Broadway
The Best of 2022 On Stage – in NYC, London, and Toronto
Oh, what a year it was. Running back and forth with a vengeance from Toronto to NYC, with stops in London, England, and London, Canada. Mostly for the sake of theatre. It was quite the adventure, but there were so many theatrical moments that made it so very worth it all. And I wouldn’t change a thing. Except maybe not having to wait to see NYTW’s Merrily We Roll Along. (You can click on each and every title for a link to my frontmezzjunkies review, if you so desire.)

Sara Bareilles in Into the Woods on Broadway.
Photo Credit: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade
At the top of the heap is Into the Woods, which began in May as another star-filled Encores production at NYCC. And I owe that all to the amazingly warm and wonderful Sara Bareilles as The Baker’s Wife, who filled the role with such tenderness and humor that I couldn’t wait to see it once again when it transferred to Broadway, to even more acclaim. “This fairytale adventure is and continues to be a forever joy, delivering a connected, clever piece of magical storytelling, that takes smart off-the-path twists and turns with several well-known children’s bedtime stories, and one brand new one; The Baker and his Wife. Sondheim expertly weaves them together into a compelling musical about wishing and wanting, and if you stay for Act II, you learn that actions have consequences and that one must lead by example. We get the answer to what happens when you actually get what you wish for, and what one can learn from what they lost. All played out in and amongst the white birch woods on the stage of the St. James Theatre, surrounded by the wonderful Encores! orchestra, led by the musical director, Robert Berman (Broadway’s Bright Star).” And because of popular demand and a long list of stars happy to step into roles as replacements, the show is still playing, even though it started out as a short-term investment.

Photo Credit: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade
Back when I wrote the review, I stated: “Directed with a joyful acknowledgment of the fine cast assembled and the impeccable piece of writing at her disposal, DeBessonet executes the task most effectively and efficiently, finding all of the humor and care inside Sondheim’s smart words and melodies. The overlaying is magnificent, and although I thought, as I did with the Encores! production, that the piece could use a bit more intrepid introspection into the darkness and sensuality of the lyrics, the production steadfastly unearths a straightforward jokie innocence that lives beautifully deep in the entangled darkness. All and all, this bypass doesn’t come even close to hurting this production, mainly because it is full of wildly wonderful performances having a fun comedic playtime with every scene and scenario, unpacking and delivering with gusto, intelligence, and bravado.”
Other musical adventures that spiked my senses during the year 2022 included Some Like It Hot on Broadway. A musical film-to-stage remake that both did the original justice and took the story into our modern sensibilities without missing one tap dancing step. The question, “What are you thirsty for?” rings true in regards to this newly crafted dynamically funny production, “delivered by the unstoppable Sweet Sue, embodied by the impossibly strong, vocally-gifted Natasha Yvette Williams (Broadway’s Chicken and Biscuits) in the first moments of Broadway’s newest film-to-stage musical. Williams’ voice surges forth, demanding us to sit up to the Depression and be amazed.” It will truly be the one to knock on the Tony Award door, right after the incomparable Kimberly Akimbo, my all-time favorite new musical of the 2022/23 season so far. “It’s warm and impossibly touching, yet many of the characters are not”.

“Even on my second viewing, this time at the Booth Theatre on Broadway, this fantastic new musical, maybe the best of the season, finds its way into our collective heart so beautifully but from paths unexpected. It drives itself forward, down such a winding road, finding a golden and unique place to call home, where the music and the songs find a way of elevating the story with glee while keeping its sense of self-honest and truthful.” The truth and wonder in the show, and in the cast presentation, particularly the incredibly convincing Victoria Clark (Broadway’s Gigi; The Light in the Piazza), alongside all her costars, make this a must-see in my books, and hopefully will take home a slew of awards in the spring.
There is also the surprisingly good and fun & Juliet that jumped over the pond, via Toronto, and took over the Stephen Sondheim Theatre with a gusto that is infectious, and I mean that in all the best fun ways possible. “Marvelously fun and enthusiastically appealing, this show delivers with a smart smirk inside a ridiculously fun pretense. And it couldn’t be any better if you tried.” On Broadway, it’s joyously clever, and I say that even though I wasn’t as struck by it when I saw it years ago in the West End of London. Now, I must admit “It’s super dope!”

But let’s not forget, nor ignore A Strange Loop, the musical that “Leaps High Across the Divide” transferring onto Broadway from Playwrights Horizons and breaking barriers left, right, and center. “This isn’t Broadway’s typical musical looking through the looking glass into some part of her soul thinking “white girls can do anything, can’t they?“ This is playwright Michael R. Jackson (Amazon’s “I’m a Virgo“) finding his own on Broadway, whirling around intersectionality in the most detailed and delightfully dark loop, probably throwing not just a few patrons off their comfy little Broadway seats.” And remember, it took home a heaping bunch of Tonys.
And what about Broadway’s Ain’t No Mo’? ““Say yes, bitch!” “Especially once the sound ministry gets it together and wakes up the mournful spectacularly in white… the roof is raised high by that ministry, with all of that wailing and carrying on by a gaggle of mourners flinging forth with such enthusiasm in the first and foremost vignette from the satirical and devilishly funny” Ain’t No Mo’ that played out a much too short run on Broadway at the magnificent Belasco Theatre. “This piece of surprising power that debuted back in 2019 at The Public Theater is stuffed solidly inside a laugh-out-loud flight of fancy written by an impressive Jordan E. Cooper (“The Ms. Pat Show“) that consistently shows its smart deep roots with every unveiling.” It should still be playing to packed houses. But sadly it is not.
