Today’s Highlights:
Word Play, by Rabiah’s Hussain, directed by Nimmo Ismail, featuring Issam Al Ghussain, Kosar Ali, Simon Manyonda, Sirine Saba, and Yusra Warsama, opens at London’s Royal Court Theatre.
Rent in Concert, directed by Sammi Cannold, featuring Ali Stroker (Maureen), Myles Frost (Benny), Jordan Donica (Collins), Awa Sal Secka (Joanne), Jimmie Herrod (Angel), Lorna Courtney (Mimi Márquez), Andrew Barth Feldman (Mark Cohen), Alex Boniello (Roger Davis), Ali Stroker (Maureen Johnson), Myles Frost (Benjamin “Benny” Coffin III), and Jimmie Herrod (Angel Dumott Schunard), opens at the Kennedy Center.
Summer Stock, adapted by Cheri Steinkellner, directed & choreographed by Dona Feore, featuring Danielle Wade (Jane Falbury), Corbin Bleu (Joe Ross, Arianna Rosario (Gloria Falbury), Gilbert L. Bailey II (Phil Filmore), Stephen Lee Anderson (Lt. Henry Pop Falbury), Veanne Cox (Margaret Wingate), Will Roland (Orville Wingate), and J. Anthony Crane (Montgomery Leach), with Erika, Ronnie S. Bowman Jr., Emily Kelley, Francesca M. Mancuso, Tommy Martinez, Corinne Munsch, Gretory North, Kaylee Olson, Jack Sippel, Cayel Tregeagle, Nicholas Cunha, and Kennedy Perez, opens at CT’s Goodspeed.
Here You Come Again, by Bruce Vilanch, Gabriel Barre & Tricia Paoluccio, directed & choreographed by Barre, featuring Tricia Paoluccio (Dolly Parton) and Matthew Risch (Kevin), begins previews at CT’s Goodspeed.
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Broadway Grosses for the week ending July 24: Click here for the complete analysis.
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Call Fosse at the Minskoff, written & performed by Mimi Quillin. will run July 30 – Aug. 2 at Nantucket’s White Heron Theatre Company, directed by Michael Berresse. 
This was the most-sold show of this year’s Vassar College Powerhouse season.
There are “legends” and then there are legends. In this entirely true, middle age coming-of-age story, dancer and actor Mimi Quillin recounts her experience working with Fosse and Verdon on what would be their final collaboration, investigating the life-altering effects of proximity to true greatness, and revealing all the thrills and terrors of walking the high wire on the riskiest platform in entertainment.
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Video: Highlights from Broadway’s Back to the Future.
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“The Lady and the Legend,” a new documentary following the unlikely relationship between the late Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, will begin streaming in September (exact date TBA) on Paramount+
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Sophie Thomason & Taubert Nadalini’s Unnerving Berlin will take place Fri. Aug. 11 at 8 PM at the Odyssey Theatre, directed by John Snow.
Taubert Nadalini
What would happen if Irving Berlin had fallen down a rabbit hole and seen the future of musical theatre? It’s a one-night trip to the weirder side of musical theatre, including genre-spanning songs, outrageous characters, and niche musical references.
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Death, Let Me Do My Show, created & performed by Rachel Bloom, will Sept. 6 -30 (opening Sept. 14) at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, directed by Seth Barrish, with music direction by Jerome Kurtenbach.
The piece is filled with raunchy and escapist material that will in NO way explore the pandemic and all the tumultuous events that ensued in her personal life. NOTHING will stop Rachel from partying like it’s 2019!
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The Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes will run Nov. 17 – Jan. 1, 2024 at NYC’s Radio City Music Hall.
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Musical Theatre Guild has announced its 2023-24 concert season at the Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center (Eli and Edythe Broad Stage). Casting and creative teams TBA.
Follies (Sun. Oct. 1 at 7 PM)
The Wedding Singer (Sun. Mar. 10, 2024 at 7 PM)
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The world premiere of Garry Michael Kluger’s Walking in Space will run Sept. 8 – Oct. 8 at Theatre West, directed by Arden Teresa Lewis.
