Labor Day has become the unofficial farewell to summer—a final long weekend of beaches, barbecues and the terrible realization that September has arrived. But underneath the holiday is something considerably more important: the people who built, cleaned, taught, carried, cooked, stitched, drove, served and kept this country moving. American music has always told their stories, and musical theatre has done it particularly well. So before we say goodbye to summer, T2C turns up the volume with ten songs about work, money, ambition, exhaustion, dignity and that glorious fantasy every worker has entertained at least once: telling the boss exactly where the job can go.

1. “I Hear America Singing” — Working
This is where I would begin. Stephen Schwartz’s musical adaptation of Studs Terkel’s Working is built around the voices of ordinary American workers, and this number makes labor itself the American chorus. Different jobs, different lives, different dreams—but together they create the sound of a country.

2. “9 to 5” — Dolly Parton or in my version the musical
Nearly half a century later, that opening typewriter rhythm still means business. Parton made workplace inequality funny, furious and irresistibly catchy. It also made its way to Broadway, so Dolly gets to belong to both sides of our playlist.

3. “A Shtetl Iz Amereke” — Ragtime
For the immigrant worker, America promised possibility—but possibility came with a price. Tateh arrives believing in that promise and discovers the grinding reality of factory labor. Ragtime understands that the American Dream and the American workplace have always had a complicated relationship.

4. “She Works Hard for the Money” — Donna Summer
Summer’s anthem was inspired by a real woman she encountered working as a restroom attendant late at night. Beneath the irresistible beat is something Labor Day ought to remember: dignity belongs to the worker regardless of the job.

5. “The Factory Girls/Come Up to My Office” — Parade
This takes the playlist somewhere darker. Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry’s musical places us inside an industrialized Atlanta where young women work in a pencil factory, reminding us that American labor history includes exploitation, dangerous workplaces and workers with very little power.

6. “Sixteen Tons” — Tennessee Ernie Ford
“I owe my soul to the company store” may be one of the most economical descriptions of worker exploitation ever put into a song. Coal, debt and a system designed to make sure the worker can never quite get ahead.

7. “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” — Americana
And here’s our Broadway history lesson. E.Y. Harburg and Jay Gorney’s Depression-era masterpiece originated in the 1932 Broadway revue Americana. Its worker helped build the railroads, buildings and country—and then found himself discarded when the economy collapsed. More than 90 years later, it still hurts.

8. “Take This Job and Shove It” — Johnny Paycheck
After all that exploitation, somebody was eventually going to quit. There is nothing subtle about this one, which is precisely why it belongs here.

9. “Brotherhood of Man” — How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
Now we get wicked. Frank Loesser’s great corporate satire turns the workplace hierarchy into musical comedy as everybody scrambles up the ladder while pretending they’re all one happy corporate family. Broadway knew about office politics long before anyone invented LinkedIn.

10. “Bang the Drum All Day” — Todd Rundgren
And after celebrating the American worker, documenting exploitation, surviving the factory, climbing the corporate ladder and contemplating resignation, there is really only one sensible way to spend Labor Day.

Don’t work.

Turn up the music.

You’ve earned the day off.

When I heard that Karen Ziemba and Marc Kudisch were starring in L.B. Browne’s world premiere of Safe House at Theatre Row, I was excited. Put two seasoned stage actors of this caliber together in an intimate theatre and there is every reason to expect sparks. There are indeed some very fine performances here. The problem is that Browne’s drama, directed by Benjamin Viertel and produced by split/decision, is so packed with crises, secrets, politics, illness, trauma and family dysfunction that eventually the play begins collapsing under the weight of everything it wants us to carry.

An upcoming presidential election has left the country on edge, and Rock (Kudisch) is convinced that a second American Civil War is imminent. His response is to transform the basement of his suburban Pennsylvania home into a bunker, determined to protect his family from the catastrophe he believes is coming. What they don’t know is that Rock is facing another catastrophe entirely: more than a year earlier, he learned that he is dying from Huntington’s disease, a diagnosis he has kept secret from his wife and daughters. That alone is enough for a play.

Karen Ziemba, Anna Roman, Marc Kudisch Photos by Viktorija Mickute

However Safe House keeps going. Rock’s wife, Slipper (Ziemba), is a stay-at-home mother who has spent much of her life giving herself to her husband and family. Their high-achieving daughter Ashley (Anna Roman), a lawyer, has sacrificed much of her own life for her parents and has become wound so tightly that unhappiness seems to have settled permanently into her body. Their younger daughter Claire (Grace Church) left home at 15, an absence that appears to have torn the family apart, although the deeper question is whether these people were ever truly together in the first place.

