Today’s Highlights:
Lyonesse, world premiere by Penelope Skinner, directed by Ian Rickson, featuring Kristin Scott Thomas (Elaine) and Lily James (Kate), opens at London’s Harold Pinter Theatre.
Twelfth Night, directed by Tyrone Phillips, featuring Jaeda LaVonne (Viola), Paul Oakley Stoball (Malvolio), Christiana Clark (Olivia), Ronald L. Conner (Sir Toby Belch), Yao Dogbe (Orsinio), Danielle Davis (Maria), Alex Goodrich (Sir Andrew Aguecheek), Adam Poss (Antonio), Israel Erron Ford (Feste), Justen Ross (Sebastian), Shelby Lynn Bias (Fabian), and Arielle Leverett (Gentlewoman), with Christian Andrews, opens at Chicago Shakespeare Theater.
TDF‘s Broadway Breakfast benefit, hosted by Seth Rudetsky & James Wesley, with special guests Lilli Cooper, Santino Fontana, and Andrea Martin, at 8 AM at NCY’s City Wintery ( 25 11th Ave.).
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Broadway Grosses for the week ending Oct. 22. Click here for the complete analysis.
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The Off Broadway Alliance has announced the return of their special 20at20 ticket initiative, which is already available now through Nov. 12. Click here for more information.
The program offers $20 tickets to select Off-Broadway shows 20 minutes before performances begin. The offer is valid only 20 minutes before curtain at the box office on the day of the performance.
Participating shows:
Alice in Wonderland the Musical
Drunk Shakespeare
Friends! The Unauthorized Musical Parody
Gazillion Bubble Show
Make Me Gorgeous
Mind Mandgler: A Night of Tragic Illusion
The Office! A Musical Parody
Perfect Crime
Singfeld! A Musical Parody About Nothing
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Complete casting has been announced for Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Appropriate, to begin previews Nov. 29 at and open Dec. 18 at the Hayes Theatre, directed by Lila Neugebauer.
Sarah Paulson, Corey Stoll, Natalie Gold, Elle Fanning, Alyssa Emily Marvin, Graham Campbell, Lincoln Cohen, Michael Esper, and Everett Sobers.
A white family who, while closing out the estate of their late father, discover some disturbing artifacts that force them to confront their family’s past.
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Developmental readings of Zayd Ayers Dohrn & Tom Morello’s Revolution (s) will run Nov. 30 – Dec. 10 at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, directed by Steve H. Broadnax III.
TBA.
Soldier and aspiring musician Hampton Weems comes home from Afghanistan to find the South Side of Chicago is also occupied territory – and he’s accidentally joined the resistance. Featuring songs by Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine, Nightwatchman, Street Sweeper Social Club), Revolution(s) is a punk/metal/hip-hop musical about a young artist finding his voice, why violence is as American as cherry pie, and how young radicals, across generations, are still motivated by love.
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Love Kills, a night of one act plays by Don Nigro, will run Nov. 15-18 at Burbank’s Colony Theatre, directed by Kevin Kittle. Proceeds support IAtSE members & their families who have been affected by the WGA and SAG strikes.
Midori Francis, Rebecca Mozo, Justin Chatwin, Briana Buoco, Kaley Cuoco and Tom Pelphrey.
The plays, shared like camp fire ghost stories. explore all the ways that “love can be deadly.”
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The world premiere of Fly Jamerson’s Frozen Fluid will run Nov. 10 – Dec. 7 (opening Nov. 18) at Hollywood’s LGBT Center, directed by Amanda McRaven.
Michael Budd, Nicole Delsack, J Valerione, Yvonne Cone, Steph LeHane, and Jalana Phillips.
In a mythic Antarctica (but one resonant with our current climate crisis), two scientists study glaciers and whales. When a third phytoplankton scientist arrives — Tay, who identifies as nonbinary — Herman and Terra begin to confront their own ideas of gender and their control of the natural world. As things unravel for all three of them, a new world begins to take shape — one where gender, identity, religion, climate, and time itself become new, expansive, and free of human interference.
