#philip boroff

[bespokeredmayne]

Report: Eddie Redmayne’s lengthy commitment to Cabaret on Broadway — and its whopping budget

A exclusive report today from Philip Boroff and his Broadway Journal says Eddie Redmayne is committing to an expensive New York production of Cabaret for six months. ‘CABARET’ IS COSTLIEST BROADWAY REVIVAL

by Philip Boroff 

EXCLUSIVE: Investing in Cabaret  at the August Wilson Theatre this spring might seem like a safe bet, after the success of the Kander & Ebb classic in London and earlier productions in New York.

That's until you see the price tag: $24.25 million, a record for a Broadway revival.

Broadway Journal reviewed a preliminary budget and recoupment chart for the transfer from the West End, which is being presented by the multinational theater operator and producer Ambassador Theatre Group and U.K.-based Underbelly, which creates shows and festivals. Tony and Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne will reprise his role as Kit Kat Club emcee on Broadway. 

Revivals of musicals by John Kander and Fred Ebb have been golden on Broadway, particularly the concert version of Chicago, now in its 27th year; and two Roundabout Theatre Co. engagements of Cabaret. This production, which follows several new musicals into the financial stratosphere, needs to be a smash to repay investors. 

Cabaret‘s largest line item is its $9.4 million physical production. That includes millions from investors to transform the August Wilson into a Weimar-era nightclub, designed by Tom Scutt, where the show will be performed for an audience of about 1050. (There’s also a pre-show with actors and musicians interacting with the audience.) Another $1.5 million is allocated for a “refurbishment reserve,” presumably for cost overruns. A production spokesman declined to comment for this story.

For the 2021 premiere, Ambassador Theatre Group paid most of the expense of renovating London’s Playhouse Theatre (where the show’s performed in the round), someone familiar with the production said. As is standard in the industry, backers benefit from the sale of tickets but don’t share in revenue from drinks or food.

The New York production is what’s known as a related-party transaction: ATG is both producer and landlord. It recently bought a majority stake in the August Wilson along with Jujamcyn Theaters’ four other Broadway venues.

One of the busiest players on Broadway, ATG and subsidiary Sonia Friedman Productions are producing four of the 16 plays and musicals opening this season through December: The Shark is Broken, Gutenberg! The Musical!, Merrily We Roll Along and Appropriate (with Second Stage Theater). It’s controlled by Providence Equity Partners, a mammoth private equity manager that buys companies with the eventual aim of reselling them at a profit.

Cabaret must thrive to survive, requiring a weekly $1.2 million at the box office to pay its bills. That’s one of the biggest nuts on Broadway, even more than the time-travel spectacle Back to the Future projected in its recoupment chart. Back to the Future‘s home, the Winter Garden Theatre, has about 50 percent more seats than the reconfigured August Wilson, which will lose about 200 seats in the renovation.

Investing may be most appealing for patrons who prioritize backing a prestigious and artful show (and a leading Tony contender) over return on investment. Rebecca Frecknall’s dark revival won seven Olivier Awards last year in London, including for Redmayne. He’s committed to reprising his role for six months, two people familiar with the production said. ATG and Underbelly haven’t disclosed details about the transfer, including casting.

When it opened in London in 2021, Cabaret got flak on social media for its prices, now as much as £375 (equivalent to about $465, which includes a light three-course meal and champagne). Producers have told investors that the show played to 96 percent occupancy through July, with the highest average ticket price in London.

Broadway seats may be costlier. The average ticket at 110 percent capacity of the August Wilson — i.e. with premium pricing — is projected to be $248. That’s approaching Hamilton in its peak years, when it was charging as much as $849 a ticket.

If Cabaret can command that $248 average and sell out — grossing $2.1 million a week — recoupment will take about a year. (Hamilton, which cost half as much as Cabaret and has low running costs, was distributing profits six months after opening night.)

By selling out with an average ticket of $176 — Sweeney Todd  territory — Cabaret‘s recoupment would take closer to two and a half years.  With an average ticket of $158 — $1.3 million a week — recoupment would take four and a half years. (Projections in this story are based on recouping $20.9 million, which excludes Cabaret‘s reserves, deposits and advances; and receiving a $3 million state production tax credit, which can take years to get to investors. If the show dips into reserves during construction or the run, recouping may take longer.)

