B'way Update: Oh, Mary!, Crazy Rich Asians, etc.

Cole Escola in Oh, Mary!
will transfer to Broadway this summer.
Credit: Emilio Madrid

Mary Todd Lincoln is coming to Broadway. After a sold-out, twice extended run at the Lortel Theater Off-Broadway, Cole Escola's riotous comedy Oh, Mary! starring Escola in the title role, will transfer to the Lyceum Theater this summer. Performances begin June 26 in advance of a July 11 opening for a limited run through Sept. 15. 

Oh, Mary! stars Escola as a miserable, suffocated Mary Todd Lincoln in the weeks leading up to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Unrequited yearning, alcoholism and suppressed desires abound in this one act play that finally examines the forgotten life and dreams of Mrs. Lincoln through the lens of an idiot (Cole Escola). The show also stars Conrad Ricamora as Mary’s Husband, James Scully as Mary’s Teacher, Bianca Leigh as Mary’s Chaperone, and Tony Macht as Mary’s Husband’s Assistant, with Hannah Solow and Peter Smith completing the cast. 

Mrs. Lincoln has been portrayed on Broadway before in a more serious vein. In the Broadway season of 1972-73, she was portrayed in three productions by Julie Harris in The Last of Mrs. Lincoln (Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play), Eva Marie Saint in The Lincoln Mask and Geraldine Page in Look Away.

Dead Outlaw Lives with 9 OCC Noms

Andrew Durand and Jeb Brown
are both nominated for OCC Awards
for Dead Outlaw.
Credit: Matthew Murphy

Dead Outlaw, the Off-Broadway musical tracing the true history of a mummified corpse found in an amusement ride, received the most Outer Critics Circle Award nominations with 9. Stereophonic got the most for Broadway productions with 7. The nominations were announced on April 23 by Merrily We Roll Along stars Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff and Lindsay Mendez at the Museum of Broadway. Groff and Mendez won OCC awards last year for the show's Off-Broadway run. 

Founded during the 1949-50 Broadway season by respected theater journalist John Gassner, the Outer Critics Circle's membership includes writers working for more than 90 newspapers, magazines, broadcast stations, and online news organizations worldwide. David Gordon leads the group as president, with a board of directors that also includes Richard Ridge, Joseph Cervelli, Patrick Hoffman, David Roberts, Cynthia Allen, Harry Haun, Dan Rubins, Janice Simpson, and Doug Strassler. The board also serves as the nominating committee.

The OCC considers both Broadway and Off-Broadway productions, in some categories together and in others separately. Beginning last year, the organization eliminated gender-specific acting categories.

The winners will be announced on May 13 with a ceremony to follow on May 23 at the Bruno Walter Auditiorium of the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts.

Jonathan Groff, Lindsay Mendez and
Daniel Radcliffe announced the OCC noms
at the Museum of Broadway.
Credit: Matthew Cubillos / The Museum of Broadway

A complete list of the nominees follows:

2024 OUTER CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD NOMINATIONS

 
Outstanding New Broadway Play
Jaja's African Hair Braiding by Jocelyn Bioh
Mother Play: A Play in Five Evictions by Paula Vogel
Patriots by Peter Morgan
Stereophonic by David Adjmi
The Shark Is Broken by Joseph Nixon and Ian Shaw
 

Drama League Nominations

Lindsay Mendez, Jonathan Groff, and
Daniel Radcliffe of Merrily We Roll Along
are all nominated for the Distinguished Performance
Drama League Award.
Credit: Joan Marcus

Theater award season is now in full throttle. The nominees for the 90th annual Drama League Awards were announced  by Vanessa Williams and Bebe Neuwirth on Mon. April 22 at the Lincoln Center's NY Public Library for the Performing Arts. The awards for outstanding work on and Off-Broadway, will be presented on May 17 at 12 noon at the Ziegfeld Ballroom. First awarded in 1922 and formalized in 1935, The Drama League Awards are the oldest theatrical honors in America. They are the only major theater awards chosen by a cross-section of the theater community — the industry professionals, producers, artists, audiences, and critics who are Drama League members nationwide. The Outer Critics Circle Award noms will be announced tomorrow and the Drama Desk and Tony noms will be next week.

2024 DRAMA LEAGUE AWARDS NOMINATIONS

 
OUTSTANDING PRODUCTION OF A PLAY
 
THE COMEUPPANCE 
 
FLEX
 
GRIEF HOTEL
 
THE HUNT
 
JAJA’S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING 
 
MOTHER PLAY
 
OH, MARY!
 
PATRIOTS
 
PRAYER FOR THE FRENCH REPUBLIC
 
STEREOPHONIC
 
WET BRAIN

Dudley Malone: Supporting Character in Two Musicals

Dudley Field Malone who appears
in Suffs and whom I played
in an Off-Off-Bway musical

In April of 2022, at the end of a marathon of theatergoing to catch up with all the shows opening before the cut-off before Tony and Drama Desk eligibility, I was watching Shaina Taub's musical Suffs at the Public Theater. This inventive historical pageant follows the sweeping story of the Women's Suffrage Movement of the early 20th century. All of the many roles, both male and female, are played an all-woman cast. One of the male roles was that of Dudley Malone, President Woodrow Wilson's Chief of Staff, who resigns in protest over Wilson's opposition to the women's cause and eventually marries Doris Stevens, one of the leaders of the movement. Taub has rewritten and revised the show and now it has just opened on Broadway in another crowded season. I loved it even more this time and hope it survives the Tony nominations.

