Today’s Highlights:
The Streets of New York, adapted & directed by Charlotte Moore, featuring Amy Bodnar (Susan Fairweather), Amanda Jane Cooper (Alida Bloodgood), Richard Henry (Dermot Puffy), David Hess (Gideon Bloodgood), Ben Jacoby (Mark Livingston), Justin Keyes ((Brendan Badger), Daniel J. Maldonado (Patrick Fairweather/Duke Vlad), Polly McKie (Dolly Puffy), Jordan Tyson (Dixie Puffy), Ryan Vona (Paul Fairweather), Price Waldman (Edwards), and DeLaney Westfall (Lucy Fairweather), opens at Off-Broadway’s Irish Rep.
Ain’t Too Proud — The life and Times of The Temptations national tour, featuring Marcus Paul James (Otis Williams), Elihah Ahmad Lewis (David Ruffin), Jalen Harris (Eddie Kendricks), Harrell Holmes Jr. (Melvin Franklin), and James T. Lane (Paul Williams), with Michael Andreaus, Gregory Carl Banks Jr, Brian C. Binion, Reed Campbell, Lawrence Dandridge, Nick Drake, Shayla Brielle G., Treston J. Henderson, Najah Hetsberger, Devin Holloway, Antwaun Holley, Traci Elaine Lee, Brett Michael Lockley, Chani Maisonet, Harris Matthew, Deri’Andra Tucker, and Andrew Volzer, officially opens at the Kennedy Center.
The Play That Goes Wrong, directed by Matt DiCarlo, featuring Colton Adams (Trevor), Joseph Anthony Byrd (Jonathan), Ernaisia Curry (Annie), Michael Kurowski (Dennis), Matt Mueller (Christ), Kelly O’Sullivan (Sandra), Jarred Webb (Max), and Jonah D. Winston (Robert), with Caroline Chu, Drew Johnson, Russell Mernagh, and Brenann Stacker, opens at Chicago’s Broadway Playhouse.
Shana Farr & Steve Ross: Let it Snow concert, at 7 PM ET at NYC’s St. John’s in the Village (218 West 11th St.).
Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord, written by & starring Kristina Wong, directed by Chay Yew, closes at Off-Broadway’s New York Theatre Workshop.
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Reviews for Flying Over Sunset at Broadway’s Vivian Beaumont Theatre:
NY Times (Jesse Green): To a perpetual square, nothing is as mystifying as another person’s high. Or so I learned in college, during the heyday of chemically induced inner journeys — and again at the Vivian Beaumont Theater the other night. Though sometimes mesmerizing, Flying Over Sunset, the new musical about LSD that opened there on Monday, is mostly bewildering, and further proof that transcendence can’t be shared. It admits as much in its structure, which throws into one scenario (by James Lapine) three famous seekers who never actually got high together… Much of this is true — if not the details of the visions then the settings and situations. But to advance the story beyond that, Lapine has to indulge in speculative nonfiction…
Broadway News (Charles Isherwood): It is axiomatic that other people’s dreams are boring to hear about, so you would assume that other people’s acid trips are equally if not more eye-glazing… And yet the ambitious and frequently moving musical Flying Over Sunset defies such assumptions. While this adventurous journey into the psyches of celebrities on psychedelics has its longueurs, the score, with music by Tom Kitt… and lyrics by Michael Korie… and the book and direction by James Lapine, are as accomplished as one would expect from such talents. And the production, from Lincoln Center Theater, is ravishingly beautiful, as this deep-pocketed company bravely puts it ample resources behind this decidedly unlikely project.
NY Daily News (Chris Jones): From time to time on Broadway, a show will open where characters seem to be having a really great time: Drinking excellent whisky in a bar, perhaps, or making fantastic love or chowing down on chicken and biscuits. Or in the case of the new musical at Lincoln Center Theater, swimming on Malibu Beach while tripping on LSD… As an audience member, though, you’re pushed into a voyeuristic experience. You’re not having whatever fun the characters are having and, after a while, you feel pushed to the periphery and disengaged… That, in a nutshell, is the chronic problem that afflicts Flying Over Sunset, the intellectually rich, admirably ambitious and elegantly produced new musical
New York Post (Johnny Oleksinski): Being the only sober person in a room full of drunks is never any fun. Neither, as it would happen, is being an audience member at a musical about rich people who are high on LSD… It’s a stuffy and somber show with an off-putting premise: A 1950s California acid trip taken by movie star Cary Grant (Tony Yazbeck), “Brave New World” author Aldous Huxley (Harry Hadden-Paton) and conservative politician Clare Boothe Luce (Carmen Cusack). That’s one tough pitch, even for open-minded Lincoln Center Theater subscribers… Writer-Director James Lapine has the originality part down, to put it mildly, but, boy, is his show sedate and esoteric… Beyond oddness, though, Flying Over Sunset is unforgivably dull on stage…
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Video: Stars in the House, offering “Broadway at CBST” (Congregation Beit Simchat Torah), with special guests Andrea Burns, Darius de Haas, Santino Fontana, and Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer. (1:54:20)
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Joyful Spirits, starring Carole Demas and Eric Michael Gillett will livestream Fri. Dec. 17 at 7:30 PM ET and also available on demand Fri. Dec. 17 here.
