Today’s Highlights:
Manhattan Theatre Club‘s Morning Sun, world premiere by Simon Stephens, directed by Lila Neugebauer, featuring Blair Brown, Edie Falco, and Marin Ireland, opens at Off-Broadway’s NY City Center.
Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski, by Clark Young & Derek Goldman, directed by Goldman, starring David Strathairn, opens at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre.
Second Stage Theatre‘s Clyde’s, by Lynn Nottage, directed by Kate Whoriskey, featuring Edmund Donovan, Uzo Aduba, Ron Cephas Jones, Reza Salazar, Kara Young, and Edmund Donovan, begins previews at Broadway’s Hayes Theatre.
The Children, by Lucy Kirkwood, directed by Simon Levy, featuring Ron Bottitta, Elizabeth Elias Huffman, and Lily Knight, begins previews at LA’s Fountain Theatre.
Talking of Noël Coward concert & conversation, featuring Dana Ivey, Steve Ross, Shana Farr, Jeffrey Hardy, Liam Forde, Michael Lavine, and Barry Day, at 7 PM ET at NYC’s The Players.
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Reviews for Twilight, Los Angeles at Off-Broadway’s Signature Theatre:
New York Times (Jesse Green): For Anna Deavere Smith, the transcript is the tool. A fine tool, certainly: Her brand of verbatim theater, perfected in a series of documentary plays since the early 1980s, duplicates the expressive peculiarities of real speech, making every defensive stammer and evasive curlicue count. But thrilling as it is, mere mimicry is never the point… This makes for some very complex drama when you don’t know who the enemy is… a watered-down yet still urgent revival…
Vulture (Helen Shaw): So the first thing you notice about the Signature Theatre’s excellent revival of Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 is that Anna [Deveare Smith] isn’t there. The remount shifts the fundamental equation of her practice: Smith no longer plays all the parts… but revisiting…1993’s Twilight called for someone and something new… In many ways, the revision is a relief… Even when her interviews reveal deep racial and cultural divisions, her interviewees somehow meet in her, and audiences come away with the sensation that they have seen a path to reconciliation. I find it harder now to be comforted by that particular illusion…
TimeOut New York (Adam Feldman): …In the Signature’s powerful revival, directed with impressive sweep and coordination by Taibi Magar, the text is divvied up among a very strong cast of five, and the dozens of characters who appear in the show are mostly played by actors who roughly share their ethnicities… Although Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 remains a showy vehicle for all of these versatile actors, they mostly stay in their own cultural lanes… Smith has smartly tweaked the script for performance by an ensemble cast, and the text comes through with renewed variety: It is by turns disturbing, amusing, touching and illuminating…
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GRACE NOTES Quote of the Week: “Now, let me tell you what I meant about acting being easy. To be a good actor all you have to do is listen. In that first scene when Dick Benjamin opened the door and said to me, ‘Hello, Mr. Lewis, come on in,’ I went in. Now that’s good acting! If I had stayed out in the hall, that’s bad acting.” ~ George Burns
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Seth’s Broadway Breakdown has been extended through Nov. 30 at Asylum NYC. Use code “friendsofseth” at checkout for a 20 % discount (code expires Nov. 5).
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“Immersive Van Gogh” is an art installation and original experiential celebration of the beloved post-Impressionist, which will return to Pier 36 (299 South Street), in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, from Nov. 17 – Jan. 2, 2022. Click here for tickets and additional information.
The installation invites audiences to “step inside” the iconic works of Van Gogh, evoking his highly emotional and chaotic inner consciousness through art, light, music, movement and imagination. The gallery space offers patrons more than 500,000 cubic feet of animated productions.
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Video: Trailer for “tick…tick…BOOOM!,” which will be released in theaters and on Netflix on Nov. 19.
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The original cast of Spring Awakening, in support of The Actors Fund, will re-unite Mon. Nov. 15 at 7 PM ET at Broadway’s Imperial Theatre, directed by Michael Mayer.
Skylar Astin, Gerard Canonico, Lilli Cooper, Jennifer Damiano, Christine Estabrook, John Gallagher Jr., Gideon Glick, Jonathan Groff, Robert Hager, Brian Johnson, Lea Michele, Lauren Pritchard, Krysta Rodriguez, Stephen Spinella, Phoebe Strole, Jonny B. Wright, and Remy Zaken.
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The recent Actors Fund 2021 Gala raised more than $1 million.
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The Geffen Playhouse has added 3 new productions to its current season. Here is the complete 2021-22 season:
The Enigmatist (opened Sept. 14 and continues through Nov. 24), written & performed by David Kwong.
Paradise Blue (Nov. 9 – Dec. 12), by Dominique Morisseau, directed by Stori Ayers, featuring Tyla Abercrumbie, Wedell B. Franklin, Alani iLongwe, John Earl Jelks, and Shayna Small. Welcome to the sultry, jazz-filled Paradise Club. It’s 1949 in Detroit, and trumpet-playing club owner Blue has a tough decision to make. Should he sell is jazz joint as gentrification is banging at the door?
