G.H. Harding

KIMMEL IN BROOKLYN — After a wildly, odd interview with Howard Stern this week, where he put down both ABC and Disney, he looked terribly fatigued.

I’ve been a fierce advocate for Stern for years, but I did detect just a touch of wanting to take-a-step-back.

He conquered radio and now I expect him to do the same with HBO/MAX.

Interesting for sure.

Ray Caviano

CAVIANO PASSES — You might not recognize the name Ray Caviano, but he passed this week. Ray had the distinction of being one of the youngest-ever record company presidents in the music business and really unparalleled success back in the 80s. He was the one constant voice behind the disco-explosion back then. The Village People; Br. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band; Voyage; and Peter Brown … all his.

Ray negotiated this success into a tremendous deal with Warner Brothers commanding a staggering $6 million dollars a year and his own label and staff. His PR-team at the time, which included veteran-PR-meister Howard Bloom, termed him the six-million-dollar man, and it was a great rags-to-riches story. From Madeline Kahn, to George Benson, the B52s, Grace Jones, The Doobie Brothers, Prince to Chaka Kahn, Rod Stewart and Ashford and Simpson, Caviano just scored a staggering degree of success.

From what I remember, all the other-labels modeled what they did after Ray and his christened label, RFC Records; which introduced Venus Dodson; Gino Soccio; The Mighty Pope; and Change, which featured Luther Vandross. He hit the top, no question, but then personal problems got in the way and he was essentially blacklisted.

 I never met him, but constantly hear some of his successes and they were indeed cataclysmic as his music lives today. RIP.

SHORT TAKES — Edna Gudnersen, from USA Today fame, wrote a terrific article for AARP on who should be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. No big surprises, but once again she’s hit the nail right on the head. One interesting post simply said: the voters can change it. Take a read: https://www.aarp.org/entertainment/music/rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-snubs/?fbclid=IwY2xjawUrIH1leHRuA2FlbQIxMABwZG9mBWJyaWQRMU9mVTJENHlUU21yQm8wbHdzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeCMUfSZdob2E0b7OqMN0tqZbMXfnFz1ib0PrxztT-BeCdBi54rZKmIAL-s50_aem_-r3LegoVNsCszZW3QsX1hQ …

Slow Horses

Wednesday night meant a new Slow Horses and Ted Lasso on Apple+. Surprise. Both shows have been staggeringly lackluster this season so far. U.K.’s The Guardian even termed Horses whiny! The fellow who created Horses, Will Smith, left and it’s become still good, but terribly ordinary and a lot less of Gary Oldman. Sad …

This week the long-expected merger between Paramount and Warner Brothers took place and guess who was installed as boss? The CEO of Mattel. People in Hollywood are sending are their resumes right now …

Ringo Starr

Still more buzz on that Far Out/Todd Rundgren interview. In a further missive, after dissing Taylor Swift, Rundgren now claims that Ringo best-survived The Beatles. Fascinating. Take a read: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/todd-rundgren-ringo-starr-only-one-survived-beatles/?fbclid=IwY2xjawUqT4hleHRuA2FlbQIxMABwZG9mBWJyaWQRMWlGYWlyRW14Z24wNHIwUEJzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeH9wqOi0plYRGr801XxzuKtasXnT8D_3b9Dfn_FPCaUOrH88qlWOw_CkfdCA_aem_Hap2wxG63VvIwa5wC0KzGw … And, Chuck Darrow had a great piece on Micky Dolenz for his weekend show at The Borgata in AC. Take a read: https://shorelocalnews.com/when-being-an-architect-was-micky-dolenzs-career-blueprint/

NAMES IN THE NEWS — Anthony Pomes; Fred Goodman; Allen Klein; Paul Bartels; JIm Yukich; Tracy Lords; Bryce Grakal; Ken Sharp; Chuck Darrow; Melissa Davis; Magda Katz; Cori Gardner; Donnie Kehr; Bill McCuddy; Deb Caponetta; Jeff Vogel; Steve Leeds; Ed Steinberg; John Sykes; Tom & Lisa Cuddy; and SADIE!