Glenn Steven Allen, Marc Kudisch Photos by Viktorija Mickute

Then Claire comes home. She is pregnant and wants an abortion. She has joined a cult. She has also blown up a gas line. Meanwhile, Rock is hallucinating conversations with his dead father (Glenn Steven Allen), a man he idolizes and mythologizes, as well as visions of the younger Claire (Julianna Layne). Huntington’s disease, political paranoia, impending civil war, a hidden terminal diagnosis, abortion, estrangement, religious extremism, domestic resentment, terrorism, parental failure, memory, inherited illness and hallucination are all competing for oxygen. There is simply too much here.

Julianna Layne, Marc Kudisch Photos by Viktorija Mickute

What makes that frustrating is that Browne has found an interesting central idea. Rock is building a physical safe house because he believes concrete, supplies and preparation can protect the people he loves. Yet everything threatening this family is already inside the house. The danger isn’t waiting beyond the front door. It lives in the secrets they keep, the things they refuse to say and the damage they have done to one another. That is the play I wanted Safe House to trust.

Kudisch carries much of the weight of the evening, and his work is intense, intelligent and carefully considered. He gives Rock enough conviction that his obsession with the bunker never becomes merely ridiculous. Even as the character’s world becomes increasingly unstable, Kudisch keeps searching for the man beneath the fear. It is the kind of grounded stage work that reminds us exactly why he belongs in the theatre.

Karen Ziemba,Marc Kudisch Photos by Viktorija Mickute

Ziemba brings warmth and an expressive emotional life to Slipper, particularly in the smallest reactions. Her face frequently tells us what the dialogue has not yet managed to say. Unfortunately, too much of that dialogue is difficult to hear. In a theatre this intimate, an audience should not be struggling to catch an actor’s words, and Ziemba frequently drops her volume to a level that leaves important moments disappearing before they reach us.

Roman brings welcome humanity to Ashley, a character who could easily have become simply the uptight, resentful daughter. Instead, we see the exhaustion underneath her rigidity. Church and Layne, both non-union performers, hold their own impressively beside the considerable Broadway veterans around them. Church has the particularly difficult assignment of making Claire credible despite the astonishing amount of narrative baggage Browne has placed on the character, while Layne gives the younger Claire an affecting presence. Justin Lee Miller rounds out the company in the roles of a doctor and police officer, and Glenn Steven Allen gives substance to the father Rock has turned into something larger than the man himself.

Viertel’s direction, however, compounds the play’s problems rather than clarifying them. This is a small theatre, yet the production does not consistently reach the back of the room. More importantly, the staging needs to help us navigate Browne’s many competing ideas, distinguishing the essential from the incidental. Instead, too much arrives with equal dramatic importance, leaving the audience to sort through an already overcrowded narrative.

At approximately 90 minutes, Safe House shouldn’t feel long. It does. Not because there isn’t enough happening, but because there is far too much. The play doesn’t need another idea. It needs the courage to surrender several of them.

Browne has something here, particularly in the contradiction embedded in her title. Rock believes he can build safety. Slipper believes devotion can preserve a marriage. Ashley believes responsibility can hold a family together. Claire has gone searching elsewhere for whatever she could not find at home. Every one of them is trying, in a different way, to create security. Yet this house has never really been safe.

That is where Safe House becomes most interesting. Strip away some of the political catastrophe, the accumulating revelations and the sheer abundance of issues, and underneath is a painful story about a family desperately preparing itself for a war outside while failing to acknowledge the one that has been raging inside for years.

Safe House: Theatre Row, 410 West 42nd Street, through September 13.

G.H. Harding

HONEY MONEY NO MORE? — News that Maria Bartiromo was fired from Fox reverberated around the world and generated a literal ton of ink.

Bryan Freedman

With high-powered pit-bull lawyer Bryan Freedman (fresh from the Blake Lively/Just Baldoni mess) on the case, who knows what will happen.

She first gained notoriety as ‘Money Honey’ and has been a star for years.

(Via Showbiz 411) Maria Bartiromo’s new Hollywood lawyer has something to say. Bryan Freedman says Maria was not fired by Fox News, that she’s still an employee, and all reports to the contrary are false.

