Off-B'way Review: La Cage Aux Folles

Billy Porter and Wayne Brady in
La Cage Aux Folles.
Credit: Jan Marcus

The mission of Encores! is to give obscure or forgotten musicals with some worthy elements—either a witty score, a fun book, or an opportunity for a contemporary performer to stretch themselves—another look. La Cage Aux Folles doesn’t really fit any of these criteria. The original 1983 production ran for over five years and there have been two revivals (2004 and 2010). The show has not slipped beneath notice and holds a place in the cultural memory for its trailblazing depiction of a loving gay couple humorously challenging bigotry. Jerry Herman’s spritely score contains many tunes which remain on the short-list for Favorite Broadway songs. Harvey Fierstein’s book retains its sitcom-y punch, with only a few dated spots.

However, Robert O’Hara’s new concert staging does give us chance to “see things from a different angle” as the lyrics to “I Am What I Am,” the show’s hit anthem of gay rights, suggests. With an all-black cast and an infusion of transgender imagery, O’Hara brings La Cage up to the present moment. David Zinn’s set and Clint Ramos and Michelle Ridley’s costumes evoke black, gay icons from Sylvester to Eartha Kitt’s Catwoman.

When the original production opened, stars George Hearn and Gene Barry made it abundantly clear in interviews they were both big, strapping straight guys only playing at being queer. (I even recall one feature article on the show in a national magazine telling of a straight chorus boy in drag harshly rejecting the flirtatious advances of a male stagehand.) I don’t recall any kissing between the two leads and I believe they only went as far as handing hands. Here, Wayne Brady and Billy Porter—the former has identified as “pansexual” and the latter as gay—are entirely believable as a married couple of many years. They aren’t afraid to display intimacy. At one point, Porter’s extravagant Albin recoils from a public display of affection from his husband Georges (Brady). This is the only moment that rings false. 

Porter is blazingly flamboyant and touching, unashamedly proclaiming his identity. His rendition of “I Am What I Am” at the first act finale brings down the house. He’s entirely at home as the top-billed drag entertainer and loving maternal figure in his family. Brady is equally professional and commanding as the—you should excuse the expression—straight man to Porter’s flashier role. He provides a solid anchor for Porter to take off from. 

As Jean-Michele, the son who requests Albin get tucked away in a closet to please his persecutive conservation in-laws, Alaman Diadhiou gets an impressive dance solo. Tonya Pinkins is a delight in the beefed-up role of Jacqueline, the world-weary restauranteur as is James Jackson Jr. as the sassy servant Jacob. Peter Francis James overplays the stuffy right-wing leader, emerging as a straw bogey man.

The staging can be rough at times. The lack of prep time shows. At one point, Porter flubbed a line and ad-libbed, “Only ten days, bitches,” referring to the abbreviated Encores! rehearsal period. The design elements are uneven, particularly Adam Honore’s harsh lighting which sometimes causes glare and audience members have to shield their eyes. Some Encores products have been so polished they could open on Broadway with little transition, but this one would require additional work. However, the choreography by Edgar Godineaux and Dormeshia is brilliantly executed and is a highlight. 

Despite the rough patches, this La Cage is a fun frolic and a bracing reminder of how far we’ve come in 40 years. Gay couples are now regularly in TV commercials and game shows (like Brady’s Let’s Make a Deal.) Musicals like this one were there first, making it a fitting way to end Gay Pride month.

June 18—28. Encores! at City Center, 131 W. 55th St., NYC. Running time: two hours and 30 mins. including intermission. nycityenter.org.

Billy Porter and cast
in La Cage Aux Folles
Credit: Joan Marcus

B'way Update: Three Days of Rain

Francois Arnaud in Heated Rivalry
Credit: HBO

The trend for revivals continues as the latest entry in the 2026-27 Broadway season is announced. Richard Greenberg's Three Days of Rain, previously seen Off and on Broadway, will begin performance in February 2027 at a Shubert theater to be announced with a cast mainly known for their film and TV credits. The cast of three who will play two roles each is comprised on Francois Arnaud (Heated Rivalry), David Corenswet (Superman), and Emmy nominee Yvonne Strahovski (Serena Joy from The Handmaid's Tale). Tony winner Anna D. Shapiro will direct.  

Anna D. Shapiro said, “THREE DAYS OF RAIN is truly one of the most beautiful plays I’ve ever done or experienced. Steeped in the brilliantly funny and enchantingly complex world of Richard Greenberg, the story follows two generations of New York intelligentsia as they navigate the burden of family, the seduction of art and the necessity of love over time and eternity.”

David Corenswet as Superman
Credit: Warner Brothers

Three Days of Rain premiered in NYC Off-Broadway in a 1997 Manhattan Theater Club production with Patricia Clarkson, John Slattery and Bradley Whitford. The play was a Pulitzer finalist and won an Obie Award. A 2006 Broadway revival was headlined by movie stars Julia Roberts, Paul Rudd and Bradley Cooper.

