A Week in Paris

Despite reports that violent student demonstrations were wrecking havoc in the French capital, we went ahead with our plans to visit our friends who now live in the Paris suburb of Sceaux (pronounced So) with their eight-year-old son, for a week. The protests were only taking place on weekends, so we were pretty safe from any potential danger as long as we stayed away from the city on Saturday. We arrived on a Tuesday morning and got the train from the Charles De Gaulle airport. Note: customs and immigration were much easier than getting into American airports. All we had to do was scan our passports, stand still for a photo and we were in. 

With James and Russell at
Disneyland Paris.

After a three-hour nap from jet lag our hosts served us dinner and I had trouble sleeping that night. But I somehow felt alert enough to get up at 7AM the next morning for a trip to Disneyland Paris with our host Russell and his son James. It was a 90-minute journey on two trains to the last stop in time to arrive at 930AM just as the park was opening. Smaller than Disney World in Florida, the Paris edition of the park is more manageable. Right away, we got on line for Hyperspace Mountain which was like being shot out of a canon in the dark. This was followed by Star Tours with C3P0 and Darth Vader speaking in French as we boarded a space craft, erratically piloted by the nervous droid. I had been on this ride in Disney World in Florida. After a quick lunch we did Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast which involves shooting aliens and scoring points. We left Discoveryland and headed for Frontierland where we waited in a long line for the Haunted Mansion. I think there were variations on the iteration I rode on in Florida with haunted Wild West town amid the spooks. Same with our next attraction Mickey's Phil-harmonic, a 3-D cartoon featuring Donald Duck slipping into various Disney pictures while chasing a magic conductor's baton. Coco and The Little Mermaid may be new additions.

Kennedy Center Honors Not Quite as Whacky This Year

Playwright David Mamet is among this
year's not-totally bizarre Kennedy Center 
Honors list

The Kennedy Center Honors for 2026 have been announced and they are not quite as nutty as last year's, the first group of Trump's insane takeover of the formerly revered arts center. The previous honorees included dubious choices such as KISS, Sylvester Stallone, Gloria Gaynor and Michael Crawford, who sole qualification seemed to be starring in Trumpy's favorite musical Phantom of the Opera almost 40 years ago. While the 2026 winners are also MAGA friendly, at least they are not totally without artistic merit. David Mamet is a Jan. 6 apologist, has been spouting right-wing diatribes lately, and his recent theatrical output has been not top drawer (China Doll, The Anarchist), but he is a Pulitzer Prize recipient and has had many important works including Glengarry Glen Ross and American Buffalo. Trump probably likes that he includes a lot of swear words in his plays.

Paul Anka has contributed many standard songs to pop culture including that immortal Kodak commercial jingle "Good Morning, Yesterday" and he's also allowed Trump to alter the lyric of his classic "My Way" to reference Mara-Lago. Andy Garcia? What's the last movie he was in that anyone heard of? His most recent credits are the third remake of Father of the Bride for HBO, Expendables 4 and some episodes of Landman. Probably they couldn't find another actor with any degree of name recognitions to accept. Garcia is from Cuba and vehemently anti-Communist which qualifies for this honor. The list is rounded out by the now-obligatory country-music choice Barbara Mandrell and music producer David Foster, a personal friend of Trump's who turned down organizing the music for Trump's first inauguration but has since put on shows for Mara-Lago fundraisers.

Surprisingly there was no Kelsey Grammar, Nikki Minaj, Roseanne, Scott Baio or Kid Rock.

For the first time, the awards will not be presented at the center itself which Orange Cheeto has vowed to keep closed until his name can be put on the facade despite court orders to the contrary. Trump hosted last year's debacle which received the lowest ratings in its history. It's not clear if the Prez will host again but CBS still plans to broadcast the event which will be held at the cavernous Capitol One arena. I might hate-watch again. It can't be worse that least year's.

Off-B'way Review: Degenerates; The Hairy Ape

Zachary Desmond and Christopher Dylan White
in Degenerates.
Credit: Jackie Abbott

Though they were written a century apart, Else Went’s Degerenates (at Playwrights Horizons) and Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape (now in revival at Irish Repertory Theater) both address the alienation of young men and their resultant violence and self-destruction. Whether it’s Went’s outraged online community of incels (involuntary celebrates) or O’Neill brutish coal stoker Yank, the anger engendered by their feeling of being left behind by the larger culture leads to the same frustration and desire to strike back. Both playwrights document their blind rage and aching need with compassion and depth in productions staged with imagination and prickly fire.

