Off-B'way Update: Patti LuPone in Full Gallop

Patti LuPone will star in Full Gallop.

Three-time Tony winner Patti LuPone (Evita, Gypsy, Company) returns to the New York stage as legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland in the solo play Full Gallop written by Mark Hampton and Mary Louise Wilson, who played the role in the original 1995 production. The production directed bt Gordon Greenberg (The Baker's Wife) begins previews on Jan. 8, 2027 at NY City Center Stage II, with an opening set for Jan. 17. 

Wilson played Vreeland when the play premiered at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego and again at NYC engagements at Manhattan Theater Club and the West Side Theater. She won an Obie, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Solo Performance. Vreeland served as fashion editor for Harper's Bazaar, editor-in-chief for Vogue and consultant for the Metropolitan Museum's costume collection. 

B'way Update: Annie; Princess Bride

Reid Shelton and Andrea McArdle 
in the original Broadway production on
Annie.
Credit: Martha Swope

The sun will come out tomorrow...or next fall. Tony-winning director Sam Pinkleton (Oh Mary!) will direct a 50th anniversary production of Annie, the beloved musical based on the long-running comic strip about the spunky, red-headed orphan who gets adopted by multi-millionaire Daddy Warbucks. 

“If you ask any of my closest friends what I love more than anything on the planet, everyone will have the same answer: Annie,” says Pinkleton in a statement. “Annie is everything I love about New York City: gutsy, fearless, and funny as hell. It’s a perfectly constructed musical comedy that my collaborators and I will run toward with joy and abandon—with open hearts and total adoration for this legendary show that has made generations fall in love with musicals.”

Annie opened on Broadway in 1977, won seven Tony Awards, and ran for 2, 377 performances. There have been Broadway revivals in 1997 and 2012 and a touring production played Madison Square Garden in 2024. Film versions were produced in 1982, 1999, and 2014, and a live TV version aired on NBC in 2021. No word on casting, but there is already speculation on who will play Miss Hannigan, the deliciously evil mistress of the orphanage. Some on social media predict Jinx Monsoon of RuPaul's Drag Race and the recent Pirates of Penzance revival. Others vote for Cole Escola, star and author of Oh Mary!

Off-B'way Review: The Ford/Hill Project

Elizabeth Marvel and Gabby Beans in
The Ford/Hill Project,
Credit: Rebecca Smeyne

A docu-play made up of verbatim Senate testimony? Doesn’t exactly sound riveting. Yet The Ford/Hill Project, now at BAM’s Fishman Space after regional productions and a run at the Under the Radar Festival, provides a searing portrait of the workings of government power and its failure to deal with violence and harassment against women. Elizabeth Marvel (one of four cast members) and Lee Sunday Evans (who directs) have stitched together the most dramatic excerpts of testimony and questions from the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominees Clarence Thomas in 1991 and Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. Both high-profile events were rocked by the respective eyewitness accounts of Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford, both of whom claimed the nominees mistreated them. 

Hill testified Thomas pressured her to date him and then, when she refused, used lewd, pornographic language and innuendo in front of her when they worked together at the US Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Ford claimed Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party when they were in high school. At the time of both hearings, the accusations made headlines and threatened the Republican nominees’ appointment to the highest court in the land. Both vehemently denied the allegations and were eventually successfully confirmed. With the passage of time, the impact of these events has faded, but this intense distillation of Hill and Ford’s stories and Thomas and Kavanuagh’s insistent denials bring them vividly into focus.

Book Reviews: Still More Christopher Durang Plays

(Taken out of the Lincoln Center Library): Christopher Durang had the same sense of humor as me. Wild, wacky, and full of pop cultural references. I've read or seen most of his plays, but I wanted to go back and re-experience them. Some of them have dated allusions and I don't know if they'd play today. (Leona and Harry Hemsley, Bush's war on terror, Jesse Helms, Bill Clinton, etc.) But we are still dealing with the forces of racism and homophobia that Durang railed against. His forwards and afterwards are also fascinating to read. In the commentary on Laughing Wild and Baby with the Bathwater, he recounts the then-seemingly insurmountable problem of the NY Times theater critic (Frank Rich at the time) having too much power. 