You can see his statement below.

Freedman also says there’s no truth to the reports that Bartiromo was acting as a double agent, feeding Donald Trump and Fox News with info about each other. Believe me, I know that when Fox News breaks up with you, it isn’t pretty. It’s not their style. In the end, they will have to pay out her contract. But for now, lots of posturing on both sides.

For many years, Maria Bartiromo hosted three number one rated television shows on Fox channels. She has been, without question, one of the hardest working journalists throughout her award-winning career.

The irresponsible reports that have been published stating that Maria Bartiromo was fired or is no longer an employee of Fox are absolutely and unequivocally false. Make no mistake, we have the receipts and witnesses and they will come out whether through the courthouse or otherwise. Those reporting her firing or the incredulous facts supporting that fiction have exhibited a complete and utter reckless disregard for the truth.

Bryan Freedman, Attorney for Maria Bartiromo

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Derrek Kupish/Shutterstock (14186545bu)
Patti Labelle
2023 CMT Smashing Glass – Tributes to Tanya Tucker and Patti LaBelle, Arrivals, Nashville, Tennessee, USA – 15 Nov 2023

PATTI LABELLE — Common, Patti LaBelle and Public Enemy are the artists who will be honored at the 2026 Black Music Action Coalition Gala, presented by Live Nation, taking place on September 24, 2026, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. She of course, front LaBelle with the late Nona Hendryx, but has remained a marquee-name for sure. So well deserved!

SHORT TAKES — (Via Billboard.com) Cassandra Wilson, the two-time Grammy Award-winning jazz singer, songwriter and producer has died. She was 70. Dubbed America’s best singer by Time magazine in 2001, Wilson was best known for her genre-bending voice, which expanded the boundaries of traditional blues-based jazz and worked effortlessly across folk, pop, R&B, country and beyond. At the heart of all her work was her idiosyncratic contralto, a soulful sound distinctly tied to her roots … (Via Deadline) As Simon Cowell continues to recover from back surgery, another America’s Got Talent alum is returning to the judge’s table. On Wednesday’s episode of the NBC reality competition series, it was announced that Heidi Klum will fill in for Cowell next week during a special three-hour broadcast of the Season 21 quarterfinals. Klum served as a judge on America’s Got Talent from 2013 to 2018, before returning from 2020 to 2024. She exited the AGT judge’s table last year, shortly after she was invited back to host Project Runway for Freeform and Disney+ …

Mr T

On Friday’s Today Show, Al Roker caught with the infamous Mr. T from The A-Team. Who says you can’t get a doc made? Mr. T’s one is out now on Netflix … Much ink this week about Miley Cyrus changing her name to just Miley; and a new album appears with the single “Bass Persuades.” The song is typical high-energy Miley, but the video looks like a combo of the best parts of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video and Debbie Gibson’s “Electric Youth” video. Funny! …

Micky Dolenz on KTLA

Here’s Micky Dolenz at LA’s KTLA being interviewed in advance of his show at The United Theater Downtown in LA next Saturday, February 12; and his new EP Timeless, featuring the singles “Terri” and “Any Way You Want Me To.” February 12 is the official date of the Emmy-award winning TV-show The Monkees debuting on NBC. L-R-Standing-Jasmine Simpkins and Dolenz -sitting- Samantha Cortese and John Fenoglio … Anthony Pomes and his Doors-tribute band Carnival Dogs played My Father’s Place Friday night.

Eppy and Anthony Pomes aka “Inner Jim”

Here’s Inner Jim with Eppy … (via Deadline) Prime Video has opted not to proceed with a second season of the superhero series Spider-Noir starring Nicola Cage. Spider-Noir was the second series ordered and first to make it to the screen under a multi-title deal between Amazon MGM Studios and Sony Pictures Television based on IP from Sony Pictures’ Universe of Marvel Characters. Too bad as I loved it and Cage was just superb as usual … Happy Bday Sharon White

 NAMES IN THE NEWS —– Anna Chan; Joe Lynch; Gary Graff; Paul Grein; Adam White; Anthony Pomes; Pierce Brosnan; Kevin Spacey; Kimberly Cornell; Amanda Naylor; Tom & Lisa Cuddy; Gary Graff; John Hughes; Dan Mapp; Paul Pierce; Judy Kaufman; Marjorie Schwartz; Lora Evans; Ben Kenney; Angela Tarantino; Lee Jeske; Randy Alexander; Peter Shendell; Romeo Escobar; Oleg Cassini; and CHIP!