Musical revivals have gotten ever-pricier to produce, but none has approached Cabaret. For example, Sweeney Todd was capitalized at $14.5 million and appears to be on track to recoup later this fall, after about 33 weeks. Hello, Dolly! was capitalized at $16 million in 2017 (about $20 million today) and earned a small profit; last year’s $16.5 million Funny Girl  recouped and is expected to make a profit.

Shows that required extensive renovations have a mixed record. Most recently, Here Lies Love, the $22 million disco-themed historical drama around the corner from the August Wilson, is struggling at the box office; whereas Harry Potter appears to be enjoying a long life in ATG’s souped-up Lyric Theatre, after producers trimmed the two-part show to one. But it arrived from London at considerable expense. In addition to Harry Potter’s $35.5 million capitalization, ATG, which competed against other landlords for the play, spent tens of millions of dollars clearing out and renovating the Lyric, Michael Paulson reported in the New York Times.

Revivals are typically short-lived, Cabaret as well as Chicago being obvious exceptions. The Roundabout Cabaret revival directed by Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall opened at the Henry Miller’s Theatre in 1998 and ran through 2004. It initially starred Alan Cumming, who stepped in again when the Roundabout revisited the revival in 2014.

Two decades ago, the Roundabout bought its revival’s most recent home, Studio 54. The nonprofit company, with help from the city of New York, paid $22.5 million for the real estate, which looks like a bargain today.

[jgroffdaily]

JONATHAN GROFF SETS 2025 BROADWAY RETURN WITH ‘JUST IN TIME’

by Philip Boroff

EXCLUSIVE: Newly minted Tony Award winner Jonathan Groff will play the 1950s and ’60s crooner Bobby Darin in a staged reading next month, ahead of a planned Broadway opening in spring 2025, people familiar with the musical said.

The reading of Just in Time will be directed by Alex Timbers (Moulin Rouge!). On Broadway, Tom Kirdahy and Robert Ahrens are set to produce the show, which tells the story of the short but eventful life of the popular performer, whose hits included “Mack the Knife,” “Dream Lover” and “Just in Time.”

Born Walden Robert Cassotto in East Harlem, Darin had rheumatic fever as a child that damaged his heart. He lived, he acknowledged, as if on borrowed time before his death at 37.

He led a new generation of swinging singers into the rock revolution of the 1960s. He also acted in movies, composed music, married the actress Sandra Dee and as an adult discovered that the woman he thought was his older sister was his mother.

“I went on YouTube,” Groff told reporter Elysa Gardner before a rehearsal of an early version of the show, presented as part of the 92nd Street Y ‘s “Lyrics and Lyricist” series in 2018. “I watched all these TV performances, from the beginning to the end of his career, and I was blown away by his versatility. The rock & roll and the standards, the dancing, the folk songs. The duets with George Burns and Judy Garland. His life was insane.”

Darin spawned many imitators, including Kevin Spacey, who played him in the biofilm Beyond the Sea. The ballad “Just in Time” was composed by Jule Styne with lyrics by Adolph Green and Betty Comden for the musical Bells are Ringing. It became a hit for Dean Martin, among others, who was in the 1960 movie adaptation directed by Vincente Minnelli.

Besides Groff, casting wasn’t available. The reading isn’t affected by the monthlong Actors’ Equity strike intended to pressure the Broadway League to improve its Development Agreement with the union. Actors will be working under a contract negotiated with the League of Resident Theatres (LORT), an association of nonprofit theater companies.

Although the reading will be in New York, it’s under the aegis of Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, which is a LORT member.

In a charmed career, the 39-year-old Groff has performed in the Frozen films, the TV series Glee and three acclaimed Broadway blockbusters — Spring Awakening, Hamilton and most recently Merrily We Roll Along — each of which earned him a Tony nomination. (He won for Merrily.)

Groff was also the first Seymour in the hit off-Broadway revival of Little Shop of Horrors, produced by Ahrens, Kirdahy and Hunter Arnold. Andrew Barth Feldman is currently playing the role.