Volumes read: Laughing Wild and Baby with the Bathwater.

Miss Witherspoon and Mrs. Bob Crachit's Wild Christmas Binge are collected in one volume. I saw the former at Playwrights Horizons. The latter debuted regionally but has yet to appear in NYC. It imagines Mrs. Crachit getting sick and tired of the poverty and misery that surrounds her and she goes off a tear. I wish I had seen Kristin Nielsen do this role. 

The Idiots Karamatzov (co-written with Albert Innaurto)

Durang Durang, six one-acts performed together Off-Broadway including parodies of Tennessee Williams and Sam Shepard. 

3 Short Plays: The Nature and Purpose of the Universe, Death Comes to Us All, Mary Agnes (a satire of "well-made" plays where a family gathers as the old cruel patriarch is dying and regrets are expressed), and 'dentity Crisis.

B'way Update: Julia Roberts and Paul Rudd in Small Mouth Sounds

Julia Roberts, Paul Rudd, and 
Sarah Paulson will star in
Small Mouth Sounds on Broadway.

Julia Roberts and Paul Rudd will return to Broadway in an all-star production of Bess Wohl's Small Mouth Sounds which previously played Off-Broadway in 2015. Roberts and Rudd co-starred in a staging of Three Days of Rain in 2006 (which is also returning to Broadway this season.) Small Mouth will be directed by three-time Tony winner Joe Mantello who will also be directing a new production of Downstate on Broadway. This production is another in a growing trend of Broadway transfers of recent Off-Broadway critical success. (There are now 13 play revivals scheduled for Broadway this season and only four new plays.) Wohl is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Liberation which had a similar Off-to-on Main Stem trajectory. Small Mouth won the John Gassner Award for Outstanding Play by a new American author from the Outer Critics Circle. Previews for Small Mouth Sounds begin on Feb. 18, 2027 at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in advance of a March 18 opening. 

Also starring are Martin Freeman (The Hobbit), Greta Lee (The Morning Show), Tony and Drama Desk winner Sarah Paulson (Appropriate), and Isaac Powell (Once on This Island). The play concerns six strangers meeting at a spiritual retreat and trying to keep a vow of silence. Scott Rudin and Barry Diller are the producers.

Dr. Who Out to Tender

Ncuti Gatwa and Jodie Whittaker

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

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

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

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

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

Off-B'way Review: The Real Ivanov

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

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

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

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

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

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

B'way Update: Downstate and Blueberries

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

B'way Review: Paranormal Activity

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

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

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

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

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

Cher Alvarez in Paranormal Activity.
Credit: Matthew Murphy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

L.I. Who Con 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Off-B'way Review: The Winter's Tale

Lily Rabe and Raul Esparza
in The Winter's Tale.
Credit: Joan Marcus

After a radical reinterpretation of Romeo and Juliet, the Public Theater’s summer Shakespeare in the Park returns with a traditional and highly engaging production of The Winter’s Tale, one of the Bard’s lesser-known romances. This has always been one of the more difficult Shakespearean plays to bring off because of its fractured structure. The first half is a florid tragedy of jealousy destroying the peace of the kingdom of Sicilia while the second half is a comic frolic in the countryside of Bohemia. Director Daniel Sullivan balances the two halves perfectly by staging it straightforwardly without “concepts” or gimmicks and simply allowing the fantastic tale to unfold. Even the infamously ridiculous stage direction “exit, pursued by a bear” is cleverly and quickly conveyed the aide of Bradley King’s atmospheric lighting design. Maruti Evans’ imaginative set places the action on a giant clock, denoting the change of seasons and passage of time. The first half is set in wintry ice, suggesting the frigid environment of Sicilia’s court while the second becomes a lush spring garden, evoking the thawing of enmities.

The convoluted, fairy-tale-like storyline is set in motion by the Othello-like madness of King Leontes (an intense Raul Esparza) who suspects his faithful wife Hermione (a magnificent Lily Rabe) of cheating on him with his best friend, the visiting Polixenes, King of Bohemia (charismatic Gilbert Owuor). While imprisoned for her alleged infidelity, Hermione gives birth to a baby girl whom Leontes banishes. The queen dies of grief (or does she?), the child resurfaces in Bohemia sixteen years later, and after many machinations, all ends well.