Went’s frightening vision of isolated, screen-obsessed youths takes place in a fractured void where communication in real life, or IRL as the characters would say, is rare and potentially dangerous. Significantly, we first encounter them as voices in the dark. The despondent Kemp (a brilliantly devastated Tyler Nowell Felix), friendless and unable to attract a girlfriend, desperately phones a suicide prevention hotline. His aching need to be loved is unrelieved by the anonymous counselor on the other end (Olivia Rose Barressi plays all the females roles). After Kemp howls out his anger and sorrow, we enter into the cyber world of his fellow incels, spewing venom and disgust at women for rejecting them. Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams’ splintered set depicts the stark environment of these frustrated souls. Miller (intensely snarling and magnetic Zachary Desmond) inhabits a barren basement apartment in his parents’ house while girly, agoraphobic Target (sympathetic and sweet Christopher Dylan White) snuggles in a nest of plush stuffed animals and a riot of anime posters. In a group chat with Miller and Target, Kemp is still unseen as is Serge (Juan Arturo) who is rejected from the group when it’s revealed he is divorced and has a child, meaning unlike his online misogynist compatriots, he has had sex.

The dynamic between Miller, Target and Kemp shifts several times throughout the play as they seek comfort from each other and then push away when they get too close. Went treats these sometimes nasty, sometimes relatable guys with a balanced hand. We see their sexist, racist rage but also the cruel treatment they’ve received. Miller and Kemp recount horrific childhood encounters with girls that still pain them. Like Anne Washburne in her play Anon, Went depicts a culture where people are unable to exist without validation from social media. At one point, Target watches and rewatches coming out as trans to his sister as if to confirm the experience really happened.

Trump and Vance: High School Bullies

High School Bullies

As we approach the midterms, the President and Vice-President are showing their true natures: high school bullies. We always knew this about Trump, but Vance's thuggish aspects are becoming more apparent as the two reflect the growing desperation that the GOP will lose power. Vance has resorted to insinuating Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico is gay. That is the last resort of the high-school bully who fears the smart, slightly different kid. Kids in school use the term "gay" to mean someone weird, unusual, outside the norm, not necessarily being attracted to the same gender.  

Trump has descended even further, despite that fact that he claims he never insults people--he actually had to gall to say this in a Fox News interview, claiming he would never insult someone because he might have to make a deal with them. Does he not listen to himself?

Trump's latest example of childish name-calling is labelling Dr. Annie Andrews, Dem. candidate for SC senator against nepo-sib Darlene Graham, Tranny Annie. What? Where did that come from? Like Vance's jibes against Talarico, it's strictly high school. Trump is replaying that tired old record about Dems wanting kids to have sex change operations in school without parents' consent. Not only is that crazy, but there is absolutely no evidence of anything even close to that happening. It's probably generated from a report that some schools want trans kids to able to change their pronouns without parents being informed. From this they've blown it up into operations when most schools can'r even afford crayons, let alone surgical equipment.

The cruelty goes on with Trumpy's support for Vivek Ramaswamy's disgusting attack ad against Amy Acton, using her estranged mother to exploit Acton's horrible experience of childhood abuse. Ramaswamy has claimed he just exposing his opponent's flaws. How is something vile that happened to her from ages 9 to 12 a flaw? If anything, it shows what a strong character she is. Such circumstances would have crushed most people, yet she has become a doctor and a candidate for governor of Ohio. And her mother calls her daughter whom she hasn't seen in 48 years and who was removed from her care, a liar. What has she lied about? Court records corroborate Acton's version of events that she was raped as a child and lived in a tent.

Plus what's all this with men's asses? Is it just Trump is obsessed with appearances? A good ass means you'll be a good senator? 

Hopefully, a blue wave will wash all this high-school cruelty away.

Broadway Review: Billy Crystal: 860; The Imaginary Invalid

The two most recent Broadway shows to open, Billy Crystal: 860 and a new adaptation of Moliere’s The Imaginary Invalid, have the same theme: laughter is the best medicine. But the dosages vary and the resultant benefits are not similar. Crystal’s solo show combines tragedy with humor for a pathos-and-chuckle-filled evening while the Moliere never finds its rhythm despite individual bright spots.