 Images on this page have been licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

Ferrari Brings Monza Spirit to New York’s Little Italy

A weekend of rare Ferraris, Formula 1, Italian food and New York culture turned L’Industrie Pizzeria into one of Little Italy’s most distinctive destinations.

There are few neighborhoods in New York where a Ferrari feels quite as culturally at home as Little Italy. The connection is immediate and understandable. Italian design, food, engineering and tradition have long occupied a visible place on these downtown streets, and during Italian Grand Prix weekend, that relationship gained a distinctly contemporary expression.

At 197 Grand Street, L’Industrie Pizzeria became the center of a three-day Formula 1 experience created around the 2026 Italian Grand Prix at Monza. The event, presented by Apple TV with Race Service, brought together motorsport, pizza, fashion, music and some remarkable Ferrari machinery in a setting that remained unmistakably New York.

Called F1 Monza in Manhattan, the takeover ran from September 3 through September 5, immediately preceding the September 6 Italian Grand Prix. Rather than treating Formula 1 as something confined to a television screen, the project translated elements of the race weekend into a physical gathering place in Little Italy. Practice and qualifying became communal viewing occasions, while food and limited merchandise gave visitors something tangible to associate with the weekend.

The presence of Ferrari made the occasion particularly resonant. Rare Ferrari vehicles on the streets of Lower Manhattan inevitably attract attention, yet here their significance extended beyond the familiar appeal of an exotic automobile. Ferrari remains inseparable from the history of the Italian Grand Prix and from Monza itself, where generations of supporters have treated the Scuderia as a national institution.

That connection gave Grand Street an unusual sense of purpose. Visitors arriving for pizza could encounter Formula 1 culture. Motorsport followers could discover one of New York’s most closely watched contemporary pizzerias. Ferrari enthusiasts had an opportunity to experience Italian automotive design in a neighborhood whose identity has been shaped by generations of Italian-American life.

Monza Arrives in Manhattan

The concept was straightforward and carefully considered. L’Industrie’s Little Italy location was transformed for three days into a New York interpretation of Monza’s celebrated motorsport culture. Apple Music playlists, Formula 1 broadcasts, Race Service apparel and a limited menu all formed part of the program.

The timing mattered. Monza is among the defining venues on the Formula 1 calendar, and the Italian Grand Prix remains especially important to Ferrari. In 2026, the race weekend carries another layer of interest around the Scuderia, with Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc representing Ferrari during a season that continues to draw intense attention to the team.

New York offered a very different setting from the circuit outside Milan, but that distinction was part of the appeal. Grand Street supplied its own established Italian context. The neighborhood’s restaurants, bakeries, storefronts and cultural history made the location more meaningful than a conventional promotional venue.

L’Industrie itself is a particularly appropriate host. Its Little Italy shop opened in March 2026 as the pizzeria’s third New York location, following Williamsburg and the West Village. The restaurant occupies 197 Grand Street between Mulberry and Mott streets, placing it directly within one of the most recognizable sections of the neighborhood.

Founder Massimo Laveglia has built L’Industrie around an Italian approach to ingredients and technique adapted to the New York slice. The combination has developed a considerable following. In August, Pizza Today named L’Industrie its 2026 Pizzeria of the Year, adding another distinction to a business whose expansion has been accompanied by sustained attention from New York diners.

The Grand Street location also carries an interesting neighborhood connection. It sits beside Ferrara Bakery & Cafe, the historic Little Italy institution whose presence stretches back more than a century. The juxtaposition gives the block an unusual range, with an established Italian-American landmark beside a newer pizzeria representing another generation of Italian influence in New York.

For Formula 1 weekend, that setting became a natural stage for a celebration built around Italian identity in several forms.

Ferrari at the Center of the Weekend

The automobiles supplied the event with its strongest visual statement.

A rare Ferrari does not require elaborate presentation to command attention. The proportions, engineering details and familiar insignia are enough. Seen in Manhattan rather than at a concours, private collection or race circuit, such cars take on another dimension because they become part of everyday city life for a brief period.

