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). 

B'way Update: Buffalo, Funny Girl, Pal Joey

Laurence Fishburne, Sam Rockwell
and Darren Criss will star in
American Buffalo
Credit: Matthew Murphy

With recent announcements of firm openings, casting and theaters, the 2021-22 Broadway season appears to be solidly set. American Buffalo and Funny Girl have solidified their locations and performance dates. That leaves only Sing Street dangling. The musical had announced a Broadway transfer from its New York Theater Workshop run before the pandemic, but that doesn't seem likely now since almost all of the theaters have been snapped up. Many shows have reopened and a few new ones have opened their doors. There have been bumps on the road--Aladdin had to suspend performances due to a breakthrough outbreak of COVID in the company and Lackawanna Blues cancelled a few shows due to the back injury of Rueben Santiago-Hudson, the playwright and sole performer. But, Broadway is definitely back and open for business.

American Buffalo, David Mamet's gut-punch of a play about three petty thieves planning a burglary of a rare coin collection, had been in rehearsals when COVID shut down all the theaters. The show, directed by Neil Pepe, will now begin previews at the Circle In the Square (currently the home of Chicken and Biscuits) the week of March 22, 2022 and open on April 14. Tony and Emmy winner Laurence Fishburne, Oscar winner Sam Rockwell, and Emmy winner Darren Criss will star. 

New Broadway Openings for 2021

While New York City is slowly reopening from the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the return of Broadway and other stages is still far in the future. But there is a glimmer of hope. Several Main Stem productions have announced new dates for previews and openings, all in 2021 and the earliest dates are March 1. The Minutes by Tracey Letts will begin previews at the Cort Theater on next March 1 with an opening set for March 15, one year after its originally projected premiere. The dark comedy about a secretive town council meeting has had a bumpy road to Broadway. After its Steppenwolf Theater Company debut in Chicago in 2017, the play was set to open on Broadway in 2018, but was delayed. The 2020 production was to have been directed by Tony winner Anna D. Shapiro (Letts' August: Osage County) and feature the playwright, Armie Hammer, Ian Barford (Letts' Linda Vista), Blair Brown, Cliff Chamberlain, K. Todd Freeman, Danny McCarthy, Jessie Mueller, Sally Murphy, Austin Pendleton, and Jeff Still. 

The fourth Broadway production of David Mamet's American Buffalo is now set to begin previews at Circle in the Square on March 24 with an opening slated for April 14, also a year from its original debut. The three-character play about small-time crooks planning a heist of a coin collection stars Laurence Fishburne, Oscar winner Sam Rockwell, and Darren Criss. Neil Pepe directs. Previous productions have starred Robert Duvall, Al Pacino, and John Leguizamo.