Out of Town
Marvel-ous “The House of Ideas” at City Lit
Bryan Breau
The biggest mistake I made in my youth was trading all my Silver Age Marvel comic books for a handful of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazines, because I was into monster makeup. Today, I could have retired on those!
Ben Veatch Photo by Steve Graue
I have been fascinated by Mark Pracht’s excellent trilogy of plays about the comic book industry, and the men who shaped it, which has been rolling out, one play at a time, for the last three seasons, at Chicago’s City Lit Theatre. I was late getting to a performance of the latest play, “The House of Ideas,” which is running there now. But I strongly suggest you catch it if you still can.
Brian Plocharczyk Photo by Steve Graue
As soon as this finely honed production rang down its curtain, I longed to watch all three plays again in a marathon weekend (producers, take note.) Like Shakespeare’s history plays, as interesting as each one is individually, the sum is even greater than its parts for the scope of the ideas they present.
Kate Black-Spence, Bryan Breau Photo by Steve Graue
City Lit is a small, non-Equity company with a 45 year production history devoted to the writer’s work. Under long time Artistic Director Terry McCabe, who is now passing the baton of leadership to Executive Artistic Director Brian Pastor, City Lit represents what Chicago storefront theater does best. With limited budgets, hard work, and no pretention, our small theaters present intelligent, passionate theater to the nation’s most sophisticated audience outside of New York. Time and again, Chicago theater artists prove that inspiration trumps money every time. I love going to Broadway. But I love just as much to come home to Chicago, and experience the kind of intimacy that our storefront theaters, like City Lit (okay, it’s in a church, but let’s not quibble), provide.
Brian Plocharczyk, Carrie Hardin Photo by Steve Graue
Terry McCabe has done some of his very best work as a director in this production. He seamlessly blends music, projections, and a fine company of character actors into a production that fires our imaginations, and just gets better, together with the play, as it goes along.
Sean Harklerode, Brian Plocharczyk Photo by Steve Graue
Over the course of these three plays, which start in the 1940’s when the industry was nascent, Mr. Pracht chronicles the events and personalities which defined the rise of comics from a throw away rag aimed at young children to the modern graphic novel with adult themes, and the juggernaut industry of fantasy movies which depict a mythology rivaling that of the ancient Greeks.
These stories are played out in a sprawling canvas of personal, artistic, and political influences which Mr. Pracht, illustrates, in all their complexity, in a singularly successful effort. Mr. Pracht always makes his large cast of historical figures, and their relationships to the history of the comic book business, crystal clear, without any boring exposition, providing a strong dramatic context with crackling good dialogue, honed by his fine taste and experience as a one of Chicago’s highly respected actors.
The first play in the trilogy, “The Mark of Kane,” was the most dramatic of them all. The figure of Bob Kane, who stole the credit for creating The Batman from his writer partner, Bill Finger, was a clearly Machiavelian villain. Watching their relationship develop drove the action of that plan, and riveted our attention.
The second play, “The Innocence of Seduction” pitted the rise of EC Comics and its editor, William Gaines, against the congressional investigation into the morality of comic books which lead to regulation of the industry. The conflicts in that play were more societal than personal, and the play did not hold the same level of emotional interest for me.
But in “The House of Ideas,” Pracht has given us another fascinating relationship arc, in the forty year personal history of artist “Jolly” Jack Kirby and the man who became the face of Marvel Comics, Stan “the Man” Lee. Pracht gives us no villains in this play. Instead, he gives us a world of pragmatic businessmen, who do what they have to do to sell their product in a changing industry and a changing world, set against the demands of a developing art form. If people get hurt along the way, or credit is not given where due…does anybody bear any personal responsibility for that? It is a question that is Shakespearean in its complexity.
So, too, are the ambitions that drive these men. Kirby started his rise as an illustrator in the 1940’s, drawing Captain America before that character was a Marvel title. Lee’s position with the comic book company which would morph into Marvel was largely one of nepostistic opportunism. While Kirby’s graphic talents created the unforgettable appearances of the Marvel characters (with the notable exception of Steve Ditko’s lithe depiction of Spiderman), it was Lee who saw the opportunity to reshape the industry by creating super heros with real human flaws. That decision transformed the comic book landscape forever.
While the super heros of rival DC Comics were all square jawed, clean cut, and (doing just fine in life. the Marvel super heros, on the other hand, were all struggling to overcome some pain or handicap which couldn’t be fixed by their super powers. The mutant X-Men were the ultimate outsiders. Spiderman was disliked and misunderstood, no matter what he did. The Hulk was driven to his super form by an uncontrollable rage that threated to shatter his life. Thor was a doctor who was physically crippled when he wasn’t the Thunder God. Daredevil was blind, but able to see past his handicap to fight crime. The Fantastic Four were astronauts who returned to Earth with super powers that came at a terrible price. When group member Ben Grimm morphed into the powerful but horrific Thing, he became a creature that only a blind girl could love (luckily, he found one). Not surprisingly, in modern time, DC has tried to emulate their competitor’s success, making Superman darker and bringing Batman’s psychological pain out of the closet.
If you were a teen who felt challenged, troubled and misunderstood no matter what you did…which is the essence of being a teenager for most people…the Marvel Comics world was a world in which you could share your pain and feel understood. If super heros had problems that big, it made your own problems seem a lot smaller.
Whether the comic “books” Lee and Kirby created for Marvel were shaped more by Kirby’s illustrated panels or Lee’s story vision is a question posed by Pracht with no simple answer.
