SPRING OPENINGS ON BROADWAY
As we head into Spring a bright cluster of stars is lighting up the Great White Way and a slew of new Broadway productions are rushing in to make the April 27 deadline to be eligible for this year’s Tony Awards. Several luminaries have already opened in productions within the last month — Glen Close in Sunset Boulevard, Jake Gyllenhaal in Sunday in the Park with George and Sally Fields in The Glass Menagerie. Soon they will be joined by the likes of Patti LuPone, Kevin Kline, Cynthia Nixon and the divine Bette Midler. This season is also notable for a bumper harvest of new plays, a rarity these days on Broadway. All the more remarkable is the fact that the writers of the four new plays yet to open (two of whom are women) are making their Broadway debuts. Here is the list of the new productions due to open, listed chronologically by opening night:
March 26
You’d think Lynn Nottage wrote her timely play Sweat (Studio 54) in the aftermath of the last election. But the 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ruined had been working on this political and personal drama, which chronicles the hardships of people facing an economic downturn in the American Rust Belt, for several years prior to its acclaimed Off-Broadway debut last November at the Public Theater. The play takes place in a small neighborhood bar in the factory town of Reading, PA. The production, directed by Kate Whoriskey, features an ensemble cast that includes Carlo Alban, James Colby, Khris Davis, Johanna Day, John Earl Jelks, Will Pullen, Miriam Shor, Lance Coadie Williams, Michelle Wilson.
April 2
Everything goes awry during an amateur production of a 1920’s murder mystery drama in The Play That Goes Wrong (Lyceum Theatre), a riotous comedy about theatrical aspirations, written by Henry Lewis and Jonathan Sayer (co-founders of the English improv comedy group, Mischief Theatre) and Henry Shields. The winner of the 2015 Olivier Award for Best New Comedy, the play is still selling out in the West End.
April 3
Amélie (Walter Kerr Theatre) is the captivating story of a young Parisian woman with a vivid imagination who performs random acts of kindness towards others. The musical is adapted from the much-loved 2001 Oscar-nominated French movie by composer Daniel Messé, lyricist Nathan Tysen and bookwriter Craig Lucas. Directed by Tony-Award winner Pam MacKinnon, the production stars Philippa Soo (nominated for a Tony last year for Hamilton) and Adam Chanler-Berat (Peter and the Starcatcher).
April 5
After a decade’s absence, two-time Tony Award-winner Kevin Kline makes a welcome return to Broadway in the role of Gary Essendine, a self-obsessed matinee idol facing a mid-life crisis in Noël Coward’s Present Laughter (St. James Theatre). Coward, the master of wit and dry comedy, wrote the bravura role for himself, and performed it when the near-farcical comedy debuted on Broadway in 1946. The current revival (the fifth on Broadway since the original production) is directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel (Tony nominee for Hand to God); Kate Burton plays Essendine’s ex-wife, who remains a part of his coterie, and Kristine Nielsen his secretary.
April 6
Two bona fide Broadway divas, Tony Award winners Patti Lupone and Christine Ebersole, playing Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden, go head-to-head engaged in a fierce rivalry to create and dominate the cosmetics industry in War Paint (Nederlander Theatre). The new musical by the team who wrote Grey Gardens — Doug Wright (book), Scott Frankel and Michael Korie (music and lyrics) — is directed by Michael Greif (Rent and Next to Normal) and also features John Dossett and Douglas Sills.
April 13
Broadway newcomer J.T. Nelson’s Oslo (Vivian Beaumont Theatre) dramatizes the back-channel maneuvering that culminated in the historic Oslo peace accords between Israel and Palestine in 1993. Tony Award winners Jennifer Ehle (The Coast of Utopia) and Jefferson Mays (I Am My Own Wife) portray the two Norwegian diplomats who facilitated the negotiations. The engrossing drama first caught the attentions of critics and audiences during an acclaimed Off-Broadway run last year at Lincoln Center. The production, directed by Tony winner Bartlett Sher, also features Daniel Jenkins and Daniel Oreskes.
April 17
Movies continue to be a rich source for new musicals these days: Groundhog Day (August Wilson Theatre), is based on the popular 1993 comedy about a weatherman who is mysteriously forced to live the same day over and over. Andy Karl (Rocky and On the Twentieth Century) received rave reviews (and an Olivier nomination) for playing the role created by Bill Murray in the movie when this production debuted in London last year. The musical is written by Tim Minchin (composer and lyricist of Matilda, the Musical) and bookwriter Danny Rubin, who co-wrote the screenplay of the movie. The production is directed by Matthew Warchus, choreographed by Peter Darling and designed by Rob Howell, who also collaborated on Matilda.