That accessibility is important to contemporary car culture. Ferrari ownership remains highly exclusive, but appreciation for the marque reaches a far broader audience. Children recognize the badge. Formula 1 supporters understand the racing history. Collectors distinguish between generations and specifications. Design enthusiasts appreciate the forms even without knowing every model designation.

Bringing those audiences together in Little Italy allowed the cars to operate as cultural objects as much as automobiles.

Ferrari’s relationship with Formula 1 makes that response particularly powerful during Monza weekend. The Scuderia has been part of the Formula 1 World Championship since its earliest era, and its presence at the Italian Grand Prix carries an importance that reaches beyond an ordinary race weekend.

The modern Ferrari Formula 1 story is equally compelling. Lewis Hamilton’s arrival at Ferrari joined one of the most accomplished drivers in the sport’s history with its most famous team. Charles Leclerc remains deeply associated with Ferrari and enjoys significant support among the Italian crowd. Their presence has ensured that the contemporary Scuderia continues to connect racing history with the current generation of Formula 1 followers.

In New York, that enthusiasm has become increasingly visible. Formula 1 now occupies space within fashion, hospitality, entertainment and design culture, and events such as Monza in Manhattan demonstrate how comfortably those communities can intersect.

The Monzarita Becomes the Weekend’s Signature Slice

L’Industrie approached the collaboration through the medium it knows best.

Massimo Laveglia created the Monzarita, an upside-down Margherita developed specifically for the occasion. The slice combined tomato sauce, aged and fresh mozzarella, basil pesto and Grana Padano, creating a recognizable Italian foundation with the particular attention to texture and finishing ingredients associated with L’Industrie. Two Monza-inspired pastries accompanied the special offering.

The name made the connection immediately clear, but the idea worked because the food remained credible on its own terms. A motorsport collaboration inside a respected pizzeria has to begin with something worth eating. L’Industrie treated the special menu as an extension of its established approach rather than as decoration around the event.

That distinction reflects Laveglia’s broader influence on the New York slice. Born in Italy and closely associated with the development of L’Industrie since taking over the Williamsburg operation in 2017, he has emphasized freshness, fermentation and carefully selected ingredients while retaining the accessibility of the slice-shop format.

His Little Italy location makes that philosophy especially visible. The restaurant operates largely as a standing and grab-and-go space, with the pizza-making process exposed to customers. A long metal counter and views into the kitchen maintain the practical rhythm of a New York slice shop even as the ingredients and technique receive close attention.

For Monza weekend, pizza therefore became an effective cultural connector. Ferrari represented Italian engineering. Formula 1 supplied competition and international spectacle. L’Industrie contributed a contemporary expression of Italian food in New York.

Each belonged to a different field, yet all could coexist naturally on Grand Street.

Race Service Adds a Collectible Dimension

Race Service introduced another part of modern motorsport culture through a three-shirt capsule collection.

Limited merchandise has become an increasingly important component of Formula 1’s relationship with fashion and younger audiences. Racing graphics, team colors and automotive references now appear well beyond traditional fan apparel, and Race Service has helped develop that intersection between motorsport and contemporary creative culture.

For the Little Italy takeover, the first 76 guests each day who purchased the Monzarita were slated to receive a limited-edition Monza NYC shirt, with a different exclusive design released each day. The number 76 gave the daily distribution a deliberately limited character, turning a visit for pizza into an opportunity to leave with a piece connected specifically to the weekend.

That structure encouraged the kind of participation that makes a pop-up memorable. Visitors were not simply observing a branded installation. They could eat the special slice, watch Formula 1, encounter the cars, listen to the music and potentially acquire an item produced for the occasion.

The result was a compact version of the increasingly broad Formula 1 universe.

Formula 1 Becomes a New York Social Occasion

The broadcasts were central to the event.

Practice 2 was scheduled to stream at L’Industrie on Friday morning, followed by live qualifying on Saturday at 10 a.m. The pizzeria remained open until 10 p.m. during the takeover, giving visitors a full day around the programming and special menu.

Apple TV’s Formula 1 presentation supplied the technological side of the experience. Coverage for the weekend included 4K presentation with Dolby Vision and 5.1 surround, along with multiple available live feeds and viewing options.

The Italian Grand Prix itself is scheduled for Sunday, September 6, at 9 a.m. Eastern Time, with U.S. coverage available on Apple TV.