As Kirby, Brian Plocharczyk gives a crackling, expressive performance. He is clearly a victim of his own passion, who doesn’t see his own limitations. Kirby finally falls like Shakespeare’s Macbeth, when his “vaulting ambition” makes him bite off more artistic responsibility than he can handle as a creator. I hope gets him nominated for a Joseph Jefferson award.
As Lee, Bryan Breau brilliantly morphs from a nerdy functionary into a smooth, articulate spokesman and senior statesman for the Marvel world. If Lee was rewarded for playing the game better than Kirby did, does that make him a bad guy? Or is it possible that, like Hamlet’s uncle Claudius, a man like Lee could “smile and smile and still be a villain?” Breau makes us wonder about that. Wisely, the team leaves it to the audience to draw their own conclusions. In the words of Lee himself, “’Nuff said.”
McCabe has assembled a talented group of accomplished character actors who lend even more dimension to Pracht’s characters. Notable are Brian Parry as publisher Martin Goodman, and Sean Harlerose in several supporting roles. The three women in this company are all quite brilliant. Kate Black-Spence as Lee’s British born wife is a radiant beauty who (despite being American) seems like she should be starring on British television (Not surprisingly, she teaches on camera acting.) Carrie Harding, as Kirby’s loyal wife, Roz, is a young character actress of tremendous depth and sensitivity. So too is Megan Clarke, who was powerful in a more dramatic role in “The Innocence of Seduction”, and who gets to show off her comedic talents in multiple roles here.
Scenic and lighting designer G. “Max” Maxin, who designed all three productions, has opened up his set and continued to use projections effectively to add visual meaning to the story. Costume designer Beth Laske-Miller made excellent use of period clothing to show the passage of time. The sound design and score by Petter Wahlback was also the best work of the series.
My only disappointment was Pracht’s use of a costumed narrator character, “The Observer”, who appeared to be an homage to the Marvel character, “The Watcher”. Despite the attempt to add some elevated tone through his presence, it never really lands, possibly because actor Ben Veach doesn’t quite have the intergalactic touch required. For what little it contributes, the play would be just fine without this.
Sadly, “The House of Idea” has only one week left in its run. If you are anywhere near the Chicago area, I urge you to make a trip to see it. While I hope this trilogy gets national exposure very soon, it’s a big commitment to do three plays together. So it may be a while before it comes to another theater near you.
Kudos to City Lit for giving Mr. Pracht the opportunity to contribute so much to our understanding of this significant part of our popular culture, and for doing such a fine job in presenting this important new work. Under Mr. Pastor’s new leadership, I look forward to seeing many more years of interesting and challenging work from this intelligent group.
“The House of Ideas” plays at City Lit Theater in Edgewater Presbyterian Church, 1020 West Bryn Mawr in Chicago, Illinois, now through October 6. For tickets call 773-293-3682 or visit www.citylit.org.
If Friday was Broadway’s arrival in the country, Saturday was the moment it unpacked its bags and decided to stay awhile.
Photo by Austin Ruffer
Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Photo by Austin Ruffer
Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Day Two of The Festival, held Saturday, August 15 at Kingston’s Hutton Brickyards Riverfront Hotel + Venue, took the ambitious premise introduced on opening day—a destination festival devoted entirely to musical theatre—and turned up the volume. The Broadway Direct Stage filled with Tony winners and Broadway favorites, composers stepped out from behind their scores, unlikely musical moments appeared, and after dark the Hudson River became part nightclub, part theatrical summer camp.
But the emotional heart of Saturday belonged to a musical that changed Broadway 30 years ago.
Adam Pascal and Daphne Rubin-Vega. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Wilson Jermaine Heredia. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Fredi Walker-Brown. Photo by Austin Ruffer
No Day But Today: RENT at 30
Daphne Rubin-Vega. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Daphne Rubin-Vega and Kristen Lee Kelly. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Anthony Rapp. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Anthony Rapp, Fredi Walker-Brown, Gwen Stewart. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Three decades after RENT exploded onto Broadway and changed the sound, look and audience of the American musical, members of its original Broadway company reunited at The Festival. Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal, Daphne Rubin-Vega and Taye Diggs came together again, transforming what could easily have become a nostalgia exercise into something considerably more moving.
Anthony Rapp and Taye Diggs. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Adam Pascal and Daphne Rubin-Vega. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Adam Pascal and Daphne Rubin-Vega. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Because RENT is no longer simply a Broadway musical.
Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Taye Diggs. Photo by Austin Ruffer
For an entire generation, Jonathan Larson’s work became a marker of time. It arrived speaking about AIDS, art, poverty, friendship, sexuality, chosen family and the terrifying uncertainty of whether tomorrow would arrive at all. Its young artists were trying to create lives in a city that increasingly seemed determined to price them out of existence. Thirty years later, some of those ideas feel less like period details than unfinished conversations.
RENT 30th Reunion. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Daphne Rubin-Vega. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Fredi Walker-Brown. Photo by Austin Ruffer
RENT 30th Reunion. Photo by Austin Ruffer
And there they were again…. Rapp,Pascal, Rubin-Vega, Diggs. Older, certainly. So was the audience that first loved them.
RENT 30th Reunion. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Fredi Walker-Brown and Lauren Patten. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Fredi Walker-Brown and Lauren Patten. Photo by Austin Ruffer
But RENT has always contained that strange contradiction: a musical obsessed with mortality that somehow refuses to age. Hearing its music sung by the people who helped introduce it to the world created one of those rare theatrical collisions between memory and the present. The people onstage had lived 30 more years. So had many of the people watching them.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes suddenly seemed like a very small unit of measurement.
Kelli O’Hara
Kelli O’Hara Raps. Because Apparently Anything Can Happen Upstate.
