Today’s Highlights:
Mr. Saturday Night, by Billy Crystal, Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel, Jason Robert Brown & Amanda Green, directed by John Rando, featuring Billy Crystal (Buddy Young Jr.), Shoshana Bean (Susan Young), Randy Graff (Elaine Young), David Paymer (Stan Yankelman), and Chasten Harmon (Annie Wells), with Jordan Gelber, Brian Gonzales, and Mylinda Hull, opens at Broadway’s Nederlander Theatre.
POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, world premiere by Selina Fillinger, directed by Susan Stroman, featuring Lilli Cooper (Chris), Lea DeLaria (Bernadette), Rachel Dratch (Stephanie), Julianne Hough (Dusty), Suzy Nakamura (Jean), Julie White (Harriet), and Vanessa Williams (Margaret), with Anita Abdinezhad, Gisela Chípe, Jennifer Fouché , and Lisa Helmi Johanson, opens at Broadway’s Shubert Theatre.
Prima Facie, by Suzie Miller, directed by Justin Martin, starring Jodie Comer, opens at London’s Harold Pinter Theatre.
Hadestown national tour, by Anais Mitchell & Rachel Chavkin, directed by Chavkin, featuring Nicholas Baraasch (Orpheus), Morgan Siobhan Green (Eurydice), Levi Kreis (Hermes), Kimberly Marable (Persephone), Kevyn Morrow (Hades), Belén Moyano (Fate), Bex Odorisio (Fate), and Shea Renne (Fate), with Lindsay Hailes, Chibueze Ihuoma, Will Mann, Sydney Parra, and Jamari Johnson Williams, Tyla Collier, Ian Coulter-Buford, Alex Lugo, Eddie Noel Rodríguez, and J. Antonio Rodriguez, opens at LA’s Ahmanson Theatre.
Octet, by Dave Malloy, directed by Ann Tippe, featuring Adam Bashian, Kim Blanck, Alex Gibson, Justin Gregory Lopez, J.D. Mollison, Margo Seibert, and Kuhoo Verma, with Nicole Weiss, opens at CA’s Berkeley Rep.
Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, by Anna Deveare Smith, directed by Chris Butler & Jenny Sullivan, featuring Chris Butler, begins previews at Ventura’s Rubicon Theatre.
Anything Goes, filmed London production, starring Sutton Foster and Robert Lindsay, begins screening in movie theaters across the U.S.
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Reviews for A Strange Loop at Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre:
NY Times (Maya Phillips): …A Strange Loop, Michael R. Jackson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning meta musical about a Black queer man’s self-perception in relation to his art, is radical. And I definitely mean that as a compliment… This musical…forgoes the commercial niceties and digestible narratives of many Broadway shows, delivering a story that’s searing and softhearted, uproarious and disquieting… Through scenes that move between Usher’s interactions with the outside world…A Strange Loop pulls off an amazing feat: condensing a complex idea, full of paradoxes and abstractions, into the form of a Broadway musical. Jackson’s script…and Stephen Brackett’s lively direction both cleverly find comedy, critique and pathos in contradictions.
