Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City features numerous events tied to the World Cup
SUMMER FOR THE CITY: TOGETHER, WE MOVE
Lincoln Center
June 10 – August 8, free or choose-what-you-pay www.lincolncenter.org
The fifth iteration of Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City features art, film, music, comedy, workshops, discussions, meditation, silent discos, and more, but its focus is on dance — along with World Cup–related soccer programs.
Describing the series, which features an outdoor installation by Clint Ramos, Chief Artistic Director Shanta Thake explains, “Lincoln Center becomes a celebration of bodies in motion — dancing, gathering, and connecting people from all walks of life.” There are hundreds of events, with performers from around the globe.
All presentations are free or choose-what-you-pay, and some require advance RSVP; below are twi-ny’s don’t-miss highlights.
Reg Bloor will conduct her late husband Glenn Branca’s symphony for one hundred guitars at Lincoln Center on June 12 (photo by Maria Jose Govia)
Glenn Branca’s Symphony No. 13 (Hallucination City) for 100 Guitars
Wu Tsai Theater, David Geffen Hall
Friday, June 12, choose-what-you-pay, 7:30 www.lincolncenter.org
On June 13, 2001, avant-garde composer Glenn Branca premiered Symphony No. 13 (Hallucination City) for 100 Guitars on the plaza at the World Trade Center. Writing about the piece for Sound American, Reg Bloor, guitarist Reg Bloor, Branca’s wife, explained, “This is the first time Glenn had done anything like this with volunteers, so we had no idea if anyone was going to show up. I’ll never forget walking around the corner of the North Tower onto the World Trade Center Plaza for the first rehearsal and seeing people sitting there on their amps waiting for us. This was really going to work. . . . The piece was a swirling cauldron of consonance and dissonance, like a giant swarm of bees trapped in a cyclone, the single movement a long, gradual build of dynamics, pitch, and tempo to a crescendo bouncing off the towers and ringing through the plaza, spilling out onto the streets of Lower Manhattan. It’s a sound that stays with you for the rest of the day after the piece is over. You hear it coming out of the subway tunnel or in the air conditioning. You can’t get it out of your ear until whole world starts to sound like Glenn.” Bloor will conduct the symphony at David Geffen Hall on June 12 at 7:30, with one hundred guitarists along with drummer Greg Fox.
Lincoln Center honors Juneteenth with three special performances that, unfortunately, overlap one another: Carl Hancock Rux’s Oh Sankofa at Hearst Plaza at 7:00, boasting a talented cast exploring the importance of folklore during the Transatlantic Slave Trade; Jeremy Nedd’s from rock to rock . . . aka how magnolia was taken for granite at Alice Tully Hall at 7:30, which looks at the Milly Rock; and Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks’s The Tune Up at the David Rubenstein Atrium at 7:30, directed by the Flea’s Niegel Smith.
The music of Labelle is celebrated by original member Nona Hendryx at David Geffen Hall
Nightbirds, the Music of Labelle
Wu Tsai Theater, David Geffen Hall
Sunday, June 28, choose-what-you-pay, 7:30 www.lincolncenter.org
In 1974, Patti LaBelle, Nona Hendryx, and Sarah Dash, known as LaBelle, took the country by storm with the monster hit “Lady Marmalade.” The trio had been together in other forms since 1961, broke up in lurid circumstances in 1976, the re-formed from 2005 to 2009. On June 28, Dream Machine Studio is presenting “Nightbirds, the Music of Labelle” at David Geffen Hall, led by Hendryx, joined by the original Labelle backing trio of guitarist Eddie Martinez, bassist Carmine Rojas, and percussionist Jose Rossy, along with Tony winner Adrienne Warren, Kimberly Nichole, Ledisi, and Sandra St. Victor.
Shen Wei Dance Arts and Guangdong Modern Dance Company team up for site-specific MindScape on Hearst Plaza (photo by Gabe Palacio)
Shen Wei Dance Arts | Guangdong Modern Dance Company: MindScape
Hearst Plaza
July 1-3, free, 5:00 www.lincolncenter.org
Chinese-born, NYC-based choreographer, director, and painter Shen Wei brings together Shen Wei Dance Arts (SWDA) and Guangdong Modern Dance Company for MindScape, a forty-five-minute piece that incorporates poetry, calligraphy, painting, and movement on Hearst Plaza. SWDA has presented dazzling dances in the Park Ave. Armory Drill Hall, at the Prospect Park Bandshell, in the Met’s Charles Engelhard Court, and other unique locations, so it should be fascinating to see what they’ll be doing outdoors at Lincoln Center. MindScape is part of Lincoln Center’s Dance Encounters series, which also has performances by Omari Wiles / Les Ballet Afrik (New York Is Burning), Ogemdi Ude (Major), Anna Sperber (Bow Echo), Benjamin Akio Kimitch (Tiger Hands), and Vangeline (Naiad Metal), which takes place in and around the Milstein Reflecting Pool, as well as Chinese Arts Week, which also includes Chinese-born, NYC-based Pulitzer Prize winner Du Yun’s family-friendly The Ocean Etched in the Forest.
Akram Khan’s Thikra is part of Summer for the City at Lincoln Center
Akram Khan Company: Thikra: Night of Remembering
Alice Tully Hall, 1941 Broadway
Thursday, July 2, 7:30; Friday, July 3, 7:30; Sunday, July 5, 2:00, choose-what-you-pay www.lincolncenter.org
English choreographer Akram Khan, who melds the Indian kathak form with contemporary dance, collaborates with visual director Manal AlDowayan on Thikra: Night of Remembering, a piece for between nine and eleven women set to “Gyura Beli Belo Platno” by the London Bulgarian Choir and “The Elephant’s Funeral” by Sushma Soma with Aditya Prakash. “As I stand humbled within the vastness of this epic desert known as AlUla, I feel the urge to unearth the many cultures that have passed through here,” Khan says about the work, which explores the ancient Saudi Arabia desert civilization. Thikra: Night of Remembering is part of the Lincoln Center Contemporary Dance Festival, which also features Jeremy Nedd, Yinka Esi Graves, Sung Im Her / Her Project, Rachid Ouramdane / Compagnie de Chaillot, and others.
Documentary reveals how Elizabeth Streb and her Extreme Action Company (including Jackie Carlson, seen here) take dance to a whole new level
For more than fifteen years, New Yorkers have gotten the chance to see Elizabeth Streb’s Extreme Action Company perform such dazzling works as Ascension at Gansevoort Plaza, Kiss the Air! at the Park Avenue Armory, and Human Fountain at World Financial Center Plaza as her team of gymnast-dancer-acrobats risk their physical well-being in daring feats of strength, stamina, durability, and grace. In addition, Streb herself walked down the outside wall of the Whitney as part of a tribute to one of her mentors, Trisha Brown. Catherine Gund takes viewers behind the scenes in the exhilarating documentary Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity, going deep into the mind of the endlessly inventive and adventurous extreme action architect and the courage and fearlessness of her company. Gund follows Streb as she discusses her childhood, her dance studies, the formation of STREB in 1985, and her carefully thought out views on space, line, and movement as her work stretches the limits of what the human body can do. “I think my original belief and desire is to see a human being fly,” Streb says near the beginning of the film, which includes archival footage of early performances, family photos, and a warm scene in which the Rochester-born Streb and her partner, Laura Flanders, host a dinner party in their apartment, cooking for Bill T. Jones, Bjorn Amelan, Anne Bogart, Catharine Stimpson, and A. M. Homes. Gund also speaks with current and past members of the talented, ever-enthusiastic company — associate artistic director Fabio Tavares, Sarah Callan, Jackie Carlson, Leonardo Giron, Felix Hess, Samantha Jakus, Cassandre Joseph, John Kasten, and Daniel Rysak — who talk about their dedication to Streb’s vision while using such words as “challenge,” “velocity,” “endurance,” “magic,” “invincibility,” and “risk” to describe what they do and how they feel about it. The film is screening on Hearst Plaza on July 10 at 6:00 as part of Lincoln Center’s Dance Encounters series, which also includes “Movement on Film: Athletic Shorts” July 15–17.
Double Dutch Fusion Freestyle & Open Jump
The Dance Floor, Josie Robertson Plaza
Thursday, July 16, free, 5:00 www.lincolncenter.org
One of the most exciting events of every summer at Lincoln Center is the National Double Dutch League strutting its stuff with breathtaking displays of athleticism. It’s three hours of exhilarating movement, including an open jump where visitors are encouraged to participate.