Chuck Cooper (l.) and cast in
The Winter's Tale.
Credit: Joan Marcus

Sullivan treats the Bard’s fanciful devices as perfectly plausible and focuses on the human emotions generated by the not-quite-believable story. The cast creates credible people caught up in incredible circumstances. The standout is Rabe as the besieged Hermione. In previous productions, this pitiable heroine is played as a weak, defenseless victim, shrinking from her spouse’s unjustified wrath. Rabe is a tigress, railing against her wrongful accusations. Her physical life is startlingly realistic. In the trial scene, where Leontes is set to sentence his wife to death, Rabe as Hermione remembers that she has just given birth and is physically weak and exhausted. She is also dirty and disheveled (Linda Cho created the fanciful costumes). The actress plays against this condition to give full vent to Hermione’s rage and proves herself a roaring advocate for her defense.

Marsha Stephanie Blake, Lily Rabe,
and Raul Esparza in The Winter's Tale.
Credit: Joan Marcus

Esparza takes us on a roller-coaster of emotions from unreasoning jealousy to ragged regret. Marsha Stephanie Blake provides sturdy support as the sage councillor Paulina. Chuck Cooper gives unexpected depth to the comic role of the Old Shepherd who takes in the lost child Perdita (enchanting Isabela Ferrer). Steven Skybell ably doubles in two very different roles as Paulina’s put-upon husband Antigonus and the outrageously rascally theif Autolycus. Michael Khalid Karadsheh, Matthew Eby, Teagle F. Bougere, and Daniel Kyri also have moments to shine in this delightful summer romance spanning winter’s frost and spring’s flowering.

Aug. 11-23. Public Theater at the Delacorte Theater, Central Park at W. 81 St., NYC. Running time: two hours and 50 mins. including intermission. publictheater.org.

Off-B'way Reviews: An American Daughter; Disruption

Dakin Matthews and Mary Beth Peil in
An American Daughter.
Credit: Joan Marcus

Two Broadway veterans and incisive character actors, Dakin Matthews and Mary Beth Peil, deliver fascinating and detailed performances as a conservative Republican senator and his fourth wife, a seemingly flighty but actually canny socialite, in La Femme Theater Productions’ revival of Wendy Wasserstein’s 1997 play An American Daughter at the Pershing Square Signature Center. The trouble is these two wonderful actors are playing supporting characters and are not the center of the play. That role is Lyssa Dent Hughes, the senator’s daughter and nominee for Surgeon General whose appointment is in trouble. Lyssa is played by Jean Lichty, the executive producer of La Femme, who also starred in the company’s previous Off-Broadway revivals including Night of the Iguana and A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur. You have to admire Lichty for mounting a gorgeous production of a rarely-done play (Sarna Lapine smoothly directs and Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams designed the handsome Georgetown living room set). She wisely surrounds herself with a cast of Tony winners and nominees, but she lacks the acting heft to carry Daughter’s dramatic weight.

Montego Glover and Jean Lichty in
An American Daughter.
Credit: Joan Marcus

Wasserstein wrote the play in response to President Bill Clinton’s controversial appointments of two successive women for Attorney General, both of whom were lambasted and eventually withdrew because they did not pay Social Security taxes on wages for their nannies. Wasserstein used the incident to examine how women in public life were judged by unfair standards never applied to their male counterparts. Clinton’s wife Hillary would later find herself in similar sexist traps during her 2016 Presidential campaign. In Wasserstein’s fictional treatment, her candidate is a highly qualified doctor and descendent of President Ulysses S. Grant, tripped up by blowing off a jury summons and criticizing her mother for being a housewife. Wasserstein exhibited her customary wit and generated keen observations on women’s struggles to balance personal and political issues. It’s an entertaining and insightful work, but Daughter received mixed reviews and had a limited run of 89 performances.

