Mother Nature has her faux fur coat on the foot of her bed and she’s almost ready to step out for New York’s hottest shows. We are here to celebrate the eight shows that will open up on Broadway before October.
Marianne Elliott (Company, Angels in America, Warhorse) directs this critically-acclaimed West End Transfer
Tony Award Nominee and Multi-Olivier Award Winner Sharon D. Clarke, Wendell Pierce (HBO’s The Wire) and the incomparable André De Shields round out this powerhouse cast
The Black actors portraying the Loman family during the 1940s transcends the writing making an even harder hit for Willy, his wife and his boys
The 2017-2018 Broadway season reached 13,792,614 in attendance and grossed over $1.6 million. Despite these record setting numbers, discussion and debate broke out amongst fans as all four Tony nominated Best Musicals were stage adaptations of films; The Band’s Visit, SpongeBob SquarePants the Musical, Frozen, and Mean Girls.
The Broadway cast of Some Like It Hot
A major criticism of Broadway is the trend of stage adaptations of popular movies, which has been featured heavily in recent seasons. With this upcoming season having two announced adaptations, Almost Famous and Some Like It Hot, and even more rumored for the future including The Notebook, The Devil Wears Prada, and a transfer of the West End’s Back to the Future, there is an understandable interest in the creation and development of original stories on Broadway. What many theatergoers are unaware of is that this trend isn’t new to Broadway. In fact, Broadway has a long history of translating movies to the stage including some classic and fan favorite shows.
Little Shop Of Horrors
While some adaptations are more obvious, such as the Disney Broadway catalog including shows like Beauty and the Beast, Newsies, and The Lion King, many well known theater classics were inspired by movies. Sondheim and Wheeler’s A Little Night Music, which originally opened on Broadway in 1973 and ran for 601 performances, is based on the 1955 Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night. The well-known Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon staple Sweet Charity, written by Neil SImon with music by Cy Coleman and lyrics by Dorothy Fields, is based on the 1957 screenplay Nights of Cabiria. Little Shop of Horrors, whose award winning Off-Broadway revival is currently running at the Westside Theatre, is based on the low budget 1960 dark comedy, The Little Shop of Horrors. Andrew Lloyd Webbers’ Sunset Boulevard, which broke advance sale records and sold over 1 million tickets with its original Broadway production, is based on the 1950 film of the same name. Some other classics include Nine, based on Frederico Fellini’s 1963 film 8½, On The 20th Century, based on the 1930s film of the same name, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s State Fair, and Promises, Promises, based on the 1960 film The Apartment.
Heathers The Musical on Roku
Beyond the classics, many fan favorites, such as Heathers which currently has a production on the West End, are based on films. The 2007 Legally Blonde, which has become a go-to for many community theaters and High Schools across the country, is heavily based heavily on the 2001 film starring Reese Witherspoon as well as the Amanda Brown novel. The beloved Sara Bareilles musical Waitress, which ran on Broadway from 2016 to 2020 and returned in a limited engagement in 2021, is based on the 2007 film written by Adrienne Shelly. Other fan favorite adaptations include the currently running Beetlejuice, based on the Tim Burton horror comedy, 9 to 5, based on the 1980 film, Anastasia, based on the 1997 animated movie, and many more.
Billy Elliott the Musical
Some screen to stage adaptations have even garnered critical acclaim and gone on to win Tony Awards, such as Once, which won the 2012 Tony Award for Best Musical. Carnival, which won the 1962 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical and an Outer Critics Circle Award, was based on the 1953 film Lili. The 2013 winner Kinky Boots, which ran on Broadway for 2,507 performances and is currently running Off-Broadway at Stage 42, is based on a 2005 British film of the same name. The 2021 Tony Award-winning Best Musical, Moulin Rouge!, is based on the 2001 film starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor. Other Tony Award winning adaptations include Billy Elliot the Musical, Spamalot, Hairspray, Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Producers, and Passion.
The river flows both ways. While many musicals based on films have gone on to win awards and break records, Hollywood continues to turn out movies based on beloved Broadway shows. In the last 5 years alone, there have been a slew of film adaptations of Musicals including Jonathan Larsons’ Tick, Tick…Boom, directed by Lin Manuel Miranda starring Andrew Garfield, a remake of West Side Story directed by Stephen, In The Heights, 13, The Prom, Dear Evan Hansen, and The Last 5 Years (although this came out in 2014 and has yet to have a Broadway production). Coming to Netflix this December will be a movie adaptation of the acclaimed musical Matilda. The long-running Broadway musical Wicked, which has multiple national tours and international productions, has a film adaptation in the late stages of development starring Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, and Jonathan Bailey.
