There are people who change our lives without ever realizing the magnitude of their influence. They encourage a talent, open a door, introduce us to a world we never knew existed, or simply make us feel that who we are is enough. In Good Time Charlie, receiving its world premiere at The Public Theater, playwright and performer Ryan J. Haddad pays tribute to one such person: his beloved Uncle Charlie, a man whose own theatrical ambitions were discouraged but who made certain his nephew’s would not suffer the same fate.

Haddad, a 34-year-old gay man with cerebral palsy whose previous autobiographical work has explored identity, sexuality and disability with considerable candor, plays himself in this affectionate comedy-drama. Set primarily in a backyard garden in suburban Ohio, the play moves between generations, revealing how two gay men within the same family experienced radically different degrees of acceptance. The result is a heartfelt examination of family, missed opportunities, unexpected happiness and the people who help us become ourselves.

Nael Nacer, Artemis Pebdani, Ryan J. Haddad, and Jonathan Raviv Photo by Joan Marcus

Jonathan Raviv brings warmth and an appealing lack of self-pity to Charlie, a man some thirty years older than Ryan who adores movies, theater and everything connected to the performing arts. As a young man, Charlie dreamed of studying theater, but his parents, Charlie Sr. and Joan, played by Nael Nacer and Artemis Pebdani, had other plans. Their son would pursue a respectable profession, and dentistry became his career. When Charlie’s sexuality became known, the same parents who had already dictated his professional future withdrew their acceptance of him.

Ryan J. Haddad, Beth Malone, Photo by Joan Marcus

The contrast with Ryan’s upbringing is striking. His parents, Bob and Judy, also played by Nacer and Pebdani, embrace their son’s identity, and his coming out is treated with such casual acceptance that the moment becomes amusing rather than traumatic. His gay aunt Janice, played by Beth Malone, adds another layer of familial support. There is an inherent unfairness in watching one generation receive the understanding denied to another, although the play might have explored that disparity with greater complexity. Families do change, but the emotional consequences of their earlier decisions do not simply disappear.

Charlie, however, refuses to be defined by what he was denied. A natural caretaker, he builds a fulfilling life and discovers love with Lou, played by Tim Bagley, a divorced film studies professor twenty years his senior. Their relationship offers Charlie companionship and an expanded world of artistic friendships. Through Lou, he meets Sheldon, portrayed by Michael Cristofer, who operates an art-house cinema and becomes Charlie’s closest friend and another important figure in Ryan’s extended family of gay mentors.

Ryan J. Haddad, Tim Bagley, Beth Malone, Jonathan Raviv, and Michael Cristofer Photo by Joan Marcus

Cristofer is particularly wonderful, bringing a wonderfully dry wit, intelligence and emotional depth to Sheldon. He knows how to land a line without announcing the joke, and his presence gives the production an additional level of theatrical sophistication. Bagley is equally engaging as Lou, while Raviv makes Charlie’s generosity feel entirely natural rather than saintly. Under Danny Sharron’s direction, the ensemble works beautifully together, creating the sense of a family whose connections have developed over decades rather than over the course of a rehearsal period.

Jonathan Raviv Photo by Joan Marcus)

One of the play’s greatest pleasures is its affection for show business. References to Mame, A Star Is Born and Fun Home provide amusing little rewards for theater lovers, while a recurring device in which the characters question and revise Haddad’s script adds a playful layer of self-awareness. These moments allow the production to acknowledge its own construction without sacrificing its emotional sincerity. They also remind us that memory is never entirely objective. We shape the stories of our lives each time we tell them.

Haddad is an engaging presence, and there is something particularly moving about watching him share the stage with a theatrical representation of the uncle who encouraged his ambitions. The affection is unmistakable. This is not a playwright settling scores or revisiting childhood grievances for dramatic effect. It is an artist recognizing that the freedom he enjoys was made possible, in part, by someone who had to negotiate a far more restrictive world.

