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

B'way Update: Joe Turner Returns

Taraji P. Henson and Cedric the Entertainer

August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone will return to Broadway next spring at a Shubert theater to be announced. Golden Globe winner and Tony, Oscar and Emmy nominee Taraji P. Henson (Netflix's Straw) and 6-time NAACP Image winner Cedric the Entertainer will star as Bertha and Seth Holly, the owners of a boarding-house in 1911 Pittsburgh. Bertha and Seth host numerous guests including the mysterious Herald Loomis who is searching for his wife from whom he was separated during slavery. Emmy and Golden Globe winner and Tony nominee Debbie Allen will direct. Henson was a producer of Jaja's African Hair Braiding and Joe Turner marks her Broadway acting debut. Cedric the Entertainer was last seen on Broadway in American Buffalo in 2008. Further casting will be announced at a later date.

Ed Hall and Bo Rucker in
Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1988)
Credit: Joan Marcus

Joe Turner opened on Broadway in 1988 and ran for 108 performances. It was nominated for 5 Tony Awards (winning one for L. Scott Caldwell's featured performance as Bertha) and won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play. Lincoln Center Theater presented a revival in 2009 which ran for 69 performances and was nominated for 6 Tony Awards, winning for Roger Robinson's featured performance as Bynum and Brian MacDevitt's lighting. 

Off-B'way Reviews: Lowcountry; Duke & Roya

Babak Tafti and Jodi Balfour in
Lowcountry.
Credit: Ahron R. Foster

Two unconventional plays about odd romantic pairings recently opened Off-Broadway. Both attempt to tackle significant topics outside of the “boy-meets-girl” arena, and both come up short. Abby Rosebrock’s Lowcountry at Atlantic Theater Company takes the awkward-first-date premise into dangerous territory but stretches credulity too much for its themes to reach full impact. 

Both participants in the rendezvous are seriously damaged individuals. David (Babak Tafti, deftly conveying suppressed trauma) is a divorced father emerging into the dating world after wearing an ankle monitor for a sexual offense (the true nature of his crime is slowly revealed during the course of the date). By court order, he must attend a recovery program for sex addicts and report to a probation officer who has issues of his own (Keith Kupferer in an effective cameo). David’s date Tally (Jodi Balfour in a kinetic, jittery performance) is a hot mess returning to her hometown after stints in Los Angeles as an actress and gig worker. She’s still dealing with the death of her mother when she was a child as well as coping with her difficult father. 

Jodi Balfour and Babak Tafti in
Lowcountry.
Credit: Ahron R. Foster

Their encounter takes place in David’s cramped apartment in small-town South Carolina (Arnulfo Maldonado designed the realistic, squalid setting).  According to the terms of David’s parole, any encounters must be in public. The play opens as he is preparing a pasta dinner for Tally while lying about the location to his parole officer Paul in his regular phone check-in. The main focus of the play is David and Tally’s clumsy attempts to connect. Rosebrock uses their fumbling reaching out to provide social commentary on our fractured society. (Perhaps that could be the meaning of the title, indicating our polarized, degraded American culture as well as the coastal region of South Carolina.) David is foreign-born, adopted and made a citizen as a child. His country of origin is never revealed but the specter of ICE deportation hangs over him like a menacing cloud. Tally drinks and smokes weed to cope with her rage, presumably over her mother’s early demise which she claims was brought on by the mom’s dislike of then President Bill Clinton. 

Babak Tafti and Jodi Balfour in
Lowcountry.
Credit: Ahron R. Foster

Jo Bonney’s direction is well-paced and Tafti and Balfour deliver compelling portraits of two desperate losers oppressed by bad luck and bad choices. But Rosebrock’s central theme is not entirely clear. Is she saying our divisive culture has pushed David and Tally into an impossible corner with no escape but tragedy? Tally’s motives are not focused either, though they gradually become somewhat clearer. The play does culminate with a shocking act of violence which is not completely earned by the proceeding character development. In the script provided, Rosebrock reveals Lowcountry is part of a trilogy. Perhaps the other two plays would explain further. 

B'way/Off-B'way Update: Vineyard; Dates for Punch, Oedipus, Chess

Anne Washburn

Vineyard Theater has announced two productions for its upcoming 43rd season. A third winter production will be announced soon. First up this fall is The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire by Anne Washburn (Mr. Burns: A Post-Electronic Play) in a co-production with The Civilians and directed by Obie winner Steve Cosson. The story concerns a community living off the grid who must cope with the death of one of its members.

||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :|| by Eisa Davis (Warriors concept album) follows in a winter premiere. Tony and Drama Desk winner Pam McKinnon (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) directs. Four gifted teenagers collaborate and collide one pivotal summer at a prestigious girls’ music program in Berkeley. As their connections intensify, the world outside thrums with a steady

Eisa Davis

undercurrent of disaster and emergency – and they must find new ways to improvise on stage and off.

In other news, three previously announced Broadway shows have confirmed dates and theaters.

Punch at Manhattan Theater Club's Samuel J. Friedman Theater will begin previews Sept. 9 ahead of a Sept. 29 opening.

The revival of Chess will begin previews at the Imperial Theater (where the original Broadway production ran in 1988) on Oct. 15 in advance of a Nov. 16 opening.

Robert Icke's adaptation of Oedipus starts previews at Studio 54 Oct. 30 and opens on Nov. 13.

B'way/Off-B'way Update: St. Ann's; Endgame; Jeffrey Ross; Etc.