Off-Broadway the Classic Stage Company production of A Man of No Importancesurprised and touched my heart, starring an engaging Jim Parsons (Broadway/Netflix’s Boys in the Band), the always excellent Mare Winningham (Broadway’s The Girl from the North Country), and the electric and sexy A.J. Shively (Broadway’s Paradise Square; Bright Star). There was also Suffs at the Public, which “Majestically Climbs Those Hard Earned Stairs Beautifully” shaking some things up with its politics and power. As well as Atlantic Theater’s devastatingly good, The Bedwetter which I was lucky to get in to see just before it closed. Sadly I missed the chance to witness both Bebe Neuwirth and Caissie Levy, but that “Sarah, as portrayed most deliciously by the very talented Zoe Glick, (Broadway’s Frozen), had me at hello, basically…., it’s completely captivating, and Glick finds her spotlight as… the fresh, fictionalized young pre-teen version of Silverman, walking out boldly into the spotlight to introduce herself to her new classmates, and in turn, to us. And we know immediately, we can’t get enough. Swear words, and all.”

I sadly missed the Encores! production of Parade starring Ben Platt at NY City Center (but I hear I’ll get my chance next season when it transfers to Broadway. Woo Hoo!), as well as Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along at New York Theatre Workshop, although I have a ticket waiting for me at the box office for early January long before it transfers to Broadway in the fall. So no tears for me, I guess as I’ll get to see that classic show twice. And it will most likely make it onto my next year’s list. Probably, from what I’ve heard, right next to Parade. Fingers crossed.
Luckily, I was able to sneak my way in for a second round of the Broadway revival of Funny Girl solely to catch Lea Michele (Broadway’s Spring Awakening) dominating the stage in a role she seemed destined for her to devour. The show itself is fairly well designed and directed (although not perfectly), and when it starred the terribly miscast Beanie Feldstein, it never really rose above second hand, but with Michele in the part, it really does elevate this Funny Girl to grand new heights, making it her very own while vocally honoring the icon Streisand. “It still has some intrinsic flaws, but now, in this rejuvenated production, the show spins and swirls with so much more assurance, saving it from the stormy waters that were crashing up against its sides before the recasting. The musical easily pulls in the already excited audience, with Lea elevating the production into the enthusiastic fine space it belongs. Finally, the ship has been saved from going under. Thank goodness.”
The best plays of the year (not the new season) are a fascinatingly eclectic bunch, with most of them being connected to London, England in one way or another. By far, the best thing I saw was The Doctor spinning spectacularly smart in the West End. “It stands strong and stoically upfront, unpacking complexities such as medical ethics, identity politics, racism, antisemitism, and a whole bunch of other compelling conflicts that are boiling through our society currently, with a brilliance that is astonishing. One of the main vantage points that it forces a confrontation with is the ideas that swirl around unconscious bias and projected constructs. The play sneaks in loudly, filling the space with a focused intensity from the moment the music and the lights pinpoint the actors intently walking in”. It originated at the Almeida Theatre, toured the UK, and landed in the West End at the Duke of York’s Theatre, where I saw it over Thanksgiving. Starring the magnificent Juliet Stevenson (Robert Icke’s West End adaptation of Mary Stuart), it is the most excitingly crafted play I’ve seen in a long time, maybe since The Lehman Trilogy, tackling issue upon issue with a brilliance that is almost deafening. Written and directed by the amazing Robert Icke, The Doctor shouldn’t be missed, especially when it makes its way over to NYC – not on Broadway, surprisingly, but at the Park Avenue Armory in the early summer. Go.
Second on my list is Tom Stoppard’s semi-autobiographical play, Leopoldstadt, which dramatizes events and complications around Jewish identity, cultural assimilation, and anti-Semitism around the Second World War in Europe. Clocking in around two hours, this National Theatre, London production “Digs Deep into History and the Heart” steadily galvanizing our senses while never giving us the chance to back away from the crushing emotional dynamics at its core. “Holding it all in, close to the heartstrings, Stoppard’s intense play dives deep into the generational trauma and descent of an affluent Jewish family living and intellectualizing their existence with an understandable false sense of security. And ultimately, we are living that delusional nightmare right now, as Fascism tries to grab hold in the early 21st Century.”

Other great plays that made their way onto the stage include the Broadway production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. The West End transfer revival “shines a misty light on the memories and arguments that hover in the past, forcing themselves down and forward into the present. The production wisely uncovers all from a new vantage point, that of the Black Man’s experience inside that twisted American Dream that hangs above our collective heads around prosperity and success. The revival shifts this view, elevating and expanding Miller’s vision exponentially, thanks to the inventive craftpersonship of director Miranda Cromwell (Almeida Theatre’s and breathe…) who unpacks an idea that few knew was so essential to the play and our present.” It’s a play that at first I wasn’t exactly interested in seeing one more time. But boy, am I glad I did.
The West End revival of Mike Bartlett’s Cock that I saw in London also filled my mind with exciting wonder. With a starry glee, even with the replacement of its big-named draw, the dashing and talented Taron Egerton, the production “stands up tall and strong for the whole world to see, thanks to the combative stance of playwright Bartlett (King Charles III). He has formulated a ring where the men stand at odds, all of a sudden, out of the blue, all because of an accident followed by a run-in meet/cute with a fellow commuter.”
