Today’s Highlights:
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a newly condensed one-part version, by Jack Thorne, directed by John Tiffany, featuring James Snyder (Harry Potter), Diane Davis (Ginny Potter), James Romney (Albus Potter), David Abeles (Ron Weasley), Jenny Jules (Hermione Granger), Nadia Brown (Rose Granger-Weasley), Aaron Bartz (Draco Malfoy), and Brady Dalton Richards (Scorpius Malfoy), with Oge Agulué, Kevin Angulo, Chelsey Arce, Quinn Blades, Michela Cannon, Will Carlyon, Lauren Nicole Cipoletti, Judith Lightfoot Clarke, Ted Deasy, Kira Fath, Stephanie Gomérez, Steve Haggard, Ben Horner, Edward James Hyland, Jax Jackson, Jack Koenig, Spencer LaRue, Rachel Leslie, Sarita Amani Nash, Alexandra Peter, Dan Piering, Kevin Matthew Reyes, William Rhem, Antoinette Robinson, Stephen Spinella, Tom Stephens, Maya Thomas, and Karen Janes Woditsch, re-opens at Broadway’s Lyric Theatre.
Is There Still Sex in the City, written by & starring Candice Bushnell, directed by Lorin Latarro, opens at Off-Broadway’s Daryl Roth Theatre.
Ain’t Too Proud national tour, directed by Des McAnuff, featuring Marcus Paul James (Otis Williams), Elijah 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, re-launches at North Carolina’s Durham Performing Arts Center.
The Little Mermaid, directed by Dan Knechtges, featuring Delphi Borich (Ariel), Christina Wells (Ursula), Carla Wood (Sebastian), Lia Zityar (Flounder), Sofia Esphahani (alternate Flounder), Noah Ricketts (Prince Eric), Derrick Davis (King Triton), Paul Hope (Grimsby), Mark Ivy (Chef Louis), Logan Keslar (Flotsam), Blair Medina (Jetsam), and Christopher Tipps (Scuttle), with Mike Baerga, Courtney Chilton, Sophia Clark, Dwayne Cook, Trey Harrington, Karma Jenkins, Kaitlin Mayse, Miles Marmolejo, Christopher Sccurlock, Yasmyn Sumiyoshi, and Raven Justine Troup, opens at Houston’s Theatre Under the Stars.
Q Brothers Christmas Carol, featuring GQ (Scrooge), Marley/Belle/Present/Lil’ Tim), Jackson Doran (Fred/Dick Wilkins/Mamma Cratchit), Postell Pringle (Bob Cratchit/Past/Martha Cratchit), and Clayton Stamper (DJ), opens at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre.
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Selling Kabul at Off-Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons:
NY Times (Alexis Solosky): …a play as tautly made as a military bed. You could bounce a quarter off it — or given its provenance, a five-afghani coin — and then throw yourself down to recover your nerves, which the drama will have absolutely mangled… As a suspense story that unrolls in real time, it also suggests stage chillers like Rope… A structural marvel, Selling Kabul can sometimes sound a little hollow at its core… Acknowledging that too few of us stateside will ever understand the civilian toll of conflicts like those in Afghanistan, I wish Khoury, a playwright of French and Lebanese descent, and Rafaeli had done more to make these characters feel fully human and not just wheels in a beautiful machine.
Theatermania (Zachary Stewart): In August, Americans were horrified by the images of Afghan civilians, desperate to escape the advancing Taliban, running after military transports and clinging to the landing gear. What fear could provoke a person to take such suicidal risks? Sylvia Khoury answers that question in Selling Kabul, her white-knuckle drama now making its New York debut at Playwrights Horizons… This story isn’t just about Afghanistan. It’s about us, and the philosophical divide that Covid has laid bare… Our first clue: Every character speaks in the familiar cadence of the American upper-middle class…
Vulture (Helen Shaw): …Sylvia Khoury’s elegant new play… Khoury’s ear is particularly attuned to the stifling conversations of the truly close. In her hands, even familiarity and kindness become dangerous… Rafaeli does an excellent job of making the world beyond the apartment seem a real threat… Khoury’s strategy of showing us a hell (of our American making) at its atomic level. In a world of invasions and drone strikes and militias, what could it matter what happens in one little apartment? It matters, Khoury says, because these are the forces that build the world — one terrified nucleus at a time.
