GRACE NOTES: Thursday, November 20, 2025

 

Today’s Highlights:

 

  Cranes, by L.R. Gordon, directed by Ann Bronston, featuring Martha Hackett and Taubert Nadalini, opens at Venice, CA’s Pacific Resident Theatre.

 

  Musical Theatre Guild’s The Holidays on Stage & Screen! concert, written by Michael Kostroff, hosted by Glenn Rosenblum, with music direction by Sam Krieger, featuring special guest Carol Lawrence, along with Eileen Barnett, Roger Befeler, Patrick Beller, Jill Marie Burke, Melissa Lyons Caldretti, Melissa Fahn, Joshua Finkel, Julie Garnye, Tal Fox, Barbara Carlton Heart, Ashley Fox Linton, Maura M. Knowles, Susan Edwards Martin, AshleyMoniz, Leslie Stevens, Trance Thompson, Diane Vincent, and Paul Wong, at LA’s Catalina Bar & Grill.

 

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  Reviews for Tom Hank’s This World of Tomorrow at Off-Broadway’s The Shed.

 

Click here to read all the reviews.

 

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  The Big Fat Christmas Show, in support of Hope the Mission (which serves the homeless), will take place Fri. Dec. 5 at 8 PM at North Hollywood’s El Portal Theatre, hosted by Michael-Leon Wooley & Jason Michael Snow.

 

  Clent Browers, Carly Hughes, Wendy rosoff, Rena Strober, and Sharon Wilkins.

 

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  NYC’s Public Theatre has announced its 2026 Summer Season at Shakespeare in the Park.

 

Casting TBA.

 

  Romeo & Juliet  (May 2026 dates TBA), directed by Saheem Ali.

 

  The Winter’s Tale  (dates TBA), directed by Daniel Sullivan

 

  As You Like It  (dates TBA), directed by Saheem Ali.

 

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  The world premiere of Barbara Pym’s Quartet in Autumn will run May 7 – June 13, 2026 at the Arcola Theatre, directed by Dominic Dromgoole.

 

  TBA.

 

  The play brings to life Pym’s wry, poignant and hopeful meditation on life through the lives of four Londoners. It is an ode to ageing, friendship and the strange poetry of everyday life. Loved by many readers and writers, Barbara Pym has garnered a cult following as one of the greatest novelists of the twentieth century for her wit, satire and social commentary.

 

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  LA’s Theatre West will present It’s annual fundraiser/performance, Our Giving Tuesday, on Tues. Dec. 2 at 8 PM, with writers, directors, and actors who are all Theatre West members.

 

  This is a program of short plays created  in 24 hours from conception to presentation, with only 24 hours to write, directed, memorize a short play, featuring the talents of the writers, directors, and actors all memebers of Theatre West!  Why December 2nd? Because December 2nd is Giving Tuesday (the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving), and Theatre West is a non-profit organization! Proceeds from this event will support Theatre West’s ongoing artistic, cultural, and community outreach activities.

 

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  A one-night-only works-in-progress performance of Miranda Ferriss Jones & Richard Edelman’s Spiral Bound will take place Sat. Dec. 6 at 7:30 PM at Lincoln Center. Tickets not required.

 

  Laura Benanti and Khaila Wilcoxon, backed by students from Pace University.

 

  A collection of songs about inspirational women, adapted from sculptor Edelman’s spiral-bound notebooks of poems composed from 1968-1972. Miranda Ferriss Jones has composed the piece’s music.

 

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  Levi Holloway’s Paranormal Activity, directed by Felix Barrett, continues through Dec. 7 at LA’s Ahmanson Theatre.

 

  Melissa James and Patrick Heusinger.

 

  James and Lou move from Chicago to London to escape the past…but they soon discover that places aren’t haunted, people are.

 

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   Manhattan Theatre Club‘s 2026 Spring Benefit will take place Tues. Apr. 7 at 5 PM at the Harvard Club of New York City (35 West 44th Street), followed by a performance of Proof at the Booth Theatre.

 

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  Kind Stranger … a memory play, conceived & performed by Rick Simone-Freidland, will run Jan. 23 – Feb. 8, 2026 Jan at the Zephyr Theatre, adapted & directed by Steven Simone-Friedland.

 

  The poignant journey of Tennessee Williams as the legendary playwright recounts his life, art, and love affairs. Witness his wit and unflinching honesty as he writes his last chapter, revealing how his plays were his life and his life was his plays. Adapted directly from his memoir and using only his words, Kind Stranger could be the last original Tennessee Williams play. Running time: 75 minutes with no intermission.

 

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  Manhattan Theatre Club’s 2026 Spring Benefit will place Tues. April 7, 2026 at 5 PM at NYC’s Harvard Club (35 West 44th Street).

 

Performers and additional information TBA.

 

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  Shaina Taub’s Suffs, directed by Leigh Silverman, continues through Dec. 7 at the Pantages Theatre.

 

Maya Keleher (Alice Paul), Danyel Fulton (Ida B. Wells), Marya Grandy (Carrie Chapman Catt), Jenny Ashman (President Woodrow Wilson), Monica Tulia Ramirez  (Inez Milholland), Gwynne Wood (Lucy Burns), Joyce Meimei Zheng (Ruza Wenclawska), Livvy Marcus (Doris Stevens), Trisha Jeffrey (Mary Church Terrell), Brandi Porter (Dudley Malone), Laura Stracko (Alva Belmont/Phoebe Burn), Tami Dahbura (Mollie Hay), and Victoria Lauren Pekel (Phyllis Terrell/Robin).

 

The musical chronicles the fight for women’s right to vote in the years leading up to the 19th Amendment in 1920. The story focuses on the conflict between different approaches to activism, particularly between the more traditional Carrie Chapman Catt and the radical, direct-action proponent Alice Paul. It also highlights the struggles of women of color, like Ida B. Wells, who faced racial discrimination within the movement itself as they fought for universal suffrage. 

 

 

 


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