Power of Sail (Feb. 1 – Mar. 13), by Paul Grellong, directed by Weyni Mengesha, featuring Hugo Armstrong, Amy Brenneman, Bryan Cranston, Donna Simone Johnson, Ted Millan, Seth Numrich, and Brandon Scott. Distinguished Harvard professor Charles Nichols finds himself in hot water after inviting an incendiary white nationalist to speak at his annual symposium. His colleagues are concerned, his students are in revolt, but Charles is undeterred in his plot to expose and academically thrash his invited guest.
TRAYF (Mar. 1 – Apr. 10), by Lindsay Joelle, directed by Maggie Burrows. Zalmy lives a double life. By day, he drives a Chabad “Mitzvah Tank” through 1990s New York City, performing good deeds with his best friend Shmuel. By night, he sneaks out of his orthodox community to roller-skate and listen to rock and roll. But when a curious outsider offers him unfettered access to the secular world, is it worth jeopardizing everything he’s ever known?
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Apr. 19 – May 22), directed by Gordon Greenberg, featuring Calista Flockhart, Zachary Quinto, and more TBA.
Man of God (May 10 – June 19), by Anna Ouyang Moench, directed by Maggie Burrows. During a mission trip to Bangkok, the four members of a Korean Christian girls’ youth group discover that their revered pastor has hidden a camera in their hotel bathroom. Samantha is personally wounded that Pastor would do this to her. Jen is worried about how this might affect her college applications. Mimi’s out for blood, as usual. And Kyung-Hwa thinks everyone needs to have lower expectations for men. Their communal rage and disillusionment fuel increasingly violent revenge fantasies amidst the no-holds-barred neon bubblegum sex-tourism mecca of Bangkok.
A Wicked Soul in Cherry Hill (June 21 – July 24), world premiere musical by Matt Schatz, directed by Mike Donahue. Casting TBA. On a November night in 1994, a murder was committed in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. in this true-crime story told completely through song, a tight-knit Jewish community gathers to recount, remember, and reckon with the details of what happened in their town and to their town.
King Liz (July 12 – Aug. 14), by Fernanda Coppel. It’s good to be king. Liz Rico is a powerful sports agent who represents NBA superstars, having fought her way to the top of a male-dominated profession with her skill for cutthroat negotiations. Given the chance to sign Freddie Luna, a once-in-a-generation high school talent with a troubled past, Liz sees an opportunity to take her career to the next level. But when accusations start swirling around the young phenom, Liz must attempt to rebound Freddie’s career or protect her own crown.
And here is an early announcement for the 2022-23 season, with more productions TBA:
The Inheritance (2022 dates TBA), by Matthew Lopez, directed by Mike Donahue.
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A table reading of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” in support of Teh Ed Asner Family Center, will livestream Sun. Dec. 5 at 5 PM PT here, hosted by Tom Bergeron.
Jason Sudeikis (George Bailey), George Wendt (Uncle Billy), Jean Smart, Rosario Dawson, Mark Hamill, Martin Sheen, Mandy Patinkin, Lou Diamond Phillips, Phil Lamarr, Ben Mankiewicz, Ron Funches, and Ed Harris.
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A UK tour of Fatal Attraction, adapted by James Dearden, will launch Jan. 14, 2022 at Brighton’s Theater Royal, directed by Loveday Ingram. Click here for the complete tour schedule.
Kim Marsh (Alex Forrest), Oliver Farnsworth (Dan), and Susie Amy Beth), with John Macaulay, Troy Glasgow, and Emma Laird Craig.
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The new Apple comedy series, “High Desert” has announced additional casting. The release date is TBA.
Patricia Arquette (Peggy), Matt Dillon, Rupert Friend, Brad Garrett, Berndette Peters, and Christine Taylor.
The series follows Peggy, an addict, who decides to make a new start after the death of her beloved mother with whom she lived in t small desert town of Yucca Valley, California. She makes a life-changing decision to become a private investigator.
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The new micro-musical, The New Peggy, by Drew Larimore & J. Oconer Navarro, has released the show’s cast recording on iTunes and Spotify. Listen here.
Ann Harada, Tally Sessions, Mary Testa, Cyrilla Baer, Devin Ilaw, Rachel Hardin, and Daniel Marcus.
Audio: “If It Wasn’t for Me”
The musical centers around a middle-aged secretary who sings to her stapler and manila envelop and arrives to work on a Monday Morning to disastrous news that turns her world upside down. Hilarious, quirky, heartfelt and surprisingly relatable, this new musical spans high highs and murderous lows.
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Brad Oscar‘s “Journey Back to Mrs. Doubtfire, 18 Months Later”
Click here to read the interview.
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Corey Cott and his wife Meghan welcomed their third child, a son named Asher, on Oct. 31.
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Ciara Renée will become the next Jenna in Waitress on Nov. 25 at Broadway’s Barrymore Theatre, replacing Jennifer Nettles, who departs on Nov. 24.