Mary Elisabeth Somers (Patti), Cecil Jennings (Kirby), Hogan Mason (Mathew), Liv Deneyi (Lori), Kathie Barnes (Francine), Andrew Cereghino (Keith Schwartz), and David Mingrino (Dr. Collar).
Leo Tolstoy once said that all happy families are alike — but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Sometimes they’re both. In 1972, there was no Betty Ford Clinic. When the prescription drug-addicted, single mother of an upper-middle class Jewish family in suburban Baltimore finally hits rock-bottom, it falls on her children to take control. Inspired by true events, this fictionalized, autobiographical tragicomedy is an affectionate portrait of four siblings who arm themselves with fierce tenacity, good humor, and their love for one another to save their mother — and themselves.
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Irish Rep has announced The Friel Project, offering a retrospective of Brian Friel’s work, to run Oct. 2023 – May 2024.
Translations (Oct. 20 – Dec. 3), directed by Doug Hughes
Aristocrats (Jan. 11 – Mar. 3, 2024, opening Jan. 21), directed by Charlotte Moore
Philadelphia, Here I Come! (Mar. 16 – May 5), directed by Ciarán O’Reilly
…and selected concert readings (dates TBA) from the playwright’s works throughout the season.
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Video: Teaser for Little Shop of Horrors , featuring Starring Robin de Jesús, Patti Murin, Michael McGrath, and more, at the St. Louis Muny.
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Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation of Dial M for Murder continues through July 29 at Westport Country Playhouse, directed by Mark Lamos.
Kate Burton (Inspector Hubbard), Patrick Andrew (Tony Wendice), Kate Abbruzzese (Margot Wendice), Krystel Lucas (Maxine Hadley), and Denver Milord (Lesgate)
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Lisa Sanaye Dring’s Hungry Ghost will run Aug. 26 – Oct. 1 at the Skylight Theatre, directed by Jessica Hanna.
Tasha Ames (Amanda), Ben Messmer (Hermit), and Jenny Soo (Dean).
This thought-provoking story delves into the lives of Dean and Amanda who are ready to start a family. Dean’s estranged mother has left her a secluded house in the woods where the couple have decided to settle. Their plans suddenly take a twisted turn when the new home is burglarized by a mysterious hermit—a Stevie Nicks worshiping, hot Cheetos eating trickster—who haunts the forest. Hungry Ghost is a chillingly humorous meditation on identity and isolation, seeing and being seen, and the insatiable hunger in us all to be truly free.
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Manhattan Theatre Club‘s world premiere of Jocelyn Bioh’s Jaja’s African Hair Braiding will will begin previews Sept. 12 and open Oct. 3 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, directed by Whitney White.
Casting TBA.
This dazzling world premiere welcomes you into Jaja’s bustling hair braiding salon in Harlem where every day, a lively and eclectic group of West African immigrant hair braiders are creating masterpieces on the heads of neighborhood women. During one sweltering summer day, love will blossom, dreams will flourish and secrets will be revealed. The uncertainty of their circumstances simmers below the surface of their lives and when it boils over, it forces this tight-knit community to confront what it means to be an outsider on the edge of the place they call home.
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American Ballet Theatre has announced its Fall 2023 season at Lincoln Center:
Classics Old and New (Oct. 18-21), featuring Alexei Ratmansky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, Jiří Kylián’s Petite Mort, and Harald Lander’s Études. Études, choreographed to piano studies by Carl Czerny.
20th Century Works: Balanchine and Ashton (Oct. 21-26) featuring Balanchine’s Ballet Imperial (choreographed to Tchaikovsky’s second piano concerto) and Frederick Ashton’s The Dream.
21st Century Works: King and Ratmansky (Oct. 27-29) featuring Alonzo King’s Single Eye and Ratmansky’s On the Dnipro. Ballet Imperial, set to Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky’s Concerto No. 2 in G for Piano and Orchestra, evokes the era of Russia’s Imperial Ballet with its grandeur.