Five troupes come together for annual BAAND Festival (Francesca Levita by Rachel Neville, Christopher R. Wilson by Andrew Eccles, Fangqi Li by Karolina Kuras, Taylor Stanley by Paul Kolnik, DTH Company Artist Kamala Saara by Nir Arieli)
BAAND Together Dance Festival
David H. Koch Theater
Tuesday, July 28, through Sunday, August 1, choose-what-you-pay www.lincolncenter.org
The sixth BAAND Together Dance Festival takes place July 28 thorugh August 1, with five exciting troupes performing in the David H. Koch Theater: Ballet Hispánico New York, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, and Dance Theatre of Harlem. It doesn’t get much better than that. Each company will also host a family-friendly dance workshop every day.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]
The life and career of Billy Preston held many surprises revealed in documentary
BILLY PRESTON: THAT’S THE WAY GOD PLANNED IT (Paris Barclay, 2024)
Maysles Documentary Center
343 Lenox Ave./Malcolm X Blvd. between 127th & 128th Sts.
June 12, 7:00, June 13, 7:00, June 14, $15 (reduced price $7), 4:30 maysles.org www.billyprestonfilm.com
“Will it go ’round in circles? / Will it fly high like a bird up in the sky?” Billy Preston sang in his 1973 smash hit. He might not have realized it then, but that line foretold his career, which had a seemingly endless series of ups until it all came crashing down.
The rise and fall of one of popular music’s most talented and beloved figures is intimately detailed in Paris Barclay’s revelatory documentary, Billy Preston: That’s the Way God Planned It.
Born in 1946 and raised in the church by his mother, gospel singer Robbie Lee Williams, Preston began playing the piano at age three, appeared on The Nat “King” Cole Show in 1957, accompanied Mahalia Jackson and Pearl Bailey on keyboards in the 1958 film St. Louis Blues, played with the gospel group the Cogics (Church of God in Christ), and as a teenager toured with Little Richard and the Rolling Stones. An enthusiastic man with an infectious gap-toothed smile and a collection of impressive wigs, Preston was soon recording with the Stones, Sam Cooke, Sly Stone, Ray Charles, and Aretha Franklin.
He singlehandedly rescued the Beatles when the Fab Four was preparing the Let It Be album and concert, just dropping by to say hello but then taking a seat at the organ and starting to improvise with John, Paul, George, and Ringo, infusing them with the energy they had been previous lacking as rumors swirled that the band was breaking up. The tabloids nicknamed him the Fifth Beatle and the Black Beatle. “He never put his hands in the wrong place,” Starr says in the film.
Preston might have been the ultimate sideman, but when performing he couldn’t help himself, often getting up and dancing wildly, joy emanating out of every pore. He couldn’t read music and never used charts but just felt the music blaze through him, even when playing backup. “He would steal the record without you even knowing until later, and you’d go, ‘He’s done it again,’” Eric Clapton explains.
When Preston brought an original song to George Harrison for a potential solo LP, the Quiet Beatle quickly assembled an all-star roster to back him up: Harrison, Clapton, Keith Richards, and Ginger Baker.
In the 1970s, he hit the charts with such songs as “Outa-Space,” “Will It Go Round in Circles,” “Nothing from Nothing,” and “With You I’m Born Again,” all of which are featured prominently in the film. He was a musical guest on the very first episode of Saturday Night Live. Most people don’t realize that Preston wrote and originally recorded “You Are So Beautiful,” made famous by Joe Cocker; one of the highlights of the documentary is Preston’s performance of the song at the Apollo 50 celebration, joined by Cocker and Patti LaBelle on vocals. We also learn that it is a love song — to his mother, who he also plays it with in the film.
But his life started falling apart as he got lost in a haze of drugs and alcohol (Courvoisier, coke, eventually crack), starred as Sgt. Pepper in the ill-fated movie Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and continued to hide his sexuality, even though his friends, family, and musical colleagues knew he was gay going back to his youth. He was often seen with young men he referred to as cousins, but he was overcome with loneliness.
In their debut documentary, three-time Emmy winner Barclay (NYPD Blue,Glee) and cowriter Cheo Hodari Coker (Ray Donovan,Luke Cage) also delve into the sexual abuse Preston suffered as a child, which added to his problems as an adult. In the 1990s, he was arrested for DUI, charged with assault and child molestation, and spent time in prison, but he kept on playing music until his death in 2006 at the age of fifty-nine.
“He couldn’t move on,” soul and gospel singer Merry Clayton says. “No one knew what had transpired but us, the inner circle, family people. He’d have that smile, but his heart would be broken.”
Producer Suzanne de Passe notes, “Billy Preston was a gifted, genius, wonderful, talented human being, and he had a very, very self-destructed aspect to who he was. I wish I could have been more of a help in the parts that weren’t any of my business.”
Similarly, engineer Bob Margouleff says wistfully, “I don’t think anyone, including me, knew how to help him.”
The film has a bevy of revelatory archival material, from photographs and home movies to rare clips of Preston from childhood through his entire career, including key segments from a 2004 live appearance. Barclay also speaks with Billy Porter, producer Tony Jones, recording artists Gloria Jones and Blinky Williams, Pastor Sandra Crouch, musician Cory Henry, A&M publicist Don Mizell, biographer David Ritz, Preston’s cowriter Bruce Fisher, his nephew Derrick Preston, his managers Bob Ellis and Joyce McRae Moore, and numerous members of his bands, who all share poignant stories of Preston as a performer and a human being, a man bursting with life but hiding so much inside.
“I just want to be free, to play the music that God’s given to me,” Preston says.
It’s a tragic, if not unfamiliar, story, in this case happening to a cherished person who could not conquer his demons. But as he sang in his first big hit: “Let not your heart be troubled / Let mourning sobbing cease / Learn to help one another / And live in perfect peace.”
If you missed the theatrical release of Billy Preston: That’s the Way God Planned It earlier this year at Film Forum, you can catch it at Maysles Documentary Center from June 12 to 14.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]
Kenita R. Miller dazzles in Heather Christian’s Animal Wisdom at the Signature (photo by Ben Arons)
ANIMAL WISDOM
The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 14, $49-$207 signaturetheatre.org
One of my favorite online productions created during the pandemic was Heather Christian’s Animal Wisdom, a remarkably intimate show that I regetted missing when it had originated in 2017 at the Bushwick Starr. But now it’s back live and in person at the Signature, with some key changes.
As I noted in my review of the filmed version, Animal Wisdom is an intimate and rapturous confessional of music and storytelling, an ingenious journey into the personal and communal nature of ritual and superstition, of grief and loss, of ghosts and, most intently, the fear of death, a melding of public séance and stirring revival meeting. Introducing the streaming presentation, Christian noted, “This performance was never supposed to happen on film. I guess that’s obvious. But contrary to what it looks like, it wasn’t supposed to happen in a theater either. It was supposed to happen in a defunct church or holy space, but houses of any kind are deconsecrated and reconsecrated all the time, so I guess we’re not so far off. Anyways, maybe at least yours is already haunted.”
Scenic designer Emmie Finckel has transformed the Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre into a welcoming holy space, filled to the brim with hundreds of ritual objects, gravelike plantings, draped green chains, mysterious elements hanging from the ceiling, and a Coke machine, which is integral to the proceedings. Masha Tsimring’s lighting and Nick Kourtides’s sound enhance the supernatural feeling of this collective Requiem Mass.
Tony nominee Kenita R. Miller is phenomenal as H., telling Christian’s story. (Heather played the role in previous iterations.) It starts out beautifully, with H. singing, “We stand here fixed in time / Guarding our houses till they fall / And maybe eighty-seven years we spend unravelling the ball / As it goes spinning wild / As it careens into the night / We take our temperature / Longing for first love and the fight / That we first felt / At first sight, oh / Love may be in the garden but you won’t find peace.” She quickly establishes the relationship and connection between humans and such other living beings as fish, birds, and, later, butterflies, coyotes, cicadas, and elephants.
She introduces us to the ghosts of H.’s past, including her piano teacher Doris, who “sent me a piano from the afterlife. I named that piano Doris, after her because, well, pianos are animals.” We hear about H.’s first love, Johanna, and Victor the poltergeist, who “loves that I fear him. So I do what any little girl would do. I turn into an animal.”
