Today’s Highlights:
This Space Between Us, world premiere by Peter Gil-Sheridan, directed by Jonathan Silverstein, featuring Glynis Bell, Alex Chester, Joyce Cohen, Ryan Garbayo, Tommy Heleringer, and Anthony Ruiz, opens at Off-Broadway’s Keen Company.
what you are now, world premiere by Sam Chanse, directed by Steve Cosson, featuring Sonnie Brown, Curran Connor, Emma Kikue, Robert Lee Lend, and Pisay Pao, opens at Off-Broadway’s Ensemble Studio Theatre.
Personality: The Lloyd Price Musical, world premiere by Saint Aubyn (Lloyd Price), directed by Sheldon Epps, featuring Miles Boone (Little Richard), Donnie Hamond (Sister Rosetta), Stanley Wayne Mathis (Logan), Deseree Murphy (Ezra), Desireé Murphy (Emma), and Nathaniel Washington (Young Lloyd Price), with Michael Covel, Ben Dibble, Robert H. Fowler, KyShawn Lane, Todd Lawson, Lizzie Mason, Charlotte McKinley, Iykechi McCoy, Alyssa Ramsey, and Dony Wright, opens at Malvern, PA’s People’s Light.
**********************
Reviews for The Chinese Lady at Off-Broadway’s Public Theater:
NY Times (Laura Collins-Hughes): …a moving and often sharply funny riff on the story of the real Afong Moy, traversing 188 years of American ugliness and exoticization in 90 swift, heightened minutes. A two-hander, it hopes with all its battered heart that we will, by the end, see Afong in her full humanity, and through her see this nation with clearer eyes. But it is not optimistic… The impulse is understandable — to make utterly clear that Chinese Americans, long the targets of racist violence, are still menaced as outsiders in their own country. But the intimate power of Suh’s text and Tyo’s performance would have made that connection potently on their own.
Theatermania (David Gordon): …Moy is believed to be the first Chinese woman to ever set foot on US soil, and she spent the early part of her life on display for a paying public that was mystified by her every move. In Lloyd Suh’s engaging play The Chinese Lady, Moy reclaims her own story… Ralph Peña directs with delicate efficiency for maximum effect… Afong — played to beguiling effect by Shannon Tyo… Suh creates a blistering indictment of the American colonialist mindset, framing Moy’s story as but one example of this country’s negative treatment of Asian people throughout history… Her (Tyo) supremely moving performance, one that reveals new layers within each scene, is not only captivating, but a small miracle… excellently acted and beautifully built, The Chinese Lady is an eminently worthy piece of theater that deserves as wide an audience as possible.
New York Theater (Jonathan Mandell): …playwright Lloyd Suh has created a gently amusing, lyrical, yet sharply pointed play, based on the true story of the first known Chinese woman in the United States, brought to New York City in 1834, and put on display in a museum exhibition that was eventually bought by P.T. Barnum…. There is much delicate humor in The Chinese Lady, primarily in the relationship between Afong and Atung… the meticulously balanced approach by Suh and director Ralph B. Peña…
**********************
Reviews for Jane Anger at Off-Broadway’s New Ohio Theatre:
NY Times (Juan A. Ramirez): … The year is 1606, and we are in England, which is enduring another outbreak of the plague. But for one man, a late-career William Shakespeare, there are graver concerns: writer’s block… Portrayed as a vain, out-of-touch celebrity by Michael Urie. In an effort to revitalize his career, he settles on adapting King Leir, claiming his version — with a slightly different spelling — will be “naturally superior because of the language and the dialogue and the general vibes”… This one-act work…creates a tidy blend of the past and present… succeeds at creating smart, lightly absurdist humor, but misses the mark in its attempt at a revisionist redemption.
Theatermania (Pete Hempstead): …Talene Monahon has brought us a vision of what isolation during plague time was like for Shakespeare in her comedy Jane Anger… 90-minute Renaissance-era romp… Unfortunately, the play, directed unevenly by Jess Chayes, feels unpolished. As timely and amusing as Monahon’s ideas are, the play’s humor is largely hit-or-miss… Michael Urie plays Monahon’s Shakespeare, an oversexed whiner, with petulant glee… Monahon has tons of fun poking at the notion of Shakespeare’s genius and the sexism of men…
Vulture (Helen Shaw): …Monahon’s gallantly goofy play… Urie’s hilariously self-obsessed poet… Monahon has written deft plays before…and she flourishes here, her writing fleet and crisp and silly by turns. She does undertake various attacks on the theater’s obsession with Shakespeare and the limp modern discourse about women’s likability… Urie is, as always, a triumph. His Shakespeare consists of a deliberately limited set of ingredients — peevishness, sudden freak-outs, equally sudden flops into boneless ennui — which Urie assembles and reassembles into a banquet.
**********************
GRACE NOTES Quote of the Week: ”Movies will make you famous; television will make you rich; but theatre will make you good.” ~Terrence Mann
**********************
The 2022 Olivier Award nominations have been announced here.