“Director Marianne Elliott (West End/Broadway’s Angels in America) guides us convincingly through Bartlett’s battleground of sexuality, gender expression, and identity giving the whole engagement a precise edge. She lets them hang out in confusion, within their own limited constructs, contorting them in and around one another with expert ease.” Egerton’s replacement, the phenomenally talented and impressive Joel Harper-Jackson (UK Tour of Kinky Boots) was a dream, probably for both of us, but it really was all about the Olivier Award winner Jonathan Bailey (West End’s Company) who elevated it all, as only a “Bridgerton” could.
Martyna Majok’s captivatingly strong Cost of Living “Spins a Fascinating and Compelling Net of Complicated Care and Sorrow.” The MTC show takes us in deep, determinately revolving us around the complications and struggles of living with some pretty serious physical disabilities. Also asking us to sit up and take notice is Bruce Norris’s Downstate at Playwrights Horizons, a show I also saw first at the National Theatre in London. It does us something similar, but this time it swings us around the concepts of punishment when it comes to sex offenders. “The play, as directed strongly by Pam MacKinnon (PH’s Log Cabin), ventures strongly up and into our collective faces, digging deep inside this controversial and dynamically real argument about punishment and survival in a morally ambiguous dimension. Authentically moving and utterly disturbing, the play begins with a victim coming forward to confront his past and the perpetrator of sexual abuse he experienced from his piano teacher when he was a young child, and from there, it spins its web inside and out of this complicated group home structure.”
There was Mary-Louise Parker (Broadway’s The Sound Inside; HBO’s “Angels in America“) who took over that Broadway stage with an emotionally captivating remounting of Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive, which “is as rich and dense on the inside as it is on the outside, folded in and around a difficult subject matter with an artful wonder.” On the opposite side of the spectrum, we can’t forget about Broadway’s funniest comedy of the 2021/22 season, POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive. That team of artists involved “definitely know how to keep this ruckus play going strong and rocking, delivering line after line of hilarity for us all to savor. It’s pure deliciousness, this farce about all the female staff that works together to keep the country out of trouble. They do this with aplomb, all the while babysitting the idiot that holds the highest office in the land. If only all these women who brought forth this comedy actually could run the country. We might be better off.”
Martin McDonagh’s Hangmen also delivered once again some brilliance from over there across the pond after this devastatingly good black comedy from off-Broadway transferred to the Broadway stage. “Roping us in tightly to what is at the core of Martin McDonagh’s 1963 England” the play, unfortunately, got a bit knocked off its chair because of the lockdown and never found its audience and footing once it returned. There was the beautiful and elegant A Prayer for the French Republic at MTC’s New York City Center Stage 1. “Clocking in at an impressively brave three-plus hours, this multi-generational tale of a persecuted Jewish family living in Paris is, in general, a captivating triumph, one worthy of your attention and patience.” Truly.
And let’s not forget Sanaz Toossi’s mesmerizingly impressive and thoughtful play English at Atlantic Theater, as well as Ana Nogueira’s hilariously good Which Way to the Stage at MCC Theater that elevates the over-the-top fandom of musical theatre legends to a whole new exciting level. “Theatrical references are thrown around like beautiful fun confetti in MCC Theater‘s hilarious and surprisingly meaningful new play, Which Way to the Stage. They fly in and out with a smart force, zinging to the heart of the matter, before ricocheting around to hit another theatrical target dead center with aplomb. It’s epic and zazzy dialogue, written with a clever insider spark, shot out with such wild and insightful abandonment that we are left speechless.”

In a one-person theatrical realm all to its own, a number of shows masterfully engaged us without a lot of help from other actors. The wonderfully funny storyteller, Mike Birbiglia, did it again with his honest and hilarious The Old Man & The Pool, which took over the large Lincoln Center Theater Main Stage most swimmingly breathing depth and insight into his hilarity. There was the riveting The Human Voice in the West End that “Connects Even When Disconnection is at its Core” starring the one and only Ruth Wilson (Broadway’s Constellations; King Lear) all alone on stage behind a plate of glass.
An amusing and brilliant triumph, equal to two smaller shows in Toronto that I also couldn’t get out of my mind easily, not that I wanted to. There was the wonderfully creative Haley McGee hitting the Right Formula in The Ex-Boyfriend Yard Sale at Soulpepper Theatre, and the intimately moving and upsetting Civilized at the Red Sandcastle Theatre that floored me emotionally. This play is “a must-see, for everyone who wants to truly understand the hatred and white supremacy that was at the core of these [Residental] schools and our country’s creation. It was not a pleasant evening of theatre, as there were many moments I could not look up from the ground at the actor on stage. But these words matter, and this is an important piece for us all to hear and take in.”
Speaking of Toronto, I can’t even begin to tell you how grateful I am to have the opportunity to see such great theatre here in Canada. A few productions stood out, captivating and enthralling me with their precision and artistic sensibilities. There was Factory Theatre’s absolutely genius production of Trojan Girls & The Outhouse of Atreus. It “Throws Grease on the Fire for a Greek Tragedy Swing Romp“, and completely blew me away. “This two-part/two-play simultaneous immersive production flies forth with confidence and skill, almost defying description. It transcends both time and the indoor/outdoor spaces where this two-party play melts together Greek mythology and modern vernacular with aplomb. Unfolding inside and out, at the same time, with the same cast in multiple connective parts, this epically exciting exploration of personal and global inheritance, citing the impending climate change emergency hanging dangerously over our worlds, jumps as high as Evil Knievel over our heads, forcing us all to grapple with deep seeded themes of parent/child attachment and personal tragedy, stitched inside love, lust, Greek tragedy, and immortal demands.”