H. leads a group singalong and shares cups of Coke like they are drinkable holy water.
H. (Kenita R. Miller) shares the things that haunt her in Animal Wisdom (photo by Ben Arons)
Throughout, she is accompanied by music director Alexandra Crosby on piano, El Beh on cello, Francesca Dawis on violin, Caro Moore on percussion, Kris Saint-Louis on bass, and Zack Zaromatidis on guitar, who also portray various characters and chat with H. about love and death, comfort and joy. Among the songs they perform are “Well Made Fish,” “Sick with a Beat,” and “Back Pocket” in sections the script refers to as “Introit,” “Tract,” and “Sanctus.”
The middle section of the two-hour intermissionless show meanders a bit, getting caught up in overly religious piety, but it comes back around with a glorious finale, a choral symphony that lifts your soul, much the way Christian did with her sensational Oratorio for Living Things and majestic Terce: A Practical Breviary.
In another program note, Christian writes, “In short, this ‘Play’ is my love letter to the parts of us we cannot diagnose — to remedies we cannot explain, to the pains we can’t escape much less articulate enough to craft a treatment. It is to the parts of me that suffer still, despite my lifetime’s worth of fighting with blood in my teeth, determined to live. I hold these parts in me every day — it is unending and extremely hard, but I know for goddamn certain that I’m not alone.”
Animal Wisdom lets us know we are never alone, inside a theater or not.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]
The cast of The Balusters looks at the Tony nominations it received (photo by Jeremy Daniel)
Tonight is the seventy-ninth annual presentation of the Tony Awards, celebrating the best in theater this past season. Twenty-four shows have been recognized among twenty-six categories.
Below is a look at every production that received at least one nomination, as well as a few that were shut out, arranged by how many nods it received. The only eligible shows I did not see were All Out and Mamma Mia!, both of which were shut out.
I refrain from making predictions, although I will share that, for me, the Best Play is The Balusters and the Best Musical is Schmigadoon!
But please feel free to argue — I’m sure there is plenty to debate.
THE LOST BOYS
Palace Theatre
1564 Broadway at 47th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 7, $69.75-$372.50 www.lostboysmusical.com
Peter Pan ain’t go nothing on these darling bloodsucking Lost Boys. Director Michael Arden sinks his teeth into this delicious musical adaptation of the 1987 horror comedy, with a touching book by David Hornsby and Chris Hoch and a dramatic score by the Rescues. When Lucy Emerson (Shoshana Bean) moves to the eerie town of Santa Carla, she and her two sons, Michael (LJ Benet) and Sam (Benjamin Pajak), get a whole lot more than they bargained for as Michael falls in love with Star (Maria Wirries) and develops a bromance with David (Ali Louis Bourzgui), who only comes out at night. Fantastic sets by Dane Laffrey, blasting music, and high-flying by Lauren Yalango-Grant and Christopher Cree Grant turn the Palace into a dazzling dark nightmare, even with a few silly subplots.
The Lost Boys is nominated for twelve Tonys: Best Musical, Best Book, Best Orchestrations, Best Direction, Best Choreography, Best Original Score, Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical (Bean), Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical (Bourzgui), Best Scenic Design, Best Costume Design, Best Lighting, and Best Sound.
Cinco Paul’s Schmigadoon! is a charmer from start to finish (photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)
SCHMIGADOON!
Nederlander Theatre
208 West Forty-First St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 3, $79-$349.50 schmigadoonbroadway.com
Cinco Paul does a masterful job of translating his Apple TV show, Schmigadoon!, to Broadway, where it feels it has always belonged, and has always been. Josh Skinner (Alex Brightman) and Melissa Gimble (Sara Chase) are forced to reevaluate their relationship when they wander into a magical land where every day is a musical — and are unable to leave without passing a test of the heart. The show lovingly parodies hit songs from such musicals as Carousel,The Sound of Music,The Music Man,Oklahoma!, and, of course, Brigadoon, with utter glee. The terrific ensemble boasts Ana Gasteyer as the teetotaling Mildred Layton, Brad Oscar as the conflicted Mayor Menlove, Ann Harada as his wife, Max Clayton as hunky Danny Bailey, Maulik Pancholy as the leprechaun and the minister, McKenzie Kurtz as the marriage-hungry Betsy, and Isabella McCalla as a lovely schoolteacher. It’s a candy-colored fantasy not only about musicals but about tolerance and diversity, without getting too preachy. If there’s any justice in this world, it should run forever.
Schmigadoon! is nominated for twelve Tonys: Best Musical, Best Book, Best Orchestrations, Best Direction (Christopher Gattelli), Best Choreography (Gattelli), Best Original Score, Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical (Chase), Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical (Gasteyer), Best Scenic Design, Best Costume Design, Best Lighting, and Best Sound.
Ragtime has the joint jumping in potent Lincoln Center revival (photo by Matthew Murphy)
RAGTIME
Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center Theater
150 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Tuesday – Saturday through August 2, $114-$421 www.lct.org/shows/ragtime
Lear deBessonet’s breathtaking revival of Ragtime has the best opening number I’ve even seen, a spectacular introduction of the characters while setting the mood and atmosphere for a potent tale of class and racism in old New York. Based on E. L. Doctorow’s 1975 novel, which was also made into a 1981 film by Miloš Forman, the musical has a fabulous score by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, a hard-hitting book by Terrence McNally, and sweeping orchestrations by William David Brohn, performed by an amazing cast led by Joshua Henry as Coalhouse Walker Jr., Caissie Levy as a New Rochelle housewife, Brandon Uranowitz as new immigrant Tateh, Rodd Cyrus as Harry Houdini, Anna Grace Barlow as Evelyn Nesbit, and Nichelle Lewis as Sarah. Every minute of its nearly three-hour-length packs a punch as Walker refuses to bend his knee to societal mores. But at its heart, it’s a powerful story of parents and children.
Ragtime is nominated for eleven Tonys: Best Revival, Best Direction, Best Choreography, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Uranowitz, Henry), Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical (Levy), Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical (Ben Levi Ross), Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical (Lewis), Best Costume Design, Best Lighting, and Best Sound.
CATS: THE JELLICLE BALL
Broadhurst Theatre
235 West Forty-Fourth St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 17, $58-$321 catsthejellicleball.com
In June 2024, I wrote, “The Pride celebration of the summer and, hopefully, beyond is happening seven times a week at PAC NYC, where Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch’s electrifying reimagining of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats — yes, that Cats — is running now through September 8, not quite forever, but not bad.” Its transfer to the Broadhurst is beyond disappointing; what was an engaging, involving production on a long catwalk, with the audience on three sides, is now a standard proscenium-stage musical that has lost its edge. It might be glittery and flashy, but not it’s all about the primping and voguing. Not that the story has ever been so compelling, but who cares when we have glitz galore? And what’s with those two seats onstage?
Cats: The Jellicle Ball is nominated for nine Tonys: Best Revival of a Musical, Best Orchestrations, Best Direction, Best Choreography, Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical (André De Shields), Best Scenic Design, Best Costume Design, Best Lighting, and Best Sound.
Latest Death of a Salesman revival takes place in an industrial-style garage (photo by Emilio Madrid)
DEATH OF A SALESMAN
Winter Garden Theatre
1634 Broadway between 50th & 51st Sts.
Tuesday – Sunday through August 9, $99-$799 salesmanbroadway.com
Is Death of a Salesman showing its age? Joe Mantello’s revival, the seventh time Arthur Miller’s 1949 masterwork has appeared on Broadway (and third time in fourteen years), starts off well and good with a superb first act, but everything changes after intermission, except the dour, threatening industrial garage set. Nathan Lane as Willy Loman acts more like Nathan Lane, Laurie Metcalf as his devoted wife, Linda, virtually disappears (that’s the way Miller wrote it, but you feel her absence), the hotel and dinner scenes are problematic, and the graveyard ending is, well, I don’t know what to say about it. Christopher Abbott is as compelling a Biff as I’ve ever seen. Although I couldn’t tolerate the cinematic music, it is nominated for a Tony, as is Metcalf, who should have received a Best Actress nod for Little Bear Ridge Road as well. And yes, once again, my wife’s theory holds that there is trouble a-brewing any time an actual car or other motor vehicle is driven on and off a Broadway stage.
