Book Review: Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty

(Bought at Posman Books in Chelsea Markets): I wanted to read about the Vanderbilts and how closely their history followed that of the Russells on Julian Fellowes' The Gilded Age which has just been renewed for a fourth season. Anderson Cooper (along with co-author Katherine Howe) traces his family's fabled lineage in a readable and absorbing volume. Each chapter focuses on a particular event and date in the Vanderbilt history and expounds from there on social, political, and economic issues occurring in America at the time. We go from the clan's early dates as traders and entrepreneurs in colonial days to Alva Vanderbilt's lavish costume balls to her daughter Conselo's marriage to the Duke of Marlborough to the glamorous and troubled life of Cooper's mom, Gloria. Not only is this a fascinating account of one of the wealthiest families in American history, but also an insightful commentary on celebrity and how we as a country are obsessed with fame and money and those who possess it. Gloria had both--as a child she inherited millions from her late father and became the center of a scandalous custody trial, but lost, regained and lost several fortunes. Cooper and Howe are masterful storytellers. They even manage to make a yacht race gripping. I will try their book on the Astors next to see how closely Fellowes hews to the facts in the case of Mrs. Astor.

B'way Update: Liberation Transfers

l-r: Adina Verson, Irene Sofia Lucio, Audrey Corsa,
Susannah Flood, Betsy Aidem, and
Kristolyn Lloyd in the Off-Broadway
world premiere production of Liberation 
at Roundabout Theatre Company.
Credit: Joan Marcus

Playwright Bess Wohl will make her Broadway debut when her play Liberation opens at the James Earl Jones Theater after a critically acclaimed run at the Roundabout Theater Company's Off-Broadway Laura Pels Theater last season. Previews begin Oct. 8 in advance of an Oct. 28 opening. The play about a women's consciousness-raising group in the 1970s was named Outstanding Off-Broadway Play by the Outer Critics Circle and the ensemble cast was awarded citations from the Drama Desk and the New York Drama Critics Circle. Whitney White will repeat her directing duties. The cast and creative team has not yet been announced.

“Bringing Liberation to Broadway is, quite literally, a dream come true for me,” says playwright Bess Wohl. “This play has lived in my heart for a very long time, and I’m beyond thrilled to continue its journey with this fantastic team at this moment. I can’t wait to share it with Broadway audiences.”

“Liberation is a play in which all things personal become political,” says director Whitney White. “Set in the Midwest, which I call home, the play follows a group of ordinary women striving for what shouldn’t be extraordinary— equality. I cannot wait to share this story with the audience again on Broadway, home to great American storytelling. The laughs, the vibes, the revelations and all that happens on stage will make you wonder what’s been lost and how we should all be fighting to get it back.”

Opera Review: The House on Mango Street; The Rake's Progress

Samantha Sosa, Kaylan Hernandez, and 
Mikaela Bennett in
The House on Mango Street.
Credit: Kayleen Bertrand/
The Glimmerglass Festival

The Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown, NY celebrates its 50th anniversary season with departures from traditional operatic fare. In addition to Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Sunday in the Park with George, an unconventional Broadway musical in both its form and content (previously reviewed), the Festival is presenting The House on Mango Street, a world premiere opera based on Sandra Cisneros’ beloved coming-of-age novel featuring an eclectic score by Derek Bermel, and Igor Stravinsky’s 1951 The Rake’s Progress which employs 18th century forms through a modernist lens. The results of these stylistic blendings are bracingly exciting in both productions.

William Raskin and Mikaela Bennett in
The House on Mango Street.
Credit: Kayleen Bertrand/The Glimmerglass
Festival

It’s hard to imagine Mango Street in stage or operative form since the original is a kaleidoscopic series of short vignettes detailing the adolescence of Esperanza, a Latina teen growing up in an immigrant neighborhood in Chicago. The libretto by Cisneros and Bermel fashions the fragments of the novel into a dazzling, cohesive tapestry. Just as the libretto stitches together the myriad threads of Esperanza’s story and her numerous friends, relatives, and neighbors, Bermel’s score incorporates many different musical styles to reflect the diverse milieu of the plot. No less than 13 different genres can be detected, ranging from salsa, ranchera, mariachi, and Tex-Mex to rap and hip-hop with touches of gospel, polka, and klezmer. Somehow these disparate elements come together to form a harmonious whole, under conductor Nicole Paiement’s baton, just as the bits and pieces of Cisneros’ novel do. 

Chia Patino’s direction manages to keep the multiple storylines clear with the aide of John Conklin’s suggestive sets, Amith Chandrashaker’s versatile lighting and Greg Emetaz’s evocative projections.

