Today’s Highlights:
Describe the Night, by Rajiv Joseph, directed by Austin Pendleton, featuring Jack Cain, Glenn Davis, Caroline Neff, Sally Murphy, James Vincent Meredith, Jon Hudson Odom, Yasen Peyankov, and Karen Rodriguez, opens at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre.
The Wife of Willesden, adapted by Zadie Smith, directed by Indhu Rubasingham, featuring Clare Perkins (Alvita), Marcus Adolphy (Winston/Mandela/Black Jesus), George Eggay (Pastor/Eldridge), Andrew Frame (Ian/Socrates/Bartosz), Troy Glasgow (Darren/Young Maroon), Claudia Grant (Polly/Sophie), Nikita Johal (Asma/Kelly), Scott Miller (Ryan/Colin), Jessica Murrain (Author/Zaire/Queen Nanny), and Ellen Thomas (Aunty P/Old Wife), with Sophie Cartman, opens at Cambridge’s A.R.T.
Bob Fosse’s Dancin’, directed & musical staged by Wayne Cilento, featuring Yeman Brown, Peter John Chursin, Dylis Croman, Jovan Dansberry, Karli Dinardo, Tony d’Alelio, Aydin Eyikan, Manuel Herrera, Gabriel Hyman, Kolton Krouse, Mattie Love, Krystal Mackie, Yani Marin, Nando Morland, Khori Michelle Petinaud, Ida Saki, Ron Todorowski, and Neka Zang, begins previews at Broadway’s Music Box Theatre.
“The Fabelmans” screening and conversation with Michelle Williams and Tony Kushner, at 6:30 PM at NYC’s 92Y.
**********************
Reviews for Manhattan Theatre Club’s The Best We Could (a family tragedy) at Off-Broadway’s City Center Stage 1:
NY Times ():
Theatermania (Hayley Levitt): …Emily Feldman writes a wallop of a final scene… directed by Daniel Aukin… but being a road trip play, any theoretical spoilers are just Feldman emphasizing journey over destination. The looming view of the finish line, in fact, is what makes every mile traveled so gutting… The Best We Could draws elements of Our Town and Death of a Salesman into the #MeToo era… This close-quarters tour of America brings out some standard-grade generational differences between father and daughter… Cash is incapable of delivering a false performance and is a master of the wry humor… Where the play bursts open again is in its mining of less-explored ideological differences — the ones about how to build a life that’s worth living.
Theatrely (Amanda Marie Miller): …Barring a few surprisingly magical moments, The Best We Could cuts right to the chase and slices through all the conversations best suited for (a family tragedy), the subtitle of the play… The text, the word choice, the phrasing, etc., is so…comfortable. Feldman…has shaped the nuances of familial dynamics into repetitive conversations, each time carrying a completely new meaning… The company brings a great range to the stage, with Aya Cash’s Ella steering all moving parts in the right direction… Overall, the play is not a ground-breaking or boundary-pushing piece of theatre. In fact, many parts feel reminiscent of other recent works…
New York Stage Review (David Finkle): For a while when I was watching The Best We Could – which comes with the phrase “a family tragedy”… I apparently had the wrong impression of what playwright Emily Feldman was up to.. I thought Feldman was using “tragedy” ironically… In her intermissionless 90 minutes, she wasn’t positing small talk as the abiding family-unit downfall, which she might have accomplished in much short order, anyway… She had a true tragedy in mind the entire time… Strongly directed by Daniel Aukin… Next time, it’s likely she’ll (Emily Feldman) fare much better…
**********************
Funny Girl will close Sept. 3 at Broadway’s August Wilson Theatre.
Current stars Lea Michele, Ramin Karimloo, Jared Grimes, and Tovah Feldshuh will remain with the show through the end of its run.
**********************
Kate Trefy’s The Upside Down will run later this year (dates TBA) at the Phoenix Theatre (link TBA), directed by Stephen Daldry & Justin Martin.
Casting TBA.
The new tale takes place in Hawkins, Indiana, and explores what happened before the 1980s setting of the streaming series “Stranger Sings.” The year is 1959 and centers around Jim Hopper, Bob Newby, Joyce Maldonado, and the arrival of a new student, Henry Creel.
**********************
Off-Broadway’s 59E59 Theaters has announced its Brits Off Broadway 2023 season. Casting TBA.
Breathless (Apr. 18 – May 7, opening Apr. 22), by Laura Horton, directed by Stephanie Kempson, featuring Madeleine MacMahon. What happens when the things we covet hide us from ourselves? Opening up to new experiences in her late-thirties, Sophie is exploring long repressed sides of herself. When a secret she’s keeping from those she loves, and even from herself, threatens to unravel it all, she must make a choice. Who or what will she decide to give up?
The Habit of Art (Apr. 19 – May 28, opening May 5), by Alan Bennett, directed by Philip Franks, featuring Matthew Kelly, Stephen Boxer, Jessica Dennis, Robert Mountford, Veronica Roberts, and John Wark. Benjamin Briteen, sailing uncomfortably close to the wind with his new opera, Death in Venice, seeks advice from his former collaborator and friend, W.H. Auden. During this imagined meeting, their first for twenty-five years, they are observed and interrupted by, amongst others, their future biographer and a young man from the local bus station.