The play is not without its weaknesses. Much of the territory surrounding coming out, chosen families and the importance of artistic expression has been explored extensively in contemporary theater. Haddad’s personal connection gives the material its individuality, but there are moments when the writing underlines emotions the actors have already communicated. Sheldon’s concluding speech about art and chosen family, although sincere, becomes overly emphatic. Cristofer is a sufficiently accomplished actor to convey the sentiment without having to explain quite so much of it.

Still, what distinguishes Good Time Charlie is its refusal to turn Charlie’s life into a tragedy simply because his original dreams were interrupted. He did not become the performer he once imagined, but that does not mean his life was wasted. He found love, friendship, purpose and the satisfaction of helping someone else pursue the possibilities that had once been closed to him. His contentment is not presented as resignation. It is a recognition that a meaningful life does not always resemble the one we planned.

Near the conclusion, Ryan tells Charlie that there is no curtain, an observation that carries significance beyond the theatrical setting. The relationship between these two men cannot be contained within the beginning and ending of a play. Charlie’s influence continues in the person Ryan has become, in the work he creates and in the opportunities he has embraced.

Good Time Charlie occasionally says more than it needs to, but its emotional foundation is genuine. In a theatrical landscape that often confuses suffering with dramatic importance, Haddad has written something refreshingly generous: a love letter to a man who helped another person’s dreams flourish without demanding that his own life be regarded as a sacrifice.

Ultimately, that is what makes this production so touching. Charlie may never have become the star he once dreamed of being, but in Ryan Haddad’s story, he is finally given center stage.

Good Time Charlie: The Public Theatre….closed

Tom Hanks is heading back to Broadway, and this time he’s bringing Tony Award winner Kelli O’Hara along for a little time travel. This World of Tomorrow, the new romantic drama by Hanks and James Glossman, will arrive for a strictly limited engagement in fall 2027 at a Shubert theater to be announced. Directed by Tony winner Kenny Leon and produced by Brian Anthony Moreland in association with The Shed, the play enjoyed a sold-out eight-week engagement at The Shed last year. Based on Hanks’ short stories, the play follows Bert Allenberry, a man living at the end of the 21st century who repeatedly travels back to one extraordinary day at the 1939 New York World’s Fair in Queens, discovering that love, rather than technology, may hold the key to changing his future. The production marks Hanks’ return to Broadway more than 14 years after his Tony-nominated performance in Nora Ephron’s Lucky Guy. With Hanks and O’Hara reunited under Leon’s direction, this romantic journey through time is already shaping up to be one of Broadway’s most anticipated arrivals of 2027. Additional casting and creative team details are forthcoming.

Jonathan Groff

Tony Award winner Jonathan Groff returns to Broadway this spring in The Amish Project, beginning performances February 10, 2027, at the Broadhurst Theatre. Directed by Sarna Lapine, Jessica Dickey’s powerful solo play revisits the devastating 2006 shooting at a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, just minutes from where Groff grew up. Exploring grief, compassion, and the extraordinary power of forgiveness, the work premiered Off-Broadway in 2009 and has since been performed internationally. Groff, who earned a Tony for Merrily We Roll Along and most recently starred as Bobby Darin in Just in Time, calls Dickey’s writing an exploration of the idea that “sometimes the most radical human act is forgiveness.”

Some plays are ahead of their time. Others are so audacious they dare time to catch up. Fiasco Theater resurrects Susan Glaspell’s electrifying 1921 masterpiece The Verge, beginning performances October 27. Tony Award winner Miriam Silverman (The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window) stars as a brilliant botanist determined to defy nature itself by creating a plant unlike anything the world has ever seen. Directed by Jessie Austrian, this intoxicating collision of ambition, obsession, and rebellion features Noah Brody, Paul L. Coffey, Devin E. Haqq, Amara Leonard, Paco Tolson, and Emily Young. More than a century later, Glaspell’s theatrical experiment still refuses to play by the rules.

Broadway is about to discover that silence can be absolutely deafening. Bess Wohl’s deliciously unconventional Small Mouth Sounds is arriving earlier than expected, with previews now beginning February 10, 2027, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre and opening night set for March 11.

