Book Review: Eleanor in the Village: Eleanor Roosevelt's Search for Freedom and Identity in New York's Greenwich Village

(Bought at the Strand Bookstore's stand at Central Park and Fifth Ave. for $10) Jan Jarboe Russell's brief (around 200 pages) study of Mrs. Roosevelt and her time in Greenwich Village reveals some new details and information, but it's so short that it doesn't go very deep into her life behind the scenes as a political wife. Russell gets most of her details from other books and only includes a few interviews with descendants of participants. We get Eleanor and Franklin's bios in a nutshell, as well as the bargain they struck when she found out about his affair with Eleanor's social secretary. They stayed together for the sake of the kids and his political career--that and his mom said she'd cut him off without a penny if he divorced Eleanor. The couple agreed to live their own lives but to work as a political team. Eleanor rented an apartment on 11th Street in the Village and worked with progressive women--mostly lesbians---on her favorite causes. We don't learn much about her day-to-day existence. How did she balance duties in Albany, Hyde Park, and DC with motherhood and being FDR's hostess? What was life like in the Village at this time? Who lived there other than the few famous names mentioned? Doris Kearns Goodwin's No Ordinary Time offers a more detailed account of a typical day for both husband and wife in her first 100 pages. 

B'way Update: Second Stage Season

Leslye Headland

Second Stage has announced its fall and winter openings for the 2024-25 Broadway and Off-Broadway season. Cult of Love by Emmy nominee Leslye Headland will premiere at Second Stage's Broadway Theatre the Hayes with previews commencing on Nov. 20 and opening Dec. 12. Off-Broadway, Pulitzer Prize winner Donald Marguiles' Lunar Eclipse will play the Kiser Theater starting previews Oct. 9 and an opening set for Oct. 30.

“I’m excited and proud to be working with these incredible artists next season,” said Interim Artistic Director Bennett Leak.  “I have had the opportunity to collaborate with several of them at Second Stage and I look forward to joining forces once again. We will welcome audiences back for Season 46, where they can expect another year of innovative artists and bold plays by living American writers.” 

Cult of Love focuses on the Dahl Family and their calamitous holiday season. The four adult children return to their childhood home with partners in tow. The Dahl traditions include singing carols in harmony at the drop of a hat, but the gathering is anything but harmonious. Old conflicts resurface, new issues battled, and dinner is taking absolutely forever to be served. 

Leslye Heartland returns to Second Stage which produced her play, Bachelorette, in its Uptown Series, and her play, The Layover, off-Broadway at the Kiser Theater. She recently completed “Star Wars: The Acolyte” for the Disney+ streaming platform. She served as writer, director, executive producer, and showrunner. Headland served as writer, producing director and showrunner for Netflix’s acclaimed series “Russian Doll.” The series was nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards. Drama League nominee Trip Cullman (I Can Get It For You Wholesale) directs.

B'way Update: Swept Away Dates, MTC Season

Swept Away will play the Longacre.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

After the Tonys, there is still lots of Broadway news to report: Swept Away and Eureka Day now have dates for upcoming runs and the latter announces its casting. Manhattan Theater Club has announced three world premiere productions for its Off-Broadway 2024-25 season, one of which will be co-production with Signature Theatre. 

Swept Away, the musical following four survivors of an 1888 shipwreck, will begin previews at the Longacre Theater on Oct. 29 and open on Nov. 19. The musical features a book by John Logan (Red, Moulin Rouge! The Musical), direction by Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening, American Idiot) and choreography by Tony Award nominee David Neumann (Hadestown). Previous stagings have been seen at Arena Stage and Berekely Rep.

Zoe Chao will star in
Eureka Day.

Eureka Day, Jonathan Spector's comedy about the havoc wrecked by vaccination requirements at a California elementary school, will begin previews on Nov. 25 and open on Dec. 16 at Manhattan Theater Club's Broadway berth, the Samuel J. Friedman. The cast will include Zoe Chao (Peacock's If You Were the Last), Tony nominee Amber Gray (Hadestown), Tony nominee Jessica Hecht (Summer 1976, The Assembled Parties), Tony winner Bill Irwin (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), and Emmy nominee Thomas Middleditch (Silicon Valley). This Broadway premiere MTC engagement will be directed by Tony winner Anna D. Shapiro (August: Osage County) following a London production. Eureka Day previously played Off-Broadway in 2019.