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

If New York theatre has been looking for a way to turn the coming season into an event, it may already have found it. The marquees are beginning to resemble an unusually eclectic awards ceremony, with movie stars, television favorites, Broadway royalty and even a genuine rock god heading for New York stages. Tom Hiddleston, Hayley Atwell, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ed Harris, Allison Janney, Billy Crystal, Bowen Yang, Tom Felton, Jim Parsons, Jeremy Jordan and Julianne Moore are either already here or on their way. Add Guns N’ Roses legend Slash making his Broadway debut tomorrow night, and the 2026–27 New York theatre season is beginning to look very starry indeed.

Slash

The fun begins immediately. On August 13, Slash is making his Broadway debut in The Lost Boys at the Palace Theatre tonight, joining the musical for a one-night-only appearance. The Guns N’ Roses guitarist already has a connection to the show’s music, having contributed a guitar solo to “Have to Have You” for the musical’s Santa Carla recordings. Now one of rock’s most instantly recognizable figures steps onto a Broadway stage for the first time, giving Michael Arden’s vampire musical an irresistible collision of Broadway and rock-and-roll mythology. The Lost Boys was always going to live or die by its ability to capture the dangerous, sexy, slightly decadent pulse of the 1987 cult film. Putting Slash into that world, even for one night, feels less like stunt casting than somebody finally noticing that he looks as though he should have been living in Santa Carla all along.

Felton is in costume as adult Draco for “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.”Warner Bros., Manuel Harlan

At the Lyric Theatre, Tom Felton has accomplished something equally clever by returning to the character who made him famous. Felton became the first performer from the original Harry Potter films to reprise his role on Broadway when he joined Harry Potter and the Cursed Child as the adult Draco Malfoy. The casting could easily have been nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, except Cursed Child gives Draco something the films never could: age. Felton is now playing the schoolboy antagonist as a father, confronting both his history and his relationship with his son Scorpius. His engagement has proven so popular that it has been repeatedly extended, with Felton now remaining in the production through January 3, 2027.

John Riddle, Jim Parsons, Melissa Barrera Photo by Evan Zimmerman

Over at the St. James Theatre, Jim Parsons has been enjoying an entirely different sort of transformation in Titaníque, playing Ruth DeWitt Bukater, the imperious mother of Rose, in the deliriously irreverent Céline Dion-infused parody of Titanic. Parsons remains aboard through the show’s September 20 closing. The production has never suffered from excessive respectability, and watching the Emmy and Tony-winning actor surrender himself to its particular brand of lunacy is exactly the sort of theatrical casting that makes New York fun. Parsons is surrounded by a company that includes Marla Mindelle as Céline Dion, Melissa Barrera as Rose, Constantine Rousouli as Jack and Deborah Cox as Molly Brown—a Ship of Dreams considerably more deranged than James Cameron ever imagined.

Then comes Bowen Yang, who begins performances September 15 as Mary Todd Lincoln in Cole Escola’s Oh, Mary! at the Lyceum Theatre. Yang’s Broadway debut feels almost inevitable now that one thinks about it. Escola created a Mary who is vain, frustrated, wildly theatrical, sexually complicated and spectacularly uninterested in behaving like the respectable First Lady history handed us. The role has become one of Broadway’s most delicious revolving doors, attracting actors willing to throw dignity overboard and commit completely to the madness. Yang’s particular mixture of intelligence, absurdity and comic fearlessness should fit Mary like a very badly behaved glove.

Off-Broadway is assembling its own formidable company. At The Public Theater, Ryan J. Haddad’s Good Time Charlie begins performances September 24 in Martinson Hall, with a Joseph Papp Free Performance launching the run. Danny Sharron directs the world premiere, which officially opens October 9 and continues through October 18. The autobiographically inspired play follows Charlie, a man who once dreamed of a theatrical life before his parents steered him toward dentistry. Instead, he poured his love of culture into his nephew Ryan, another gay, theatre-loving kid with Broadway dreams. Spanning more than three decades, the play examines the people who give us permission to imagine lives larger than the ones prescribed for us.