Book Review: Turning Off the Morning News; Naomi in the Living Room and Other Short Plays

John Pankow, Kristine Nielsen, Rachel Nicks
and Robert Sella in Turning Off the
Morning News at McCarter Theater (2018).
Credit: T. Charles Erickson

(Borrowed from Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts): Christopher Durang is one of my favorite playwrights. His plays were marked with an insanely dark humor and veered awfully close to comedy sketches. He passed away in 2024 at 75 after being diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer's Disease and I was thinking of him when I finished Julie Salomon's Wendy Wasserstein bio. They were close friends. His last full-length play Turning Off the Morning News, has yet to be produced in NYC so I was curious about it. It was produced at the McCarter Theater in 2018. In typical Durang fashion, he combines a tragic trend with wild satire. Like too many Americans, Jimmy is deeply depressed and fully armed. He threatens to kill himself and others in a mass shooting. His wife and son attempt to ignore and minimize his dangerous behavior. The neighbors Clifford and Salena aren't much better off. Both are recovering from personal tragedies and live together but are not married or romantically involved. The sixth character Rosalind suffers from multiple skin cancers and walks around with a pillow over her head to avoid exposure to the sun. Darkly funny and scary. Durang's Author's Note is deeply moving as he explains his reaction to our national epidemic of violence. I wish I had seen this production, particularly since Kristine Nielsen who has appeared in several of Durang's plays was in it. I still remember her inspired performance as Mrs. Sizemagraff in Betty's Summer Vacation. 

When I found this play at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, I also came across a collection of equally hilarious short Durang plays Naomi in the Living Room and Other Short Plays. These shorter pieces run no more than a few pages each and include contributions to revues, play festivals, TV shows and even a sketch for Carol Burnett and Robin Williams. As with Morning News, Durang's comments are as entertaining as the plays themselves. Among the mad playlets is a funny meeting between the Madwoman of Chaillot and Wallace Shawn's Aunt Dan who each justify their questionable morals.

Off-B'way Update: Julianne Moore in Faydra

Julianne Moore will star in
Faydra for MTC.

Oscar winner Julianne Moore (The Vertical Hour on Broadway) returns to the New York stage in Faydra, Tony nominee Sarah Ruhl's modern adaptation of the classic Greek tragedy Phedre, a tale of a woman whose passion for her stepson leads to disaster. Tony nominee Les Waters (Dana H.) directs. Manhattan Theater Club presents the play at its Off-Broadway space at City Center Stage I with previews beginning Feb. 2, 2027 with an opening scheduled for Feb. 25. 

“There’s nothing like watching a homegrown Manhattan Theatre Club commission become a magnet for talent,” said MTC Artistic Director Nicki Hunter. “Sarah Ruhl’s bold, funny, and devastating reimagining of this classic tale will draw the immensely gifted Julianne Moore back to the stage, and mark Les Waters’ return to MTC after three decades. We look forward to announcing additions to this exciting company in the months ahead.”

Additional casting and another MTC production will be announced at a later date.

Off-B'way Review: The Saviors

Julius Rinzel and Ivan Howe in
The Saviors. Credit: Ahron R. Foster

Bubba Weiler emerges as a major playwriting talent with The Saviors, his second major Off-Broadway production, now at the Atlantic Theater Company. Apart from joining the American company of the Harry Potter play on Broadway, Weiner has appeared on the New York scene as an actor in Rebecca Gilman’s Swing State, portraying an ex-con barely holding on to a grinding truck delivery job. His sensitive performance of a desperate young man earned him nominations for Drama Desk, Outer Critics and Lortel Awards. He made his NY debut as a dramatist with last season’s multi-leveled and moving Well, I’ll Let You Go, a compassionate chronicle of a recent widow coming to terms with her loss and the varying reactions of her community. Weiler demonstrates he is no one-track pony with this new play, an equally probing examination of the painful search for faith in a confusing world.

Ivan Howe and Julius Rinzel in The Saviours.
Credit: Ahron R. Foster

The setting is a Catholic church in a suburban neighborhood, possibly in the Midwest where middle schoolers and best pals Michael and Paul serve as altar boys. Devout Michael eagerly prepares for his upcoming confirmation while Paul is doubting the very existence of God. Their friendship and Christian belief is tested when homeless drifter Julian enters seeking shelter during a snowstorm. Conventional Michael bristles at allowing Julian to stay, but Paul secretly grants him access after hours by leaving the side door unlocked. Meanwhile, Michael seeks advice from Judy, the adult advisor of the church’s youth group. Unfortunately, Michael is the only kid that shows up for the first meeting and Judy is experiencing hidden struggles of her own involving her son whom she says is heading a mission in Africa.