Billy Crystal in 860.
Credit: Avery Brunkus

The numbers in the title of Crystal’s autobiographical effort refer to the address of the Pacific Palisades home that he lost in the massive Los Angeles wildfire of 2025. In 90 intermissionless minutes, the 78-year-old comedian relates the story of the house and his career, taking up his story after the events of 700 Sundays, his previous Broadway show from 2004 chronicling his childhood and relationship with his father. We begin with the star reliving that fateful day when a few backyard embers and historically high winds led to an out-of-control inferno rapidly approaching and eventually consuming his home. The effective video design by Hana S. Kim and Kylee Loera displays news and I-phone footage as Crystal recreates driving away from the blaze in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Then, we travel back to 1978 when Crystal was starring on the TV series Soap and buying his first West Coast house which had its own fascinating show-biz history.

Off-B'way Review: Midnight; The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Todrick Hall and Jeremy Beloate
in Midnight.
Credit: Valerie Terranova

You have to admire Todrick Hall’s ambition. The YouTube star and veteran of five Broadway shows and several reality TV programs has the rare distinction of directing, choreographing, writing the book, music, and lyrics, producing and playing the lead role in a new Off-Broadway musical Midnight. Just getting an original show with a cast of 20 up and running is a difficult feat in today’s challenging theatrical economy and Hall deserves full marks for that. However, the production itself could have benefitted for at least one more set of eyes and a red pencil. Clocking in at close to three hours, this musical fantasy on race relations and suppressed gay love is too long, monotonous and self-indulgent. There are impactful and well-performed individual moments, but they are drowned in a sea of excess.

Hall’s premise is intriguing and the opening number sets the stage for a promising evening. A huge clock is suspended above the stage (Morgan Large designed the imaginative set) as well as several mannequins sporting Beck Jones’ gorgeous and elaborate costumes. The cast consisting of an equal number of white and African-American performers enters in rehearsal clothes, the mannequins descend, and the actors sing of assuming identities as they don Civil War-era garb defining their roles along racial lines. 

The subsequent story follows a slave named Rail (Hall)—his monicker derives from his birth near train tracks—and his illicit same-sex affair with the white landowner and master Richard (The Voice finalist Jeremy Beloate). Their clandestine trysts occur at the titular hour, thus the ominous timepiece dominating the action. Hall’s direction moves the action along swiftly and engagingly (aided greatly by Jake DeGroot’s dynamic lighting) and many of Hall’s songs are soaring and effective, but the characters act as if it’s 2026 instead of 1862. Would black slaves really serve their white enslavers a dead mouse on top of the dessert? (The move was probably inspired by Octavia Spencer’s character’s hilarious act of gastronomic revenge against her white employer in The Help.)  Would a white Southern landowner really encourage black slaves and white workers to treat each other as equals while the Civil War raged? 

B'way Update: Jonathan Groff and Tom Hanks Return

Jonathan Groff

Tony winner Jonathan Groff and Oscar winner Tom Hanks will return to Broadway later this season, Groff in a new solo play The Amish Project and Hanks in a transfer of This World of Tomorrow, a play he co-wrote which previously played The Shed Off-Broadway.

Groff (Merrily We Roll Along, Just in Time) will take the stage alone in Jessica Dickey's The Amish Project at the Broadhurst Theater with performances beginning Feb. 10, 2027. Sarna Lapine (Sunday in the Park with George) directs. The play is inspired by a 2006 school shooting which occurred in a small Pennsylvania town near where Groff grew up.

The Amish Project debuted at the New York International Fringe Festival and was developed at the Cherry Lane Theatre before premiering Off-Broadway at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in 2009. It has since become Jessica Dickey’s most-produced play, with productions at the Guthrie Theater (Minneapolis), Milwaukee Rep, American Theater Company (Chicago) and City Theatre (Pittsburgh), among others at theaters around the world.

“20 years ago this month, an unimaginable tragedy happened in a one room Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Jessica Dickey wrote an astounding work of art in response," Groff said in a statement. "Sarna Lapine sent me The Amish Project last year and I was floored by the urgency and potent poetry of Jessica’s writing as she dives headfirst into the many aftershocks of this horrific event and explores the idea that sometimes the most radical human act is forgiveness. I am profoundly grateful to be bringing Jessica’s play to Broadway alongside Sarna and this incredible team.”

Kelli O'Hara and Tom Hanks in
This World of Tomorrow.
Credit: Marc J. Franklin

Tom Hanks will join Tony winner Kelli O'Hara in a Broadway transfer of This World of Tomorrow which he co-wrote with James Glossman, scheduled for fall 2027 at a Shubert theater TBA. This will be the first time Hanks has appeared on Broadway since Nora Ephron's Lucky Guy in 2014. The play previously played The Shed Off-Broadway in 2025. Based on a short story from Hanks' collection Uncommon Type, World of Tomorrow is a sci-fi tale about a scientist from the late 21st century who travel back in time to the the World's Fair of 1939 where he meets and falls in love with a woman named Carmen (O'Hara, reprising her Off-Broadway role). Tony winner Kenny Leon returns to direct.