This brings the number of Broadway play revivals for 2026-7 to ten with only four new plays scheduled (five if you count Billy Crystal's autobiographical solo show). 

Yvonne Strahovski as Serena Joy
on The Handmaid's Tale.
Credit: Hulu

B'way Update: Warriors Musical

Eisa Davis and Lin-Manuel Miranda

Warriors, a musical based on the 1979 Paramount Pictures release The Warriors and the 1965 novel by Sol Yorick, will open on Broadway in Spring of 2027. Previews begin in March with an opening in April at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater. Book, music and lyrics are by Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton, In the Heights) and Eisa Davis (Bulrusher). Jeffrey Koons directs and Andy Blankenbuehler of Hamilton co-directs and choreographs. The plot follows a NYC gang as they travel from Coney Island to the Bronx and back in an effort to prove their innocence of a murder. The musical originated as a concept album realesed in 2024 and featuring Lauryn Hill, Busta Rhymes, Nas, Billy Porter, Coleman Domingo, and many others.

“With Warriors, we take a fateful journey through New York City full of heart and grit as our characters fight to survive,” said co-writers Miranda and Davis in a joint statement. “Musicalizing such a vibrant world for the concept album has been a thrill, and now we're coming out to play on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne. We can't wait.”

A scene from The Warriors film (1979)

B'way/Off-B'way Update: LCT Season; Mean Girls Cast

Jasmine Amy Rogers will star in two Broadway
shows this season; Bradley Whitford and Tom
Blyth will headline A Few Good Men.

The Sound of Music, Rodgers and Hammerstein's beloved classic of the Von Trapp Family Singers and that famous climb over a mountain to escape the Nazis, is returning to Broadway as part of Lincoln Center Theater's 2026-27 Broadway and Off-Broadway season which will also include revivals of A Few Good Men and August Wilson's Seven Guitars and a new play from Kimberly Belflower, author of John Proctor Is the Villain. 

Tony nominee and Drama Desk and Outer Critic Circle winner Jasmine Amy Rogers (Boop!, Spelling Bee) will headline The Sound of Music revival, scheduled to begin performances at the Vivian Beaumont on March 23, 2027, with an opening set for April 15. Tony nominee and Drama Desk winner and LCT artistic director Lear de Bessonet (Ragtime, Into the Woods) will direct. The Sound of Music opened in 1959, ran 1, 443 performances and won five Tonys including Best Musical. The 1965 movie version starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer won five Oscars and became one of the top grossing films of its day. A 1998 revival ran 533 performances.

BTW, before wandering through the hills and singing about how they are alive, Rogers will star in Manhattan Theater Club's production of School Girls or the African Mean Girls Play, opening Sept. 28 at the Samuel Friedman. Her co-stars are Tony nominee Denee Benton (Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, The Gilded Age), Tony winner Patina Miller (Pippin), Drama Desk nominee Erin Morton (Heathers), Nia Otchere-Sarfo, Jordan Rice, Obie winner Heather Alicia Simms (Purlie Victorious), and Lucia Aremu (Cold War Choir Practice).

Back to Lincoln Center: Aaron Sorkin's A Few Good Men starring Emmy winner Bradley Whitford (The West Wing, The Handmaid's Tale, Transparent) and Tom Blyth (The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes), begins previews at the Beaumont Oct. 8, opening Oct. 19. Tony winner Michael Arden (The Lost Boys, Maybe Happy Ending, Once on This Island) directs.

At the Off-Broadway Mitzi Newhouse, Ruben Santiago-Hudson will direct a revival of August Wilson's Seven Guitars, set in 1940s Pittsburgh. Santiago Hudson won a Tony for Featured Actor in a Play for the 1996 original Broadway production. Previews Nov. 5, opens Nov. 23.

Kimberly Bellflower follows up her Broadway debut of John Proctor Is the Villain with Born in the Dirt, reuniting her with director Danya Taymor. The story concerns a young woman in a small Souther town working at a "hospital" that produces dolls for collectors. Previews April 14, 2027, opens May 6. 

Also at the Newhouse will be Playing Burton by Mark Jenkins, directed by Bartlett Sher, a one-man play about the legendary film and stage star Richard Burton, played by Matthew Rhys. Dates to be announced.

Lincoln Center's LCT3 at the Clara Tow Theater will present creation stories and the important importants by Mfoniso Udofia (performances begin Sept. 15) and Pretend It's Pretend by Emma Watkins (beginning Jan. 28, 2027).