Taylor-Alexis DuPont
and Mikaela Bennett in
The House on Mango Street.
Credit: Kayleen Bertrand/
The Glimmerglass Festival

Before the first note of music is played, the audience can hear a strange metallic sound. When the curtain rises, we see that noise is being made by Esperanza (expressive Mikaela Bennett) typing on an old-fashion manual model at what appears to be a kitchen table. Behind here is a scrim upon which dozens of sentences from Cisneros’ novel are projected. From here we are taken into Esperanza’s world as Conklin’s set consisting of two large, wooden-frame houses are rolled on stage. We meet the various characters of the neighborhood as her family moves in. There’s eccentric Cathy, Queen of Cats (delightfully daffy Catherine Thornsley costumed by Erik Teague in imaginative, feline-festooned finery); siblings Lucy and Rachel (funny Samantha Sosa and Kaylan Hernandez) who promise to be Esperanza’s friends forever if she will give them five dollars to buy a bike; Sally (outstanding Taylor-Alexis DuPont), the sassy local flirt who covers up the abuse she suffers at home with a boisterous presence; and cynical landlady Edna (marvelously dry Tzytle Steinman) and her sister Ruthie (magnificently melancholy Natalie Corrigan) who longs for her romanticized past and bemoans her disappointing presence. 

Off-B'way/Regional Review: The Gospel at Colonus; Sunday in the Park with George

Stephanie Berry, Davone Tines, Frank Senior, and
Samantha Howard in The Gospel at Colonus.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Musical styles are mixed to maximum emotional effect in unusual productions in one new outdoor venue in Manhattan and at the 50th anniversary season of a long-established festival in upstate New York. Lee Breur and Bob Telson’s The Gospel at Colonus returns in a soul-stirring staging in the Amp at Little Island, affording spectacular views of the Hudson River as a galvanizing cast retells the Oedipus myth with passion and fervor. Meanwhile in Cooperstown, New York, the Glimmerglass Festival celebrates its golden anniversary with a moving world premiere (The House on Mango Street) and a pair of innovative, imaginative restagings of two modernist classics from Broadway and the opera repertory (Sunday in the Park with George, The Rake’s Progress).  

The Gospel at Colonus has an unusual production history. After opening at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1983 and winning an Obie Award, the adaption of Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus at Colonus set in an African-American Pentecostal church service was performed to acclaim in Washington, DC, Philadelphia and Atlanta and was filmed for PBS. An unlikely Broadway transfer in 1988 starring Morgan Freeman ran for only 61 performances and received only one Tony nomination (for Breuer’s book). 

Kim Burrell (center) and company in
The Gospel at Colonus.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Breur's original production was on a grand scale with an enormous choir. Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s new staging is more intimate with David Zinn’s minimal set suggesting sylvan glades and ancient ritual environments. The role of Oedipus, seeking sanctuary and shelter just before his death after a tragedy-strewn reign as king of Thebes, was originally taken by the Five Blind Boys of Alabama. (This casting echoed Oedipus’ horrific self-blinding after discovering he had unknowingly killed his father and slept with his mother.) Here his lines and solos are divided between an intense Stephanie Berry who also serves as narrator and preacher of the service, and operatic bass-baritone Davone Tines and jazz singer Frank Senior. 

Book Review: Emma

(Borrowed from the Jackson Heights library) Another one of the 100 books I'm supposed to read before I die according to the BBC. I did not enjoy this one as much as Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility which were more complex. Emma begins as a terrible snob who misleads herself and her friend Harriet in love among the middle-class country gentry. But she turns out to be a repentant ex-matchmaker after her brother-in-law Knightley sets her right. I enjoyed talkative Miss Bates and Mrs. Eston whose lengthly monologues on everything from appropriate behavior to furniture to horses were very funny. Mr. Woodhouse, Emma's father, is a delightful fussbudget who dreads taking a step outside of their house. A classic portrait of a young woman who thinks she knows everything learning the value of true friendship and maturity.

Off-B'way Reviews: Angry Alan; Viola's Room

John Krasinski in Angry Alan.
Credit: Jonny Cournoyer

Unconventional storytelling methods are on display in two Off-Broadway productions, offering brave theatergoers unusual and exciting experiences. John Krasinski of TV’s The Office stars in Angry Alan, an almost-solo show, delivering a tour de force performance in a through-provoking tale of Internet-inspired angst. (This is the first production of the new Studio Seaview, a showcase for innovative Off-Broadway productions, and a good start.) Punchdrunk, the innovative company who brought us the hypnotic Sleep No More, does Angry Alan one better and gives us Viola’s Room, a performer-less dreamscape.