Directed by three-time Tony Award winner Joe Mantello, the production boasts a star-studded ensemble featuring Julia Roberts, Paul Rudd, Sarah Paulson, Martin Freeman, Greta Lee, and Isaac Powell. Freeman makes his Broadway debut, while Roberts and Rudd reunite on the Great White Way for the first time since 2006’s Three Days of Rain.

The premise is irresistible: six strangers retreat to an upstate spiritual sanctuary, hoping to escape their troubles through silence, self-discovery, and enlightenment. Naturally, human nature has other plans. Beneath the quiet, Wohl exposes the absurdity, vulnerability, and desperate longing for connection that make us human.

First produced by Ars Nova in 2015 under Rachel Chavkin’s direction, Small Mouth Sounds now receives a Broadway staging with scenic design by Chloe Lamford, costumes by An D’Huys, lighting by Jack Knowles, sound by Tom Gibbons, music by Caroline Shaw, and movement by JA Collective.

With Mantello also directing this season’s Downstate, the celebrated director is having quite the Broadway moment. And with Wohl returning following Liberation, Small Mouth Sounds promises something increasingly rare in our noisy world: a theatrical evening in which what remains unsaid may be the most revealing thing of all.

Tickets go on sale to the general public October 25 at 10 a.m. ET through Telecharge.

New York City is about to become one exhilarating, dangerous playground as Lin-Manuel Miranda and Pulitzer Prize finalist Eisa Davis bring Warriors to Broadway in spring 2027. Inspired by Sol Yurick’s novel and Walter Hill’s cult-classic 1979 film, the adrenaline-fueled musical follows a Coney Island gang falsely accused of murdering a charismatic leader at a Bronx summit. Their mission? Survive one treacherous night crossing New York City and make it home alive. Directed by Jenny Koons, with co-direction and choreography by Hamilton’s Andy Blankenbuehler, the production features an electrifying ensemble including Jasmine Cephas Jones, Amber Gray, Sasha Allen, Aneesa Folds, Julia Harriman, Casey Likes, and Donald Webber Jr. Born from Miranda and Davis’ star-studded concept album, Warriorspromises a pulse-pounding theatrical collision of music, movement, loyalty, and survival. Tickets went on sale October 22 through Broadway Direct, with further production details to be announced.

Long before women were encouraged to have it all, they were fortunate if they were permitted to have anything beyond marriage, motherhood, or a respectable position in someone else’s household. In Cicely Hamilton’s 1913 social comedy Phyl, now receiving its American premiere courtesy of Mint Theater Company at Theatre Row, one young woman decides that the options society has so generously provided are simply not good enough. And who can blame her?

Lily Ganser and Anthony Michael Martinez. Photo by Todd Ceveres

For 35 seasons, Mint Theater Company has made something of an art form out of rediscovering forgotten theatrical treasures, particularly plays that illuminate the social attitudes and restrictions of earlier generations. Under the direction of Britt Berke, Phyl emerges as a charming, quietly rebellious comedy whose questions about women’s independence remain surprisingly recognizable more than a century after it was written.

Anthony Michael Martinez and Lily Ganser as Phyl. Photos by Todd Cerveris

Our heroine is Phyllis, affectionately known as Phyl (a fabulous Lily Ganser), a young governess employed in the country home of the formidable Mrs. Ponsonby (Katie Firth). Trapped in a gloomy schoolroom, Phyl spends her days attempting to educate two thoroughly disagreeable little girls, Olive (the adorable Charlotte Van Ledtje) and Betty (the formidable Tessa Bilmes), while contemplating a future that offers little beyond more of the same.

Charlotte Van Ledje. Anthony Michael Martinez and Tessa Bilmes.Photo by Todd Ceveres

The children are dreadful, their mother is insufferable, and Phyl is understandably miserable. As she declares, “I want more. And I can’t have it!”

Anthony Michael Martinez and Lily Ganser. Photo by Todd Ceveres

Enter Jack (Anthony Michael Martinez), a wealthy, charming bachelor visiting the Ponsonby household for the weekend. Unlike the rest of the family, Jack recognizes that the young governess possesses intelligence, spirit, and a personality worth discovering.

