Broadway
BroadwayCon’s First Look
At BroadwayCon’s First Look, attendees will be treated to an exclusive showcase of performances from the newest and most talked-about shows of the season. The lineup currently includes seven exciting shows, all performing exclusively for BroadwayCon fans.
Admission to First Look is included in all BroadwayCon tickets, starting at just $80. For the first time, First Look will take place on the first day of BroadwayCon, Friday, January 24, 2020, leading into a full weekend of programming and events celebrating Broadway and theatre.
First Look 2020 will feature performances from SIX, Jagged Little Pill, Mrs. Doubtfire, Girl from the North Country, Emojiland, Between The Lines, and Tony Award-winning Hadestown. Additional appearance will be announced at a later date. Tickets are available now at BroadwayCon.com/register.
“BroadwayCon’s First Look is one of the only times a theatre fan can see a preview of the year’s most exciting offerings,” says Melissa Anelli, CEO of Mischief Management and Co-Founder of BroadwayCon. “There is no better chance for fans to experience performances from so many Broadway shows all in one place. With this showcase now on the first day of BroadwayCon, we’ll be able to bring all that enthusiasm for the current season of Broadway shows with us all weekend.”
Previous BroadwayCon First Look appearances have included Hadestown featuring Anaïs Mitchell, Waitress featuring Sara Bareilles, Indecent featuring Paula Vogel, Come From Away featuring Jenn Colella, Anastasia featuring Christy Altomare, Tootsie, Beetlejuice, Kiss Me, Kate, Moulin Rouge, The Prom, Gettin’ The Band Back Together, Escape to Margaritaville, Children of a Lesser God, Amelie, Bandstand, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Hello Again, Miss Saigon, Significant Other, Sunday in the Park with George, The Play That Goes Wrong, Found, Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, and Tuck Everlasting.
About Between The Lines
Based on the novel by New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult and her daughter Samantha Van Leer, Between the Lines is an empowering and enchanting new musical for any of us seeking to find our place in the world. An outsider in a new town and a new school, Delilah seeks comfort in the pages of her favorite book, where she feels heard and understood. But as the lines between the two worlds of reality and fantasy begin to blur in extraordinary and astonishing ways, Delilah has to confront whether she alone has the power to rewrite her own story.
About Emojiland
Not to be confused with, and very much unlike The Emoji Movie, Emojiland is an electric ensemble piece about a diverse community of archetypes who take one another at face value: a smiling face dealing with depression; a princess who doesn’t want a prince; a skull dying for deletion; a nerd face too smart for his own good; a face with sunglasses who can’t see past his own reflection; and a police officer and construction worker who just want to work together. When a software update threatens to destroy life as they know it, Emojiland faces the most fundamental questions a society – and a heart – can face: Who are we? And who matters?
About Girl From The North Country
1934. A time-weathered guesthouse in the heartland of America. Only a song can shake off the dust for one group of wayward souls—and old dreams may hold the promise of new beginnings. As they pass in and out of each other’s lives, their stories awaken with passion, fury and extraordinary beauty. Reimagining the music of Bob Dylan as roof-raising ensemble pieces and soul-stirring solos, celebrated playwright Conor McPherson (The Weir, The Seafarer) writes and directs this heartbreaking and universal story about family and love.
About Hadestown
Welcome to HADESTOWN, where a song can change your fate. This acclaimed new musical by celebrated singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell and innovative director Rachel Chavkin (Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812) is a love story for today… and always. HADESTOWN intertwines two mythic tales – that of young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice, and that of King Hades and his wife Persephone – as it invites you on a hell-raising journey to the underworld and back. Mitchell’s beguiling melodies and Chavkin’s poetic imagination pit industry against nature, doubt against faith, and fear against love. Performed by a vibrant ensemble of actors, dancers and singers, HADESTOWN is a haunting and hopeful theatrical experience that grabs you and never lets go.
About Jagged Little Pill
Inspired by the themes and raw emotions laid bare in Alanis Morissette’s seminal album of the same name, JAGGED LITTLE PILL is an exhilarating new Broadway musical powered by an original story from Academy Award-winning writer Diablo Cody (Juno, Tully) about The Healys — a seemingly perfect suburban family who strives to hide the cracks beneath the surface when a troubling event shakes their community. Directed by Tony Award winner Diane Paulus (Waitress, Pippin), JAGGED LITTLE PILL is “Urgent, wildly entertaining, and wickedly funny in all the right places” (The Boston Globe), ignited by Morissette’s groundbreaking music – including such hits as “You Oughta Know,” “Head Over Feet,” “Hand In My Pocket,” and “Ironic” – plus songs newly written for the show. Declared a “Critic’s Pick” upon its Opening Night on Broadway this month, The New York Times hails JAGGED LITTLE PILL as “joyful and redemptive, rousing and real.” Rolling Stone awards the musical “Four stars! Jagged Little Pill Burns with Passion. It’s essential medicine that must be swallowed and enjoyed so we can be cured. I want to see it again, and again.”