And the cast makes the production particularly enticing. Haddad appears as Ryan alongside Timothy Bagley as Lou, Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner Michael Cristofer as Sheldon, Tony nominee Beth Malone as Janice, Nael Nacer as Charlie Sr./Bob, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia‘s Artemis Pebdani as Joan/Judy and The Band’s Visit‘s Jonathan Raviv as Charlie. That is an unusually rich ensemble for an intimate Public Theater world premiere, mixing actors from Broadway, television and some of New York’s most interesting recent plays.

Then Broadway brings out the heavy artillery. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ed Harris, Allison Janney, Joe Keery and Lily Rabe assemble at the Hudson Theatre for the first Broadway revival of Jon Robin Baitz’s Other Desert Cities, beginning performances September 29. John Benjamin Hickey directs the family drama, which takes place over Christmas in Palm Springs as Brooke Wyeth returns to her politically prominent parents with a memoir threatening to expose a long-buried family secret. The play requires actors capable of making civilized conversation feel like armed combat, and this company certainly qualifies.

Louis-Dreyfus makes her Broadway debut opposite Harris, with Janney entering the family battlefield as Silda. Rabe plays Brooke and Stranger Things star Keery takes on her brother Trip. There is celebrity casting, and then there is assembling three actors of the caliber of Louis-Dreyfus, Harris and Janney in the same living room and allowing them to start disagreeing. Other Desert Cities already contains the ammunition. This cast should have no difficulty lighting the match.

Billy Crystal returns to Broadway October 1 at the Imperial Theatre with 860, a new solo work whose title comes from the address of the Pacific Palisades home he and his family lost in the 2025 fires. Written and performed by Crystal and directed by Scott Ellis, the 14-week limited engagement officially opens October 21 and continues through January 3. The piece looks at family, friendship, love, loss and the memories contained within a home over decades—the seemingly ordinary objects and moments that become irreplaceable only when they disappear.

Crystal has been here before, though never with quite this story. 700 Sundays, his autobiographical exploration of his father and family, became one of Broadway’s most successful and affecting solo shows. 860 begins with another profound loss, but Crystal’s great theatrical gift has always been his ability to let humor and grief occupy the same sentence without diminishing either. At 78, he isn’t returning to Broadway simply to perform another victory lap. He is bringing back something personal.

October then gets considerably more glamorous when Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell arrive at the Winter Garden Theatre in Jamie Lloyd’s production of Much Ado About Nothing. Performances begin October 31, with the strictly limited engagement continuing through January 10, 2027. The two reprise the roles of Benedick and Beatrice after leading Lloyd’s London production, bringing with them one of Shakespeare’s great romantic battles: two highly intelligent people using wit as armor while everyone around them conspires to make them admit the obvious.

Hiddleston already knows Broadway, having earned a Tony nomination for Betrayal, while Atwell makes her Broadway debut. Their screen fame inevitably brings another audience with them—yes, Loki and Peggy Carter are doing Shakespeare—but reducing either actor to Marvel celebrity misses the point. Both have substantial classical theatre backgrounds, and Much Ado lives or dies on whether its Beatrice and Benedick can make language feel like foreplay, combat and self-defense simultaneously. Lloyd has given them a very contemporary playground in which to do it.

Meanwhile, Jeremy Jordan continues his run as Bobby Darin in Just in Time at Circle in the Square through October 18. Jordan stepped into the role following Jonathan Groff, an unenviable succession on paper but a fascinating one theatrically. Bobby Darin requires swagger, musical command and the ability to make the audience believe that the performer needs the stage almost as much as he needs oxygen. Jordan possesses all three. The immersive production, which transforms Circle in the Square into something closer to a nightclub than a conventional Broadway house, also demonstrates that a star-driven musical can survive the departure of its originating star when the replacement has genuine theatrical firepower.