John Krasinski in Angry Alan.
Credit: Jonny Cournoyer

Angry Alan is the more conventional of the two with a linear plot narrative and a protagonist facing a crisis. Penelope Skinner’s compassionate script relates the sad tale of Roger, a 40-ish divorced dad dealing with depression after he’s lost his high-powered job with AT&T and is now employed as a dairy department supervisor in a supermarket. He is pulled out of his funk while scrolling through the web by the titular, unseen character, a social media messiah preaching the gospel of men’s rights and the evils of feminism. Through Skinner’s subtle writing and Krasinski’s empathic acting, we are slowly drawn into the dark world of Roger’s subconscious and Alan’s cult-like ecosystem. (Note: Don Mackay who originated the role at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is given a co-creator credit.) At first, Roger’s grievances and Alan’s theses seem perfectly reasonable. Men have been victimized by rigid gender stereotypes into believing they must always suppress their emotions and act as saviors to weak, defenseless dependents (women and children). But the women’s liberation or “gynocentric” movement as Alan calls it, has unfairly allowed females to blossom while ignoring the psychological well-being of their male counterparts.

Roger sees himself reflected in Alan’s discourse and there is a grain of truth in his self-pity. Feeling like a loser at the loss of his job, the blow was compounded when his wife left him and took custody of their son, allowing him only visits on holidays and weekends. But as we learn more of Roger’s story and he goes deeper into Alan’s sexist philosophy, the depth of Alan’s misogyny and Roger’s inner damage and rage are exposed. Skinner blends humor with pathos in tracking Roger’s downward spiral, poking fun at the excesses of feminist intellectualism. There are laughs as Roger points out the inconsistencies of his current “woke” girlfriend appreciating the works of abuser Pablo Picasso and the accused Woody Allen and streaming the masochistic fantasy 50 Shades of Grey. 

Off-B'way Review: Heathers the Musical

McKenzie Kurtz, Lorna Courtney, Elizabeth 
Teeter and Olivia Hardy in Heathers the Musical.
Credit: Evan Zimmerman for
MurphyMade

Heathers the Musical (Off-Broadway at New World Stages) is one of many recent teen-angst tuners. Others of this new genre include Tony-winning Best Musicals Dear Evan Hansen and The Outsiders, as well as bare, Be More Chill, Bring It On, Clueless, and Mean Girls. The common thread running through these shows is the sting of adolescent despair as loners rebel against popular, cruel kids. The original 1988 film Heathers takes this theme into darkly comic territory as the alienated misfits wind up murdering the bullies who run their school and ruin their lives. This current revival of the musical which opened Off-Broadway in 2014 is proficiently professional thanks to Andy Fickman’s sleek direction repeated from his 2023 London staging and a Broadway-caliber cast.

The audience at the performance attended was cheering and laughing loudly, but the specter of school shootings, an epidemic of teen suicides and the toxicity of social media cannot be completely dispelled. Daniel Waters’ original screenplay was written before our secondary schools became literal battlegrounds and the gallows humor infusing Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe’s adaptation is riotous but leaves a bitter taste in our mouths once the chuckles dissipate. 

Casey Likes and Lorna Courtney
in Heathers the Musical.
Credit: Evan Zimmerman for
MurphyMade

The plot is same as in the film, but has taken on much darker shades. Sweet, smart, but unpopular Veronica Sawyer (a vibrant Lorna Courtney) employs her skills at forgery to get in good with the diabolic Heathers (led by the deliciously evil McKenzie Kurtz), a trio of malicious monarchs with the same first name who rule over their Ohio high school. After refusing to join in with the Heathers’ cruelty, Veronica is drawn to new kid J.D. (a charismatic Casey Likes), who at first seems like a courageous nonconformist, but is slowly revealed as a damaged sociopath. Bloodshed ensues and a too-tidy happy ending follows the carnage. 

Murphy and O’Keefe’s book is sharp and satiric and their songs are spot-on in developing  character and theme, all staged with precision by Fickman and choreographers Gary Lloyd and Stephanie Klemons. David Shields’ cartoonish sets and the colorful, eye-catching costumes by Shields and Siena Zoe Allen are delightfully daffy.

Erin Morton in Heathers the Musical.
Credit: Evan Zimmerman for
MurphyMade

In addition to the star-making lead turns by Courtney, Likes and Kurtz, there is funny and frisky work from Olivia Hardy and Elizabeth Teeter as the Heather henchwomen, Kerry Butler as a cluelessly idealistic teacher, Xavier McKinnon and Cade Ostermeyer as a pair of jerky jocks, Ben Davis and Cameron Lloyd as two dads with a surprising secret, and, in delivering a shattering solo of dashed dreams, Erin Morton as Veronica’s zoftig friend Martha who must survive being the object of the Heathers’ ridicule. Her rendition of “Kindergarten Boyfriend” broke my heart and evokes the painful world adolescence can be. Heathers the Musical is fun and silly but treats its all-too-real subject a bit too lightly and easily.