Cecil Beaton’s Diaries (May 2-21, opening May 6), adapted & performed by Richard Stirling Blisteringly funny, with appearances ranging from the Queen Mother and Elizabeth Taylor to Audrey Hepburn and Truman Capote, the diaries paint a self-portrait of the 20th century’s most compelling dandy. For the first time, the diaries of photographer and designer Sire Cecil Beaton come to the stage to accompany his most iconic images of everyone from film stars like Marilyn Monroe to political figures like Winston Churchill. Beaton’s photographs showed his versatility while his diaries exposed his inner turmoil. Not even his triumphant designs for My Fair Lady could quiet his restless mind and his passion for Greta Garbo was as complicated as it was powerful.
we were promised honey! (May 9-21, openg May 12), written & performed by Sam Ward. A lone performer tells the story of the future of the audience; what’s going to happen to them in the decades, centuries, millennia after the end of this show. There’s a baby born in a lighthouse, there’s someone on fire in the middle of the desert, there’s two lovers reunited in a flooded city, there’s a spaceship on the edge of a black hole. Everything has already been decided. This is the story of the end.
Orlando (May 23 – June 11, opening May 27), written & performed by Lucy Roslyn, directed by Josh Roche. The story of a person looking to escape – just as Virginia Woolf imagined her own freedom in the pages of Orlando, a book which strains at the boundaries of identity: are we any one thing? Or are our selves “stacked like dinner plates,” one on top of the other?
Being Mr. Wickham (May 25 – June 11, opening May 31), by Adrian Lukis & Catherine Curzon, directed by Guy Unsworth. Mr. Wickham is ready to set the record straight.
Foxes (June 1 – July 2, opening June 7), by Dexter Flanders, directed by James Hillier. If one kiss had the power to destry everything, would you risk it? Daniel, a young black man trying to keep up with his life in London’s Caribbean community while balancing his own goals with his family’s expectations. When his relationship with best friend Leon brings an unexpected change it creates turmoil, bringing a taboo into his family home that has the power to tear the closest and most loving relationships apart.
**********************
DC’s Folger Theatre will present Searching for Shakespeare Celebrating 400 Years of Shakespeare’s First Folio, to run throughout April.
Events include a Scavenger Hunt, workshop, family programs, Shakespeare’s Birth Lecture, and much more.
**********************
Video: A peak at The Secret Garden at LA’s Ahmanson Theatre.
**********************
Rock and Roll Man, by Gary Kupper, Larry Marshak & Rose Caiola will begin previews June 2 and open June 21 at New World Stages, directed by Randal Myler, with choreography by Stephanie Klemons, and music direction by Dave Keyes.
Constantine Maroulis (Alan Freed), and more TBA.
The musical takes place on the final day of Freed’s life. In a fever dream, prosecutor J. Edgar Hoover and defense attorney Little Richard face off with Freed’s legacy at stake.
**********************
The Greatest Love for Whitney: A Whitney Houston Tribute will run Mar. 24 – May 28 at Milwaukee Rep, created & directed by Mark Clements, and music direction by Dan Kazemi.
Alesia Miller, Alina Cherone, and Charlotte Odusanya.
**********************
Season highlights in Carnegie Hall’s 2023-24 season:
Rhapsody with Pops (Feb. 2024 date TBA), with Montego Glover, and pianist Lee Musiker.
Patti LuPone: A Life in Notes (Apr. 8). Details here.
Lea Michele (Oct. 30). Details here.
New York Pops 2023-24 Season (various dates TBA), conducted by Steven Reineke, featuring Sutton Foster, Kelli O’Hara, and Norm Lewis.
**********************
Faith Prince & Jason Graae Are a Little Bit Off will take place Sat. Mar. 25 at 8 PM at North Hollywood’s El Portal Theatre (Monroe Forum Theatre), with music direction by Gerald Sternbach.
**********************
A staged reading of Lionel Goldstein’s Halpern & Johnson, in support of Group Rep, will take place Sat. Mar. 25 at 7 PM at North Hollywood’s Lonny Chapman Theatre, directed by Stephen Rockwell.
Apollo Dukakis (Halpern), Mitchell Edmunds (Johnson), Maggie Abeckerly (Narrator), and Endre Balogh (on the violin).
This revealing and surprising tale explores the funny, rocky and unusual relationship of two very different gentlemen – one is Jewish and the other Gentile – who meet under difficult circumstances and discover that they have much more in common than they ever could have imagined.
**********************
The world premiere of The Human Comedy, written & directed by Thom Babbes, will run Mar. 10 – Apr. 23 at Hollywood’s Actors Coop Theatre.
Eva Abramian, Rachael Maye Aronoff, David Atkinson, Tricia Cruz, Marc Elmer, Adrian A. Gamez, Ben Kientz, Bruce Ladd, Mitchell Lam Han, Kendall Lloyd, Finn Martinsen, Jessie Oriabure, Jack Sanchez, Tiago Santos, Brendan Shannoon, and Jessica Wochler.
Set in war front America in 1942, this coming-of-age tale tells the story of Homer
Macaulay, a 14-year-old boy who delivers telegrams at night to make money for his family. During the course of two days, Homer grows from an idealistic boy to a mature young man as he struggles with the unfairness of the world around him and the pain of families to whom he delivers the War Department’s death notices. But in the midst of the decaying idealism of small-town America, and the loneliness of growing up, Homer finds hope in humanity through Mr. Grogan.
**********************
SoHo Rep’s Wolf Play, by Hansol Jung, has announced a final extension, now through Apr. 2, at Off-Broadway’s MCC Theater, directed by Dustin Wills.
Christopher Bannow (Peter), Esco Jouléy (Ash), Brian Quijada (Ryan), Nicole Villamil (Robin), and Mitchell Winter (Wolf).
When an off-the-record adoption goes awry, Jeenu’s new parents learn just how far a wolf will go to defend its pack.
**********************
SoloFest 2023 has announced its performance schedule through Mar. 19 at Sherman Oaks’ Whitefire Theatre.