Kelli O’Hara Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Kelli O’Hara and daughter, Charlotte Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Saturday wasn’t entirely interested in reverence. One of The Festival’s strengths is its ability to remove Broadway performers from the carefully constructed environments in which audiences normally encounter them. Here there are no characters to disappear behind and no fourth wall demanding obedience. The artists can play. And Kelli O’Hara rapping certainly qualifies.
Kelli O’Hara Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
One of Broadway’s most exquisite singers—an artist associated with Rodgers and Hammerstein, Adam Guettel and some of the most beautifully controlled vocal performances of her generation—allowed herself to venture considerably outside the territory in which Broadway audiences usually encounter her. That sense of mischief is exactly what an event like The Festival should encourage. We already know what these performers can do eight times a week. The fun is discovering what they do when somebody hands them a microphone beside the Hudson and lets them loose.
Jason Robert Brown Photo by Michaelah Reynold
Norbert Leo Butz. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Norbert Leo Butz. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Norbert Leo Butz. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Norbert Leo Butz Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Norbert Leo Butz offered a different kind of pleasure, returning to Big Fish, while Jason Robert Brown sat at the piano and performed selections from his own formidable catalogue. Brown remains one of contemporary musical theatre’s most distinctive composer-lyricists, and there is something particularly satisfying about hearing theatre songs stripped back to the person who first imagined them.
Jenn Colella. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Jenn Colella. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Jenn Colella. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Jenn Colella. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Jenn Colella. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Dasia Thomas, Jenn Colella and others to perform songs from Brown’s past and present shows.
Kelli O’Hara, Renee Elise Goldsberry
Renee Elise Goldsberry Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Renee Elise Goldsberry Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Renee Elise Goldsberry Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Renee Elise Goldsberry & Kelli O’Hara
Kelli O’Hara, Renee Elise Goldsberry
Renee Elise Goldsberry
Lena Hall, Norbert Leo Butz, Renee Elise Goldsberry
Lena Hall, Norbert Leo Butz, Renee Elise Goldsberry
Lena Hall, Norbert Leo Butz, Renee Elise Goldsberry
Lena Hall, Norbert Leo Butz, Renee Elise Goldsberry
Lena Hall, Norbert Leo Butz, Renee Elise Goldsberry
Lena Hall, Norbert Leo Butz, Renee Elise Goldsberry
The Saturday Big Show, featuring Renée Elise Goldsberry, Kelli O’Hara, Norbert Leo Butz, Jenn Collela,
Lena Hall. Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Lena Hall. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Lena Hall. Photo by Austin Ruffer
and Lena Hall.
Solea Pfeiffer. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Solea Pfeiffer. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Solea Pfeiffer. Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Solea Pfeiffer, Liisi LaFontaine, and Tyler Joseph Ellis. Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Krystina Alabado and Isabelle McCalla. Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
A Preview of New Musicals, hosted by NY1’s Frank DiLella, highlighting seven new musicals in development: Autopilot, Bludline, Huzzah, Love Somebody, Regency Girls, Someday Soon, and Star Machine. The talented Solea Pfeiffer, Solea Pfeiffer, Liisi LaFontaine, Krystina Alabado, Isabelle McCalla and Tyler Joseph Ellis joined.
Some Broadway performances become permanently attached to the actor who introduced them, regardless of how many talented performers inherit the role. Angelica Schuyler’s breathtaking rewind through desire, sacrifice and split-second decision-making is one of those moments, and Goldsberry remains inseparable from it. Bringing “Satisfied” out of the Richard Rodgers Theatre and onto an open-air stage gave Saturday another jolt of Broadway history suddenly living in the present.
That mixture became the defining character of Day Two. This wasn’t merely a collection of performers singing their biggest numbers. The Festival was beginning to demonstrate the value of placing artists from different corners and generations of Broadway beside one another and seeing what happens when the usual theatrical architecture disappears.
When Broadway Goes to Camp
Lauren Patten. Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Fredi Walker-Brown and Lauren Patten. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Jenn Colella, Lauren Patten, and Norbert Leo Butz. Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Then the sun went down. This may ultimately be where The Festival separates itself most successfully from the endless parade of Broadway concerts, conventions and benefit evenings already filling the theatrical calendar. The programming didn’t simply end after the marquee performances. Instead, Broadway nightlife followed Broadway upstate. A cozy campfire set featuring performances from Kelli O’Hara, Jenn Colella, Lauren Patten, Norbert Leo Butz, and more.
Krystina Alabado and Isabelle McCalla. Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
A pop-up edition of Club Cumming, the East Village playground created by Alan Cumming and a gathering place for performers, musicians and assorted creatures of the night, brought some downtown Manhattan energy to Kingston. The elegant Hudson Valley retreat suddenly acquired a little glitter around the edges.
Elsewhere, Broadway performers gathered around campfires for acoustic music along the river.
Amber Ardolino. Photo by Austin Ruffer
That image may actually capture the entire weekend better than the “Coachella for Broadway” label that has followed The Festival since it was announced. Coachella suggests scale, spectacle and celebrity. The Festival certainly had all three. But Broadway is fundamentally a community of storytellers, musicians and performers, and some of the weekend’s most appealing moments came when the machinery disappeared.
Seth Rudetsky and Tommy Bracco. Photo by Austin Ruffer
A singer, a song, a fire, the Hudson and people listening. There is something wonderfully old-fashioned about that, particularly for an industry increasingly obsessed with grosses, celebrity casting, social-media engagement and whether a production can survive another week. Remove the commercial machinery for a moment and you’re left with the reason people entered this profession in the first place. They wanted to tell stories.