About SIX
Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. From Tudor Queens to Pop Princesses, the SIX wives of Henry VIII take the mic to reclaim their identities out of the shadow of their infamous spouse-remixing five hundred years of historical heartbreak into an exuberant celebration of 21st century girl power. The female cast is backed by an all-female band, the “Ladies in Waiting.” Songs from the studio album are streamed on average 300,000 times per day, making it the second highest streaming cast recording in the world.
About Mrs. Doubtfire
Daniel Hillard, a struggling, out-of-work actor, will do anything for his kids. After losing custody in a messy divorce, he disguises himself as Scottish nanny Euphegenia Doubtfire in a desperate attempt to stay in their lives. As his new persona begins to take on a life of her own, Mrs. Doubtfire teaches Daniel more than he bargained for about how to be a father. A hysterical and heartfelt story about holding onto your loved ones against all odds, Mrs. Doubtfire is the next big musical comedy for families-of all kinds.
BroadwayCon is theatre’s answer to comic-con, tailor made for fans. From January 24-26, 2020, join some of Broadway’s biggest fans, performers, and creators from classic and current shows as we gather at the Hilton Midtown to perform, discuss, debate, and celebrate theatre. BroadwayCon 2020 will feature panels, performances, interviews, workshops, singalongs, and more, all packed into an epic three-day weekend. Past panels have included previews from upcoming Broadway shows, conversations with the casts and creatives of this season’s hits, and discussions featuring the industry’s top producers and designers, not to mention the giant Opening Celebration and nighttime fun and games. BroadwayCon is produced by Mischief Management.
Broadway
Broadway’s A Doll’s House Meticulously Stunning Revival Soars Like a Birdie Above That Clumsy Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
For a revival to find its footing, it has to have a point of view or a sense of purpose far beyond an actor’s desire to perform a part, whether it suits them or not. It needs to radiate an idea that will make us want to sit up and pay attention. To feel its need to exist. And on one particular day in March, I was blessed with the opportunity to see not just one grande revival, but two. One was a detailed pulled-apart revolutionary revival of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House that astounded. The other, unfortunately, was a clumsy revival of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that fell lazily from that high-wired peak – not for a lack of trying, but from a formulation that never found its purpose.
But over at Broadway’s Hudson Theatre, a reformulation chirps most wisely and wonderfully, bringing depth and focus to a classic Henrik Ibsen (Hedda Gabler) play that I didn’t realize was in such need of an adaptation. With no extravagance at its core, Amy Herzog (Mary Jane) dynamically takes the detailed structure and beautifully adapted it with due purpose. It hypnotizes, dragging in a number of light wooden chairs, Scandinavian in style, I believe, onto the stage, one by one, by their black-clad counterparts in a determined effort to unpack what will unfold. There is no artifice to hide behind in this rendering, as designed most impeccably by scenic and co-costume designer Soutra Gilmour (NT’s My Brilliant Friend; Broadway’s & Juliet) and co-costume designer Enver Chakartash (Broadway’s Is This A Room), only A Doll’s House’s celebrated star, Jessica Chastain (Broadway’s The Heiress; “The Eyes of Tammy Faye“) rotating the expanse of the bare stage before the others join her slowly and deliberately. She sits, arms crossed, staring, daring us to look away, while knowing full well we won’t. Or can’t. And without a word, it feels like she has us exactly where she wants us. Needs us to be. And all that transpires before the play even begins.
They sit on that bare and stark stage, waiting, in a way, to be played with, like dolls patiently wanting some children to come and give them a voice through their imagination. As Nora, Chastain delivers forward a performance that is unparalleled. To witness what transpires across her face during the course of this extra fine adaptation is to engage in a dance so delicately embroidered that we can’t help but be moved and transported. She barely moves from her chair, as others, like the equally wonderful Arian Moayed (Broadway’s The Humans) as Torvald, are rotated in to sit beside her, conversing and delivering magnified lines, thanks to the brilliant work of sound designers Ben & Max Ringham (West End’s Prima Facie), that dig deep into the underbelly of the complicated interactions. This pair of actors find a pathway through the darkness, never letting us come to any conclusions until they are ready to unleash a moment that will leave you breathless. This is particularly true for Moayed’s Torvald, who seems decent enough at the beginning, but once the shift occurs, when the beautiful thing doesn’t happen as it should, his unveiling is as gut-wrenching to us as it is to Nora. Even though we knew it was coming long before the play even began to spin forward.