While there should be a healthy mix of original stories and adaptations in commercial theater, the relationship between Broadway and the silver screen has an extensive history that shouldn’t be dismissed. If a screen to stage adaptation is done well, it has the potential to connect with audiences, set records, and become a staple in the theater canon.
It was a wonderful opportunity to explore Lillian Hellman’s classic play with such a dream cast as part of this series of online performances. The themes of liberal America and its imperative to combat fascism in all its manifestations feels all too pertinent to the needs of our present times. When Watch On The Rhine premiered in 1941 it served to bring to the theatre-going public a sense of the turmoil that was brewing in mainland Europe and its potential impact on the global stage.
I was first exposed to the epic dimensions of the American drama when I made my professional theatrical debut in a revival of Strange Interlude by Eugene O’Neill. Written in the shadow of the Great War, this Pulitzer Prize winning drama features the theatrical convention of characters speaking their innermost thoughts as asides. In deploying this classical device in a contemporary setting, O’Neil shows that despite the privileges of modern education, human beings still struggle to communicate directly and truthfully with one another. However, my lasting impression of this masterpiece is not as profound as I would wish. I was thirteen years old at the time and my hair had been bleached a platinum blonde to evoke the archetypal Golden Child. The abiding memory I have is of the cast, which included Glenda Jackson and my father Brian Cox, gently but firmly urging me to go easy on the gold hairspray that I had applied to my side parting when the dark roots began to show. Luckily, I don’t think my besmirching of the beautifully tailored 1920’s costumes could be glimpsed past the front row.
Thirty seven years later and one of the benefits of being involved in the remote capture of an online performance of a classic play is that this actor can transform himself without having to make a trip to the hairdresser.
Alan Cox recently played Uncle Vanya at the Hampstead Theatre in London and Claudius in Hamlet for the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. He played David Frost in the national tour of Frost/Nixon, for which he received a Helen Hayes Award nomination. He made his Broadway debut in Translations. He made his motion picture debut as Watson in Young Sherlock Holmes. His film work includes Contagion, The Dictator, Mrs. Dalloway, and An Awfully Big Adventure. Alan’s television credits include The Good Wife, John Adams, and The Odyssey. He can be seen in Spotlight on Play’s Watch on the Rhine streaming this Thursday.
In 1981, I was in my last year of high school in the suburbs of Toronto. I’d done a bunch of musicals in theatre class (Godspell, Pippin, Fantasticks) but never worked professionally. I got a job bussing tables at a brand-new dinner theatre uptown, O’Neill’s. The opening show, starring six young actors in their mid-20’s, was a collection of songs (from other musicals) about making it in show biz. It was called, literally, One Big Break. Five nights a week, for months, I’d clear plates and glasses, then sit at the back, by the spotlight, and watch my new, slightly-older friends perform. After one show, I was washing dishes when I overheard the owners, in a kitchen corner, whispering their concerns about Stephen, one of the actors.
“He could barely sing tonight,” said Sandra O’Neill, the theatre’s namesake. “Well, we don’t have understudies, Sandra,” hissed the other owner, “what would you suggest?”
“I can do it,” I blurted.
They looked over at me, in my apron and my mullet. Sandra smiled, like I was an adorable puppy. “Aww,” she cooed, “thanks, hon. It’s Eric, right? We’ll figure it out, sweetheart.”
The next day, in history class, I got called to the front office. This had never happened in my life. The principal’s secretary handed me the phone. Sandra O’Neill was on the other end.
“Were you… serious?” she asked, with hesitation.
“Absolutely,” I replied, with none. The bravado of eighteen.
I met with the musical director at 4:00 and we ran the numbers. Once. When the actors got there, they looked ashen. Sure, I was their favorite busboy, but…this? We reviewed choreography for about half an hour…then we opened the place for dinner.
And I bussed tables.
