Today’s Highlights:
Teeth, world premiere by Anna K. Jacobs & Michael R. Jackson, directed by Sarah Benson, featuring Alyse Alan Louis (Dawn O’Keefe), Courtney Bassett (Promise Keeper Girl Becky), Phoenix Best (Promise Keeper Girl Fiona), Will Connolly (Brad O’Keefe), Jason Gotay (Tobey/Truthseeker), Jenna Rose Husli (Promise Keeper Girl Trisha), Jared Loftin (Ryan/Truthseeker), Lexi Rhoades (Promise Keeper Girl Rachel), Wren Rivera (Promise Keeper Girl Stephanie), and Helen J Shen (Promise Keeper Girl Keke), opens at Off-Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons.
All the Rage benefit reading, by Larry Kirwan, directed by Karen Carpenter, featuring Chilina Kennedy and Constantine Maroulis, at 7 PM at Off-Broadway’s TADA Theatre (15 West 28th Street).
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Reviews for Corruption at Off-Broadway’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre:
NY Times (Laura Collins-Hughes): ….As a news story evolving in real time, the scandal made for jaw-dropping reading. As a play, though, “Corruption” is uncompelling — counterintuitively so, given the inherent drama: the crimes, the coverup, the comeuppance (or not), the clashes of personality. Also the stakes, which include the well-being of a democracy in which one culture-shaping media magnate holds too much sway… the ominous thrum at the heart of the intrigue has been muffled here by the barrage of information coming at us…
New York Stage Review (David Finkle): …This J.T. Rogers’ Oslo follow-up… And now Rebekah Brooks (Saffron Burrows, strutting like nobody’s business) is the focal villain in Corruption... It’s another comprehensive and persuasive stage documentary, directed by his steadfast collaborator Bartlett Sher. Don’t look twice, but they’ve set forth another double-whammy version of what Rogers calls “historical fiction.”
New York Stage Review (Frank Scheck): …a play by the gifted J.T. Rogers, who consistently manages to turn complex real-life stories of historical importance into compelling drama… n Blood and Gifts, he examined the struggle for control of Afghanistan in the 1980s. In Oslo, he dramatized the seemingly impossible diplomatic negotiations that led to the Arab-Israeli Peace Accord. And with his latest effort, Corruption, receiving its world premiere at Lincoln Center Theater, he’s managed to turn the 2010-2011 News International phone hacking scandal in Britain into a breathlessly paced thriller. Who needs escapist fantasy when real life is so fascinating?
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British playwright Ava Pickett has won the 2024 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.
Founded in 1978, the prestigious award honors female and non-binary playwrights across the world who have written English-language plays.
Set in Tudor Essex, 1536 follows three best friends in the wake of Anne Boleyn’s arrest as they struggle with what it means to be a woman in a society where marriage is both a necessity and a possible death sentence.
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Negro Ensemble Company will present No Policy No Justice, 3 one-acts on the effects of gun violence, Mar. 20-28 at La Mama Community Arts Space (74 E. 4th Street).
Is Heaven Still Blue for the Fallen Angels, by Cris Eli Blak, featuring Adrain Washington, Constance Thompson and Leah Finney. A minister’s PTSD is cemented by a guilty secret: his mistress was in his congregation during a church shooting.
Breathe, by Cynthia Grace Robinson, Nailah Carry & Nailah Carrie, featuring Kenya Wilson & Leah Finney. The widow of a slain police officer struggles to accept comfort from her Yoga therapist, who suffers silently from a similar loss.
Elevator Not Necessary, by Mona Washington, featuring Benjamin Rowe and Alton Ray. A casket for a mother who was shot has been mistakenly delivered to her two adult sons. They face her loss with confusion, exasperation and bravado.
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Group Rep will present Doug Haverty’s Could I Have This Dance? Mar. 29 – May 5 at North Hollywood’s Lonny Chapman Theatre, directed by Kathleen R. Delaney.
Sean Babcock (Errl Watkins), Anna Connelly (Monica Glendenning), Anica Petrovic (Amanda Glendenning), Lloyd Pedersen (Hank Glendenning), Clara Rodriquez (Jeanette Glendenning), and Andy Shephard (Coline McMann.
The play looks at modern love, complicated relationships, working-from-
home and a family that is actually functional. What starts as a delicious, fast-paced romantic comedy, pivots as a medical crisis forces the family members to ask serious questions and not everyone wants to know the answers.
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Make Me Gorgeous!, The True Story of Kenneth “Mr. Madam” Marlowe , written & directed by Donnie, continues through Mar. 24 at Theatre at St. Lukes.
