B'way Update: Paranormal Activity; Celebrity Autobiography; Etc.

Melissa James and Patrick Heusinger in
Paranormal Activity in London.
Credit: Johan Persson

As the 2025-26 theatrical season draws to a close, there's lots of news about the 2026-27 schedule. Two new off-beat productions have been announced, a Shakespeare revival from London finds a home and dates, an Off-Broadway revival with a rotating star-filled cast is coming, and Weird Al Yankovic is working on a show.

Paranormal Activity: A New Story Live on Broadway (in case you think it's a movie), a new play inspired by the popular film franchise, will begin previews at the August Wilson Theater on Aug. 14 prior to a Sept. 15 opening. Written by Levi Holloway (Grey House) and directed by Felix Barrett (Sleep No More), the production will come to Broadway directly from its run in Boston, following stands in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and San Francisco as well as an Oliver-nominated edition in London's West End.

The plot follows James and Lou who have relocated from Chicago to London in hopes of escaping their past, but they discover "place aren't haunted, people are."

Meanwhile, the first show of the 2026-27 season will open soon. Celebrity Autobiography, the revue featuring actors reading from the memoirs of famous people, will return to the New York stage for a summer run. The show which will feature a rotating cast starts previews at the Shubert Theater May 16, opens May 18 and runs througb Aug. 16. Autobiography played the Triad Theater Off-Broadway in 2008-09 and won a Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience.

The opening night cast includes Scott Adsit, Mario Cantone, Jeff Hiller, Jackie Hoffman, Gayle King, Andrea Martin, Bobby Moynihan, Ben Mankiewicz (of TCM), Kenan Thompson, Nia Vardalos, and Rita Wilson.

Speaking of rotating all-star casts, Eric Bentley's Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?, about the 1950s House UnAmerican Activities Committee hearings, will also have a limited summer run and feature a revolving company. Tony winner Anna D. Shapiro (August: Osage County) directs. The cast(s) have yet to be announced. Performances at New York City Center Stage I begin June 2. The play which features transcripts from the HUAC testimony of Jerome Robbins, Lillian Hellman, Arthur Miller, Sterling Hayden and many others played Off-Broadway in the 1970s. There was a brief Broadway run in 1979.

Book Review: The Little Friend

(Borrowed from the 40th St. NYPL)  I enjoyed Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch and The Secret History, so I thought I'd give this second novel of hers a try. It was certainly involving and absorbing and kept me interested for over 600 pages. The characters were portrayed with detail and compassion, even the slimy criminals. It reminded me of To Kill a Mocking Bird. Twelve-year-old Harriet spends a summer in the 1970s in her small Mississippi town searching for the killer of her brother who has found strung up on a tree ten years ago. The town of Alexandria comes alive in Tartt's fascinating descriptions. I loved Harriet's no-nonsense grandmother Edie and the put-upon yet determined black housekeeper Ida Rhew. Edie's many sisters and the downtrodden Ratcliffe clan also are vibrantly portrayed.

The exact time period was a little unclear. The many TV, movie and music references ring true, but they are not consistent. Ida and Harriet's sister Allison are obsessed with Dark Shadows, the supernatural TV soap opera, which ended in 1971 yet a child has a Star Wars figure which didn't come to theaters until 1977.  

Without revealing any spoilers, the ending left me confused and unsatisfied, but I relished the entire book. Tartt is a major talent.

Ragtime and Schmigadoon Tie for Most OCC Awards

Ragtime won 5 OCC Awards.
Credit: Matthew Murphy

Ragtime and Schmigadoon have tied for the most awards bestowed by the Outer Critics Circle, receiving five each. Ragtime was voted Outstanding Musical Revival and Schmigadoon won for Outstanding Broadway Musical. The OCC, founded during the 1949-50 Broadway season is composed of about 85 writers on theater for national, out-of-town, and digital media, divides between Broadway and Off-Broadway is some categories and combines them in others. The awards will be presented on May 21 at Manhattan Movement and Arts Center. Mexodus was named Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical. David Lindsay-Abaire's The Balusters won for Best Broadway Play and Talene Monahan's Meet the Cartozians was voted Outstanding Off-Broadway Play. The John Gassner Award for a new play preferably by a new playwright will be shared by Ro Reddick's Cold War Choir Practice and Bubba Weiller's Well, I'll Let You Go, since the two plays received an equal number of votes.

