Today’s Highlights:
The Secret Garden: Workshop and Livestream Experience, by Marsha Norman & Lucy Simon, directed & choreographed by Warren Carlyle, featuring Clifton Duncan (Archibald), Drew Gehling (Neville Craven), Sierra Boggess (Lily), Amber Iman (Martha), Adam Chandler-Berat (Dickon), Brooklyn Shuck (Mary), Cameron Mann (Colin), Matt Doyle (Albert), Sally Ann Triplett (Medlock), Jim Norton (Ben), Anoop Desai (Fakir), and Kuhoo Verma (Ayah), begins streaming at 6 PM ET on Broadway on Demand (and available through May 9).
Waiting for Godot, directed by Scott Elliott, featuring Ethan Hawke (Vladimir), John Leguizamo (Estragon), Wallace Shawn (Lucky), Tarik Trotter (Pozzo), and Drake Bradshaw (Boy), begins streaming at Off-Broadway’s The New Group.
Jeremy Jordan in concert begins streaming at 8 PM ET (and available on demand through May 27) here.
“Girls5Eva,” featuring Renee Elise Goldsberry, Sara Bareilles, Ashley Park, Paula Pell, and Busy Phillips, premieres for FREE on Peacock.
Shattering the Glass Ceiling, an evening of monologues, featuring Lisa Arrindell, Marsha Stephanie Blake, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Sanaa Lathan, Dawnn Lewis, Audra McDonald, Celestine Rae, Retta, Angelica Ross, Michele Shay, Gabourey Sidibe, Phyllis Yvonne Stickney, Wanda Sykes, Paulette Washington, and Vanessa Williams, streams for FREE at 6 PM ET at NYC’s Billy Holiday Theatre.
John Cullum: An Accidental Star benefit solo show, by John Cullum, Jeff Berger & David Thompson, directed by Lonnie Price & Matt Cowart, concludes streaming at Off-Broadway’s Vineyard Theatre.
John Cullum: An Accidental Star benefit solo show concludes streaming at CT’s Goodspeed Musicals.
**********************
Video: Stars in the House, celebrating Bob Newhart & Friends, with special guests Bob Newhart, Peter Bonerz, Jim Burrows, Jula Duffy, Tony Papenfuss, John Voldstad, and William Sanderson. (1:20:43)
**********************
The show will go on. Broadway theaters will re-open at full capacity on Sept. 14!
Tickets go on sale today for most shows.
**********************
DC’s Signature Theatre will present its 6th annual SigWorks: Monday Night New Play Reading Series, and is now accepting submissions through June 14.
The initiative highlights and supports the work of DMV playwrights and is an opportunity for playwrights, actors, directors, designers, and patrons to explore new plays in a fun and informal environment.
Playwrights whose scripts are selected will have the opportunity to rehearse their plays with professional actors and a director of the day of the reading at Signature Theatre. A full list of the chosen plays will be released later this summer.
**********************
Ben Jonson’s Sejanus, His Fall, adapted & directed by Nathan Winkelstein, will stream Mon. May 17 at 7:30 PM ET at Off-Broadway’s Red Bull Theater.
Shirine Babb, Grantham Coleman, Keith David, Manoel Felciano, Denis O’Hare, Matthew Rauch, Liv Rooth, Stephen Spinella, Emily Swallow, Raphael Nash Thompson, Tamara Tunie, and Jamed Udom.
Ben Jonson’s tragedy of epic proportions is an incisive portrayal of political cronyism, sycophancy, and power. Tiberius is the Emperor of tome. Sejanus is his right-hand man. But – in a society where books are burnt, “knowledge is made of a capital offense,” and free men have become “the prey of greedy vultures and spies” – factions are forming behind each of these charismatic leaders.
**********************
A benefit reading of Larry Kramer’s A Norman Heart will stream Sat. May 8 at 5 PM PT here, directed by Paris Barclay.
Jeremy Pope, Laverne Cox, Sterling K. Brown, Jake Borelli, Vincent Rodriguez III, Guillermo Díaz, Ryan O’Connell Daniel Newman, Jay Hayden, and Danielle Sayre.
**********************
Gideon Media will stream multiple scripted fiction podcasts. Casting TBA.
The Designated Mourner, (premieres June 25), by Wallace Shawn, directed by André Gregory. Something’s happening in the country where Jack lives. There’s violence in the streets. Leaders are being replace. Public life is transforming. The government is cracking down on anyone suspected of subversion. But Jack – consumed with his atrophying marriage to Judy, his corrosive envy of his famous poet-intellectual father-in-law Howard, and his disintegrating sense of self – barely notices. As the once-liberal society around him descends into authoritarianism, Jack plunges into his ow parallel decline, a chilling abdication of everything he once valued.