In his moving acceptance speech at the Tony awards in June, Groff spoke about his love of the Broadway community and how “musical theater is still saving my soul.” Just in Time will aim for multigenerational appeal, as the young Broadway star sings 65-year-old standards.

Since the pandemic, older audiences have been slow to return to Broadway. If Just in Time is well received, Groff may be just the man to help bring them back.

**

Source: Philip Boroff in Broadway Journal.

Jonathan led a reading of the show on 15 March 2024 after rehearsing for a couple of weeks with the cast. Details below:

[mthguy]

‘ILLINOISE’ TO SQUEAK INTO 2023-24 SEASON

by Philip Boroff 

Producers Orin Wolf and Greg Nobile are preparing to move the acclaimed dance piece Illinoise to the St. James Theater, packing another new musical into the busy 2023-24 season.

The transfer from the Park Avenue Armory — where Illinoise is scheduled to play its final, sold-out performance on March 26 — would be so quick that the show may not have time for previews on Broadway, industry sources said. To be eligible for Tony Awards this year, productions must open by April 25.

Based on its generally strong notices, Illinoise will be a formidable contender in a wide open awards season. According to a pitch prepared for prospective angels, it will be produced for $5 million — a bargain for a new musical — and capitalized for $6.5 million, which includes a $1.1 million financial reserve.

Should it achieve average weekly published box office grosses of about $1.1 million, it could recoup its production costs in ten weeks or less, assuming a $2.5 million tax credit from New York state, according to a preliminary recoupment table. (Recouping may vary from projections, of course, especially as the recoupment chart assumes a 1400-seat theater. The St. James has about 1700 seats.)

The piece was originally commissioned by the Fisher Center at Bard College and Chicago Shakespeare Theater, among others, and received nonprofit development funding from foundations and wealthy patrons. Directed and choreographed by Justin Peck, the resident choreographer of New York City Ballet, it’s inspired by and scored to the 2005 concept album Illinois by indie composer Sufjan Stevens. Peck was a teenager studying at the School of American Ballet at Lincoln Center when the album was released and became deeply affected by it.

“It helped me understand the world and myself and my place in the world,” Peck said at a talkback March 14 at the Armory. He worked with playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury on the story, which doesn’t have spoken dialogue.

The reviews for the show at the Armory offer any number of positive quotes for ads. (Advertising will be handled by AKA, which like the St. James is part of Ambassador Theatre Group. Last year, ATG acquired control of the St. James and Jujamcyn’s four other theaters.)  The New York Times’ Jesse Green called it “a mysterious and deeply moving dance-musical hybrid;” Vulture’s Sara Holdren wrote that its “extraordinary corps of dancers, musicians, and singers throws open a window to the cosmos, and we all turn like hungry wintering plants toward the sun.”

The St. James becomes available on April 7, thanks to the early closing of the revival of Spamalot after five months. The Illinoise transfer was earlier reported by Jonathan Lewis, otherwise known as Sweaty Oracle on TikTok. (Credit where credit is due.)

Illinoise would be the 15th new musical of the season, according to IBDB credits. (Only 14 of those will be competing for best musical, because the Tony administration committee ruled that Gutenberg! The Musical! will be eligible in the best revival category.)

Nobile’s ever-busy company Seaview is scheduled to open Lempicka, the long-gestating new musical about the artist Tamara de Lempicka, at the Longacre two weeks before Illinoise. He’s also a lead producer of Stereophonic, David Adjmi’s play with music that opens April 19 at the 805-seat John Golden.

Stereophonic appears to be selling well — a sign that a show without stars or a well-known brand, like Illinoise, still stands a chance of succeeding. By opening on Broadway this season, Illinoise producers are capitalizing on the buzz, but they’ll be under pressure to sell a lot of tickets fast.

[popculturebrain]

‘Sweeney Todd’ Revival Heading To Broadway With Josh Groban, Annaleigh Ashford & ‘Hamilton’ Director Thomas Kail – Report

The production – reported exclusively today by Philip Boroff’s Broadway Journal site – would be the latest in a string of Sondheim revivals staged since the Broadway icon’s death on Nov. 21, 2021.

Subscribe to the Pop Culture Brain Daily newsletter for more stories like this!