Off-B'way Review: Henry VI: A Trilogy in Two Parts

Mia Katigbak and Jon Norman Schneider
in Henry VI: A Trilogy in Two Parts.
Credit: HanJie Chow

What a difference a day makes. The first part of NAATCO (National Asian-American Theater Company) and the Public Theater’s two-evening presentation of Shakespeare’s Henry VI trilogy is a confusing muddle with ridiculously labyrinthine plots and melodramatic acting and direction. I actually dreaded returning to the Public the following evening for the second part. But, much to my relief and delight, Part Two was a tighter, ferocious spectacle of power politics. The press materials claims this early work from the Bard inspired the bloodthirsty Game of Thrones fantasy series and the second part bears that out. Originally presented in 2018, Henry VI: A Trilogy in Two Parts condenses three of the Bard’s early history plays in a two-night sprawling epic. The action covers the seemingly endless War of the Roses wherein the Houses of York and Lancaster battle for the crown during the reign of the boyishly naive title monarch.

Teresa Avia Lim and Paul Juhn in
Henry VI: A Trilogy in Two Parts.
Credit: HanJie Chow

Director and Adapter Stephen Brown-Fried can do little to enliven the overstuffed Part One, subtitled Foreign Wars. The young king (sensitive Jon Norman Schneider) is embroiled in armed conflict to retain the French lands conquered by his father the war-like Henry V. The French have a secret weapon, the possibly divine, possibly witchy Joan of Arc (fiery Myka Cue). Meanwhile, the devious Duke of York (steely Rajesh Bose) is scheming to seize the throne, countered by Henry’s dominant wife Queen Margaret (commanding Teresa Avia Lim). There are so many slow-motion battles, reversals of fortune and elaborate stratagems, it’s nearly impossible to keep track of them all. (Mextly Couzin’s striking lighting does help clarify the action somewhat.) In one ironic scene, York’s convoluted explanation for his claim to the crown gets the biggest laugh of the evening. 

Actors are constantly moving pylons entwined with thick ropes back and forth across the drab set by the design team of dots. The absurd black and white costumes by threeAsFour featuring weird puffy fabric choices, denote no specific period and make the performers look like they are wearing sleeping bags or comforters. Hardly appropriate for combat. Mia Katigbak does have moments of dignified grace as Henry’s humane advisor, an island of sanity in a sea of madness. (There are many interesting examples of cross-gender casting with women playing male roles.)  

Kimiye Corwin, David Shih, and 
John D. Haggerty in
Henry VI: A Trilogy in Two Parts.
Credit: HanJie Chow

But Part Two, subtitled Civil Strife, benefits from mainly focusing on a single story arc: the machiavellian machinations of the crippled, satanic Duke of Gloucester, later to be crowned the infamous Richard III. Played like a diminutive dynamo demon by Julyana Soelistyo, Richard becomes the center of an epic battle to seize the monarchy at all costs. Brown-Fried’s pacing becomes quicker and clearer, the battles are not as repetitive and the acting is sharper. Schneider’s Henry grows more complex, displaying the woebegone king’s conflicting inner struggle between religious idealism and brutal reality. (In a fascinating double-casting choice, he reappears as a lowly messenger after the king has been taken captive.) Lim’s Margaret emerges as a wolf-like predator, devouring anyone who crosses her. A production of Richard III featuring Soelistyo and Lim would be a terrific cage match. There are also vibrant performances in this second part by Anna Ishida as Warwick, Orville Mendoza as the rebel Jack Cade, and David Lee Huynh as Clifford.

The three Henry VI plays are rarely performed, yet they have relevance in today’s world. Both feature a deeply divided country with leaders exploiting populist fears and passions to gain unchecked power. This production attempts to make that connection, but only succeeds half-way.

June 21—July 19. Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St., NYC. Running time: Part One: two hours and 45 mins. including intermission; Part Two: two hours and 15 mins. including intermission. publictheater.org.

Book Review: Twilight of the Super Heroes

(Bought at Inquiring Minds Bookstore in Saugerties, NY for $7) Deborah Eisenberg's short story collection has some brilliant passages, but I found her overall style a little too writerly. I didn't feel like I was inside the characters, but in the mind of the writer, coldly observing them. The perspective shifted within the stories, which was confusing. The title story is praised lavishly in the book inside blurbs as an insightful rumination on 9/11. It didn't make me feel anything really. The perspective switches from a rudderless young man sharing an illegal Manhattan sublet right in front of the Twin Towers with three friends to his art-dealer uncle who procured the apartment for him. The young man is amateur artist producing a satiric comic strip featuring Passivity Man. The reaction of these two and the roommates to the Twin Towers devastation and its aftermath are the nucleus of the story. It didn't register as emotional or impactful. 

I liked Some Other, Better Otto and Revenge of the Dinosaurs more. The first depicts a depressed gay man dealing with his husband and family including a schizophrenic sister. The second a somewhat feckless young artist coping with her senile grandmother and her more practical brother. I felt closer to the characters here.

