Today’s Highlights:
Roundabout Theatre Company‘s Primary Trust, world premiere by Eboni Booth, directed by Knud Adams, featuring Jackson Harper, April Matthis, Eric Berryman, and Jay O. Sanders, opens at Off-Broadway’s Laura Pels Theatre.
Aspects of Love, directed by Jonathan Kent, featuring Michael Ball (George), Laura Pitt-Pulford (Rose), Jamie Bogyo (Alex), Danielle de Niese (Giulietta), Rosemary Ashe (Elizabeth), Vinny Coyle (Hugo), , Soophia Foroughi (Alternate Giulietta), Dickon Gough (Barker), Ben Heathcote (Co-Barker, Eu Jin Hwang (On Stage Swing), Daniel Jagusz-Holley (On Stage Swing), Natasha O’Brien (On Stage Swing), Michael Matus (Marcel), Anna Unwin (Jenny) and Indiana Ashworth, Millie Gubby & Katie Mitton (sharing the role of Young Jenny), opens at London’s Lyric Theatre.
Evita, directed by Sammi Cannold, featuring Shereen Pimentel (Eva Perón), Gabriel Burrafato (Magaldi), Omar Lopez-Cepero (Che), Caesar Samayoa (Perón), and Naomi Rose (Mistress), with Martín Almiron, Julian Alvarez, Adrienne Balducci, Leah Barsky, bianca Bulgarelli, Camila Cardona (Melody Celatti, Estaben Domenichini, rebecca Eichenberger, Sean Ewim, Nicole Fernandez-Coffaro, David Michael Garry, Eddie Gutierrez, Eric Anthony Lopez, Jonatan Lujan, Caleb Marshall-villarreal, Ilda Mason, Jeremiah Valentino Porter, Leonay Shepherd, Maria Cristina Posada Slye, Sky Vaux Fuller, Marissa Barragán, Mathew Bautista, Isabella Lopez, Miguel Angel Vasquez, and Jeniysys Oliver-Joseph, opens at Cambridge’s A.R.T.
A Simulacrum, written & directed by Lucas Hnath, starring Steve Cuiffo, begins previews at Off-Broadway’s Atlantic Theatre Company.
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2023 Broadway.com Audience Choice Award Winners. Click here for the complete list.
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Harold Rome & Jerome Weidman’s I Can Get Get It For You Wholesale, newly adapted by John Weidman, will run Oct. 10 – Dec. 3 (opening Oct. 30) at Classic Stage Company, directed by Trip Cullman.
Santino Fontana (Harry Bogen), Judy Kuhn (Mrs. Bogen), Adam Chanler-Berat (Meyer Bushkin), Eddie Cooper (Tootsie Maltz), Adam Grupper (Maurice Pulvermacher), Greg Hildreth (Teddy Asch), Rebecca Naomi Jones and (Ruthie Rivkin), Sara Steele, with Ryah Nixon, and more TBA.
It’s 1937 in New York City’s Garment District, and shipping clerk Harry Bogen would love to sell you a bill of goods. In this dark musical comedy, Bronx-born Harry must choose between the comfort of community and his own ambitious dreams. He’ll have to do whatever it takes to get ahead, and even more to stay there. Better watch your back – sewing needles can be sharp.
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The next Musi-Cal concert, offering selections from new musicals, will take place Mon. June 5 at 7:30 PM at Hollywood’s Bourbon Room, hosted by Laura Shein and Clayton Farris.
The Art Forger, by Laura Watkins & Nicholas David Brandt, featuring Jennifer Sun Bell, Brent Ramirez, Jeff Scot Carey, Amanda Kruger, Eric B. Anthony, and Emily Clark. The heist that rocked the art world was only the beginning.
Real Housewives: The Unauthorized Musical Parody, by Richelle Meiss & Sam Johnides, featuring Tony Rodriguez, Chad Westbrook, Jake Delaney, Rob Warner, Chanse McCrary, and Mary Lou. A hilarious drag parody of the show that you’re embarrassed to admit that you watch!