Book Review: Theo of Golden

(Ordered from Amazon for about $10): The third book for my online book club. I knew I was in trouble in the first few pages when a young woman gives her life story to a complete stranger who has sent her a letter promising to gift her with a portrait. By the end of the book, I thought I was getting diabetes. The premise is straight out of a Hallmark card. A mysterious, wealthy old man (Theo of the title) shows up in a small Georgia town called Golden. He happens upon a coffee shop with portraits of the customers on the wall. He decides to buy the pictures one by one and present them to the subjects cause he's such a saintly fellow. Of course, each giftee has their own fascinating life story which they spill to Theo upon the bestowal. The nice people are so nice and the mean people are so mean, it made my teeth ache. There is a final twist which explains Theo's altruistic actions, but it's not believable.

Levi is an attorney and judge and this is his first novel. Good for him for getting it published and making it into a best-seller. But it's a predictable, easy, unchallenging read. A box of feel-good chocolates, nowhere near real life.  

I just read Tom Hanks is planning to star in the movie version. How appropriate, another Forrest Gump role.

B'way Review: Other Desert Cities

Allison Janney and Julia Louis-Dreyfus in
Other Desert Cities.
Credit: Emilio Madrid

When Jon Robin Baitz’s incisively-written Other Desert Cities opened at Lincoln Center’s Off-Broadway Mitzi Newhouse Theater in 2011 and then transferred to Broadway later the same year in Joe Mantello’s sensitive production, it was praised as an even-handed yet scathing examination of the state of our polarized nation. Each of the members of the politically and emotionally divided Wyeth family, a powerful clan with influential government, show business and literary connections, was seen as a fully-drawn, three-dimensional human being, not a representative of a particular point of view along the ideological spectrum.

The current Broadway revival at the Hudson is just as indicative of a fraught nation, even more so as the battle lines between left and right are more deeply and seemingly permanently drawn in Trump’s America. John Benjamin Hickey’s polished staging lands the laughs and heartbreaking moments solidly, but the acting choices made by the all-star cast have thrown the balance slightly off. 

Baitz’s story remains compelling. Over Christmas week 2004, the Wyeths reunite at the palatial Palm Springs home of parents Lyman and Polly (Scott Pask designed the gorgeous set.) Mom and Dad are a power couple in elite GOP circles. Lyman’s an ex-movie star and ambassador (possibly based on John Gavin) and Polly had a run as a Hollywood screenwriter of fluffy comedies with her liberal sister Silda, now a broke, recovering alcoholic living with her sister and brother-in-law. Daughter Brooke, a writer recently emerging from a devastating depression, and son Trip, a producer of a hit TV reality show, are visiting. The catalyst for the drama is Brooke’s about-to-be-published memoir in which she focuses on the family’s deepest wound. At the height of the Vietnam War, eldest son Henry was involved in a radical underground group which set off a bomb at a recruiting station, resulting in the death of a janitor and Henry’s subsequent suicide.

Lily Rabe, Joe Keery, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus
in Other Desert Cities.
Credit: Emilio Madrid

B'way/Off-B'way Update: Warriors Cast and Tilda Swinton

Amber Gray, Jasmine Cephas Jones and
Casey Likes will star in Warriors.

Warriors, the new musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eisa Davis based on the 1979 cult film has announced its main cast and dates. Previews begin on March 9 at the Lunt-Fontanne prior to an April 8 opening. In this adaptation, the film's all-male Warriors street gang will be all-female. The cast will include Jaci Calderon, Aneesa Folds, Amber Gray (The Rocky Horror Show, Hadestown), Julia Harriman, Gizel Jiminez, Jasmine Cephas Jones (Hamilton), Kenita R. Miller (for colored girls), Sasha Allen (Hair), Casey Likes (Back to the Future, Heathers) and Donald Webber, Jr. many are repeating their roles from the concept album.

In Off-Broadway news, Oscar winner Tilda Swinton will make her NYC stage debut in Man to Man at the Lucille Lortel with previews beginning Feb. 21 and opening Feb. 28. Swinton is currently starring in Man to Man at London's Royal Court Theater in a sold-out run. She originated the role of Ella/Max, a woman who dons her late husband's trousers in 1930s Germany, in the show's UK premiere in 1987. Man to Man will play Scotland and Germany at the Berliner Ensemble before opening in NYC.