Julia McDermott in Weather Girl.
Credit: Mihaela Bodlovic

St. Ann's Warehouse has announced its 2025-26 season which will include a rare Eugene O'Neill revival, a performance by cabaret star Justin Vivian Bond, and the London hit Weather Girl. The season opens with Brian Watkins' Weather Girl (Sept. 16--Oct. 12), a one-character play about the climate change crisis seen through the eyes of Stacy, an underpaid and oversexed California TV forecaster. Julia McDermott repeats her Edinburgh and London performance.

Justin Vivian Bond will play folk legend Marianne Faithful in Flaming September (Sept 24-28), directed by Daniel Fish (Oklahoma!). 

Michelle Williams, Mike Faist, Justin Vivian Bond

Oscar and Tony nominee and Emmy winner Michelle Williams (Blackbird, Fosse/Verdon) and Tony nominee and Emmy winner Mike Faist (Dear Evan Hansen) will headline a revival of Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie directed by Tony winner Thomas Kail (Hamilton) (Nov. 25--Feb. 1). O'Neill's 1922 Pulitzer Prize winning drama about a reformed prostitute seeking redemption was last seen on Broadway in 1993 with Natasha Richardson and Liam Neeson. (Note: this Michelle Williams should not be confused with the pop singer from Destiny's Child of the same name who is currently appearing in Death Becomes Her. I thought Equity had a rule against that.)

Aaron Monaghan and Marie Mullen in
Druid's Endgame.
Credit: Ros Kavagh

In other news: Ireland's Druid Theater Company will present its production of Samuel Beckett's Endgame at the Irish Arts Center (Oct. 22-Nov. 23) Director Garry Hynes and actress Marie Mullen who won Tony Awards for The Beauty Queen of Leenane stage and are featured in this nihilistic play taking place after a nuclear holocaust. Bosco Hogan, Aaron Monaghan (The Banshees of Inisherin), and Rory Nolan also star. Endgame was last seen in NYC at the Irish Repertory Theater in 2023....

Stand-up comic Jeffrey Ross will bring his solo show Take a Banana for the Road to Broadway at the Nederlander Theater, starting previews Aug. 5 and opening Aug. 18 for a limited run until Sept. 29....

Jinx Monsoon will take over the lead in Oh, Mary!

Oh Mary! has benefitted from its Tony wins for Best Actor and Director. Cole Escola's wild rewrite of history has been extended to Jan. 2026. Escola gave his final performance in the title role June 21 and Titus Burgess will take over starting June 23 until Aug. 2. On Aug. 4, RuPaul's Drag Race winner Jinx Monsoon will go straight from Pirates! The Penzance Musical to Mary! through Sept. 27.

Book Review: Old Babes in the Wood

(Borrowed from Jackson Heights Library): Margaret Atwood's collection of stories follow new patterns. The contents consist of a group of tales about an elderly couple Tig and Nell at the beginning and at the end (the latter stories follow Nell's journey through widowhood, all very touching). In between are a series of unrelated stories with an undertone of fantasy and fairy tales (hence the title, I guess). My Evil Mother reminded me of a more mature version of the 1960s sitcom Bewitched with a woman recounting growing up with an eccentric mother who claimed to be a sorceress. Freeforall is a sort of gender-reversed Handmaid's Tale with a matriarchy victimizing fertile young boys. In The Dead Interview, Atwood talks with the ghost of George Orwell during a seance. A snail is reincarnated in the body of a woman in Metempsychosis or The Journey of the Soul. I've read a lot of Atwood's books and this one was fun and moving. 

Off-B'way Reviews: Prosperous Fools; The Imaginary Invalid

Jennifer Regan, Kaliswa Brewster, and
Taylor Mac in Prosperous Fools.
Credit: Travis Emery Hackett

Moliere is having a modern moment. Two adaptations of the 17th century French playwright’s comedies are now on display Off-Broadway. Both employ contemporary tropes to satirize issues afflicting 21st-century society with varying degrees of success. Multi-hyphenate artist Taylor Mac is starring in his own meta-madcap meditation on arts funding, Prosperous Fools, “loosely inspired” by Moliere’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (The Would-Be Gentleman) at Theater for a New Audience. While Jeffrey Hatcher has taken a more conventional route with a straightforward adaptation of The Imaginary Invalid, skewering modern medical practices at New World Stages in a production from Red Bull Theater. Both have plenty of laughs and ideas, but both have their drawbacks, delivering us two mixed bags.

Sierra Boggess and Aerina Park Deboer
in Prosperous Fools.
Credit: Travis Emery Hackett

Mac’s Fools is a cloud-cuckoo concoction veering wildly between broad farce and intelligent cultural commentary. It has a lot to say about the state of philanthropy and the arts in general and at times the play (if you can call it that) says it with intelligence and style. But too often the playwright-star has ignored Polonius’s dictum that brevity is the soul of wit and he and his director Darko Tresnjak allow their gags and monologues to go on too long. 

The premise takes off from Moliere considerably (Charles Ludlum wrote and starred in a more faithful version in his Le Bourgeois Avant-Garde in 1983.) The original focuses on the middle-class Monsieur Jourdain who aspires to the aristocracy by taking lessons in the arts but only succeeds in making an ass of himself. In Mac’s free adaptation, the focus shifts to the Artist (played by Mac in a fine comic turn) who worries that he is selling out by allowing his world-premiere ballet on the myth of Prometheus to be financed by a contemptible boor (the bourgeois figure). This character, combing the worst self-aggrandizing traits of Elon Musk and Donald Trump, is identified in the program as $#@%$ and his name is pronounced as the sound of a game-show buzzer when a contestant delivers the wrong answer.