Katie Firth, Tessa Bilmes and Charlotte Van Ledtje.Photo by Todd Ceveres

Mrs. Ponsonby is horrified when Jack’s attention turns toward the hired help rather than her eligible daughter Mabel (Livvy Marcus). Phyl finds herself dismissed from her position due to Jack’s attention.

Lily Ganser and Jennifer Blood. Photo by Todd Ceveres

Her older sister, played with warmth and understanding by Jennifer Blood, represents another possible future: respectable employment, endless work, and a life largely devoid of pleasure, living in cramped quarters. Phyl wants neither the drudgery of domestic service nor the narrow existence society has prescribed for her.

Lily Ganser and Jennifer Blood. Photos by Todd Cerveris

Phyl follows Jack, on a adventure to Europe.

Lily Ganser and Jennifer Blood Photo by Todd Ceveres

For a respectable unmarried woman in 1913, accepting such an invitation would have been scandalous. For Phyl, it offers the possibility of experiencing life rather than merely enduring it.

Tessa Bilmes, Livvy Marcus and Charlotte Van Ledtje. Photos by Todd Cerveris

The second act transports us from the oppressive English country house to an elegant hotel suite on the French Riviera, where Phyl’s newfound freedom is tested by the reappearance of the obnoxious Ponsonby family.

Tessa Bilmes, Charlotte Van Ledtje and Jennifer Blood.Photos by Todd Cerveris

What makes Hamilton’s writing particularly interesting is that she does not present her heroine as a helpless innocent waiting to be rescued. Phyl is impatient, outspoken, occasionally reckless, and fully aware that the rules governing her existence have been written by people who will never have to live under them.

Anthony Michael Martinez and Lily Ganser. Photo by Todd Ceveres

Hamilton herself was a remarkable woman. A prominent suffragette, journalist, novelist, actress, and playwright, she devoted much of her life to challenging the social and economic restrictions imposed upon women. Her own theatrical experience included appearing in the original company of George Bernard Shaw’s Fanny’s First Play. Her advocacy for women’s self-determination is woven into Phyl without overwhelming the comedy or turning the evening into a political lecture.

Anthony Michael Martinez and Lily Ganser Photo by Todd Ceveres

Ganser makes an appealing heroine, beginning the play tightly wound, her hair severely arranged and her dark clothing reflecting the limitations of her circumstances. Ganser becomes like Pretty Woman and visibly relaxes, allowing the character’s humor and enthusiasm to emerge. Her transformation is one of the production’s most enjoyable elements. Ganser is also an actress to watch.

Anthony Michael Martinez and Curzon Dobell. Photo by Todd Ceveres

Martinez is equally engaging as Jack, bringing a breezy, hands-in-pockets confidence to a man whose wealth has afforded him the luxury of treating life as an adventure. The chemistry between Martinez and Ganser gives the comedy its romantic appeal.

Anthony Michael Martines and Katiie Firth Photo by Todd Ceveres

Firth, a familiar and welcome presence in Mint productions, is deliciously disagreeable as Mrs. Ponsonby. With a perfectly controlled smile and an ability to deliver an insult as though offering a compliment. Bilmes and Van Ledtje are young actress that know how to command a stage.

Anthony Michael Martinez and Lily Ganser as Phyl . Photos by Todd Cerveris

Berke keeps the action moving at an agreeable pace, allowing the comedy to unfold without forcing contemporary attitudes onto the material.

Katie Firth with Lily Ganser. Photos by Todd Cerveris

The Mint always delivers in the creative aspects. Brittany Vasta’s scenic design provides an effective contrast between the two acts. The dark-paneled schoolroom feels appropriately oppressive, a physical representation of the narrow life Phyl is desperate to escape. The Riviera hotel suite, with its cream-and-gilt elegance and airy atmosphere, offers a visual liberation that mirrors the heroine’s changing circumstances. Jane Shaw’s piano music and subtle ambient sound add to the period atmosphere without calling unnecessary attention to themselves.

Alicia J. Austin’s costumes establish the era and the characters’ social positions.