And the stars aren’t disappearing when the calendar turns. Julianne Moore returns to the New York stage in 2027 in the world premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s Faydra, giving the coming season another fascinating collision between one of America’s finest screen actors and one of its most distinctive playwrights. Moore has been away from the New York stage for two decades, having made her Broadway debut in David Hare’s The Vertical Hour in 2006. Her return in a new Ruhl work immediately makes Faydra one of the most intriguing theatrical prospects of 2027.

What is striking about this season isn’t simply the number of famous people involved. Broadway has always used celebrity, sometimes brilliantly and sometimes disastrously. A recognizable name above a title can sell tickets, but it cannot manufacture theatrical presence. The more interesting casting happens when the identity of the performer adds another dimension to the material. Felton confronting Draco Malfoy as a grown man does that. Crystal turning the destruction of his actual home into theatre does that. Hiddleston and Atwell bringing an already-tested Beatrice and Benedick partnership across the Atlantic does that. Slash walking into The Lost Boys does it in the most wonderfully literal rock-and-roll way imaginable.

Even the season’s revolving-door casting is becoming part of the entertainment. Oh, Mary! has discovered that Mary Todd Lincoln can apparently regenerate indefinitely as long as Broadway keeps finding sufficiently fearless people to put on the dress. Just in Time has moved from Groff to Jordan. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, long after becoming an established Broadway attraction, found an entirely new event in bringing one of the original film actors home to his character.

Streaming was supposed to make leaving the house increasingly unnecessary. Instead, theatre appears to be answering by making being in the room the commodity. You can watch Louis-Dreyfus, Hiddleston, Atwell, Moore, Parsons, Yang, Keery or Crystal on a screen whenever you like. You cannot replicate sitting in a theatre while they do something live, eight times a week, with no editing room and nowhere to hide.

That may be Broadway and Off-Broadway’s smartest weapon going into the 2026–27 season. Not celebrity for celebrity’s sake, but event theatre—the sense that something is happening in a particular room, for a finite period of time, and if you aren’t there, you really did miss it.

And if Slash walking onto a Broadway stage tomorrow night doesn’t make that point rather spectacularly, nothing will.

If New York feels impossible right now, that’s because it is. Within a span of weeks, the city has found itself at the center of a perfect storm of culture, sports, entertainment, patriotism, and global attention.

The Knicks have delivered a long-awaited championship. FIFA World Cup fever has brought an international audience to the city. Broadway is overflowing with Tony winners, celebrities, and blockbuster productions. America 250 celebrations are ramping up nationwide. Sail4th 250 is preparing to transform New York Harbor into the largest international gathering of tall ships and naval vessels the city has seen in generations.

In other words, the world didn’t just come to New York. It moved in for the summer.

From Madison Square Garden to Times Square, to Broadway shows to private rooftop parties overlooking the Hudson, athletes, celebrities, investors, dignitaries, influencers, and executives are converging in a city already operating at full capacity.

In the stands for the Wold Cup are Tom Cruise, David and Victoria Beckham, Jay-Z, Katy Perry  Marshawn Lynch, Ciara, Kit Harington, and Eli Manning. Performing Andrea Bocelli, Salma Hayek. Shakira and more. The Final Halftime Show on July 19th tournament finale will feature a co-headlined halftime performance by Madonna, Shakira, and BTS. Where are they all staying …..Manhattan

Then there is the Taylor Swift’s wedding supposably on July 3rd at Madison Square Garden. Mayor Zohran Mamdani confirmed that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are going to say “I do” in the Big Apple, assuring fans that the Concrete Jungle is prepared for the large event. Mamdani confessed that he will not actually be in attendance, admitting that he hasn’t received an invite.

Hotels are packed. Restaurants are booming. Tourism is surging. Luxury brands are staging splashy activations. Broadway is benefiting from an influx of visitors eager to experience the cultural capital of the world while global eyes remain fixed on New York.

The timing could not be more remarkable. A championship city. A World Cup entry. An America 250 city. A Broadway city.

For one extraordinary summer, New York isn’t simply hosting history. It’s making it.