Today’s Highlights:
The Public Theater‘s As You Like It FREE production, adapted by Shaina Taub, directed by Laurie Woolery, featuring Damion Allen (William), Tristan André (De Boys/Attendant), Ato Balankson-Wood (Orland0), Lori Brown-Niang (Agent), Brianna Cabrera (Silvia), Darius de Haas (Duke Senior), Bianca Edwards (Phoebe), Rebecca Naomi Jones (Rosalind), Jonathan Jordan (Andy), Renrick Palmer (Oliver), Eric Pierre (Duke Frederick), Idania Quezada (Celia), Christopher M. Ramirez (Touchstone), and Shaina Taub (Jaques), with Amar Atkins, Sean-Michael Bruno, Danyel Fulton, Emily Gardner Xu Hall, Pierre Harmony Graves, Trevor McGhie, Mike Millán, Bobby Moody, Edwin Rivera, Kevin Tate, and Claudia Yanez, opens at Central Park’s Delacorte Theatre.
No Place to Go, by Ethan Lipton, Eben Levy, Ian M. Riggs & Vito Dieterle, directed by Matthew Gardiner, featuring Bobby Smith, opens at DC’s Signature Center.
Mozart: Her Story — The Musical staged reading, by Tegan Summer & Gregory Nabours, directed by Kelly Devine, featuring Kennedy Caughell, Justin Matthew Sargent, Robert Cuccioli, Angel Reda, Lana Gordon, John Cariani, Jonathan Mousset, Jim Hogan, and N’Kenge, with Bethany Ann Tesarck, Corey Mach, Grace Field, Ambrose Martos, Ashley Fuller, Bethaney Willings-Davies, Jessica Jaunich, and Tess Primack, at 1 PM ET at NYC’s Open Jar Studios.
RSVP@ShowTown.nyc.
Jeremy Jordan in concert closes at London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane.
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Reviews for Two Jews, Talking, starring Hal Linden and Bernie Kopell, at Off-Broadway’s Theatre at St. Clements:
Theatermania (Diane Snyder): Do nostalgia and jokes about the Ten Commandments ever get old? Perhaps so.. in a slight pair of playlets starring a couple of fondly remembered 1970s television stars, Hal Linden…and …Bernie Kopell. … more akin to an overlong comedy sketch or the pilot of a potential sitcom… But Linden and Kopell, both of whom can still deliver pungent punch lines, aren’t playing a couple of curmudgeons kvetching about the state of the world and their plights in it. Their dialogue and its old-school humor reveal a reluctant acceptance of aging and what comes next, themes that deepen in the play’s final moments.
New York Stage Review (Melissa Rose Bernardo): There’s nothing exciting or new in Two Jews, Talking… But familiarity is the point…a showcase for its stars, beloved 1970s–80s TV vets Hal Linden (“Barney Miller”) and Bernie Kopell (“The Love Boat”)…. Kopell and Linden—89 and 91 years old, respectively—play well off each other, and ensure that most of the jokes land. Sometimes it’s with a thud, but hey…at least they’re landing!
Theater Scene (Joel Benjamin): …the appealing new two-hander… The two characters in each once-act play, talk and talk and get nowhere – very pleasantly and with just the right touch of surreal mystery… Weinberger has fashioned a quiet tour de force for these two veterans… Questioning the wisdom of the Ten Commandments – including inventing some new ones… In a witty touch, Weinberger has the men assuring each other that they are vaccinated to prove they can occupy the same bench… Director Dan Wackerman wisely gives the two veterans room to find their personal rhythms.
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Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog will run Sept. 27 – Jan. 15, 2023 (opening Oct. 20) at the John Golden Theatre, directed by Kenny Leon.
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Booth) and Corey Hawkins (Lincoln).
A darkly comic fable of brotherly love and family identity, the play tells the story of two brothers, Booth and Lincoln, names given to them as a joke by their father. Haunted by the past and their obsession with the street con game, three-card monte, the brothers come to learn the true nature of their history.
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“Leopoldstadt: Tom Stoppard in Conversation with Daniel Kehlmann” will take place Sun. Sept. 18 at 4:30 PM ET both in-person & online at NYC’s 92Y.
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The world premiere of Ava Gardner & Peter Evans’ Ava: Secret Conversations will run Apr. 4 – May 7 at the Geffen Playhouse, directed by Mortiz von Stuelpnagel.
Elizabeth McGovern(Ava Gardner) and more TBA.