Off-B'way Update: MCC Season

Leonardo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp
in What's Eating Gilbert Grape

MCC Theater has announced it 40th anniversary 2026-27 season including two new American plays and a musical adaptation of a beloved film and novel. First up is Anon--a tempest at our kitchen table by Anne Washburn (Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play), directed by Anne Kaufman, previewing Sept. 25 for an Oct. 13 opening. When a gay pride flag is flown in their suburban Texas neighborhood, two families freak out. In January, Lloyd Suh's The Heart Sellers tells the story of two immigrant strangers sharing their first Thanksgiving in America. June brings the world premiere of a musical based on What's Eating Gilbert Grape? with a book by Peter Hedges based on his 1991 novel (the basis of the 1993 movie starring Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio and Juliette Lewis). Music and lyrics are by Adrian Enscoe, Christopher Sears, Sydney Shepherd, and Regina Strayhorn. Anne Kaufman returns to MCC to direct.

"We've always sought to provoke conversations that don't happen anywhere else - and 40 years in, that energy feels stronger than ever. Our Anniversary Season features three very different, unabashedly American stories that share an urgency that is unmistakably of the moment," said Co-Artistic Director Bernie Telsey. "Will (Cantler, co-artistic director) and I are grateful to explore these worlds with the adventurous artists, audiences, and supporters who make MCC what it is. This season will be a celebration for everyone. Find us in the lobby, we can't wait to talk to you!"

Post-Tony Thoughts

P!nk at the Tonys.
Yes, I took the picture from my TV set.

It's been more than a week since the Tony Awards and I've been struggling to figure out what I want to say about the annual celebration of all things Broadway. It was a fairly good production. When pop music star P!nk who has no theater credits at all and whose only connection to the Main Stem is a few of her songs are in the jukebox scores of Moulin Rouge and & Juliet, was announced as the hostess, I was skeptical. Was this merely a desperate ploy to get a new demographic to watch? Also there had been calls to boycott the Tonys because of CBS' parent company Paramount being taken over by the Trump-friendly Ellison family. (Also the producer of Tony winning Best Musical Schmigadoon! is evidently a big MAGA donor.)

To my surprise, P!nk acquitted herself quite well and humbly took on the role of an enthusiastic newcomer from another media not wishes to intrude on the party but to help make it fun. I could have done without the limp comic bits with Darren Criss pretending to be scared of leaping off the balcony and Ariana DeBose offering not-funny hostess advice. The opening number about leading ladies was clever, but I couldn't understand most of the lyrics. P!nk was spectacular in the Chicago tribute and it served as a knock-out audition for her to join the company. The Chorus Line tribute was unnecessary. Once again, the show ran close to four hours (if you count the Pluto TV pre-show) and just like last year they did not mention the Pluto winners on the CBS broadcast (except for the Outstanding Theater Teacher). And the Special Tony Honors winners--entertainment lawyer Loren Plotkin, stage manager Jake Bell, 1/52 Project, creative director Kenn Lubin and the League of Resident Theaters--weren't even mentioned at all. At least on the Oscars, they show clips of the Special Awards handed out earlier in the week.

I got 20 out of 26 right in my predictions. The only real surprise was Ali Louis Bourzgui winning Featured Actor in a Musical for The Lost Boys. I think the vote was split between Andre De Shields of Cats: The Jellicle Ball and Ben Levi Ross of Ragtime who won the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards. I was especially glad for Schmigadoon! winning Best Musical, Book and Score. Maybe this will lead to Schmicago (the Apple TV series's second season) making to Broadway and the third season, Into the Schmoods, getting filmed by Apple.

Book Review: Bad Behavior

(Bought at Time and Space Limited in Hudson, NY for $4) Mary Gaitskill's first collection of stories features some pretty twisted souls. Secretary (which was adapted into a 2002 film) features a weird relationship between the titular office worker and her attorney-boss combining elements of S&M, spanking and workplace harassment, but she seems to enjoy it. A Romantic Weekend also borders on sadomasochism, but the two lovers can't seem to agree on what they want. Prostitution is a main element in several of the tales as the heroines grapple with feeling trapped in the world's oldest profession. A customer is the main focus of another story as he falls for a working girl but is shattered when he encounters her in the outside "real" world. Gaitskill portrays these people without judgement. My favorite was the last, longest story, Heaven in which a woman deals with her repressed husband, four children going through different phases of rebellion and a troubled niece who comes to live with the family. Virginia goes through numerous difficulties and tragedies without really examining her life or her feelings and finally accepts her lot. Gaitskill reminds me of A.M. Homes and Lorrie Moore with her short, sharp, detailed observations of characters muddling through challenging but mundane lives.

B'way Update: Paddington, Billy Crystal

Paddington the Musical will
make the transatlantic leap this spring.
Credit: Johann Persson

At this year's Tony Awards, Neil Patrick Harris brought a teddy bear onstage during the opening number and hostess P!nk said, "That's next season." For those viewers who do not obsessively follow theater news, they were referring to a rumored Broadway transfer of Paddington the Musical, a hit London tuner based on the beloved stuffed bear and hero of a series of books and movies. Producer Sonia Friedman just made it official, the Olivier Award-winner will begin performances at the Al Hirschfeld Theater on March 30, 2027 and open on April 18. The score is by Olivier winner Tom Fletcher, book by Olivier winner Jessica Swale and direction by Olivier winner Luke Sheppard. 