Photo by Michaelah Reynolds (
Hovering over Saturday was RENT, the musical that once told Broadway audiences that community could become family and that the meaningful measurement of a life wasn’t money, possessions or even time. It was love. Thirty years later, on the banks of the Hudson, the people who first delivered that message found themselves together again. Perhaps that is why the reunion belonged here.
The Festival was attempting to build something Broadway desperately needs and rarely has enough time to create: community without a curtain call waiting at the end of it. Saturday proved there may indeed be an audience for that. And there was still one day left.
Next: Day Three — Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell and the finale of Broadway’s first weekend on the Hudson.
Broadway packed a weekend bag, left Times Square behind and headed north. On Friday, August 14, the inaugural The Festival opened at Hutton Brickyards Riverfront Hotel + Venue in Kingston, New York, transforming the Hudson River waterfront into something Broadway has rarely attempted: a true destination festival built around the people, music and community of the theatre.
Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Produced by Joshua Saltman and David B. Schwartz, The Festival ultimately drew 2,875 attendees from 48 states over its three-day debut, with 165 performers taking part in more than 30 programs. There were 30 musicians, 14 ensemble members and 13 apprentices, but numbers only begin to describe the ambition of what Saltman and Schwartz were attempting. This wasn’t Broadway presenting another concert. It was Broadway borrowing the language of the great music festivals and asking what happens when musical theatre gets out of the theatre.
Campfire Stage photo by Austin Ruffer
The answer, at least on Friday, was that it rather liked the fresh air. At the center of the sprawling weekend was the Broadway Direct Stage, an open-air covered venue surrounded by the Hudson Valley landscape. Instead of velvet seats, chandeliers and the compressed electricity of a Broadway house, audiences found themselves experiencing some of the theatre world’s most recognizable voices against water, sky and the industrial remnants of the historic brickyards. There was something wonderfully incongruous about it: Broadway glamour meeting Hudson Valley earthiness without either having to apologize to the other. The opening day’s lineup immediately established that this wasn’t going to be a modest experiment.
Gianmarco Soresi. Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Gianmarco Soresi. Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Comedian and actor Gianmarco Soresi hosted the inaugural “The Festival”(The Broadway Festival). He served as the host and emcee
Alex Newell. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Alex Newell. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Alex Newell. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Alex Newell
Mandy Gonzalez. Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Mandy Gonzalez. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Mandy Gonzalez. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Mandy Gonzalez. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Mandy Gonzalez. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Mandy Gonzalez
Christopher Jackson. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Christopher Jackson and Mandy Gonzalez. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Christopher Jackson and Mandy Gonzalez. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Christopher Jackson
Javier Muñoz. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Christopher Jackson and Javier Muñoz. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Javier Muñoz
Solea Pfeiffer. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Solea Pfeiffer. Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Solea Pfeiffer
Jasmine Amy Rogers. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Jasmine Amy Rogers. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Jasmine Amy Rogers. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Jasmine Amy Rogers
Cara Rose DiPietro. Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Cara Rose DiPietro
Tyler Joseph Ellis. Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
Tyler Joseph Ellis and Matt Rodin were among the artists helping launch the weekend, while SiriusXM’s Seth Rudetsky did what Rudetsky does particularly well—turn Broadway history, personalities and musical obsession into entertainment.
Tommy Bracco Photo by Michaelah Reynolds
One of Friday’s most charming ideas belonged to Tommy Bracco, the Newsies alum and Big Brother favorite, who hosted a celebration of Disney music. Bracco began with “Out There” from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but it was Solea Pfeiffer who provided one of the afternoon’s genuine reminders of how much extraordinary music remains trapped inside Disney’s animated catalogue. Her performances of “Colors of the Wind” from Pocahontas and “Reflection” from Mulan made a fairly persuasive argument for why Broadway has yet to get its hands on either score.
Reeve Carney and Eva Noblezada. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Eva Noblezada. Photo by Austin Ruffer
Then came Reeve Carney and Eva Noblezada, whose musical and personal history has become its own little piece of contemporary Broadway mythology. They originated Orpheus and Eurydice together in Hadestown, fell in love, married, and have continued sharing stages since. At Hutton Brickyards, the scale shifted. Away from the machinery of a Broadway production, the two were able to offer something more intimate—a reminder that before scenery, costumes and theatrical spectacle arrive, musical theatre begins with people telling stories through music.
Campfire Stage 2 photo by Austin Ruffer
That intimacy was one of the more intriguing elements of The Festival’s concept. Broadway normally asks audiences to enter its buildings. Here, Broadway entered the audience’s world. People wandered between performances, conversations and events rather than sitting obediently in one seat for two and a half hours. Artists who normally disappear through stage doors after a performance were suddenly part of a larger weekend community.
By evening, however, subtlety was finished.
The Big Show. Photo by Austin Ruffer
The Big Show. Photo by Austin Ruffer
The Big Show Night 1 Company photo by Austin Ruffer
Friday culminated with The Big Show, and the Broadway Direct Stage became exactly what its name promised: a full-scale concert designed to let Broadway voices loose. Cara Rose DiPietro, Tess Soltau and original Rent star Adam Pascal opened with an inspired piece of theatrical mischief, turning Stephen Sondheim’s “A Weekend in the Country” into a self-referential welcome to the weekend, accompanied by more than a dozen Broadway dancers.
It was an appropriate choice. Sondheim’s number is itself about people converging upon a destination carrying expectations, desires and complications with them. Here came thousands of Broadway devotees doing essentially the same thing, only their weekend in the country involved considerably more belting.
