The world is ending. Manhattan is getting hotter by the day, humanity apparently has only months left, and Charlie has decided that the most reasonable response is to stay on her couch with peanut butter, doomsday television and her Jewish goldfish.

Welcome to Nick Blaemire’s Soon, the devastatingly honest indie-pop chamber musical that opened last night at The Loft at St. Luke’s. Presented by Out of the Box Theatrics in association with Bella Vita Entertainment and Red Horse LLC, Soon begins with an almost deliciously eccentric premise. If the world is going to end anyway, why bother getting off the couch?

Charlie (Ava Delaney) has essentially shut out Manhattan along with everything else. The temperature outside keeps climbing, the television keeps delivering increasingly dire news, and Charlie remains planted in her apartment, eating peanut butter, waiting out whatever time humanity has left. Delaney makes her funny, maddening, vulnerable and deeply human. She never plays Charlie as simply another quirky musical-theatre heroine, and that distinction becomes increasingly important as the evening unfolds.

Sean Frank’s hyper-realistic scenic design makes Charlie and Steven’s apartment feel less like a set than a place they have actually been living in for years. Old theatre tickets, board games, journals and the accumulated debris of everyday life fill the room, creating the kind of intimate detail that makes us feel almost intrusive watching them. More importantly, the apartment becomes Charlie’s entire universe, effectively isolating us inside it with her. Paige Seber’s lighting design beautifully tracks the shifting emotional temperature of the piece, moving between the familiar warmth of home and the increasingly unsettling world pressing in from outside. Together, Frank and Seber make the apartment feel simultaneously like a refuge and a place from which Charlie desperately needs to escape.

Ava Delaney and Oliver Richman photo by Valerie Terranova

Then the groceries arrive. Jonah, played by the puppy-eyed and utterly lovable Oliver Richman, is the delivery man who begins nudging Charlie toward the terrifying possibility that there may still be something worth getting off the couch for. Richman has an openness that makes Jonah almost impossible not to fall in love with. He doesn’t come crashing into Charlie’s life as some great romantic rescuer. He simply shows up. Then keeps showing up, with a gentleness that slowly begins making Charlie’s carefully constructed little world harder to maintain.

Mike Millan, Ava Delaney photo by Valerie Terranova

The people already in Charlie’s life aren’t quite ready to surrender her either. Mike Millan is hysterical as Steven, her roommate, and seriously seems like the best roommate in the world. His comic timing is impeccable, but what makes Steven work is the affection underneath it. Millan never loses sight of how much this man cares about Charlie, even when she is making it nearly impossible for anyone to reach her.

Ava Delaney and Mylinda Hull photo by Valerie Terranova

Then there is Mylinda Hull, who nearly steals the night as Charlie’s mother, Adrienne. A boozy lounge lizard of a woman, Adrienne seems considerably more comfortable finding consolation at the bottom of a pitcher than offering it to her daughter. Hull is enormously funny, but there is something wounded underneath the alcohol and bravado. She knows precisely how far to push the comedy before allowing us to glimpse the woman hiding behind it.

This is where Soon begins doing something rather extraordinary.

What initially feels like a wonderfully offbeat musical about a young woman hiding from an approaching apocalypse slowly deepens without announcing that it is doing so. Blaemire allows us to laugh. He allows us to become comfortable with Charlie’s peculiar little existence. We become accustomed to the couch, the peanut butter, the fish, the increasingly unbearable heat and the parade of people trying to get Charlie to participate in life. Then the emotional ground begins to move.

Ava Delaney and Oliver Richman photo by Valerie Terranova

I am deliberately going no further. Soon contains discoveries that deserve to happen in the theatre, not in a review. What I can say is that Blaemire has constructed the piece so carefully that things we have already seen begin acquiring different weight. What seemed funny becomes painful. What seemed eccentric becomes understandable. By the time we realize how deeply we have been drawn into Charlie’s world, these characters no longer feel like people we met at the theatre. They feel like people we know.

Will Blum directs with a wonderfully sure hand. He understands that this small musical doesn’t need to be pushed. Its emotional strings are played like a Stradivarius: carefully, precisely and without unnecessary force. He allows the revelations to land rather than announcing them, and in the intimacy of The Loft, that restraint becomes enormously powerful. There is nowhere for these actors to hide, and eventually nowhere for us to hide from them.