[newyorktheater]

This month’s roundup of some of the latest posts from the few still active theater bloggers offers varying reactions and responses to COVID-19, from practical (Broadway & Me, JK Theater Scene) to newsworthy (Broadway Journal) to star-studded (The Producer’s Perspective) to curmudgeonly (George Hunka) And a couple of bloggers goes on with their work,  almost asl usual (Terry Teachout and Szymkowicz) though there are clear signs even in their work that nothing is usual at the moment. We start with Bitter Gertrude, who has one of the most original responses.

In the post “You’re Not Ok? Glad to Hear It,” on Bitter Gertrude, Melissa Hillman explains why she hasn’t blogged for eight months, detailing a truly horrendous pile-up of personal catastrophes. “That’s not even everything, and this was all before the virus. Today is Day 11 of shelter-in-place with no real end in sight.“ She uses her experience to make a point about how the culture is “awash in “Never Stop,” “No Excuses” propaganda, and I am clearly as susceptible to that as anyone else…Even in the midst of this horrific pandemic, there’s pressure to ACHIEVE….When we refuse to accept our limitations, we prop up an ableist culture that sees any physical, mental, or emotional limitation as a moral failing. …What we need is cultural acceptance of limitations.” So happy to have her back blogging

In Created Unequal, on About Last Night, Terry Teachout excerpts his Wall Street Journalreview of a webcast of the Syracuse Stage’s revival of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus.

He also writes a thank you note. Over the last few weeks, his blog has been chronicling the health issues, surgery and recovery of his wife, whom he calls Mrs. T’

Adam Szymkowicz interviews his 1084th playwright, David Hanson

Q: Tell me about your short play project.

A: The Short Play Project is a social distance art experiment, in which people are invited to make videos from my short play scripts which I then post on social media.

In “Theater Life in These Uncertain Times” on Broadway & Me, Janice Simpson details some of the many ways theater continues, mostly online, and theater people persist. One big comfort in these uncertain times is knowing that we’re all in this together and that there’s no finer company with whom to see the tough times through than the people who make and love theater

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In Broadway Journal, Philip Boroff has been covering the effects on the theater community of COVID-19 with a series of breaking news post. His latest: Broadway League Creates Financial Relief Info Sites He also reports on his Zoom interview with another avid blogger, Ken Davenport: A Broadway Maverick Contemplates a Post-Covid Future

Is this the end of the Broadway boom? Oh yeah, it’s going to take a massive bite out of the business. I think the boom is definitely over. The question is, is how quickly it bangs back. And it will, and then some. One day we’ll look back at this like we look back at the dark period of the ’80s, or post-9/11, or the financial crisis in 2008, and say, ‘Can you believe where we are now compared to where we were then?’ And I’m doing everything I can, including getting producers like Kevin McCollum [on April 5] and writers like Jeanine Tesori [April 4] and actors like Jason Alexander [April 13] on my live stream, to make sure they say to every theater maker out there, ‘don’t give up the fight.’

George Hunka offers A Toast to Self Isolating

“Self-quarantine and self-isolation are not new to me; I’ve been self-isolating since 1962, but instead of prudent caution I do it more because I hate people.” He recommends some authors of black humor. This was posted on March 13 before the stay-at-home orders. He followed post-shutin with A Toast to Misanthropy

JK Theatre Scene offers 5 Broadway Things We’ve Done to Pass The Time : 1. Reliving fond memories of Broadway through my Playbill Collection. 2. Dusting off original cast recordings. 3. Seeing Broadway stars in their homes! (online) 4. Recreating the theater experience through video. 5. Theater books!

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Ken Davenport is using his Producer’s Perspective blog to promote his https://www.theproducersperspective.com/LIVE Producer’s Perspective Live page (which links to his Facebook page) – nightly interviews with celebrated Broadway composers, producers, performers, publicists (no playwrights yet; I guess Adam Szymkowicz is on top of that.)

NewYorkTheater.me, my contribution: Where To Get Your Theater Fix Online, Old Favorites and New Experiments, which I’m trying to keep updated — an impossible task.