And that may be the cleverest thing about The Festival. Broadway has spent decades trying to expand beyond the geographic boundaries of Broadway while still treating the Broadway theatre as the center of the universe. Touring companies travel. Cast albums travel. Stars perform concerts. BroadwayCon created its own gathering place for fans. But the great American music-festival model—travel somewhere beautiful, stay for several days and immerse yourself in the music and the people who make it—has largely belonged to other genres.
Saltman and Schwartz decided musical theatre deserved one too.
They assembled an astonishing inaugural roster across the weekend: Audra McDonald, Kelli O’Hara, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Norbert Leo Butz, Jason Robert Brown, Lena Hall, Tom Kitt, Andrea McArdle, Alex Newell, Adam Pascal, Anthony Rapp, Jenn Colella, Andrew Barth Feldman, Lauren Patten, Denée Benton and many more, culminating in something irresistible to Broadway devotees—a 30th anniversary reunion of the original Broadway cast of Rent.
Behind that amount of talent was an equally formidable creative operation. Tony winner Jerry Mitchell and Jon Rua choreographed the event, with Mitchell and D.B. Bonds directing. Dan Lipton handled musical supervision, Julie McBride served as musical director, and Michael Downs oversaw creative direction and experience design. David Rees provided lighting, Cody Spencer sound, Caite Hevner video and Ryan Park costumes, while Lana Schwartz directed The Festival Apprentices. Chris Gratton served as production manager, technical director and site manager, with Lisa Iacucci as production supervisor.
That is an enormous amount of Broadway infrastructure to transport to the banks of the Hudson, and Friday proved that the concept could actually work.
By the time the weekend ended Sunday, Saltman and Schwartz were already prepared to announce that The Festival will return in 2027.
“We are absolutely thrilled with how The Festival went this weekend,” the producers said following its conclusion, thanking both the fans who had created the weekend’s community and the artists who had filled it. “We couldn’t be prouder of the experience and the incredible team that put it all together. We can’t wait to see you in 2027!”
Neither, apparently, can Broadway. Friday was only the overture.
Next: Day Two of The Festival — when Broadway’s weekend in the country really got underway.
Some Broadway friendships end when the final curtain comes down. Others apparently turn into a rock-and-roll band.
Michael Longoria
The Midtown Men brought their irresistible combination of Broadway polish, four-part harmony and pure 1960s swagger to Eisenhower Park’s Harry Chapin Lakeside Theatre, proving once again that Jersey Boys may have introduced these four men to one another, but it certainly wasn’t the end of their story.
Christian Hoff
Tony Award winner Christian Hoff, Michael Longoria, Daniel Reichard and Tony Award nominee J. Robert Spencer first shared a stage as members of the original Broadway company of Jersey Boys, the musical phenomenon that turned the story and songs of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons into one of Broadway’s biggest hits.
Daniel Reichard
They spent more than a thousand performances together before doing something rather unusual: instead of simply moving on to their next individual Broadway jobs, they took the chemistry they had developed eight shows a week and created something of their own.
J. Robert Spencer
The result was The Midtown Men.
Michael Longoria, Christian Hoff, Daniel Reichard and J. Robert Spencer
And while their pedigree is unmistakably Broadway, this isn’t Jersey Boys on tour. The Midtown Men became their own musical act, expanding beyond The Four Seasons to embrace the glorious pop landscape of the 1960s—The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Motown, The Rascals, The Mamas & the Papas, The Ronettes and more. Their official repertoire has long celebrated the decade that gave America some of its most enduring pop music, with four singers who know exactly how to sell both a harmony and a story.
Michael Longoria, Christian Hoff, Daniel Reichard and J. Robert Spencer
What makes the group work isn’t simply nostalgia. Plenty of acts can recreate the music of the ’60s. The Midtown Men have something considerably harder to manufacture: history with one another.
Michael Longoria, Christian Hoff, Daniel Reichard and J. Robert Spencer
They learned how to listen to one another on a Broadway stage. They know where the other voices are going, when to step forward, when to pull back and how to turn four leading men into one sound. Reichard has recalled that while they were still performing Jersey Boys, the four would gather in dressing rooms between shows and work out harmonies to other songs they loved from the decade. In other words, The Midtown Men were quietly being born backstage while another show was happening out front.
Michael Longoria, Christian Hoff, Daniel Reichard and J. Robert Spencer
That musical shorthand followed them to Eisenhower Park.
Christian Hoff
Christian Hoff
Christian Hoff
Hoff brings the confidence that won him the Tony Award for his portrayal of Tommy DeVito. Reichard, Broadway’s original Bob Gaudio, possesses the musical-theatre storyteller’s instinct for finding the character inside a song. Spencer, the original Nick Massi and later a Tony nominee for Next to Normal, supplies formidable Broadway chops, while Longoria—who originated Joe Pesci before succeeding John Lloyd Young as Frankie Valli—knows a thing or two about sending a voice soaring above a crowd.
Michael Longoria
Michael Longoria
Michael Longoria
Together, however, they stop being four Broadway résumés and become a genuine group.
J. Robert Spencer
J. Robert Spencer
J. Robert Spencer
There is something wonderfully circular about what happened to these men. They began as actors playing a band, only to discover along the way that they actually were one. What started under Broadway lights developed into years of concerts across the country, recordings and even a nationally televised concert special.
Daniel Reichard
Daniel Reichard
Daniel Reichard
The Harry Chapin Lakeside Theatre is precisely the sort of setting where this music feels at home. These songs weren’t created to sit politely behind glass as artifacts of another era. They were made for summer nights, for dancing, singing along and suddenly realizing that you remember every word to a song you haven’t consciously thought about in twenty years.