Darius Rose
The fabulous and incredible true story of Kenneth Marlowe, an oft-overlooked trailblazers in LGBT+ history. Described as one of mid-century America’s gayest and most openly homosexual personalities, Marlowe took on many roles in life. Kenneth was a private hairdresser to the stars, the madam of a notorious gay prostitution ring in Hollywood.; and author, a hustler, a female impersonator, a private in the the U.S. Army, a call boy, a Christian missionary, a mortuary cosmetologist, a newspaper columnist, and (for the final decade of an incredibly lived life, Marlowe was a woman, having transitioned to become Kate Marlowe.
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Comedy Night at the Playhouse will take place Tues. Apr. 23 at 7:30 PM at Laguna Playhouse, hosted by Mark Christopher Lawrence.
Mal Hall and Mark Schumacher, with Mike Hughes.
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The world premiere of M.M. Haney’s The Poisoner will run Apr. 6 – 21 at La MaMa’s Downtown Theatre (66 E. 4th St.), directed by Lee Sunday Evans.
Shawn Randall (Ron Finder), Brett Diggs (Dwayne Davis), Gregory Connors Jack Burden), and Lizbeth Mackay (Olive Gaines).
A universal tale, the play is an unraveling of the deception, abuse of power, and utter negligence of early 2000’s Midwestern water politics. In a neo-noir thriller driven by a determined journalist who returns to his hometown and uncovers more than he bargained for, The Poisoner invites you to question, are we ever safe?
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Gingold Theatrical Group will present a script-in-hand performance of Mrs. Warrens Profession on Mon. Mar. 18 at 7 PM at NYC’s Symphony Space, directed by Lili Kanter Riopplie.
Tina Benko (Mrs. Kitty Warren), Madeline Seidman (Vivie Warren), Jason Veasey (Praed), Jay O. Sanders (Crofts), Robert Elijah Kollman (Frank Gardner), Arnie Burton (Reverand Sam Bardner), and fareeda Pasha (Narrator).
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London’s National Theatre will present a screening of James Graham’s Dear England on Sat. Mar. 16 at 3 PM at UCLA’s James Bridge’s Theatre, directed by Sam Mendes
Joseph Fiennes
A gripping examination of nation and game. The country that gave the world football has since delivered a painful pattern of loss. Why can’t England’s men win at their own game? With the worst track record for penalties in the world, Gareth Southgate knows he needs to open his mind and face up to the years of hurt, to take team and country back to the promised land.
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A conversation with Ellis Nassour, author of the new book “Jesus Christ Superstar Behind the Scene of the Musical Phenomenon” will take place Tues. Mar. 19 at 7:30 PM at NYC’s Drama Book Shop, hosted by Peter Filichia. 
here.
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Sunday in the Park with George, directed & choreographed by Eamon Foley, continues through Mar. 24 at NJ’s Axelrod PAC.
Graham Phillips (George), Talia Suskauer (Dot), Joy Haermalyn (Old Lady), and Bernard Dotson (Jules), Kevin Arnold, with Kevin Arnold, Giuliana Augello, Anthony Cataldo, Katie Davis, Bridget Cooley, and James C. Harris, Isabel Lagana, Ella Mangano, Dylan Randazzo, Allie Seibold, Alyssa Harris, Giana Carroll, Lindsay Jorgensen, Olivia Miranda, Sarah Takash, and Gillian Worek.
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A screening of Jack Thorne’s The Motive and the Cue, directed by Sam Mendes, will screen Mar. 24 & Apr. 7 (both at 3 PM) at UCLA’s James Bridges Theatre.
Mark Gatiss (John Gielgud) and Johnny Flyn (Richard Burton).
1964: Richard Burton, newly married to Elizabeth Taylor, is to play the title role in an experimental new Broadway production of Hamlet under John Gielgud’s exacting direction. But as rehearsals progress, two ages of theatre collide and the collaboration between actor and director soon threatens to unravel.
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Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad continues through Mar. 31 at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, directed by JoAnn M. Hunter.
Aja Alcazar, Demetra Dee, Maya Lou Hlava, Noelle Kayser, Elizabeth Laidlaw, Helen Joo Lee, Tyler Meredith, Ericka Ratcliff, Andrea San Miguel, Laura Savage, Allison Sill, and Hannah Whitley.
It’s her turn. Penelope has waited 20 years for her husband to return from the Trojan War. Now, as authorial control shifts to Odysseus’ long-suffering wife—and the 12 faithful maids who have long tended to her—we discover a new perspective on the domestic vigil.
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New cast members will join the cast of Wicked today, at the Apollo Victoria Theatre:
(new): Michael Fenton Stevens (The Wizard), Graham Kent (Doctor Dillamond), and Laura Harrison (Elphaba standby), with Jeremy Batt, Felipe Bejarano, Asmara Cammock, Aimee Hodnett, Darnell Mathew-James, Ayden Morgan, Rishard-Kyro Nelson, Aston Neman Hannington, Charlotte Anne Steen, and Jacob Young.