The art of the unfolding is steeped within the whole, refocused inside the brilliant shading, shadowing, and starkness of the cast. As Krogstad, the powerful Okieriete Onaodowan (Broadway’s Hamilton), alongside the deliciously tight Jesmille Darbouze (Broadway’s Kiss Me, Kate) as Kristine, find an engagement that sits perfectly in the structuring. They push the reforming to the edge, approaching and receding away from Chastain’s brilliant centering helping move the piece towards the required conclusion.
The same can be said of the wonderful Tasha Lawrence (LCT’s Pipeline) as Anne-Marie, and the exquisitely emotional turning of Michael Patrick Thornton (Broadway’s Macbeth) as Dr. Rank. Thornton, in particular, finds a telling and emotional space to connect, unearthing an engagement that breaks the circle apart, leaving Chastain’s Nora and all of us observers shattered and broken in its black X’d finality.
As directed with the same magnificently detailed energy and flat-walled framework as the previously seen Betrayal on Broadway and the West End, Jamie Lloyd gives us A Doll’s House that will never be forgotten. The focus is so deliberate, and the formulations are just so strong, pushed forward in black and white by the exacting lighting design of Jon Clark (West End/Broadway’s The Lehman Trilogy). Forced while remaining ever so intimate, the cascading of the statement delivered registers in a precise way, more exacting than I ever remembered, and I’ve seen numerous renditions of this epic play. And even though, from what I hear, many on the left couldn’t see the epic exit of Nora, a moment that typically registers throughout theatre history, the symbol of a woman, steadfast and true, leaving the safe and simple artifice of A Doll’s House for engagement in the hard cruel reality of the world outside is as clear as can be. The delicacies of this birdie trapped inside a cage, poisoned with lies and excuses, and beautifully brought forth by Chastain, registers the reasonings for this revival to exist. It has found a new and deliberate place to sing, and for that, I am truly grateful.
I wish I could say the same about Ruth Stage‘s modern take on the Tennessee Williams (A Streetcar Named Desire) classic, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, currently being re-delivered at the Theatre at St. Clements. As directed by Joe Rosario (Hemingway and Me; Ruth Stages’ The Exhibition), the play doesn’t find its rationale for existing in the modern day beyond the simplistic sexualization of its boxing-ring corners. Matt de Rogatis (Austin Pendleton’s Wars of the Roses) as the tense athletic Brick stays broken and damaged in his corner, riding out the moment, waiting for the click, while in the other corner is the tense Maggie, played without hesitation by Courtney Henggeler (Netflix’s “Cobra Kai“) poised and ready for the bell to ring.
The battle is only heightened by the presence of two other fighters in the opposing corners, Big Daddy, played with determination by Frederick Weller (Broadway’s To Kill a Mockingbird) in the third, and Big Mama, played with a strong intent by Alison Fraser (Gingold Theatrical’s Heartbreak House), in the fourth. And watching and cheering for their own personal perspective wins are the obnoxious Mae, typically portrayed by Christine Copley (although I believe I saw an understudy), the weasely Gooper, played by Adam Dodway (Theatre Row’s Small Craft Warnings), Rev. Tooker portrayed by Milton Elliott (Ruth Stage’s Hamlet), and Doc Baugh, typically played by Jim Kempner (“The Girlfriend Experience“) (although, once again, I believe I saw an understudy).
Generally, this is a battle that rages deceptively strong and subtle for the length of the play, swimming cruelly in the hazy heat of its Southern charm. But somewhere in this modernization, the reasonings never get fully realized, leaving the cast to wander in their stereotypical delivery without a sharp focal point in the horizon to zero in on. Hidden behind the bar and the drink, de Rogatis finds a Brick to be engaged with. He’s definitely handsome and desirable, especially in the eyes of the far-too-straightforward Henggeler’s Maggie the Cat, and his occupation of drinking rings more true than most. I’m not sure if the modernization has been created to fit his chest-baring delivery of a broken Brick, but I will say that his artful approach to the part is one of the stronger components of this otherwise clunky reimagining.