Christian Hoff, Daniel Reichard
That’s the pleasure of The Midtown Men. They don’t treat the 1960s as a museum exhibition. They remind you why this music became permanent in the first place.
Christian Hoff, Michael Longoria
The Beatles gave us exuberance. Motown gave popular music sophistication and irresistible rhythm. The Beach Boys made adolescent longing sound like California sunshine. The Four Seasons gave us those impossible harmonies and that unmistakable falsetto.
Daniel Reichard
J. Robert Spencer
Daniel Reichard, J. Robert Spencer,
Michael Longoria
Christian Hoff
Four Broadway actors fell in love with all of it. Nearly two decades after first coming together, Hoff, Longoria, Reichard and Spencer are still standing beside one another, still singing, still touring and still having what appears to be a ridiculously good time doing it.
Michael Longoria, Christian Hoff, Daniel Reichard and J. Robert Spencer
Not bad for four guys who were originally hired to pretend to be a band. Turns out they were just getting started.
The curtain may come down, a production may close, and a performance may disappear into theatrical memory, but the cast album is where musical theatre gets its second life. This summer and fall, an unusually rich group of recordings is arriving across streaming platforms, CDs and increasingly coveted vinyl editions, preserving everything from intimate new musicals and Off-Broadway discoveries to major Broadway revivals, conceptual works and a Cats recording unlike any Andrew Lloyd Webber has made before.
Already available is Alone, a new concept album featuring music and lyrics by John Ertman and Joseph Mathusek and an impressive company that includes Taylor Iman Jones, Linedy Genao, Zachary Noah Piser, Adi Roy, Rachel Webb, Kim Onah, Michael Nigro, Nathan Levy, Claire Kwon, Cassidy Sledge, Ellis Gage, Andy Harman and Gray Watson. Released digitally August 7 by Picardee Records, the album introduces its musical world without waiting for a full production to arrive—a reminder that increasingly, new musicals are finding audiences through headphones before they ever find a theatre.
Also newly released is Sappho: The Poetess, a London EP written and performed by Hayley Canham. The August 12 Center Stage Records release gives the ancient Greek poet a contemporary musical voice, joining the continuing wave of theatre composers rediscovering women whose lives have survived history largely through fragments, mythology and the interpretations of others.
August 14 brought two dramatically different recordings. Good Guy With A Gun!, a concept album by Philip Labes and Micah O’Konis, arrives with one of the most eclectic casts of the season, including Chris Sullivan, Kimiko Glenn, Anthony Rapp, Yvette Nicole Brown, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Jason Alexander, Richard Kind, Kristen Schaal and Paul Walter Hauser. Even before a full stage production, that roster alone gives the project considerable curiosity value.
The same day, Center Stage Records and Yellow Sound Label released Empire: Original Off-Broadway Cast Recording, preserving Caroline Sherman and Robert Hull’s musical about the creation of the Empire State Building. Directed Off-Broadway in 2024 by Tony winner Cady Huffman, Empire looks at the audacity required to build upward during one of the most precarious moments in American history. Its characters include industrialists, immigrants and Mohawk ironworkers, turning the construction of a skyscraper into a story about ambition, labor and New York’s almost pathological refusal to believe something cannot be done.
The recording features Danny Iktomi Bevins, Devin Cortez, Morgan Cowling, Kaitlyn Davidson, Joel Douglas, Alexandra Frohlinger, Albert Guerzon, Kiana Kabeary, Howard Kaye, April Ortiz, Jessica Ranville, Paul Salvatoriello, J Savage, Robbie Serrano and Ethan Saviet, with an ensemble including Joseph Fierberg, Kennedy Perez, Matt Gibson, Julia Louise Hosack and TJ Newton. For a musical whose central character is essentially New York itself, the album gives Empire a chance to continue climbing long after its Off-Broadway run.
Then comes one of the most intriguing releases of August. Night Side Songs, Daniel and Patrick Lazour’s deeply human musical produced by Lincoln Center Theater at LCT3’s Claire Tow Theater earlier this year, arrives digitally and on streaming platforms August 21 through Octoverse Media and Warner Music Group’s Arts Music. The first single, “My Stuff,” is already available, with CD and vinyl editions planned later in the year.
Night Side Songs occupied an unusually delicate place in the theatrical landscape when it played LCT3 from February 14 through March 29. Rather than treating illness, caregiving and mortality as dramatic devices, the Lazours created a folk-inflected musical concerned with the conversations that happen around bedsides, the things people say and cannot say, the jokes that break unbearable tension and the strange community that forms around someone whose life has suddenly changed. The recording features the original Lincoln Center Theater company of Robin de Jesús, Brooke Ishibashi, Jonathan Raviv, Kris Saint-Louis and Mary Testa, joined in the studio by an audience that sings along in keeping with the score’s communal folk tradition.
The album is produced by Mara Isaacs, Todd Sickafoose and Andy Einhorn, with Daniel and Patrick Lazour co-producing. The stage production earned nominations from the Drama Desk, Drama League and Lucille Lortel Awards, including recognition for its music, ensemble and production. The album should allow one of the season’s quieter musicals to find the larger audience intimate work sometimes struggles to reach during a limited theatrical run.
Also arriving August 21 is Schmigadoon! (Original Broadway Cast Recording), with music and lyrics by Cinco Paul. The Joy Machine Records release features Alex Brightman, Sara Chase, Ana Gasteyer, Ann Harada, Brad Oscar, Isabelle McCalla, Ivan Hernandez, Maulik Pancholy, Max Clayton, McKenzie Kurtz and Ayaan Diop. What began as a television series lovingly skewering—and embracing—the conventions of classic musical theatre has now completed the circle by becoming a Broadway musical with its own cast recording. There is something wonderfully appropriate about a show born from affection for cast albums becoming one itself.
