Today’s Highlights:
Bleak Expectations, a Charles Dickens mashup by Mark Evans, directed by Caroline Leslie, featuring Ashh Blackwood (Agnes Bin/Flora Dies-Early), Shane David-Joseph (Thomas Bin/Blakewell Havertwitch/Broadway Fecund), J.J. Henry (Harry Biscuit), John Hopkins (Gently Benevolent), Dom Hodson (Pip Bin), Serena Manteghi (Pippa Bin), Marc Pickering (The Hardthrashers), and rachel Summers (Pippa Bin/Ripely Fecund), with guest stars every week, opens at London’s Criterion Theatre.
Brokeback Mountain, play by Ashley Robinson, directed by Jonathan Butterell, featuring Mike Faist (Jack), Lucas Hedges (Ennis), Emily Fairn (Alma), Paul Hickey (Older Ennis), and Martin Marquez (Joe/BillJack’e Father), with Rob Alexander-Adams, Tom Mahy, and Sophie Reid, opens at London’s @sohoplace.
His Story The Musical, world premiere by Anna Miriam Brown, directed by Jeff Calhoun, featuring Max Kuenzer (Jesus), Lily Gast (mary Magdeline), Richard Chaz Gomez (Judas), Jataria Heyward (Mother Mary), Logan Dolence (Joseph), Casey Lamont (Lucifer), Caroloe Gutierrez (Gabriel), Bryan Munar (Peter), Camden Deal (Leper), Justin Taylor (Matthew), Caleb Bermejo (Pontius Pilate), Mat Blasio (Nicodemus), and Courtney Blanc (Caiaphus), with Ja’Naye Flanagan, Lia Karagianopoulos, Abby Murphy, Audrey Lee, Gigi Hausman, Nicholas Haas, and Mark Quach, opens at Dallas’ Grandscape.
Exclusion, by Kenneth Lin, directed by Trip Cullman, featuring Tony Nam, Josh Stamberg, Michelle Vergara Moore, Karen Li, Jonathan Feuer, and Ryan Dalusung, opens at DC’s Arena Stage.
This Land Was Made, by Tori Sampson, directed by Taylor Reynolds, featuring Antoinette Crowe-Legacy (Sassy), Leland Fowler (Drew), Matthew Griffin (Troy), Sean Patrick Higgins (Officer Heanes), Yasha Jackson (Gail), Ezra Knight (Mr. Far), Julian Elijah Martinez (Huey), Curt Morlaye (Gene), and Oliver Palmer (Officer Frey), begins previews at Off-Broadway’s Vineyard Theatre.
An Evening with Steve Ross concert, at 7 PM at CA’s Coachella Valley Rep.
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The Broadway League’s 2023 League Awards have been announced. Click here for the complete list of winners.
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The 2023 Dramatist Guild Awards have been announced. Click here for the complete list of winners
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The 2023Actors’ Equity Foundation Awards have been announced. Click here for the complete list of winners.
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A private reading of Dale Wasserman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, adapted by Ken Kesey, will take place today in NYC, directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah.
Sterling K. Brown (Randle P. McMurphy), with Laura Benanti (Nurse Ratched), and more (not published).
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DC’s Signature Theatre has announced its 2023-24 season:
The Bridges of Madison County (Aug. 8 – Sept. 17), directed by Ethan Heard, with music direction by Laura Bergquist, and and choreography by Kelly Crandall d’Amboise. ≈
King of the Yees (Sept. 12 – Oct. 22), by Lauren Yee. 
When her father goes missing, Lauren must embark on a quest through San Francisco’s famous Chinatown, beyond the iconic Dragon’s Gate, through a bustling maze of alleys and magical portals, to find him before it’s too late.
Ragtime (Oct. 24 – Jan. 7, 2024), directed by Matthew Gardiner, with music directio by Jon Kalbfleisch and choreography by Ashleigh King.
Private Jones (Feb. 6 – Mar. 10), written & directed by Marshall Pailet, with choreography by Misha Shields. An unexpectedly funny and gripping musical adventure about service, friendship, and the cost of war. Hiding his profound hearing loss, young Gomer Jones fakes his way through enlistment in the army. He becomes a celebrated sniper, but the horrors of the front threaten to expose his secret and destroy his very humanity unless he learns to trust his fellow soldiers to accept who he really is.
Penelope (Mar. 5 – Apr. 21), by Alex Bechtel, Grace McLean & Eva Steinmetz, directed by TBA.
. Hair (Apr. 6 – July 7), directed by Matthew Gardiner, with music direction by Mark G. Meadows, and choreography by Rickey Tripp.
Where the Mountain Meets the Sea (May 21 – July 7), by Jeff Augustin & The Bengsons. After he learns of his estranged father’s death, a son recreates the cross-country trip his Haitian immigrant parents took before he was born. As he traces their journey across America, and bonds with the music his father adored, time blurs and erases the distance between them. Lyrical storytelling and an evocative folk score drive father and son to rediscover love, each other and their everlasting bond.
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Jessica Vosk Sings the Songwriters of Lauren Canyon will run June 2, 4 & 5 at NYC’s 92Y, directed by James Darrah, with music direction by Mary-Mitchell Campbell.
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Alan Menken, Nell Benjamin & Sarah Kernochan’s Nancy Drew and the Mystery at Spotlight Manor: A Musical, a stage adaptation, is currently in development, to be directed by James Lapine. Additional details TBA.
