Broadway

Theatre News: Between Riverside and Crazy, A Doll’s House, LIFE OF PI, Crashlight and Stranger Sings! The Parody Musical

Published

1 month ago

February 11, 2023

Common in Between Riverside and Crazy Photo by Joan Marcus

Second Stage Theater will partner with Common and his not-for-profit, Imagine Justice, to host “Justice Nights On Broadway” following the matinee performances of Between Riverside and Crazy at The Hayes Theater on Saturday, February 11th and Saturday, February 18th 2023.

“Justice Nights on Broadway” will bring together 100 formerly incarcerated people, their families, and community advocates for a special Broadway experience. The performances will feature post-show talkbacks moderated by Sirius XM host and ABC News Contributor Mike Muse and featuring Common and Stephen McKinley Henderson, and will give audience members the opportunity to respond to seeing their stories shared on a Broadway stage, as well as a brief meet-and-greet with Common and guests following the talkback. Imagine Justice is also working with Second Stage and the League of Live Stream Theater to bring a simulcast of the performance to prison facilities.”

Information on Second Stage’s second annual Fair Chance Job Fair at The Hayes Theater will also be provided. The Fair will take place on April 17 and all employers involved have committed to not requiring a background check for employment. The performance will also feature a special call to action giving audience members the opportunity to support parole justice and clemency campaigns.

“Theater has been a life changing and enhancing experience. It’s an experience I want to share. The Justice Nights are a very special coming together of people. It’s a gift to bring together people who are formerly incarcerated and their families with the Broadway community. These are two worlds telling the complex stories of the work it takes to restore human lives,” said Common. “Between Riverside and Crazy deals with characters (Junior and Oswaldo) who can actually help humanize people who were formerly incarcerated. And it’s monumental to have people who have experienced this also be there to open our eyes to what is going on in the prison system. In the talkback we will bring light to the work that needs to be done for parole reform, like the Fair & Timely Parole Bill in New York and the Earned Re-Entry Bill in Illinois. We need to give people who have changed their lives a fair chance to return home and become fully part of society again.”

In Between Riverside and Crazy, Oscar, Grammy, and Emmy Award-winner Common portrays the character Junior, a recently paroled son living with his ex-cop, widowed father Pops (Stephen McKinley Henderson) in his NYC rent-controlled apartment on Riverside Drive. The role reflects Common’s commitment as both an artist and an activist to shift the national discussion on justice to one deeply rooted in humanity and compassion.

In 2018, Common founded Imagine Justice, a nonprofit organization to uplift currently & formerly incarcerated people with love, dignity and support. He has visited 13 prisons with 7 live performances as part of the “Hope & Redemption Tour.” And in 2021, Common and Imagine Justice launched “Rebirth of Sound” – an accredited music program in Stateville Correctional Facility to provide residents with a high-quality recording studio and production training from experienced musicians. Common and Imagine Justice will support parole justice and clemency campaigns in New York so that incarcerated people who have transformed their lives have an opportunity to reunite with their families back home.

Henrik Ibsen’s landmark drama A Doll’s House starring Academy Award^® winner Jessica Chastain as ‘Nora Helmer’ in Herzog Lloyd’s radical new production of Henrik Ibsen’s landmark drama A Doll’s House in a new version by Amy Herzog is offering a limited number of $35 rush tickets will be released for every performance at 9 AM ET, on a first‑come, first‑served basis in the TodayTix app. Limit two tickets per order, subject to availability. Download the TodayTix app today, or learn more at www.todaytix.com

Chastain is joined by Arian Moayed, a Tony Award^® and Emmy Award^® nominee, as ‘Torvald Helmer,’ Jesmille Darbouze as ‘Kristine Linde,’ Tasha Lawrence as ‘Anne-Marie,’ Michael Patrick Thornton as ‘Dr. Rank,’ and Grammy Award^® winner Okieriete Onaodowan as ‘Nils Krogstad.’ The production’s understudies are Franklin Bongjio, Carey Rebecca Brown, Melisa Soledad Pereyra, and José Joaquín Pérez.

A Doll’s House will officially open Thursday, March at Hudson Theatre (141 West 44^th Street). The strictly limited 16-week engagement must end Sunday, June 4.