As I watching this supporting character,  I remembered where I had heard the name before. Malone was later served as co-counsel to Clarence Darrow in the Scopes Monkey trial, defending Tennessee school teacher John T. Scopes for daring to teaching Darwin's theory of evolution in the Bible Belt state. Ironically, Malone was also a character in an obscure musical based on that trial, called--wait for it--Sodom and Gorilla (get it?) And I played that role in an Off-Off-Broadway production.

Tsilala Brock as Dudley Malone and 
Grace McLean as President Woodrow Wilson
in Suffs.
Credit: Joan Marcus

He later specialized in international divorce cases and established an office in Paris. After declaring bankruptcy in 1935, he moved to Hollywood, serving as legal consultant to 20th Century Fox and even appearing in a few films. His resemblance to Winston Churchill got his cast as the British Prime Minister in Mission to Moscow (1943). He is listed on imdb.com as making an unbilled appearance as Churchill in An American in Paris, but I don't remember it. I have to look at the film again. After divorcing Stevens in 1929 in Paris, he married actress Edna Louise Johnson in London in 1930. He died in 1950 in Los Angeles.

Dudley Malone as Winston
Churchill with unbilled
actor as Stalin in
Mission to Moscow

Book Review: Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom

(Bought with the remainder of a Barnes and Noble Christmas gift card): I saw this on the counter at Barnes and Noble and the subject matter grabbed me. This actually happened: Ellen and William Craft escaped from slavery in 1848 Macon, Georgia by disguising themselves a young white man and his slave. Ellen was light enough to pass as white and was a clever seamstress. She made herself a suit of clothes and wearing scarves and bandages was able to impersonate a young, white man in ill-health. This was the only disguise that would work. A black man traveling with what appeared to be a white woman would have gotten them both killed. They got on board a series of trains to Philadelphia, then settled in Boston, supposedly beyond the reach of slave catchers. But the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 forced them to move again, all the way up to Canada and then to England. 

Ilyon Woo's narrative reads like a Netflix mini-series with Ellen and William on the verge of being discovered at every moment. Woo details what their trip would have been like with research on what trains, ships, and stagecoaches were like at the time. She also provides context and background with histories of the Crafts' families and their enslavers. Gender issues are also explored. Ellen defied so many rules of the day, but when the couple escaped the Great Britain and went on the lecture circuit, she did not speak. William did the talking because it was considered unseemly for a lady to appear to show agency and speak about it in public. A fascinating read and deep dive into the history of slavery and those who escaped from it.

Woody Allen's Coup de Chance

Niels Schneider and Lou de Laage
in Woody Allen's
Coup de Chance

The main reasons to see Woody Allen's Coup de Chance are the gorgeous shots of Paris and the French countryside in autumn, and, if you are completist like me, to be able to say you've seen all 50 of his films. Otherwise, this latest and perhaps final effort from Allen is another retread of his suspense, trick-ending efforts such as Crimes and Misdemeanors, Scoop, Match Point, You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger, Irrational Man, and Cassandra's Dream, except it lacks the humor of the first two. A woman embarks on an affair with her high school classmate she happens to bump into on the street. Her husband discovers her infidelity and hires underworld goons to "eliminate the problem." Sound familiar? So many of Allen's "suspense" films seem to be about creating plot twists and story problems to solve rather than examining human beings and their foibles. Coup de Chance most closely resembles the Martin Landau plot arc of Crimes and Misdemeanors, which I felt was the weakest part of that film. Allen is fascinated with guilty people operating outside the law and sometimes getting away with it. Perhaps this parallels his subconscious feelings of guilt over the Soon-Yi affair/marriage and his daughter Dylan's accusations of child abuse. Although I don't see the comparisons clearly. Maybe he wants to exact his own form of justice? I saw this at the Quad at 11:30 am on the Monday of the solar eclipse. The film was gorgeous to look at (I didn't look at the eclipse because I had no special glasses), but it felt as empty as Rifkin's Festival, Allen's last film. I didn't care what happened to any of the characters as I did in Radio Days, recently viewed on TCM. There are reports Allen will be filming another movie in Italy this fall. I will probably see it, but not expect anything great.

B'way Update: Duelling Romeo and Juliets????

Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler 
will star in Romeo and Juliet on Broadway
this fall. 

A new production of Romeo and Juliet is coming to Broadway this fall, but not the one with Tom Holland and Francesca Amewudah-Rivers that is opening in London this May. A totally different Romeo and Juliet, starring Kit Connor (Heartstopper) and Rachel Zegler (Steven Speilberg's West Side Story) featuring music by Grammy winner Jack Antonoff and direction by Tony winner Sam Gold (Fun Home) has been announced to open this fall 2024. The UK Mail had reported the London R&J, directed by Jamie Lloyd, was planning to transfer to Broadway after its sold-out West End, but this has not been confirmed. 

So we might have two Romeo and Juliets on Broadway in 2024-25. It's not unprecedented. There were two major simultaneous productions of R&J in NYC in 2013: one on Broadway with Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad, and one Off-Broadway at CSC with Elizabeth Olsen and Julian Cihi.

Director Sam Gold said, “With the presidential election coming up in November, I felt like making a show this fall that celebrates youth and hope, and unleashes the anger young people feel about the world they are inheriting."

The press release explains the story thusly: "The youth are fucked. Left to their own devices in their parents’ world of violent ends, an impulsive pair of star-crossed lovers hurtle towards their inescapable fate. The intoxicating high of passion quickly descends into a brutal chaos that can only end one way."