Today’s Highlights:
Woody King’s New Federal Theatre‘s Gong Lum’s Legacy, world premiere by Charles L. White, directed by Elizabeth Van Dyke, featuring Anthony Goss, Alinca Hamilton, Hansel Tan, DeShawn White, and Henry Yuk, opens at Off-Broadway’s Theatre at St. Clements.
Bay Street Theater‘s The Grift, site-specific theater experience, conceived, written & directed by Tom Salamon, opens in Long Island’s Sag Harbor Village.
The Wanderer, by Charles Messina, directed by Kenneth Ferrone, featuring Mike Wartella (Dion), Christy Altomare (Susan), Joey McIntyre (Johnny), Kingsley Leggs (Willie Green), Jasmine Rogers (Melody Green), Jeffrey Schecter (Bob Schwartz), Johnny Tammaro (Pat DiMucci), and Joli Tribuzio (Francis DiMucci), with Joe Barbara, Mackenzi Bell, Stephen Cerf, Jordan Dobson, Josh Dunn, Billy Finn, Natalie Gallo, Miguel Jarquin-Moreland, Will Jewett, Michal Kolaczkowski, Jess LeProtto, Janyé McAlpine, Katie Pohlman, Sydney Sky, and Gabi Stapula, begins previews at NJ’s Papermill Playhouse.
Jesus Christ Superstar, directed by Daniel C. Levine, featuring Caitlin Kinnunen (Mary), Brett Stoelker (Jesus), and Avionce Hoyles (Judas), with Chris Balestriere, Corinne Broadbent, Reggie Bromell, Susie Carroll, Ben Cherington, Randy Donaldson, Courtney Long, Marlena Hilderly Lopez, Kelly MacMillan, Michael McGuirk, Val Moranto, Ariel Neydavoud, Andrew Stevens Purdy, Isaac Ryckeghem, Sonya Venugopal, Cole Wachman, and Caitlin Witty, begins previews at Ridgefield’s A Contemporary Theatre of Connecticut.
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Reviews for Straight Line Crazy at London’s Bridge Theatre:
The Guardian (Mark Lawson): Robert Moses, who largely landscaped metropolitan New York, shared the name of a famous biblical character. Although there, as David Hare’s new play makes vividly clear, the comparisons ended. The urban planner was a far more self-confident prophet and notably more insistent about his commandments being followed. As captured in Ralph Fiennes’ enthralling performance, the American Moses wouldn’t have delivered his instructions from a burning bush, but would have incinerated the entire landscape… Dynamic, ideas-driven dialogue, though, makes the play crackle.
Evening Standard (Nick Curtis): A barnstorming, scenery-chewing Ralph Fiennes anchors David Hare’s new play… It’s a polished, witty, impeccably researched work but overly reliant on placing obstacles – plutocrats, politicians, colleagues, activists – in front of the Moses bulldozer. Nicolas Hytner’s production is by turns energetically brash and terribly baggy. Was the autocratic Moses a hero or villain? That’s up to us… This is not so much an even-handed play as an ambivalent one, and it doesn’t represent the best work of anyone involved.
1 Minute Reviews (Paul Seven Lewis). A video review (and longer than 1 minute).
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The York Theatre Company has announced that out of an abundance of caution and safety due to a recent COVID outbreak, the theatre has rescheduled the world premiere of Peter Kellogg & Stephen Weiner’s Penelope, or How the Odyssey Was Really Written, which will now run Apr. 2-24 (opening Apr. 7) at The Theater at St. Jean’s, directed & choreographed by Emily Maltby, with music direction by David Hancock Turner.
Philippe Arroyo (Telemachus), Leah Hocking (Eurycleia), Cooper Howell (Antinous), Ben Jacoby (Odysseus), David LaMarr (Mileter), Jacob Alexander Simon (Bassanio), Britney Nicole Simpson (Penelope), George Slotin (Haius), Sean Thompson (Barius), and Maria Wirries (Daphne).
Penelope is married to Odysseus, the rightful King of Ithaca. For the last twenty years, she’s been waiting for him to return from the Trojan War. Meanwhile, a bevy of suitors have gathered, each wanting to marry her and take over the kingdom. Since they have little else to do but eat and drink, they decide to form an a capella group. (The acoustics in the great hall are terrific.) To stall them, Penelope writes letters to herself and pretends they’re from Odysseus saying he’s on his way. Little does she know, her letters gathered together are creating the story of The Odyssey. (Since no one knows who really wrote The Odyssey, this theory is as good as any other).
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. LA’s Center Theater Group will present the world premiere of Jon Robin Baitz’ I’ll Be Seein’ Ya, to stream on demand Mar. 31 – May 1, directed by Robert Egan. The streaming production is available to everyone for $25.
Sussan Deyhim, Justin Kirk, Christine Lahti, and Christopher Larkin.
Allie Murchow dreams of a better yesterday and bearable tomorrow in a rapidly changing urban America. It’s the summer of 2020 in Los Angeles, and this anxious, aging recluse is holed up in her meager apartment with little more than a million stories of her life in Hollywood’s yesteryear. But even the best makeup can’t cover up what’s really going on the outside and the inside of this mercurial woman. Her neighbor Dorsa Urshulami is worried about her well-being along with the pharmacist Spencer Still. Her brother, Japhy Murchow, just desires peace and quiet. Fantasies quickly crash into reality in this deeply human exploration of empathy, guilt, responsibility and the kindness of strangers and the impossibility of hiding from our ever-changing world.