And let’s not forget their intimate, engagingly brilliant Wildfire that Toronto’s Factory Theatre “Magnificently Ignites … Most Strong, Bright, and Deliciously Weird“. “Exquisitely translated by Leanna Brodie (For Home and Country) from [David] Paquet’s play, Le brasier, the three orphaned souls, each living in different apartments slowly weaves and are bound together by the subtle and instinctual writing. We discover their intimate emotional connections, inch by inch, step by step, call by call, all within the same familial and physical structure that binds them forever together, and as each layer of that fire is built and burnt, the love and the hate of the flames dance before us with an ease and an intensity that is studiously astounding.”
Soulpepper Theatre also delivered strongly their lined-up productions of King Lear, a classic by Shakespeare, and Queen Goneril, a new play by Erin Shields (If We Were Birds), that “unearths all the magic required to turn this on its head and expand our understanding.” As well as the tender and emotional Where The Blood Mixes, a play that “Swims Strong in the Rough Muddy Currents of our Trauma.” “This was one of those ‘hard to take in’ and ‘difficult to let go’ experiences that happen sometimes when you see something so smart, dynamic, and meaningful in theatre. The number of metaphoric layers that are formed inside the first play written by Kevin Loring (Battle of the Birds) is utterly astounding. [The play] feels ever so effortless, especially as it slowly dips its toes in the current.”

“It Took Three (Companies) For These Two (Sisters) to Act So Powerfully for (She) the One” in the Intense Is God Is that brought fire and revenge to the Canadian Stage Theatre. “The 2018 play by the brilliant American writer Aleshea Harris (On Sugerland) is one wild ride, reminiscent of a dark American ‘Oedipus Rex‘ reformulated into a modern-day violent road trip, raising itself up like a Greek chorus in the Wild West. The action within Sophocles’s play concerns Oedipus’s search for the murderer of Laius in order to end a plague ravaging Thebes, unaware that the killer he is looking for is none other than himself. The journey is the core, with the play unleashing horrific acts of patricide and incest, leaving the central character so overwhelmed with guilt that he proceeds to gouge out his own eyes in despair. This is not exactly the framework within Harris’s Is God Is, but some of the frameworks fit, and many of the horrors remain disturbingly in full view after the truth finally comes to light.”
I didn’t get a chance to see Talk is Free Theatre‘s Sweeney Todd, but I sure would have loved to. The same could be said about Coal Mine Theatre‘s The Antipodes, Studio 180/Off-Mirvish‘s Indecent, as well as Crow’s Theatre‘s Red Velvet, but you can’t see everything, I am (sadly) told. But I was able to get myself over to the wonderful Tarragon Theatre to see their production of Cockroach that “Powerfully and Intensely Flourishes Against All the Racist Odds of the World.” The play “transforms our perception of the ‘where’ and the ‘what’ we are collectively experiencing, thanks to the exceptional writing by playwright Ho (Iphigenia and the Furies (On Taurian Land); Antigone: 方; trace). It scratches and demands, wrapping our heads up in and around parallels and symbols that deepen and twist our consciousness into knots so complicated and distinct that we can sometimes get snarled up and trapped within. But hopefully, find our way out.” It, and every production listed here, continue to scamper around my brain and heart for days and days beyond their viewing. Like a cockroach, I guess. In the best of possible ways.

Broadway
Dolly Parton’s Broadway Dream Lives On: DOLLY: A True Original Musical Announces Full Cast and a Birthday Opening
The St. James Theatre will welcome Dolly’s life story this December, with opening night set for what would have been the legend’s 81st birthday.
Broadway has always loved a star, but few stars have possessed the combination of talent, wit, generosity, determination and sheer individuality that made Dolly Parton a cultural institution. Now, as Broadway prepares to bring her extraordinary life to the stage, the occasion carries a poignancy nobody originally anticipated. As was Dolly’s wish, DOLLY: A True Original Musical will begin previews December 7 at the St. James Theatre, with its official opening scheduled for January 19, 2027, what would have been her 81st birthday.
The show must go on, and in this case, those words carry considerably more meaning than the familiar theatrical expression. Dolly was not merely the subject of this musical. She helped create it, wrote new songs specifically for the production and collaborated with Emmy Award-winning writer Maria S. Schlatter on the book. This is her story told through her own music, her own humor and her own understanding of the remarkable journey that took a little girl from the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee to international superstardom.
The producers have now announced the complete Broadway company, with Crystal Kellogg joining the principal cast as Judy Ogle, Dolly’s best friend since the third grade. It is an especially meaningful role in a musical about a woman whose fame never completely severed her connection to the people and places that shaped her.
Kellogg, whose credits include Finding Neverland, School of Rock and the national tour of & Juliet, joins Katie Rose Clarke and Carrie St. Louis, who will portray Dolly at different stages of her life, with Norah Nunes appearing as Little Dolly. John Behlmann takes on the role of Carl Dean, Dolly’s famously private husband, while Gabriel Ebert portrays Porter Wagoner, the country music star whose professional partnership with Parton became one of the defining chapters of her early career.
There is rich theatrical material in those relationships. Dolly’s marriage to Dean endured for decades despite her very public career and his determination to remain outside the spotlight. Her association with Wagoner helped introduce her to a national audience, but their eventual professional separation also became part of her extraordinary journey toward artistic independence. It was that separation that inspired one of her most enduring compositions, “I Will Always Love You,” a song whose emotional generosity has often obscured the remarkable strength behind its creation.