This Used To Be A Disco, by Bret Ryback & Jeff Luppino-Esposito, featuring Brett Ryback, Eran Scoggins, and Israel Erron Ford. 71-year-old bar owner, Nicky Fontana, must rally support to save Paterson, NJ’s last gay bar from being knocked down by an incoming tech company. But his escalating battle with the young, gay, tech exec, Griffin Scott, will risk undermining the very community he’s sworn to serve.
Miss Hysteria, by Laura Schein & Ben Zeadman, featuring Laura Schein, Chris M. Kauffman, Parissa Koo, Erica Hanrahan, Teya Patt, Michael Thomas Grant, Clayton Farris, Margaux Vranken, and Roberg Yacko. A work of historical fiction based on the life of Louise Gleizes, a talented actress with a traumatic past who performed symptoms of hysteria for Dr. Charcot’s infamous neurology presentations at the Salpêtrière Institution in Paris. But Louise ultimately questions Dr. Charcot’s motives and resolves to set herself and her fellow “hysterical” women free.
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Manhattan Theatre Club has named Kwame Kwei-Armah as its new Artistic Advisor, succeeding Ruben Santiago-Hudson, beginning with the 2023-24 season.
Santiago-Hudson, who has been in the role since 2020, will remain part of MTC Artistic Director Lynne Meadow’s artistic consulting team, which also includes director Daniel Sullivan.
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Santa Barbara’s Ensemble Theatre Company (link TBA) has announced its 2023-24 season. Casting and creative teams TBA.
The Thanksgiving Play (Oct. 5-22), by Larissa FastHorse.
Ring of Fire – The Music of Johnny Cash (Nov. 30 – Dec. 17), by Richard Maltby, Jr. & William Meade.
The Pianist of Willesden Lane (Feb. 1-18, 2024), directed by Hershey Felder.
The Lehman Trilogy (Apr. 4-21) Alice, Formerly of Wonderland (May 30 – June 16), world premiere by Mark Saltzman. Based on the “true story” of the secret romance of the real Alice (Alice Liddell) and her British prince, Leopold. When Alice Liddell was a young woman, she set out on a grand tour of Europe with her sisters Lorina and Edith. One story has it that she became a romantic interest of Prince Leopold, the youngest son of Queen Victoria, during the four years he spent at Christ Church. Years later, Leopold named his first child Alice, and acted as godfather to Alice’s second son Leopold. 
A concert presentation of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Glenn Slater, Charles Hart & Frederick Forsyth’s Love Never Dies will take place Aug. 21-22 at Theatre Royal Drury, directed by Shaun Kerrison.
Norm Lewis, Celinde Schoenmake, and more TBA.
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TheaterWorks Hartford has announced its 2023-24 season:
Lizzie (Sept. 29 – Oct. 22), by Steven Cheslik-deMeyer, Tim Maner & Alan Stevens Hewitt, directed by Lainie Sakakura, and music direction by Erika R. Gamez. The rock concert re-telling explores the heated days leading up to the famous Lizzie Borden murders and her controversial acquittal of all charges.
Christmas on the Rocks (Nov. 29 – Dec. 23), conceived & directed by Rob Ruggiero. Now in its 11th year, this irreverent holiday production features your favorite kids from Christmas stories — all grown up, shaken, stirred, and served with a twist.
The Garbologist (Feb. 2-25, 2024), by Lindsay Joel, directed by Rob Ruggiero. This outside-the-box comedy pairs Danny: a gruff white, male, blue-collar NYC sanitation worker hiding a heart of gold, and Marlowe: a determined Black, female, Ivy-League-educated “newbie” who is assigned to his route. When this unlikely pair is thrown together to pick up what the world has discarded, they unexpectedly find common ground in uncommon times.
