Dr. Who Out to Tender

Ncuti Gatwa and Jodie Whittaker

After over six decades, the BBC has put Doctor Who "out to tender," meaning they are accepting proposals for an outside producer to take up the reigns while the program has been suspended. This hiatus has happened once before when the Doctor was in limbo from 1989 to 2005. I can't be too upset because 63 years is a remarkable run for any TV program and there is plenty to rewatch and read in past episodes, countless books and comics. 

What does gall me is the carping from fans who claim the show's downfall in ratings was due to its "woke" attitude and the recasting the Doctor as a woman and then a black gay man. There was even a comment on FB that Peter Capaldi was the last "good" Doctor, i.e., the last white male Doctor. He went on to say that Jodie Whitaker should have been a companion like Romana, and Missy, the female version of the Master, should have been the Rani, another renegade Time Lord who happened to be a woman. This fan was saying the Doctor should only be a white British dude. This attitude springs from not wanting to see women or other minorities in traditional white straight white male roles. This poster evidently has a problem with women being the central figure, rescuing the guys instead of the other way around. This Doctor is an alien and this whole show is a fantasy, so what's the big deal about a woman or a black man assuming the role?

The other main complaint is the Whitaker and Gatwa episodes seemed to be pushing a liberal "Woke" agenda. As if the Doctor was never about inclusiveness and diversity before. I will agree that many of the Whitaker stories were hitting us over the head with their messages on racism, homophobia, climate change, and autocracy. The writing wasn't particularly strong. During the whole "Flux" season I had no idea what the hell was going on. 

But the Gatwa episodes were much better overall. I think because Russell T Davies took over as the show runner from Chris Chibnall. His sense of story structure was much stronger. There was still a social consciousness but it did not overwhelm the plots. In Dot and Bubble, the fact that the Doctor is black  and the racism of the people he's trying to save is subtly brought up and not explicitly stated until the very end.  Boom was my favorite episode of these seasons. The Doctor is confined to a single spot--a landmine on a war-torn planet which will explode if he moves off it--for nearly the entire segment. It was a clever, tight script.

The future of Doctor Who is in doubt now. But I have confidence it will live on in some form and continue to fascinate millions of Whovians. 

Off-B'way Review: The Real Ivanov

Sam Adegoke and Sam Underwood in
The Real Ivanov.
Credit: Russ Rowland

Beware of director-adaptors who use the word “real” in their versions of a classic script. Laura Strausfeld has chosen to employ the adjective to describe her edition of Anton Chekhov’s Ivanov and subtitled it “A Comedy about Despair.” It’s currently playing at the Lynn F. Angelson Theater and not a production of the CSC. While her staging does have some innovative moments and there are a few glints of pathos and humor, this Ivanov is not particularly “real” since much of the direction is stylized and most of the acting is either overblown or shallow.

The rarely-performed play was Chekhov’s first produced work (in 1887) and has not been seen in a major NYC production in almost 30 years. (The last staging was Gerald Gutierrez’s moving 1997 edition for Lincoln Center starring Kevin Kline, Marian Seldes and a brilliantly funny Max Wright.) Ivanov is not seen as frequently as Chekhov’s four other major plays because of its unrelentingly melancholy story. The title character is a depressed Russian landowner managing a bankrupt estate and his terminally ill wife Anna with whom he has fallen out of love. Nikolai Ivanov is surrounded by comically covetous buffoons and rascals including his ever-scheming estate manager Borkin, his pompous uncle Count Shabyelski, and the frivolous, mercenary Lebedev family to whom he owes a huge debt. In addition to his perpetual sadness, he is also racked with guilt because his spouse left her Jewish religion and her parents to marry him and he is now attracted to Sasha, the Lebedevs’ foolishly idealistic young daughter. 

Soph Metcalf,William DeMeritt,Kimberlee Walker,
Sam Adegoke,Jordan Lage,Sarah Long,
Sam Underwood,Spencer Aste, and Amelia Mason
in The Real Ivanov.
Credit: Russ Rowland

Bringing off the play’s delicate balance between tragedy and comedy is a difficult challenge. Strausfeld attempts to make the case that the protagonist is a victim of clinical depression and would benefit from therapy and medication if he were born about 120 years later (at least that what is claimed in program notes and advertising for the production.) 