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The premiere of Anthony Davis, Thulani Davis & Christopher Davis’ newly revised X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X will run Nov. 3 – Dec. 2 at NYC’s Metropolitan Opera, directed by Robert O’Hara, and conducted by Kazem Abhullah. 
The opera will also be broadcast live to movie theaters across the globe on Nov. 18 as part of the Met’s Live in HD series.
Will Liverman (Malcolm), Leah Hawkins (Louise/Betty), Radhann Bryce-Davis (Ella), Michael Sumuel (Reginald), and Victor Ryan Robertson (Elijah Muhammad).
This new production imagines the legendary civil rights leader as an everyman whose story transcends space and time.
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Howard L. Craft’s Freight: The Five Incarnations of Abel Green will run Nov. 12 – Dec. 16 at the Fountain Theatre, directed by Joseph Megel.
J. Alphonse Nicholson
Nicholson’s tour-de-force star turn as five versions of an African American everyman who travels through time in different incarnations, from a 19th Century minstrel to a fallen, out-of-work mortgage broker. In each life, Abel is guided, distracted, helped, or hindered by a handful of characters with whom his destiny is forever intertwined.
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The world premiere of Avram Mlotek’s Amid Falling Walls will run Nov. 14 – Dec. 10 (opening Nov. 20) at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, directed by Motl Didner.
Steven Skybell, Dani Apple, Jacob Ben0Shmuel, Yael Eden Chanukov, Abby Goldfarb, Eli Mayer, Daniella Rabbani, John Reed, MikhlYashinsky, and Rachel Zatcoff.
The production features material written and performed in ghettos, cabarets, partisan encampments in the forests, concentration camps and clandestine theaters, and includes firsthand testimony of people living through the Holocaust via their own poetry and music. Although many of the young men and women in their 20s and 30s who created the remarkable work featured in the production were murdered during World War II, their songs are brought to life in a show that is the first of its kind: the authentic story of resistance and hope through the words and music of those who were there.
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The New Group‘s Sabbath Theatre, by by John Turturro & Ariel Levy, directed by Jo Bonney, has been extended through Dec. 17 at Off-Broadway’s Signature Theatre.
John Turturro (Mickey Sabbath), Elizabeth Marvel (Drenka), and Jason Kravits (additional roles).
When his secret life of debauchery comes to a heartbreaking end, disgraced puppet maker Mickey Sabbath plunges into increasingly mad and maddening encounters with people from his wild and wicked past. Part ghost story, part love story, Sabbath’s Theater unleashes Roth’s power to shock and amaze in this profound meditation on mortality and juicy celebration of life.
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Gaten Matarazzo (Tobias Ragg) will depart Sweeney Todd on Nov. 5, at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.
Matarazzo’s replacement has not yet been announced.
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Stephanie J. Block‘s debut holiday album, “Merry Christmas, Darling” will be released Nov. 3 on most platforms.
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To Joni Mitchell On Her 80th Birthday: a Tribute to the Icon, in support of MusiCares & Meals on Wheels – Long Beach, will take place Tues. Nov. 7 at 8:30 PM at Hollywood’s Catalina Jazz Club, with music direction by Michael Orland.
Tierney Sutton, Alisan Porter, Brenna Whitaker, Joan Ryan, Artur Zakiyan, and more TBA.
A portion of the proceeds will benefit the lifesaving services provided by MusiCares and Meals on Wheels – Long Beach.
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Complete casting has been announced for Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Appropriate, which will begin previews Nov. 28 and open Dec. 18 at the Hayes Theatre, directed by Lila Neugebauer.
Sarah Paulson, Corey Stoll, Natalie Gold, Elle Fanning, Alyssa Emily Marvin, Craham Camptell, Lincoln Cohen, Michael Esper, and Everett Sobers.
A white family who, while closing out the estate of their late father, discovers some disturbing artifacts that force them to confront their family’s past.