After 175 Nancy Drew mysteries that span from her small town of River Heights to exotic locales around the world, the teen detective is about to tackle perhaps the most exotic locale of all to her: a musical theater camp, Spotlight Manor.
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Red Bull Theater‘s Running of the Bulls benefit gala, honoring Julie Taymor, at 6 PM at NYC’s Bowery Hotel.
Arnie Burton, Reeve Carney, Robert Cuccioli, Tovah Feldshuh, Tom Hewitt, Harry Lennix, Jacob Ming-Trent, Kristine Nielsen, Jennifer Sánchez, Robert Sella, Derek Smith, Mary Testa, and many more.
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Actors Theatre of Louisville has announced its 2023-24 season:
Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy (Sept. 6-17), adapted by Kate Hamill, directed by Jennifer Pennington. The play becomes two battlegrounds: one to hunt and kill a vampire, and another to push back against toxic masculinity… One of the strengths of Hamill’s text is the injection of humor in concert with the chills and violence… The audience enthusiastically rose to their feet at the end of this Dracula, greeting the latest transition of this Louisville perennial with a standing ovation.
King John (Nov. 8-19), directed by Rosa Joshi. A corrupt monarch is besieged by threats.
Mrs. Krishnan’s Party (Dec. 6-17), by The Indian Ink Theatre Company, directed by TBA. A fun, joyful celebration of Onam – an ancient Indian harvest festival.
Loving and Loving (Feb. 7-18, 2024), by Beto O’Bryne & Meropi Peponides, directed by Amelia Acosta Powell. This moving love story chronicles the true history of Richard and Mildred Loving, whose groundbreaking Supreme Court victory struck down race-based restrictions on marriage in the United States.
I AM DELIVERED’T (Mar. 13-24), world premiere by Jonathan Norton, directed by Robert Barry Fleming. Members of the church’s usher board who find themselves responsible not only for attending to anyone over-heated with the Holy Spirit, but also for reconciling their very identities with the church’s doctrine.
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Cynthia Erivo will star in a film adaptation of the theater sensation “Prime Facie,” directed by Susanna White. Timeline and release date TBA.
“Prima Facie,” which translates to “at first sight,” tells the propulsive story of ambitious and confident defense attorney Tessa. From working class roots, the rising star in the high-powered London legal system skillfully defends her clients — including those accused of sexual assault. But after she is raped by a colleague, she discovers that the law does not deliver justice along the boundaries of consent.
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Alan Menken, Nell Benjamin & Sarah Kernochan’s stage adaptation of Nancy Drew and the Mystery at Spotlight Manor: A Musical, is currently in development, directed by James Lapine. Timeline and additional information TBA.
After 175 Nancy Drew mysteries that span from her small town of River Heights to exotic locales around the world, the teen detective is about to tackle perhaps the most exotic locale of all to her: a musical theater camp, Spotlight Manor.
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Billy Crystal: Screening of “Mr. Saturday Night,” will take place Tues. May 23 at 6 PM ET at NYC’s 92Y.
Bette Midler
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Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat will run June 2-25 (opening June 3) at CA’s La Mirada Theatre, directed & choreographed by Gerry McIntyre, with music direction by Jennifer Lin.
Chris McCarrell (Joseph), Kelli Rabke (Narrator), Daniel Dawson (Pharaoh/ Levi), Peter Allen Vogt (Potiphar/Jacob), Ellie Barrett (Mrs. Potiphar/Wife), James Everts (Isaachar), Josh Grisetti (Simeon), Juan Guillen (Dan), Ceron Jones (Judah), Kurt Kemper (Gad), Edgar Lopez (Naphtali), Rorey Michelangelo (Zebulun), Dino Nicandros (Reuben), Marcus Phillips (Benjamin), and Brandon Keith Rogers (Asher), with Bernadette Bentley, Johnisa Breault, Jasiana Caraballo, Lauren Decierdo, Andrea Dobbins, Ashley Evangeline, Marie Gutierrez, Callula Sawyer, Rianny Vasquez, and Bridget Whitman. Understudies are Anyssa Navarro and Thomas Whitcomb.
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Mr. Finn’s Cabaret, the Summer series, will run June 4 – Sept. 3 at MA’s Barrington Stage Company.
David Lutkin (June 4-5)
BSC’s Musical Theatre Conservatory Company (June 26)
Donna McKechnie (July 10)
. Todd Almond (July 16)
Jason Robert Brown (Aug. 31 – Sept. 1)
Alan H. Green (Sept. 2-3)
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Broadway Bets poker tournament, in support of BC/EFA, will take place Mon. May 22 at 6 PM PM at NYC’s Sardi’s.
Ramin Karimloo, Aaron Tveit, Anthony Rapp,Kelli Barrett, Robert Creighton, Christopher Innvar, Brian Koppleman, Jarrod Spector, and more.
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Jane Chamber’s Last Summer at Bluefish Cove will run June 17 – Aug. 27 outdoors at the Fountain Theatre, directed by Hannah Wolf.
Sarah Scott Davis, Allison Husko, Tamika Katon-Donegal, Lindsay LaVanchy, Noelle Messier, Stephanie Pardi, Anne Sonneville, Sasha Surdyke, and Ellen D. Williams.
Set in 1974, a group of queer women spend their summers together in a remote oceanfront town on Long Island. Their lesbian enclave is disrupted when Eva, a naïve straight woman recently separated from her husband, stumbles unaware into their circle and falls for the charming, tough-talking Lil.