That distinction is worth noting because the physical Monza in Manhattan activation concluded Saturday night. The screenshot circulating around the event describes Saturday as the final day, while the race follows on Sunday morning. The three-day Little Italy gathering was therefore the New York prelude to the Grand Prix rather than a Sunday race-day pop-up.

In some ways, that sequencing suited the concept. Visitors spent the preceding days moving through the rhythms of a Formula 1 weekend, from practice toward qualifying, before the focus returned to Monza for the Grand Prix itself.

It also showed how significantly Formula 1 viewing culture has changed in the United States. A race weekend can now become an occasion encompassing food, clothing, music, automotive design and social gathering. The sport remains the foundation, but the culture around it has expanded.

New York is particularly receptive to that approach because the city routinely brings specialized communities into close contact. A pizza shop can become a motorsport venue for a weekend without losing its identity as a neighborhood restaurant.

Little Italy Finds a Contemporary Italian Moment

The location ultimately gave the project its strongest sense of identity.

Little Italy carries a long and complicated relationship with Italian culture. Its historic significance is substantial, while its modern character continues to evolve alongside the rest of Lower Manhattan. The arrival of L’Industrie earlier this year introduced a contemporary Italian-owned food business into that established landscape.

The Ferrari and Formula 1 weekend extended that idea.

Italy was represented through current culture rather than nostalgia alone. The focus was on contemporary pizza, modern Formula 1 broadcasting, collectible apparel, music and Ferrari automobiles whose relevance continues through both heritage and present-day competition.

That balance made the event feel appropriate for 2026.

It also demonstrated the enduring breadth of Ferrari’s cultural reach. The marque can be appreciated through racing results and engineering, but its public significance extends into design, collecting, fashion and national identity. A gathering in Little Italy can therefore attract people with very different reasons for stopping.

Some arrive because they know Ferrari.

Some come because they follow Formula 1.

Others know L’Industrie.

Still others simply encounter an unusual scene on Grand Street and decide to look more closely.

That mixture is part of what gives New York automotive events their character. Cars that may normally be encountered in highly controlled environments suddenly appear within the ordinary movement of Manhattan. People can examine details at close range and share the experience with an audience that includes dedicated collectors and casual passersby.

For Ferrari, whose road and racing histories remain closely intertwined, such an environment can communicate something that a static advertisement cannot. The automobiles themselves carry the history.

The food does something similar for L’Industrie. The Monzarita did not need to reproduce an Italian Grand Prix experience literally. It simply needed to connect Laveglia’s own Italian background, his New York pizzeria and the Monza theme in a way that remained enjoyable and recognizable.

Race Service completed another part of that connection by giving the weekend a graphic identity that visitors could take with them.

Apple TV provided the link back to the actual competition, ensuring that the celebration remained anchored to Formula 1 rather than becoming merely Ferrari-themed entertainment.

Together, those elements produced a particularly New York version of an Italian Grand Prix weekend.

There was considerable sophistication in its simplicity. Rare cars, a respected pizzeria, a limited slice, live racing, music and a small run of clothing were enough. The collaboration did not require an elaborate temporary venue because Grand Street already supplied a setting with meaning.

For L’Industrie, the weekend also marked another chapter in what has been a significant year. The Little Italy restaurant opened in March, and by late summer the location was hosting an international motorsport collaboration while the broader L’Industrie operation carried the distinction of being Pizza Today’s 2026 Pizzeria of the Year.

For Formula 1 supporters, the event created a physical connection to a Grand Prix taking place thousands of miles away.

For Ferrari enthusiasts, it offered the simple pleasure of seeing exceptional Italian automobiles in one of Manhattan’s most recognizable Italian-American neighborhoods.

And for Little Italy, it provided a convincing example of how the neighborhood can remain connected to its heritage while accommodating new expressions of Italian culture.

Ferrari red, a fresh Monzarita slice, Race Service graphics and Formula 1 on screen formed the visual vocabulary of the weekend at 197 Grand Street. Each element had its own audience, and together they created a celebration that felt specific to both Monza and Manhattan.

The Grand Prix remains in Italy, where Ferrari’s relationship with the race is written into the history of Formula 1. Yet for three days in New York, that culture had a lively address in Little Italy, centered on remarkable cars, excellent pizza and a shared enthusiasm for one of Italy’s most enduring names.

There are performers who make you wonder how they did it. Then there are performers who make you stop caring how they did it because you’re having far too much fun watching them do it. Suhani Shah belongs firmly in the second category.

