Book Review: Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!

(Borrowed from a friend) I have a lot more respect and sympathy for Liza Minnelli after reading this memoir, "as told to Michael Feinstein with Josh Getlin and Heidi Evans." (The writing process must have been interesting. I suspect Liza would have long tape-recored conversations with the singer and cabaret artist Feinstein, her best friend. Then Getlin and Evans would fashion the transcribed talks into the book.) Regardless of how the book was written, it does come across as Minnelli speaking to the reader like a close chum (hence the title.) In the latter part of her career, she was reported to be frequently drunk, high, in and out of rehab and detox programs (not just Betty Ford), and involved in a scandalous fourth marriage to a crook who stole almost all of her money. She was repeating the pattern of her famous mother Judy Garland who succumbed to her various addictions at 47. 

Here Liza explains, but doesn't justify, her numerous falls from grace with humor and humility, also the tremendous highs of performing live. Her addiction was inherited from her mom and so was her enormous talent. But she has overcome the former and tried to use the latter as best she can. I've seen her live twice on Broadway in her concerts Minnelli on Minnelli and Liza at the Palace. Both were electric experiences. She also details her many love affairs with everyone from Mikhail Baryshnikov to Ben Vereen. The book concluded with a furious backstage account of her wheelchair appearance to the 2022 Oscars. Apparently according to Liza, it was all Lady Gaga's fault. Maybe. A fast read from a fabulous lady I understand better now.

Off-B'way Review: Dad Don't Read This

Sophie Rossman, Kayta Thomas, Amalia Yoo, 
and Renee-Nicole Powell
in Dad Don't Read This.
Credit: Valerie Terranova

“You can’t be bad at this game. It’s like life but on the computer,” says one of the four young girls comprising the character list in Eliya Smith’s compelling and insightful play Dad Don’t Read This at the Greenwich House Theater after a run at St. Luke’s Theater. That line sums up her young characters’ conflicts between living real life and in the digital realm. As she did with her previous play on adolescent angst Grief Camp, Smith’s intense script is jagged, funny, painful, messy and very real. Dad follows a quartet of teen girlfriends obsessively playing the computer game SIMS where they create artificial worlds rather than cope with the actual one. The play begins with Mal reading a warning to her father, quoting the title, and pleading with him to stay away from her computer. The action takes place in Mal’s bedroom (Forest Entsminger designed the accurately chaotic set) as she negotiates the rocky path of adolescence and yearns to break out of her central Ohio town. Her friends Noelle, Sophie and Lida bicker, share secrets, and sleep over as they go through similar identity crises.

Smith compassionately documents the young ladies’ attempts at forging their own life stories and being kind to each other while surrounded by gossip and peer pressure. Director Chloe Claudel smoothly stages the action so the scenes flow into each other as Mal deals with her warring parents, creating homes and activities for her SIMS creations, fighting feuds and making up with her pals. Choreographer Lena Engelstein devises expressive dance moves to interpret the girls’ frustrations and eagerness to become grown-up. Mitchell Polonsky’s sound design provides an evocative aural environment including the muffled offstage voices of Mal’s mom and dad. Abigail Sage and Finn Bamber’s lighting design reflects the violently shifting moods from a dreamy starscape to harsh reality when one of the girls switches on an unforgiving overhead bulb in the middle of a sleepover. Costume designer Olivia Vaughn Hern dresses them in character-defining casual wear. 

At the performance attended, director Chloe Claudel covered for Amalia Yoo as Mal and was movingly convincing in conveying her struggles to find self-actualization outside of Ohio and the SIMS world. Sophie Rossman is especially touching as Sophie, particularly in a frightening monologue in which she describes a sleazy encounter with a predatory adult in a family restaurant. You can see the conflicting emotions play across her face as Lida expresses revulsion and then guilty excitement and finally shame. Katya Thomas captures the clingy neediness of Lida who shyly hides her empathy for fear of appearing weak. Renee-Nicole Powell displays the athletic Noelle’s seeming confidence, actually a shield for her insecurity. 

Recent plays like John Proctor Is the Villain, Grief Camp, Indian Princesses, and this striking one are dealing with the pain and challenge of being young in the 21st century. Let’s hope more playwrights emerge to address this relevant topic.

June 23—July 18. Try for Baby Productions and The Goat Exchange at Greenwich House Theater, 27 Barrow St., NYC. Running time: 95 mins. with no intermission. daddontreadthis.com.

Off-B'way Update: All-Star View from the Bridge; Irish Rep

Sam Rockwell, Marin Ireland, and 
Alfred Molina will star in an Off'B'way
production of A View from the Bridge
at LaMaMa.

An unusually starry production of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge will play the legendary Off-Broadway La MaMa Theater this fall with preview performances beginning Nov. 27 before a Dec. 13 opening. Oscar winner Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards) stars as Eddie Carbone, Obie winner and Tony nominee Marin Ireland (Queens) plays his wife Beatrice and Tony winner Alfred Molina (Art) will be Alfieri the narrator and Greek chorus. Neil Pepe of Atlantic Theater Company will direct. (Side note: Ireland's play Pre-Existing Condition will return for a run at the Greenwich House Theater opening Sept. 14.)

