With the sudden countertrend of shows with long running times — “Light Shining at Buckinghamshire” at New York Theater Workshop (180 minutes), “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” at BAM starring Jeremy Irons (200 minutes), “The Iceman Cometh” with Denzel Washington (230 minutes), Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (315 minutes) “Angels in America” (450 minutes) — is it surprising that there have been reports of theatrical snoozing? (See below for the answer to the question: Do people have a moral obligation to the performers to try to stay awake?) Now comes news that NYU Skirball’s 2018-2019 season will offer several marathon shows, including a revival of Elevator Repair Service’s “Gatz” (480 minutes) and “Mt. Olympus: to glorify the cult of tragedy” (1,440 minutes.)

Below: This week’s awards; “To Kill a Mockingbird” back on; “Rise,” “Unmasked” canceled, “Children of a Lesser God” closing, “The Boys in the Band” cancels a single performance due to “minor injury.”

The Week in New York Theater Awards

results of my survey

The Week in New York Theater Reviews

Christian Borle clowns like an old-time vaudevillian, Laura Michelle Kelly sings like a classic chanteuse, and director Warren Carylyle choreographs the topnotch cast like a 1930s showman; they’re tap-dancing on tabletops! “Me and My Girl,” closing out the 25th anniversary season of Encores!, shows off what’s most wonderful about this “concert series,” but also what’s disappointing about it…more

In the Bristol Old Vic production of Long Day’s Journey into Night at the Brooklyn Academy of Music this month, Eugene O’Neill’s domestic dance feels like a literal dance at times in this version directed by Sir Richard Eyre in a cast led by Jeremy Irons. The four members of the Tyrone family, stand-ins for O’Neill’s own, jostle each other violently; pounce and push, hug and jab; raise their arms in the air in drunken triumph; stretch their bodies oddly, as if the play’s long running time has caused a few cricks..more

William Inge jumps Tennessee Williams within the first few minutes of meeting him, ripping off his clothes to have sex with him, in “The Gentleman Caller,” a new, two-character play by Philip Dawkins, who imagines the first two encounters between these future eminent playwrights as the steamy sexual cat and mouse game of two gay young men…. Dawkins’ play seems at least as passionate about depicting two gay men in the 1940s and the different ways they deal with their sexuality, as it is in offering portraits of two celebrated artists at the beginning of their careers...more

Dance Nation is a surprise, and a shock, and a delight. Although the characters are a team of 13-year-old competitive dancers from Liverpool, Ohio aiming to win the Boogie Down Grand Prix in Tampa Bay, Clare Barron’s play is not really about dancing. It is a funny, sharp and very blunt look at adolescent girls – portrayed by a terrific cast made up of actors as old as 60….more

To director Rachel Chavkin, her revival of Caryl Churchill’s early play about the English Civil War is a well-timed political work about a failed revolution, whose characters may inspire American theatergoers who see themselves as members of a modern-day Resistance. I suspect many audience members at New York Theatre Workshop, though, will offer some resistance to Light Shining in Buckinghamshire itself. more

Week in New York Theater News

To Kill A Mockingbird will open as scheduled at Broadway’s Shubert Theater in December, after producer Scott Rudin and the Harper Lee Estate reached a settlement

Children of a Lesser God will play its final performance May 27, after 23 previews and 54 regular performances.

Great pride of what was and a bit wounded because of what could’ve been. https://t.co/LfrTpMifDK — Stephanie J. Block (@StephanieJBlock) May 12, 2018

A “minor injury” (according to the show) to cast member Jim Parson (according to witnesses) forced the cancelation of the Saturday evening performance of “The Boys in the Band” after Parsons reportedly tripped during the curtain call at the matinee.

Jessica Hecht will star in About Alice, Calvin Trillin’s adaptation of his 2007 memoir about the death of his wife. One of the 4 shows in @TheatreforaNewA‘s 2018-19 season. Others by Ryszard Kapuściński, Peter Brook, and Shakespeare. https://t.co/VTsQlti848 pic.twitter.com/lVqgTgqPmt — New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) May 10, 2018

.@Paper_Mill has canceled @OfficialALW‘s “Unmasked” musical, which was to begin in Sept, because of “unforeseen scheduling issues”

The Color Purple” replaces it. — New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) May 8, 2018

Do people have a moral obligation to the performers to try to stay awake, asks @petermarksdrama. (And do theatergoers have an economic obligation to themselves to do so?)https://t.co/0ERzQWGKHB — New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) May 11, 2018

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