Today’s Highlights:
National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene‘s Harmony, by Barry Manilow & Bruce Sussman, directed by Warren Carlyle, featuring Sierra Boggess (Mary), Chip Zien (Rabbi), Jessie Davidson (Ruth), and Ana Hoffman (Josephine Baker), with Sean Bell, Danny Kornfeld, Eric Peters, Blake Roman, Steven Telsey, Kenny Morris, Elise Frances Daniells, Zak Edwards, Abby Goldfarb, Eddie Grey, Shayne Kennon, Benjamin Harold Moore, Matthew Mucha, Tori Palin, Barrett Riggins, Kayleen Seil, Andrew O’Shanick, Nancy Ticotin, and Kate Wesler, opens at NYC’s Museum of Jewish Heritage.
Blues for an Alabama Sky, by Pearl Cleage, directed by Phylicia Rashad, featuring Joe Holt, Nija Okoro, Dennis Pearson, Greg Alverez Reid, and Kim Steele, opens at LA’s Mark Taper Forum.
The Play That Goes Wrong, directed by Robert Hupp, featuring Seth Andrew Bridges (Jonathan/Charles), Rishan Dhamija (Robert/Thomas), Shabazz Green (Trevor), Kate Hammill (Annie), Angie Janas (Sandra/Florence), Jason O’Connell (Chris/Inspector), Blake Segal (Dennis/Perkins), and John Tufts (Max/Cecil/Gardner), with Stella Bunch, Jessica Cerreta, Jaemon Crosby, Shabazz Green, Taylor Hendricks, and Derek Powell, opens at Syracuse Stage.
Wish You Were Here, by Sanaz Toossi, directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch, featuring Nikki Massoud, Nazanin Nour, Artemis Pebdani, Roxanna Hope Radja, and Marjan Neshat, begins previews at Off-Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons.
Dream Girls, directed by Anthony Stockard, featuring Katelan Corprew (Deena Jones), ShaaNi Dent (Lorell Robinson), Amorise White (Effie Melody White), Zipporah Gatling (Michelle Morris/Stepp Sister), Michael Giamille (Jimmy Early), Khan’El (Curtis Taylor Jr.), Adam Moskowitz (C.C. White), Myles Whitaker (Marty), William Belvin (Tiny Joe Dixon), Michael Alston (Mr. Morgan/Jerry Dwight/Stage Manager), Keighton Bell (Tru-Tone), and Aniyah Blair-Young (Stepp Sister), with Shevette Bryant, Micah Cook, Corasha ‘Coco’ Dent, Anthony Faulkner, Juan Purdie, Mikayla Revell, Xavier Smith, and Anthony Mark Stockard, begins previews at Virginia Stage.
International City Theatre‘s A Doll’s House, Part 2, by Lucas Hnath, directed by Trevor Biship-Gillespie, featuring Jennifer Shelton (Nora), Eileen T’Kaye (Anne Marie), Scott Roberts (Torvald), and Nicolette Ellis (Emmy), begins previews at Long Beach’s PAC.
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Reviews for Second Stage’s To My Girls at Off-Broadway’s Tony Kiser Theatre:
NY Times (Jesse Green): …If this round-robin of frenemy puts you in mind of The Boys in the Band, Mart Crowley’s 1968 play about catty and self-hating gay men… you aren’t far off. JC Lee’s muddled new comedy…does function in part, as a millennial update to the earlier and much more pointed workd. Call it Boys in the Sand, set not at the dawn of liberation but at its eyes-wide-shut dusk… also echoes The Boys in the Band in providing contrast to the bickering, self-involved central characters with two outsiders… If To My Girls is a first draft of that thesis, it’s not a convincing one…
Theatermania (Zachary Stewart): …This shadiest of black comedies features some of the funniest one-liners onstage, with dialogue as sparklingly bitter as a Campari spritz laced with arsenic… [Jay Armstrong] Johnson gives a hair-raising performance as an aging manboy who acts dumber than he is, and whose insatiable thirst for validation is the driving force behind the drama… Like Lena Dunham’s more succinctly titled HBO series Girls, To My Girls suggests that the intense friendships millennials often build in their 20s must be demolished if any adult relationships are to follow.
Theatrely (Christian Lewis): …JC Lee’s To My Girls…is comprised of entirely queer male characters, including several well-rounded characters of color, and all the actors and creative team members are queer… It serves as an almost anthropological study in elder millennial gay culture, complete with its hypocrisies, self-righteousness, hedonism, faux-wokeness, supposed love of community, and obsession with social media… It is refreshing for a comedy–indeed, this is without a doubt the funniest play of the season–to fully and openly admit that its characters are imperfect and messy…
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Broadway Grosses for the week ending Apr. 10. Click here for the complete analysis.