NY Daily News (Chris Jones) …To say that Michael R. Jackson’s A Strange Loop pushes the boundaries of what constitutes a commercial musical is to understate… this is probably the most sexually explicit musical ever produced. Not in terms of voyeuristic erotica, in which it has no interest, but in terms of the raw, live-in details of gay sex, especially as they reflect the psychological state of mind of a “Black, queer” man in his mid-twenties looking for love in New York Cityl… [Michael R.] Jackson’s alter-ego, brilliantly performed here by Jaquel Spivey… But this is also a show about the intersection of race and sexuality… Usher’s sexual fantasies involving white men are a consequence of white supremacy, not some personal desire that can be unhooked from racism and inequity. That is a position as fascinating as it is radical…
Variety (Naveen Kumar): Subjectivity is conditional. We can only understand our own points of view in relation to the differences that separate us… A Strange Loop unravels it down to the barest threads to ask who the hell we think we are… The new musical by Michael R. Jackson performs a phenomenal feat — it is both a raw and unflinching interrogation of identity and the most furiously entertaining show on Broadway… a probing and free-wheeling explosion of the form. It’s political only in the sense that some people consider being fat, Black and queer as hostile to convention. And it’s brave only insofar as it’s unafraid to be honest about how that feels… Usher (Jaquel Spivey, in a remarkable Broadway debut)… peeling back the layers of his own experience to expose trembling nerves, is what gives A Strange Loop both its wicked humor and bracing bite…
New York Post (Jonny Oleksinski): “Ouch!” is the main takeaway of the intriguing, autobiographical new musical… It’s blow after blow after blow. And then some metaphorical slaps, kicks and scratches for good measure. There’s so much pain felt by the main character that you leave gravely concerned for the emotional well-being of the man who wrote and inspired him… a chorus of his thoughts played by six energetic, chameleon actors: L Morgan Lee, James Jackson, Jr., John-Michael Lyles, John-Andrew Morrison, Jason Veasey and Antwayn Hopper. They play a catwalk of well-defined, richly imagined characters… There’s no respite from Usher’s misery, since even his art is, well, about his misery. The show amounts to a series of disappointments leading to the conclusion that life is nothing but a series of disappointments. So, grin and bear it.
Video: Production highlights
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The 71st Annual Outer Critics Circle Award nominations. Click here for the complete list of nominations (scroll down).
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Broadway Grosses for the week ending Apr. 24.
Click here for the complete analysis.
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GRACE NOTES Quote of the Week: “Every now and then, when you’re on stage, you hear the best sound a player can hear. It’s a sound you can’t get in movies or in television. It is the sound of a wonderful, deep silence that means you’ve hit them where they live.” ~ Shelley Winters
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The Little Prince, originally scheduled to close Aug. 14, will now close May 8 at Broadway Theatre.
An international tour is in the works.
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The Public Theater has announced complete casting for Richard III, to run June 17 – July 17 (opening June 30) at Central Park’s Delacorte Theater, directed by Robert O’Hara.
Danai Gurira (Richard III), Wyatt Cirbus (Prince of Wales), Sanjit De Silva (Buckingham), Sam Duncan (Duke of York),Monique Holt (Duchess of York), Gregg Mozgala (King Edward IV/Richmond), Paul Niebanck (George), Michael Potts (Lord Stanley), Ariel Shafir (Lord Hastings, Heather Alicia Simms (Queen Elizabeth), Ali Stroker (Anne), Sharon Washington (Queen Margaret), and Daniel J. Watts (Catesby Ratcliffe), with Maleni Chaitoo, Thaddeus Fitzpatrick, Skyler Gallun, Sara Nina Hayon, Matthew Jeffers, Matt Monaco, Xavier Pacheco, Marcus Rae Perez, Grace Porter, and N’yomi Stewart.
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PA’s Bucks County Playhouse has announced its 2022 Summer Season:
American Jade (May 20 – June 13), written by & starring Jodi Long, directed by Eric Rosen. 
The first Asian-American actor to win an Emmy, Jodi Long breaks barriers even as she follows in her family’s footsteps.
Kinky Boots (June 24 – July 30), directed by Sheryl Kaller & Hope Boykin, with choreography by Boykin.
Dames at Sea (Aug. 12 – Sept. 11), directed & choreographed by Randy Skinner.
Evita (Sept. 23 – Oct. 30), directed by Will Pomerantz, with choreography by Marcos Santana.
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Million Dollar Quartet continues through May 22 at Chappaqua, NY’s Westchester Theatre, directed by Tim Seib, with music direction by Trevor Dorner.
Nathan Burke (Carl Perkins), Mike Potter (Johnny Cash), Trevor Dorner (Jerry Lee Lewis), Jacob Barton (Elvis Presley), Sean Casey Flanagan (Sam Phillips), Taylor Kraft (Dyanne), Mike Lucchetti (Flute), and Ben Sheppard (Brother Jay).