Death of a Salesman is nominated for nine Tonys: Best Revival, Best Direction, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play (Lane), Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play (Abbott), Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play (Metcalf), Best Original Score, Best Scenic Design, Best Lighting, and Best Sound.
Revival of Rocky Horror is everything you’d hoped it would be (photo by Joan Marcus)
THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW
Studio 54
254 West 54th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through November 29, $82-$339 www.roundabouttheatre.org
Be prepared to give yourself over to absolute pleasure in Sam Pinkleton’s outrageously fun revival of Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show, from the second you walk into Studio 54. When Brad — asshole! — and Janet — dammit, Janet! — end up at a creepy mansion in the middle of nowhere, their happy plastic life on this planet goes rather awry as they encounter the motley crew of Riff Raff (Amber Gray), Magenta (Juliette Lewis), Columbia (Michaela Jaé Rodriguez), Rocky (Josh Rivera), Eddie (Harvey Guillén), and their deliciously wicked boss, Frank-N-Furter (Luke Evans). And it’s narrated by the hilarious Rachel Dratch, who has a blast with the audience, even if the call-outs still need some work. It’s just about everything you hoped it would be. And remember: It’s just a jump to the left, then a step to the right.
The Rocky Horror Show is nominated for nine Tonys: Best Revival, Best Choreography, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Evans), Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical (Hsu, Dratch), Best Scenic Design, Best Costume Design, Best Sound, and Best Lighting, Best Director.
Robin Rainey (Christiani Pitts) and Dougal Todd (Sam Tutty) are about to have a time to remember in Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) (photo by Matthew Murphy)
TWO STRANGERS (CARRY A CAKE ACROSS NEW YORK)
Longacre Theatre
220 West 48th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through November 22, $69-$299 twostrangersmusical.com
Broadway shows set in New York City have a difficult task getting things right, needing to satisfy tourists as well as native New Yorkers, who will immediately criticize any geographic or sociocultural mistakes while tiring of genre clichés about the City That Never Sleeps. For every Hell’s Kitchen, there’s a New York, New York. Happily, the charming Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) gets things right. Sam Tutty is adorable in his Broadway debut as Dougal Todd; you just want to run up and hug him (but please don’t). Dougal looks at the city in the way not only tourists but longtime denizens should, with wonder and happiness and promise. Christiani Pitts, who has appeared in such other New York City shows as A Bronx Tale and King Kong, is heart-wrenching as Robin, who believes she has hit a dead end and needs to be reenergized. Their chemistry is evident from their first meet-cute bump.
Two Strangers is nominated for eight Tonys: Best Musical, Best Book, Best Orchestrations, Best Original Score, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Tutty), Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical (Pitts), Best Scenic Design, and Best Director.
Oedipus (Mark Strong) has some strong words for Jocasta (Lesley Manville) in modern update of Greek tragedy (photo by Julieta Cervantes)
OEDIPUS
Studio 54
254 West 54th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Closed February 8 oedipustheplay.com
Every season there seems to be one show that everyone goes gaga over except me. Last year it was Maybe Happy Ending, which won six Tonys, including Best Musical. I found it okay but couldn’t get past the plot holes and inconsistencies, as well as the inclusion of the crooner. This time around it’s Robert Icke’s modern-day adaptation of Sophocles’s Oedipus. It seems that the rest of the world is championing this production, which stars Mark Strong as Oedipus, Lesley Manville as Jocasta, an excellent John Carroll Lynch as Creon, and Anne Reid as a mystifying version of Merope. It takes place in the British political arena as Oedipus seeks to become prime minister. I’ve raved about some of Icke’s previous works (Hamlet,Oresteia,Enemy of the People), but I couldn’t connect with this one, which felt like watching election-night coverage on cable TV. However, I will now start pronouncing it as “Eedipus.”
Oedipus is nominated for seven Tonys: Best Revival, Best Direction, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play (Strong), Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play (Manville), Best Scenic Design, Best Lighting, and Best Sound.
A series of meetings of the Vernon Point Neighborhood Association opens up old and new wounds in The Balusters (photo by Jeremy Daniel)
THE BALUSTERS
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West Forty-Seventh St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 21, $58-$347 www.manhattantheatreclub.com
David Lindsay-Abaire’s The Balusters takes on a kitchen sink of contemporary issues, from homophobia, racism, classism, and corruption to toxic masculinity, privilege, bigotry, and furniture. And it does so in hilarious ways; I can’t remember the last time I laughed so long and hard during a play or clapped so often after side-splitting, sparkling lines of dialogue. The hundred-minute comedy is set at several meetings of the Vernon Point Neighborhood Association, where a group of nine people regularly gather to discuss the state of their beloved community, a peaceful, old-fashioned enclave steeped in history, boasting well-manicured lawns, comfortable, attractive porches, and an overall flavor of Victorian elegance. The terrific ensemble forms an outrageously funny extended family, led by Emmy winner Richard Thomas and Tony winner Anika Noni Rose, but theater treasure Marylouise Burke steals the show as Penny, who always knows just what to say.
The Balusters is nominated for five Tonys: Best Play, Best Director (Kenny Leon), Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play (Thomas), Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play (Burke), and Best Costume Design.
Bryce Pinkham leads a supercharged ensemble in Chess Broadway revival (photo by Matthew Murphy)
CHESS: A COLD WAR MUSICAL
Imperial Theatre
249 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 3, $74-$571 chessbroadway.com
The current Broadway production is the first iteration I’ve seen, and I found it to be a ton more exciting than watching, well, a chess match. Tony-winning director Michael Mayer has teamed up with Emmy-winning film and television writer, actor, and director Danny Strong, making his Broadway debut, to reimagine the show, and it’s a major triumph filled with clever and insightful moves, despite occasionally delving into soapy melodrama, while not overplaying the cold war connections between the 1980s and today. The American chess master Freddie Trumper (Aaron Tveit) is in love with his second, the beautiful theoretician Florence Vassy (Lea Michele). They are preparing for a major match against the brilliant Anatoly Sergievsky (Nicholas Christopher), whose handler is the devious Alexander Molokov (Bradley Dean), who later uses Anatoly’s estranged wife, Svetlana (Hannah Cruz), against him. As the players travel to Merano, Stockholm, and, most famously, Thailand, where they spend a memorable night in Bangkok, relationships come together and fall apart, loyalty is tested, and the SALT II treaty is hotly debated as the KGB and the CIA fight to assert their prominence. Chess is a thrilling evening of theater, highlighted by Pinkham, often accompanied by a terrifically talented ensemble performing Lorin Latarro’s dazzling choreography; the singers and dancers are like a glorious symphony that makes you instantly forget the book’s occasional meanderings and messiness. Yes, there are too many songs, Freddie’s transition to being an announcer is annoying, the love triangle is messy, the politics are oversimplified, and the ballads are histrionic, but Mayer and Strong keep the actual chess to a minimum, and every time the show threatens to give in to the lowest common denominator, Pinkham and the ensemble swoop in to rescue it as the endgame approaches.
Chess is nominated for five Tonys: Best Orchestrations, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Christopher), and Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical (Pinkham), Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical (Cruz), and Best Lighting.
Rose Byrne and Kelli O’Hara make a fabulously elegant comic duo in Fallen Angels (photo by Joan Marcus)
FALLEN ANGELS
Todd Haimes Theatre
227 West 42nd St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Closed June 7 www.roundabouttheatre.org
Rose Byrne and Kelli O’Hara are the most hilarious comedy duo on Broadway in Scott Ellis’s elegant slapstick revival of Noël Coward’s Fallen Angels. When an old Parisian flame (Mark Consuelos) might be coming to town, Julia (O’Hara) and Jane (Byrne) get some interesting ideas while their men (Aasif Mandvi and Christopher Fitzgerald) are away. The Champagne flows, as do their bodies over the furniture, all while the new maid, Saunders (Tracee Chimo), who seems to know everything about everything, keeps a close watch on the proceedings. The story itself may be slight, but in the hands of Byrne and O’Hara, it’s a riot. Oh, and their hair!
Fallen Angels is nominated for five Tonys: Best Revival, Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play (Byrne, O’Hara), Best Scenic Design, and Best Costume Design.
Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is another Broadway triumph for August Wilson (photo by Julieta Cervantes)
JOE TURNER’S COME AND GONE
Barrymore Theatre
243 West Forty-Seventh St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 26, $69 – $499 joeturnerbway.com
The fourth play in August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is set in the 1910s in a boardinghouse run by Seth Holly (Cedric the Entertainer) and his wife, Bertha (Taraji P. Henson). Among the residents are conjure man Bynum Walker (a never-better Ruben Santiago-Hudson) and guitar player and ladies man Jeremy Furlow (Tripp Taylor), while hanging around is people finder Rutherford Selig (Bradley Stryker). When the scary Herald Loomis (Joshua Boone) arrives with his young daughter, Zonia, trying to track down his wife, the past bubbles up, laced with supernatural elements. Joe Turner is another sparkling work by Wilson, a poetic exploration of the lasting impact of slavery and the Great Migration, a tempting mix of humor, music, and history that looks and sounds marvelous on the stage, directed by Debbie Allen.
Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is nominated for five Tonys: Best Original Score, Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play (Santiago-Hudson), Best Sound, Best Lighting, and Best Costume Design; oddly, it did not make the cut for Best Revival of a Play.
Six women form a consciousness-raising group in 1970 Ohio in Bess Wohl’s Liberation (photo by Little Fang)
LIBERATION
James Earl Jones Theatre
138 West Forty-Eighth St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Closed February 1 liberationbway.com
In Bess Wohl’s dazzling Liberation: A Memory Play About Things I Don’t Remember, the playwright reimagines her mother’s 1970s consciousness-raising women’s group. The women meet in a rec center basement in Ohio to discuss the role of women in society, how it impacts their lives individually and what they can do to help change the status quo publicly. The concept of the Everywoman takes center stage at the start of the second act, when Lizzie, Margie, Susie, Celeste, Isidora, and Dora remove their clothing and sit in the usual semicircle of folding chairs, as Cha See’s gymnasium lighting keeps them brightly lit so there’s nowhere to hide. One by one, they share intimate details — or opt not to — about their bodies, each one dealing with their nudity in a different way, choosing to proudly reveal or attempt to conceal. The overt nakedness can make the audience, especially the men, uncomfortable, confronting them with questions about their own attitudes. It’s an unforgettable theatrical experience written by one of America’s best playwrights.
Liberation is nominated for five Tonys: Best Play, Best Direction of a Play (Whitney White), Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play (Susannah Flood), Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play (Betsy Aidem), and Best Costume Design.
BUG
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West Forty-Seventh St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Closed March 8 www.manhattantheatreclub.com
It’s been several months since I saw the Broadway debut of Tracy Letts’s Bug, and I’m still feeling all itchy and out of sorts, scratching myself all over, thinking I’m being invaded by tiny killer insects. The show is led by the sizzling hot Carrie Coon, Letts’s wife, who plays Agnes White, a forty-four-year-old woman living in a motel room outside of Oklahoma City. The opening moment is stark and beautiful: Agnes stands near the door, smoking a cigarette and holding a wineglass, looking outside as if the world is not for her. Later she’s having a crack, coke, and booze party with her best friend, the wild R.C. (Jennifer Engstrom), and a guy R.C. just met, a veteran named Peter Evans (Namir Smallwood), who is soon insisting that the room is crawling with dangerous bugs that are immune to standard spray. The play is like the bizarre offspring of Francis Ford Coppola’s brilliant 1974 The Conversation and the 1941 Popeye cartoon Flies Ain’t Human.Bug is a taut, involving thriller, with authentic scares that get under your skin. It will also make you feel genuinely threatened the next time you’re itchy, searching for a creepy crawly creature — or following a military industrial complex conspiracy theory — with an unusual taste for human blood.
Bug is nominated for four Tonys: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play (Coon), Best Scenic Design, Best Sound, and Best Lighting.
John Lithgow stars as Roald Dahl in Giant on Broadway (photo by Joan Marcus)
GIANT
Music Box Theatre
239 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Wednesday – Sunday through June 28, $89–$599 gianttheplay.com
Roald Dahl might not be “a beautiful role,” but it is one that John Lithgow performs with delicious relish in Mark Rosenblatt’s first play, Giant. It is as hard to like the character as it is to accept what he says — the show focuses on Dahl’s overt antisemitism, which created a controversy in 1983 that is still relevant today — but speech must be free if it is anything. Aya Cash is a fine foil as a sales director refusing to back down, Elliot Levey is strong as a weak-willed man some would call a self-hating Jew, Rachael Stirling is terrific as a woman caught in the middle of it all, and Stella Everett shines as the house cook who stays out of everything until she can’t. The show is splendidly directed by Sir Nicholas Hytner, maintaining a furious pace and glorying in the English language.
Giant is nominated for four Tonys: Best Play, Best Direction of a Play (Hytner), Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play (Lithgow), and Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play (Cash).
Titanique hits a minor iceberg on its journey to Broadway (photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade)
TITANIQUE
St. James Theatre
246 West Forty-Fourth St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 20, $69.44-$879.63 titaniquebroadway.com
In September 2022, I wrote, “I couldn’t help but fall under the bewitching spell of Titanique, a wild and wooly musical parody of the beloved 1997 weepie shipwreck rom-com,” after seeing the DIY show at the downstairs Asylum Theatre. While its transfer to Broadway isn’t quite a disaster, it doesn’t come close to the joy and energy it had underground. Much of its original charm was its “Let’s put on a show” atmosphere, but as soon as the curtain rose at the St. James, my mouth dropped, sad that it is now a big-budget extravaganza. It still is fun, led by stellar performances by cocreator Constantine Rousouli as Jack Dawson and Melissa Barrera as Rose DeWitt Bukater, but Jim Parsons overplays Ruth, cocreator Marla Mindelle is too cutesy as host Céline Dion, and too many of the nonstop inside jokes and modern references fall flat.
Titanique is nominated for four Tonys: Best Musical, Best Book, Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical (Mindelle), and Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical (Layton Williams).
Stephen Adly Guirgis and Rupert Goold have a tough time adapting Dog Day Afternoon for the stage (photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)
DOG DAY AFTERNOON
August Wilson Theatre
245 West Fifty-Second St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 12, $57.12-$418.88 dogdayafternoon.com
Jessica Hecht is wonderful as chief bank teller Colleen in Stephen Adly Guirgis and Rupert Goold’s adaptation of Sidney Lumet’s classic 1975 based-on-fact crime thriller about a bank robbery gone terribly wrong, which also applies to this production. Jon Bernthal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, costars on The Bear, had been wanting to take the film to Broadway for a long time, but unfortunately it still needs more work. Bernthal is Sonny, famously played by Al Pacino in the movie, who decides to rob a Brooklyn bank in order to raise money for his lover’s (Esteban Andres Cruz) sex-change operation. His cohorts are Ray Ray (Christopher Sears), who has a meltdown, and the absurdly jumpy Sal (Moss-Bachrach, taking on John Cazale’s unforgettable part), who seems to have a happy trigger finger. John Ortiz is fine as the detective attempting to bring them in, but Spencer Garrett misfires as FBI Agent Sheldon. (I can only imagine what Matthew Broderick, who was sitting two rows in front of me, was thinking, as his father, James, was superb as the FBI agent in the film.) Too much happens off the cool set, and as the play goes on, Bernthal becomes more and more like Pacino, except he is unable to whip up excitement in the crowd watching him.
Dog Day Afternoon is nominated for three Tonys: Best Scenic Design, Best Costume design, and Best Lighting.
Broadway debut of Gina Gionfriddo’s extremely funny dark comedy is a must-see (photo by Marc J. Franklin)
BECKY SHAW
Hayes Theater
240 West 44th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 14, $154 – $347 2st.com
Alden Ehrenreich plays one of the all-time biggest assholes in the Broadway debut of Gina Gionfriddo’s extremely funny dark comedy about family dysfunction, empathy, and how we care for one another — or don’t, all beginning with a blind date that goes terribly wrong. David Zinn’s gorgeous sets are enhanced by the activity that takes place during scene changes; be sure to pay close attention! Also in the outstanding cast are Patrick Ball, Madeline Brewer, Linda Emond, and Lauren Patten. This one is a gem, directed with acerbic wit by Trip Cullman.
Becky Shaw is nominated for two Tonys but deserved many more: Best Revival and Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play (Ehrenreich).
