Highlights:
Monday October 11
Is This a Room, by Lucas Hnath, directed by Tina Statter, featuring Emily Davis (Reality Winner), Becca Blackwell (Unknown Male), Will Cobbs (Agent Taylor), and Pete Simpson (Agent Garrick), with Duane Cooper and Katherine Romans, opens at Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre.
Micki Grant: A Celebration of Life, at 7 PM ET at NYC’s Riverside Church (RSVP here) or stream for free here.
Tuesday October 12
Second Stage Theatre‘s Letters of Suresh, by Rajiv Joseph, directed by May Adrales, featuring Ali Ahn, Ramiz Monsef, Kellie Overbey, and Thom Sesma, opens at Off-Broadway’s Tony Kiser Theatre.
Manhattan Theatre Club‘s Morning Sun, world premiere by Simon Stephens, directed by Lila Neugebauer, featuring Blair Brown, Edie Falco, and Marin Ireland, begins previews at Off-Broadway’s NY City Center.
Twilight: Los Angeles, by Anna Deavere Smith, directed by Taibi Magar, featuring Elena Hurst, Wesley T. Jones, Francis Jue, Karl Kenzler and Tiffany Rachelle Stewart, begins previews at Off-Broadway’s Signature Theatre.
Gingold Theatrical Group‘s Mrs. Warren’s Profession, directed by David Staller, featuring Karen Ziema (Mrs. Warren), Robert Cuccioli, David Lee Huynh, Alvin Keith, Nicole King ,and Raphael Nash Thompson, with Katya Collazo and Max Roll, begins previews at Off-Broadway’s Theatre Row.
“B Is For Broadway” book, by John Robert Allman & Peter Emmerich, featuring Ethel Merman, Jennifer Holliday, Kristin Chenoweth, Billy Porter, Lin-Manuel Mirand, Joel Grey, and many more released in Kindle and Hardcover here.
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Reviews for Is This a Room at Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre:
New York Times (Jesse Green): Short of grocery lists, raw transcripts may be the most boring things ever written… Nevertheless, a 65-minute verbatim transcript has now become the basis for one of the thrillingest thrillers ever to hit Broadway… turns the ums and stutters and bizarre non sequiturs of recorded speech into astonishing — and astonishingly emotional — theater… In Is This a Room, the transcript is only the starting point. More salient is the way the production, conceived and directed by Tina Satter, views the document through an expressionistic lens, allowing Emily Davis, in a heartbreaking performance, to make words into windows on a world of interior terror.
Broadway News (Charles Isherwood): …there are no attempts to heighten the drama by editing or rewriting the encounter. Still, it’s hard not to feel an innate, squirm-inducing sympathy for Winner, played with luminous transparency by Emily Davis, as she faces fusillades of questions from three FBI agents… the play’s stark, even harshly straightforward representation of a young woman undergoing what must have been a harrowing ordeal is downright chilling, however you may feel about Winner’s actions… Much of the play’s effectiveness derives from Davis’s utterly natural yet entirely extraordinary performance…
Daily News (Chris Jones): …the show doesn’t try to rewrite history or plead Winner’s case. It just stages what happened when the FBI showed up at her home in Augusta, Ga., to investigate, and lets the audience take it from there…. It’s a fascinating piece in every way, replete with fabulous central performances from both Emily Davis (who plays Winner) and Pete Simpson (who plays the lead FBI agent at the interrogation)… This is, after all, an example of a theoretically democratic government sending one of its own citizens to jail because it wanted to protect its secrets.
Variety (Naveen Kumar): …a taut and pulse-prickling docudrama… Consider Is This a Room a ripped-from-the-headlines tale that pries beneath the ink, ratcheting in so close to the events in question that their particulars fall out of focus. What’s under Satter’s microscope aren’t the facts, but their cosmic resonance and mundane imprints on the body: sweat behind the knees, a gentle but persistent cough, conscience, power, the provenance of truth… As the title hints, Is This a Room is as much about atmosphere as the words it enacts… Darkness functions as punctuation… If any element of the production is worth the uptown price tag, it’s Davis in a kinetic and magnetizing debut.
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Reviews for Chicken and Biscuits at Broadway’s Circle in the Sqaure:
NY Times (Jesse Green): …This family comedy, with its cheek and secrets and eulogies and amens, wants to offer audiences living in bad times an old-fashioned good one… Whether it succeeds for you will depend largely on your taste for Broadway comedies of a type that otherwise went out of style a few decades ago… So if Chicken & Biscuits isn’t a profound work, that doesn’t mean it’s pointless. Its gravy is just another name for schmaltz… I see many great and necessary new works about the problem of Blackness in a racist society — or rather, the problem of whiteness… What I rarely get to see are works about Black American life that are defiantly not problem plays. Their sunniness is just as necessary, however garish the aquamarine and pimped-out the corpse.