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GRACE NOTES Quote of the Week: “You act with your souls. That’s why you all want to be actors, because your souls aren’t used up by life.”
~ Stella Adler
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2022 Mac Award winners. Click here for the complete list (scroll down).
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The Negro Ensemble Company‘s 2nd Emerging Playwrights Competition will present 4 fully staged new plays in 4 weeks (Thursdays – Sundays May 5-29) Urban Stages. 
Thurs.-Sat. performances at 7:30 PM ET/Sun. performances at 3 PM ET.
Unentitled (May 8 at 3 PM ET), by Charles White, directed by Florante Galvez, featuring Ayleen Augustine, Jo Ann Cleghorne, William “Bill” Johnson, K. Lorrel Manning, and Charles Bernard Murray. 
Attorney Frank Saunders was downsized during the 2008 recession, and he attempts to sell the Long Island summer home inherited by his wife. The intense family dispute fractures the marriage and the sibling relationships, but the family is forced to unite in order to confront a shocking and far more serious threat to the property and to the family legacy.
The Dream Chest (May 12-15 at various times), by Scarlett Finney, directed by Gabrielle C. Archer, featuring Camarey Chambliss, Soyini Crenshaw, Michael Gaines, Alleyne Owen, McKenna Pappas, Monique Pappas, and Cynthia St Juste. It is the 1950s in St. Louis where Mama Fat and her husband Popsie live in a small rented duplex in a working-class Balck neighborhood. All her adult life, Mama Fat has dreamed of owning her own home. Mama Fat has made Popsie privy to any of her closeted shenanigans, and when he learns about them, he separates from his wife.
#NWord (May 19-22), by Christian Elder, directed by DeMone Seraphin, featuring Hannah Beck, John Carhart, Roderick Lawrence, and Clarissa Thibeaux. Vaughn, a Black entrepreneur and mother of an eight-year-old boy, confronts Mack, a white real estate broker at an open house in SoHo. A video posted online has captured Mack’s daughter calling Vaughn’s son the “n-word” on the school bus.
I Don’t Have a Gun, Stop Shooting! – An American Tragedy (May 26-29), by Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj, directed by Vincent Scott, featuring Kevin Tate, Adrain Washington, and C Kelly Wright. The title is drawn from the final works of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was fatally shot by a Ferguson Police Officer on Aug. 9, 2014. Three ancestors – Breonna, George, and Ahmaud – take us on journey tracing the murders of Trayvon Martin and the mass shooting of the nine parishioners at the Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, using the power of the African tradition of Libation.
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NJ’s Paper Mill Playhouse has announced its 2022-23 season:
On Your Feet! (Oct. 7 – Nov. 6), directed & choreographed by Alex Sanchez, with music direction by Andrew David Sotomayor.
The Sound of Music (Dec. 2 – Jan. 1, 2023), directed by Mark S. Hoebee, with choreography by Kenny Ingram.
Disney’s Hercules (Feb. 9 – Mar. 12), directed by Lear deBessonet, with music direction by Alvin Hough, Jr.
Murder on the Orient Express (Apr. 12 – May 7), directed by Casey Hushion.
Rent (May 31 – June 25), directed by Zi Alikhan.
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An all-female production (2019) of MacBeth , adapted & directed by Erica Schmidt, will stream May 16-29 at Off-Broadway’s Red Bull Theatre.
Charlene Cruz, Isabelle Fuhrman, Sophie Kelly-Hedrick, Ismenia Mendes, AnnaSophia Robb, Lily Santiago, and Ayana Workman.
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Musical Theatre Guild‘s staged concert reading of How to Succeed… will take place Sun. May 1 at 7 PM PT at Glendale’s Alex Theatre, directed by Yvette Lawrence, with music direction by Dan Redfield, and choreography by Cheryl Baxter.
Travis Leland (Finch), Chelsea Morgan Stock (Rosemary), Melissa Fahn (Hedy), Thomas Ashworth (Biggley), Todd Gajdusek (Gatch), Bryan Chesters (Bratt), James Gleason (Twimble/Womper), Joshua Finkel (Bud Frump), Katie DeShan (Smitty), Jennifer Bennett (Miss Krumholtz), Kim Yarbrough (Miss Jones), Brent Schindele (Executive), Mark Reis (Executive), Paul Wong (Executive), Kevin Matsumoto (Executive), Nancy Lam (Secretary), Sharon Logan (Secretary), and Susan Edwards Martin (Voice of the Book).