Daniel Radcliffe interacts with the audience in Every Brilliant Thing (photo by Matthew Murphy)
EVERY BRILLIANT THING
Hudson Theatre
141 West Forty-Fourth St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 4, $62.72-$301.28 everybrilliantthing.com
I previously saw the sixty-five-minute Every Brilliant Thing at the Barrow Street Theatre in March 2015, starring Jonny Donahoe, who gets a smaller-font writing credit with the larger-font Duncan Macmillan. George Perrin directed that version, but the Broadway iteration is helmed by Macmillan and Jeremy Herrin. Be sure to arrive early, because when the doors open, the star (originally Daniel Radcliffe, but now Mariska Hargitay, to be followed by Tracee Ellis Ross) is roaming around the theater, handing out prompts and speaking with various audience members, both in the regular seating as well as three rows of rafters on the stage. They are looking for people to call out items from a list and to play several important roles in the character’s life. The narrator re-creates scenes from the past, all involving the audience in one way or another. The success of the play depends on the audience members’ performances and the narrator’s ability to improvise if things don’t go quite as expected; the night I went, both were in top form. Through it all, Macmillan and Donahoe explore the fragile nature of depression and suicide, from how families deal with mental illness to the hyper-controlled way it’s depicted in the media. Every Brilliant Thing is essentially about making connections, both in life and in theater, being part of something that is bigger than yourself. It’s tragedy and comedy of the highest order, an unforgettable experience that just might lead to your jotting down some of the things that make your life worth living. And the first one is very likely to be: Every Brilliant Thing.
Every Brilliant Thing is nominated for two Tonys: Best Revival and Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play (Radcliffe).
Adrien Brody and Tessa Thompson star in prison drama based on a real story (photo by Emilio Madrid)
THE FEAR OF 13
James Earl Jones Theatre
138 West Forty-Eighth St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 12, $51-$299 thefearof13broadway.com
The excitement was palpable for the Broadway debuts of two-time Oscar winner Adrien Brody and Tessa Thompson in Lindsey Ferrentino’s The Fear of 13, directed by the great David Cromer, but I’m afraid the based-on-fact prison drama never breaks out. Brody plays Nick Yarris, who is on death row for a crime he might not have committed. He is befriended by Jacki Miles (Thompson), a regular visitor reaching out to incarcerated men but she develops an intimate bond with Nick, who at first seems resigned to eventually being executed. Brody and Thompson do have an affecting chemistry, but the show is too long at 110 minutes, it often feels convoluted even though it’s true, there are extraneous scenes, and it never makes a connection with the audience.
The Fear of 13 is nominated for two Tonys: Best Lighting and Best Sound.
June Squibb is exquisite as a nonagenarian looking back at her life in Marjorie Prime (photo by Joan Marcus)
MARJORIE PRIME
Hayes Theater
240 West 44th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Closed February 15 2st.com
“Age will be no obstacle,” Jon (Danny Burstein) reads from an old love letter in the Broadway premiere of Jordan Harrison’s Marjorie Prime. The play, adroitly directed by Anne Kauffman, stars ninety-six-year-old June Squibb as the title character, an eighty-six-year-old woman who lives with her daughter, Tess (Cynthia Nixon), son-in-law, Jon, and an AI version of her late husband, Walter Prime (Christopher Lowell), who leads Marjorie through carefully selected — and edited — memories, from their early dates to watching their dog run on the beach, all while avoiding one particular horrific family tragedy. The prime begins its existence as a blank slate; it merely processes whatever information it has been fed. Harrison refers to the physical reincarnations as “descendants of the current chatbots.” When Marjorie dies, Tess has to decide whether she wants to turn her mother into a prime and have her AI program, and Walter’s, keep living with them. The play debuted in 2014 and was made into a film in 2017; as far as aging goes, it already feels out of date as the AI boom explodes nearly every day, detracting from its impact. However, the ending is absolutely brilliant.
Marjorie Prime is nominated for two Tonys: Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play (Burstein) and Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play (Squibb).
Laurie Metcalf can’t believe another Broadway show she’s in is closing early (photo by Julieta Cervantes)
LITTLE BEAR RIDGE ROAD
Booth Theatre
222 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Closed December 21 littlebearridgeroad.com
For me, the biggest disappointment of the year in theater is the early closing of Samuel D. Hunter’s sensational Little Bear Ridge Road. Originally scheduled to run until February 14, it is instead closing December 21, after opening on October 30 to a bevy of rave reviews. The play is a gripping ninety-five minutes of nonstop tension, brilliantly directed by two-time Tony winner Joe Mantello on Scott Pask’s beautifully minimalist set. On a couch on a round, carpeted platform, Sarah (Laurie Metcalf) and her nephew, Ethan (Micah Stock), spend a lot of time watching TV and complaining about their lives following the passing of Sarah’s brother, Ethan’s estranged father, a drug addict who died a miserable death. The narrative takes place between 2020 and 2022, and the pandemic plays a key role in how characters interact with each other, whether out at a bar or sitting home watching television, especially Extraterrestrial. Heather Gilbert’s intimate lighting is exceptional, making the audience feel like it’s on the couch, hanging out with Sarah, Ethan, and James. It’s a fabulous Broadway debut for Hunter; I apologize for all the superlatives, but each one is well deserved. Not only did it close early, but it received a mere single nod for Best Play, with no love for any of the myriad elements that made it so special.
Little Bear Ridge Road is nominated for one Tony: Best Play, which apparently got there without any worthy elements.
Will Harrison leads an excellent cast in harrowing true story (photo by Matthew Murphy)
PUNCH
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West Forty-Seventh St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Closed November 2 www.manhattantheatreclub.com
Will Harrison makes an electrifying Broadway debut as a young Nottingham man whose life changes forever on a wild night in James Graham’s Punch. Harrison stars as Jacob in the true story, based on the memoir Right from Wrong by Jacob Dunne, which explores bullying, drugs, class, and restorative justice. One night, nineteen-year-old Jacob and his large gang of friends are out drinking and snorting as they barhop through Nottingham, Jacob in search of some action; he finds it when he unleashes a massive punch on a random stranger just for kicks, but when the young man, twenty-eight-year-old James Hodgkinson, dies as a result of the altercation, Jacob is sent to prison while James’s parents, David Hodgkinson (Sam Robards) and Joan Scourfield (Victoria Clark), deal with the tragic loss of their son and contemplate whether they should forgive Jacob. The energetic, fast-paced first act shifts between the punch and its immediate aftermath and a group therapy session led by Sandra (Lucy Taylor, who also plays Jacob’s mother and a probation officer), where Jacob shares his story with others. Sandra describes it as a place for “talking and listening. Difficult conversations.” Those conversations center on restorative justice, as Jacob, Joan, and David decide if they are going to meet face-to-face. The second half is decidedly slower and less compelling, but you can’t take your eyes off Harrison, a rising star with a bright future.
Punch is nominated for one Tony: Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play (Harrison).
Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter star in Broadway smash version of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (photo by Andy Henderson)
WAITING FOR GODOT
Hudson Theatre
141 West Forty-Fourth St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Closed January 4 godotbroadway.com
Last fall, the talk of the town was Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter reprising — well, channeling? — their roles from 1989’s Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and the 1991 and 2020 sequels in Waiting for Godot at the Hudson Theatre. Action star Reeves was making his Broadway debut as Estragon (Gogo) in Jamie Lloyd’s bumpy adaptation, while Winter returned to the Great White Way for the first time in forty-four years as Vladimir (Didi). For the most part, they hold the audience’s attention. Gogo and Didi usually find themselves in a strange, dark wasteland, with only a single bare tree, a country road, and a solitary stone as they contemplate life and death, heaven and hell, and existence and humanity, but Lloyd and set designer Soutra Gilmour locate them inside a giant tube that is part tunnel, part circular skateboard ramp, part existential void in space. Resembling abandoned vaudevillians in all black, sporting impressive bowlers (the costumes are also by Gilmour), they sit at the edge of the tube, feet dangling, waiting for the mysterious Godot to arrive and, perhaps, bring meaning to their sad, pathetic lives. Reeves and Winter may not display a wide range of emotions, but they avail themselves well enough to keep the audience engaged. At one point Didi says, “This is not boring you I hope,” looking out at us, and we essentially answer no.
Waiting for Godot is nominated for one Tony: Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play (Brandon J. Dirden).