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Manhattan Theatre Club is offering $59 tickets to Joshua Harmon’s Prayer for the French Republic, which begins previews Jan. 11 and opens Feb.1 at New York City Center, directed by David Cromer.
Betsy Aidem, Yair Ben-Dor, Francis Benhamou, Ari Brand, Pierre Epstein, Peyton Lusk, Molly Ranson, Nancy Robinette, Jeff Seymour, Kenneth Tigar, and Richar Topol.
In 1944, a Jewish couple in Paris desperately awaits news of their missing family. More than 70 years later, the couple’s great-grandchildren find themselves facing the same question as their ancestors: “Are we safe?” Following five generations of a French Jewish family, Prayer For The French Republic is a sweeping look at history, home, and the effects of an ancient hatred.
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(Read here): “Judy Collins on Sondheim, touring, and her Broadway Dreams.”
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Alesha Harris’ On Sugarland will run Feb. 2 – Mar. 13 (opening Feb. 23) at New York Theatre Workshop, directed by Whitney White.
Kiki Layne, Stephany Berry, Thomas Walter Booker, Xavier Scott Evans, Mister Fitzgerald, Josh Fulton, Charisma Glasper, Kai Heath, Shemar Yanick Jonas, Billy Eugene Jones, Mariyea, Lizan Mitchell, Adeola Role, and Jacob Daniel Smith.
Sugarland is on precarious soil—three mobile homes line a southern cul-de-sac replete with years and years of decorative folk-art treasures and keepsakes. Young Sadie calls on generations of matriarchal ancestors to find the truth about her mother while the denizens of Sugarland rise each day to holler for the dead—conscripted soldiers lost to a greedy war—in a ritual reclamation of timeless grief.
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Additional performers have been announced for the 12th annual A Broadway Christmas, to take pace Sun. Dec. 19 at 7:30 PM PT at Hollywood’s Catalina Jazz Club, with music direction by Gerald Sternbach, and hosted by Eden Espinosa and David Burnham.
Will Collyer, Julie Garnyé, Dillon Klena, Valerie Perri. Alisan Porter, Chad Doreck, Kate Harmon, Bethany Joy Lenz, Nicole Santiago, Matt Zarley, and Ava Delaney.
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Joseph McBride’s “What Ever Happened to Orson Welles?: A Portrait of an Independent Career” will be released in paperback on Jan. 12. 
here.
In this intimate and often surprising personal portrait, Joseph McBride challenges the conventional wisdom that Welles’s career after “Citizen Kane,” widely regarded as the greatest film ever made, fell into a long decline. The author shows instead how Welles never stopped directing radical, adventurous films and was always breaking new artistic ground as a filmmaker.
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Video: “20 Years of Christmas With the Tabernacle Choir” highlighting some of the most memorable performances from the past two decades, narrated by Brian Stokes Mitchell, aired last night on PBS. (1:55:41)
Audra McDonald, Kristin Chenoweth, Angela Lansbury, Kelli O’Hara, Santino Fontana, Laura Osnes, Richard Thomas, and The Muppets, as well as performers from the opera and pop worlds — Bryn Terfel, Renée Fleming, Alfie Boe, Gladys Knight, and Natalie Cole.
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Heidi Kettenring Sings Karen Carpenter will run Dec. 16-19 at CT’s Goodspeed Musicals, directed by
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The original soundtrack of Broadway’s Flying Over Sunset will be released digitally on Jan. 28 and on CD on Mar. 11. Pre-orders are not yet available.
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David Kreizman, Ben Strouse, Donn Swajeski & Marla Kanelos’ “Tomorrow,” a new music-filled podcast set five years after the events of Broadway’s Annie, will premiere Jan. 7 on all podcast platforms, directed by Kreizman & Claire McClanahan. The series will release eight-to-ten minute episodes every Monday for a year, available on all podcast platforms.
Laura Benanti (Miss Hannigan), Abbie-Grace Levi (Annie), Lance Reddick (Daddy Warbucks), Lila Fields (Molly), Gabriella Scott (Tessie), Bobbi Bordley (Pepper), Sam Zaslow Braverman (Adam), Alan Ruck (Drake), Anne Beyer (Maura), Jon Lindstrom (Senator Jeffries), and Anjali Jay (Venita Dewan).
Annie, now a 15-year-old singer-songwriter, is figuring out her own identity. On the eve of a business deal for Warbucks industries, Warbucks goes missing, and Annie recruits her friends (Orphan Nation) to help run the company and search for her dad—all leading to an even bigger mystery.
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Porchlight Revisits Passing Strange will run for 3 performances Feb. 16-17 at Chicago’s Porchlight Theatre, directed by Donterrio, with music direction by Justin Akira Kono, and choreography by Terri K Woodall.
Michael Maurice Ashford (Explorer), Jos N Banks (Creator), Reneisha J Jenkins (Mother), MJ Rawls (Rebel), Nolan Robinson (Youth), Byron Willis (Narrator), and Jasmine Lace Young (Lover).
From L.A. to Amsterdam to Berlin, a young musician chases youthful dreams and spiritual clarity against a shifting backdrop of locales and acquaintances as he rebels against his conservative upbringing.
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Steven Bringberg’s Simply Barbra: A Christmas Show will take pace Tues. Dec. 21 at 7 PM ET at NYC’s The Green Room, with music direction by Christopher Denny.
Special guests TBA.