Under the direction of Tony Award winner Bartlett Sher, the musical promises to explore the woman behind the rhinestones rather than simply assemble a parade of greatest hits. The score includes “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colors,” “9 to 5” and “I Will Always Love You,” alongside new material written by Parton for the stage. With a catalog containing more than 3,000 songs, the challenge is hardly finding enough music. It is choosing which songs best illuminate the life that produced them.
And what a life it was. Born into poverty in rural Tennessee, Parton built a career that crossed musical genres, generations and cultural boundaries. She became a country music legend, a successful actress, a businesswoman, a philanthropist and one of the rare celebrities whose appeal extended far beyond the audience that first made her famous. Beneath the wigs, the elaborate costumes and the perfectly delivered jokes was a songwriter with an extraordinary gift for expressing complicated emotions in language anyone could understand.
That gift is precisely what makes her story so promising for musical theatre. Dolly understood character, conflict, longing and the power of a memorable refrain. Her songs frequently tell complete stories in a matter of minutes. The challenge for this production will be to weave those individual stories into a theatrical portrait that reveals something more than audiences already know.
The company surrounding the principal cast is substantial, with Piper Allen, Bill Army, Josh Canfield, Lincoln Cohen, Ryan Demoville, Haley Fish, Sarah Hunt, Erin Kei, Evan Kinnane, Ryland J. Mar, Jenny Mollet, James Moye, Julian Ramos, Larkin Reilly, Maddie Robert, Alex Ross and Quinn VanAntwerp completing the ensemble. Sarah Bockel, Sadie Daniels, Tiffany Engen, Michael Milkanin and Rixey Terry will serve as swings. The company brings together established Broadway performers, returning members of the Nashville production and artists making their Broadway debuts.
Behind the scenes, Sher has assembled a formidable creative team. Mandy Moore provides choreography, Derek McLane designs the scenery, Jennifer Moeller creates the costumes, Donald Holder handles lighting and Peter Hylenski designs the sound. Nathan Amzi and Joe Ransom are responsible for video design, with Robert Pickens overseeing hair and Studio Pickens creating makeup. Stephen Oremus serves as music supervisor, Charity Wicks as music director and John Clancy as orchestrator. Longtime Parton collaborators Richard Dennison, Gregg Perry and Kent Wells bring an invaluable connection to the musical world she created.
The production arrives on Broadway following its world premiere in Nashville at Belmont University’s Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. The sold-out engagement became the most successful production in the venue’s history, establishing an enthusiastic foundation for the show’s New York debut. Broadway, of course, is another matter entirely. It will be interesting to see how a musical conceived with its subject’s personal involvement evolves into a lasting theatrical tribute.
In true Dolly fashion, the producers are also finding a way to make the celebration accessible to fans. On Monday, November 9, when the St. James Theatre box office opens at 10 a.m., the first 100 people in line will have the opportunity to purchase two tickets for just $9.25 each for select performances between January and May 2027. The offer is available exclusively in person, and the price is a playful nod to Dolly’s beloved 9 to 5. Fans who turn out that morning will also receive a complimentary cup of her new Cup of Ambition coffee.
It’s difficult to imagine a more fitting promotion. Dolly built an empire without ever losing her appreciation for the ordinary people who helped make it possible. A Broadway ticket priced at $9.25, accompanied by a cup of coffee, feels like the kind of gesture she would have enjoyed immensely.
But the emotional center of this production remains its opening date. January 19 was meant to be a birthday celebration. It will now be something more complicated and, in many ways, more moving: an opportunity for the Broadway community to celebrate an artist whose creative imagination continued expanding long after she had conquered virtually every other corner of the entertainment industry.
There will undoubtedly be tears mixed with the laughter, and an unmistakable sense of absence amid the rhinestones and music. Yet there is also something wonderfully appropriate about honoring Dolly Parton not with silence, but with a Broadway musical filled with the songs she gave the world.
Dolly spent her life refusing to be limited by other people’s expectations. She turned what others dismissed as excess into an unmistakable signature, transformed personal experiences into universal songs and built a career on the conviction that being a true original was worth far more than fitting comfortably into someone else’s idea of success.
Now Broadway gets to tell that story.
While Dolly herself will not be standing in the wings on opening night, her fingerprints will be everywhere: in the music, in the characters, in the humor, in the heart and, undoubtedly, in every rhinestone that catches the light.
The curtain will rise on January 19. The birthday girl will be missing, but the celebration she dreamed of will go on.
DOLLY: A True Original Musical begins previews December 7, 2026, and officially opens January 19, 2027, at the St. James Theatre, 246 West 44th Street. Tickets are available at dollymusical.com, with the initial booking period running through November 21, 2027.
Broadway
Ben Franklin – in Paris???
Well, yes, he was in Paris, at 54 Below’s presentation of Ben Franklin in Paris, the 1964 musical by Mark Sandrich, Jr. and Sidney Michaels, with two additional songs by Jerry Herman. James Woods was a superb music director, while Walter Willison did the heavy lifting here, as producer and director, and then tackled the title role.
This outing, celebrating the 250th anniversary of our nation’s independence, was a welcome addition to the many tributes popping up to mark the occasion, and hats off to 54 Below for bringing this musical to the forefront if only for one evening.
(Video by Magda Katz)
The year 1964 was a big one in Broadway history, with Hello, Dolly!, Funny Girl, and She Loves Me all vying for attention. Coming off two Tony wins was Robert Preston, who took on the role of our gout-ridden Founding Father. Sadly, no Tony nomination this time around (the award went to Bert Lahr for Foxy).