July 10—Jan. 25, 2026. New World Stages, 340 W. 50th St., NYC. Running time: two hours and 20 mins. including intermission. heathersthemusical.com.

B'way Update: Rudin's Return Official

Laurie Metcalf and Micah Stock in
Little Bear Ridge Road at Steppenwolf.
Credit: Michael Brosilaw

Formerly exiled producer Scott Rudin will officially make his return to Broadway with the premiere of Samuel D. Hunter's Little Bear Ridge Road, beginning previews at the Booth Theater Oct. 7 ahead of an Oct. 30 opening. The play about an alienated aunt and nephew reconnecting while sorting out to estate of their late brother and father takes place in Idaho (as all of Hunter's plays do, such as The Whale, A Case for the Existence of God, Pocatello, and Grangeville). Tony and Emmy winner Laurie Metcalf (A Doll's House Part 2, The Conners) and Micah Stock (It's Only a Play) will recreate their roles from the Steppenwolf Theater production in Chicago. Tony winner Joe Mantello (Wicked, Take Me Out, Assassins) who has collaborated with Metcalf on Grey House, Hillary and Clinton, Three Tall Women and many other plays, directs as he did in Chicago. Fellow Steppenwolf cast members John Drea and Meighan Gerachis will also appear in the NY transfer. Rudin will co-produce with Barry Diller. Steppenwolf is not involved in the Broadway production.

Rudin "stepped back" from producing in 2021 when allegations of bullying behavior in the workplace surfaced. In a recent NY Times article, the producer stated he has made apologies to some former employees and he has been in therapy. Actors Equity has also strengthened its anti-harassment and anti-bullying policies.  

Off-B'way Review: Prince Faggot

John McCrea and Mihir Kumar in
Prince Faggot.
Credit: Marc J. Franklin

When Prince Harry of England married Meghan Markle, an African-American actress, in 2018, I was teaching high school. On the Monday morning after their royal wedding, I was sitting in the faculty lounge with a colleague, an older white woman. When I asked her what she thought of the monumental nuptials, she responded with anger and dismay over the presence of an African-American minister and a black gospel choir. I opined that it was Meghan’s wedding and she could have whatever or whoever she wanted there; the minister and the choir were reflecting her culture. My fellow educator just bristled with indignation that if it were Harry’s brother’s wedding, such a transgression would never be tolerated by his grandmother the Queen. I later realized that my co-worker was really fuming over the intrusion of black identity onto her lily-white ideal of the British royal family. 

N'yomi Allure Stewart and John McCrea
in Prince Faggot.
Credit: Marc J. Franklin

Jordan Tannahill goes several steps further with his imaginative and riveting fantasy Prince Faggot, now in a co-production from Playwrights Horizons and Soho Rep in PH’s intimate Peter Jay Sharp Theater. Starting off from the infamous photo of toddler Prince George striking what could be interpreted as a fey pose, Tannahill imagines a future where George has grown up to become the first (openly) gay heir to the throne. To add to the drama, his boyfriend and potential spouse Dev is a Brit of Indian descent with radical views on the monarchy. The provocative plot (and the even more provocative title) are used to explore what happens when racial, sexual, and gender barriers fall and queerness and otherness in general intrude onto traditionally majority-only spaces. My co-worker would have probably run screaming from the theater. The sex and language are explicit and realistic. Kudos to UnkleDave’s Fight-House, who usually coordinate onstage battles, but here are listed as intimacy coordinators and are responsible for a different kind of contact.

Tannahill adds another layer of meaning by having the cast of six—four gay men and two transgender women—directly address the audience as versions of themselves and explaining how the issues raised by the play have impacted them. In a program note, the author clarifies that two of monologues are based on the actors’ actual experience and the rest are fictional. 

Off-B'way Review: Trophy Boys

Louisa Jacobson, Emmanuelle Mattana,
Esco Jouléy, and Terry Hu in
Trophy Boys.
Credit: Valerie Terranova

In a program note for her play Trophy Boys (at MCC Theater), Emmanuelle Mattana observes, “Gender is a scam but it is also a gift. Drag is radical joy and liberation.” She is explaining her choice to cast the four male roles of an elite-school debate team with female, non-binary and non-cis gendered actors. This tactic of drawing the performative aspects of toxic masculinity into relief by opposite casting has been done before—in such productions as Operation Mincemeat, Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine, the long-running Off-Broadway musical The Club, and an all-female production of The Taming of the Shrew in Central Park. Thanks to Mattana’s sharp writing, Danya Taymor’s fierce direction and fearless performances, the choice comes off as more than a mere gimmick but an insightful commentary on sexual political and power plays.