Tilda Swinton in Man to Man in London
Credit: Rudiger Glatz

B'way Update: Rhino, Three Days

Tatiana Maslany and John Turturro in
Rhinoceros at ART.
Credit: Hawver and Hall

The rumors were true. As reported in our last Broadway update, Diane Paulus' revival of Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros will be coming to the Main Stem. There were rumors that the production, previously seen at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass., would be replacing Roundabout Theater Company's revival of The Full Monty on its spring schedule. Roundabout has confirmed that Rhinoceros will stampede into the Todd Haimes Theater for preview performances on April 7 in advance of an April 25 opening. (The Full Monty will be rescheduled.) John Turturro and Tatiana Maslany will repeat their ART performances. Tony winner Tony Shalhoub will take over the role of Jean, played by Paul Giamatti in Cambridge. Jean is the bravura role calling for the actor to transform into the titular horned behemoth for which Zero Mostel won a Tony in the 1960 Broadway production. Ionesco's political allegory concerns a society where conformism demands everyone change into rhinos.

In other Broadway news, the revival of Richard Greenberg's Three Days of Rain has announced dates and a theater. Previews will begin Jan. 20, 2027 at the Longacre Theater with an opening set for March 1 for a limited 16-week run. Tony winner Anna D. Shapiro directs a three person cast consisting of Francois Arnaud (Heated Rivalry), David Corenswet (Superman) and Yvonne Strahovski (The Handmaid's Tale).

Off-B'way Review: Good Time Charlie; Fish; Anon

Ryan Haddad and Jonathan Raviv in
Good Time Charlie.
Credit: Joan Marcus

“There is no plot, but there is a narrative,” exclaims Ryan J. Haddad in his autobiographical play Good Time Charlie, at the Public Theater. Despite the lack of a cohesive storyline, this is a heartwarming, tender love letter to a cherished relative and a celebration of theatre fandom and participation. Haddad is playing a version of himself, and when speaking this line about the plotnessess of his work, he is explaining to the character enacting the title figure, his beloved uncle Charlie, that they are not in a conventional “well-made” play. Instead they are in a tender evocation of Ryan’s childhood, his relationship with Charlie, their mutual love of theater and their contrasting experiences as gay men of different generations. Several playwrights have offered similar strolls down memory lane, most recently Joshua Harmon with We Had a World in which Broadway-loving, gay narrator-protagonist similarly declared “There is no straight line in this play.” Like Harmon’s evocation of his past, Charlie is a combination love letter and excorism of family secrets and buried resentments told in meta-theatrical terms, often directly to the audience.

Haddad has previously explored his background and development as a gay, handicapped Lebanese-American theater artist in solo or semi-solo shows such as Hold Me in the Water and Dark Disabled Stories. Here he expands his canvas to include his whole family, focusing on his uncle (actually a cousin) who introduced him to theater and encouraged him to fully explore his sexual identity. Haddad and Jonathan Raviv as Charlie have a believable bond as the relatives seeking strength and comfort from each other and sharing a joy of the stage.

Ryan Haddad, Tim Bagley, Beth Malone,
Jonathan Raviv, and Michael Cristofer in
Good Time Charlie.
Credit: Joan Marcus

We also meet Charlie’s empathic partner Lou (warm and loving Tim Bagley from Will and Grace), their longtime friend Sheldon (acerbic and tender Michael Cristofer) who runs a revival cinema, Ryan’s supportive lesbian aunt Janice (sturdy Beth Malone), and the parents of both Ryan and Charlie who deal with their offspring’s coming out in vastly different ways. Nael Nacer and Artemis Pebdani double as both sets of elders, differentiating between the two with subtle variations and with the aide of Robert Pickens’ hair and wig design.

Book Review: Liberation Day

(Borrowed from the Jackson Heights library): After not enjoying George Saunders' previous collection, Civilwarland in Bad Decline, I decided to give him another chance. After all, reviewers were praising him to the skies and calling him the best short-story wrier alive today. My local library had Liberation Day and it was only a little over 200 pages, so I took it out. My main objection to Civilwarland was all the stories followed the same pattern: dystopian future, usually in a nightmare version of a theme park, some poor schmuck is oppressed, winds up dead or in jail. Not all the stories in Liberation Day were based on the same template--some took inventive departures--but a few were in the same old Saunders rut.

The title story opens the collection and though it was yet another nightmare-future story, it was ingeniously different. In this fantasy, the poor snooks get their memories wiped and are imprisoned as vocal performers recreating historical events by means of computers flooding their brains with information so they become the participants. Ironically, the mind-slaves are reenacting Custer's Last Stand as a group of protesters invade the performance and violence ensues. The historic details are fascinating and offer parallels with the sci-fi elements.