She stages much of the action in interesting patterns, reflecting Ivanov’s confined psyche. For the group scenes at the Lebedevs’ soiree, the characters move as if at an uncomfortable, awkward dance. In the scenes at Ivanov’s gloomy house, all action revolves around a simple bench or a table with only one chair. In the fourth act, she places them on a narrow strip of light and the actors tightly maneuver around each other like passengers on a crowded subway—again symbolizing the psychological oppression they feel. Jiyoun Chang’s lighting helps out here, defining the cage-like spaces of Ivanov’s neuroses. While the direction can be innovative, Stausfeld has neglected to emphasize the human dimension of the characters. They are either mopey victims or broad clowns.

B'way Update: Downstate and Blueberries

Francis Guinan and K. Todd Freeman
in Downstate at Playwrights Horizons.
Credit: Joan Marcus

Two plays which had critically acclaimed Off-Broadway runs, Bruce Norris' Downstate and Moises Kaufman and Amanda Gronich's Here There Are Blueberries, have announced Broadway engagements. Downstate will play the Booth Theater this fall (no specific dates have been posted), according to the Chicago Tribune, while Blueberries will start previews at the Barrymore Theater on Nov. 2 and open on Nov. 9. 

Downstate, Norris' play about four men convicted of sexual offenses living in a group home, opened at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater in 2018, played London in 2019, then opened Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in 2022, and Washington DC in 2025. The New York Drama Critics Circle voted it the Best Play of the 2022-23 season. This Broadway edition will be a new staging, directed by Tony winner Joe Mantello. (The previous productions were directed by Pam McKinnon.) The Tribune also reports that Francis Guinan and K. Todd Freeman, veterans of the Chicago, London, and NYC versions, will repeat their roles. 

During Downstate's DC run, conservative politicians slammed the play for its humanistic portrayal of sex offenders. Norris stated before the NYC run, “A depiction of something is not an endorsement. But, I do think that witnessing the lives of characters on stage encourages identification, and if you spend two hours in the company of a group of sex offenders, do you emerge from the experience with your certainty about them momentarily disrupted? The goal is not to forgive, but rather to complicate an easy and casually cruel response.”

Kathleen Chalfant, Nemuna Ceesay,
Jonathan Raviv, and Elizabeth Stahlmann in
Here There Are Blueberries at NYTW.
Credit: Matthew Murphy

Blueberries is Tectonic Theater Project's documentary dramatization of the discovery of a book of photographs of Nazi officials and staff of a concentration camp enjoying themselves in leisure activities. The play opened at La Jolla Playhouse in 2022 and played Off-Broadway at the New York Theater Workshop in 2024. It subsequently was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won a Lortel Award for Best New Play. 

Says Kaufman and Tectonic Theater Project Executive Director Matt Joslyn in a statement: “For Tectonic Theater Project, bringing Here There Are Blueberries to Broadway is the culmination of a remarkable journey. These photographs hold a mirror up to our humanity in the most intimate and unsettling way. We have to look at them—not to understand the people in the pictures, but to better understand ourselves.” 

Both shows deal with facing uncomfortable figures and show a trend towards mining Off-Broadway for Broadway dramatic productions. There are only four totally new plays planned for the Main Stem this season and 12 play revivals.

B'way Review: Paranormal Activity

Travis A. Knight and Cher Alvarez
in Paranormal Activity.
Credit: Matthew Murphy

It’s rare that the sound designer is the star of a production, but that is the case with Paranormal Activity, the play based on the popular horror film franchise, now at the August Wilson Theater after a London run and an American tour. Gareth Fry’s ultra creepy soundscape perfectly sets the mood for this scarefest. Before the show even begins, we are assaulted with seemingly innocent radio chatter as we find our seats. As the lights dim, the volume menacingly increases until it feels as if our eardrums will shatter. The curtain raises and we find ourselves in what appears to be a perfectly mundane London house (Fly Davis designed the deceptively ordinary two-story setting.) Everyday transactions take up most of the first act (including one actor simulating using the toilet), but Fry’s ominous combination of creepy music and foreboding sounds puts the chill up the audience’s collective spine.