What ultimately makes Phyl worthwhile is not that it is a revolutionary piece of dramatic writing. It is a pleasant, intelligently constructed romantic comedy with a quietly subversive heart. Its significance lies in the woman who wrote it and the heroine she dared to imagine at a time when female independence was still treated as a threat to the established order.

Sometimes the most radical thing a woman can say is simply, “I want more.”

Phil: Mint Theatre Company at Theatre Row, 310 West 42nd Street until November 7th

The words HIV/AIDS crisis carry a weight for me that decades of distance have done little to ease, making my experience of Kramer/Fauci at St. Ann’s Warehouseintensely personal. Conceived and directed by Daniel Fish and produced by OHenry Productions, this uninterrupted, one-hour production reconstructs a fiery 1993 C-SPAN call-in debate between AIDS activist and playwright Larry Kramer, played by Thomas Jay Ryan, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, played by Will Brill. Four performers make their way onto the expansive stage, one rolling in on a chair, and another, Jennifer Seastone, glides in on rollerblades. It’s a stark yet dynamic playing field, setting the scene for a confrontation whose tension is hypnotic and electrifying. Every word comes from the original broadcast transcript, yet the debate feels astonishingly immediate.

Will Brill and Thomas Jay Ryan in Kramer/Fauci. Photo by Maria Baranova.

The battle begins with Kramer’s demand for action. “We can’t afford four more years of lip service,” he insists, railing against “forming a task force that won’t get going for years!” Fauci counters that he does not believe it will be lip service and asks for faith and patience in the process. Their exchange reveals two sharp minds, both acutely aware of the stakes, whose years of disagreement have not erased their genuine affection for one another. Kramer wants emergency measures, immediate solutions, and an end to political delay. Fauci, a brilliant doctor committed to finding a solution, speaks from inside the complicated machinery of government, where task forces and negotiations can consume precious time.

Will Brill in Kramer/Fauci. Photo by Maria Baranova.

Kramer’s single word, “Urgency!” lands with the force of an alarm. Ryan (OHenry Productions’ Uncle Vanya) captures Kramer’s volcanic impatience with remarkable conviction. His lines arrive with such passion that I kept wanting to add exclamation points. His quieter moments, though, can be even more devastating, allowing the exhaustion and grief beneath the anger to surface. Brill (Broadway’s Stereophonic) spectacularly gives Fauci a different kind of intensity, conveying the frustration of a man trying to move a bureaucratic process forward while facing an activist who refuses to accept delay as an answer. Their exchanges are full of both irritation and affection. Fauci’s “I love ya, Larry” feels authentic, yet it is met by the persistent demand to know where the action is, with the underlying warmth between them making their disagreement even more affecting.

Fish (Broadway’s Oklahoma!) keeps the audience inside this uncomfortable encounter through staging that refuses to let us settle into passive observation. A vast bank of stadium-like lights, designed by Scott Zielinski, shines directly into the audience, making the room itself part of the confrontation and refusing to let us comfortably look away or tune out what is at stake here. The wide-open stage, designed by Jim Findlay, Joshua Higgason, and Amy Rubin, gives Kramer and Fauci room to occupy opposite sides of the argument, leaving every gesture and pause exposed. Greig Sargeant (Elevator Repair Service’s Measure for Measure) provides a steady presence as C-SPAN moderator Steve Scully, keeping the televised debate moving as Kramer and Fauci press their positions.

Thomas Jay Ryan, Jennifer Seastone, and Greig Sargeant in Kramer/Fauci. Photo by Maria Baranova.

Seastone plays the callers who enter the discussion from across the country, giving each voice its own temperature and character as she navigates the stage on rollerblades and in an inflatable costume. When she rolls up to Kramer and gently touches his shoulder, blessing him for telling the truth after so many negative calls, she breaks me wide open. I have spent decades trying to put myself back together after losing so many people to this disease, and that brief expression of recognition reaches straight through those years. And even when the production’s choices are deliberately eccentric, Seastone (Minor Theater’s Pathetic) makes these moments feel entirely earned. Terese Wadden’s costumes help Seastone give each caller a distinct character, with the chicken suit introducing a burst of absurdity that sits strangely, and effectively, alongside the gravity of the subject. I’m not sure I fully understood the choice intellectually, but the collision of absurdity and the gravity of the subject worked its way inside me.