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LA’s Geffen Playhouse has announced its 2022-23 season:
The Ants (Sept. 6 – Oct. 16), world premiere by Ramiz Monsef, directed by Pirronne Yousefzadeh. A breathtaking house on a hill – complete with the most state-of-the art security that excessive wealth can buy – should feel like a refuge for Nami, whose recent firing and eviction have forced him to crash at his brother and sister-in-law’s luxury home. But on this dark and fateful night, a violent uprising outside leaves the three trapped in what they think is an impenetrable fortress. A horror play infused with darkly humorous social commentary, The Ants asks why we spend so much money protecting ourselves instead of investing in our shared humanity.
The Inheritance (Parts 1 & 2) (Sept. 13 – Nov. 27), by Matthew López, directed by Mike Donahue. The story of Eric Glass, a middle-class New York Jewish intellectual in his early 30s. He lives with his partner, Toby, who has fled a traumatic past by tacking on a veneer of cultured urbanity.
Mindplay (Nov. 8 – Dec. 18), world premiere by Vinny DePonto & Josh Koenigsberg, directed by Andrew Neisler, featuring Vinny DePonto. A love letter to the imperfect mind. A raucous romp through the back channels of our innermost thoughts, exploring the fragmented and flawed nature of our memories.
The First Deep Breath (Jan. 31 – Mar. 5, 2023), by Lee Edward Colston II, directed by Steven H. Broadnax III. Pastor Albert Jones and his family are proud leaders of the Mother Bethel Baptist Church and pillars of their community. Plans are being made for a special memorial service to honor their late daughter Diane on the sixth anniversary of her passing. But when the eldest son who Albert blames for her death, returns home from prison, the family’s veneer begins to crack as shocking revelations come to light.
The Lonely Few (Feb. 28 – Apr. 9), world premiere by Rachel Bonds & Zoe Sarnak, directed by Tyne Rafaeli, featuring Lauren Patten and more TBA.
Lila is getting by in her Kentucky hometown – scanning groceries at the Save-A-Lot, caring for her erratic brother, and living for Friday nights, when she plays a gig with her band The Lonely Few. And that’s enough. Or she thought it was, until Amy, an established musician ragged from the road, passes through, and offers her a shot at something much, much bigger. But is Lila ready for the life she never dared to imagine?
TBA (Apr. 4 – May 7).
The Mountaintop (June 6 – July 9), by Katori Hall, directed by Patricia McGregor.
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Ivan Hernandez (Larry Murphy)will depart Dear Even Hansen on Apr. 29 at Broadway’s Music Box Theatre.
He will be replaced by Manoel Felciano on Apr. 30.
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A brand-new production of Sherlock Holmes, by Rachel Wagstaff & Duncan Abel, will be developed in London before its West End and Broadway premieres, directed by Rob Ashford.
Casting, creative team, and additional information TBA.
Staged as a mystery within a mystery, the case presented to Holmes forces him to confront his murky past. But is the unravelling of his childhood just as dangerous diversion?
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Albany’s Capital Rep has announced its 2022-23 season. Casting and creative teams TBA.
Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors (Sept. 30 – Oct. 23), by Gordon Greenberg & Steve Rosen. Ever wondered what would happen if you took Bram Stoker’s legendary vampire tale and put it into a blender with the comedic influences of Mel Brooks, Monty Python and the 39 Steps?
Hairspray (Dec. 6-11), featuring Andrew Levitt aka Nina West (Edna Turnblad), Niki Metcalf (Tracy Turnblad), Sandie Lee (Motormouth Maybelle), and more TBA.
Secret Hour (Jan. 27 – Feb. 19, 2023), world premiere by Jenny Stafford. Is a lie always a lie? Can it be a defense against hurting another person? Can it be a means to ensure the greater good? Married couple, Kate and Ben – she a work-alcoholic ethics professor, and he an unemployed programmer – have invented the perfect game for getting to the truth, and nothing but the truth.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Apr. 14 – May 7).
Honky Tonk Angels (July 14 – Aug. 20), with a book by Ted Swindley. A musical celebration of the female stars of country.
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The world premiere of Nikkole Salter & Nolan Williams Jr’s Grace continues through May 14 at DC’s Ford’s Theatre, directed & choreographed by Robert Barry Fleming.
David Hughey, Arica Jackson, Raquel Jennings, Rayshun Lamarr, Jarran Muse, Solomon Parker, Nova Y. Payton, and Virginia Woodruff, with LaDonna Burns, Jay Frisby, Duawne Starling, and Kai Brittani White.
Along with exploring Black culinary history, Grace also explores the challenges faced by Black-owned businesses by following the Minton family as they gather to mourn the loss of their matriarch and make decisions about what to do with the family’s restaurant in a changing Philadelphia neighborhood.