Today’s Highlights:
The Enfield Haunting, by Paul Unwin, directed by Angus Jackson, featuring Catherine Take (Peggy Hodgson) and David Threlfall (Maurice Grosse), Ella Schrey-Yeats (Janet Hodgson), Grace Molony (Magaret Hodgson), Jude Coward Nicoll & Noah Leggott (sharing the role of Jimmy Hodgson), Mo Sesay (Rey), and Neve McIntosh (Betty Grosse), Daniel Stewart (Writer/Old Man), with Stacha Hicks, Jasmine Spence, and Gareth Radcliffe, opens at London’s Ambassadors Theatre.
**********************
Reviews for Manhattan Theatre Club’s Prayer for the French Republic at Broadway’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre:
NY Times (Jesse Green): In Joshua Harmon’s play about the legacies of antisemitism, a Parisian family must decide when it’s time to get out. Such is the sadness of our world that plays about antisemitism, however historical, cannot help but be prescient. Take Prayer for the French Republic, Joshua Harmon’s sprawling family drama about the Salomons, Jews who have “been in France more than a thousand years,” as one of them puts it, still sounding provisional. With violent incidents on the rise, and a fascistic, Nazi-adjacent party gaining in the polls, should they finally seek safety elsewhere? … the play, for all its urgency, is already way too much. Running just over three hours, Prayer for the French Republic … is still not long enough to do justice to the multiple histories it wants to tell. That this Manhattan Theater Club production, directed by David Cromer, remains mostly riveting is the result of the richness of Harmon’s novelistic detail — and the exceptional skill of the principal actors in realizing it…
Chicago Tribune (Chris Jones): …“To be a Jew in Europe, to be a Jew in France, is to grow up in a place that has historically, for hundreds and in some cases thousands of years, persecuted you,” observes Elodie (Francis Benhamou), one of the young Parisian characters in a split-screen play that looks at multiple generations of French Jews, some surviving World War II, if surviving’s the word, others consumed by their growing anxiety in contemporary Paris… At the show’s core is the issue of conflicted loyalty… Prayer for the French Republic feels prescient to a very striking degree, not least for the way Jews often struggle to find a home on either the political right or the left.
Variety (Daniel D’Addario): …Playwright Joshua Harmon seems to be aiming for the reach of Tony Kushner, using maximalist technique to deliver ideas that sprawl forward… He does not get there. Prayer for the French Republic is, in one sense, timely, delivering as it does pointed and direct arguments between characters who represent differing points of view on the nation of Israel (They do better as representations of ideas, in fact, than as characters.)… Prayer for the French Republic seems designed to evoke debate on the train ride home. But the relative shapelessness of the Benhamous’ journey towards leaving France has a flattening effect on the audience…
Time Out (Adam Feldman): …The modern Parisian family in Joshua Harmon’s Prayer for the French Republic is beginning to feel a cold shadow creeping up… Hamas attack on Israel last fall has shaded Harmon’s 2022 play, which is mostly set in the mid-2010s, with fresh urgency and bitter irony… Densely packed with history and rhetoric, Harmon’s depiction of French Jews in two different decades—it periodically flashes back to the same apartment in the 1940s, as Marcelle’s elderly grandparents (Daniel Oreskes and Nancy Robinette, both very fine) wait out the Nazi occupation—provides valuable insights into their divided states of mind… As a theatergoing experience, however, the three-hour Prayer for the French Republic is less effectively timed…
**********************
Broadway Grosses for the week ending Jan. 7.
Click here for the complete analysis.
**********************
An invitation-only industry reading of Scott Elmegreen & Drew Fornarola’s The Ghost of John McCain will take place Thurs. Jan. 11 in NYC, directed by Marya Mazor.
Ken Marks (John McCain), Hudson Loverro (Donald Trump), Major Attaway (Trump’s brain), Ann Harada (Karen), Andrew Polk (Lindsay Graham), and Angie Schworer (Hillary Clinton).
A unique psychological exploration of power, rivalry, and the human condition. The late Vietnam War hero-turned-senator awakens, horrified to find himself back in captivity, in the afterlife, inside the mind of Donald Trump. As a prisoner of Trump’s war to win the approval of an establishment that Trump both reveres and scorns, McCain must fight for his freedom by engaging in a high-stakes debate over life, legacy, and American values. As McCain navigates the surreal landscape within Trump’s consciousness, a “Greek Chorus” of iconic public figures, including Hillary Clinton, Roy Cohn, Eva Peron, Teddy Roosevelt, Robert Jordan, and Lindsey Graham, rebel against the President’s relentless demands for affirmation.