Then there is Blaemire’s score, which may be one of the most exciting things about the evening. This is indie-pop musical theatre that doesn’t sound as though someone sat down and decided musical theatre needed to sound like indie pop. The musical language belongs naturally to these characters and to this story. Blaemire’s score can be witty, strange, tender and heartbreaking, sometimes within the same stretch of music.

“Bar Mitzvah for the First Jewish Fish” is as wonderfully peculiar as its title suggests, while “Waiting” is one of those songs I wanted to hear again almost immediately. Thankfully, I don’t have to wait very long. The Soon album has already been released. It arrived August 14, 2026, after being recorded at Hit Factory. This is a score I want to spend considerably more time with. More importantly, it feels like a glimpse of where musical theatre is going—less concerned with sounding like what a musical is supposed to sound like and more interested in allowing contemporary music and theatrical storytelling to become the same language. It is exciting.

Musical supervisor Wiley Deweese and music director and pianist Andy Collopy keep the evening tight and beautifully melodic, with Kevin Wunderlich and Nyssa Grant completing the three-piece band. In a room this intimate, musicians can easily overwhelm performers. Here they never do. The music surrounds the actors without swallowing them, allowing Blaemire’s lyrics and the emotional intricacies of the performances to remain front and center.

What makes Soon linger, though, isn’t its clever apocalyptic premise. It is how completely Blaemire makes us care about four people inside one apartment while the rest of the world is supposedly falling apart. The apocalypse gives the musical a clock. It reminds everyone that time is running out. But haven’t we always known that? We simply behave as though we don’t.

That is the uncomfortable beauty sitting underneath Soon. We postpone conversations. We protect ourselves from people who might matter too much. We wait until we’re thinner, richer, braver, happier or somehow more prepared before allowing ourselves to participate fully in our own lives. We assume there will be another day to say what needs saying, another opportunity to open the door. Soon quietly asks what happens when there isn’t.

Soon plays at The Loft at St. Luke’s, 308 West 46th Street, Third Floor, through November 8. Its entire run is currently sold out, but keep an eye out for last-minute ticket releases. If one appears, grab it.

I won’t tell you what happens behind Charlie’s closed door. I will only tell you that when Soon finally opens it, it is heartbreaking in the best possible way.

It was a magical night in New York when two extraordinary artists shared the stage at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center, one of the most beautiful theaters in New York City. This elegant jewel-box venue provided the perfect setting for an evening filled with energy, soul, and unforgettable music. Catherine Russell and her special guest, Cyndi Lauper, brought together two very different musical worlds, creating a concert that was thrilling from beginning to end.

Catherine Russell is jazz royalty. Music is in her blood. Her father, Luis Russell, was the longtime musical director for Louis Armstrong, while her mother, Carline Ray, was a pioneering multi-instrumentalist and vocalist. With such a rich musical heritage, Russell has developed a distinctive style that combines jazz, blues, swing, and the great American songbook.

Russell began recording and touring as a backup singer for major artists in 1980. In 2005, she launched her solo career and has since released nine albums. Two of her projects, Harlem on My Mind and Alone Together, earned Grammy nominations for Best Jazz Vocal Album. Beyond performing and recording, Russell is also dedicated to education, teaching master classes and private students and sharing her knowledge with the next generation of musicians.

One of the pleasures of Russell’s performance was the way she reached back through musical history. Her repertoire traveled from the 1920s through the 1950s, introducing the audience to songs that have become important pieces of the American musical heritage. She brought these vintage selections to life with her distinctive voice, impeccable phrasing, and deep understanding of the music.

Among the highlights was “Nobody’s Fault But Mine,” a 1927 gem associated with the legendary blues musician Blind Willie Johnson. Russell also performed “After Hours,” made famous by Sarah Vaughan, “Don’t Take All Night,” associated with Nina Simone, and “Trust in Me,” a song famously recorded by Dinah Washington. Each selection demonstrated Russell’s remarkable ability to honor the original artists while making the songs unmistakably her own.