NY Theater Blog Roundup: Responding to COVID-19 in unexpected ways This month's roundup of some of the latest posts from the few still active theater bloggers offers varying reactions and responses to COVID-19, from practical (Broadway & Me, JK Theater Scene) to newsworthy (Broadway Journal) to star-studded (The Producer's Perspective) to curmudgeonly (George Hunka) And a couple of bloggers goes on with their work,  almost asl usual (Terry Teachout and Szymkowicz) though there are clear signs even in their work that nothing is usual at the moment.

[newyorktheater]

Two of the theater bloggers below wrote about Hamilton this month, but not in a way you might expect. There is a summer theater book reading list, a guide connected to Disability Rights Month, the latest theater accusations, a comparison between stage and screen Albee, and a report of the first in-person stage show in four months….which comes with a rub.

On About Last Night, one of the most consistent surviving theater blogs, Terry Teachout looks at Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf On Screen and Stage “On paper, Mike Nichols’ 1966 film version looked like a disaster in the making….Yet against all odds, the film version of “Virginia Woolf” proved to be a wholly successful big-screen realization of Albee’s play…”

Adam Szymkowicz is back interviewing playwrights, four this month (that’s numbers 1087-1090): Yvette Heyliger, Christina Hamlett Annabelle Lee Revak, Amy Drake

For Disability Pride Month, Melissa Hillman offers what she promises to be the first of several posts, this one entitled Anti-Ableism 101: How to Be A Better Ally (I’m hoping one of them will be about disability and the theater — a rich topic in itself.)

Her post reads like a course syllabus (she’s a professor after all, in addition to being a theater director) — but an especially clear one

Examine Your Expectations Not every disability is visible Disability is not all or nothing Do not assume you know what we need

Language: Refer to us as “people with disabilities”…Put people first. “Avoid … “blind” and “deaf” as metaphors for ignorance”

On Broadway & Me,Janice Simpson offers a list of recommended Theater Books for Summer Reading — two of which I agree wholeheartedly: Playwrights on Television by Hillary Miller and especially Shakespeare in a Divided America by James Shapiro.

On Broadway Journal,  Philip Boroff has (as usual) been breaking news. The latest: Hamilton Producer Received Emergency Small Business Loan

On JK’s Theatre Scene,  Jeff Kyler announces what he considers the three best performances of the decade: Elaine May in the Waverly Gallery; Cynthia Errivo in The Color Purple; Katrina Lenk in The Band’s Visit

  Onstage Blog’s Ryan Burle writes Zoom is Changing Theatre and Tiring You Out, Here’s Why, while Chris Peterson details accusations against Circle in the Square Theatre School leveled by some of its students that are at best insensitive

For Theatre’s Leiter Side, Samuel Leiter continues to post entries from his unpublished  Encyclopedia of The New York Stage, 1970-1976, each entry a different show, organized alphabetically. Among the latest (with an excerpt of his comments): Hay Fever

Some of New York’s best-known actors were involved in this sorry revival of the popular 1925 comedy about Judith Bliss (Shirley Booth), an overly dramatic ex-actress, her eccentric family, and their odd assortment of discomfited June weekend guests. Almost without exception, the critics were allergic to the performance of the egregiously miscast leading lady

The Hashish Club Brought to New York from Los Angeles by its original troupe, members of the Company Theatre, this would-be piece of experimental theatre was yawned off the stage in a week.

On The Play’s The Thing UK, Laura Kressly writes about an actual play in person, not online. Bard in the Yard, a play ironically about how Shakespeare is stuck at home during the 1605 plague. There are a few catches, or rubs as she puts it, cleverly. It was a solo show outdoors in a park, which was performed for just two critics, including Laura. AND: “The show is only bookable for private performances and due to a lack of funding and a need to cover costs, it isn’t cheap.”

  In The Wicked Stage, Rob Weinert-Kendt writes about Hamilton, which he covered for the New York Times before it opened Off-Broadway. His take now: The Moment ‘Hamilton’ Slips Off Track

Hamilton happens to be one of those pop culture staples, like Seinfeld or the Beatles, that you almost don’t need to immerse yourself in deeply to feel soaked in; it’s somehow everywhere all the time, as if it were always there. Still, my tween son’s fervent embrace, and incessant replaying, of the cast album in recent years has imprinted much of it on me afresh. And there’s one part of it that has always brought me up short in the best way…

Theater Blog Roundup: Yes, Hamilton, but also Summer Theater Books, Disability Rights Month, Albee on Stage and Screen Two of the theater bloggers below wrote about Hamilton this month, but not in a way you might expect.