Cher Alvarez and Travis A. Knight in
Paranormal Activity.
Credit: Matthew Murphy

Horror is not a genre that has fared well on Broadway. There have been long-running thrillers such as Deathtrap and Sleuth. But the only genuine horror plays to achieve significant runs that come to mind are the original Dracula from 1927 and the Frank Langella 1977 revival, the still-running Stranger Things prequel and Lost Boys musical. (Three previous vampire-themed musicals flopped resoundingly.) I wouldn’t call the Harry Potter play a horror genre piece though it does contain scary elements. But the recent trend of immersive, supernatural experiences Off-Broadway such as Sleep No More and Viola’s Room shows there is a market for spooky spectacle. Felix Barrett who directed both those productions does an admirable job here of maintaining and building a frightening atmosphere and author Levi Holloway’s structure is much stronger than his mystical misfire Grey House from 2023. 

There isn’t much point in recapping the plot. Holloway’s script is standard haunt fare and this critic does not want to reveal any spoilers. It’s the shocks and effects that make the show, thanks to Chris Fisher’s astonishing illusions and Anna Watson’s spectral shadowy lighting. Luke Halls’ video and projection design also induces several shutter-worthy moments. There’s one particular effect towards the end of the first act that sends screams through the theater and prompts an epic ovation. 

Cher Alvarez in Paranormal Activity.
Credit: Matthew Murphy

But to deliver the bare essentials of the story: Young marrieds Lou (Cher Alvarez) and James (Travis A. Knight) have recently moved to London. Through an obvious expositional video phone call with James’ religious mother (Shannon Cochran) in Florida, we learn the couple has been through a series of unspecified traumatizing events in their former home of Chicago. As the pair goes about setting up housekeeping, odd and upsetting occurrences mount up. Doors open and close by themselves, the lights flicker, the security alarm suddenly blares, the doorbell rings and there’s no one there. The true source of the pair’s growing anxiety and fear is gradually revealed and a paranormal investigator and podcaster (Eva Kaminsky) is called in to investigate. Secrets are revealed and the horrors build in intensity to a shattering twist ending.

The acting is perfectly serviceable with Alvarez and Knight incrementally conveying the terror engulfing Lou and James. Alvarez is particularly effective in slowly revealing Lou’s growing dread. Cochran and Kaminsky subtly display multiple aspects of their characters, shifting subtly from believable reality to Twilight Zone territory.

The audience has a ball getting scared to death. The screams and shreiks are often followed by delighted laughter and at the curtain call, the cast sported broad smiles as if to say “You really got you, didn’t we?” Paranormal is the theatrical equivalent of a four-star-screamer, a summertime spooky movie. In fact, one could argue that horror is more effective in the theater than on screen. Film has all sorts of special effects at its disposal while on stage, the illusion is more mystifying and inexplicable and therefore more frightening. So for a bone-chilling night out, creep over to the August Wilson. 

Aug. 25—Jan. 3, 2027. August Wilson Theater, 245 W. 52nd St., NYC. Running time: two hours including intermission. atgtickets.com.

Book Reviews: Why Torture Is Wrong and the People Who Love Them and Other Political Plays; Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike

(Borrowed from NY Public Library at 40th St.): After reading some other Christopher Durang plays, I found these two books at the public library on 40th Street in Manhattan. Why Torture Is Wrong exhibits Durang's savage dark humor and Vanya, probably his best work, is gentler in its satire but just as funny. The first play was written at the height of George W. Bush's war on terror when torture was deemed justifiable if it meant protecting the US from terrorist attacks. Durang viciously parodies the American position, but also mercilessly mocks extremism on the other side. No one is safe from his satirical sword (OK, I stole that phrase from the Dick Van Dyke Show). I remember seeing the play at the Public Theater and laughing in shock and disbelief. The Torture volume also contains excerpts from Durang's Sex and Longing which played Broadway in 1995. The author was unsatisfied with the play overall and it has not been published in its entirety. But he did like some of the scenes and they are reprinted here in keeping with the theme of political plays. In Sex and Longing, Durang's drama school classmate Sigourney Weaver starred as the sexually addicted Lulu, modeled on the character from Berg's opera. The religious right's obsession with censorship and sexuality comes in for a beating. Dana Ivey was brilliant as a repressed Senator's wife. I don't remember how the play ended but I do recall laughing. The collection also included several short plays also published in Naomi in the Living Room and Other Short Plays.

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike combines dark humor with a more humane tone. Durang called this play "Chekhov in a blender." Elements of all four major Chekhov plays combine in this wild comedy which also contains pathos and tragedy. The play opened at Lincoln Center's Mitzi Newhouse and then transferred to Broadway, winning every major award including the Tony and New York Drama Critics Circle Award. This is Durang's most successful play because the characters are more than just bizarre cartoons. I'm happy that he had a big hit.