Ghoul and Elliott Spencer are more schleimel-in-nighmare-world stories. The former is set in an abandoned amusement park (again???) and the latter features memory-wiped poor people (again!!!) being used as protestors. Well written, but the same old thing.

The Mom of Bold Action, Mother's Day and A Thing at Work at least offer totally new story arcs. I liked Mom best--well-constructed and full of believable, flawed characters. A children's author finds herself full of unreasoning rage when her son is pushed in the street by a derelict. Her reactions take her and the reader to uncomfortable places. Sparrow is the biggest surprise of all since it has a happy ending and no one winds up dead or in prison. Love Letter and My House are only a few pages each, but are probably the most powerful works in the collection.

I will probably read more of Saunders' work. He is a skilled storyteller and his tales are compelling, even if they're repetitive and the themes are almost always the same.

Book Review: The Rent Collector

(Bought on Amazon for $10): The second book for my Zoom book group. A moving, but weepy melodrama which pushes all the right emotional buttons a little too neatly. The setting is a mammoth garbage dump in Phnom Phen, Cambodia where the poverty-stricken characters live, ferreting through refuse to eke out a meager existence. Sang Ly discovers her miserly, nasty rent collector is a former teacher and begs her for reading lessons. Of course an unlikely friendship develops and the title character's mysterious past is finally revealed towards the end as the Hallmark TV movie music plays in the background.

The author explains in an afterword the novel was inspired by the real people his son encountered when making a documentary in Cambodia. I think the documentary would have been more realistic and interesting than the novel. 

Off-B'way Reviews: Slam Frank; creation stories and all the important importants; How Shakespeare Saved My Life

Rocky Paterra, Jaz Zepatos, Olivia Bernabe,
Alex Lewis, and Austen Horne in
Slam Frank.
Credit: Shawn Salley Photography

Are there certain topics which should be strictly off-limits when it comes to parody and satire? That’s the difficult question that the explosive new musical Slam Frank, at the Orpheum after a run last season at Asylum NYC, is not afraid to tackle. This bizarre, uproariously funny and sharp-edged cartoon of a show was inspired by a 2022 Twitter debate which started with the horrifying premise, “Did Anne Frank have white privilege?” The initial comments were widely condemned by Jewish groups. They also served as inspiration for Joel Sinensky (book) and Andrew Fox (music and lyrics) to use the teen Jewish diarist’s tragic story of hiding from the Nazis with her family in an Amsterdam attic as a springboard for a merciless attack on a myriad of political stances, both right and left. The authors skewer everything from extreme woke attitudes to unfettered capitalism to a host of musicals such as Hamilton, Rent, In the Heights, and The Producers. Sinensky’s snarky, smart book and Fox’s intricate and hilarious songs hit their targets with stunningly witty accuracy and take us to dangerous comic territory. No spoilers, but the final 20 minutes are satiric dynamite and will probably be more controversial than any piece of theater in the last 28 years (since Terrence McNally’s Corpus Christi which imagined a gay Jesus.)

Sinensky imagines Frank’s story as a play-within-a-play presented by a pretentiously

Olivia Bernabe, John Anker Bow, Rocky Paterra,
Austen Horne, Jaz Zepatos and Alex Lewis
in Slam Frank. Credit: Shawn Salley Photography

progressive theater company, determined to be inclusive even if it doesn’t make historical or dramatic sense. In this bizarre, fun-house mirror version, the Frank and Van Daan families become representatives of every minority and political viewpoint. Anne herself (comically daring Olivia Bernabe) is a pansexual Latina hiding her true Hispanic identity in order to sell more copies of her diary. Her mother Edith (hysterically fierce Austen Horne) is a black American woman clad in traditional African garb (Sarah Lockwood designed the humorous costumes.) Horne delivers a riotous rap poem mixing feminist rage with declamations against misogynist playwrights like David Mamet. 

Anne’s father Otto (delightfully goofy Rocky Paterra) bursts out of the closet as a gay man and tells everyone he is neurodivergent every few minutes. Sister Margo (surprisingly passionate Amelia Louise Barr) remains quiet until those last volcanic scenes. Barr also doubles as Anne’s abuela, serving as a ghostly symbol of the family’s abandoned Hispanic heritage (the story gets weirder and weirder.) 

