Today’s Highlights:
Twelve Angry Men UK tour, directed by Christopher Haydon, featuring Patrick Duffy, Tristan Gemmill, Michael Greco, Ben Nealon, Gary Webster, Gray O’Brien, Paul Beech, Samarge Hamilton, Jeffrey Harmer, Mark Heenehan, Kenneth Jay, Paul Lavers, and Owen Oldroyd, launches at the UK’s Theatre Royal Windsor.
Alive! concert presentation, by Josh Canfield, directed by David Ruttura, featuring Anthony Chatmon II, Robi Hager, Savy Jackson, Josh Lamon, Stephany Mora, Mary Page Nance, Nic Rouleau, Kyle Selig, and Lauren Zakrin, opens at Off-Broadway’s Theatre 555.
Harmony, by Barry Manilow & Bruce Sussman, directed & choreographed by Warren Carlyle, featuring Chip Zien, Sierra Boggess, Julie Benko, Sean Bell, Allison Semmes, Andrew O’Shanick, Danny Kornfeld, Zal Owen, Eric Peters, Blake Roman, Steven Telsey, Zak Edwards, Dan Hoy, Bruce Landry, RhonniRose Mantilla, Daniel Z. Miller, Benjamin H. Moore, Matthew Mucha, Constantine Pappas, Kayleen Seidl, Kyla Stone, Bronwyn Tarboton, Kate Wesler, Stuart Zagnit, and Lee Zarrett, begins previews at Broadway’s Barrymore Theatre.
The Angel Next Door, by Paul Slade Smith, directed by David Ellenstein, featuring Thomas Edward Daugherty (Victor Pratt), Erin Noel Grennan (Olga Molnar), Elinor Gunn (Margot Bell), Taubert Naudalini (Oliver Adams), James Newcomb (Arthurs Sanders), and Barbara E. Robertson (Charlotte Sanders), begins previews at Laguna Playhouse.
Deathtrap, directed by Jamie Torcellini, featuring Geoffrey Lower (Sidney Bruhl), Jill Remez (Myra), Coby Rogers (Clifford Anderson), Michelle Holmes (Helga ten Dorp), and Patrick Vest (Porter Milgrim), begins previews at CA’s Long Beach’s International City Theatre.
The Return of Young Boy concert presentation, by Keenan Scott II & Tre Matthews, directed by Steve H. Broadnax III, featuring Bodega Bamz, Drew Drake, Crystal Fauntleroy, Roya Marsh, Esau Pritchett, Alexis Tidwell, Vladimir Versailles, and Wany Wilson, at 9:30 PM NYC’s 54 Below.
Celebration Theatre‘s Circa: 40 Years of Celebration! event, directed by Tom DeTrinis, featuring Brittney S. Wheeler, Chris Maikish, Michael O’Hara, Nathan Frizzell, Parnell Damone Marcano, and Tom DeTrinis, at 7 PM at Hollywood’s LGBT Center.
**********************
Broadway Grosses for the week ending Oct. 15.
Click here for the complete analysis.
**********************
My Favorite Things: The Rodgers & Hammerstein 80th Anniversary Concert will take place Tues. Dec. 12 at 8 PM at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, directed & choreographed by Christopher Gattelli.
Audra McDonald, Julian Ovenden, Marisha Wallace, Patrick Wilson, and more TBA.
*********************
Steven Cheslik-deMeyer, Tim Maner & Alan Stevens Hewitt’s Lizzie has been extended through Oct. 19 at Theatreworks Hartford, directed by Lainie Sakakura.
Kim Onah (Alice Russell), Nora Schell (Bridget Sullivan), Sydney Shepherd (Lizzie Borden), and Lili Thomas (Emma Borden)
The musical explores the heated days leading up to the famous murders and Lizzie’s controversial acquittal of all charges.
**********************
The world premiere of Sugar Hill: the Ellington/Strayhorn Nutcracker will run Nov. 17-26 at New York City Center, directed by Joshua Bergasse, with choreography by Jade Hale-Christofi.
Jinhao Zhang (Nutcracker), Josué Gomez (Nutcracker), Alicia Mae Holloway (Lena), Shavey Brown (Sweet Pea), Jennifer Jade Ledesna (The Angel), Alicia Mae Holloway (Lena), Shavey Brown (Sweet Pea), Jennifer Jade Ledesna (The Angel), Kenneth Darryl (Uncle Dross), and Brenda Braxton (Mother Sugar/Mama Stall), with Nikolas Danilovich-Eugene Gaifullin, Larissa Gerszke, Nayara Lopes, Natascha Mair, Tatiana Nuñez, Scott Weber, Audrey Borst, Joshua Dawson, Nathan Fister, Johnathon Darcelle Hart, Ayaka Kamei, Laura Katherine Kaufman, Amarachi Valentina Korie, Muata Ayodele Langley, James Luc, Chase Maxwell, Charlotte McKinley, Dario Natarelli, Megan Prout, Jocelyn Iris Raykumar, Ange ‘Gregg’ Sainvilus, Tyler D. Singletary, Olivia Tang-Mifsud, and Matt Wiercinski.
