Click on any photo to see it enlarged

The following 18 Broadway shows will close on Election Day, November 8, to encourage people to vote for President (All but one – those with asterisks — are performing on Monday, November 7, instead)

* Beautiful: The Carole King Musical

* Cats

* Chicago

* The Color Purple

* The Encounter

* The Front Page

* The Humans

* Kinky Boots

* Les Liaisons Dangereuses

* Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812

* Oh Hello on Broadway

* On Your Feet!

Paramour

* The Phantom of the Opera

* School of Rock

* Something Rotten!

* Waitress

* Wicked

October New York Theater Quiz

November theater openings

Week in New York Theater Reviews

Sweat

Like Grapes of Wrath, Lynn Nottage’s Sweat offers a devastating look at social and economic breakdown, told not with rants or statistics, but through a riveting tale about good people in a bad situation. The characters in Sweat live in Reading, Pennsylvania, which 2010 U.S. Census data identified as the poorest city in America.

They are current, former and (they fully expect) future employees of a local factory, and they hang out together in a neighborhood bar, where most of the play takes place.

If, as Nottage has said in interviews, they were victims of the “de-industrial revolution,” Sweat isn’t as concerned with answering how did this happen as in bringing us into the world of her credible, engaging characters, embodied by a terrific cast.

Heisenberg

“Heisenberg” is a play starring Mary-Louise Parker as a wacky 42-year-old American who kisses a 75-year-old stranger on the neck in a London train station, setting off an improbable affair. Rather than the romantic comedy that the two-character play apparently aspires to be, “Heisenberg” is beneath it all a mystery. The mystery is how a team with such track records and talents – playwright Simon Stephens (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Punk Rock) director Mark Brokaw (How I Learned to Drive, The Lyons), Parker (Proof, Weeds) — could produce such gibberish.

Les Liaisons Dangereuses

n keeping with the casting of Liev Schreiber as a frilly 18th century French libertine in the ill-timed if stylish new Broadway revival of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, may I suggest some actors who could succeed him in the role?

Le Hulk (Lou Ferrigno)

La Roche (Dwayne Johnson)

Le Terminateur (Arnold Schwarzenegger)

….Actually, there will be no replacement cast in the Broadway revival of Les Liaison Dangereuses. The show runs only through January, a “strictly limited engagement” – which is a fairly accurate summary of my reaction to it.

Finian’s Rainbow

Why would anybody want to revive “Finian’s Rainbow,” a 1947 musical that features dancing black sharecroppers and a leprechaun whose pot of gold was stolen by a crafty old Irishman named Finian with a fondness for drink? I asked that question when I saw the 2009 Broadway revival, and answered it: The score.

That’s true again in the modest Off-Broadway revival at the Irish Rep, where a four-piece orchestra and a 13-member cast led by the glorious Melissa Errico do delicious justice to the show’s terrific tuneful melodies

Week in New York Theater News

Lead producers of Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 have agreed to give Ars Nova the billing they had promised to the non-profit theater that developed the musical in the first place, settling the pending lawsuit.

Readings in NYC of plays rooted in #BlackLivesMatter the day before Election Day. https://t.co/YJJ6kcdnAi — New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) November 4, 2016

Bandstand, with Corey Cott and Laura Osnes, will open April 26, 2017 at Broadway’s Bernard B. Jacobs . Previews begin March 31.

Grand Paradise, immersive tropical show in Bushwick by Third Rail Project, will end its year-long run on December 31

The Wall Street Journal announces cutback in arts and culture coverage. Its Greater NY section will be reduced from six pages to two. Layoffs “possible”

Congrats Ghirmay Ghebreslassie of Eritrea for winning #nycmarathon , and @CynthiaEriVo of Broadway for completing it — New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) November 6, 2016

18-story tall Danielle Brooks declaring pride in her body in Times Square

Shouldn’t this read Hamilton 1776? pic.twitter.com/4YE30IXwPZ — New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) November 3, 2016

RIP

Tammy Grimes, 13-time Broadway veteran, two-timeTony winner (Unsinkable Molly Brown; Private Lives), mother of Amanda Plummer. Age 82

Jonathan Regis Cray (O’Creagh), 67, actor, musician and poet

Producer Rick Steiner, a nose for hits — The Producers, Hairspray, Jersey Boys, August: Osage County, 69. “a higher batting average as a producer than anyone I’ve ever met in the theater business” – childhood friend and fellow producer Rocco Landesman.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

LinkedIn

Reddit

Email

Print



Like this: Like Loading...