On August 28, Evita gets another major recording, this time preserving Jamie Lloyd’s London production starring Rachel Zegler, alongside Diego Andres Rodriguez, James Olivas, Aaron Lee Lambert and Bella Brown. The full album will be released digitally and as a triple-vinyl edition through The Other Songs. With Zegler bringing her acclaimed Eva Perón to Broadway in 2027, the recording arrives as both documentation of the London production and something of a preview for New York audiences. Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s score has been recorded many times, but Evita has always been unusually dependent upon the personality of the performer standing at its center. Zegler now gets her own place in that lineage.
August 28 also brings Sara Bareilles’ Good Grief through Epic Records on CD, digital and vinyl. Bareilles long ago crossed the line between pop songwriter and major theatrical voice with Waitress, and anything she releases now carries interest for both audiences. Her music has always lived comfortably in the space between confessional singer-songwriter intimacy and theatrical storytelling, making a new Bareilles album part of the broader musical-theatre conversation whether or not every song is headed for a stage.
September 4 brings the physical release Broadway collectors have been waiting for: the 2025 Broadway cast recording of Chess on CD and vinyl from Ghostlight Records, following its April digital release. The album preserves Nicholas Christopher, Lea Michele, Aaron Tveit, Hannah Cruz, Bradley Dean, Sean Allan Krill and Bryce Pinkham in Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Tim Rice’s gloriously oversized Cold War musical. Whatever one thinks of Chessdramatically, that score remains one of musical theatre’s great guilty-not-guilty pleasures, and this cast gives it formidable vocal ammunition.
On September 18, Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody enters the recording studio canon with a digital and triple-vinyl release from Center Stage Records. Dylan MarcAurele’s score is performed by Jay Armstrong Johnson, Jimin Moon, Ryann Redmond, Cherry Torres, Ryan Duncan, Shelby Acosta and Daniel Brackett. The fact that a knowingly outrageous Off-Broadway parody is getting a triple-vinyl edition tells you almost everything you need to know about the current cast-album market: audiences increasingly want theatre not simply as something they attended, but as something they can collect.
September 25 brings another kind of theatrical souvenir with Rise Up! Hamilton: The Anthology, arriving from Atlantic/Rhino on CD, digital and vinyl. More than a decade after Hamilton permanently altered the commercial expectations for Broadway cast recordings, the musical remains one of the rare modern theatre properties capable of generating the kind of ancillary releases normally associated with major recording artists.
And then there is CATS: The Jellicle Ball.
Atlantic Records has opened pre-orders for the forthcoming Original Broadway Cast Recording of the Tony-winning revival, produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Alana da Fonseca. No firm release date has yet been announced, but this is arguably the recording collectors will be most curious to hear because The Jellicle Ball did something almost unimaginable: it made Cats culturally dangerous again.
The Broadway production reimagined Lloyd Webber’s musical through New York ballroom culture, transforming the Jellicle competition into a glittering collision of fashion, dance, queer history and theatrical spectacle. The company includes André De Shields, Ken Ard, Kya Azeen, Bryson Battle, Jonathan Burke, Baby Byrne, Tara Lashan Clinkscales, Bryce Farris, Elisa Galindez, Sydney James Harcourt, Dava Huesca, Dudney Joseph Jr., Junior LaBeija, Leiomy, Robert “Silk” Mason, Ernest Mingo, Tempress Chasity Moore, Primo Thee Ballerino, Xavier Reyes, Nora Schell, Bebe Nicole Simpson, Emma Sofia, Phumzile Sojola, Kendall Grayson Stroud, B Noel Thomas, Kalyn West, Garnet Williams, Teddy Wilson Jr., Darius Wright and Donté Nadir Wilder.
The production earned nine Tony nominations and won three, including Best Direction of a Musical, Best Choreography and Best Costume Design. Qween Jean’s costume win also marked a Broadway milestone as the first openly trans woman to win a Tony Award. The recording now has the unusual task of capturing a production whose impact was profoundly visual and physical—ballroom movement, fashion, attitude and audience energy—through sound alone.
Several other recordings remain on the horizon without firm release dates. Joy Machine Records will release Beau The Musical, with music by Ethan D. Pakchar and Douglas Lyons and lyrics by Lyons, featuring Matt Rodin, Jeb Brown, Max Sangerman, Miyuki Miyagi, Andrea Goss, Amelia Cormack, Ryan Halsaver and Derek Stoltenberg.
Ghostlight Records is also preparing a London concept album of Death Note, The Musical, with Frank Wildhorn’s music and Jack Murphy’s lyrics performed by a company including Adam Pascal, Joaquin Pedro Valdes, Dean John Wilson, Aimie Atkinson, Frances Mayli McCann, Rachel Clare Chan and Christian Ray Marbella. Wildhorn and Death Notehave long seemed destined for one another—large emotions, operatic stakes and characters who consider moderation an unacceptable personality trait.
JAY Records has two particularly traditional theatre recordings waiting in the wings. A new studio cast recording of The Fantasticks features Brad Oscar, Telly Leung, Elizabeth Teeter, Lewis Cleale and Ron Raines, arriving just as the famously long-running Off-Broadway musical prepares, astonishingly, for its first Broadway production. The label will also release Lovesong, Michael Valenti’s setting of lyrics by Dorothy Parker and Sir Walter Raleigh, performed by Jenn Gambatese, Lauren Molina, Matt Bogart and Jeff Kready.