James Corden, Neil Patrick Harris, and Bobby Cannavale star as three friends reaching a crisis point in Art (photo by Matthew Murphy)
ART
Music Box Theatre
239 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Closed December 21 artonbroadway.com
One of my favorite theatrical moments of 2025 occurred at the end of the matinee of Art I attended. As the curtain closed, James Corden gave a little hop, skip, and jump, grabbing onto the shoulders of his two costars, Bobby Cannavale and Neil Patrick Harris, as a wide, childlike smile broke out across his face. It was one of the most happy-making things I’d seen all year. It made the whole experience that much more enjoyable, helping me forget some of the holes in what is a pleasurable if not nearly as deep as it wants to be show. What are these men doing in Paris? Were they ever really close friends? Can Marc (Cannavale) and Serge (Harris) just leave poor Yvan (Corden) alone already? When the audience enters the Music Box Theatre, they are greeted by a framed white rectangle on the red curtain, not only representing the white painting that Serge has paid three hundred thousand dollars for, but also the blank slate we all come into the world with, onto which we project our personal likes and dislikes, including how we appreciate, or don’t, art itself. When the play is over, some will have loved it, some will have despised it, and other, perhaps most, will find themselves in between. Friends will defend their views, just as Serge defends his purchase to Marc, who is insulted that Serge spent so much money on a white canvas, while Yvan is caught in the middle.
Art received no Tony nominations.
Beaches musical got beached early (photo by Marc J. Franklin)
BEACHES
Majestic Theatre
247 West 44th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Closed May 24 beachesthemusical.com
Directors Lonny Price and Matt Cowart’s Broadway musical adaptation of the beloved 1988 film about female friendship starring Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey is all washed up. Novel author Iris Rainer Dart wrote the drab book with Thom Thomas and penned the drab lyrics, and the drab music is by Mike Stoller. While the first act mostly works, as Bertie (Zeya Grace) and Cee Cee (Samantha Schwartz) meet as kids on the Atlantic City boardwalk, as they grow up, the narrative goes all over the place, the songs are unmemorable, and the plot untenable. Jessica Vosk does some heavy lifting as the adult Cee Cee, while Kelli Barrett has less to do as the mature Bertie. I can’t recall a single major dance number, although a choreographer is listed on the program. There’s just not enough wind beneath these wings.
Beaches received no Tony nominations.
Jean Smart makes a triumphant return to Broadway in Call Me Izzy (photo by Marc J. Franklin)
CALL ME IZZY
Studio 54
254 West 54th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Closed August 17 callmeizzyplay.com
Baton Rouge native Jamie Wax’s debut play, Call Me Izzy, is a darkly funny and insightful one-person drama, an exploration of an all-too-familiar topic: domestic abuse. Although it borders on clichéd situations and flirts with poverty porn, it never tips over the edge. The stellar production, directed by Sarna Lapine and anchored by an exquisite performance by six-time Emmy winner and Tony and Grammy nominee Jean Smart, makes it much more. In a triumphant return to Broadway after nearly twenty-five years, Smart portrays Isabelle Scutley, née Fontenot, a woman living with her brutish husband, a pipe fitter named Ferd, in a mobile home in the fictional Louisiana Lady Trailer Park in the real town of Mansfield, Louisiana. Telling her story directly to the audience, Isabelle, who was married at seventeen and got a cemetery plot as a wedding present from her husband, has been trying to establish her own identity since she was a child, but under societal constraints and Ferd’s firm thumb she has rarely had a true sense of self. An aspiring poet, she asks, “If you write something and no one ever reads it, does it even exist? Do I exist? Do you exist?” Lapine keeps things moving smoothly through the play’s hundred minutes, but the show belongs to Smart, who has the rapturous audience behind her every step of the way. At the matinee I saw, applause broke out after numerous scenes not just for Smart’s acting talent but for choices Izzy makes.
Call Me Izzy received no Tony nominations.
Don Cheadle stars in Broadway revival of Proof (photo by Matthew Murphy)
PROOF
Booth Theatre
222 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 19, $58 – $297 proofbroadway.com
In 2001, David Auburn’s Proof won the Pulitzer Prize and Tonys for Best Play and Best Director (Daniel Sullivan), and all four cast members were nominated, with Mary-Louise Parker taking home the award for Best Actress. Watching Thomas Kail’s revival, there’s no evidence was to what all the hubbub was about. Don Cheadle stars as Robert, a deceased genius mathematician with severe mental illness who still talks to his genius daughter, Catherine (Ayo Edebiri), who is stuck in a rut. Her sister, Claire (Kara Young), is trying to reach out, and one of her father’s former students, Hal (Jin Ha), wants to go through Robert’s notebook in the hopes of finding something publishable. Numerous times, Catherine is asked how she’s doing, and she answers, “fine.” And that’s what this show is, merely fine. And oh, that interstitial music.
Proof received no Tony nominations.
Even Kristin Chenoweth can’t save The Queen of Versailles from getting high on its own supply (photo by Julieta Cervantes)
THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES
St. James Theatre
246 West Forty-Fourth St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through December 21, $88.48-$441.28 queenofversaillesmusical.com
It’s never fun writing a review for a show that is closing early; it’s sort of like that old saying, Don’t speak ill of the dead. When I went to the St. James Theatre to see The Queen of Versailles, a musical based on the hit documentary, I was fully prepared to find something to like about it despite all the negative chatter that was circulating. And indeed, I thoroughly enjoyed the first scene, which takes place in Paris in 1661, as Louis XIV (Pablo David Laucerica) is getting ready to move to his new home in Versailles. I also was all in on the second scene, with the action moving to Florida in 2006, where Jackie Siegel (Kristin Chenoweth) is overseeing the construction of her own Versailles with her fabulously wealthy, much older husband, David (F. Murray Abraham). After that, well, I just couldn’t. The story devolves quickly into tawdry melodrama, along with clunky staging and less-than-compelling musical numbers. The book, which refuses to decide whether Jackie is a strong woman, a greedy socialite, or a misunderstood wife and mother, is by Olivier nominee Lindsey Ferrentino, the director is Tony winner Michael Arden, and the music and lyrics are by Oscar winner Stephen Schwartz, all of whom should have known better.
The Queen of Versailles received no Tony nominations.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]
Thornton Wilder’s The Emporium has been reconstructed at Classic Stage (photo by Marc J. Franklin)
THORNTON WILDER’S THE EMPORIUM
Classic Stage Company, Lynn F. Angelson Theater
136 East 13th St. between Third & Fourth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 7, $46-$116 www.classicstage.org
In his Pulitzer Prize–winning plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, Thornton Wilder offers his unique perspective on America and the human condition, two lasting works that are revived and reinterpreted regularly. So when playwright Kirk Lynn began doing extensive research on Wilder after seeing David Cromer’s revelatory 2008 version of Our Town at Barrow St. and discovered an unfinished play, called The Emporium, he knew he had to complete it. And with the permission of the Wilder estate, he did just that.
After opening in Houston in 2024, the production moved this spring to Classic Stage, another exploration of the American dream that could be told only by Wilder — and Lynn, who fills the play with self-referential meta-commentary that can be both fun and confusing.
“‘Terrible news. It’s cancelled. Go home.’” Those are the first lines of this play. It’s called: The Emporium. It was written by Thornton Wilder. I want you to know the first lines, so you’ll know when it begins,” John (Joe Tapper) says at the start. “This is a preface. Like the front of book.” He gives a short biography of Wilder, followed by a summary of Lynn’s discovery of the long-lost work, which had twice been announced that it was going to Broadway with Montgomery Clift.
Lynn and director Rob Melrose’s adaptation shifts unevenly between the fictional setting of the play, about John, an orphan boy raised in the country who is trying to make it in the big city, represented by two competing department stores, and the making of the play itself. Early on there are tables filled with what represent Thornton’s pages, reminding us how Lynn had to construct the narrative. John reaches into one of the boxes and lifts out a baby. “So playful and strange. It’s definitely Wilder’s. How could he abandon it?” he asks.
The story then kicks off, the tale of that infant, who works on a farm and then heads out in search of his dream, deciding whether to work at the Emporium, a classy if stuffy story that believes in quality and history and cares about its customers, or Craigie’s, a more populist company that has parties all the time and demands little from its employees or consumers. The Emporium’s color is blue, while Craigie’s is green, the latter more interested in money than people. “You want regular, go work at Craigie’s Departmental. Nothing to distract you and everything’s perfectly clear,” Mrs. Graham (Candy Buckley), the farmer who raised him with her husband, tells John. “At five o’clock you can go home. Yes, sir, you can work at Craigie’s fifty years and any night you like, you can go home and hang yourself.”