“Some of my earliest theatre memories are of coming to La MaMa as a kid and hanging out backstage while my mom was doing experimental theatre of the day. To now return to the Ellen Stewart Theatre with Arthur Miller's masterpiece with these remarkable collaborators feels like coming full circle," says Rockwell in a statement. "I started my own career downtown, and institutions like La MaMa have always inspired me—as an artist and as an audience member. They're the lifeblood of our culture, championing bold new voices and reminding us why the theatre matters. I've always considered myself incredibly lucky, and this opportunity feels like kismet.”

View concerns the longshoreman Eddie Carbone who comes to tragedy because of his unspoken passion for his teenaged niece. The play began life on Broadway as a one-act play on a double bill with Miller's A Memory of Two Mondays in 1955. He later expanded it to full length and an Off-Broadway revival starring Robert Duvall and Jon Voight ran for 780 performances. Subsequent Broadway productions starred Tony LoBianco (1983), Anthony LaPaglia (1997), Liev Schreiber (2010), and Mark Strong (2015). 

Off-B'way Review: Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo

Jennifer Nettles and company in 
Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo.
Credit: Andy Henderson

You really have to admire author-actress Jennifer Nettles. In addition to playing the title role, the Grammy-winning vocalist of the duo Sugarland wrote the songs and book for the new musical Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo, now at the Perelman Performing Arts Center. She (or the producers) enlisted Tony-winner Mary Zimmerman to direct. Plus the basic idea is intriguing. The plot is based on a true story of a 17th-century Italian female apothecary who aided the women of her community by poisoning several abusive husbands including her own. Nettles creates a proto-feminist heroine, sort of a socially progressive Sweeney Todd. 

Unfortunately, while there are several entertaining elements, Giulia doesn’t quite come together for a satisfying whole. Nettles’ book is earnest in its desire to create a plucky protagonist challenging an oppressive patriarchy represented by a hypocritical cardinal (powerful Quentin Earl Darrington) and a villainous civil governor (mustache-twirling Christopher M. Ramirez). But Nettles doesn’t seem to be able to make up her mind as to what kind of show this is. The tone is mostly deadly serious, but switches to dark humor halfway through the first act, but then switches to girl-power tract as Giulia gleefully massacres all the nasty men who assault their spouses and sets up a women’s talk therapy session in her shop. The show opens like Pippin with a commedia dell’arte troupe performing a scene-setting intro number led by an overplaying Bre Jackson. But then the play-within-a-play concept is dropped. 

B'way Update: Dolly Parton Musical

Carrie St. Louis, Katie Rose Clarke and
Quinn Titcomb in
Dolly: A True Original Musical in Nashville.
Credit: Matthew Murphy

That Dolly Parton musical is coming to Broadway after all. After receiving mostly negative reviews for its world premiere in Nashville last year, the show's future appeared uncertain. But it has just been announced Dolly: A True Original Musical will begin preview performances at the St. James Theater on Dec. 7 and open on Parton's 81st birthday on Jan. 19, 2027. The score will be composed of Parton's past hits and new tunes she has written especially for the show. Parton also collaborated on the book with Emmy winner Maria S. Schlatter (Parton's Christmas on the Square TV movie). Tony winner Barlett Sher (The King and I, South Pacific) directs. No word on casting as of yet. In Nashville, the lead role was played by three actresses, enacting different phases in the 11-time Grammy winner's life. Bio musicals on Cher and Donna Summer were similarly split three ways. Parton previously wrote the score to the musical version of 9 to 5, based on the movie in which she co-starred with Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda.

“My whole life has been a musical. A grand ole opera really and I can’t wait to present it to you on Broadway," says Parton in a statement. "I hope you enjoy watching as much as I’ve enjoyed livin’ it.”

“During our world premiere in Nashville, I was overwhelmed by the deep connection audiences have with Dolly. You mention her name and people light up and share a time that she has inspired them and brought them joy," says Sher. "But despite all of that genuine love, Dolly has never really shared her story before. She’s offered glimpses and peeks, but this musical allows her to reveal the unfiltered story in her own words. As we prepare to come to Broadway, we’re thrilled to show that rhinestones were never her whole story.”

Book Review: Stone Mattress

(Bought at the Little Red Book Shack in Hudson, NY for 50 cents.) In an afterword, Margaret Atwood explains the difference between tales and stories. She labels these "nine wicked tales" as influenced by folk lore and are less likely to require the verisimilitude of "stories." Atwood brilliantly takes elements of speculative futuristic fiction, fantasy, murder mystery and horror and weaves them into realistic settings. Each tale was totally absorbing. I especially enjoyed The Dead Hand Loves You, Torching the Dusties and the title story. In the Dead Hand, she satirizes the horror genre as an author seeks revenge on his former roommates. Torching the Dusties imagines a future where senior citizens are terrorized by entitled youngsters who feel they've been cheated of a decent planet by their elders. Stone Mattress details the perfect murder scenario. Atwood is such a master. 