[newyorktheater]

Below are some of the latest posts from the few still active New York City theater bloggers: About Last Night and Broadway Journal tell two different West Side Stories; Broadway and Me analyzes three new “traditional” musicals; George Hunka talks trash; Ken Davenport talks tech, and also Grammys. Adam Szymkowicz interviews another playwright (yes, he’s still doing that.)

Most of the theater blogs I’ve followed from the get-go seem to have given up in the past year, if not earlier.  I couldn’t even find the website of the Independent Theater Bloggers Association, which used to have at least 50 members and hand out annual awards, and to which I thought I still  belonged. (As it turns out, its last Tweet was in 2012!) This makes me feel behind the times. But I also feel too old to switch to Tik Tok, too verbal for Instagram and too impatient for podcasts. (I do rely on Twitter, although that too is starting to feel like an exercise in nostalgia.)

In About Last Night, Terry Teachout excerpts his Wall Street Journal review of Ivo van Hove’s production of West Side Story, which he entitles Worst Side Story: “This is not the ‘West Side Story’ you know and love, and there are some—quite a few, actually—who’ll likely tell you that it’s not ‘West Side Story’ at all.” It is instead, “like everything else he’s done in New York, a medley of self-regarding minimalist clichés slathered with political sauce….”

In a previous post, Teachout quotes G.K. Chesterton on open-mindedness: “…I am incurably convinced that the object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.”

In Broadway Journal, Philip Boroff’s review of West Side Story is more positive; he calls it “a dazzling new revival” although he does consider it  “more dynamic than moving. “

His previous post is a news exclusive about the $10 million advance sale for Plaza Suite on Broadway

JK’s Theatre Scene finds this West Side Story “startling and supremely satisfying,” though oddly both leads were performed by understudies on the day he saw the show.

Adam Szymkowicz interviews his 1072nd playwright, Kareem Fahmy, whose latest play, “The Distinct Society” is getting a reading Thursday at the Lark. Fahmy: “I would like to see the emergence of a real “canon” of contemporary Middle Eastern American plays…My community is still hugely underrepresented.”

Jan Simpson in “Broadway and Me” asks whether “traditional musicals” have a future – those with plots, original tunes, lines that rhyme, and “written for people who are no longer in high school” – by looking at three new examples: Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice; Romeo & Bernadette; and Darling Grenadine. She finds two of them pretty good.

George Hunka offers a toast to trash, by which he means comics, Huckleberry Finn, and ragtime – all of which were (are?) treated like trash, in part because they were “distinctly American creations, repudiating European expression and embracing American voices.”

He also promotes a free concert at NYU tonight  American Spectral: Works for Piano and Electronics concert by Marilyn Nonken, who happens to be his wife

In The Producer’s Perspective, Ken Davenport points out “in the last 10 years, the Best Musical Tony Award winner has won the Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album seven (7) times.” Coincidence? Probably not.

In his latest post, he uses the analogy of a tube of toothpaste (in which you always seem to have plenty of it until the very end) to argue for pacing yourself in tech rehearsals.

In Theatre’s Leiter Side, Samuel Leiter finds the Keen Company production of Pearl Cleage’s Blues for an Alabama Sky “satisfactory, if unremarkable.”

NY Theater Blog Roundup: Tugging over West Side Story.Talking Trash and Tech Below are some of the latest posts from the few still active New York City theater bloggers: About Last Night and Broadway Journal tell two different West Side Stories; Broadway and Me analyzes three new "traditional" musicals; George Hunka talks trash; Ken Davenport talks tech, and also Grammys.

[newyorktheater]

André Bishop, head of Lincoln Center Theater: $1 million Todd Haimes, Roundabout: $922,000. Oskar Eustis the Public Theater: $659,000 Lynne Meadows, MTC: $565,000 Carole Rothman, Second Stage $191,000 James Nicola, New York Theatre Workshop: $178,000

These are the latest known annual compensation for the artistic heads of NYC non-profit theaters, compiled by Philip Boroff in Broadway Journal, who judiciously explains the artistic and financial accomplishments of each, and points out their sacrifices: Rothman’s salary represents a 50 percent paycut from her previous annual compensation while fundraising for the Hayes.