April 18
Distinguished playwright Paula Vogel (1998 Pulitzer Prize-winner for How I Learned to Drive) makes a long-overdue Broadway debut with Indecent (Cort Theatre), which enjoyed a successful run at Off-Broadway’s Vineyard Theater last year. The play with music, directed by Rebecca Taichman, is inspired by the real-life controversy surrounding the 1923 Broadway production of Sholem Asch’s God of Vengeance. The Yiddish theater classic not only stirred passions because of its challenges to orthodox faith but also, perhaps more significantly, for its sympathetic portrayal of a lesbian love affair. Vogel’s play also tracks the backstage lives of the artists who took great personal risks for being part of the controversial production.
April 19
In an unusual casting move Tony Award winner Cynthia Nixon and three-time Oscar and Tony nominee Laura Linney will alternate in the roles of Regina Hubbard Giddens and Birdie Hubbard, the two female members of a male-dominated Southern aristocratic clan in The Little Foxes (Samuel J. Friedman Theatre). In Lillian Hellman’s 1939 gripping drama about greed and ambition, set in Alabama 1900, family members clash ruthlessly in their relentless pursuit of wealth. The revival is directed by Daniel Sullivan, Tony Award-winning director of Proof.
April 20
That great matchmaker Dolly Gallagher Levi did promise that she’ll never go away. Well, look at the old girl now fellas: Bette Midler makes a highly-anticipated return to Broadway headlining a new revival of Hello, Dolly! (Shubert Theatre). The beloved 1964 hit musical, written by Jerry Herman (music and lyrics) and Michael Stewart (book), co-starring David Hyde Pierce, is directed by four-time Tony Award-winner Jerry Zaks and choreographed by Warren Carlyle (Tony winner After Midnight).
April 23
Two-time Tony Award-winner Christian Borle (Something Rotten) plays Willie Wonka, the famous inventor in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Lunt-Fontanne Theatre), a new musical based on the beloved Roald Dahl story about the boy who gets a golden ticket to visit a world of mystery and chocolate fantasy. The score is by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (the award-winning team who gave us Hairspray), the book by playwright David Greig; the production is directed by three-time Tony Award winner Jack O’Brien and choreographed by Emmy Award winner, Joshua Bergasse.
April 24
The new musical Anastasia (Broadhurst Theatre), from playwright Terrence McNally, composer Stephen Flaherty and lyricist Lynn Ahrens (the Tony Award-wining team that wrote Ragtime), taps into the romance and adventure of a young woman who travels from Moscow to Paris to unravel the mystery of her past. The story is inspired by the persistent legend that the youngest daughter of the Russian Imperial family survived the upheaval of the Revolution and lived through adulthood. The production is directed by Darko Tresnjak, Tony Award-winner for A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder.
April 25
Seven-time Emmy Award winner Allison Janney (CBS’s Mom) and Tony Award winner John Benjamin Hickey star in Six Degrees of Separation (Barrymore Theatre). Corey Hawkins (Straight out of Compton) plays the young con man who inveigles his way into a wealthy family in this revival of John Guare’s celebrated comedy which skewers the insecurities of Manhattan’s Upper East Side elites. The play was nominated for both a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award in 1991. The production is directed by Trip Cullman.
April 26
A group of World War II veterans and a young war widow form a band in 1945 to take part in a nation-wide radio contest in the new musical Bandstand (Bernard P. Jacobs Theatre). The sounds of the big-band era is evoked by composer/lyricist Richard Oberacker and bookwriter/lyricist Robert Taylor. Tony nominee Laura Osnes (Cinderella), Corey Cott (Gigi) and Tony Award-winner Beth Leavel (The Drowsy Chaperone) head the cast in the production directed and choreographed by Andy Blankenbuler, a Tony winner last year for his work on Hamilton.
April 27
Rising young playwright Lucas Hnath, who was propelled to fame with the recent Off-Broadway productions of The Christians and Red Speedo, takes on Ibsen for his Broadway debut. In his take on the 19th century classic, A Doll’s House, Part 2 (Golden Theatre), Nora returns to her husband and children, fifteen years after she walked out of her home with the dramatic door slam that shocked her world. A high-powered cast, including Laurie Metcalf (Tony nominee last year for Misery), Chris Cooper, Jayne Houdyshell (2016 Tony Award winner for The Humans) and Condola Rashad, is directed by Sam Gold (The Flick).