Joining Russell for this special evening was the legendary Cyndi Lauper. A groundbreaking Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Award-winning songwriter and performing artist, Lauper has sold more than 50 million records worldwide. In 2013, she became the first solo woman to win the Tony Award for Best Original Score for Kinky Boots. She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2015 and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2016.

One of the evening’s most memorable moments came when Russell and Lauper joined forces to perform Lauper’s mega-hit “Time After Time.” Hearing these two distinctive voices together transformed the familiar song into a particularly moving musical moment. The performance brought the audience to its feet, creating one of those special live-concert moments that performers and audiences share together.

The combination of Russell and Lauper made for an especially exciting evening. Each artist brought her own personality and musical identity to the stage, yet they complemented one another beautifully. Their performances demonstrated that great music can cross genres and generations.

They were backed by an extraordinary group of musicians: Anthony Hervey on trumpet, John Allred on trombone, Evan Arntzen on reeds, Lauren Sevian on baritone saxophone, Matt Munisteri on guitar, Ben Paterson on piano and organ, Tel Ronen on bass, and Dominick “Domo” Branch on drums.

The musicians were not simply there to accompany the singers. Each was given generous opportunities to step into the spotlight, and their solos added excitement, depth, and spontaneity to the concert. The band created a powerful musical foundation that allowed both Russell and Lauper to shine.

The Rose Theater itself added to the magic of the evening. Its intimate yet grand atmosphere makes it an extraordinary place to experience live music, and on this night, the theater seemed perfectly matched to the artistry onstage.

This was more than a concert—it was a celebration of musical history, individuality, and the continuing power of live performance. Catherine Russell and Cyndi Lauper proved to be a thrilling combination, delivering a night that was truly magical and one that the audience will not soon forget.

Gerrilyn Sohn brought her cabaret show Timeless: A Tribute to Bernadette Peters to Don’t Tell Mama in New York City, celebrating one of Broadway’s most beloved performers while making the evening distinctly her own.

Sohn did not attempt to imitate Bernadette Peters. Instead, she sang the songs that helped make Peters famous, bringing them to life in her own voice and with her own personality. It was a refreshing approach to a tribute show. Rather than trying to duplicate an iconic performer, Sohn showed why these songs continue to resonate with audiences.

Sohn has long been fascinated by Peters and feels a special connection to her. During the performance, she shared with the audience that she had actually met Peters and was deeply impressed by her warmth and friendliness. That personal connection gave the evening an added dimension, making the tribute feel genuine and heartfelt rather than simply a collection of songs associated with a famous star.

Gerrilyn’s performance was further enhanced by several duets with her talented musical director, Tracy Stark. Their musical chemistry added another layer of warmth and spontaneity to the evening. Stark was not only an accomplished musical director but also a wonderful partner onstage, complementing Sohn’s voice and helping bring the songs to life.

The repertoire celebrated the extraordinary range of material associated with Peters, from sophisticated Broadway numbers to songs filled with humor, romance and emotion. Sohn’s performance demonstrated her affection for the material while allowing her own vocal personality to shine through.

The evening was directed by Lennie Watts, whose experience and understanding of cabaret helped shape the performance. Tracy Stark served as musical director, with Marco Panascia on bass.

Timeless was ultimately less about trying to become Bernadette Peters and more about celebrating what makes Peters such an enduring theatrical icon. Gerrilyn Sohn’s admiration was evident throughout the evening, but so was her individuality. She paid tribute to Peters by singing these memorable songs in her own voice—and that made the performance a tribute worth hearing.