Sugar Hill places the classic ballet of The Nutcracker in the 1930s as seen through the lens of the nonconformist daughter of a high-society Black family in Manhattan and her own fantastic dreamworld in the Sugar Hill neighborhood of Harlem. Sugar Hill is set to the music of the collaboration between jazz icons Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, with a libretto and concept by Jessica Swan. Orchestrations and arrangements are by Grammy winner John Clayton and three-time Tony nominee Larry Blank, with dance arrangements by Paul Masse.
**********************
Monica Wood’s The Half-Light will run Nov. 16 – Dec. 17 Theatre Forty, directed by Ann Hearn Tobolowsky.
Ivy Khan, Stephanie Erb, Abigail Stewart, and Grinnell Morris
After an intriguing encounter with a psychic, a college secretary asks herself: Can certain people be trained to see the dead? Iris’s pursuit of an answer leads to a more earthbound challenge when her beloved colleague, Andrew, is suddenly felled by
grief. Armed with her own intuition and the garrulous enthusiasm of her friend Helen, Iris
attempts to coax Andrew back to the land of the living. In the meantime, Helen faces off with her daughter, Teresa, who believes her house is haunted. These four characters’ entwined journeys.
**********************
Red Bull Theater‘s reading of John Wolfson’s THE INN AT LYDDA: a Meeting of Caesar and Christ will take place Mon. Nov. 13 at 7:30 PM at NYC’s Symphony Space, directed by Ben Prusiner.
Samual Adams, Amir Arison, Rajesh Bose, Teagle Bougere, Leovina Charles, Joe Holt, Anthony Michael Martinez, Alfredo Narciso, Christopher Joel Onken, Jay O. Sanders, and Sam Tsoutovas.
John Wolfson’s drama of hubris versus humility is drawn from biblical apocrypha and presented in modern verse, depicting a face-to-face meeting between Caesar and Christ. The mortally ill Roman emperor Tiberius Caesar, hearing tales of a miraculous healer in the province of Judea, sets sail for Jerusalem for an audience with Jesus. Pausing en route in the nearby city of Lydda, he learns of the Nazarene’s crucifixion only a few days earlier and is devastated, not realizing that an event later known as the Resurrection will make the meeting he seeks a possibility.
**********************
Titanic: The Exhibition will run Oct. 19-29 at LA’s Beverly Event Venue ( 4327 Beverly Blvd,). Free parking at the venue.
An interactive experience that tells the tale of the design, creation, launch, maiden voyage, and tragedy of the largest and most luxurious ship in the world at the time. Step inside vast, beautiful recreations of the ship’s interior, hear music from the era, and immerse yourself in the story of the real passenger whose boarding pass you hold. You’ll find relics that survived the sinking of the Titanic and items from her sister ships; then prepare to walk above a sea floor complete with sand and broken artifacts at the Discovery Gallery.
**********************
Musical Theatre West will present The Sound of Music Oct. 20 – Nov. 5 (opening Oct. 21) at Long Beach’s Carpenter Center, directed by Wayne Bryan, with music direction by Dennis Castellano, and choreography by Christine Negherbon.
Juliana Sloan (Maria), Jonathan von Mering (Captain von Trapp), Sarah Wolter (Mother Abbess), Cathy Newman (Frau Schmidt/Sister Berthe), Brandon Keith Rogers (Rolf), Erin Dubreuil (Liesel), Brian Kim McCormick (Max Detweiller), Meghan Andrews (Elsa Schraeder), Jacqueline Dennis (Sister Margaretta), Kevin Symons (Franz), (Admiral von Schreiber/Baron Elberfeld), Holly Santiago (Sister Sophia), Damon Kirsche (Herr Zeller), Brennan Jacob Esguerra (Friedrich), Josh Protzmann (Friedrich), Rachel Beard (Luisa), and many more.
**********************
Red Bull Theater‘s reading of The Imaginary Invalid, adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher, will take place both live & livestreamed on Mon. Feb. 19, 2024 at Off-Broadway’s Florence Gould Hall, directed by Jesse Berger.
Mark Linn-Baker, and more TBA.
Monsieur Argan is a notorious hypochondriac whose nonexistent illnesses blind him to the con men and women (his new wife) who prey on his fears to fatten their purses. His plan: marry his daughter to a doctor so he’ll have free round-the-clock on-site healthcare for the rest of his life. Newly translated by Mirabelle Ordinaire and adapted for Red Bull by Jeffrey Hatcher, The Imaginary Invalid is a brilliant satire of doctors, lawyers, and would-be patients who take self-care to staggering levels of pathological solipsism. A comic whirlwind of pills, lovers, therapies, disguises, vaccinations, impersonations, masks, mindfulness and miracle cures.
**********************
Tom Kitt & Cameron Crowe are reuniting to re-develop their musical Almost Famous.
Public readings of the workshop will be offered Nov. 11, 15, and 18, all at 7 PM at the Eugine O’Neal Theatre Center.
Casting, creative team, and additional information TBA.