Off Broadway
Ensemble Studio Theatre Announces New Co-Artistic Directors
Ensemble Studio Theatre (EST) has announced that Estefanía Fadul and Graeme Gillis have been appointed the new Co-Artistic Directors of the 55-year-old award-winning off-Broadway theater company. Gillis, who has been serving as Interim Artistic Director since William Carden retired in 2022 and is a long-time member of EST, will begin planning the 2023/2024 season with director/producer Fadul who will officially join the prestigious company in March. In the past five decades, EST has developed thousands of new American plays and has grown into a company of over 600 actors, directors, playwrights, and designers. EST was founded and led by Curt Dempster beginning in 1968 and was succeeded as Artistic Director by William Carden in 2007. Fadul and Gillis mark the first co-leadership structure for the company.
EST’s current season kicked off in the fall with the 38th Marathon of One-Act Plays which has been a landmark New York theatre festival since 1977. The spring season will continue with a soon-to-be-announced production from the EST/Sloan Project in late March, along with the First Light Festival, an annual festival of readings and workshops developing plays about science and technology, and the continuation of Youngblood’s Sunday Brunch series, a monthly collection of fully produced new short plays from EST’s collective of emerging professional playwrights.
“I am so proud to have this brilliant team be at the head of our company,” said Members Council Co-Chair Sharina Martin. “Representatives from across our entire community were able to weigh in on a process that took the better part of a year. I can truly say that this search reflected the best of EST — a theater that values community, inclusion and collaboration. I am so excited for the dynamic ideas that will come from Graeme and Estefanía, and I fully trust in their leadership as we enter into the next phase of reimagining EST.”
“My favorite way of working has always been within ensemble settings, where there is space and time for trust to build, ideas to evolve, risks to be taken, and collaborations to grow. EST is uniquely positioned to be a leader in imagining, experimenting with, and practicing brave and joyful ways of creating,” said Co-Artistic Director Estefanía Fadul. “I look forward to building on the deep work that folks within the organization are already doing with love and care to transform EST into a truly inclusive place of belonging for artists and audiences alike, particularly those from communities that have been historically excluded. The possibilities feel infinite, and I’m honored to be in process with the EST community as we co-create its future.”
“The animating idea of EST, of a community of artists dedicating themselves to their work, to each other, and to the future of theatre, is just about the most romantic, most inspiring thing I’ve ever heard,” said Co-Artistic Director Graeme Gillis. “Before us, a lot of people at EST lived that idea. They held the door open so hundreds of artists, 55 years of them, could walk in here. Now it’s our turn. That’s the heart of EST’s inclusion work and anti-racism efforts, and really our whole artistic life. I’ve been sheltered and inspired by this place, by the work I’ve seen and the people I’ve met here, for nearly half my life. I want that for everybody. That welcome, that acceptance, the camaraderie and fun, the awe at what we can pull off together. I feel so lucky today, because I get to participate in that.”
Estefanía Fadul is a Colombian-born, New Hampshire-raised, NYC-based director and creative producer with a passion for new work. Recent directing includes the world premieres of Eva Luna adapted by Caridad Svich from the novel by Isabel Allende (Repertorio Español), The Garbologists by Lindsay Joelle (Philadelphia Theatre Company), The Same Day by Stefan Ivanov(Sfumato Theatre, Bulgaria), Scissoring by C. Quintana (INTAR), and the Drama League-nominated Carla’s Quince, which she conceived and developed with The Voting Project Ensemble to mobilize Latiné voters to the polls. She has developed new plays and musicals off-Broadway and regionally at the Public Theater, Chautauqua, Latinx Playwrights Circle, Playwrights’ Realm, NYTW, Audible, Goodspeed, Long Wharf, Juilliard, and more. She was on the producing team for Soho Rep.’s first all-ages, site-specific show Washeteria, and is a co-producer on the upcoming world premiere of Raquel Almazan’s La Paloma Prisoner. Estefanía is a member of the leadership circle of the Center for Performance and Civic Practice (CPCP), the Drama League Board of Directors, Latinx Theatre Commons advisory committee, Lincoln Center Directors Lab, and SDC. She was the 2020 recipient of New York Stage and Film’s Pfaelzer Award, is a New Georges Affiliated Artist, and an alumna of the Advocacy and Leadership Institutes of the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures, the Drama League Directors Project, O’Neill/NNPN National Directors Fellowship, Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellowship, Civilians’ R&D Group, Foeller Fellowship at Williamstown, and Van Lier Fellowship at Repertorio Español. She has a B.A. from Vassar College, where she co-founded Idlewild Theatre Ensemble to create and uplift work by women/fem-aligning artists.