“Not-for-profit leaders forego the potential windfall that commercial producers earn from a blockbuster, in favor of a job with steady income. Yet some company trustees and foundation leaders privately call the biggest nonprofit packages excessive, the appearance of which can deter donors.”

  November Theater Openings

Alia Shawkat in “The Second Woman”

October Quiz

  The Week in New York Theater Reviews

Aran Murphyas Hamnet, in person and projected onto the screen, along with Bush Moukarzel as his father Shakespeare

Hamnet and the absent (projected) Shakespeare, his father

Hamnet

William Shakespeare’s only son, named Hamnet, died when he was 11 years old; a few years later, the playwright wrote “Hamlet.”  The Irish theater troupe Dead Centre conjures up the Bard’s boy in the hour-long “Hamnet,” a whimsical, tender, technically innovative avant-garde play that features an extraordinary performance by a 12-year-old named Aran Murphy.

He Did What?

a ten-minute animated opera that was projected for free onto the wall of BAM’s Peter Jay Sharp building nightly from 7 to 10 p.m

Raul Esparza as a temperamental chef in “Seared”

W. Tre Davis

Raul Esparza and Krysta Rodriguez

Seared

Theresa Rebeck’s slight but savory comedy  about  running a restaurant stars Raúl Esparza as Harry, a hilariously mercurial chef-owner of a hole-in-the-wall eatery  that’s become the latest foodie destination. A blurb in New York Magazine has praised Harry’s ginger lemongrass scallops dish, so now the customers are flocking to the place and clamoring for the dish.

But Harry refuses to make it anymore.

“I’m not feeling the scallops,” he says.

Freestyle Love Supreme

Freestyle Love Supreme, the hip-hop improv group,is not so much Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway follow-up to “Hamilton” as it is a subsidiary of Lin-Manuel Inc. …It is designed to feel good-natured and informal, like friends sitting around a dorm room at Wesleyan, even though there are 766 of us and we’re at the Booth Theater…That goodwill goes a long way.

Fear

Two adults are standing over a teenager named Jamie who is tied to a chair. Phil, a plumber, has kidnapped Jamie, and dragged him into this abandoned tool shed in the woods outside Princeton, New Jersey. Ethan, a professor, is trying to rescue Jamie…An eight-year-old girl from the neighborhood is missing, and Phil (Enrico Colantoni, who plays the genial father in Veronica Mars), has reason to suspect that Jamie (Alexander Garfin) has something to do with it.  Or does he?…A play that requires a vigorous suspension of disbelief. Yet, if you can get over that hurdle, it offers three good actors constantly playing with our perspective – not only about who did what but such issues as moral relativism, class tensions, and…fear

  The Sound Inside

“The Sound Inside” is a dark drama by Adam Rapp that keeps us in the dark, literally and figuratively, which works better while watching it on stage than thinking about it afterwards. Mary-Louise Parker portrays a middle-aged Yale professor named Bella Lee Baird, who prefers literature to life, and expects to die soon; she tells us she’s been diagnosed with cancer. Bella slowly develops a friendship with 18-year-old Christopher Dunn (Will Hochman), one of the students in her course…They turn out to share a taste in books, especially dark tales like Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment,” which is one of so many book titles name-dropped during the course of the play that the script could serve as a reading list (which I include in the review.)

Monsoon Season

Lizzie Vieh’s black comedy about a divorced couple permanently underwater in Phoenix Arizona, is clever and merciless, but it is also oddly compassionate….Danny and his ex-wife Julia may be losers who constantly make laughably wrong choices, but they are trying to do right, to be better.

The Week in New York Theater News

“The Minutes,” Tracy Letts’ most political play to date, will have its first preview on February 25, as this cryptic e-mail revealed. No theater or cast have been announced. The play, which premiered at the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago in 2017, is about a City Council meeting in the fictional town called Big Cherry that turns ominous. Letts began work on it before the 2016 election,

“The play is not about Trump or Trumpism — I don’t find him a particularly complicated figure — but it is about this contentious moment we’re having in American politics in the last few years,”

Andrew Garfield will star in the Netflix adaptation of Rent playwright Jonathan Larson’s autobiographical musical tick…tick…BOOM, directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

    Lear deBessonet will lead Encores!  starting officially in the 2021 season, succeeding Jack Viertel

Samira Wiley and Dominic Fumusa will star In Molière in the Park‘s “The School for Wives” in Prospect Park, November 13 and 14 FREE.