Read the full list of nominees and winners below:

Outstanding New Broadway Musical
The Lost Boys
WINNER - Schmigadoon!
Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)

Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical
Beau the Musical
Goddess
WINNER - Mexodus
Oratorio for Living Things
Saturday Church

Outstanding New Broadway Play
WINNERS - The Balusters
Giant
Little Bear Ridge Road
Oedipus
Punch

Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play
Angry Alan
WINNER - Meet the Cartozians
The Monsters
Prince Faggot
The Reservoir

John Gassner Award (for a new American play preferably by a new playwright)
Call Me Izzy, Jamie Wax
Caroline, Preston Max Allen
WINNER - Cold War Choir Practice, Ro Reddick (tie)
Data, Matthew Libby
WINNER - Well, I'll Let You Go, Bubba Weiler (tie)

Off-B'way Review: Hamlet at BAM

Hiran Abeysekera in Hamlet.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Is Hamlet actually mad? That’s a question that has bedeviled scholars since the first performance of Shakespeare’s greatest play and is rarely addressed in modern productions. Most stagings I have seen (at least 20 on stage, film or TV that I can recall) assume that the Melancholy Dane’s antic disposition is a put-on job to distract from his investigation of his uncle Claudius murdering the king, Hamlet’s father. Robert Hastie’s elegant, somewhat flawed production imported from the National Theater to BAM’s Harvey stage, leaves the question of the hero’s sanity open and thus delivers an intriguing and challenging interpretation of one of the world’s most produced classics. 

Set in an opulent ballroom (Ben Stones designed the majestic sets and smart costumes, creatively lit by Jessica Hung Han Yun) and starring a youthful, frenetic lead (vibrant Hiran Abeysekera), this Hamlet takes a fresh, different approach to a familiar classic and finds new insights. 

Hiran Abeysekera and Matthew Cottle in
Hamlet. Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Take for example the closet scene wherein Hamlet murders the elderly advisor Polonius mistaking him for the treacherous Claudius. Without revealing any spoilers, Hastie’s staging is truly shocking and surprising, causing the audience to doubt Hamlet’s sanity…and perhaps their own. Hastie then has the Dane address empty air rather than the actor playing the ghost of his father (as per usual), further complicating our perceptions. Was the ghost an illusion the whole time, a figment of Hamlet’s fevered imagination? 

Theater World Awards

Elliot Levey, Rachael Stirling and
John Lithgow in Giant.

Theater award just keep pouring in. The winners and location of the 80th Theater World Awards for outstanding Broadway and Off-Broadway debut performances have been announced. The awards will be presented on June 2 at the Longacre Theater, home of Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York). Theater journalist Peter Filichia will host. Rachael Stirling of Giant will receive the 17th annual Dorothy Loudon Award for Excellence in Theater. 

2026 Theatre World Award Honorees
For Outstanding Broadway or Off-Broadway Debut Performance
during the 2025-2026 theatrical season

Ben Ahlers, Death of a Salesman
LJ Benet, The Lost Boys
Madeline Brewer, Becky Shaw
Adrien Brody, The Fear of 13
Ayo Edebiri, Proof
Alden Ehrenreich, Becky Shaw
Luke Evans, The Rocky Horror Show
Will Harrison, Punch
River Lipe-Smith, Caroline
Lesley Manville, Oedipus
Robert "Silk" Mason, Cats: The Jellicle Ball
Sam Tutty, Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)

The Theatre World Award honorees are chosen by the Theatre World Awards Committee which is comprised of Linda Armstrong (Amsterdam News), David Cote (The Observer), Joe Dziemianowicz (New York Daily News, Emeritus), Peter Filichia (The Newark Star-Ledger, Emeritus), David Finkle (New York Stage Review), Elysa Gardner (USA Today, Emeritus), Cary Wong (Freelance), and Frank Scheck (The Hollywood Reporter).

Lost Boys and Schmigadoon! Lead Tony Noms; Liberation Wins Pulitzer

Schmigadoon! received 10 Tony noms.
Credit: Matthew Murphy and 
Evan Zimmerman.

The Lost Boys and Schmigadoon! tied for the most Tony nominations with 12 each including Best Musical. The nominations were announced on May 5 by Uzo Aduba and Darren Criss on CBS Good Morning and then on the Tony Awards's YouTube channel from the Sofitel Hotel. The awards presented by the Broadway League and the American Theater Wing will be presented on June 7 at Radio City Music Hall and broadcast by CBS. CBS and Pluto TV will present The Tony Awards: Act One, a pre-show of live, exclusive content leading into the 79th Annual Tony Awards. Additional details will be available at a future date.

The Tonys are strikingly different this year from the Drama Desks which include Off-Broadway in all their categories. The DDs gave two Off-Broadway musicals Mexodus and Beau: The Musicals the most noms with ten each. The Lost Boys received only five DD noms in design categories and Schmigadoon! got 4. The Outer Critics Circle, on the other hand, were more generous with Lost Boys, nominating the vampire musical for 11 awards, their highest amount.