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A Christmas Carol at LA’s Ahmanson Theatre:
LA Times (Charles McNulty): Before I’m cast as the Scrooge of drama critics, let me start this review of A Christmas Carol by stressing just how much I loved the lighting… this fresh take… has been re-tailored for its Southern California run… Usually when encountering A Christmas Carol, you don’t have to worry about sorting out the plot… you become momentarily distracted by, say, your shopping list, you might find yourself asking, “Wait, now who is this character again? And what is she doing in A Christmas Carol’ ?… he amplification of the actors creates a shrieking nightmare… There are, however, some lovely hand bells…
Theatermania (Jonas Schwartz): …While Jack Thorne’s new adaptation does attempt to add dimension to the Scrooge character, painting childhood abuse and a misguided desperation for money as a motivation to evolve into the cold, calculated protagonist of the tale, director Matthew Warchus’s vision of turning A Christmas Carol into a psychological drama still reveals the cardboard plotting of the Charles Dickens classic. And even with changes, even the five Tony Award-winning design elements lack enough grandeur to fully recommend this presentation… Warchus and Thorne make several alterations to give the piece some dramatic heft… The end, though, devolves into mockery when the writing forces some meta jokes about Los Angeles and even the theater’s departing artistic director, Michael Ritchie (who happens to be Burton’s husband).
Entertainment Weekly (Mareen Lee Lenker): …it’s a difficult task to breathe new life and energy into the work. But a new production, as adapted by Jack Thorne and originally directed by Matthew Warchus, knows how to keep Christmas well… Bradley Whitford gives the famous miser a richly layered and complex shading, giving him a wry and knowing sensibility even in his most curmudgeonly moments… He’s particularly marvelous when it comes to Scrooge’s redemption and transformation… But he wisely balances that frenetic energy with an emotional resonance that acknowledges the mystery and the miracle of Scrooge’s journey… Whitford is backed up by an extraordinary ensemble who bring the proceedings to rapturous life with a score of gloriously arranged Christmas carols and a winning musicality.
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The world premiere of Melinda Lopez, Maurice Emmanuel Parent & Megan Sandberg-Zakian’s Mr. Parent will run Jan. 7 – Feb. 6 (opening Jan. 9) at Boston’s Lyric Stage Company, directed by Sandberg-Zakian.
Maurice Emmanual Parent
A struggling actor turns to teaching for a steady paycheck, thinking how hard could it be? But has he careens from the Boston Publick Schools by day to serious thespian at night, Mr. Parent starts to wonder where he really belongs.
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The 2021 edition of The Lights of Broadway Showcards is now available here.
This year’s edition features 129 new cards featuring illustrations of Broadway’s brightest stars, shows on and Off-Broadway, historic theaters, iconic opening numbers, and more. The series pays tribute to the new and notable on Broadway, as well as the legendary and the revered. Actors and actresses, writers, directors, designer, personalities, organizations, theaters, and related locales, theatre lore, traditions and tall tales. Each card comes with fun facts to learn and share, highlighting the stuff that makes this vital, collaborative, and exciting for thrive. New editions are published semi-annually.
In addition to the core cards, the 2021 edition also contains a rare roster including additions to the Ensemblist, Golden Age, If It Only runs A Minute, and Broadway Up Close Theater card series.
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A staged reading of Paul Oakely Stovall, Stew, Baryard Rustin & Nikhil Saboo’s Clear will take place Mon. Jan. 31 at 7 PM CT at Chicago’s Porchlight Music Theatre, directed by Kenny Ingram.
Casting TBA.
A spiritual quest in a decidedly computerized time for fusing music, memory, and pure love to remind all how best to live life. It sings a tale of destiny, luck, and the commonality of the human experience. From the slave castles of Ghana to the winding streets of Istanbul… from the banks of the river Seine to a star-filled night sky over the suburban Midwest, these storytellers continue to discover that change is inevitable and clear.
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Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles presents A Holiday Homecoming on Sat. Dec. 11 at 8 PM PT & Sun. Dec. 12 at 2 PM PT at UCLA’s Royce Hall.
Telly Leung and Nikki Crawford.
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Complete casting has been announced for Kyle Jarrow & Duncan Sheik’s Whisper House, to run Jan. 16 – Feb. 5 (opening Jan. 22) at 59E59 Theaters, directed by Steve Cosson, with choreography by Billy Bustamante.