Producers Sonia Friedman and Eliza Lumley said, "Producing Paddington The Musical with our extraordinary writing and creative team has been an immense privilege. Paddington Bear has endured for generations because he reminds us of the best of ourselves: kindness, curiosity, empathy and the belief that everyone deserves to belong. Wrapped inside a joyful theatrical adventure, with Tom Fletcher’s exceptional score at its heart, is a story about finding home, family and community in unexpected places. We have been genuinely blown away by the response to the production so far and are thrilled to be bringing it to Broadway. As the home of so many of the world’s great musicals, there is no more exciting place to produce new work than New York, and we cannot wait to share Paddington’s world with Broadway audiences.”

Billy Crystal's 860 will play the Imperial
this fall

Meanwhile, Billy Crystal's solo show 860, centered around the home he lost in the Palisades fire and directed by Tony nominee Scott Ellis has announced dates and a theater. Previews begin Oct. 1 at the Imperial prior to an Oct. 21 opening for a limited 14-week run through Jan. 3, 2027.

Book Review: Up Till Now

(Borrowed from the Jackson Heights library) At the premiere of the first Star Trek movie, William Shatner thought to himself, "Now I don't have to do anymore game shows." In his entertaining autobiography Up Till Now he then launches into several pages describing his quiz show experiences, even hosting a short-lived one with complicated rules and dancing girls. That's the pattern of this unconventional memoir. The chronological narrative will get sidetracked on a tangent and we journey down a rabbit hole. The positive part is that Shatner has had so many interesting tangents in his life and career, it's always a fascinating ride. And it's not just Star Trek anecdotes (he wrote two separate books about his TV and movie voyages aboard the starship Enterprise). Shatner has starred in four different TV shows (after the book was written he continued with a fifth, short-lived sitcom), starred on Broadway with Julie Harris, made movies with Roger Corman, Yul Brynner (who kicked him in the pants for fun), Spencer Tracy and Judy Garland, recorded campy albums, wrote several sci-fi novels, narrated countless documentary features and TV shows, voiced animated characters, jumped out of airplanes, raised horses, and married four times.

He can come across as a pompous ass sometimes, but his career was relaunched when he started laughing at himself, as he does in this book. 

Off-B'way Review: Romeo and Juliet

Ra'Mya Latiah Aikens and Daniel Bravo
Hernandez in Romeo and Juliet.
Credit: Joan Marcus 

Many years ago when I was acting in a community theater production of The Skin of Our Teeth, one of my castmates railed against an all-African-American, Off-Broadway production of The Cherry Orchard, claiming black actors did have the “cultural background” to perform Anton Chekhov’s classic of displacement in a Russian family. What would he have made of Saheem Ali’s politically charged production of Romeo and Juliet currently at the Public Theater’s Delacorte in Central Park? (Ironically it was also the Public Theater which produced that all-black Cherry Orchard.) Ali sets Shakespeare’s immortal tale of star-crossed lovers in what appears to be a little town on the southern side of the U.S.-Mexican border. “Nueva Verona” is listed as the locale in the program. Set designer Maruti Evans places an enormous replica of Trump’s unfinished wall at the back of the stage with huge figures representing death and the Virgin Mary peering over the top. Death is ever present with the main playing area representing a graveyard with tombstones scattered about and three performers in dark robes and sporting Georgia O’Keefe-like cattle-bone masks hovering on the edges of the action. The transfer from the Elizabethan era to modern Central America does not diminish Shakespeare’s timeless message.

Daniel Bravo Hernandez and Ra'Mya
Latiah Aikens in Romeo and Juliet.
Credit: Joan Marcus

In addition, much of the dialogue between the titular besotted teens is performed in Spanish. Some of Ali’s choices deliver a blurry result, but the Bard’s overall impact is still strongly felt. His theme of division among community causing tragedy despite young love comes across with devastating power, featuring luminous performance from Daniel Bravo Hernandez and Ra’Maya Latiah Aikens as the tragic lovers. The rival houses seem on to be on opposite sides of the immigration question, even though the town appears to be entirely in Mexico. The Capulets are apparently authoritarian officials with Lord Capulet dressed by costume designer Oana Botez in a black military Mussolini-inspired uniform and his nephew Tybalt is played as a thug from ICE. Meanwhile, Romeo’s pals Mercutio and Benvolio side with anti-ICE protestors who deface the wall with graffitti-ed slogans. Perhaps it would have made more sense to use the wall to split the stage in half rather than putting the wall at the back. 