Off-B'way Review: Birthright; A Walk on the Moon

Zoe Winters, Eli Gelb, Molly Ranson, Nate Mann,
and Hale Appleman in Birthright.
Credit: Emilio Madrid

Two new Off-Broadway shows deal with Jewish characters. One deeply examines the complexities of Jewish identity while the other is a shallow musical treatment of familiar tropes combining a few acceptable songs with a tired plot. Jonathan Spector’s Birthright at MCC Theater is an overwhelming wallop of a play, encompassing America’s frayed relationship with Israel as well as the individual struggle to reconcile religious affiliation with personal ethics. Pamela Gray and AnnMarie Milazzo’s A Walk on the Moon, based on Gray’s 1999 screenplay, at the Laura Pels after productions at New York Stage and Film and the George Street Playhouse, is more like a walk in the park—a familiar, not unpleasant, but not particularly exciting park. 

As he did with the vaccine controversy in Eureka Day, Spector skillfully presents multiple sides of a difficult issue in Birthright. No one is a hero or a villain, the characters are just of a group of people muddling their way through the confusion of modern life. Running at three hours and 20 minutes, the play covers 18 crucial years, 2006 to 2024, in the lives of six young Jewish friends. Director Teddy Bergman miraculously keeps the action flowing so that those three hours never drag. Each of the three acts takes place during a reunion after their trip to Israel sponsored by the titular organization to encourage American Jews to explore their connections with the homeland. As the conflict between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration and the Palestinians metastasizes, each of the group differently deals with their raging reactions and their own sense of Judaism.

Eli Gelb and Zoe Winters
in Birthright.
Credit: Emilio Madrid

In Act One, subtitled “Two Jews, Three Opinions,” the sextet wrestles with the implications of their recent trip and their personal and political entanglements with Israel and each other as they start lives outside of college and family. The continuous action takes place at the home of Chaya’s parents in a Washington DC suburb, though we only meet Chaya’s mom. Scott Pask designed the handsome set. Act Two (“A Palace in Time”), set ten years later, is a series of brief, fractured scenes on the night before the wedding and move to Israel of Alona (fragile yet ultimately strong Molly Ranson). In Act Three (“Right of Return”), the group is reunited by tragedy and split by Hamas’ terrorist massacre and Israel’s retaliatory war on Gaza. Here, as he did in Eureka Day, Spector incorporates text messages and Google searches projected onto Pask’s set. Bergman cleverly stages these scenes with Natasha Katz’s evocative lighting focusing on the reader of the digital messages with the rest of the cast in darkness and sounding like they’re underwater. David Bengali created the imaginative projections. 

Not only does Spector portray the personae’s tortured connections to their faith and culture, but also explores such weighty topics as the course of Jewish history, the changing means of communication, the coarsening of political dialogue and the meaning of community. 

The 15th Annual David Desk Awards

Laurie Metcalf and Micah Stock
in Little Bear Ridge Road.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

The 2025-26 theater season is now over and that means it's time for the 15th annual David Desk Awards with my choices for the best onstage in NYC theater out of everything I've seen in the past twelve months. Shows like Cats: The Jellicle Ball and Libertation are not included because I considered them last year for their Off-Broadway runs. I categorize Masquerade, the immersive version of Phantom of the Opera as both a revival and a Unique Theatrical Experience. 

Play:
The Balusters (David Lindsay-Abaire)
Cold War Choir Practice (Ro Reddick)
Giant (Mark Rosenblatt)
Kyoto (Joe Murphy, Joe Robertson)
Little Bear Ridge Road (Samuel D. Hunter)
Meet the Cartozians (Talene Monahon)
Prince Faggot (Jordan Tannahill)
Punch (James Graham)

Musical:

The Lost Boys

Mexodus

My Joy Is Heavy

Saturday Church

Schmigadoon!

Revival of a Play:

Becky Shaw

Bug

Death of a Salesman

Galas

Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

You Got Older

Revival of a Musical:

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

The Baker’s Wife

The Gospel at Colonus

Masquerade

Ragtime

The Rocky Horror Show

Actor in a Play:

Jon Bernthal, Dog Day Afternoon

Will Harrison, Punch

John Krasinski, Angry Alan

Stephen Kunken, Kyoto

Nathan Lane, Death of a Salesman

John Lithgow, Giant

Okieriete Onaodowan, The Monsters

Micah Stock, Little Bear Ridge Road

Mark Strong, Oedipus

Actress in a Play:

Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Well, I’ll Let You Go

Carrie Coon, Bug

Lesley Manville, Oedipus

Laurie Metcalf, Little Bear Ridge Road

Aigner Mizzelle, The Monsters

Alia Shawkat, You Got Older

Actor in a Musical:

LJ Benet, The Lost Boys

Alex Brightman, Schmigadoon!

Nicholas Christopher, Chess

Luke Evans, The Rocky Horror Show

Joshua Henry, Ragtime

Actress in a Musical:

Abigail Bengson, My Joy Is Heavy

Sara Chase, Schmigadoon!

Caissie Levy, Ragtime

Marla Mindelle, Titanique