Then the bubbles begin to spread. A machine floods the stage with foam, creating a surreal and painfully legible image. Under the blazing backlight, the suds accumulate around Kramer until he is almost buried beneath them. The foam moves outward, indifferent to whatever lies in its path, evoking the relentless spread of AIDS and the difficulty of containing its devastation. Fauci walks through the mess, registering the crisis through a different set of instincts, while Kramer eventually takes hold of equipment and tries to clean it up. His effort matters, but the scale of the mess makes its limits impossible to ignore. How can anyone stop a catastrophe that has already spread so far? The numbers in the debate are sometimes stretched and exaggerated, a tactic Kramer openly embraces to force political attention toward the scale of the emergency. That admission complicates Ryan’s portrayal, grounding Kramer’s anger in real loss and an urgent demand for action while exposing the methods he uses to make himself heard.

Thomas Jay Ryan in Kramer/Fauci. Photo by Maria Baranova.

The production’s power lies in its refusal to make either man a simple hero or villain. Ryan’s Kramer is fiercely demanding, emotionally exposed, and unwilling to let official language conceal the human cost of delay. Brill’s Fauci is diplomatic and sometimes maddeningly measured, yet his affection for Kramer and his determination to find a path forward remain visible beneath the bureaucratic language. Their relationship is the heart of the piece: two men with profoundly different approaches, bound together by the same crisis and by a mutual regard that survives their clashes. Tei Blow’s sound design, built around the original C-SPAN audio heard through the performers’ earpieces, keeps the production tethered to the rhythm and texture of the actual exchange. The actors follow the broadcast as they perform, giving the verbatim form a precision that makes the confrontation feel immediate.

Kramer/Fauci runs at St. Ann’s Warehouse through October 24, 2026. The one-hour production plays without an intermission, keeping the audience close to the urgency of the debate. I spent five years living in Los Angeles in the early 1990s, and I remember the weekly funerals and memorials, far too many for anyone in their twenties to endure. That history is part of why Kramer’s insistence on being heard cuts so deeply. His wish to have “Whatever happened to AIDS” written on his gravestone is a heartbreaking expression, one that resonates, reminding me about the lives lost behind those words, and about the urgency of making people listen while there is still time to act.

Charles Dickens knew how to populate a world. His characters were eccentric, damaged, ambitious, cruel, lovable, and unforgettable. Translating that sprawling universe into a musical is no small undertaking, and Jeffrey Scharf, who adapted the novel and wrote the score for Copperfield! The New Musical, has taken on an especially ambitious challenge. Now playing at The Duke on 42nd Street, this new musical boasts thirteen remarkably talented performers who not only sing, dance, and act, but also serve as the production’s orchestra, playing a variety of instruments throughout the evening. Their versatility is extraordinary. If only the musical itself were as consistently compelling.

Amelia Cormack, Jed Feder, Bobby Conte and (top) Alexander Sovronsky in Copperfield! The New Musical

Scharf deserves credit for attempting to capture so much of Dickens’s epic novel within approximately two and a half hours. With relatively few characters and plotlines eliminated, the adaptation covers an impressive amount of territory. Yet therein lies the problem. There is so much story, so much music, and so many competing characters that David Copperfield himself frequently becomes a supporting player in his own life.

There are actually two Davids. Bobby Conte portrays the adult Copperfield, narrating and writing the story of his life, while Calvin Knegten, at the performance I attended, plays his younger self. Knegten is beyond adorable, possessing a natural charm and emotional openness that make him immediately appealing. He also receives considerably more opportunity to establish his character than Conte, which raises an unavoidable question: shouldn’t this ultimately be Conte’s show?