**********************
Chain Winter One-Act Festival will run Feb. 8 – Mar. 3 at Off-Broadway’s Chain Theatre, directed by Jesse Eisenberg.
Click here for complete details.
**********************
Ensemble Theatre Company will present a benefit performance of A. R. Gurney’s Love Letters on Sat. Jan. 27 at 2 PM at Santa Barbara’s New Vic.
Meredith Baxter and Michael Gross.
**********************
Complete casting has been announced for James Ijames’ Fat Ham, to run Mar. 27 – Apr. 28 (opening Apr. 4) at the Geffen Playhouse, directed by Sideeq Heard.
Nikki Crawford (Tedra), Chris Herbie Holland (Tio), Billy Eugene Jones (Rev/Pap), Adrianna Mitchell (Opal), Marcel Spears (Juicy), and Benja Kay Thomas (Rabby, and Matthew Elijah Webb (Larry).
Meet Juicy, a young, queer Black man with a Shakespearean-sized dilemma. When the ghost of his dead father shows up at his family’s BBQ wedding reception demanding his murder be avenged, does the poetic and sensitive Juicy have it in him to do the deed, or will he “to thine own self be true?”
**********************
Broadway’s Purlie Victorious will offer audiences a series of talkbacks with cast members and special guests, which take place after Thursday evening performances, moderated by Sade Lythcott, Jonathan McCrory of National Black Theatre, and Dr. Hasna Muhammad (daughter of playwright Ossie Davis).
Adrienne Warren (Jan. 11), Melba Moore (Jan. 18), and Lin-Manuel Miranda (Jan. 25)
**********************
David Lindsay-Abaire & Jeanine Testori’s Kimberly Akimbo will end its Broadway run on Sun., Apr. 28 at the Booth Theatre, after 32 previews and 612 regular performances.
(all original cast): Victoria Clark, Bonnie Milligan Justin Cooley, Steven Boyer, Alli Mauzey, Olivia Elease Hardy, Fernell Hogan, Michael Iskander, and Nina White.
A 75-week, 60-city national tour will launch in September. Casting, tour dates, and additional information TBA.
**********************
Dean Kostos & Paul Kirby’s The Boy Who Listened to Paintings will run Feb. 1-18 at Theatre for the New City, directed by Lissa Moira.
Louisa Bradshaw, William Broderick, Thom Brown III, Donovan W. Counts, Alisa Ermolaey, Matthew James Fitzgerald, Alyxon Reim Friedman, Michael A. Green, Milo Longenecker, Zack Martin, Lissa Moira, and The Ziylik Brothers (Luka and Niki), with Maude Elizabeth Burke, Anthony Deceno, Joshua Credle, Dominique Ernewein, Patrick Kenner, Taryn Lynch, Bradley Nowacek, Amelia Sasson, and Tony Renee Taylor.
A new musical theater work based on the memoir of the same name by the late visual artist and poet Dean Kostos (1954 – 2022), an extensively published, award-winning poet. It is the story of a young, sensitive visual artist growing up in the 1960s in a highly dysfunctional family. Bullied to the point of suicide, he contends with his budding gay sexuality, a flirtation with hard drugs and other confusing exigencies of life. He is saved by discovering he has the gift of synesthesia: the production of a sense impression relating to one sense by stimulating another sense.
**********************
The world premiere of Dan Lipton & David Rossmer’s The Perfect Mate will run Feb. 2 – Mar. 17 (opening Feb. 9) at Pittsburgh CLO, directed by Carolyn Cantor, with choreography by Whitney G-Bowley, and music direction by Greg Anthony Rassen.
TBA.
Joan Sweete has always been drawn to the old-fashioned idea of true love with one person, which puts her at odds with the wild west of romance in 2063. When she’s chosen to try out the Perfect Mate, an emotionally savvy humanoid partner, she thinks she has found her match – but it turns out perfection isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
**********************
Justin Peck & Jackie Sibblies’ Illinoise will run Mar. 2 – 23 at NYC’s Park Avenue Armory, directed by Sibblies.
Gaby Diaz, Ben Cook, Robbie Fairchild, Ahmad Simmons, and Ricky Ubeda.
The story is set to the entirety of Stevens’ album with new arrangements by composer, pianist, and frequent Stevens collaborator Timo Andres, ranging in style from DIY folk and indie rock to marching band and ambient electronics, performed live by an 11-member band and three vocalists. Instead of a traditional proscenium, llinoise will be performed in Drill Hall, with audiences gathered in a clearing around the work’s campfire setting with enveloping scenic elements.