At 8:00, the waiters (to the surprise of the patrons) suddenly became the performers. One by one they’d put down their trays and start to sing the opening number. I was the last. The first lines out of my mouth, the first words I ever sang in a professional theatre…
“One good break is really all I need to make the world stand up and cheer…”
It was a pretty good night. I played the role for two more months. I will always have a special place in my heart for Sandra.
And for Stephen McMulkin.
Eric McCormack
Best known as Will Truman on TV’s Will & Grace, Eric McCormack made his Broadway debut in The Music Man. He appeared as a mystery guest star in The Play What I Wrote, starred off-Broadway in Neil LaBute’s Some Girl(s) and returns to the Main Stem opposite James Earl Jones in the 2012 revival of Gore Vidal’s The Best Man.
This may come as a surprise to some, not so much to others, but Othello is a complex role to accept for the 21st century black actor. On one hand, he’s an incredibly deep, densely drawn character and one of the few that are built specifically for actors of color in the Elizabethan canon. On the other hand, he’s been reduced to some pretty nasty stereotyping. The character has a well documented history of blackface, and the optics of a white woman being strangled by a black man brings to mind the gut-dropping feeling we got in those last moments of Jordan Peele’s Get Out (Daniel Kaaluya hands wrapped around the neck of his captor/honeypot/devil in a white dress, Allison Williams, when suddenly red and blue lights wash the screen). So in my second year of graduate school, when I was called into my department chairs office to talk about playing Othello in the spring…I wasn’t sure what to do. I mean sure; in the name of the pedagogical experience, in the name of practice (because inevitably it wouldn’t be my last time playing the character) and well, the thing looks good on the resume, so why not? But does taking the part make me a sellout? Or worse…is it a full on soul sell?
Around this time, I was reckoning with myself, my artistry and this liquid prison I was attempting to construct. Growing inside me was this festering shadow of insecurity, imposter syndrome, and the ever present doom of letting everyone down, one I tried to bar up with Whiskey, Tequila and Rum. Little did I know, this shadow loved a drink, and despite my attempts to drown it, grew gills. I’ll spare you the rest of the bloody details but I can tell you with confidence that some people do indeed crack their skulls open on rock bottom. Others, however, bounce off stones of despair (it’s my band name, you cannot have it) and are given a chance to change direction.
I started writing letters to Othello in between classes, outpatient treatment, rehearsal and AA meetings on cold Sunday mornings (so much coffee and the squeaking of grey slush on the bottoms of winter boots). It’s not a ritual I had experienced before, but one of my Sunday Morning Crew was like “I write letters to myself and found xyz”. I thought that was a corny thing for a person to do, so I wrote letters to the characters I was cast as (a practice I still carry with me and yes, it is a far cornier endeavor).
We all “know” the play, and in that “knowledge” Othello is this larger than life character who looms over the canon/performer. If the past were to be prologue, he “should” be this gravitational force, the embodiment of strength and “manly-ness”. He’s jealous and angry or something along those lines. So rather than fall in lockstep with the mythic barnacles of the play, I re-read it with the fresh young eyes of a curious child at Disneyworld for the first time.
The first Act is the portrait of a man in love, a man with purpose, a man who has a grasp on what he wants the world to look like and how he can nudge the paradigm a bit closer to the shores of that promise. In my letters, I asked Othello to teach me what love was; specifically, to teach me what it was to be in love with oneself and one’s purpose (he later taught me that once you do that, falling in love is relatively easy). I asked him to remind me of what it means to see beyond what “is” into the realm of what “can be”. I asked him to demand my radical honesty. For a time it felt as though the letter went unheeded. Instead of waiting, I worked my ass off. I scanned and rescanned text, I battled tooth and nail for text to be re-entered into the cut, I linked arms with my castmates/peers to honor the work put in to tell the story as written. I fought for the story in the hopes that it would fight for me. And then, out of that big, looming shadow shrank there emerged a man. He looked a bit like me; a little stockier, a whole lot wiser and a generous smile. And we walked side by side through the play and he revealed things to me. Little secrets other people overlook.