Bobby Conte in Copperfield! The New Musical
Photo credit: Jeremy Daniel

Conte is a superior actor with a glorious voice, and when the material finally allows him to shine, he delivers. Unfortunately, those moments arrive almost unexpectedly because the adult David has been left in the shadows for so much of the evening. Rather than providing the emotional center of the musical, he too often seems to be observing everyone else’s story. When he suddenly steps forward, the talent is undeniable, but the dramatic groundwork has not always been laid.

Dickens’s tale is hardly lighthearted. David’s childhood is marked by an abusive stepfather, the devastating loss of his mother, and harsh treatment at school and in the workplace. His journey toward adulthood is one of survival, ambition, love, and ultimately finding a place, and people, to call home. These experiences should provide an extraordinarily rich emotional foundation for a musical. Yet despite the darkness of the material, the production rarely allows us to become deeply invested in David’s suffering or his eventual triumphs.

The cast of Copperfield! The New Musical
Photo credit: Jeremy Daniel

Director and choreographer Gabriel Barre keeps the proceedings moving at a brisk clip, no small achievement given the amount of material being presented. But movement cannot always substitute for development, and at more than two and a half hours, Copperfield! would benefit from judicious editing.

The score is tuneful without being particularly memorable. There are echoes of an earlier generation of British literary musicals, with shades of Oliver!, Pickwick, and their theatrical contemporaries woven into the musical vocabulary. That familiarity isn’t necessarily a liability, but the songs rarely establish an identity strong enough to linger after the performance.

With fourteen musical numbers in Act One and seventeen in Act Two, including multiple reprises, one begins to wonder whether every character needs quite so much musical attention. There are songs that entertain without substantially advancing either the narrative or our understanding of David.

Owen Squire Smith, for example, has three of the evening’s strongest numbers. He is a fabulous singer and dancer, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching him. Yet I kept questioning why his character had been given so much musical real estate when the central figure of the story was struggling for attention. It is a peculiar imbalance: the supporting players are allowed to flourish while the protagonist waits for his opportunity.

And what supporting players they are. Amelia Cormack, Jed Feder, Kara Mikula, Nancy O’Connor, Aaron Michael Ray, Will Reynolds, Owen Squire Smith, Alexander Sovronsky, Andy Taylor, Cathryn Wake, and Tatiana Wechsler join Conte and Knegten in an ensemble whose collective musical and theatrical abilities are genuinely impressive. The ease with which these performers move between character work, singing, dancing, and instrumental performance is one of the production’s greatest pleasures.

If I had to single out one performer, however, it would be Will Reynolds. There is something wonderfully reminiscent of Alan Cumming in his theatrical presence, and his rendition of “Humbler Is, Humble Was” commands attention. He understands precisely how to seize a moment without losing the character’s eccentricity. It is the kind of performance that makes you sit forward in your seat.

The physical production is another considerable asset. Edward Pierce’s handsome two-level set makes excellent use of the Duke’s space, allowing the action to move fluidly through the many locations of Dickens’s story. Jeff Croiter’s lighting brings atmosphere and definition to the shifting environments, while Shannon Slaton’s engrossing sound design provides clarity and richness to a production in which the performers themselves create so much of the music.

There is genuine theatrical ingenuity here, and I admire the ambition. Scharf has attempted something difficult, Barre has assembled an exceptionally gifted company, and the design team has created a world that accommodates an enormous narrative without requiring an equally enormous stage. But admiration for ambition is not the same as emotional engagement.

What makes David Copperfield endure is not simply its collection of colorful characters. It is the experience of watching a vulnerable child become a man who finally understands where he belongs. The novel’s eccentricities matter because they shape David’s journey. In this musical, the eccentricities too often become the main attraction, leaving the journey itself curiously underdeveloped.

Copperfield! The New Musical has talent to spare, a handsome production, and a score filled with pleasant melodies. What it needs is a stronger editorial hand, fewer musical detours, and considerably more faith in its central character.

After all, when you have Bobby Conte at your disposal, why leave David Copperfield standing on the sidelines?

Copperfield! The New Musical plays at The Duke on 42nd Street, 229 West 42nd Street 2nd Floor through December 6.