Book Review: Kafka on the Shore

(Taken out of the Jackson Heights Public Library) I have to be in the right mood for a Haruki Murakami novel. His short stories are easier to take. The novels are full of symbols, magic realism, nightmares and bizarre plot twists that make no sense unless you wrack your brain to figure them out. But the characters are so real and their plights so relatable that one is drawn into his mystical dreamscapes. This one at about 360 pages was intoxicating and not as much of a chore as the much-longer Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. (Some day I will try the 900-page IQ84.) The novel follows the seemingly separate but later interconnected stories of Kafka, a 15-year-old runaway who may or may not have killed his father, and Nakata, a 60-ish mentally-challenged man who can talk to cats. Their chapters alternate until their stories overlap and complete each other. In addition to talking cats, we have fish and leeches falling from the sky like rain, Johnny Walker and Colonel Sanders coming to life, stones with personality, enigmatic characters and relationships. Murakami not only echoes Kafka, but also Greek tragedy and The Sound of Music. It's a weird experience, mainly about coming of age, finding your identity and coming to terms with your past, but all in indirect and metaphorical ways. Strangely absorbing.

B'way Update: The Last Five Years

Adrienne Warren and Nick Jonas
will star in The Last Five Years
on Broadway.

Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years will have its Broadway premiere in a new production starring Tony winner Adrienne Warren (Tina: The Tina Turner Musical) and Nick Jonas (The Jonas Brothers, How to Succeed) directed by Tony and Drama Desk nominee Whitney White (Jaja's African Hair Braiding, On Sugarland), set to open in spring 2025. The two-character musical premiered at the Northlight Theater in Skokie, Illinois. It opened Off-Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theater in 2002 with Norbert Leo Butz and Sherie Rene Scott, winning Drama Desk Awards for Brown's Music and Lyrics. A 2013 revival at Second Stage starred Adam Kantor and Betsy Wolfe. The 2014 film version directed by Richard LaGravenese was headlined by Jeremy Jordan and Anna Kendrick.

The plot follows the five-year relationship between author Jamie Wellerstein and actress Cathy Hiatt. The unique structure follows Jamie's story moving forward chronologically and Cathy's moving backwards. The two did not directly interact except for the wedding scene when the meet in the middle of each other's story. 

The musical is based on Brown's real-life marriage to Theresa O'Neill who sued her ex-husband for violating a non-disclosure agreement in their divorce proceeding. Brown countersued O'Neill for interfering in his creative process. In the settlement, Brown altered certain parts of the script to lessen Cathy's resemblance to O'Neill.

B'way Update: Idina Mezel in Redwood

Idina Menzel in Redwood
Credit: Rich Soublet

Tony winner Idina Mezel will return to Broadway in Redwood, a new musical she co-conceived. The original musical which premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse this past February is slated to open sometime in 2025. Written and directed by Tony Award nominee Tina Landau, with music by Kate Diaz, and lyrics by Landau and Diaz, Redwood is conceived by Landau and Menzel, with additional contributions by Menzel. Landau will also be directing the Broadway premiere of Floyd Collins, set to open next April at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater.

“I’m so thrilled to be returning to Broadway, and the fact that I get to do it with Redwood, a musical that means so much to me, makes it even more special,” Menzel said. “This show has lived in my bones for fifteen years, from the very first time Tina and I discussed working together. Finally getting to do it on Broadway is really a dream come true.” After her Tony-winning performance in Wicked, Menzel's last Broadway show was If/Then in 2014.

Redwood is a transportive new musical about one woman’s journey into the precious and precarious world of the redwood forest. Jesse (Menzel) is a successful businesswoman, mother and wife who seems to have it all, but inside, her heart is broken. Finding herself at a turning point, Jesse leaves everyone and everything behind, gets in her car and drives… Thousands of miles later, she hits the majestic forests of Northern California, where a chance meeting and a leap of faith change her life forever. With its deeply personal story, refreshingly contemporary sound, and awe-inspiring design, Redwood explores the lengths –and heights– one travels to find strength, resilience and healing.

