Today’s Highlights:
Manhattan Theatre Club‘s Mary Jane, by Amy Herzog, directed by Anne Kauffman, featuring Rachel McAdams (Mary James), April Matthis (Sherry/Dr. Toros), Susan Pourfar (Brianna/Chaya), Lily Santiago Alemia/Kat,) and Brenda Wehle (Ruthie/Tenkei), opens at Broadway’s Samual J. Friedman Theatre.
The New Group‘s All of Me, by Laura winters, directed by Ashley Brooke Monroe, featuring Madison Ferris, Danny J. Gomez,Lily Mae Harrington, Florencia Lozano, Brian Furey Morabito, and Kyra Sedgwick, begin previews at Off-Broadway’s Signature Center.
tick, tick…BOOM, by Jonathan Larson, directed by David Saint, featuring Daniel Marconi (Jon), Cathryn Wake (Susan), and John Yi (Michael), begins previews at NJ’s George Street Playhouse.
Judgement Day, world premiere by Rob Ulin, directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel, featuring Jason Alexander (Sammy Campo), Daniel Breaker (Father Michael) and Candy Buckley (Angel), with Maggie Bofill (Tracy), Olivia Denise Dawson (Della), Joe Dempsey (Jackson), Michael Kostroff (Monsignor), Ellis Myers (Sammy/Casper), and Meg Thalken (Edna), begins previews at Chicago’s Shakespeare Theater.
Red Bull Theater‘s God’s Spies presentation, by Bill Cain, directed by Nathan Winkelstein, featuring Zainab Jah, Zachary Lopez Roa, and Nick Westrate, at 7 PM at Off-Broadway’s Sheen Center.
J2 Spotlight Musical Theater Company‘s Make Someone Happy: The Songs of Comden, Green, and Styne concert presentation, directed by Charles Kirsch, featuring Stephen Hanan, Amy Spanger, Todd Buonopane, Jeremy Benton, Catherine DeLuce, Nadia Duncan, Caleb Funk, Leah Horowitz (Follies), Jay Aubrey Jones, Andrew Leggieri, Ashley Morton, Jenny Lee Stern, Andy Tighe, Rebekah Wellons, and Stuart Zagnit, at 7:30 PM at Off-Broadway’s AMT Theatre.
Varla Jean Merman: Stand By Your Drag concert, at 8:30 PM at Hollywood’s Catalina Jazz Club.
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Reviews for Patriots at Broadway’s Ethel Barrymore Theatre:
NY Times (Jesse Green): Michael Stuhlbarg and Will Keen shine as a kingmaker and his creature. But in Peter Morgan’s cheesy-fun play, it’s not always clear which is which… Rupert Goold’s entertaining if overcaffeinated production… But Patriots also sets out to demonstrate how little the West knows about the real world of realpolitik: the grudges, enmities and insulted dignities that in the post-Soviet 1990s… Spoken in the weirdly accented English of this production, which originated in London and has been remounted for Broadway with key cast changes and Netflix as a producer, “krysha” sounds confusingly like “creature.” It turns out to be a useful confusion. Patriots is a wild story of makers switching places with the made, of Pinocchios devouring Geppettos…
New York Daily News (Chris Jones): As fans of “The Crown” know well, British writer Peter Morgan is singularly adept at explaining how the most basic human emotions — pride, pique, greed, sexual need, raging insecurity — impact magnitudinous global events. In Patriots, Morgan’s newest Broadway play, he turns his attention to the Kremlin and the rise — with as yet no fall in sight — of the obscure deputy mayor who became one of the world’s most ruthless despots: Vladimir Putin… a gripping, juicy drama replete with a terrifying performance from Will Keen as a Richard III-like you-know-who… Stuhlbarg is a loquacious, slightly goofy actor who fits Morgan’s conception of the character like a fur-lined glove as the thrill of money and power leads him to stray from his professorial mentor (played by Ronald Guttman)…
Theatermania (Zachary Stewart): …An alternate title for Peter Morgan’s Patriots, now making its Broadway debut at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre following two acclaimed runs in London, might be The Tragedy of Boris Berezovsky… this neo-Shakespearean history does a decent job of conveying the basics… In this “great man” approach to history, Berezovsky is the sun, a burst of energy around which all Russia revolves.As portrayed by Michael Stuhlbarg, he is most like that son of York, Richard III: intelligent, conniving, funny, and thoroughly untrustworthy… Stuhlbarg wields his plummy accent like an antique sword. All that’s missing is a horse.
