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.”