Grasses of a Thousand Colors (premieres July 9), by Wallace Shawn, directed by André Gregory. in this most disturbing dreamlike drama, a doctor invents a groundbreaking nutrient intended to end world hunger. Instead it radically transforms the food chain, chemically disrupting animal and human bodies, leading to a global illness and outbreaks of disturbing behavior. Isolated from the worst of it by his wealth, the doctor loses himself in a series of tumultuous relationships with his wife Cerise, his mistress Robin, and his girlfriend Rose. A cat call Blanche, who leads him to an enchanted world of bizarre eroticism also figures crucially in the drama.
Give Me Away (Part 1: July 16, 23, 30 & Aug. 16… and… Part 2: Sept. 17, 24 and Oct. 1. 8 & 15), by Mac Rogers and directed by Jordana William. They call the spaceship that crashed in the Nevada desert “The Ghosthouse” because it screams – the screams of thousands of extraterrestrial political prisoners uploaded into its horrific mainframe. The only way to free them… is to transfer them in the bodies of humans willing to share their minds with an alien second consciousness. But who would volunteer for that?
The Earth Moves (Aug. 13 & 20), by Mac rogers, directed by Jordana Williams. People tune into Brent Ziff’s radio show to hear him make fun of losers. But tonight’s loser, Leo Short, is calling with a message straight from the bowels of the Earth that’s going to put everything Brent knows on shaky ground. A dark comedy about how even the most unwanted schmuck can still make waves.
God of Obsidian (Aug. 27, Sept. 3 & 10), by Mac Rogers, directed by Jordana Williams. You have to cross a bridge to get to Nathan’s house. Crossing in is easy. But crossing out – as Alice is about to discover – is almost impossible. This is a dark fairy tale about gaslighting which follows a woman desperately seeking the story that will take her back across the perilous bridge to freedom.
**********************
Complete casting has been announced for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s adaptation of Cinderella, which will begin previews June 25 and open July 14 at the Gillian Lynne Theatre, directed by Laurence Connor, with choreography by JoAnn Hunter.
Carrie Hope Fletcher (Cinderella), Victoria Hamilton-Barritt (Stepmother), Ivano Turco (Prince Sebastian), Rebecca Trehearn (The Queen), Georgina Castle (Marie), Laura Baldwin (Gloria), and Gloria Onitiri (Godmother), with Michael Afemaré, Lydia Bannister, Michelle Bishop, William Bozier, Lauren Byrne, Sophie Camble, Tobias Charles, Vinny Coyle, Nicole Deon, Jonathan David Dudley, Dominic Adam Griffin, Michael Hamway, James Lee Harris, Leah Harris, Kate Ivory Jordan, Kelsie-Rae Marshall, Andy Rees, Alexandra Waite Roberts, Sam Robinson, Giovanni Spano, Lauren Stroud, Georgia Tapp, Matthieu Vinetot, and Georgina Onuora (Cinderella at certain performances).
**********************
It looks like a limited revival of Waitress will return to Broadway, starring Sara Bareilles.
Dates, casting and additional information were not reported. Stay tuned for further updates.
**********************
The Fire Island Dance Festival and Hudson Valley Dance Festival, both in support of Dancers Responding to AIDS, will return in 2022 to their homes in Fire Island Pines, NY, and Catskill, NY.
**********************
Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years will stream June 3-20 at Long Beach’s International City Theatre, directed by Jamie Torcellini, with music direction by Graham Sobelman.
John Battagliese and Gabriela Carillo.
**********************
The Phantom of the Opera will return to the Majestic Theatre on Oct. 22.
Casting TBA.
On Broadway alone, the musical has played an unheard of 13,000 performances to 19 million people at The Majestic Theatre, the musical’s home for all 31 record-breaking years. It will celebrate its 32nd Anniversary on Jan. 26, 2022.
**********************
Brandon Jacobs-Jenkin’s An Octoroon will run June 16 – Sept. 19 at the Fountain Theatre, directed by Judith Moreland.
Casting TBA.
A play about a play. A modern-day Black playwright is struggling to find his voice. He adapts his favorite play, The Octoroon, a 19th-century melodrama about illicit interracial love written seven years after “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” What ensues is an upside-down world where racial stereotypes are challenged and brutally satirized. A highly stylized reality is created to tell the story of an octoroon woman (a person who is one-eighth black), and her quest for identity and love.