Theatrely (Juan A. Ramirez): Peter Morgan…drawn to the fire of narcissistic politicos but burned by the frost of his unclear intentions… Boris Berezovsky (Michael Stuhlbarg) in an impressive physical performance, Stuhlbarg charges through in that mode: vicious, vulgar, and avaricious. The problem is, dramatically, he has nowhere to go, and neither do we… Rupert Goold directs with a coach’s jingoism, an approach which moves things along quickly…
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Reviews for The Heart of Rock and Roll at Broadway’s James Earl Jones Theatre:
NY Times (Elisabeth Vincentelli): It’s 2024, and Huey Lewis is having a moment. Just let that sink in… The Heart of Rock and Roll, which is not so much a Huey Lewis (and the News) musical as the Huey Lewis of musicals: not taking itself too seriously, doing what it does well, and just happy to be on Broadway, keeping company with starrier productions… Bobby works on the assembly line, but he really wants to join the sales department so he can “Be Someone,” as the show’s new song puts it… dreams play a big part in The Heart of Rock and Roll. There are numerous references to chasing the dream, making it come true and living it, but also giving it up. Sentimentality is often ladled out, along with clichés… Fortunately, there is also enough good-natured goofball humor to keep Gordon Greenberg’s production from sinking into cloying goo…
Chicago Tribune (Chris Jones): Huey Lewis and the News were sometimes compared to The Cars and even Elvis Costello, but their string of catchy hit singles also had the distinctive everyman air of flowing out of a bunch of regular dudes, Joe six-packs who could just as easily have been headlining at your local tavern and carrying out their own amps. Presumably, that’s why the book writer Jonathan A. Abrams (working from a story co-written with Tyler Mitchell) chose to set the new jukebox musical The Heart of Rock & Roll in Milwaukee and Chicago, even though Lewis came from California… Ideal fodder, then, for a modestly scaled and warm-hearted jukebox show that might just prove to be one of the sleeper hits of the season, thanks to an inestimably witty book with plenty of what comedians like to call hard laughs, a suite of winning lead performances under director Gordon Greenberg and another tour de force suite of choreography from Lorin Latarro, who sure has shaken up Broadway movement this season…
New York Post (Johnny Oleksinski): …has turned out to be an underdog highlight of the season… a lot more fun and proudly frivolous than any of its sober-minded neighbors. It’s perhaps the first time in my life that I’ve been happy to see a confetti cannon at curtain call… The show is hilarious, too… breezily directed by Gordon Greenberg, remarkably is one of just two new musicals on Broadway over the past year — out of an absurd 15 — that’s 100% a comedy… After “Kinky Boots,” you would think there was no more cleverness to be mined from assembly-line shenanigans. Wrong! Choreographer Lorin Latarro has the cast perform a campy tap dance on a big piece of bubble wrap that’s “Anything Goes” meets the Monty Python coconuts…
Theatermania (Kenji Fujishima): It turns out Rock of Ages‘s closing in 2015 wasn’t the last gasp of ’80s nostalgia on Broadway. The new jukebox musical The Heart of Rock and Roll offers us another 1987-set original story, this one featuring the songs of Huey Lewis and the News… imagine my surprise when I came out feeling buzzed, entertained…and slightly ashamed at how easily I swallowed this package… story is rarely the selling point of jukebox musicals like these — a point Abrams seems very much aware of… Abrams plays fast and loose with the ’80s references… it’s rather perverse to see a show that not only appears to swallow certain Reagan-era myths about capitalistic success as a worthy goal, but also foregrounds the travails of two white cis hetero characters while relegating minorities to sidekick roles…
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“Merrily We Roll Along: Director Maria Friedman in Conversation with Jonathan Groff” will take place Sun. May 19 at 8 PM at NYC’s 92NY.
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Liza Minnelli, Renée Elise Goldsberry, and Jeremy O. Harris will each be documentary subjects at the 23rd annual Tribeca Film Festival, which will run June 5-16.
“Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story” celebrates Minnelli’s legendary career in the performing arts, complete with archival materials and Minnelli’s own input.
“Satisfied” follows Goldsberry as she balances career and family while performing in Broadway’s Hamilton. Goldsberry will also give a performance after her documentary’s premiere.
“Slave Play. Not a Movie. A Play” features Jeremy O. Harris in his self-directed documentary following his journey writing and workshopping Slave Play, which opened on Broadway in 2019.
Other featured Broadway names include:
Trey Parker & Matt Stone (The Book of Mormon), whose journey to restore an iconic Colorado restaurant in “Saving Casa Bonita.”
Rosie O’Donnell & Eddie Izzard, featured in “Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution,” presenting a history of queer comedy.
Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Alice Lee, who each appear in Yen Tan’s dramedy “All That We Love.”
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David Ajami’s Stereophonic has been extended through Aug. 18 at Broadway’s Golden Theatre, directed by Daniel Aukin.
Will Brill (Reg), Andrew R. Butler (Charlie), Juliana Canfield (Holly), Eli Gel (Grover), Tom Pecinka (Peter), Sarah Pidgeon (Diana), and Chris Stack (Simon).
Stereophonic mines the agony and the ecstasy of creation as it zooms in on a music studio in 1976. Here, an up-and-coming rock band recording a new album finds itself suddenly on the cusp of superstardom. The ensuing pressures could spark their breakup — or their breakthrough.
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Gingold Theatrical Group will present a script-in-hand performance of Noel Coward’s I’ll Leave It to You on Mon. Apr. 29 at 7 PM at NYC’s Symphony Space, directed by David Staller.
Aaron Lee Battle, Susan Chella, Veanne Cox, Dan Domingues, Devin Kessler, Susannah Perkins, Vishaal Reddy, Thomas Jay Ryan and Evie Shuckman, an Aaron Lee Battle (Narrator/Griggs).
It’s 1920. Left a widow with four grown-up children, Mrs. Dermott turns to her mysterious brother Dan for help. The notorious Uncle Dan arrives to find an idle family ready to live on his money. He announces that he is doomed to die in short order and that he will leave his money to the member of the family who has made the most productive use of their life by the time he shuffles off this mortal coil. But who will win? And what’s Uncle Dan’s real secret life?
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Red Bull Theater‘s 20th Anniversary Festival continues through May 12 at Off-Broadway’s Sheen Center.
The festival offers all-star performances of Shakespeare, his contemporaries, and more.
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Utah’s Pioneer Theatre Company will present Dave Malloy’s Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 from May 10-25, directed & choreographed by Karen Azenberg, with music direction by Phil Reno.
Kevin Earley (Pierre), Ali Ewoldt (Natasha), Lucy Anders (Princess Mary/Opera Singer) Ginger Bess( Hélène), Mary Fanning Driggs (Marya/ Accordion), and Edward Juvier (Balaga Bolkonsky), Melanie Fernandez (Sonya), Justin Luciano (Dolokhov), and Aleks Pevec (Anatole), with Troy Valjean Rucker, Tyler Simone, Lenny Daniel, James Wong, Evan K. Beesley, Bennett Chew, Faith Driggs, Cameron Nies, Natalie Ruthven, and Jazmin Viquez.
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Open Door Playhouse (link TBA) will present F.J. Hartland’s Mothers and Other Strangers in podcast form on May 23, directed by Miranda Stewart. Link TBA.
Carol Goldman, Noelle Evangelisti, and Omari Williams.
Ethan wants to be a good son and a good caregiver to his forgetful mother. Not everything is how it seems, however, in this narrative which has an unexpected twist ending worthy of O. Henry.
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NYC’s Public Theater has announced its bi-lingual NYC mobile tour of The Comedy of Errors (May 28 – June 13), directed by Rebecca Martinez.
Joél Acosta (Antipholus), Varín Ayala (Egeon/Pinch), Michael Castillejos (Solino/2nd Merchant), Danaya Esperanza (Adriana), Rebecca Jimenez (Understudy), Keren Lugo (Luciana), Alan Mendez (Understudy), Sara Ornelas (Troubadour), Gían Pérez (Dromio), Desireé Rodriguez (Courtesan/Emilia), and Glendaliris Torres-Greaux (Angelo).