GRACE NOTES: Tuesday, January 17, 2023

 

Today’s Highlights:

  Allegiance, directed by Tara Overfield Wilkinson, featuring George Takei and Telly Leung, opens at London’s Charing Cross Theatre.

  Aaron Tveit (Christian) returns to Moulin Rouge! The Musical (for 12 weeks only) at Broadway’s Al Hirschfeld Theatre.

  Keen Company‘s The Year of Magical Thinking benefit performance, by Joan Didion, starring Kathleen Chalfant, at 7 PM at Off-Broadway’s Players Club.

  F. Scott Fitzerald’s The Beautiful and the Damned concert presentation, adapted by Brooke Di Spirito, featuring James Brautigam, Sarah Anne Fernandez, Mike Jubak Jr., Izzy Ochocki, Sam Paley, Beatrix Postley, Emily Schultheis, and Zana Zapata, at 9:30 PM at NYC’s 54 Below.

  Kristin Chenoweth’s “Im No Philosopher, But I Got Thoughts” released in Hardcover, Kindle, and Audiobook. Click here for the Amazon link.

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  Hilary Bettis’ Queen of Basel will run Feb. 3-26 (opening Feb. 9) at TheaterWorks Hartford, directed by Cristina Angeles. A streaming option is also available Feb. 19-26.

Silvia Donicio (Christine), Kelvin Grullon (John), and Christine Spang (Julie).

  An adaptation of Strindberg’s Mis Julie, the play is set within the Latinx community during Miami’s Art Basel, where real estate heiress Julie reigns over the blowout her mogul father is throwing at his South Beach hotel. But after tangling with him and a tray of drinks, Julie plots her next move in the hotel’s storage kitchen with Christine, a waitress who recently fled violence in Venezuela, and Christine’s fiancé John, an Uber driver with ambitions.”

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  Video: The Music Man final bows on Broadway.

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Samuel D. Hunter’s A Bright New Boise will run  Jan. 31 – Mar. 12 at the Signature Theatre, directed by Oliver Butler.

Anna Baryshnikov (Anna), Ignacio Diaz-Silverio (Alex), Eva Kaminsky (Pauline), Peter Mark kendall (Will), and Angus O’Brien (Leroy).

The play captures a region of the playwright’s home state of Idaho, in a depersonalized work environment – through the people who inhabit it. This dark comedic work depicts a Boise Hobby Lobby thrown into chaos by the arrival of a new employee sorting through a tragic past.

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  The world premiere of La Darrion Williams’ Katrina will run Jan. 27 – Feb. 19 at North Hollywood’s Loft Ensemble, directed by Jazmine Nichelle.

Antwan Alexander II, Cassandra Carmona, John Goodwin, Zenarra James, and Jessica Perkins

  When two desperate strangers find themselves trapped in an abandoned hospital on the verge of collapse during Hurricane Katrina, they must remember how they got there before they can get out.

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 Complete casting has been announced for Oklahoma, which will run Feb. 16 – Sept. 2 (opening Feb. 28) at Wyndham’s Theatre, directed by Daniel Fish, with choreography by John Heginbotham.

 Georgina Onuorah (Ado Annie), Phillip Olagoke (Cord Elam), Raphael Bushay (Mike), Arthur Darvill (Curly McLain), James Patrick Davis (Will Parker), Stavros Demetraki (Ali Hakim), Greg Hicks (Andrew Carnes), Rebekah Hinds (Gertie Cummings), Anoushka Lucas (Laurey Williams), Marie-Astrid Mence (Lead Dancer), Liza Sadovy (Aunt Eller) and Patrick Vaill (Jud Fry) with Andrew Berlin, Arthur Boan, Shani Cantor, Anna-Maria de Freitas, George Maddison, Brianna Ogunbawo, Finlay Paul, Helen K Wint.

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  Turn the Beat Around: 54 Below Celebrates Studio 54 the first Wednesday of the month.  here.

Partial schedule:
  Feb. 1: Blaine Alden Krauss, and more TBA.
  July 6: Sam Gravitte, and more TBA.
  Aug. 29 Cheryl Freeman, Tyce Green, and more TBA

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  Lorraine Hansberry’s The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window will  begin previews Feb. 24 and open Feb. 23 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, directed by Anne Kauffman.

Oscar Isaac (Sidney Brustein), Rachel Brosnahan (Iris Brustein), Gus Birney (Gloria Parodus), Julian DeNiro (Alton Scales), Glenn Fitzgerald (David Ragin), Andy Grotelueschen (Wally O’Hara), Miriam Silverman (Mavis Parodus Bryson), and Raphael Nash Thompson (Maz), with Joey Auzenne, Gregory Connor, Brontë England-Nelson, and Amelia Pedlow.

  The play takes place in Greenwich Village in the 60s, crafting a razor-sharp portrait of a diverse group of friends whose progressive dreams can’t quite match reality. At the center are Sidney and Iris Brustein, fighting to see if their marriage—with all its crackling wit, passion, and petty cruelty—can survive Sidney’s ideals.

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(read here): Danny Burstein and Zoe Wanaker discuss Pictures From Home, currently in previews (opens Feb. 9) at Broadway’s Studio 54.

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  The cast album of Lee Zlotoff, Kate Chavez, Robin Holloway, Lindsey Hope Pearlman & Peter Lurye’s MacGyver: The Musical will be released Jan. 27 on most platforms.  here.

Taylor Louderman, Brandon Victor Dixon, Tristin Mays, and more.

  Set in 1989 in East Berlin, the show tells the story of how MacGyver, with the help of a punk rock band, foils the invasion of West Berlin without a shot fired and brings down the infamous Berlin Wall to reunite the divided country.  With all original music ranging from 80s pop to Broadway ballads and hard punk rock and roll, the album soars in a mix of flat-out fun and heartfelt emotion that will transport you to a world where anything is possible if you just put your mind to it—and maybe add some duct tape!

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  Video: Jamie Muscato performs “However Hard I Try” from James Beeny & Gina Georgio’s Lady M (currently in development).

  The untold story of Lady Macbeth. Chilling flashbacks of her haunted past are woven into this reimagining of the famous tale of murder and power, revealing an original backstory to Lady Macbeth’s villainy and downfall.

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  Margaret Perry’s Paradise Now continues through Jan. 21 at the Bush Theatre, directed by Jaz Woodcock Stewart.

Carmel Winters, Rakhee, thakrar, Ayoola Smart, Shazia Nicholls, Michele Moran, and Annabel Baldwin.

Gabriel Dolan’s never been up to much. That’s what everyone says. Until she meets Alex, a young, ambitious woman who sells essential oils for a company called Paradise, and overnight, she is drawn into a bright new floral-scented world. In Paradise, you’re your own boss. In Paradise, you could make a fortune. Embraced by a new community of women just like her, Gabriel rises through the ranks of the company like a shooting star. But when she gets to the top, it doesn’t quite feel like she thought it would.

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  Video: Hugh Jackman looks back on his career on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”

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Yesterday was an unusually slow news day, even for a holiday…

 


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