Jealousy seems to be a trait oft associated with The Moor of Venice. I ask…where though? He’s one of the highest ranking generals in the nation, he’s got the hand of one of the most sought after bachelorettes in the nation, he talks business, pleasure and war with the Duke. Iago mentions jealousy, sure…but when does Othello? On the page, he wants to be the change he wants to see in the world. He chooses to partner with the only other human who sees him as such: who sees the sensitivity and the vulnerability in Othello, rather than upholding the expectations of manhood set upon him. With this realization, I felt a little hydrophobic daemon, resistant to my attempts to drown him, squeal away in a puff of brimstone and smoke. I dug deeper: when it is made known to him the possibility of deceit on the part of Desdemona, there is no time for jealousy when your heart is shattered. When you’ve been duped, hoodwinked, bamboozled, how can you blame anyone else but yourself? You can only perform the confusing task of picking up the shards of your heart and fighting through the wincing pain of putting it back together…even though you know it will not refract light the same way. Huh. That’s not jealousy. That’s good old fashioned world weary heartbreak and disappointment. In understanding a bit about him, I understood a bit more about myself. He wasn’t a monolith looming over me, he was right there, next to me, ensuring I honored every step in his shoes.
It’s a cliché to say that Theatre saved my life…so I won’t (it did though, *insert eyeroll*). I know that the characters aren’t actually leaping off the page to rescue me (I’m fully aware it’s my imagination+therapy+the work doing some heavy lifting). As much as I say that the characters are teaching me things, I know that ultimately it’s me, a room full of people, blood, sweat, tears, imagination, and ink on paper. Nor am I here to suggest that Theatre is a replacement to therapy, psychiatry, and/or AA/NA meetings (it isn’t, shout out to my therapist). But it can be a supplement (like B12). The gift and wisdom of the playwright is their ability to teach us lessons about what it means to be human. Sometimes those lessons are about success. They are often about failure; but always, there are lessons to be excavated, digested and shared. There are empathetic bridges to be built; within ourselves, to each other, and to the world into which we wake. And while that sounds like a gushy Barney sing along, the work is hard. It requires dedication, it requires an open mind and an open heart. Building empathetic bridges to truly see each other can be painful. Much like a journey to sobriety, it can feel pretty ugly (ha, I did one of those Shakespeare things). Much like nudging social norms and our existential paradigm towards a just and verdant society, you take it one day, one hour, one minute at a time.
It’s worth it.
Brandon Burton is a 2020 graduate of The Yale School of Drama Master of Fine Arts program. He can be seen in Spotlight on Play’s reading of The Baltimore Waltz streaming April 29th
When I first came to New York, with all those aspirations, I, through a fluke of a chance conversation between an actor I know and her agent, learned that Jerry Robbins, who was about to direct, off-Broadway, Arthur Kopit’s brilliant play Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Momma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feeling so Sad, was having a terrible time casting the part of the young son in the play. I worked hard on the audition and waltzed in and knocked him out with the audition. So he asked me to come to a callback audition a few days later. At which I totally bombed. I’d never heard of a callback. It was a fiasco. Jerry called me the next day and asked me to come see him. He said. “what happened?!” He wasn’t angry, he was just bewildered. I told him that I had no idea, at that second audition, what I was doing. So he kept calling me back and calling me back, looking for the fire to return. Then finally, on, I think, the sixth audition, he had me read opposite the magnificent Barbara Harris. And we soared.
So my career was launched. Jerry was the launcher and Barbara was the rocket.
Luck. Pure, wild luck. This business is beyond capricious.
Austin Pendleton
Austin Pendleton is an actor and director who made his Broadway debut as the original Motel in Fiddler on the Roof. Other Broadway credits include Hail Scrawdyke!, The Little Foxes, An American Millionaire, Doubles, Grand Hotel, The Diary of Anne Frank and Choir Boy as an actor and Shelter, The Runner Stumbles, John Gabriel Borkman and Spoils of War as a director. He was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for The Little Foxes and most recently appeared on Broadway as Mr. Oldfield in The Minutes.
The sun is shining, cherry blossoms are blooming, and many world economies are opening up (slowly but surely). It seems like spring 2021 has finally arrived, bringing with it the seasonal sense of joy, promise, and new beginnings that has long been lauded by writers and artists throughout history. While many people may associate springtime with Shakespeare sonnets, Impressionist paintings, or even madrigals, spring has also been the focus of many Broadway composers and lyricists.