Bess Wohl's Liberation won the Pulitzer
and is nominated for the Best Play Tony.
Credit: Joan Marcus

The other Tony nominees for Best Musical are Titanique and Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York). The nominees for Best Play are The Balusters, Giant, Liberation and Little Bear Ridge Road. Liberation won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama the day before and Little Bear Ridge Road was named Best Play of the season by the New York Drama Critics Circle last week. (Runners-up for the Pulitzer were Bowl EP and Meet the Cartozians.) Musical pickings were so slim this year two dramatic plays (Death of a Salesman and Joe Turner's Come and Gone) received nominations for Best Original Score.

There were a number of surprises and omissions. Art, Beaches, Proof, and The Queen of Versailles were totally ignored and The Fear of 13 only garnered two nods in the design categories. Prominent names who received no Tony love include Adrien Brody, Lea Michele, Ayo Edebrini, Jean Smart, Don Cheadle, and Keanu Reeves. Chess was left out of the Best Musical Revival category, though there are only three shows in that slot.

If Schmigadoon! wins Best Musical
we will get Schmicago on Broadway?

The big battle will probably be for the top Tony prize of Best Musical with The Lost Boys and Schmigadoon! as the frontrunners. I liked both shows, but Schmigadoon! has a slight edge for me. I'm really hope this parody musical wins so that we can get Schmicago, the second season of the TV series on stage, and then Into the Schmoods, the unfilmed third season either on the air or on stage--or both.

In the acting categories, Joshua Henry of Ragtime is the only sure winner in my view with most of the other slots up for grabs. Best Actor in a Play will go to either Nathan Lane or John Lithgow, both previous winners (Lane three times and Lithgow twice). Lesley Manville should get Best Actress in a Play, even though her show Oedipus has closed and she's back in London. Best Actress in a Musical is a real toss-up with no clear front runner. My favorite is Sara Chase in Schmigadoon!

Legitimate theatrical productions opening in any of the 41 eligible Broadway theatres during the current season may be considered for Tony nominations. The 2025/2026 eligibility season began April 28, 2025 and ended April 26, 2026. The Tony Awards will be voted in 26 competitive categories by 857 designated Tony voters within the theatre community.

B'way Reviews: Joe Turner's Come and Gone; Proof; The Rocky Horror Show

The 2025-26 Broadway season closes out with a trio of strong revivals of diverse shows—Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Proof, and The Rocky Horror Show. Each offers a vastly different theatrical experience, pushing a dissimilar set of sensory buttons, but all share the thrill of connecting audiences to thoughtful examinations of timeless issues. Well, the last one is really about having a good dirty time.

Cedric the Entertainer and Taraji P. Henson
in Joe Turner's Come and Gone.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Debbie Allen’s production of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone leans a little heavily on broad humor, but still imparts the author’s searing indictment of the traumatic effect of institutional racism on the African-American community. This is Wilson’s third play in his decade-by-decade examination of the black experience in America in the 20th century (premiering on Broadway in 1988 after Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Fences) and the second one chronologically. Set in a 1911 Pittsburgh boarding house, the play follows the residents’ struggles as they deal with the restrictions and devastation wrought by the white majority in the aftermath of slavery. With the exception of Seth and Bertha Holly, the owners of the house (top-billed Cedric the Entertainer and Taraji P. Henson), they all lead a transitory existence, searching for a stable life. Cedric is firmly grounded in Seth’s no-nonsense approach of maintaining order in his house and expanding his metalwork business. At times, Henson relies too much on comic bits of business, but she clearly delineates Bertha’s motherly rule over her boarders. 

Joshua Boone and Ruben Santiago-Hudson
in Joe Turner's Come and Gone.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

The mysterious Herald Loomis (blazingly intense Joshua Boone), accompanied by his little daughter Zonia (a professional Savannah Commodore at the performance attended), is searching for his wife. They were separated when Loomis was abducted by Joe Turner of the title, a white “man-catcher” who abducted African-American men into enforced labor under the guise of the law. Cocky young Jeremy Furrow (bubbly and fun Tripp Taylor) bounces from job to job and woman to woman while entering blues contests with his guitar. Mattie Campbell (sympathetic Nimene Sierra Wureh) desperately clings to Jeremy after losing a baby and then her man. But flirtatious Molly Cunningham (delightfully seductive Maya Boyd) entrances Jeremy away. Offering solace and curing charms is the sage folk healer Bynum Walker (majestic and subtly commanding Ruben Santiago-Hudson).