A talented cast and cool mannequins breathe life into unfinished Thornton Wilder play (photo by Marc J. Franklin)
Things get complicated when John falls for Emporium counter girl Laurencia (Cassia Thompson), who needs to find out what the word astroclated means so she can understand a note she got from the firm’s mysterious directors, Mr. Gillespie and Mrs. Schwingemeister. Meanwhile, Mrs. Frisbee (Mahira Kakkar), Miss Coley (Eva Kaminsky), and Mr. Benjamin (Patrick Kerr) from the Retreat for Retired Department Store Workers have arrived to see the play and offer their thoughts, seated on the stage. “You don’t belong here!” orphanage superintendent Mrs. Foster (Buckley) declares. “We won’t be in the way,” Mr. Benjamin promises, coughing. Mr. Foster (Derek Smith) then asserts, “Enough! We’ll try to do something with you at intermission. Until then, put your chairs against the wall and show me you can act like an audience. It’s hard enough to get the attention of these juvenile pre-incarcerates —” referring to the regular audience.
A bottle of tincture serves as varying kinds of liquids. Characters discuss the differences between immediate pleasure, delayed gratification, and a third thing. Audience members are asked to bleat like sheep and are yelled at. A complaints/donation box is passed around. A vote about what happens next in the play is taken during intermission. More is learned about Thornton Wilder. And the future of the Emporium — the store and the play — is in jeopardy.
The Emporium is a bouncy, jubilant, and confounding show. Walt Spangler’s set is anchored by a large neon-style sign of the logo of the title store, Alejo Vietti’s costumes have a timeless quality, and the cast has a ball, particularly Tony nominee Smith (The Green Bird,The Lion King) and Drama Desk nominee Buckley (The Petrified Prince,Thoroughly Modern Millie), who plays multiple roles with comic delight.
Lynn and Melrose (The Servant of Two Masters,Born with Teeth) keep the audience involved throughout this absurdist satire of life in America centered around business in the big city. It’s not going to win a Pulitzer, and it’s not all Wilder, but it’s a charming piece of theater, whether you’re looking for delayed gratification, immediate pleasure, or whatever that third thing may be.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]
Eliana Theologides Rodriguez’s Indian Princesses takes place at a camp where white fathers try to bond with their children of color (photo by Ahron R. Foster)
INDIAN PRINCESSES
Atlantic Theater Company, Linda Gross Theater
336 West 20th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 7, $25-$131.50 atlantictheater.org
In November 2018, I was fully delighted by Larissa FastHorse’s The Thanksgiving Play, a wild and woolly farce that took on important indigenous issues — in real life and on the stage — as a school attempts to put on a politically correct show about pilgrims and Native Americans. Nearly five years later, the play, in a different production, premiered on Broadway, where it lost all its charm and inventiveness, instead feeling like so many dried-out leftovers.
Eliana Theologides Rodriguez’s Indian Princesses falls somewhere in between, with wholly original and exciting scenes tempered by awkward turns that throw too many ingredients into the stuffing.
The title comes from a YMCA camp program, begun in 1926 as Y-Indian Guides, renamed Indian Princesses in the mid-twentieth century, and rebranded Adventure Guides in the early 2000s, tailored to create bonds between white fathers and their Native American children. Rodriguez, who is of Yaqui and Tewa heritage on her mother’s side and identifies as Mexican, went to the camp with her father in 2008 when she was ten, during the financial crisis, after he had to take a job out of state. “I was experiencing a coming-of-age moment that I didn’t have the words to explain and my dad didn’t have the tools to understand,” Rodriguez says in a playwright note. “Even the program’s title is a pernicious fiction: The so-called ‘Indian Princess’ is an archetype invented to justify the ongoing brutalities of colonization, acting as a foil to her people and an ally to her colonizers.”
In the play, a new “tribe” has been formed, consisting of three white fathers, one white grandfather, and five girls of color, from nine to twelve years old. The “chief” is Glen (Frank Wood), an evangelical Christian attending with his granddaughter, Samantha (Haley Wong), who is half-Japanese and worries about committing sins. The recently widowed Mac (Pete Simpson) is a conservative construction worker who has brought his half-Mexican daughter, Andi (Rebecca Jimenez), who is keeping the death of her mother from the other girls. The recently unemployed Wayne (Ben Beckley) has let his own issues get in the way of his relationship with his adopted daughter, Maisey (Lark White), who was born in Africa and may have supernatural powers passed down from her ancestors. And the kind, PC Chris (Greg Keller) is there with his step-daughters, Lily (Anissa Marie Griego), who is determined to play Penny Pingleton in Hairspray despite being half-Yaqui and half-Tewa, and Hazel (Serenity Mariana), who feels neglected and inferior.
Glen is the cheerleader as they go through various exercises, including passing around a talking stick, participating in arts and crafts, and taking on their archenemy camp in a talent competition, putting on America the Beautiful the Play.
Five adults portray girls between the ages of nine and twelve in Indian Princesses (photo by Ahron R. Foster)
In their off-Broadway debuts, Rodriguez and director Miranda Cornell tread similar ground as such other works as Eureka Day,Grief Camp,The Wolves, and the aforementioned Thanksgiving Play, with mixed success. The general themes of racism, classism, building community through assimilation, the rewriting of history, cultural appropriation, and finding one’s identity are dealt with in intelligent and often potent ways, but there are a lot of bumps in the road, from the staging — it’s too often not clear where the characters are, especially when it comes to the woods the girls like to hang out in — to genre clichés.
A coproduction of the Atlantic and Rattlestick, the play is probably about fifteen or twenty minutes too long, with some scenes either dragging or becoming too chaotic, especially in the second half as the conclusion approaches, and several of the characters are not quite fully drawn, with some connecting better than others. But Rodriguez is tackling an important subject while introducing the audience to this surprising camp, which is simply fascinating.
America “stole our heritage from us, then bastardized, stylized, and sold that heritage back to us generations later as a ‘culturally appreciative’ family bonding activity,” Rodriguez continues in her program note, shining a light for all of us to see.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]
Who: Jocelyn Kuritsky, Kate MacCluggage, Jake Hart, Colleen Werthmann, Cecil Baldwin, Carl Raymond What: Special live radio play presentation of A Simple Herstory Where:The Tank, 312 West Thirty-Sixth St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.; after-party at Torn Page, 435 West Twenty-Second St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves. When: Sunday, June 7, radio play $28, 3:00, after-party free (suggested donation $13), 6:00 Why: In its award-winning inaugural season, actor, creator, producer, host/interviewer, and occasional designer Jocelyn Kuritsky’s audio fiction podcast, A Simple Herstory, explored the life and career of Victoria Woodhull, the suffragist who was the first woman to run for president, in 1872, representing the Equal Rights Party, battling incumbent commander in chief Ulysses S. Grant and newspaper editor and publisher Horace Greeley.
The upcoming second season turns its attention to Maine’s Margaret Chase Smith, who served in the House from 1940 to 1949 and in the Senate from 1949 to 1973. She ran for president in 1964 in the Republican primary, which was won by Barry Goldwater. Smith is most well remembered for her June 1, 1950, fifteen-minute speech delivered on the Senate floor that concluded with “A Declaration of Conscience,” a five-point message aimed at Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy’s communist witch hunt but still rings true today. “It is high time that we stopped thinking politically as Republicans and Democrats about elections and started thinking patriotically as Americans about national security based on individual freedom,” she said, supported by six other senators.
On June 7 at 3:00, a segment from season two of A Simple Herstory will be performed live at the Tank, featuring Kuritsky (Woodshed Collective), Kate MacCluggage (Left on Tenth), Jake Hart (Big George), Colleen Werthmann (Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play), and Cecil Baldwin (Welcome to Night Vale), directed by Meghan Finn (A Trojan Woman,Mahinerator) and written and developed by Jonathan A. Goldberg (Real Dead Ghosts,Deus Machina Ex or Eleanor Roosevelt vs. the God Machine). Don’t worry about the serious, and relevant, subject matter; Kuritsky promises “a fast, funny, inventive recounting of history that refracts the complexity and tension of politics through a live radio play experience.”
The show, being held in conjunction with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Tribeca Festival, will be followed by an after-party at Torn Page, where the creative team will discuss the project with moderator Carl Raymond, creator and host of the podcast The Gilded Gentleman.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]