Rereading Durang led me to find my old paperback copy of Christopher Durang Explains It All for You from 1982 which I bought for $2.95. (It was in my storage bin) This volume contains six of his shorter plays and was printed when his Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You was a hit Off-Broadway. These are all pretty dark and include murder, dismemberment, and abuse. But they're all funny.

L.I. Who Con 2026

Long Island Who 2026, the annual Doctor Who convention held in Holtsville at the Holiday Inn, was a bittersweet experience. Not only is Doctor Who currently in limbo, but the organizers of this annual celebration of all things Who have run out of money and have no plans to continue. I first attended in 2024, had to miss 2025 (I forget what my conflict was), and booked this year, looking forward to many more. I learned during the con that this would be the last one for a while. This hiatus coincided with the suspension of production on the series itself. Disney Plus dropped its option, leading man Ncuti Gatwa left, and the BBC put the Doctor "out to tender." This is a new show-biz phrase to me. It means they are sending the property out into the universe for any interested producer to sign on and make new episodes. In addition, there are no plans that I know of for the spin-off series The War Between the Land and the Sea to air in the US.

Despite these setbacks, I did have a great time meeting fellow Whovians and stars and personnel from the series I first fell in love with about 50 years ago when the local Philadelphia PBS channel would show Tom Baker episodes with Howard Da Silva narration on Saturday afternoons. 

Sarah Sutton, Peter Davison, Matthew Waterhouse
and Janet Fielding in the Black Orchid
episode of Dr. Who.

Friday Aug. 14 had only a few events. The highlight was a screening of the 5th Doctor episode, Black Orchid, with Peter Davison (5th Doctor) and his wife Elizabeth Morton offering comments like a Mystery Science Theater 3000 riff. The audience was invited to make jokes too. Davison said he thought the writer had a country-house-weekend mystery tucked away in his drawer and refashioned it slightly as a Doctor Who script.

There was an hour of clips of Dr. Who-related material including Katy Manning (Jo Grant from the Dr. #3 era) introducing the top ten favorite episodes, Peter Davison in a coffee commercial, Davison on a chat show throwing a chair in imitation of a Doctor maneuver, etc. Katy did a panel with her friend Jane Goddard who voiced an alien character on an audio adventure and is married to a Dr. Who writer. Both were delightful and we learned that Katy was good friends with Liza Minnelli. She had gone to boarding school with her and she told stories of visiting with Judy Garland and Sid Luft, Garland's husband at the time.

Peter Davison and Elizabeth
Morton watching Black Orchid at
LI Who.

The hotel where the convention was being held was way too expensive, so I stayed in a cheap motel in nearby Ronkonkoma. The smoke detector in my room was chirping and I had to get the janitor to remove it from the wall.

B'way Update: 10 Things I Hate About You; Invalid Casting

Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles in
10 Things I Hate About You.
Credit: Touchstone Pictures/Allstar

A year from today, 10 Things I Hate About You, a new musical based on the 1999 film comedy, will begin performances on Broadway. Cast, a theater, and an opening date have not yet been set. The show which set Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew in a modern high school will feature  a book by eight-time Emmy Award nominee and Golden Globe Award-winner Lena Dunham and award-winning playwright Jessica Huang, music and lyrics by Grammy Award nominee Carly Rae Jepsen and Grammy Award-winner Ethan Gruska, direction and choreography by two-time Tony-winner Christopher Wheeldon, and music supervision, arrangements, and orchestrations by two-time Tony and Grammy Award-winner Tom Kitt. 

In other news, Roundabout Theater Company has announced the complete cast and dates for its revival of Moliere's The Imaginary Invalid, adapted by and starring Tony winner Bill Iwin. The classic comedy of a hypochondriac will begin previews Sept. 25 at the Todd Haimes Theater and open on Oct. 22. Irwin will be joined by Golden Globe winner Rachel Bloom (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend), Tony nominee Dylan Baker (La Bete), Tony nominee and Drama Desk winner Brooks Ashmanskas (Martin Short: Fame Become Me, Smash), Theater World Award winner Crystal A. Dickinson, Hiram Delgado, Daniel Croix Henderson, and Ava Lalezarzadeh. Tony nominee Brandon J. Dirden (The Piano Lesson, Waiting for Godot) will make his Broadway directorial debut.