Franklin was in Paris seeking financial support for the revolution being waged back home and not meeting with much success. An old flame, Diane, portrayed beautifully by Ann Kittredge, does not succumb to Franklin’s persuasive charm, leaving him in a somewhat frantic muddle. Playing several roles in this dilemma is Ron Spivak, whose deep baritone voice and comedic talent brought a natural charm to the proceedings.
Franklin’s was not the only romance afoot here. His son, played by Keaton Miller, is in his own pursuit of love, expressed beautifully in the song “When I Dance with the Person I Love.” Supporting cast included Keith Crowningshield, Timothy Jerome, Zoë Parrish, Melinda Hopkins and Sheila Wormer.
It is difficult to believe that amid Hello, Dolly! fever and excitement, Jerry Herman found the time to write two songs for this show. Done by Willison and Kittredge, ”Too Charming” and “To Be Alone with You” were standouts. Willison has retained the voice and charm that earned him a Tony Nomination at the beginning of his career. Kittredge certainly matched him in the voice/charm department and had the added advantage of being beautifully coiffed and dressed, with a French accent that was delicate and alluring.
A highlight came at the end in Franklin’s speech about future generations valuing the sacrifices made on their behalf to achieve freedom. It was a poignant moment that gave one pause amidst all the frivolity.
Art
About Face! Ken Fallin Takes Center Stage at New World Stages in a Celebration of Broadway, Hollywood and Beyond
More than 75 original works celebrate the extraordinary career of an artist who has made caricature an art form all its own.
Some artists capture a likeness. Others capture a personality. Ken Fallin does something considerably more remarkable: he captures the entire performance of being someone, often with nothing more than a few beautifully placed strokes of pen and ink.
At Gallery New World Stages, located at 343 West 49th Street, ABOUT FACE: THE ART OF KEN FALLIN brought together more than 75 original works celebrating one of the most distinctive artistic voices in American entertainment. Curated by Bernard Stote, the exhibition offered a fascinating journey through Broadway, Hollywood, politics and Wall Street, with a collection of famous faces transformed by Fallin’s unmistakable wit, elegance and extraordinary eye for character.
For those of us who have spent our lives in and around the theatre, Ken Fallin’s drawings are more than illustrations. They are part of Broadway’s visual vocabulary. His subjects may be actors, politicians, business leaders or cultural icons, but his genius lies in recognizing the detail that makes each individual unmistakably themselves. A raised eyebrow, an extravagant hairstyle, the angle of a chin or the particular way someone carries their importance becomes, in Fallin’s hands, an entire biography.
There is a wonderful theatricality to his work. He understands that a face is never simply a collection of features. It is an expression of ambition, vulnerability, humor, vanity, intelligence and sometimes magnificent absurdity. His drawings can be affectionate without becoming sentimental, pointed without becoming cruel and exaggerated without ever losing their essential truth. That balance is considerably harder to achieve than it looks.
Fallin’s career began with the wonderfully irreverent Forbidden Broadway, where he created advertising campaigns and posters for the legendary theatrical revue. Inspired by the incomparable Al Hirschfeld, Fallin developed his own distinctive approach to capturing the larger-than-life personalities who inhabit the entertainment world. It was an ideal artistic marriage: a show that lovingly skewered Broadway’s biggest stars and an illustrator who could reveal an entire theatrical personality in a handful of lines.
What followed was a career that extended far beyond the footlights. A five-year association with the Sunday edition of the Boston Herald established him as a regular presence in arts journalism, while national advertising campaigns for American Express, Belvedere Vodka and CNBC’s Squawk Box demonstrated that his visual wit could travel effortlessly between entertainment, commerce and the financial world.
His illustrations have appeared in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Hollywood Reporter, Chicago Tribune and The New Yorker. Since 1994, his work has been a regular presence in The Wall Street Journal, where his portraits have given personalities from business, politics and culture an unmistakable artistic identity. He has also chronicled the New York theatre scene through his illustrations since 2010, extending a tradition in which the artist becomes an essential witness to theatrical history.
That is precisely what makes Fallin’s work so important. Photography documents how someone looked at a particular moment. A great caricature tells us how that person occupied the world. It catches the public persona, the private eccentricity and the quality that makes an individual memorable long after a performance has ended or a headline has faded.
The comparison with Hirschfeld is inevitable, but Fallin has long since earned his own place in that distinguished artistic tradition. Where a lesser caricaturist might settle for an oversized nose or an exaggerated smile, Fallin understands composition, movement and the almost musical rhythm of a line. His drawings are deceptively economical. Nothing feels accidental, and very little is wasted. Each flourish has a purpose, whether it is revealing a performer’s flamboyance or exposing the carefully cultivated authority of a Wall Street titan.
His achievements have received recognition well beyond Broadway. In 2010, Fallin earned an Emmy Award nomination for an animated CNBC commercial, and in 2012, his first one-man exhibition, Ken Fallin Draws Hollywood, was presented at the Hamilton Selway Gallery in Los Angeles. His work is included in the permanent collection of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, an extraordinary distinction that places his drawings within one of the world’s great institutions devoted to art and design.
Then there are the private collectors, a roster that reads like a particularly glamorous opening-night party. Bernadette Peters, Angela Lansbury, Bob Avian, Sir Cameron Mackintosh, Sir Patrick Stewart, Marlo Thomas, Helen Hunt and Norbert Leo Butz are among those who own his work. It seems entirely appropriate that performers who have spent their careers interpreting characters should appreciate an artist who can interpret them so brilliantly.