Given so much to unpack, Henggeler runs a little too fast and furious, not weaving a pause into her thoughts and actions. It’s all forward flowing, ignoring the laws of silence and deliberation. Big Mama and Big Daddy, ignoring the fact that they don’t seem to fit in with their surroundings or the set-up, find their way into the same cage as the two central figure fighters, giving us something else to contemplate in their constructs, beyond their tight fitting jeans and dress. There’s not much of a father/son connection, nor does their familial energy register, even as it moves and twitches within the pauses well. The details of attachment are lost, as they talk around things, with everyone else playing at high volume, courtesy of a sound design by Tomás Correa (Hudson Street’s Adam & Eve), delivering the Southern drawl with the intensity of an SNL skit. That’s a problem to the whole and one that doesn’t work for this rendering.
Most of the cast is all hock and no spit, moving around the room with a strange case of physicalized mendacity while never really finding a reason for their existence. The artifice gets in the way of the movement, especially in Matthew Imhoff’s (off-Broadway’s soot and spit) busy and overly clumsy set, with some distracting fading in and out by lighting designer Christian Specht’s (SSTI’s Cabaret). The storm approaching is as false as the formula and the reasoning for this retelling. It showcases some basically good actors embracing the chance to play iconic Big roles that I’m sure they have always wanted to dig their Southern-accented chomps into, possibly because one or two of them might never otherwise get the chance as they don’t exactly fit the literal sashaying of the “fat old” bodies out and around the staging of this play. The idea breeds curiosity, but one that doesn’t save this Cat on a Hot Tin Roof from falling quick and hard from its perch, I’m sad to say. While the birdie in A Doll’s House flies strong out into the cool Broadway air, with solid reasoning on its stark wings, reminding us all what makes for a worthy reimagining of a classic.
You are seriously asking for it, when you make the title for your musical Bad Cinderella, however the show is not bad, it’s just seriously lacking. For an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, which is normally rich in melody, the only song that has any kind of hold is “Only You, Lonely You” sung by Prince Sebastian (Jordan Dobson or in my performance the wonderful Julio Ray). The lyrics by David Zippel and book by Emerald Fennell, adapted by Alexis Scheer are inane. It doesn’t help that the cast for the most part speaks and sings with mouths full of cotton. The orchestrations sound tinny and computerized, The lead Linedy Genao has no charisma or vocals that soar musically, instead she is rather nasal, like Bernadette Peters with a cold. Why this show is two and a half hours long is beyond me.
Grace McLean and the hunks Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
The show is based in a town called Belleville (beautiful town en Francais), that is based solely on looks and prides itself on its superficiality. The opening number starts with “Beauty Is Our Duty,” the Queen (a fabulous Grace McLean) is into her hunks including her missing son Charming (Cameron Loyal).
Christina Acosta Robinson Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)
And the fairy godmother (Christina Acosta Robinson) is a plastic surgeon who sings “Beauty Has a Price”. In a day and age, where we are suppose to see past all that, this show is politically incorrect.
Linedy Genao Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
Cinderella a Gothic, and a graffiti artist, naturally does not fit into the town’s mold of beauty, which is how she earns her nickname. Her rebel move happens when she defaces a memorial statue of Sebastian’s older brother, Prince Charming. Sebastian is more of a geek, and he and Cinderella are in the “friend zone,” since both lack communication skills in admitting their love.
Carolee Carmello Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
Sebastian is being forced by his mother, the Queen to find a wife at a ball and invites Cinderella. Cinderella’s stepmother (the always remarkable Carolee Carmello) blackmails the Queen to get one of her daughters Adele (Sami Gayle) or Marie (Morgan Higgins) the gig.
Grace McLean, Carolee Carmello Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)
McLean and Carmello are the bright spots in the show and if the show had been about these two, maybe we would actually have a show that could work. These two steal the show.
Linedy Genao, Jordan Dobson, Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
Cinderella has not one, but two what should have been show stopping numbers “I Know I Have A Heart (Because You Broke It)” and “Far Too Late,” but she does not have the vocals, the character development or the star power to carry them off.
The set and the revenge porn costumes by Gabriela Tylesova, are just over the top, with the storybook set faring much better than the over complicated flowered pastels that waltzed across the stage.
The direction by Laurence Connor is just dull and lacks oomph.
If you like buff men and Chippendale type choreography this is the show for you.
Bad Cinderella, Imperial Theatre, 249 West 45th Street.
On Friday, March 24th, the 96-year-old John Kander was given a Mayoral Proclamation from Mayor Eric Adams in celebration of the first performance of his new Broadway musical New York, New York. Following the proclamation, Lin-Manuel Miranda unveiled the sign renaming 44th Steet ‘Kander & Ebb Way. On hand was the Manhattan School of Music to performed the iconic Kander & Ebb song “New York, New York.”
New York, New York opens Wednesday, April 26, 2023 at Broadway’s St. James Theatre (246 West 44th Street).
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