The Van Daan clan is led by the blustering bullyish father (appropriately despicable John Anker Bow), who dominates his flibbertigibbet of a wife (jazzy Jaz Zepatos) and his son Peter (funny, flighty Alex Lewis). Peter enjoys dancing (much to his dad’s displeasure) and comes out as non-binary. The entire cast handles the difficult task of enacting broad caricatures while pursuing truthful objectives. Like the characters in a Christopher Durang play, they are sane to themselves but they are in an insane universe.

B'way Update: Dirty Dancing, Macbeth, Rhino Rumors, Etc.

There is plenty of news and rumors of upcoming Broadway and Off-Broadway shows. 

Annalese Starzec and Blake Zelesnikar in
Dirty Dancing: The Musical in Chicago.
Credit: Matthew Murphy

The current North American tour of Dirty Dancing: The Musical will make a stop on Broadway. Previews begin at the Lena Horne Theater on Feb. 12, 2027 prior to a March 14 opening in time for the 40th anniversary of the 1987 film. The engagement runs through Sept. 5. Lonny Price who appeared in the original film directs. The score features songs from the film including the Oscar-winning "(I've Had) The Time of My Life." This is the latest in a series of stage adaptations of the story of Frances "Baby" Houseman who falls in love with a dance instructor while vacationing with her family in the Catskills. 

According to Deadline.com, Anthony Mackie (the new Capt. America in the Marvel film franchise) will take on the lead in the 49th Broadway production production of Shakespeare's Macbeth. He will follow in the bloody footsteps of Maurice Evans, Paul Rogers, Philip Anglim, Nicol Williamson, F. Murray Abraham, Christopher Plummer, Kelsey Grammar, Patrick Stewart, Alan Cumming, Ethan Hawke, and Daniel Craig. Kenneth Branagh, Alec Baldwin, Raul Julia and Liev Schrieber are among those to essay the role Off-Broadway. Previews begin in late March or early April 2027 at a Broadway theater TBA. Further casting will be announced at a later date.

Anthony Mackie will switch from Marvel
to Macbeth.

This production is a transfer of a 2023 Donmar Warehouse staging in London starring David Tenant and Cush Jumbo. The staging featured an innovative sound design by Tony and Olivier winner Gareth Fry with the audience wearing headphones and the actors speaking into microphones so it feels as if they are right in the middle of the action. (Other than the Deadline report, there has been no official press release.)

B'way Update: Wonderful Live Radio Play

Andrew Rannells will play George Bailey
in It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play.

The holiday classic It's a Wonderful Life continues its journey of conquering all media after film and TV with a Broadway version recasting the heartwarming story of George Bailey and his Christmastime redemption as a radio play. It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play will begin a special limited holiday engagement at the Broadhurst Theater on Nov. 4 with an opening set for Nov. 18, running through Jan. 3, 2027. Tony winner Jerry Zaks will direct the adaptation by Joe Landry, based on the story "The Greatest Gift" by Philip Van Doren Stern which served as the basis of the beloved Frank Capra film (Screenplay by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, Capra and Jo Swerling). 

The cast will be headlined by Andrew Rannells (Book of Mormon) as George Bailey, Megan Hilty (Death Becomes Her, Smash) as Mary Bailey, Titus Burgess (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) as the Angel Clarence, Harry Hamill (LA Law) as Mr. Potter and others, and Lisa Rinna (Days of Our Lives) as Violet and others. 

The production which was first presented professionally at the Stamford Connecticut Center for the Arts in 1996, takes place in a 1940s radio studio complete with foley sound effects and holiday carols performed during commercial breaks. This adaptation has been subsequently presented on numerous regional stages.

"This story has touched the hearts of millions for generations, and I'm thrilled to now be bringing it to the Broadway stage this holiday season with this sensational cast of musical theater, television, and comedy greats," said director Jerry Zaks. "This production's unique format as a radio play calls back to the charm of a bygone era, while also folding in exciting surprises to thrill modern audiences, making for a memorable and joyful holiday experience for all!"

A scene from one of the many regional
productions of It's a Wonderful Life:
A Live Radio Play (Peterborough Players)

B'way Review: School Girls or, The African Mean Girls Play

Jocelyn Bioh’s School Girls or, The African Mean Girls Play is much more than a variation on

Denee Benton, Jordan Rice, Nia Otchere-Sarfo, 
Lucia Aremu, Erin Morton, and
Heather Alicia Simms in School Girls
or The African Mean Girls Play.
Credit: Matthew Murphy

Tina Fey’s Mean Girls screenplay and musical adaption. Originally presented Off-Broadway at MCC Theater in 2017 and now in a vibrant, explosively comic Manhattan Theater Club revival on Broadway, Bioh’s clever play employs the basic template of a queen bee making life miserable for her classmates to explore themes of racism, colorism, sexism, and self-destructive behavior. She doesn’t merely transport the nasty power dynamics of Fey’s world and that of Heathers, the similar film comedy now running as a musical Off-Broadway, to an African setting. She gives individual riotous life to each of her characters and full vent to the issues that face them. 