New World Stages has given this remarkable body of work an ideal theatrical setting. Gallery New World Stages occupies 150 linear feet of exhibition space across two floors of the New World Stages complex, offering audiences an opportunity to encounter Fallin’s work in the heart of the neighborhood that has inspired so much of his career. Surrounded by five theatres and the constant energy of New York’s performing arts community, the gallery provides a fitting home for an artist whose imagination has been so closely intertwined with the stage.
There is also something especially satisfying about seeing caricature celebrated in a gallery rather than treated merely as an accompaniment to an article, advertisement or theatrical production. Illustration is too often regarded as a supporting art, even when the image becomes more memorable than the words it was created to accompany. Fallin’s work makes a persuasive argument that a great caricature deserves to be experienced as art in its own right.
For Broadway lovers, the exhibition is an opportunity to revisit the faces that have shaped our theatrical memories. For those interested in Hollywood, politics and popular culture, it offers a reminder that fame is as much about personality as achievement. And for anyone who appreciates extraordinary draftsmanship, it is a chance to study the remarkable precision behind drawings that appear almost effortlessly spontaneous.
What Ken Fallin has accomplished over the course of his career is more than the creation of an impressive collection of portraits. He has developed a visual record of the people who have entertained us, challenged us, influenced us and occasionally made us roll our eyes. His drawings preserve not simply their appearances but something of the cultural moment in which they mattered.
Long after a Broadway marquee goes dark, a television series ends or a political figure leaves the spotlight, Fallin’s lines remain, capturing the wit, extravagance and unmistakable humanity of his subjects.
And that, ultimately, is the magic of ABOUT FACE. We recognize the famous people on the walls, but we also recognize the extraordinary intelligence of the artist who saw them so clearly.
Because in Ken Fallin’s world, everybody has a face. But only a true artist knows which lines tell the story.
ABOUT FACE: THE ART OF KEN FALLIN is presented at Gallery New World Stages, 343 West 49th Street, New York City and is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Broadway
A Few Good Men Meets the Press: Michael Arden and Aaron Sorkin Return to the Truth
There are certain lines that become so famous they almost swallow the work that created them. “You can’t handle the truth!” is one of them. Jack Nicholson’s explosive delivery as Colonel Nathan Jessep in the 1992 film A Few Good Men became part of the cultural vocabulary, quoted and parodied so often that it is easy to forget something rather important: before Hollywood got hold of it, A Few Good Men was a play.
Now Aaron Sorkin’s breakthrough work is returning to the stage, and at a recent press meet and greet, the company of Lincoln Center Theater’s new Broadway production gathered ahead of its first preview Thursday, October 8, at the Vivian Beaumont Theater.
The revival brings together an intriguing combination of generations.
Bradley Whitford takes on Colonel Jessep, the role forever associated on film with Nicholson
Tom Blyth stars as Lt. Daniel Kaffee
Krysta Rodriguez plays Lt. Cdr. JoAnne Galloway.
They were joined by members of the company, Sorkin, director Michael Arden
and artistic director Lear deBessonet as the production offered its first real glimpse of what this A Few Good Men intends to be.
Arden seems considerably less interested in recreating an icon than in rediscovering a play.
That is precisely what makes this revival potentially fascinating. A Few Good Men premiered in 1989, when Sorkin was still in his twenties, before The West Wing, The Social Network, Steve Jobs and the unmistakable verbal rhythms that would eventually make “Sorkinesque” almost an adjective of its own. Sorkin has returned to the script himself for this production, revising and polishing the work and acknowledging that he considers himself a better writer today than the young man who originally wrote it.
There is something wonderfully audacious about that. Most writers would probably like to sneak back into their early work in the middle of the night with a red pencil. Sorkin actually gets to do it.
Yet the essential conflict remains potent: a military courtroom, the death of a young Marine, questions of obedience and responsibility, and the dangerous territory between following an order and being morally accountable for carrying it out. The play asks who gets to define duty, where authority ends and individual conscience begins, and what happens when institutions protect themselves by demanding unquestioning loyalty from the people inside them.
Those questions haven’t exactly grown quaint.
Arden, whose work as a director has repeatedly demonstrated an ability to approach familiar material without embalming it, is looking for new truths inside Sorkin’s text rather than treating the original production—or the enormously successful film—as sacred territory. That becomes particularly important with Whitford’s Jessep. Trying to reproduce Nicholson would be theatrical suicide. The far more interesting possibility is discovering another man entirely inside those words.
Whitford also arrives with his own long history inside Sorkin’s universe, most famously as Josh Lyman on The West Wing. There is an irresistible bit of theatrical symmetry in watching an actor so associated with delivering Sorkin’s language now inhabit one of the writer’s most formidable characters.
The company also promises to lean into something that sometimes gets lost beneath the courtroom fireworks: Sorkin can be extremely funny. His dialogue moves quickly because his characters think quickly, and humor frequently becomes both weapon and defense. Allowing that wit to breathe may help separate the stage production from the darker cinematic weight that has hung over the story for more than three decades.
At the meet and greet, what emerged was not a company attempting to compete with a beloved movie but one intent on reminding audiences that A Few Good Men was built for a room where actors and audience breathe together. A courtroom confrontation has a very different electricity when there is no camera deciding where we look.
Then there is that line. Everyone knows it is coming. That may be Whitford’s greatest challenge. How do you say five words that millions of people already hear in somebody else’s voice? The answer may lie in the philosophy behind the entire production: don’t try to erase what came before. Find the truth underneath it.