Ava sits down with ghost writer Peter Evans to write a juicy tell-all biography that will shock Tinseltown. But as Evans tries to get details about Gardner’s marriages to Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw, and Frank Sinatra, a different journey unfolds as he uncovers the private life of the Oscar-nominated femme fatale.
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Charles Kirsch’s Backstage Babble Live! will take place Tues. Sept. 6 at 7 PM ET at NYC’s 54 Below, offering a celebration of Broadway from the Golden Age to the present day, with music direction by Michael Lavine.
(recreating songs they’ve performed on Broadway and beyond) Charles Busch, Meg Bussert, Len Cariou, Beth Fowler, David Jackson, Jill O’Hara, Brad Oscar, Christine Pedi, Kurt Peterson, Lee Roy Reams, John Rubinstein, and David White.
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TDF will re-open its TKTS Lincoln Center discount booth on Tues. Sept. 6 at 11 AM ET.
The booth will be open Tuesday – Saturday from 11 AM – 6 PM.
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“Death of a Salesman: A Conversation” will take place Mon. Oct. 3 at 7 PM ET, both live and in-person, at NYC’s 92Y, moderated by Salamisha. Tillet.
Wendell Pierce, Sharon D. Clarke, Andre De Shields, and Miranda Cromwell.
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Jane Wagner’s The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe will run Sept. 21 – Oct. 23 (opening Sept. 28) at the Mark Taper Forum, directed by Leigh Silverman.
Cecily Strong
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An Evening with Maria Friedman will take place Sat. Sept. 24 at 7:30 PM ET at Stamford, CT’s The Palace, with music direction by Todd Ellison. This is her only performance in North America this season.
Ross Lekites, and Lewis Cleale.
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Off-Broadway’s The Tank will present two industry readings (also open to the public) of MASK4MASK, written & directed by John Patterson, on Sept. 23 & 24, both that 3 PM ET.
Dom Martello, Jimmy Brooks, Evan Simone Frazier, Ruza Madarevic, and Nicholas James Reilly.
The piece follows Grant Collins as he transforms himself from a country singer to gay pop star after being outed. Trying to find his new public image, he “tries on several different versions of what it means to be queer,” and increasingly loses his connections to his audience, his lovers, and himself in the process.
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Video: Danielle Radcliffe sings “My Bologna” in the trailer for “Weird: the Al Yankovic Biopic” which will be released on Nov. 4 on Roku.
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The world premiere of Grant MacDermott’s Jasper will begin previews Sept. 8 and open Sept. 14 at the Signature Center, directed by Katie McHugh.
Dominic Fumusa, Abigail Hawk, and Jessica Pimentel
A couple struggle to keep their ill child and their marriage alive in the new play. A chance encounter changes everything and forces them to re-evaluate their circumstances.
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Lizzie Molyneux-Logelin & Wedny Nolyneux’s “The People We Hate at the Wedding” will be released Nov. 18 on Prime Video, directed by Claire Scanlon.
Ben Platt, Kristen Bell, Allison Janney, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Karan Soni, Dustin Milligan, Tony Goldwyn, Isaach De Bankolé, Jorma Taccone, and Julian Ovenden.
Paul and Alice reluctantly agree to attend the wedding of their estranged half-sister in the English countryside alongside their mother. Over the course of the wedding week, the family’s many skeletons are wrenched from the closet.
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Betty Buckley will return to NYC’s Café Carlyle Sept. 27 – Oct. 1, with pianist Christian Jacob.
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Melis Asker & Tandiani Tandiani, Jacinta Clusellas’ Azul will take take place this summer (dates & link TBA) at CT’s Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, directed by Rebecca Martiniz, with music direction by Ben Moss.
Katerina McCrimmon (Rita)/Bluebird), Robi Hager (Young Garcin), Martín Solá (Rey Be), David Louis Merino (Sebastiano), and Alex Paez (Older Garcin), with Adriana Medina Santiago, florencia Cuenca, and Henry Gainza.
Inspired by Rubén Darío’s poetry and short stories, Azul is a bilingual musical which weaves together two distinct realms to question the place of art in a capitalist society. Bluebird, a hungry and idealist poet, seeks a better life in a new land, and in a mundane post-9/11 and present-day Jackson Heights, Rita, a composer, struggles to forgive her father, understand her roots, and reconnect to a land she has never known.
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Music Video: Ramin Karimloo, Amber Ardolino, and company perform “When It All Falls Down” from Jason Huza, Sylvana Joyce, C. Robert Smith & Jeremiah Jame’s The Last Match: A Pro Wrestling Rock Musical.
The entire concept album will be released on Sept. 26 on all platforms.