Graeme Gillis is from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. First hired at Ensemble Studio Theatre by founder Curt Dempster, he’s served in many roles, most recently as Interim Artistic Director during the theatre’s leadership transition, and before that as Associate Artistic Director under William Carden. Together with RJ Tolan, he leads the theatre’s Obie Award-winning EST/Youngblood playwrights group, fostering dozens of early-career playwrights each year. Together with Linsay Firman, he leads the EST/Sloan Project, a program that fosters plays about science and technology, and has awarded over $3 million in grants to playwrights and theatres nationwide. His plays have been produced at EST by Youngblood and in the Marathon. He has worked as a playwright with theatres throughout the US and Canada, including Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, Cherry Lane Theatre, Vampire Cowboys, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and Source Theatre (DC); Mulgrave Road Theatre (Nova Scotia), Summerworks and Theatre Smash at the Tarragon Theatre (Toronto). Published by Dramatists Play Service and Applause Books. At Sarah Lawrence College he teaches Downstage, a production conference where students form their own theatre company, create a mission statement, then curate and produce a full season to carry out the mission. He’s a graduate of the University of King’s College in Nova Scotia, New School University, and the EST/Youngblood writers’ group. As a Canadian he proudly bears a US artists’ green card, sponsored by Ensemble Studio Theatre. He is a lifetime member of the Actors Studio and EST.
Ensemble Studio Theatre (EST) was founded by Curt Dempster in 1968 and led by William Carden from 2007 to 2022. In over 50 years, EST has developed thousands of new American plays and has grown into a company of over 600 actors, directors, playwrights, and designers.
EST’s mission is to develop and produce original, provocative, and authentic new work. A dynamic community committed to a collaborative process, EST is dedicated to inclusion across all aspects of identity and perspective, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, sexuality, physical or mental ability, physical or mental health, and recovery while acknowledging and working to end systemic marginalization and oppression at all levels of its organization. EST discovers and nurtures new voices and supports artists throughout their creative lives. This extraordinary support and commitment to inclusivity are essential to yield extraordinary work.
The biennial Marathon of One-Act Plays has been an essential part of the New York theatre scene since it launched in 1977. Praised by critics and beloved by audiences, it generated an industry-wide revival of the short play form, breaking new ground by putting emerging and established writers together on one stage. In its earliest days, the Marathon was key to sustaining the careers of writers like Horton Foote and Romulus Linney, while providing essential early opportunity for then-new voices like Christopher Durang, Richard Greenberg and Aaron Sorkin. That mix of ages and cultures remains at the theater’s core, with each subsequent generation – now including Julia Cho, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Amy Herzog, Qui Nguyen, Taylor Mac, and many others – taking their turn on the festival’s Hell’s Kitchen stage. Recently produced playwrights include Clare Barron, Leah Nanako Winkler, Anna Ziegler and Lloyd Suh. Martyna Majok was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Cost of Living, a play which originated in the 2015 Marathon of One-Act Plays.
EST is located at 545 West 52nd Street. For more information, visit ensemblestudiotheatre.org.
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.
Broadway
Theatre News: Smash, I Need That, Good Night, Oscar, Funny Girl, This Beautiful Lady and In The Trenches: A Parenting Musical
The NBC television series Smash is coming to Broadway for the 2024-2025 season. Robert Greenblatt, Neil Meron and Steven Spielberg will produce. The musical will feature a book co-written by three-time Tony Award nominee Rick Elice and Tony winner Bob Martin. Tony and Grammy winners Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (Some Like It Hot). The team earned three Emmy nominations for their songs from the “Smash” series will pen the score, which will feature numbers from the TV show.
Five-time Tony winner Susan Stroman (New York, New York) will direct and Tony nominee and Emmy Award winner Joshua Bergasse will choreograph.
The series was created by Theresa Rebeck and Spielberg, launch the series. Spielberg is also one of the co-producers of Good Night, Oscar, which begins performances at the Belasco Theatre on April 7.
Official dates, theater, creative team and casting for the “Smash” stage musical will be announced at a later date.
Speaking of the Pulitzer Prize finalist playwright Theresa Rebeck, Danny DeVito and Lucy DeVito are set to star in her new play I Need That at the Roundabout. The new comedy will be directed by Tony nominee Moritz von Stuelpnagel which will open at the American Airlines Theatre in October. The cast will also include Ray Anthony Thomas. … Also newly announced for Roundabout’s new Broadway season is a spring 2024 revival of Samm-Art Williams’ 1980 Tony-nominated play “Home.” Tony winner Kenny Leon will direct
Speaking of Good Night, Oscar, Doug Wright’s play was named finalist for 2023 new play award by The American Theatre Critics Association. The other six finalists for the 2023 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award include: Born With Teeth by Liz Duffy Adams, the ripple, the wave that carried me home by Christina Anderson, Sally & Tom by Suzan-Lori Parks, Spay by Madison Fiedler and
Swing State by Rebecca Gilman.
Paolo Montalban and Anne L. Nathan are joining Lea Michele in Funny Girl as Florenz Ziegfield and Mrs. Strakosh. Montalban and Nathan will replace original cast members Peter Francis James and Toni DiBuono, who take their final bows on March 26th.