Off-B'way Review: Girl, Interrupted

Juliana Canfield in Girl, Interrupted.
Credit: Joan Marcus

Though it has flaws in terms of pacing and repetition, the new musical adaptation of Girl, Interrupted at the Public, based on Susanna Kaysen’s 1993 memoir, is a heart-wrenching portrayal of surviving mental illness. Pulitzer Prize-winner Martina Majok’s book feelingly depicts Susanna’s struggles with suicidal tendencies and her two-year residency at a mental facility in late 1960s Boston. The country’s collective nervous breakdown over civil rights and Vietnam parallels the psychological battles taking place within Susanna and her fellow patients. The title derives from a Vermeer painting “Girl Interrupted at Her Music.” Susanna obsesses over the work which she encountered during a visit to the Frick Museum with her high-school English teacher who may or may have been sexually inappropriate with her. She identifies with the girl in the painting since they both are interrupted at pursuing their full potential.

Ta'Rea Campell, Juliana Canfield and 
Lauren Jeanne Thomas in 
Girl, Interrupted.
Crdit: Joan Marcus

Issues of sexism are also addressed as her therapist dismisses her ambitions of becoming a writer (“No one is a writer”) and advocates a career for her as a dental technician. (Susanna is finally released when she accepts a proposal of marriage, but later fulfills her literary dreams.) There is only one male actor (a versatile Manoel Felciano), listed as “The Male Presence” who represents the restrictions of the patriarchal society. Majok emphasizes the bond developed between the protagonist and the other inmates. Their shared experiences of trauma and misogyny and feelings of oppression provide a strong connection. One of the most moving scenes involves Susannah and her friends visiting a patient in the violent ward. You can feel their hearts breaking at the degraded state of their former wardmate (she has smeared the walls of her cell with her own excrement), but also the fear that they could slip this far down.

Aimee Mann’s songs starkly evoke the period of the late 1960s, mixing folk-rock with soft-pop, Bacharach-like melodies. Her poetic lyrics chart the strange, far country the young men are trekking through. “Now you’re split in two/And each side isn’t you” they sing as they contemplate their interior conflicts.

Katherine Reis, Mia Pak, Juliana Canfield,
Gabi Campo, King Princess, and Sally Shaw
in Girl, Interrupted.
Credit: Joan Marcus

Director Jo Bonney’s staging is fluid, facilitated by the flexible set by the design team dots and the scene-shifting lighting by Heather Gilbert. Sarah Laux’s costumes subtly denote character such as a frilly mini-skirt for the flirtatious Daisy or radical rags for the rebellious Lisa. But, on the negative side, there are several slowly-paced sequences and many of the women’s stories are too similar, though the actresses including Gabi Campo, Mia Pak, Katherine Reis, and Sally Shaw do their best to provide differentiation.

The entire cast is exemplary. Constantly on stage, Juliana Canfield as Susannah carries the weight of the show on her slender shoulders and delivers a bravura performance, expressively conveying the young woman’s descent into irrationality and her valiant fight to regain her sanity. King Princess is fiery and funny as the defiant Lisa, the role which won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Angelina Jolie in the 1999 movie version.

Ta’Rea Campbell has several forceful moments as the compassionate nurse Valerie, expressing her divided emotions between sympathy for the young women and responsibility to perform her unpleasant job. Emily Skinner is properly starchy as Susanna’s no-nonsense British therapist. Lauren Jeanne Thomas is delightfully naive as an eager student nurse. She also ably doubles on the bass, flute and violin, along with Felciano who plays the guitar, bass and violin. Andrea Grody is the proficient music director and plays keys and guitar. There are slow patches, but over all, this Girl is a vibrant one.

June 4—July 12. Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St., NYC. Running time: 110 minutes with no intermission. publictheater.org.

B'way Update: Second Stage Season

The 2026-27 theater season continues to take shape. Second Stage has announced its schedule for both its Broadway (at the Hayes Theater) and Off-Broadway (at the Signature Center) platforms. The company's Broadway shows will include a two productions of shows seen previously seen Off-Broadway: a revised version of the long-running favorite The Fantasticks and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Pulitzer Prize finalist Gloria. So far there are only four new plays planned for the upcoming Broadway season with eight play revivals. This is a growing trend of Broadway companies reviving relatively recent Off-Broadway shows and marketing them as Broadway debuts (which they are). Examples include Lobby Hero, Mary Jane, Eureka Day, Becky Shaw, and Marjorie Prime. 

Neil McCaffrey and Jeremiah Porter
in the revised version of The Fantasticks
at Flint Repertory Theater
Credit: Mike Naddeo

The new edition of Fantasticks will feature young lovers Matt and Louis rather than Matt and Luisa. Their scheming fathers will be replaced by two scheming mothers. The late Tom Jones revised his own book and lyrics (to Harvey Schmidt's music) before he passed away in 2023. Christopher Gattelli (Schmigadoon) directs and choregraphs. The adaptation was presented in 2022 at Flint Repertory Theatre in Flint, MI, and was developed in subsequent productions at the Provincetown Theater in Provincetown, MA, and Coachella Valley Repertory in Cathedral City, CA. Previews begin at the Hayes on Oct. 22 prior to a Nov. 16 opening. The Fantasticks holds the record for the world's longest-running musical at 42 years and is a favorite of community and high-school productions. (I appeared as The Old Actor in a Brooklyn church production directed by Jeffrey Seller, who later produced Rent, Avenue Q, In the Heights, and Hamilton.) 