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Stephanie Sings the Stephens (Sondheim, Schwartz & Flaherty) will take place Sun. May 22 at 3 PM ET at NYC’s 92Y., with music direction by Ben Cohn.
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Doug Wright’s Good Night, Oscar, starring Sean Hayes, has been extended through Apr. 24 at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre.
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Complete casting has been announced for the world premiere of Thomas Lennon, Alan Zachary & Michael Weiner’s Trading Places, to run May 25 – June 26 at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre, directed by Kenny Leon, with choreography by Fatima Robinson, and music direction by Rick Edinger.
Aneesa Folds (Billie Rae), Bryce Pinkham (Louis), Marc Kudisch (Mortimer Duke), Lennie Wolpe (Randolph Duke), McKenzie Kurtz Penelope), Josh Lamon (Beeks), Joe Montoya (Phil), and Don Stephenson (Coleman), with Benjamin Howes, Raymond J. Lee, Michael McCorry Rose, Nyla Watson, and more TBA.
Billie Rae Valentine, a savvy hustler down on her luck, and Louis Winthorpe III, a minted commodities-trading firm director, have their lives deliberately switched by the devious Duke brothers to settle a petty bet in an outrageous debate of nature versus nurture.
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Video: In rehearsal for the upcoming Broadway production of for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, directed by Camille A. Brown, featuring Amar Granderson, Tendayi Kuumba, Kenita R. Miller, Okwui Okpokwasili, Stacey Sargeant, Alexandria Wailes, and D. Woods. (5:00)
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Complete casting has been announced for C. Quintana & Janelle Lawrence’s Beastgirl and Other Origin Myths, to run Apr. 7-22 at The Kennedy Center, directed by Rebecca Aparicio, with choreography by Tiffany Quinn, and music direction by Amy K. Bormet.
Jenni Gil (Cami), Edima Essien (Eji), Brittani McNeill (Egun), and Mikaela Secada (Heketi).
The play examines the historical, mythological, gendered, and geographic experiences of three sisters immigrating from the Dominican Republic to the United States.
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Tom Attea’s Science will run Apr. 14 – May 1 (opening Apr. 22) at Theater for the New City, directed by Mark Marcante.
Robert Gregory, Tom Koch, Madison Finney, Robin May, Blake McAlister, Maura Moreau, Alyssa Palmigiano, Ellen Revesz and Joel Shaw.
Dr. Alexander Morgan is a Nobel-Prize winning research chemist and professor at a medical school, who has, in his words, put himself in the service of life. It’s his religion. Bret Wilmont is a brilliant medical student, who Dr. Morgan invites to be his lab assistant. Bret hesitates, because he’s the son of a Fundamentalist Christian pastor, and the rumor on campus is that Dr. Morgan is an atheist. When he finds out what Dr. Morgan believes, he has a hard time finding fault with it. When Bret meets Dr. Morgan’s daughter, he’s attracted to her. She’s also attracted to him, but her beliefs are similar to her father’s. Bret’s life complicates even more. One reason is that he’s already engaged to his long-time girlfriend, who is a devout member of his father’s church.
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Pamela Gray, Paul Scott Goodman & AnnMarie Milazzo’s A Walk on the Moon will run Apr. 26 – May 21 at NJ’s George Street Playhouse, directed by Sheryl Kaller, with choreography Josh Prince
Jackie Burns (Pearl Kantrowitz), Jonah Platt (Marty Kantrowitz) and John Arthur Greene (Blouse Man Walker Jerome), with Jill Abromovitz, Carly Gendell, Cody Braverman, Maya Jacobson, Wesley Zurick, Blair Goldberg, Jonathon Timpanelli, David R. Gordon, Megan Kane, Stephanie Lynn Mason, and Dan Rosales.
Housewife Pearl Kantrowitz, sensing that change is in the air, begins a fling with a free-spirited traveling salesman while spending the summer with her family in the Catskills in 1969. As the Woodstock music festival springs to life nearby, their whirlwind romance, set against the backdrop of man’s first walk on the moon, takes audiences on a journey through an iconic moment in American history.
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Vendome Pictures is partnering with LA’s Deaf West Theatre to develop a stage musical based on the film “CODA.”
No other information has been reported. Stay tuned.
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Complete casting has been announced for James Ijames’ Fat Ham, to run May 12 – June 12 (opening May 26) at The Public Theater, directed by Saheem Ali.
Nikki Craford (Tedra), Chris Herbie Holland (Tio), Billy Eugene Jones (Rev/Papp), Adrianna Mitchell (Opal), Calvin Leon Smith (Larry), Marcel Spears (Juicy), and Benja Kay Thomas.
A rev-invention of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Juice is a queer, Southern college kid, already grappling with some serious questions of identity, when the ghost of his father shows up in their backyard, demanding that Juicy avenge his murder. It feels like a familiar story to Juicy, well-versed in Hamlet’s woes. What’s different is Juicy himself, a sensitive and self-aware young Black man trying to break the cycles of trauma and violence in service of his own liberation. From an uproarious family barbecue emerges a compelling examination of love and loss, pain and joy.
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Where We Belong, written & performed by Mei Ann Teo, will run June 24 – July 24 at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre.
An indigenous theater-maker journeys across geographic borders, personal history and cultural legacy in search of a place to belong. Through anecdotes with pathos and a playful charm, the play is a wrenching meditation on appropriation, cultural genocide and how to best honor one’s ancestry.