Lolita Chakrabarti’s dazzling stage adaption of Yann Martel’s best-selling novel LIFE OF PI will premiere at Broadway’s Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre (236 West 45th Street) with three Olivier Award-winning performers making their Broadway debuts. Recreating their critically acclaimed performances for Broadway will be “Best Actor” winner Hiran Abeysekera in the role of “Pi” and “Best Supporting Actor” winners Fred Davis and Scarlet Wilderink join the “Richard Parker” puppeteering team. The Broadway production of the five-time Olivier Award-winning London production of LIFE OF PI will feature Brian Thomas Abraham as Cook/Voice of “Richard Parker,” Rajesh Bose as Father, Avery Glymph as Father Martin/Russian Sailor/Rear Admiral Jackson, Mahira Kakkar as Nurse/Amma/Orange Juice, Kirstin Louie as Lulu Chen, Salma Qarnain as Mrs. Biology Kumar/Zaida Khan, Sathya Sridharan as Mamaji/Pandit-Ji, Daisuke Tsuji as Mr. Okamoto/Captain, Sonya Venugopal as Rani, with Nikki Calonge, Fred Davis, Rowan Ian Seamus Magee, Jonathan David Martin, Betsy Rosen, Celia Mei Rubin, Scarlet Wilderink and Andrew Wilson as Royal Bengal tiger “Richard Parker.” Mahnaz Damania, Jon Hoche,Usman Ali Mughal, Uma Paranjpe and David Shih round out the 24-member cast with Adi Dixit as the “Pi” alternate.

LIFE OF PI begins performances Thursday, March 9, 2023, and opens Thursday, March 30, 2023. Prior to the Broadway engagement, LIFE OF PI made its North American Premiere at the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University.

LIFE OF PI is directed by Max Webster, with Set and Costume design by Olivier Award winner Tim Hatley, Puppetry and Movement Direction by Olivier Award winner Finn Caldwell, Puppet Design by Olivier Award winners Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell, Video Design by Olivier Award winner Andrzej Goulding, Lighting Design by Olivier Award winner Tim Lutkin, Sound Design by Carolyn Downing, Original Music by Andrew T Mackay, Dramaturgy by Jack Bradley, Wig Design by David Brian Brown, and Casting by Stewart/Whitley.

Based on one of the best-loved works of fiction – winner of the Man Booker Prize, selling over fifteen million copies worldwide – LIFE OF PI is a breath-taking new theatrical adaptation of an epic journey of endurance and hope.

After a cargo ship sinks in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, a sixteen-year-old boy name Pi is stranded on a lifeboat with four other survivors – a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. Time is against them, nature is harsh, who will survive?

Tickets for LIFE OF PI on Broadway are available at Telecharge.com (212.239.6200) and at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre box office and range from $49 – $199 (including $2 facility fee). The playing schedule for LIFE OF PI is as follows: Tuesday through Saturday at 8pm, with matinees Wednesday and Saturday at 2pm, and Sunday at 3pm. Please note there will be no 2pm performance on Wednesday, March 15, and March 22. Beginning Tuesday, April 4, 2023, the LIFE OF PI performance schedule is as follows: Tuesday and Thursday at 7pm, Wednesday and Friday at 7:30pm, and Saturday at 8pm, with matinees Wednesday and Saturday at 2pm, and Sunday at 3pm.

The new orchestral pop musical Crashlight will present an Industry Sneak Peek at Broadway Plus (260 W 39th St, Suite 202) on Monday, February 13, 2023. The evening will feature Mykal Kilgore – (Grammy Nominee “A Man Born Black”, Motown), Lianah Sta. Ana (Miss Saigon), Kerstin Anderson – (My Fair Lady, Unknown Soldier), Jesse Weil (Fiddler on the Roof), Elijah Caldwell (A Strange Loop), and Cori Jaskier (Charlotte’s Web). Written by Celeste Makoff and directed by Hunter Bird, the presentation will feature a three-piece band led by Music Supervisor Macy Schmidt (Broadway Sinfonietta). Margaret Skoglund Leigh serves as General Manager. The running time is 45 mins. Those interested in attending should email: [mailto:crashlightrsvp@gmail.com ]crashlightrsvp@gmail.comCrashlight is about the last nation on Earth and a young woman’s risky mission to expose its government’s brutal ban on artistic expression. The story is set as the nation’s Centennial Celebration approaches – an opportunity for the regime to legitimate its control. But Rian, a young composer whose dissident-parents suffered at the regime’s hands, has a different plan. Crashlight has been a Semi-Finalist for the 2022 O’Neill Musical Theater Conference and received an Honorary Mention for the 2022 Relentless Award. For more information on Crashlight visit www.crashlightmusical.com

Stranger Sings! The Parody Musical has extended through April 30 at Playhouse 46 at St. Luke’s.