Also forthcoming is the studio EP Salem, with music and lyrics by Amanda Ribnick and Jennifer Lucy Cook and performances by Bryce Pinkham, Kuhoo Verma, John-Andrew Morrison, Gabi Carrubba, Lizzy Murray and Katherine Lynn-Rose, while PS Classics will release Ricky Ian Gordon’s Sycamore Trees, featuring a mouthwatering company of Farah Alvin, Marc Kudisch, Judy Kuhn, Jessica Molaskey, Matthew Risch, Diane Sutherland and Tony Yazbeck.
What makes this particular stretch of releases interesting is how thoroughly the cast album has escaped its old definition. Once, the recording primarily existed to preserve the score of a Broadway musical. Now we have concept albums creating audiences before productions exist, limited-run Off-Broadway shows finding permanence after closing, London productions introducing themselves to American listeners, parody musicals getting elaborate vinyl editions and established Broadway properties becoming collectible objects in multiple formats.
Streaming should theoretically have made albums less precious. Instead, vinyl has made them objects again.
And musical theatre, perhaps more than almost any other form, understands why that matters. A performance is ephemeral by design. The actor sings the note, the orchestra plays the chord, the audience hears it—and then the moment is gone.
A cast album refuses to let it disappear.
This fall, there will be quite a lot worth keeping.
I have my press pass firmly in hand, a TIFF schedule finally staring back at me, and suddenly September 10 is more alive than ever. After weeks of announcements about films I want to see and with barely enough time to process the expanse of it all, the full schedule for the 51st Toronto International Film Festival has finally gone live. And with it comes that familiar moment when TIFF stops being an idea and becomes a calendar full of decisions. Where will I be at 8 in the morning? How quickly can I get from one screening to another? Which films will become the ones I absolutely have to see? Which discoveries will come completely out of nowhere?
Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine.
The full Official Selection now stands at 293 titles, with 11 more films announced alongside the schedule. There are World Premieres, Canadian Premieres, North American Premieres and an International Premiere spread across Special Presentations, Gala and Centrepiece. Among the new additions are Werner Herzog’s “Bucking Fastard“, Nanni Moretti’s “It Will Happen Tonight“, Guy Nattiv’s “The Liberation“, Peter Ho-Sun Chan’s “The Road Not Taken” and “Neil Peart: No One’s Disciple“, the new Canadian documentary from Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn. There is also “Wild Horse Nine“, Martin McDonagh’s latest, while Cody Fern’s “Closing Night” arrives as a World Premiere. And then there is “Trees are Watching” from Bahman Ghobadi, a World Premiere joining the Centrepiece programme.
That is enough to make the schedule reveal feel like an event all on its own, but TIFF has managed to add another temptation to the day. Alongside the full schedule comes the announcement of this year’s In Conversation With…programming, bringing Lee Min-ho, Rachel Morrison, Chris Rock, Andrew Scott and Hudson Williams to the Festival for live conversations about their careers, creative journeys and craft. I have to admit that I have never actually attended one of these talks. Somehow, amid the constant scramble of screenings, I have always treated them as something happening elsewhere in the Festival. But now I have a press pass, and Andrew Scott is sitting on that list. That might be enough to change my habits.
Simon Stone’s Elsinore.
Scott arrives at TIFF ’26 with “Elsinore“, where he stars as actor Ian Charleson in a story centred on Charleson’s final years and his determination to perform Hamlet at London’s National Theatre while living with AIDS. TIFF notes that Scott has been part of the Festival before, first appearing in 2014 with “Pride” and returning in 2025 with “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” and Richard Linklater’s “Blue Moon“. His screen work has travelled through “Fleabag“, “Sherlock“, “All of Us Strangers” and “Ripley“, and this conversation promises an opportunity to hear directly from an actor whose career has moved through wildly different corners of film and television.
Then there is Hudson Williams, whose presence on the schedule feels particularly timely for a Festival audience that watched ‘Heated Rivalry‘ explode into the cultural conversation. Williams will take part in Making Waves With… Hudson Williams, part of TIFF Next Wave’s programming centred on under-25 creators and audiences. He will discuss his work in YAGA and ‘Heated Rivalry‘, as well as the upcoming independent feature “Apparatus“, while looking back at the short films, collaborations and creative community that helped shape his career. There is something especially appealing about that idea of hearing from a performer while his career is still taking shape, rather than waiting for the retrospective conversation years down the road.
The other conversations have their own reasons to make room in a TIFF itinerary. Lee Min-ho arrives in Toronto for the World Premiere of “The Assassin(s)“, bringing nearly two decades of Korean popular culture with him and making his first North American onstage appearance in more than a decade. Rachel Morrison returns following her TIFF ’24 debut with “The Fire Inside” for the World Premiere of “Love of Your Life“, while Chris Rock brings “Misty Green” to the Festival and joins the series for a conversation about his work as a director, writer, actor, producer and comedian.
And now comes the part I always find both thrilling and slightly terrifying. The schedule is no longer an abstract collection of dreams. It is a map of possibilities, with early morning press screenings, impossible transitions, films I already know I need to see and discoveries I haven’t even imagined yet. TIFF Members begin buying tickets by level on August 21, with single tickets going on sale to the public August 31, and I’ll be trying to snag a few for me and my buddy while penciling in as many press screenings as I can manage. Suddenly, the Festival that has been building through announcements all summer is something I can actually plan, and perhaps this is finally the year I stop walking past In Conversation With… on my way to the next screening. Andrew Scott may have already made that decision for me. Now I just have to figure out how much TIFF I can possibly fit into eleven days.
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