Louisa Jacobson and Terry Hu in
Trophy Boys.
Credit: Valerie Terranova

The play’s premise is explosive enough. The championship debate team must argue in the affirmative for the statement “Feminism has failed women” and they are pitted against their sister school’s all-girl squad. At stake is a prestigious trophy and the boys’ hopes of getting into Ivy League colleges and positions of power and influence. Mattana gets in some witty satire of male privilege as the debaters prep by twisting logic and playing with semantics in order to strengthen their position. This despite their constant affirmation that they love women and are strong allies of progressive causes. Taymor ups the testosterone level by inserting desk-humping dance breaks, unleashing the kids’ ravenous libidos. 

The plot takes a dangerous twist when an anonymous rumor surfaces that one of the boys committed sexual assault. Mattana goes in for the metaphorical kill as the lads abandon all semblance of civility when their dominance is threatened. They turn on each other when it’s revealed each could be guilty of the anonymous accusation. This is a edgy political cartoon, a detonating comic sketch, staged by Taymor like a series of time  bombs, going off several times during the 75-minute running time.

Louisa Jacobson, Emmanuelle Mattana, 
Terry Hu and Esco Jouléy in
Trophy Boys.
Credit: Valerie Terranova

The able cast adds depth to the cartoonish quartet of adolescent narcissists. Playwright Mattana also plays Owen, the entitled chief debater. She endows him with a fierce intelligence, a brittle vulnerability, and an adept ability to manipulate words and the emotions of his teammates. Louisa Jacobson perfectly captures the alpha jock machismo of Jared, the diametric opposite of Marian Brook, the prim, reserved heroine she plays on HBO’s The Gilded Age. (Ironically, Jared is the one who constantly states he loves women even as he plans the downfall and humiliation of his feminine opponents including his girlfriend.) Terry Hu displays the sensitive exterior and the dark interior of David, the low man on the team’s totem pole, struggling to gain the respect of his fellows. Esco Jouléy robustly limns the braggadocio of sports-minded Scott who is concealing more than friendly feelings for Jared.

Matt Saunders’ classroom set captures the staid academic atmosphere and Cha See’s lighting appropriately shifts the mood from raucous rock-infused anarchy (augmented by Fan Zhang’s high-decibel sound design) to ominous and frightening. This is a tight, short show with a powerful message on the still-pervasive problem of gender inequality.

June 24—Aug. 3. MCC Theater Space/Susan and Ronald Frankel Theater, 511 W. 52nd St., NYC. Running time: 75 mins. with no intermission. mcctheater.org.

The 14th Annual David Desk Awards

Operation Mincemeat deserved better
in this season's award-giving, IMHO.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

The Tonys, Drama Desks, NY Drama Critics Circle, Outer Critics, etc. are all long over. So it is time to deliver my own accolades with my choices for the best of the 2024-25 Broadway and Off-Broadway season. I was not as enamored with Maybe Happy Ending as all the major theater awards. Operation Mincemeat got my vote for Best Musical but Happy Ending won everything in spite of my opposition. I also felt Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends, Smash and We Had a World were unfairly overlooked for nominations.

Outstanding Play
The Antiquities, Jordan Harrison
Grangeville, Samuel D. Hunter
The Hills of California, Jez Butterworth
Liberation, Bess Wohl
Purpose, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Vladimir, Erika Sheffer
We Had a World, Joshua Harmon

Outstanding Musical

The Big Gay Jamboree

Death Becomes Her

Operation Mincemeat

Smash

Outstanding Revival of a Play

Eureka Day

A Streetcar Named Desire

Yellow Face

Outstanding Revival of a Musical

Cats: The Jellicle Ball

Gypsy

Sunset Blvd.

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Play

George Clooney, Good Night and Good Luck

Adam Driver, Hold On to Me Darling

Jon Michael Hill, Purpose

Louis McCartney, Stranger Things: The First Shadow

Paul Mescal, A Streetcar Named Desire

Paul Sparks, Grangeville

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Play

Laura Donnelly, The Hills of California

Francesca Faridany, Vladimir

Patsy Ferran, A Streetcar Named Desire

Lily Rabe, Ghosts

Jeanine Serralles, We Had a World