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Suzanna Bowling

Suzanna, co-owns and publishes the newspaper Times Square Chronicles or T2C. At one point a working actress, she has performed in numerous productions in film, TV, cabaret, opera and theatre. She has performed at The New Orleans Jazz festival, The United Nations and Carnegie Hall. She has a screenplay and a TV show in the works, which she developed with her mentor and friend the late Arthur Herzog. She is a proud member of the Drama Desk and the Outer Critics Circle and was a nominator. Email: suzanna@t2conline.com

Broadway

Parade: A Musical That Asks Us Do We Have The Eyes And Ears To See.

Published

2 days ago

March 24, 2023

Suzanna Bowling

Micaela Diamond and Ben Platt Photo by Joan Marcus

I have always loved Jason Robert Brown’s score for Parade. “You Don’t Know This Man,” “This Is Not Over Yet” and the wonderfully romantic “All the Wasted Time” are just the tip of the iceberg for music that stirs your soul and tells a tale of heartbreak. There is a reason this score won the Tony Award in 1999.

Ben Platt Photo By Joan Marcus

The musical now playing on Broadway dramatizes the 1913 trial of Jewish factory manager Leo Frank (Ben Platt), who was accused and convicted of raping and murdering a thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan (Erin Rose Doyle). The trial was sensationalized by the media, newspaper reporter Britt Craig (Jay Armstrong Johnson) and Tom Watson (Manoel Feliciano), an extremist right-wing newspaper aroused antisemitic tensions in Atlanta and the U.S. state of Georgia. When Frank’s death sentence is commuted to life in prison thanks to his wife Lucille (Micaela Diamond), Leo was transferred to a prison in Milledgeville, Georgia, where a lynching party seized and kidnapped him. Frank was taken to Phagan’s hometown of Marietta, Georgia, and he was hanged from an oak tree.

Erin Rose Doyle, Photo by Joan Marcus

The telling of this horrid true tale begins with the lush ode to the South in “The Old Red Hills of Home.” Leo has just moved from Brooklyn to in Marietta, where his wife is from and he has been given the job as as a manager at the National Pencil Co. He feels out of place as he sings “I thought that Jews were Jews, but I was wrong!” On Confederate Memorial Day as Lucille plans a picnic, Leo goes to work. In the meantime Mary goes to collect her pay from the pencil factory. The next day Leo is arrested on suspicion of killing Mary, whose body is found in the building. The police also suspect Newt Lee (Eddie Cooper), the African-American night watchman who discovered the body, but he inadvertently directs Starnes’ suspicion to Leo.

Across town, reporter Britt Craig see this story as (“Big News”). Mary’s suitor Frankie Epps (Jake Pederson), swears revenge on Mary’s killer, as does the reporter Watson. Governor John Slaton (Sean Allan Krill) pressures the local prosecutor Hugh Dorsey (the terrific smarmy Paul Alexander Nolan) to get to the bottom of the whole affair. Dorsey, an ambitious politician sees Leo as he ticket to being the Governor and though there are other suspects, he willfully ignores them and goes after Leo.

Sophia Manicone, Emily Rose DeMartino, Ashlyn Maddox Photo By Joan Marcus

The trial of Leo Frank is presided over by Judge Roan (Howard McMillan). A series of witnesses, give trumped up evidence which was clearly is fed to them by Dorsey. Frankie testifies, falsely, that Mary said Leo “looks at her funny.” Her three teenage co-workers, Lola, Essie and Monteen (Sophia Manicone, Emily Rose DeMartino, Ashlyn Maddox), collaborate hauntingly as they harmonize their testimony (“The Factory Girls”). In a fantasy sequence, Leo becomes the lecherous seducer (“Come Up to My Office”). Testimony is heard from Mary’s mother (Kelli Barrett ) (“My Child Will Forgive Me”) and Minnie McKnight (Danielle Lee Greaves)before the prosecution’s star witness, Jim Conley (Alex Joseph Grayson ), takes the stand. He claims that he witnessed the murder and helped Leo conceal the crime (“That’s What He Said”). Leo is given the opportunity to deliver a statement (“It’s Hard to Speak My Heart”), but it is not enough. He is found guilty and sentenced to hang. The crowd breaks out into a jubilant circus.

Alex Joseph Grayson Photo by Joan Marcus

Act 1, is not as strong as it should have been. I have attended three different incarnations, the last being with Jeremy Jordan as Leo and Joshua Henry as Jim in 2015. Part of the problem is Michael Arden’s direction. Instead of allowing his performers to act, he has them pantomime, as the solo goes forth. “Come Up to My Office” was not as haunting as in past productions. The same can be said of “That’s What He Said”. Who’s stands out in the first act is Jake Pederson as Frankie and Charlie Webb as the Young Soldier who sings “The Old Red Hills of Home.”