A Few Good Men begins previews Thursday, October 8, at Lincoln Center Theater’s Vivian Beaumont Theater and officially opens October 29.
More than thirty-five years after Sorkin first put these men and women in a courtroom, America already knows the line.
Now Michael Arden and his company get to ask whether we ever really understood the question.
Broadway
Songbook Sundays: Life Is Kander and Ebb: When the Songbook Leaves You Wanting More
There are few places better suited to celebrating John Kander and Fred Ebb than Dizzy’s Jazz Club. On Sunday, October 4, New York was misty beyond those magnificent windows, the room was filled with Kander and Ebb melodies, and, making the evening even more special, John Kander himself was sitting at the table directly behind me listening to his music come alive.
Hosted and curated by Deborah Grace Winer, Songbook Sundays: Life Is Kander and Ebb brought together three very different vocalists—Karen Ziemba, Matthew Scott and Vanisha Gould—with music director and pianist Jon Weber, Mark McLean on drums, Jay Leonhart on bass and Sam Chess on trombone. The talent was unquestionable, the musicianship superb and the surroundings quintessentially New York.
Yet I left wanting more as I know this songbook inside and out.
Not more talent. There was plenty of that. What I wanted was more Kander and Ebb.
Karen Ziemba opened with “Where You Are,” immediately reminding us why she has had such a remarkable career. Ziemba doesn’t merely sing a lyric; she understands what is underneath it. That quality served her particularly well throughout the show, whether she was having wicked fun with “Don’t Tell Mama,” finding the aching simplicity of “My Coloring Book,” or delivering “How Lucky Can You Get.” Kander and Ebb frequently wrote characters who perform one emotion while another one is quietly breaking through, and Ziemba knows exactly how to live in that contradiction.
Matthew Scott has a terrific voice coupled with genuine acting chops, something especially evident in “Not Every Day of the Week” and “Love and Love Alone.” When he arrived at “Theme from New York, New York,” he wisely didn’t try to compete with the ghosts surrounding one of the most recognizable songs ever written about this city. Instead, he found his own way into it, allowing us to hear the song rather than an imitation of the singers who made it famous.
Then there was Vanisha Gould, who possesses a fabulous smoky, growling voice that sounds as though it was made for the 1930s. There is something wonderfully lived-in about her sound, a little dangerous around the edges, and it gave “Funny Honey” and “All That Jazz” an entirely different texture. “Maybe This Time” allowed her to move beyond the sass and into the vulnerability underneath, where Kander and Ebb so often do their best work.
The musicians were every bit as important to the performance.
Weber knows how to support a singer without disappearing beneath one, and McLean, Leonhart and Chess gave the music the swing and bite it requires. “Sing Happy” put the band front and center, while
Leonhart—whose career has included playing for an extraordinary roster of great performers—stepped into the spotlight to deliver his own “Razzle Dazzle.” It was an irresistible reminder that sometimes the musicians have a few tricks of their own.
Ziemba and Scott joined forces for “But the World Goes ‘Round,” another quintessential Kander and Ebb song about continuing when life has other plans. “Cabaret,” naturally, also made its appearance, bringing us back to the musical that remains inseparable from the Kander and Ebb name.
Which brings me to the one thing that bothered me about an otherwise beautifully performed performance.
Perhaps having John Kander sitting directly behind me made me even more aware of the sheer size of the catalogue being celebrated. Here was one of the architects of American musical theatre, listening to songs from a collaboration that stretched across decades, and I kept thinking about everything we weren’t hearing.
There were three selections from Chicago and three from Cabaret, along with two each from Flora the Red Menace and New York, New York. They are terrific songs, certainly, and nobody is going to object to hearing them sung this well. But Kander and Ebb wrote so much more.
Where was The Happy Time, Zorba, 70, Girls, 70, The Act, Woman of the Year, The Rink, Steel Pier, Curtains, or The Scottsboro Boys? There is an astonishing amount of material in that catalogue, including songs that deserve to be rediscovered rather than allowed to sit quietly in the shadow of “All That Jazz” and “Cabaret.”
That is particularly what I look for from something called Songbook Sundays. A songbook series has the opportunity not merely to celebrate the songs everybody already knows, but to open the book a little wider. Give us something we have forgotten or haven’t heard in years. Give a younger audience a song they didn’t know existed. Let us hear the journey of the writers, not simply their greatest hits.
Kander and Ebb were never just Chicago and Cabaret. Their partnership was far richer and stranger than that. They could be cynical and sentimental, sophisticated and vulgar, politically savage and heartbreakingly romantic. Again and again they wrote about people performing confidence while quietly falling apart underneath it. Their characters keep dancing, keep singing, keep putting on the makeup and facing the world because, as one of their greatest songs reminds us, the world goes ’round.
Maybe that’s why I wanted more.
What Winer gave us was beautifully sung and beautifully played. Ziemba remains a masterful interpreter, Scott impressed with both voice and dramatic instinct, and Gould made me want to hear much more from that wonderfully smoky voice. Weber and his musicians gave us sophistication, warmth and swing.
Outside those windows was a mist-covered New York, while inside sat John Kander himself listening to his songs. Really, how much more New York can you get? Except, of course, for a few more Kander and Ebb songs.
I enjoyed Life Is Kander and Ebb immensely. My complaint is actually a compliment: with a songbook this extraordinary, I didn’t want the afternoon to end with so many pages still unopened.
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