Broadway News (Charles Isherwood): …a savory comedy served with a hefty side order of sentiment. It’s a mostly successful combo plate, even if the play’s buoyant humor tends to recede in the later scenes, as the tensions among three generations of an African American family are smoothly settled… as deliciously tangy as her performance is, Marshall-Oliver also exudes a life-giving warmth; Beverly may be reckless and feckless, but her heart is full… It is roughly when the formal service begins that the play begins to sag a little… Chicken & Biscuits is more successful as a roaring comedy than as a searching exploration of family dynamics. But given the choice, I’ll take the gags.
Daily News (Chris Jones): …It’s a warm-centered farce, a traditionally structured comedy wherein the members of a flawed but loving Black family gather to bury their patriarch, and in so doing find out some unexpected truths about themselves… It’s a popular device because death works very well in the theater… the chronically underpaced attraction… filled with warm-centered performances and broad but entertaining characters…. Everyone is either a type or a stereotype… These are all lively performances (Urie has his usual impeccable comic timing and Bowers, especially, is a natural improviser). Plus most of our families, whatever our race, are familiar with the issues on view here.
Variety (Ayanna Prescod) …a feast of a production, and there is enough sustenance and libation for the entire family… For all its comedic moments, (which are many), this story’s center is Black love, forgiveness and healing. .. everything is refreshingly non-traditional… The cast is dynamic together, making it nearly impossible to single out any one of them… Chicken & Biscuits is more than just a church service brought to you inside a Broadway house; it is a much-needed therapy session, a portrait of Black joy, love and laughter, that we all — and especially Black theatergoers — deserve following more than a year of COVID shutdowns, and after numerous Broadway productions showcasing Black pain and servitude. This play is both a Hallelujah and an A-men.
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GRACE NOTES Quiz: Perfect Young Ladies, by Jim Bernhard
Match these leading ladies with the correct Rodgers & Hammerstein musical:
| 1. Mary Martin | A. Oklahoma! (Laurey) |
| 2. Miyoshi Umeki | B. Allegro (Jennie Brinker) |
| 3. Joan Roberts | C. Cinderella (Ella) |
| 4. Gertrude Lawrence | D. Carousel (Julie Jordan) |
| 5. Laura Osnes | E. Pipe Dream (Suzy) |
| 6. Mary Martin | F. The Sound of Music (Maria Rainer) |
| 7. Jan Clayton | G. South Pacific (Ensign Nellie Forbush) |
| 8. Roberta Jonay | H. Flower Drum Song (Mei-Li) |
| 9. Roberta Jonay | I. The King and I (Anna Leonowens) |
| 10. Judy Tyler | J. Me and Juliet (Jeanie) |
Scroll down for the answers…
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Video: Stars in the House,
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The Cancer Support Community and Applause Shop are teaming up for its 2021 Annual Celebration (Thurs. Oct. 28 at 8 PM ET here) and Auction (Oct. 23- Nov. 1 here), offering theatrical memorabilia from Marin Mazzie and Jason Daniely.
The auction contains hundreds of items at every price point and includes some one of a kind treasures as:
* The blouse Marin wore when she starred as Diana in the Broadway production of Next to Normal.
* The embroidered logo bathrobe that Marin wore when she originated the role of Mother in Ragtime.
* Opening Night gifts from dozens of productions.
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Dennis Kelly’s After the End will run Feb. 25 – Mar. 26, 2022 at Theatre Royal Stratford East, directed by Lyndsey Turner.
Casting TBA.
A city under attack from a nuclear blast. As the dust settles, Louise wakes to find herself in a fallout shelter with Mark, the colleague who has saved her life. They have enough water and food to last two weeks. Now they just need to find a way of surviving each other.
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The Broad Stage has announced two upcoming concerts:
Och & Oy! (Jan. 21-22, 2022), starring Alan Cumming & Ari Shapiro, who transport listeners through an evening of tunes and tall tales. Details.
An Evening with Fran Lebowitz (Apr. 28 – May 1, 2022). Details
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A conversation with Stephen Schwartz will take place Mon. Oct. 28 at 7:30 PM ET at NYC’s 92Y, moderated by Frank DiLella, and will include a concert.
Michael McCorry Rose and Ciara Renée.
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Ate9’s Dance Company presents the world premiere of Danielle Agami & Isaiah Gage’s Joy, to run Nov. 4-6 at Beverly Hills’ The Wallis.
A humorous and poignant reflection on human habits and addictions, which examines humanity’s yearning for moments of elation amidst despair, and offers intimate flashes into the mental and physical states of each cast member.
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The York Theatre Company presents the world premiere of Randy Skinner & Barry Kleinbort ‘s Cheek to Cheek: Irving Berlin in Hollywood, to run Nov. 24 – Jan. 2 (opening Dec. 2) at Theatre at St. Jean’s (150 East 76th Street), directed & choreographed by Skinner, with music direction by David Hancock Turner.