Micaela Diamond and Ben Platt Photo by Joan Marcus

In Act 2, Lucille finds Governor Slaton at a party (the hypnotic “Pretty Music” sung wonderfully by Krill) and advocates for Leo. Watson approaches Dorsey and tells him he will support his bid for governor, as Judge Roan also offers his support. The governor agrees to re-open the case, as Leo and Lucille find hope. Slaton realizes what we all knew that the witnesses were coerced and lied and that Dorsey is at the helm. He agrees to commute Leo’s sentence to life in prison in Milledgeville, Georgia, which ends his political career. The citizens of Marietta, led by Dorsey and Watson, are enraged and riot. Leo is transferred to a prison work-farm. Lucille visits, and he realizes his deep love for his wife and how much he has underestimated her (“All the Wasted Time”). With hope in full blaze Lucille leaves as a party masked men kidnap Leo and take him to Marietta. They demand he confess and hang him from an oak tree.

Paul Alexander Nolan, Howard McMillan Photo By Joan Marcus

In Act Two Parade comes together with heart and soul. Diamond, who shines brightly through out the piece is radiant, and her duets with Platt are romantic and devastating. Platt comes into his own and his huge following is thrilled to be seeing him live. Alex Joseph Grayson’s also nails his Second Act songs.

Dane Laffrey’s set works well with the lighting by Heather Gilbert.

Frank’s case was reopened in 2019 and is still ongoing.

Parade has multiple messages and the question is will audiences absorb it. I am so glad this show is on Broadway, making us think and see. This is a must see.

Parade: Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, 242 W 45th Street.

Art

Ken Fallin’s Broadway: Celebrating Hadestown’s 1000th Performance

Published

2 days ago

March 24, 2023

Ken Fallin

On Sunday, March 19, 2023, Hadestown celebrated the first day of spring and the show’s recently-achieved milestone of 1,000 performances at Broadway’s Walter Kerr Theatre.

The handsome artist with Anais Mitchell

On hand were songwriter Anaïs Mitchell and director Rachel Chavkin, Tony Award winner Lillias White, original Broadway cast member Jewelle Blackman as Persephone, Grammy Award winner Reeve Carney as Orpheus, Tony Award nominee Tom Hewitt as Hades, and two-time Tony Award nominee Eva Noblezada as Eurydice. were joined by Amelia Cormack, Shea Renne, and Soara-Joye Ross as the Fates. The chorus of Workers is played by Emily Afton, Malcolm Armwood, Alex Puette, Trent Saunders, and Grace Yoo.

The winner of eight 2019 Tony Awards including Best New Musical and the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, Hadestown is the most honored show of the 2018-2019 Broadway season. In addition to the Tony and Grammy Awards, it has been honored with four Drama Desk Awards, six Outer Critics Circle Awards, including Outstanding New Broadway Musical, and the Drama League Award for Outstanding Production of a Musical.

Following two intertwining love stories — that of young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice, and that of King Hades and his wife Persephone — Hadestown invites audiences on a hell-raising journey to the underworld and back. Mitchell’s beguiling melodies and Chavkin’s poetic imagination pit industry against nature, doubt against faith and fear against love. Performed by a vibrant ensemble of actors, dancers, and singers, Hadestown delivers a deeply resonant and defiantly hopeful theatrical experience.

Broadway

Broadway Up Close (R) Gives Dance Workshops In Times Square

Published

2 days ago

March 24, 2023

Suzanna Bowling

A fun way to get active, learn and have fun: InterContinental New York Times Square has partnered with Broadway Up Close to provide monthly dance workshops. The new series offers the opportunity to learn choreography with current Broadway professionals, and to join them in conversation about their Broadway careers.

On Saturday, April 15, 2023 join Broadway Performer Sarah Meahl (Bad Cinderella, Hello, Dolly!, Kiss Me, Kate) and on Sunday, May 13, 2023 – Broadway Performer Thayne Jasperson (Hamilton, Newsies, Matilda).

All classes are scheduled from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm and include 60 minutes of dance class and 30 minutes to learn and connect.

Following the class, an à la carte lunch menu is provided at The Stinger Cocktail Bar & Kitchen for an additional cost; perfect timing for a matinee performance.

Tickets are $36.25 and you can tickets here.