Director Whitney White and a seamless ensemble deliver a rollercoaster of hilarity and pathos on a rollicking 80-minute ride. White’s tight and flavorful staging exhibits exquisite timing so that the laughs and the dramatic blows land solidly and build to a disturbing conclusion.

Denee Benton and Jasmine Amy Rogers
in School Girls or The African Mean Girls Play.
Credit: Matthew Murphy

Set in a girls’ boarding school in 1986 Ghana and according to a playwright’s note inspired by real events, the plot revolves around the visit of a recruiter for an upcoming beauty contest. Bioh wisely rises the stakes of gaining a spot in a seemingly unimportant event like a pageant and makes the competition revealing of character and motivation. The main conflict is between dominating bully Paulina (enjoyably hissable Denee Benton) and new, friendlier girl from the States Ericka (steely Jasmine Amy Rogers). Their struggles are more than skin deep, literally. The darker-skinned Paulina resents lighter-toned Ericka and applies toxic bleaching creams to “whiten” her complexion with damaging results. Despite her American advantages and wealthy family, we learn by play’s end Ericka is just as vulnerable and needy as Paulina. Benton and Rogers are equally versatile in conveying the shattered, vulnerable interiors of these seemingly combative social warriors. 

B'way Update: Damn Yankees

Austin Scott, Julianne Hough and
Neil Patrick Harris will headline a 
new production of Damn Yankees.
Credit: Emilio Madrid

The new revival of Damn Yankees announced its lead cast, theater and dates at a press conference at Yankees Stadium. Major League Baseball and its production label MLB Studio will serve as co-producers of the baseball-themed 1955 musical. Tony and Emmy winner Neil Patrick Harris will star as Applegate, the incarnation of the devil who tempts a middle-aged baseball fan into becomes a youthful hitter in return for his soul. Julianne Hough of Dancing with the Stars plays Lola, his seductive accomplice and Austin Scott (Hamilton) will play Young Joe, Applegate's target. Previews begin March 24, 2027 at the Marquis Theater prior to an April 20 opening.

Tony winner Sergio Trujillo (Ain't Too Proud) directs and choreographs. The setting will be updated to the early 2000s with an adapted book by Doug Wright (I Am My Own Wife) and Will Power. Lynn Ahrens (Ragtime) writes additional lyrics. The original 1955 production was directed by George Abbott with choreography by Bob Fosse. Abbott co-wrote the book with Douglass Wallop based on the latter's novel The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant. Richard Adler and Jerry Ross wrote the score. A 1995 revival with Victor Garber and Bebe Neuwirth also featured book revisions and played the Marquis.

This revised edition previously appeared at Washington DC's Arena Stage.

Off-B'way Review: The Invention of Love

David Greenspan and Annabel Capper
in The Invention of Love.
Credit: Paul Lutvak

Tom Stoppard’s dense literary masterpiece The Invention of Love receives a thoughtful, moving production at the tiny space at Theaterlab, highlighted by luminous performances by eight-time Obie winner David Greenspan as the poet-scholar A.E. Housman, Yaron Lotan as his younger self, and an insightful ensemble cast. The play is a challenging three-hour examination of Housman’s life as a brilliant student of Latin and Greek at Oxford followed by his career as a writer and professor, and his unrequited, gay passion for classmate Moses Jackson. Stoppard also traces attitudes towards homosexuality in British society in the same period (the 1880s-90s) as the government passes anti-sodomy laws and Oscar Wilde rises and falls as a symbol of aesthetic art and then decadence. The dazzling Stoppard frames the narrative with the just-deceased Housman's crossing into the underworld on the river Styx guided by the grumpy mythical ferryman Charon. Figures from the poet’s past appear and debate each other on the beauty of classical literature, male love, and who created the first love poem (hence the title).

Stoppard had been criticized for writing heady intellectual theatrical head-scratchers (to some), such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Travesties, and Jumpers—wordy plays that mined heady academic and historical themes—while failing to create emotionally-motivated characters. He finally broke through with The Real Thing in 1984, balancing witty wordplay with a heartbreaking love story between a playwright and an actress. Here he manages to perform a similar balancing act, illuminating Housman’s passion for the works of antiquity while delineating his forbidden love and the society that forces him to repress it.