The awards ceremony will take place Apr. 10 at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
**********************
The Griswolds’ Broadway Vacation (formerly known as Broadway Vacation), will run Sept. 10 – Oct. 1 at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre, followed by an engagement running Oct. 25 – Nov. 6 at Houston’s TUTS, prior to its Broadway arrival (dates and theater TBA), directed & choreographed by Donna Feore, with music supervision by Greg Anthony Rassen.
Casting and additional information TBA.
Click here for the musical’s website.
**********************
. The Broadway Women’s Fund has just released its 3rd annual list of Women to Watch on Broadway:
Click here for the complete list.
**********************
L.A. Theatre Works has announced that its audio production of Dominique Morisseau’s Pipeline, directed by Larry Powell, will be available to download beginning Mar. 18.
Sophina Brown, Eugene Byrd, Demetrius Grosse, Sharon Lawrence, X Mayo, Uyoata Udi, and Karen Malina White.
Nya, a dedicated teacher at an inner-city school, is desperate to give her only son opportunities that her own public high school students will never have. When a controversial incident at his private school threatens to get Omari expelled, Nya must confront his rage and her own fight to give her son a future without turning her back on their community.
**********************
Hudson Stage Company presents the world premiere of Brenda Withers’ Off Peak, to run Apr. 22 – May 7 at Armonk, NY’s Whippoorwill Hall Theatre, directed by Jess Chayes.
Kurt Rhoads, Nance Williamson, and Doug Ballard.
When two old flames run into each other on the evening commute, different views of the same past threaten to derail their connection. A new play about forgiving, forgetting, and the healing power of a good delay.
**********************
VT’s Dorset Theatre Festival has announced its Summer 2022 season:
Wait Until Dark (June 23 – July 9), adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher, directed by Jackson Gay,
Scarecrow (July 14-23), world premiere written & performed by Heidi Armbruster, directed by Dina Janis. Will the bulls chase her off the property or will she garden herself into oblivion? This is one woman’s heartwarming and funny look back at the last 33 days of her father’s life. A NYC actress lands herself on her family’s dairy farm to try to grieve herself back to life. But can she ever make enough meatloaf to feel a sense of purpose again now that her most important person is gone? A hilarious and touching journey of rollercoasters, kittens, and many, many cows.
Back Together Again – A New Concert (July 27 – Aug. 7), offering the music of Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway, featuring Christina Acosta Robinson and Ken Robinson.
Thirst (Aug. 18 – Sept. 23), world premiere by Ronán Noone, directed by Theresa Rebeck. Casting TBA.
**********************
Chicago Shakespeare Theatre has announced complete casting for its production of All’s Well That Ends Well, to run Apr. 22 – May 29 at the Courtyard Theatre, directed by Shana Cooper.
Alegandra Escalante (Helena), Dante Jemmott (Bertram), Ora Jones (Countess of Roussillon), Emma Ladji (Dian), Frances Guinan (King of France), Elizabeth Ledo (Lavache), William Dick (Lafew), Patrick Agada (Second Lord Dumaine), Casey Hoekstra (First Lord Dumaine), Joseph Aaron Johnson (Rinaldo), Jeff Kurysz (First Soldier), Tanya Thai McBride (Mariana) and Pablo David Laucerica.
**********************
Shana Farr – Whistling Away the Dark: The Songbook of Julie Andrews will take place Sun. Mar. 13 at 7 PM ET at NYC’s 54 Below, with music direction by Jon Weber.
Use code SONGBOOK5 for $5 off the cover charge.
**********************
The world premiere of Ana Nogueria’s Which Way to the Stage (previously titled Here She Is, Boys), will run Apr. 14 – May 22 (opening May 10) at MCC theater, directed by Mike Donahue.
Sas Goldberg, Max Jenkins, Evan Todd, and Michelle Veintimilla.
The year is 2015 and Jeff and Judy are right where they’re supposed to be: waiting outside the stage door of If/Then to get an autograph from the star. But the experience they have while they wait will change the course of their decades-long friendship forever. Warning: Beware of Tourists.
**********************
Kate Hamill’s adaptation of Sense and Sensibility will run Apr. 5 – May 1 at Baltimore ‘s Everyman theatre, directed by Susanna Gellert, with choreography by Felicity Stiverson. At home streaming is also available.
Megan Adnerson (Elinor Dashwood), Katie Kleiger (Marianne Dashwood), Deborah Hazlett (Mrs. Dashwood), Hannah Kelly (Margaret Dashwood), Tony Nam (Edward), Jefferson A. Russell (Colonel Brandon), Helen Hedman (Mrs. Jennings), Bruce Randolph Nelson (John Middleton), Tuyet Thi Pham (Fanny Dashwood), and Zack Powell (John Willoughby).
**********************
Theatre Forward‘s annual gala will take place on Mon. Apr. 4 at 6:30 PM ET at NYC’s Edison Ballroom.
Kenny Leon
Kristin Chenoweth, Norm Lewis, Alexander Bello, Phylicia Rashad, and Dewitt Fleming Jr.