Today’s Highlights:
Melissa Etheridge: My Window on Broadway, directed by Amy Tinkham, opens at Broadway’s Circle in the Square.
Love Letters, by A.R. Gurney, directed by Cameron Watson, featuring Martin Sheen and Melissa Fitzgerald, opens at the Kennedy Center.
Saw the Musical: The Unauthorized Parody of Saw, by Cooper Jordan, Zoe Ann Jordan, Patrick Spencer & Anthony De Angelis, directed by Stephanie Rosenberg, featuring Bart Shatto (Gordon), Adam Parbhoo (Adam), Jill Owen (Amanda/Alli/Jugsaw), and Donnell Johnson (Voice of Detective Tapp), with Danny Durr, Gabrielle Goodman, Patric Voss Davis, James Lynch, Thomas Skea, Morgan Traud, Jessica Morilak, and more, opens at Off-Broadway’s AMT Theatre.
Jenn Colella: Out and Proud concert, opens at NYC’s 54 Below.
Bisexual Sadness, world premiere by India Kotis, directed by Carlyle King, featuring (Cast 1) Tiffany Wolff (Faye), Alaska Jackson (Genevieve), Brian Graves (Alex),Karrie King (Miranda), Gloria Ines (Naomi), and Andrea Flowers (Lillian) and Cast 2 : Liz Fenning (Faye), Bex Taylor-Klaus (Genevieve), Philip Smithey (Alex), Amy Tolsky (Miranda), Naomi Rubin (Naomi), and Samira Beija (Lillian), opens at North Hollywood’s Road on Magnolia.
Mandy Patinkin in Concert: Being Alive concert, at 8 PM at CT’s Westport Country Playhouse.
Alice in Neverland developmental reading, (a sequel to Alice in Wonderland) by Phil Kenney & Reston Williams, directed by Catie Davis, featuring Allie Seibold, Heath Saunders, Kyle Selig, Grace McLean, Courtnee Carter, Rob Colletti, Travis Artz, Bobby Daye, LaVon Fisher-Wilson, Mia Gerachis, Stephanie Gibson, Donnie Hammond, Benjamin Henderson, Eddie Korbich, Garth Kravits, Elliott Mattox, Tiffany Mann, Adelina Mitchell, Chase Petersen, Honor Blue Savage, and Emmet Smith, takes place today in NYC (time & location not announced).
**********************
Reviews for Purlie Victorious at Broadway’s Music Box Theatre:
NY Times (Jesse Green): …Ossie Davis’s raucous comedy… every bit as scathingly funny as the 1961 reviews said it was… Kenny Leon’s thrillingly broad and warp-speed production aims to keep us in both time zones at once… Odom carries the play’s weight as it shifts genres, revealing further layers of character, while Young proves to be a daring comedian unafraid to go as far as the part takes her, our critic writes... Davis’s farce is full-throttle, blending lowbrow physical humor straight out of vaudeville… it’s Odom who carries the play’s weight as it shifts from genre to genre and reveals further layers of character…
Chicago Tribune (Chris Jones): Satire is what closes Saturday night, George S. Kaufman famously said. So how about the Broadway chances of a satire of all-American racism set on a wheezing Georgia plantation in the 1950s, replete with pragmatically sycophantic Black characters and a white overlord with a bullwhip? Magnificent, if there is any justice in the world… Director Kenny Leon’s supremely well-toned revival… a knockout show, as hilarious as it is cutting and as emotionally warmhearted as it is politically potent… it also should make a star out of the fearlessly fabulous Kara Young…
New York Theatre Guide (Joe Dziemianowicz): Flat-out hilarious and stacked with topflight performances led by Leslie Odom, Jr. and Kara Young, Purlie Victorious is also a triumph when it comes to timing. Suffice it to say the play speaks directly to today’s racial tumult… Zipping along in a fleet-footed 100 streaming minutes, the staging by Kenny Leon…boasts terrific work across the board… Odom, a Tony winner for Hamilton, is a blast to watch – and hear – as he dives deep to deliver what Davis is preaching… In a play filled with barbed grenades, one standout seems so simple, but it’s so complex. “Life is so good to us – sometimes,” says Lutiebelle. “Oh, child,” says Missy, “being colored can be a lotta fun when ain’t nobody looking.” Sixty-two years later, the line still zings and, sadly, stings.
Theatermania ( Kenji Fujishima ): …offers a reminder of what a truly multitalented artist and committed civil rights activist Davis was… But there’s nothing at all musty or reverential about this production. Instead, it makes a convincing case for Davis’s satirical play as a living, breathing work of art… What still astonishes about Purlie Victorious is the wide range of Davis’s vision: the way comedy pivots to terror seemingly on a dime; the way character, including Purlie himself, are allowed to be both heroic and buffoonish, thus recognizably human; and, on a broader level, the way Davis makes his own activist stance resoundingly clear without allowing his play to lapse into a mere polemic…
**********************
PA’s Bucks County Playhouse is offering a theater package for the Sun. Oct. 22 (3 PM) performance of The Rocky Horror Show, directed by Hunter Foster.
Frankie Grande (Frank-N-Furter), Jason Forback (Brad), Kristen Martin (Janet), Tim Shea (Riff Raff), Alyssa Wray (Magenta), Larkin Reilly (Columbia), Benjamin Howes (Narrator/Dr. Scott), and Stanley Martin (Eddie), with July Joy, Natalie Welch, and more TBA.