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Boston’s 2022 Elliot Norton Awards nominations
Click here for the complete list.
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Additional casting has been announced for August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, to begin previews Sept. 19 (opening date TBA) at the St. James Theatre, directed by LaTanya Richardson Jackson.
Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), Danielle Brooks (Bernice), John David Washington (Boy Willie), Trai Byers (Avery), Ray Fisher (Lymon), April Matthis (Grace), and Michael Potts (Winning Boy), with more TBA.
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Video: In rehearsal for City Center Encores’ Into the Woods, with Neil Patrick Harris, Sara Bareilles, Julia Lester, Gavin Creel, Heather Headley, Denée Benton, and directed by Lear deBessonet. (7:18)
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The world premiere of Bree Lawdermilk, Kate Kerrigan & Lauren Gunderson’s Justice continues through Apr. 30 at Arizona Theatre Company (Phoenix), and then runs May 5-22 at Arizona Theatre Company (Tucson), directed by Melissa Crespo, with music direction by Annbritt DuChateau.
Nancy Opel (Sandra Day O’Connor), Joan Ryan (Ruth Bader Ginsburg), and Chanel Bragg (Vera).
It’s 1993 and Ruth Bader Ginsburg has just joined the US Supreme Court: the first and only woman there, Sandra Day O’Connor, is ready to welcome her and get to work.
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Off-Broadway’s Public Theater will present is Annual Gala: Gala On The Green on Tues. May 24 at 6 PM ET at Central Park’s Delacorte Theater.
Gil Shiva
Renée Elise Goldsberry, Oscar Isaac, Norm Lewis, Kimber Elayne Sprawl, and more TBA.
Danai Gurira and Lin-Manuel Miranda.
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Murder on the Orient Express, adapted by Ken Ludwig, will run May 31 – July 1 at Milwaukee Rep, directed by Annika Boras.
Diana Coates (Countess Andrenyi), Emjoy Gavinco (Mary Debanham), Park Krausen (Greta Ohlsson), Gregory Linington (Monsieur Bouc), Will Mobley (Hector MacQueen), Adam Poss (Michel), Gail Rastorfer (Helen Hubbard), Steven Rattazzi (Hercule Poirot), Barbara Robertson (Princess Dragomiroff), and Jonathan Wainwright (Colonel Arbuthnot/Samuel Ratchett).
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Video: James Cordon’s newest “Crosswalk Musical” – The Sound of Music.
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True Stories, a series of solo shows, will run in rep May 3-22 at the Cherry Lane Theatre, directed by Gretchen Cryer. Each of the 5 plays will have 5 performances over the 3-week run.
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Jon Cryer, Linda Manning, Alex Petrullo, Abby Stokes, and Steve Wruble.
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The Foundation for New American Musicals presents its next Musi-Cal, offering selections from new musicals, on Mon. May 16 at 7:30 PM PT at Hollywood’s The Bourbon Room, co-hosted by Clayton Farris & Laura Schein.
Supportive White Parents, by Joy Regullano, Sam Hohnides & Tony Ganzalez. When an Asian girl tells her parents she doesn’t want to be a doctor anymore, she wished on a shooting star for supportive white parents.
Bitter Street, by Gary Cearlock. A young reporter agrees to live in a homeless encampment in return for information on a story he’s writing, inadvertently upending the lives of its inhabitants and learning valuable lessons about life and love in the process.
Vicki & Frank, by Tommy Wallach. A gothic comedy set in Middle America circa 1950, and loosely based on Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, in which a high school girl with a scientific bent attempts to reanimate the dead… with catastrophic results.
King of Pangaea, by Martin Storrow & Aubrey Swander, directed by Richard Israel. Life is a River. Hope is an Island. A musical exploration of loss, hope, and the power of imagination.