Samantha Mathis (Lily), Alex Boniello (Male Ghost), Jeb Brown (The Sheriff), Wyatt Cirbus (Christopher), Molly Hager (Female Ghost), and James Yaegashi (Yasuhiro).
In an eerie lighthouse on the remote coast of Maine, two lonely people face the beginning of World War II. There’s Yasuhiro—a Japanese immigrant threatened by the rising wartime xenophobia—and Lily, his employer, who’s spent her whole life here. Their world is turned upside down when Lily’s young nephew, Christopher, is sent to live with them. Soon, the boy begins to hear strange music seeping through the walls. Is his imagination getting the better of him? Or are there ghosts here and maybe dangerous ones at that? What happens next will change the lives of these three characters forever…
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Gingold Group presents a reading of Shaw’s Village Wooing on Mon. Dec. 13 at 7 PM ET at NYC’s Symphony Space, directed by David Staller.
Maryann Plunket and Jay O. Sanders
Two people who are determined to remain single meet on an around-the-world cruise. This chance encounter changes their lives in the most unexpected ways. Written by Shaw in 1933 while he was, himself, taking his first world cruise.
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Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre has announced its 2021-22 season:
Beauty and the Beast (Jan. 12 – Feb. 6), directed by Jay Woods.
Afterwords (Apr. 29 – May 21), world premiere by Zoe Sarnak & Emily Kaczmarek, directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt. Reeling from the sudden loss of their mother, sisters Kali and Simone are once again roommates in their childhood home. Burdened with mounting bills, they decide to rent out the attic, and into their lives walks Jo, a war reporter grieving her own deep loss. As the women get to know each other and struggle to reckon with the past, a complex mosaic of intersecting lives reveals itself. The story of three women bound by notes scribbled down on paper, and the art we make from the love that makes us.
And So That Happened (May 18 – June 26), created by Pacific Northwest Musical Theatre artists for the Pacific Northwest, directed by Desdemona Chiang. This new musical will explore the hopes, dreams, and acts of will that take us forward in the aftermath of cataclysmic events in our lives. Three masterful storytellers will each spin a captivating thirty-minute musical story about how we move forward in the wake of seismic transformation and radical change.
The Prom (May 31 – June 19), directed & choreographed by Casey Nicholaw,
The Play That Goes Wrong will run (June 29 – July 10), directed by Matt DiCarlo (with original Broadway direction by Mark Bell). Casting TBA.
Come From Away (July 20 – Aug. 7), directed by Christopher Ashley.
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Manhattan Theatre Club has announced complete casting for the world premiere of Joshua Harmon’s Prayer for the French Republic, to run Jan. 11 – Feb. 27 (opening Feb. 1) at NY 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 Richard Topol.
A story of one French Jewish family. Seven decades after the end of World War II, the great grandchildren of the people who lived through that terrible time wonder if they are safe in the land their family has inhabited for generations.
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Steven Spielberg and more discuss adapting “West Side Story” on the Dec. 5 broadcast of “20/20.”
Video: Part 1
Video: Part 2
Video: Part 3
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Milwaukee Rep has announced two upcoming productions:
Toni Stone (Jan. 4-30), by Lydia R. Diamond, directed by Tinashe Kajese-Boden, with choreography by Dell Howlett, featuring Kedren Spencer (Toni Stone), Melvin Abston (Alberga), Amar Atkins (Elzie), Dimonte Henning (Woody), Enoch King (Millie), Eric J. Little (King Tut), Laur-rie Roach (Jimmy), dane troy (Stretch), and Geoffrey D. Williams (Spec.).
Piano Men (Jan. 7 – Feb. 27), with music direction by Steve Watts, featuring Steve Watts & Nygel D. Robinson (Feb. 8-27) and Colte Julian (replacing Robinson Feb. 8-27)
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The Boys From Syracuse in Concert will take place Wed. Dec. 29 at 9:45 PM ET at NYC’s 54 Below, with music direction by Michael Lavine, and hosted by Michael Portantiere.
John & Matthew Drinkwater (Antipholus brothers), Paula Leggett Chase, Katie Dixon (Luciana), Kenny Rahtz (Dromio), Janet Fanale (Luce), and Sara DiPasquale (Courtesan), Leah Horowitz, Jay Aubrey Jones, and more, and with special appearances by Steve Ross and Christine Pedi.