A round-trip bus ride will depart from NYC’s Food Emporium (810 8th Avenue at West 49th Street). Participants should arrive no later than 9:45 AM for the 10 AM. departure. The matinee performance begins at 3 PM, with a running time of 90 minutes. Participants will depart the Playhouse parking lot immediately following the performance. The package is $139 and includes: roundtrip bus, driver tip, theater ticket and all fees.
**********************
The pre-Broadway production of Bob Martin, David Foster & Susan Birkenhead’s Boop! The Betty Boop Musical, will run Nov. 19 – Dec. 24 at Chicago’s CIBC Theatre, directed & choreographed by Jerry Mitchell
TBA.
The musical will follow the iconic character as she dreams of an ordinary day off from her black-and-white world, which lands her in the colorful, music-filled land of New York City.
**********************
Broadway Acts for Abortion will take place Sun. Oct. 1 at 6:30 PM at NYC’s 54 Below, directed by Greg Santos, with music direction by Dan Lipton, and hosted by Martha Plimpton & Jenn Lyon.
Bonnie Milligan, John Cameron Mitchell, Kelli O’Hara, Miriam Silverman, Ann Dowd, Michael Emerson, Carrie Preston, Javier Muñoz, Amanda Green, Nikka Graff Lanzarone, and Marissa Rosen.
The evening will bring together the best of Broadway for karaoke, live auctions, and surprise guests.
**********************
Starting in Fall of 2024, tuition for the Juilliard School’s MFA acting program will be completely free.
**********************
The world premiere of David Ives & Stephen Sondheim’s Here We Are will run tonight – Jan. 27, 2024 (opening Oct. 22) at The Shed, directed by Joe Mantello, with choreography by Sam Pinkleton, and music supervision by Alexander Gemignani.
Francois Battiste, Tracie Bennett, Bobby Cannavale, Micaela Diamond, Amber Gray, Jin Ha, Rachel Bay Jones, Denis O’Hare, Steven Pasquale, David Hyde Pierce, and Jeremy Shamos, with Adante Carter, Lindsay Nicole Chambers, Bradley Dean, Mehry Eslaminia, Adam Harrington, and Bligh Voth.
The musical would be about trying to find a place to have dinner. The first act is inspired by Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and the second on his The Exterminating Angel – two movies set at surreal dinner parties. The first half, said Sondheim, deals with interruptions to dinner, the second is about “people who have dinner and can’t leave,” which “is my cheerful view of the world today.”
Lottery: For each performance, a limited number of $25 tickets will be available via a weekly lottery, as well as a limited number of $40 same-day rush tickets, via TodayTix. The lottery will open for entries on the TodayTix app each Sunday at 12:01 AM for the coming week’s performances and will close at 12 PM on the day before each performance. Winners will be notified by push notification and email between 1 – 4 PM on the day before their selected show, and will have 30 minutes to claim their tickets in the app. Entrants may request 1 or 2 tickets, and entry is free and open to all.
Same Day Rush: Via TodayTix’s mobile rush program, tickets for that day’s performance of Here We Are will be available on the TodayTix app at 9 AM each day on a first-come, first-served basis. Users can download the app and “unlock” rush tickets by sharing the program on social media ahead of their desired performance day.
**********************
Sesame Street the Musical has been extended through Dec. 31 at Off-Broadway’s Theater 555.
**********************
Fiddler on the Roof will run Oct. 4-29 at Virginia Stage Company, directed & choreographed by Gary John La Rosa, with music direction by Bart Kuebler.
John Payonk (Tevye), Velkassem Agguini (Fiddler), Ally Dods (Tzeitel), Mia Bergstrom (Hodel), Amelia Burkley (Chava), John K. Cauthen Jr. (Rabbi), Clara Coleman (Bluma), Eve Devirgilis (Golde), Giovanni Digabriele (Hershel/Sasha), Gavin Gayer (Cheder Boy 1) , Jasper Gayer (Cheder Boy 2), Greg Dragas (Motel), Matt Friedman (Mordcha), Alec Gillam (Nachum), and Nathan Nattew Jacques (Perchik), Loren Kent (Fruma-Sara/Rivka), Maryanne Kiley (Gradma Tzeitel/Anya), Mitchell Maguire (Chaim/Yuri), Tara R. Moscopulos (Shaindel), Evan Norris (Avram), Nick Richardson (Mendel), Scott Rollins (Constable), Ellie Madelyn Ruffing (Shprintze), Anthony Silvis (Yussel), Avaa Denae Stevenson (Mirala), Stormie Treviño (Bielke), Morgan White (Schloime/Boris), Scott Wichmann (Lazar Wolf), and Timothy Wright (Fyedka), with jacqueline Jones.
**********************
Audio: Nathan Lane sings “Gay Old Life“ from the upcoming film “Dicks: The Musical”
**********************
Matt Kunkel’s Tale as Old as Time: The Songs of Howard Ashman will run Oct. 28-30 at NYC’s 92NY, directed by Christian Borle, with choreography by Beth Crandall, and music direction by Nate Patten.
Heather Ayers, John Cariani, Nadina Hassan, Manu Narayan & Khadija Sankoh.
**********************
A benefit staged reading of Moises Kaufman & the Tectonic Theatre Project’s The Laramie Project, in support of The Trevor Project, will take place Mon. Oct. 16 at 7 PM at NYC’s Symphony Space, directed by Dustin Wills.
Julie White, Brandon Uranowitz, Ato Blankson-Wood, and more TBA.