**********************
Mathew Bourne & Terry Davies’ Romeo and Juliet will run Jan. 28 – Feb. 25 (opening Jan. 31) at the Ahmanson Theatre.
**********************
Marshall Pailet’s Private Jones will run Feb. 6 – Mar. 10 at DC’s Signature Theatre, directed by Pailet, with choreography by Misha Shields, and music direction by Myrna Conn.
Leanne Antonio (Gwenolyn/Evans), johnny Link (Gomer Jones), David Aron Damane (Father/Drill Seareant), Dicki Hearts (Henry), Deimoni Brewington (Bailey), Jake Leowenthal (Redvers), Vincent Michael (Edmond), and Erin Weaver (King), with Ariel Friendly, Nicholas Hohrman, Stephen Russell Murray, Hank von Kolnitz. Alec De Bard, Amelia Hensley, George Psomas, and Emily Steinhardt.
After losing his hearing, Gomer Jones is left behind when the rest of the young men enlist. However, when fresh recruits are needed, he fakes his way into a battalion alongside a group of colorful, misfit trainees. Once the “bastards,” as they call themselves, reach the front, Jones becomes a celebrated sniper, but getting everything he thought he wanted might mean losing himself in the process.
**********************
Red Bull Theater has announced a live & livestreamed reading of Edward Young’s The Revenge, on Mon. Jan. 22 at 7:30 PM at Off-Broadway’s Peter J. Sharp Theatre, directed by Nathan Wiknelstein.
The piece will also be available on-demand through Sun. Jan. 28 at 11:59 PM.
Christian Coulson, Merritt Janson, Ismenia Mendes, Matthew Rauch, Alexandra Silber and John Douglas Thompson.
This pot-boiler tells a tale that Shakespeare audiences will recognize – a general and his new bride manipulated to tragic ends – but in the context of Spain’s conquests in North Africa. In this tale the revenger is the Moor– Zanga, an enslaved prince–who wreaks righteous vengeance on his oppressor. The fiery Zanga, a favorite role of both Ira Aldridge and Edmund Kean, finally gets his return to the spotlight.
**********************
The world premiere of Tina Landau Kate Diaz, and Idina Menzel’s Redwood will run Feb. 13 – Mar. 31 at La Jolla Playhouse, directed by Landau, with music supervisor Kimberly Grigsby.
Idina Menzel (Jesse), De’Adre Aziza (Mel), Nkeki Obi-Melekwe (Becca), Michael Park (Finn), and Zachary Noah Piser (Spencer), with Giovanny Diaz de Leon, and Lance Arthur Smith.
The musical is about one woman’s journey into the precious and precarious world of the redwood forest. Jesse is a successful businesswoman, mother and wife who seems to have it all, but inside, her heart is broken. Finding herself at a turning point, Jesse leaves everyone and everything behind and drives thousands of miles to the ancient forests of Northern California, where a chance meeting and a leap of faith change her life forever.
**********************
Samuel D. Hunter’s A Permanent Image has been extended through Feb. 11 at Venice’s Pacific Resident Theatre, directed by Andrew Weyman.
Phil Cass (Martin), Terry Davis (Carol), Scott Jackson (Bo), and Dalia Vosylius (Ally)
A tense exploration of the distance families put between themselves and what it takes to bring them back together.
**********************
The world premiere of Private Jones, written & directed by Marshall Pailet, will run Feb. 6 – Mar. 10 at DC’s Signature Theatre, with music direction by Myrna Conn, and choreography by Misha Shields.
Leanne Antonio (Gwenolyn/Evans), Deimoni Brewington (Bailey), David Aron Damane (Father/Drill Sergeant), Dickie Hearts (Henry), Johnny Link (Gomer Jones), Jake Loewenthal (Redvers), Vincent Michael (Edmund), and Erin Weaver (King), with Alex De Bard, Amelia Hensley, Georger Psomas, Emily Steinhardt, Ariel Friendly, Nicholas Hohrman, Stephen Russell Murray, and Hank von Kolnitz.
After losing his hearing, Gomer Jones is left behind when the rest of the young men enlist. However, when fresh recruits are needed, he fakes his way into a battalion alongside a group of colorful, misfit trainees. Once the “bastards,” as they call themselves, reach the front, Jones becomes a celebrated sniper, but getting everything he thought he wanted might mean losing himself in the process.