Phillip Attmore, Jeremy Benton, Victoria Byrd, Kaitlyn Davison, Joseph Medeiros, and Melanie Moore.
An all-singing, all-dancing celebration of the most famous songs that Irving Berlin composed for the silver screen. Mr. Berlin understood the impact dance had on the public and his melodies, rhythms, and lyrics reflected his love of that art form.
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Video: First trailer for Funny Girl on Broadway, starring Beanie Feldstein.
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Deborah Zoe Laufer’s Be Here Now continues through Oct. 17 at Boston’s Lyric Stage, directed by Courtney O’Connor.
Samantha Richert, Barlow Adamson, Shani Farrell, and Katherine C. Shaver.
Bari is a misanthrope who has returned to her hometown of East Cooperville, NY as she struggles to finish her thesis on nihilism. Working at a local fulfillment center, her despair has reached new heights. When Bari begins experiencing emotions she has never felt before, she begins to have a different outlook on life. And when she discovers that the cause of these feelings may be killing her, Bari is forced to ask if she wants to go back to a life of nothing.
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Bianca Marroquin: Where You Are will take place Wed. Nov. 10 at 7 PM at NYC’s Green Room 42.
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Someone Else’s House, written & performed by Jared Mezzochi, will livestream Oct. 21 – 31 at TheaterWorks Hartford, directed by Margot Bordelon.
This live virtual experience centers on Mezzocchi’s frightening, true-life haunting inside his family’s 200-year-old New England house.
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Video: Betty White interviewed by Ken Howard (2011). (20:21)
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The New Group presents the world premiere of Tariq Trotter & John Ridley’s Black No More will run Jan. 11 – Feb. 27, 2022 (opening Feb. 8) at the Signature Theatre, directed by Scott Elliott, with choreography by Bill T. Jones.
Brandon Victor Dixon, Tariq Trotter, Jennifer Damiano, Tamika Lawrence, Tracy Shayne, and Walter Bobbie, with more TBA.
The story of Max Disher, who’s eager to try the mysterious machine invented by Dr. Junius Crookman that guarantees to “solve the American race problem” by turning Black people white.
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Play-PerView’s JANE ANGER, that Cunning Woman, and also of Willy Shakespeare and his Peasant Companion, or Yes, and Also of Anne Hathaway (also a Woman) Who Tried Very Hard reading, by Talene Monohan, will take place Mon. Oct.18 at 7 PM ET, both live and livestreamed (here) at NYC’s Caveat (21 Clinton Street), directed by Jaki Bradley.
Michael Urie, Danaya Esperanza, Talene Monahon, and Ryan Spahn, both live & livestreamed at NYC’s Caveat (21 Clinton Street).
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Melissa Errico Sings Her New York continues through Oct. 16 at 54 Below.
Max Von Essen.
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Disney’s musical film adaptation of “Hidden Figures” will be directed by Schele Williams. Timeline, additional information, and release date are TBA.
Taraji P. Henson (Katherine G. Johnson), Octavia Spencer (Dorothy Vaughan), and Janelle Monáe (Mary Jackson).
Three brilliant African-American women work at NASA, serving as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history: the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit, a stunning achievement that restored the nation’s confidence, turned around the space race, and galvanized the world.
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The world premiere of Jason Ma’s Gold Mountain will run Nov. 4-20 at the Utah Shakespeare Festival, directed by Alan Muraoka.
Ali Ewoldt, Jonny Lee Jr., Lawrence-Michael C. Arias, Kiet Tai Cao, Michael Ching, Steven Eng, Kennedy Kanagawa, Darren Lee, Robert Scott Smith, Eymard Cabling, Kelvin Moon Loh, Jimmy Nguyen, and Viet Vo.
A team of Chinese railroad workers build the world’s first transcontinental railroad, and their lives are all changed with the arrival of one woman.
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GRACE NOTES Quiz answers: Perfect Young Ladies
1-F or G. Mary Martin – The Sound of Music (Maria Rainer) or South Pacific (Ensign Nellie Forbush)
2-H. Miyoshi Umeki – Flower Drum Song (Mei-Li)
3-A. Joan Roberts – Oklahoma! (Laurey)
4-I. Gertrude Lawrence – The King and I (Anna Leonowens)
5-C. Laura Osnes – Cinderella (Ella)
6-G or F. Mary Martin – South Pacific (Ensign Nellie Forbush) or The Sound of Music (Maria Rainer)
7-D. Jan Clayton – Carousel (Julie Jordan)
8-J. Isabel Bigley – Me and Juliet (Jeanie)
9-B. Roberta Jonay – Allegro (Jennie Brinker)
10-E. Judy Tyler – Pipe Dream (Suzy)