2026 Tony Award Predictions

For the past few years, I've combined my predictions for the Tonys with the Drama Desks because the two theater-award ceremonies were so close together. But this year, the DDs were held much earlier than the Tonys. So here are my predix for the upcoming Broadway-only Tonys. This has been an odd season with only 34 Broadway productions (if you count return engagements Mamma Mia and Beetlejuice) as opposed to 43 the previous season and 39 the season before that. There are only six new musicals, two of which have already closed (Queen of Versailles and Beaches). Some attribute this to the high volume of shows held-over from previous seasons including The Outlaws, Operation Mincemeat, Death Becomes Her, Buena Vista Social Club, and Maybe Happy Ending. Fewer theaters were available for new shows. 

Best Play
Prediction: The Balusters
Preference: Liberation

Will The Balusters triumph over Liberation?
Credit: Jeremy Daniel

The Balusters is still running and won the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards. Liberation (my choice) did take the Pulitzer Prize but closed as did NY Drama Critics Circle winner Little Bear Ridge Road. Liberation was not eligible for the DD or the OCC since it was nominated last season during its Off-Broadway run. Giant is seen more as a vehicle for John Lithgow than a play that could stand on it own. 

Best Musical
Prediction and Preference: Schmigadoon

The Lost Boys could sneak in, but there is much affection for Schmigadoon, the parody tribute to the Golden Age of Musicals even though most of it was already seen on the Apple TV+ series.

Best Musical Revival

Prediction: Ragtime

Preference: Cats: The Jellicle Ball

I voted for Cats: The Jellicle Ball because it was such a radical rethinking of the original, recasting Andrew Lloyd Webber's cosy musicalization of TS Eliot's poems as a drag ball celebrating outsider queer culture. Ragtime is magnificent, but this Lincoln Center revival is essentially the same show as the first production. As with Liberation, Cats was considered last season by the DD and the OCC for its Off-Bway run. It's very close and could go either way, but I have a feeling the Tony voters will lean towards the traditional with Ragtime.

Best Play Revival:

Prediction and Preference: Death of a Salesman

Despite multiple revivals of Arthur Miller's classic, director Joe Mantello found new insights.

Best Actor in a Play

Prediction and Preference: John Lithgow, Giant

Is John Lithgow on the way to his third Tony?
Credit: Joan Marcus

John Lithgow has two Tonys, Nathan Lane has three. Not that it matters. It's between these two past Tony champs. Lithgow has the edge because his role requires more shifting emotions from rage to deceptively ingratiating wit as the anti-Semitic author Roald Dahl. Lane is brilliant but his Willy doesn't go through as many changes.

Best Actress in a Play:

Prediction and Preference: Lesley Manville, Oedipus

Best Actor in a Musical:

Prediction and Preference: Joshua Henry, Ragtime

Best Actress in a Musical:

Prediction: Caissie Levy, Ragtime

Preference: Sara Chase, Schmigadoon

I preferred Sara Chase in Schmigadoon who was funny and touching as the musical-loving doctor trapped in the titular fantasy town but Drama Desk winner Caissie Levy will probably be part of a Ragtime sweep.

Book Review: Gay Bar: Why We Went Out

(Bought at Center for Fiction bookstore in Brooklyn): Jeremy Atherton Lin combines memoir with social history in his examination of gay bar culture in London, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Through the lens of his personal experiences, Lin dissects shifting attitudes on gays and our public gathering places. There are fascinating details about the history of certain establishments and how their very structure changed over time. Many gay bars covered their windows so patrons would not be seen from the street. Many had "no-touch" policies because same-sex dancing and displays of physical affection were illegal and could result in police raids. 

While I appreciated the history, I found Lin's personal story uninvolving. He does trace his relationship with a boyfriend, nicknamed for a Leonard Cohen song, but I felt I didn't get to know him (Lin or the boyfriend). The very fact that we don't know the guy's name is telling. During his time with the boyfriend, they engage in sex with others. It would have been interesting to delve into that aspect of certain gay unions and why fidelity is not seen by some as important. 

B'way/Off-B'way Update: Awake and Sing; Playwrights Horizons

Danny Burstein, Jessica Hecht and
Jeremy Shamos will star in an MTC
revival of Awake and Sing!

Manhattan Theater Club will present a Broadway revival of Clifford Odets' Depression-era family drama Awake and Sing! Previews begin at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater this December with an opening set for sometime in January 2027. The cast will be headed by Tony winner Danny Burstein (Moulin Rogue, Marjorie Prime), Tony nominee Jessica Hecht (currently in Dog Day Afternoon), and Tony nominee Jeremy Shamos (Clybourne Park). Tyne Rafaeli (Data) directs in her Broadway debut. 