Book Review: Leading Lady: A Memoir of a Most Unusual Boy

(Bought at Time and Space Limited Used Bookstore in Hudson, NY for $7): Charles Busch's wildly entertaining memoir is as funny as his dozens of stage comedies (I've seen 13 of them as well as two musicals for which he wrote the book, his cabaret act and two of his movie screenplays.) He alternates a straightforward narrative of his career from childhood, college and stage and film triumphs with amusing later encounters with the likes of Joan Rivers, Valerie Harper, Linda Lavin, Beatrice Arthur, Patrick Swayze, Liza Minnelli, Milton Berle, Esther Williams, Debbie Reynolds, Ann Miller, and many others. Busch came to prominence with Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, which he wrote and starred in and which ran for over 2,000 performances Off-Broadway. (The long run is attributed to the salacious title which brought in curious theatergoers.) Rather than relying on waiting for a big break that might never come, he created his own vehicles. He realized his strength and passion was for playing female roles in tribute to great stars like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. He wrote his own plays to star himself. The book joyfully chronicles his self-made journey to cult-goddess status.

I recently encountered Busch at the Broadway Flea Market. We chatted about a Bette Davis film I caught on TCM called Payment on Demand, one of the few screen appearances by Broadway star Jane Cowl. I loved that he knew who I was talking about and that he celebrates classic film divas. 

Book Review: Wendy and the Lost Boys: The Uncommon Life of Wendy Wasserstein

(Bought at the Little Red Book Shack in Hudson, NY for $1):  Julie Salamon's well-researched biography of Pulitzer and Tony winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein reveals a complicated woman. Wasserstein became the voice of a generation of women who were underrepresented in media, advocating for fulfilling identities outside of male protection and dominance. In her personal life, she gravitated to gay men, and attempted to have a child with many of them. Her "husbands" included playwrights Christopher Durang and Terrence McNally, director Gerald Guitterez, artistic director Andre Bishop and costume designer William Ivey Long. She recreated her relationships with her family in plays like Isn't It Romantic and The Sisters Rosensweig and the real-life connections were even more complex. 

The book also provides a social history of changing women's roles in American society and the theater from the 60s into the early 2000s when Wendy passed away at the age of 55. 

I interviewed her once for a book I was writing on long-running on and Off-Broadway shows. My cousin went to college with her. I was an usher for the Off-Broadway run of Isn't Romantic at the Lucille Lortel Theater, so I saw the play many times. So it was fascinating to get to know the real Wendy, funny, smart, maternal, and complex.

B'way Update: Purple Rain

Prince in Purple Rain (1984)

A stage version of Prince's Purple Rain film and album will open on Broadway next spring at the Majestic Theater. Previews begin March 12, 2027 prior to an April 12 opening. The opening will coincide with the 42nd anniversary of the film's debut in 1984. A previous version opened at Minnesota's State Theater last year, but this edition will feature some new creative staffing. Saheem Ali (Buena Vista Social Club) takes over the directing reins from Lileana Blain-Cruz and Peter Duchan takes over as book writer from Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. The score features songs from the film by Prince who also starred in the movie. These songs include the title track, "When Doves Cry," "I Would Die 4 U," plus songs from Prince's oeuvre. The story follows an up-and-coming Minneapolis-based rock musician known as The Kid, struggling with his past and his rivalry with another scrappy rocker.

“Prince was an icon, and Purple Rain is iconic, one of the best musical films of my generation. I watched it as a teenager in Kenya, and though I was appropriately scandalized, it never left me, especially the music,” says Ali in a statement. “I am honored to join the Purple Rain family and help carry this story forward. Our aim is not only to honor the legacy that Prince built, but to make his timeless music feel urgent and alive, passing it on to the next generation of fans who will make it their own.”