directed by Henry Godinez, starring E. Faye Butler. Inspired by the life of famed civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, this passionate rally cry defines what it means to be a true revolutionary.
A Christmas Carol (Nov. 20 – Dec. 31), directed by Jessica Thebus.
Gem of the Ocean (Jan. 22 – Feb. 27, 2022), by August Wilson, directed by Chuck Smith. There is solace to be found at the of 285-year-old Ester Tyler, keep and transmitter of African American history and cleanser of souls.
the ripple, the wave that carried me home (Feb. 11 – Mar. 13), by Christina Anderson, directed by Miranda Haymon. Janice’s parent are prominent activists fighting for the integration of public swimming pools in 1960s Kansas. As injustice penetrates the warm bubble her childhood, Janice grows apart from her family and starts a new life far away. When she receives a call asking her to speak at a ceremony honoring her father, she must decide whether she’s ready to reckon with her political inheritance and a past she has tried to forget.
Good Night Oscar (Mar. 12 – Apr. 27), by Doug Wright, directed by Lisa Peterson. Anything can happen on live TV. And one night, it did. It’s 1958, and Jack Paar hosts the hottest late-night talk-show on television. His favorite guest? Character actor, pianist and wild card Oscar Levant (played her by Sean Hayes), Famous for his witty one-liners, Oscar has a favorite” There’s a fine line between genius and insanity: I have erased this line.”
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (Apr. 1 – May 2), adapted & directed by Mary Zimmerman. Leonardo da Vinci strove to know the world equally through artistic and scientific means. There was no limit to his curiosity, not to his tenacity in seeking answers.
The Outsiders (May 22 – July 10), by Adam Rapp, Jamestown Revival (Jonathan Clay & Zach Chance) & Justin Levine, directed by Liesl Tommy, with choreography by Lorin Lotarro. In 1967 Tulsa, Oklahoma, the hardened hearts, aching souls and romantic dreams of Ponyboy Curtus, Johnny Cade and their band of greasers take center stage in a fight for purpose and a quest for survival.
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Broadway shows which have not yet announced return dates:
* American Buffalo
* Book of Mormon
* Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
* Plaza Suite
* Sing Street
* Waitress
* West Side Story