“Awake and Sing! is one of the great masterpieces of our canon—it makes you laugh and breaks your heart in one fell swoop,” said MTC Artistic Director Nicki Hunter. “Though Odets wrote this story of a family caught between the life they imagined and the one they were saddled with nearly a century ago, its questions of ambition and sacrifice feel as timely as ever. I’m thrilled to bring the wildly talented Danny Burstein, Jessica Hecht, and Jeremy Shamos back to the Friedman stage. With Tyne Rafaeli—who will make her Broadway debut with this production—at the helm, I look forward to sharing the power of this play with our audiences.”

Off-B'way Review: Indian Princesses

Serenity Mariana, Haley Wong, Lark White,
Anissa Marie Griego and Rebecca Jiminez
in Indian Princesses.
Credit: Ahron R. Foster

The pain of adolescence and being labelled as different is conveyed with humor and compassion in Eliana Theologides Rodriguez’s insightful comedy Indian Princesses, now at Atlantic Theatre Company’s Linda Gross Theater in a co-production with Rattlestick Theater. The title refers to a father-daughter YMCA bonding program modeled on the Boy Scouts, but as the author explains in a program note, the well-intentioned activity is based on a “pernicious fiction.” An Indian Princess “is an archetype invented to justify the ongoing brutalities of colonization.” Ironically, five middle-school-aged, mixed-race girls spend a formative summer with their white fathers but fall victim to the program’s stereotyping cliches and the cruelty of the other girls’ tribes. The results are a deeper understanding of the young girls’ cultures and uncomfortable confrontations for the dads.

Each of the potential “princesses” and their conflicted pops are drawn with telling details. Andi, the eldest at 12 (entertainingly sullen yet suffering Rebecca Jimenez), longs for more information on her late Mexican Mom. Her macho working-class Anglo father Mac (Pete Simpson, expert at conveying subtext) refuses to open up to her. Whimsical Maisie (delightfully smart and perceptive Lark White), is obsessed with magic and fantasy while her unemployed, unfocused dad Wayne (soulfully struggling Ben Beckley) in an effort to protect from harsh reality, refuses to discuss her African-American background or the history of slavery. 

Anisa Marie Griego and Greg Keller
in Indian Princesses.
Credit: Ahron R. Foster

Well-meaning lawyer Chris (comically blundering Greg Keller) clumsily attempts to interject progressive ideas and attitudes into the gathering and to his strained relationship with his Native American stepdaughters, show-biz-crazy Lily (sweetly show-off-ish Anissa Marie Griego) and shy Hazel (enchanting Serenity Mariana). The group’s heavily religious “Chief” Glen (moving Frank Wood) is torn between keeping “politics” out of the program and acknowledging the raw truth of racism the girls have to face. His granddaughter Samantha (desperate and darling Haley Wong) is wracked with guilt for what she describes as “sinful thoughts.” 

Ben Beckley and Lark White in
Indian Princesses.
Credit: Ahron R. Foster

The Glen-Samantha storyline is the least developed here. We don’t find out why Samantha is living with her grandfather as opposed to with her parents or what she considers sinful. However, Wood and Wong fill in the missing backstory with subtle and layered performances, as does the entire cast. Director Miranda Cornell balances the dramatic and comic moments like an expert juggler. The troupe’s bizarre skit for the Indian Princesses’ Talent Night called “America the Beautiful” is a particularly wonderfully staged and written sequence. Chief Glen has written a wholesome, vanilla-flavored rendition of American history, suitable for a conservative audience. But each of the dads and daughters has their own agenda—Andi wants act on her secret crush on Chris; Chris wants to impose his “woke” sense of  diversity on Glen’s whitewashed version of our national past; Lily sees this as her big opportunity to sing and dance; and slightly embarrassed Wayne and Mac are just looking to bond with their girls. The resultant fiasco is a mess in terms of the story with the kids and parents stepping on each other’s lines, dropping props, and missing cues, but thanks to Cornell’s clear staging we understand each character’s objectives. 

This scene, along with the unspoken dialogue and incomplete sentences that mark the rest of this lovely play, tell us volumes about each of the unhappy daughters and their fathers. They’re all trying to love each other, but so much stands in the way. Rodriguez lovingly chronicles their efforts, failures and attempts to surmount the barrier of prejudice and to celebrate their heritages.

Emmie Finckel’s versatile set recreates a believable community center and the surrounding rustic woods while Mextly Couzin’s atmospheric lighting provides for several different additional locations. This is a beautiful and tender play of healing families and seeking one’s identity.

May 19—June 7. Atlantic Theater Company and Rattlestick Theater at the Linda Gross Theater, 336 W. 20th St., NYC. atlantictheater.org.