Elizabeth Swados’ This Beautiful Lady will play at La MaMa this May. Previews will begin May 5 for the Off-Broadway run ahead of the May 8 press opening, with performances set through May 28 in the Ellen Stewart Theatre.
In The Trenches: A Parenting Musical, with book, music, and lyrics by Graham & Kristina Fuller, will receive industry readings on Friday, March 24th at 11am & 3pm at Ripley Grier Studios. The readings will be directed by Jen Wineman (Dog Man: The Musical) and will feature music direction by Rebekah Bruce (Mean Girls) and arrangements by Dan Graeber, Graham & Kristina Fuller.
The cast of In The Trenches features Amanda Jane Cooper (Wicked), Jelani Remy (The Lion King, Ain’t Too Proud), Christine Dwyer (Wicked), Caesar Samayoa (Come From Away), Max Crumm (Grease, Disaster!), and Vidushi Goyal.Join two bleary-eyed young parents as they trudge through the trenches and discover their new post-baby identities. In an evening of new-parent greatest hits, a foul-mouthed toddler zeroes in on “the most dangerous thing in the room”, tap dancing towards bleach, knives, and tide pods; a chronically-overlooked younger sibling sings the “second child blues”; a mom trio celebrates yoga pants in an R&B love song to the “official mom uniform”; dad discovers he’s not the “ice-cream and movie-night cool parent” but rather the “do your homework real parent” amid a kiddo sugar-crash; and mom retrieves a sticky, hair-covered pacifier from the floor of a LaGuardia bathroom while her baby screams bloody murder and her flight boards without her.
Events
Jason Robert Brown, Chuck Cooper, Janet Dacal, Sutton Foster, Lillias White and More To Perform at TheaterWorksUSA Spring Gala
TheaterWorksUSA, currently presenting the hit family show Dog Man The Musical at New World Stages, will host its annual Spring Gala on Monday, April 24 (cocktails begin at 6 PM) at The Current at Chelsea Piers.
100% of the net proceeds from the event will support our mission to create exceptional, transformative theatrical experiences that are accessible to young and family audiences in diverse communities across New York City and North America.
This year TWUSA will honor Lisa Chanel (TWUSA Board Chair 2019-2022), Andréa Burns (Award-winning Broadway actress & educator), Peter Flynn (TWUSA alumnus and award-winning director, writer, and educator), and Holly McGhee (Founder and Creator of Pippin Properties, New York Times best selling author). The event will feature appearances by some of Broadway’s biggest stars, including Jason Robert Brown, Chuck Cooper, Janet Dacal, Kevin Del Aguila, Sutton Foster, Lillias White and more.
On behalf of TheaterWorksUSA’s Board of Directors, we are thrilled to celebrate the people who have generously supported our mission, making it possible for us to bring high-quality theater to young audiences of all backgrounds throughout the country. We look forward to recognizing Lisa, Andréa, Peter, and Holly publicly at this very special event. – Tracy A. Stein, Board Chair
It’s a privilege to honor these individuals for playing such an important role in the work we do. Their vision, creativity, and ongoing commitment to our mission is truly something to celebrate. They are very much a part of our TheaterworksUSA family.- Barbara Pasternack, Artistic Director
TheaterWorksUSA (Barbara Pasternack, Artistic Director; Michael Harrington, Executive Director) has led the Theater for Young and Family Audiences movement in New York City and across North America for over half a century. At TWUSA, we believe that access to art—and theater, in particular—is vital for our youth. Since 1961, the 501(c)3 not-for-profit has captured the imaginations of 100 million new and veteran theatergoers with an award-winning repertoire of over 140 original plays and musicals. Acclaimed alumni include Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez (Disney’s Frozen), Daphne Rubin-Vega (Rent), Jerry Zaks (The Music Man), Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (Dear Evan Hansen), Miguel Cervantes (Hamilton), Kathleen Chalfant (Angels in America), and Chuck Cooper (Tony award-winning actor, The Life). WWW.TWUSA.ORG
-
Tech2 years agoHow to Take Advantage of Virtual Numbers for SMS
-
Business2 years agoEntre Institute Review – Is Jeff Lerner’s Program a Scam?
-
Entertainment2 years agoA Star is Born – Barvina Takes Entertainment World by Storm
-
Events3 months agoNew Year’s Eve Traditions In The US and Around The World
-
Film9 months agoElvis and The Mob Connection
-
Broadway2 years agoBroadway Reopening: The Theatre Listings
-
Events2 years agoThe Question On Everyone’s Mind Should Be How Did The Haitians Get To Mexico
-
Spiritual2 years agoThe History of Numerology
-
Family2 years agoWho Is Justine Ang Fonte and Why Are We Letting Her Near Children?
-
Broadway11 months agoFunny Girl Makes Julie Benko a Star