Last Night, Brian J. Nash put on a show that could have played to a full house at Radio City Music Hall and satisfied every single person present. At midtown’s GREENROOM 42, he held a rapt audience in the palm of his hand for the entire 80 minutes and proved to be a real “showman.” The bottom line is that Mr. Nash “is” music. His body language and connection to the piano are wild to watch and the guy’s got “moves.” He also loves every minute of what he’s doing.
Nash has arranged, MDd and played for so many popular artists that I wouldn’t do justice to a partial listing, but he is also considered to be part “Broadway Baby” having worked with the likes of Jennifer Holliday, Shoshanah Bean, Deborah Cox, Laura Benanti, Audra McDonald among them. He travels the world and chases the music. You can follow his adventures on social media and he is quite committed to his goals and is charming and funny.  This encore engagement of the gamely titled BLUE JEAN BABY GRAND was, quite simply, a knockout, after selling out back in July. With one of the greatest bands I’ve ever seen or heard, this performer tore up the music of Elton John and Billy Joel. It was a musical education, with some great photos and an adoring attitude for his heroes, having played many of their songs over his 19 and ½ years spent in piano bars. His stories of discovery go back to his youth, when his voice changed and he could no longer sing “On My Own” from LES MISÉRABLES (in the original key) and he discovered the song “Daniel.” The show soared and soared and soared and the chemistry between the “boss man” and his musicians was built on love, respect and talent. Crazy talent. The pacing and running order of the song list was diabolical. No exaggeration. One of the reasons Eda and I were able to see it was because in July the video they filmed didn’t  work, so this was a “take two” of sorts and, if tonight was captured, it will be something to behold. Bravo to all and if you see Brian J. Nash advertised to appear anywhere near where you are, RUN! You’ll thank me.

The Band: Elena Bonomo, Drums, Mohan Ritsema, Bass, Will Shishmanian, Guitar, Tom Regouski, Reeds, Andrea Neumann, Trombone, Alphonso Horne, Trumpet

BRIAN J. NASH

BRIAN J. NASH

BRIAN J. NASH

BRIAN J. NASH

BRIAN J. NASH

BRIAN J. NASH

BRIAN J. NASH

BRIAN J. NASH

BRIAN J. NASH

BRIAN J. NASH

BRIAN J. NASH

BRIAN J. NASH

CARLOS CLEMENZ

ROGER DAWLEY, NICHOLAS YENSON, BRIAN J. NASH

NATALIE DOUGLAS & BRIAN J. NASH

ANDREW LIPPA & FRIENDS

RICHARD JAY-ALEXANDER & BRIAN J. NASH

TOM REGOUSKI & ANDREW LIPPA

EDA SOROKOFF & CARLOS CLEMENZ

CAROLOS CLEMENZ, STEPHEN SOROKOFF, BRIAN J. NASH

I have a problem with Slam Frank. Actually, I have several problems with Slam Frank, the audacious new musical now playing at the Orpheum Theatre. I also think its cast is beyond, beyond, beyond talented, Andrew Fox’s score is fabulous, and there is so much theatrical invention exploding across the stage that I suspect this show is going to develop a cult following and remain with us for a very long time. Therein lies my problem.

Austen Horne, Amelia Louise Barr, and Olivia Bernábe in Slam Frank_Photo by Shawn Salley Photography

I am not particularly a parody person. I understand what parody is trying to accomplish intellectually, but when the subject being used as the vehicle is The Diary of Anne Frank, I cannot entirely separate myself from the story underneath the joke. Anne Frank was a real child. She hid from the Nazis. She was discovered, deported and murdered. There is something about using that particular story as the framework for this satire that I found offensive, even while understanding that offending us is very much part of what Fox and book writer Joel Sinensky intend to do.

They have a great deal they want to offend us about.

Olivia Bernábe as Anita (with ASM Walker Stovall) in Slam Frank_Photo by Shawn Salley Photography

Slam Frank takes Anne Frank and turns her into Anita Franco (Olivia Bernábe), a queer Mexican girl whose diary is written in Spanish. Her family and the people sharing the annex have been reinvented through virtually every contemporary discussion surrounding race, gender, sexuality and identity. The production then throws all of this against the Holocaust while simultaneously parodying the conventions of modern musical theatre. Dear Evan Hansen, Spring Awakening, Fiddler on the Roof, West Side Story, In the Heights and the musical vocabulary associated with Lin-Manuel Miranda all wander through the evening in one form or another.

Alex Lewis at Peter Van Daan in Slam Frank_Photo by Shawn Salley Photography

Here is where Fox does something remarkably clever. You recognize exactly what is being parodied without leaving the theatre singing the musical being parodied. He captures the musical language without simply stealing the song. That is much harder than it sounds, and his score is one of the strongest things about the evening. The music understands the joke even during moments when I wasn’t convinced the book did.