Her Spellbound, now finishing its limited New York engagement at SoHo Playhouse, left me with two questions: Why is this woman not playing a much larger venue, and how is she not already a household name in America and beyond?

Shah certainly isn’t unknown elsewhere. She has performed more than 5,000 shows across 20 countries, amassed more than 10 million followers across social media, and brought Spellbound to sold-out audiences across India, the UK, Australia and beyond. In 2025, she received FISM’s Award for Best Magic Creator, becoming the first Indian to receive the honor. Yet this extraordinary performer has arrived in New York for a relatively intimate run at SoHo Playhouse, where Spellbound plays only through September 6.

New York, pay attention. Shah doesn’t need spectacle. There are no massive contraptions, disappearing elephants or Las Vegas machinery attempting to convince us that something impossible just happened. Her material is human beings. She watches, listens, plays, calculates—or does something I am still not entirely prepared to explain—and somehow appears to get inside people’s minds. More importantly, she is completely adorable.

That matters more than it sounds. Mentalism can become chilly very quickly. There is something inherently intimidating about a performer standing in front of an audience essentially saying, I know something you haven’t told me. Shah removes that barrier with humor, warmth and an extraordinary natural likability. She has that elusive quality the entertainment industry spends fortunes trying to manufacture: the “it” factor. You want to watch her before she has done anything astonishing.

Then she starts doing astonishing things. Spellbound is built around audience participation, with Shah pulling seemingly random information from the people sitting in front of her. The audience isn’t decoration; it becomes her material. Numbers are chosen, thoughts are formed, decisions appear spontaneous, and Shah keeps pulling information out of the room that she simply shouldn’t possess.

Then comes the piece that floored me. Early in the evening, Shah borrows a twenty-dollar bill from an audience member. Remember that bill. You won’t understand its importance until much later. Another audience member receives what appears to be a certificate naming them the evening’s “Best Audience Member.” Someone is brought onstage, and that person and four others supply random numbers. Nothing about the sequence seems particularly consequential at the time. It is simply another piece of Shah’s very clever game with the audience. Until the end.

The certificate isn’t what we thought it was. It contains the total of those randomly supplied numbers. That twenty-dollar bill returns. Its serial number corresponds to the same number. I was spellbound.

But something more interesting happened to me during Spellbound. Shah convinced me so completely of her ability that I began wanting more than the show was designed to give me.

The material in Spellbound is wonderfully calibrated for a broad audience. It is funny, accessible, surprising and enormously people-pleasing. People gasp. They laugh. They stare at each other trying to work out what the hell just happened. Shah understands exactly how to construct an evening that sends an audience home delighted.

I wanted her to go deeper. I wanted to know what happens when Suhani Shah stops asking for numbers and begins asking the questions we don’t know how to answer. I wanted to see what she perceives beneath the easily accessible layers of a person. I wanted the psychological, intuitive, even psychic possibilities of what she does explored much further.

That is admittedly asking Shah to perform a rather different show—and quite possibly one that a general audience wouldn’t want to experience. I am the person who wants to know what is underneath the underneath. Give me the trick and I’m delighted. Convince me that you can actually perceive something I cannot, and I immediately want to know what that ability says about consciousness, intuition and the human mind. Shah made me believe there is considerably more there.

Whether what she does is mentalism, extraordinary observation, psychology, intuition, technique, something genuinely psychic, or some combination Shah is far too clever to reveal. What I can say is that sitting in the theatre, she made it feel absolutely real. That is ultimately the mentalist’s greatest trick or is it a trick?

The title Spellbound turns out to be unusually accurate. Suhani Shah is warm, funny, astonishingly accomplished and enormously charismatic. More than that, she feels like a performer who has not yet reached the size of American stage she belongs on. SoHo Playhouse may be where New York is discovering her. I have a strong suspicion it won’t be where New York ultimately keeps her.

By the way, T2C isn’t finished with her yet. Check out Live From The Hotel Edison Times Square Chronicles Presents, where Suhani Shah will join us for our next podcast. After watching her read an audience, I have an infinite amount of  questions of my own that I can not wait to address.

Do not miss Spellbound. It plays at the SoHo Playhouse through September 6th, so you have two more performances to catch her. Information and tickets are available through SoHo Playhouse, with Shah’s future international dates available at Suhani Shah’s official site.

This is not a show to miss.