Sanctuary City (Mar. 19 – Apr. 22), by Martyna Majok, directed by Jacob Padrón & Pedro Bermúdez. A compelling story of two teenagers, young DREAMers fighting to establish a place for themselves in America – the only country they know as home.
Sandra (May 31 – June 23), by David Cale & Matthew Dean Marsh, directed by Jared Mezzocchi. Sandra seeks to get to the bottom of the mysterious disappearance of her closest friend, a young pianist and composer, who leaves for a trip to Mexico and never returns. Her search leads her into both a highly charged love affair, and increasingly dangerous territory.
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LA’s Echo Theater Company (link TBA) will present a free staged reading of Olivia Dufault’s For Want of a Horse on Thurs. June 15 at 8 PM at the Atwater Village Theatre, directed by Abigail Deser.
Samantha Dammeyer, Nicole DuPort, David Phillip Fishman, Chris Jerabek, and Tim Wright.
In this sincere, darkly comedic take on animals and the humans who love them, Calvin, a struggling zoophile, has long desired a “marefriend.” Now, with the blessing of his wife, he’s set to purchase the horse of his dreams.
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Additional performers have been announced for Night Of A Thousand Judys, in support of The Ali Forney Center, written & hosted by Justin Elizabeth Sayre, to take place Mon. June 12 at 7 PM at NYC’s Joe’s Pub, directed by Peter James Cook, with choreography by Jason Wise, and music direction by Drew Wutke.
Julie Benko, Telly Leung, Samantha Williams, Alexandra Silber, Carole J. Bufford, Elizabeth Ward Land, Lauren Patton, T. Oliver Reid, Hilary Kole, Jack Bartholet, and Jae W.B.
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Off-Broadway’s Irish Rep has announced its New Works Summer Festival of readings, to run June 20-24:
Irishtown (June 20), by Ciara Elizabeth Smyth. It’s a week before the opening of a new Irish play on Broadway and in the rehearsal room, the cast are panicking. The writer’s previous play was a smash hit. She’s been commissioned off the back of it and the producers expect another instant classic. Except her new play is about sexual harassment and talking seagulls. The cast are worried the script is dated, too weird and nowhere near Irish enough for American audiences.
Eris (June 21), by John King. Seán is feeling wronged because his boyfriend Tim has been excluded from a family wedding back home in Ireland. What does it matter that they’ve just broken up? The problem for his family is that Tim is femme, fabulous and worst of all, English.
Drip Feed (June 22), by Karen Cogan. Dancing on tables and 3AM breakfast rolls. But what if you wake up hungover and broken on the wrong person’s doorstep, realize you’ve got it wrong, all wrong, and it might just be too late?
Motherland (June 23), by May Treuhaft-Ali. Shavon and Samaya meet at a Women of Color Maternity Group in Chicago and devise a plan to raise their children in rural Ireland. Their hopes of starting a new life are complicated when they discover that the land itself is haunted by a history that is not unlike their own.
Once Before I Go (June 24), by Phillip McMahon. Told against the backdrop of Dublin’s burgeoning gay rights movement of the 1980s and 1990s and the contemporary LGBTQ+ community of today, the play charts the close friendship of Lynn, Daithí, and the luminous Bernard, and sits on the exhilarating edge between comedy, tragedy and melodrama. Exploring the fragile yet resilient bonds of Irish queer lives across three decades in Dublin, London and Paris, the play steps between the early days of the AIDS crisis and today’s LGBTQ+ community
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Master Class will run July 9-10 at Aspen’s Wheeler Opera House, directed by Joanna Gleason.
Phylicia Rashad, Anna Thompson, Marissa Moultrie, and Joseph Tancredi.
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Jazz at Lincoln Center presents it next Songbook Sundays concerts on June 11 at 5 & 7:30 PM at Dizzy’s Club, with music direction by Richard Cummings, and hosted by Deborah Grace Winer.
Karrin Allyson, Aisha de Haas, and Tyreek McDole.