Rocky Paterra, Jaz Zepatas, Olivia Bernábe, Alex Lewis, Austen Horne in Slam Frank_Photo by Shawn Salley Photography

Bernábe is sensational as Anita. She has the voice, timing, energy and complete fearlessness necessary to stand in the center of this insanity and somehow make us follow her. Anita is part Anne Frank, part Maria from West Side Story, part contemporary musical-theatre heroine and part creation entirely unto herself. Bernábe understands all of those layers and commits to every one of them.

She is surrounded by a remarkable company. What continues to boggle my mind is that these actors are non-Equity. There is an astonishing amount of talent on the Orpheum stage, and nobody is treating this outrageous material as an excuse to coast on the joke. They sing it, act it and play the absurdity as if the stakes were completely real.

Rocky Paterra’s Otto is gay. Austen Horne’s Edith has been reinvented as a fiercely sexual Black feminist. Alex Lewis’s Peter is non-binary. Jaz Zepatos’s Mrs. Van Daan has her own sexual and feminist awakening, while John Anker Bow’s Mr. Van Daan represents a magnificently pompous strain of male superiority. Eventually, practically everyone seems to be coming out to everyone else while the Nazis remain, somewhat astonishingly, outside.

Then there is Margot. The fabulously vocal Amelia Louise Barr spends much of the musical almost mute, which makes what eventually happens with her considerably more startling. I don’t want to destroy the surprise because this is one of those shows where telling you everything that happens would rob you of the experience of sitting there thinking, Did they really just do that? Yes. They did. Repeatedly.

That is both the pleasure and the difficulty of Slam Frank. Things happen in this musical that will make people argue about it for days. I certainly did. Some will find it liberating. Some will find it hysterical. Some will find it offensive. Many will probably experience all three reactions before reaching Second Avenue.

Sam Lafrage’s direction understands that there is no point in approaching material like this timidly. The production barrels forward, gleefully puncturing theatrical conventions and contemporary sacred cows. Nobody gets much protection, and the cast commits with the kind of confidence required to keep something this deliberately provocative from collapsing beneath its own conceit.

Where I struggle is with Sinensky’s book. It is frequently very funny and occasionally wickedly perceptive, but it is also highly confusing. There are so many targets being fired upon simultaneously that I sometimes lost track of precisely what was being satirized. Is the joke about identity politics? Contemporary theatre? Performative progressivism? The commercialization of trauma? Our insistence upon filtering history through present-day values? All of them are legitimate targets, and all of them appear here, but occasionally so many ideas arrive at once that the satire becomes harder to decipher rather than sharper.

Then there is Anne Frank herself. I understand why they chose her. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I understand it. You cannot create genuinely dangerous satire by selecting material nobody cares about. Slam Frank wants us uncomfortable. It wants to test where our boundaries are and why certain subjects have been placed beyond the reach of comedy. If Fox and Sinensky had chosen something less sacred, the experiment wouldn’t have the same explosive charge. But understanding the choice doesn’t require me to like it and I did then I didn’t  and then I did when  it was explained to me.

There were moments when I could see exactly what the writers were attacking and still couldn’t get past the fact that Anne Frank was the instrument being used to attack it. That may say as much about my relationship to the material as it does about the musical. But criticism isn’t about pretending that intellectual understanding erases an emotional response. Mine remained complicated and strangely, that may be why I think Slam Frank needs to exist.

We complain that theatre has become too safe, too predictable and too frightened of offending anyone. Then somebody creates something genuinely dangerous and we have to decide whether we meant what we said. Slam Frank is dangerous. It takes enormous risks. Some work brilliantly. Some made me uncomfortable. Some confused me. Some offended me, but I haven’t stopped thinking about it. That matters.

I suspect Slam Frank will become a cult musical precisely because people will leave arguing about what they just saw. I would much rather encounter a flawed, fearless piece of theatre that gives me something to wrestle with than another perfectly polished musical I have forgotten before reaching the subway.

The cast is extraordinary. The score is terrific. The book needs clarity. The premise remains difficult for me to accept, yet, would I tell you to see it? Absolutely.

Slam Frank isn’t asking for our approval. It’s asking us to have the argument.

Slam Frank: Orpheum Theatre, 126 2nd Ave until November 30th but I expect this show to extend.