  Thomas Finkelpearl is leaving his job as cultural affairs commissioner after five years. “The timing of it is suspect,” councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, chair of the city council’s cultural affairs committee, told NY1. Some speculate he’s unfairly taking the fall for the various controversies and glitches over the city’s plan to build more statues honoring women and people of color. Finkelpearl helped spearhead the city’s efforts to tie its funding to the diversity of arts institutions’ employees and board members under the cultural plan, unveiled in 2017.

Billy Porter, performer, now playwright

Idina Menzel, Lea Michele and Billy Porter will be among those performing at the 93rd annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

Remember when Billy Porter performed at the parade in 2013, as Lola in Kinky Boots?  and conservatives were outraged? Have times changed?

  Times Square is presenting its first annual Show Globes, displaying giant snow globe-like sculptures of   Dear Evan Hansen, Wicked, Ain’t Too Proud, and The Lion King. On Broadway Plaza in Times Square between 44th and 45th streets through December 26.

2020 Seasons

  2020 Under the Radar Festival celebrates its 16th season with a line-up of groundbreaking artists across the U.S. and around the world, including Australia, Chile, China, Japan, Mexico, Palestine, Taiwan, and the UK.

92nd Street Y’s Lyrics and Lyricists

Yip Harburg Jan 25-27 Jerry Herman Feb 22-24 George Gershwin March 21-23 Stephen Schwartz and Broadway’s Next Generation (featuring Schwartz and Ns Marcy Heisler & Zina Goldrich, John Bucchino, Khiyon Hursey) April 18-20 George Abbott and the Making of the American Musical May 30-June 1

  Lincoln Center’s American Songbook Series

  Andre De Shields January 29 Joe Iconis Feb 1 Ali Stroker Feb 28

   Theatre Row, a six-theatre complex located on 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, has announced the Off-Off-Broadway companies that will be making work at its spaces, as part of the complex’s new Kitchen Sink Residency. The two-year program will give the companies space to develop new work, culminating in a three-week production run. The companies are the Assembly, Broken Box Mime Theater, LubDub Theatre Company, Noor Theatre, and Superhero Clubhouse.

The Critic Unmellowed

From Wall Street Journal interview  with John Simon, 94:

“His penchant for criticizing actors’ and actresses’ physical traits —he once wrote unkindly about Liza Minnelli’s face, and another time about Barbra Streisand’s nose— has also helped to make him repugnant to the city’s cultural elite. He contended at the time, and again to me, that such criticism is entirely legitimate if a performer fails to transcend his or her defects of appearance by force of talent.” (How does one “transcend” one’s appearance?)

On how theater has not declined:

“Things were never very good,” he says.“I don’t really see a decline. Looking back into the past always makes the past look better than it actually was,and the present worse, perhaps, than it actually is. . . Out of, I don’t know how many plays open in a season —a lot of them anyway—there may be two or three even worth bothering with. It has always been so.”

  Rest in Peace

Bernard Slade, 89, creator of the TV series “The Flying Nun” and “The Partridge Family,” but we know him as the Broadway playwright of “Same Time, Next Year,” a long-running and widely-produced stage comedy.

Andile Gumbi , 36, former Simba of Broadway’s The Lion King. He died of cardiac arrest while in Israel , Gumbi was portraying the lead role of King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel The Musical at the Jerusalem Theater.

A memorial for Eric LaJuan Summers will be held on Nov 4th, 2019 at 9:30pm at The Green Room 42 on W42nd Street & 10th Ave. Members of the Broadway community will be performing.

    Non-Profit Pays! Letts’ Turn to Politics. #Stageworthy News of the Week André Bishop, head of Lincoln Center Theater: $1 million Todd Haimes, Roundabout: $922,000. Oskar Eustis the Public Theater: $659,000…