Menzel will launch a career-spanning North American tour this summer, which will give fans an opportunity to hear a few songs from Redwood ahead of the show’s Broadway premiere. 

2024 Drama Desk Awards

Stereophonic, winner of 7 Drama
Desk Awards.
Credit: Chelcie Perry

Stereophonic, Water for Elephants and Dead Outlaw won the top honors at the 68th Drama Desk Awards, presented June 10 at NYU's Skirball Center. Stereophonic won the most accolades with seven including Outstanding Play. Water took the most musical prizes with four including Jessica Stone's direction. Dead Outlaw won Outstanding Musical, Lyrics, and Book. Outlaw is only the fifth Off-Broadway musical to take the DD's top prize (previous OB winners were Little Shop of Horrors, Hamilton, A Strange Loop, and Kimberly Akimbo). Unlike the Broadway-only Tonys, the Deskies consider Broadway and Off-Broadway in all of its multiple categories. There are whisperings that with all the prizes it has won (Outer Critics Circle and NY Drama Critics Circle), Dead Outlaw is planning a Broadway transfer.

Sutton Foster and Aaron Tveit
hosting the DD Awards

Tony winners Sutton Foster and Aaron Tveit who just completed a run co-starring in Sweeney Todd hosted the event. The ceremony opened with a funny specialty number reviewing the highlights of the past season working in a desk into the lyrics. (For Drama Desk, get it?) Andrew Rannells, Josh Breckinridge, Taylor Marie Daniel, Raymond J. Lee and Lindsay Joans joined Foster and Tveit in the opening. The ceremony was long at three hours, but never felt tedious thanks to smooth direction by Lorin Latarro and a witty script by Steve Rosen and David Rossmer. Executive producers Staci Levine and Jessica R. Jensen delivered a proficient event. At the midway point, Foster and Tveit announced the audience was in need of a sugar rush and threw Halloween-size candy packages to them (I copped a Peanut M&Ms.) Brenda Braxton supplied voice-overs, reading all of the nominees whose photos were displayed on a giant screen (Ido Levran is credited with video design). Braxton also had a funny segment announcing parody awards such as Outstanding Bathroom in a Broadway Theater (the winner was the renovated James Earl Jones Theater) and Outstanding Performance in a Made-Up Production (disgraced ex-Congressman George Santos in Starlight Express.)

The winners of the acting categories were almost all women. Last year, the Drama Desk joined the Lortel and Outer Critics Circle Awards by eliminating gender in all acting divisions due to the increasing number of non-binary performers. Except for the Solo Performance award, two winners are chosen in the acting slot with more than two winners possible in the case of ties. Only two males won--Patrick Page for his solo show All the Devils Are Here and Brian d'Arcy James of Days of Wine and Rose, co-winning Leading Performance in a Musical with his co-star Kelli O'Hara and Maleah Joi Moon of Hell's Kitchen. 

Presenters included newly-elected Equity president Brooke Shields, Laura Benanti, Matthew Broderick, Andrew Rannells, Debra Messing, Brian d’Arcy James, Montego Glover, Lena Hall, Ruthie Ann Miles, Seth Rudetsky, Shoshana Bean, James Lapine, Corbin Bleu, Sarah Hyland, Miriam Silverman, Steven Pasquale, James Monroe Inglehart, DD winner Kecia Lewis, and (via audio) Carol Burnett. There were several musical numbers. Nikki M. James performed "Wait My Turn" from Suffs. Kelli O'Hara delivered an impassioned performance of "This Nearly Was Mine" from South Pacific in tribute to William Wolf Award winner Andre Bishop, artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater. Santino Fontana introduced the Harold Prince Award for Lifetime Achievement by singing a clever medley of phrases from the many shows Prince directed and/or produced. Matthew Broderick then introduced the recipient, his Lion King voice-over, Producers and Odd Couple co-star Nathan Lane who quipped, "This is the third Lifetime Achievement Award I've received recently. I'm beginning to think there's something my doctors aren't telling me... How did I suddenly get to be Angela Lansbury? Next after Lifetime Achievement, you wind up in the In Memorial segment. It's the Show-Biz Circle of Life." 

Kara Young (Featured Performance in a Play 
for Purlie Victorious) and
Irene Gandy (Special Award for 
Career Achievement)