The most obvious example of springtime making its way into the Broadway canon is the song “Younger Than Springtime” from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific. Sung right after Lieutenant Cable and Liat first meet (and make love), “Younger Than Springtime” has all the classic markers of a spring love song. Cable compares Liat to spring – favorably – saying she is “younger than springtime,” “gayer than laughter,” “sweeter than music,” and “warmer than the winds of June.” But the song also has a great “turn” – certainly one of the reasons it’s still so well-known today. While Cable begins the song by saying that Liat is like springtime, halfway through, he implies that she is also transformative: “when your youth/and joy invade my arms/and fill my heart as now they do/then younger than springtime/am I.” Through Liat’s love, Cable argues that he becomes someone who is “gayer than laughter,” “softer than starlight,” and “younger than springtime,” too.
Another well-known use of spring in the lyrics, title, and imagery of a Broadway song can be found in “It Might As Well Be Spring” from State Fair, another Rodgers and Hammerstein collaboration. The song plays with some of the springtime tropes and patterns used in “Younger Than Springtime.” The singer, Margy, makes clear that she hasn’t seen any of the typical, physical signs of oncoming spring. In fact, it’s decidedly not spring: “I haven’t seen a crocus or a rosebud/or a robin on the wing,” Margy sings, “But…it might as well be spring.” This is a prime example of Oscar Hammerstein’s genius use of conditional thinking. In the same way Hammerstein implies in Carousel that Julie Jordan is madly in love with Billy Bigelow using the conditional “IF I loved you,” and that Laurie and Curly in Oklahoma! are similarly destined to mate with the conditional “people will SAY we’re in love,” Hammerstein is able to write a spring love song that’s not actually sung during springtime.
The song grows even more rich and complex in its associations with the season. While the characteristics of springtime that Cable lists in “Younger Than Springtime” are all positive, for Margy “it might as well be spring” not only because she’s “starry-eyed,” “giddy,” and “gay,” but also because she feels “restless,” “jumpy,” and “vaguely discontented.” In “It Might As Well Be Spring” you get both sides of the coin: the good and the bad, the positive and the negative, perhaps best summed up by the lyric: “But I feel so gay/in a melancholy way/that it might as well be spring.” Here, spring is being used as a metaphor for the “nameless” discontent Margy feels with her life at the moment – a vague restlessness which sets up most of the action of the play: while Margy is dating Harry, who wants to marry her, she “keep[s] wishing [she] were somewhere else,/Walking down a strange new street./Hearing words that [she’s]…never heard/ From a man [she’s] yet to meet.” These lyrics foreshadow her meeting, and falling in love with, Pat at the (titular) state fair. It’s also hard not to read these lyrics without picking up something of a sexual edge. When Margy starts the song, she sings of “want[ing] a lot of…things/[she’s] never had before.” Given the traditional associations of birth, new beginnings, love, and even sexuality, with springtime, “It Might As Well Be Spring” could easily speak to Margy’s desires as a newly minted young woman.
Many Broadway songs focus on this deeper side of spring’s transitions. In Rodgers and Hart’s I Married an Angel, for example, Willy sings “Spring Is Here” when things with his angel-wife (yes, you read that correctly) have gone sour. “Spring is here/why doesn’t my heart go dancing?/spring is here/why isn’t the waltz entrancing?…Maybe it’s because nobody needs me…Maybe it’s because nobody loves me,” he sings. It’s another clever inversion of the springtime myth: spring may be here, with its gentle “breezes,” and “lads and girls…drinking May wine,” but because Willy has fallen out of love, he can no longer enjoy it. It’s a springtime love song that depends on negative space rather than positive space: without “love,” “desire,” or “ambition,” there can be no spring.
“Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most,” Fran Landesman and Tommy Wolf’s 1955 tune which was then incorporated into the 1959 musical The Nervous Set, similarly focuses on the “have-nots” of spring rather than the “haves.” A send-up of the first lines of T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland” (“April is the cruelest month…”), “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most” implies that spring can actually be the worst time of the year – if you’re single, that is. “Spring this year has got me feeling like a horse that never left the post;/I lie in my room staring up at the ceiling/Spring can really hang you up the most!” the lyrics read. The song reverses traditional springtime psychology and implies that the singer was happy and in love in the winter, and now, during the joyful spring season of rebirth, is experiencing loneliness. “Love seemed sure around the New Year,” she sings, “Now it’s April, love is just a ghost;/ Spring arrived on time, only what became of you, dear?” It should be noted that this song, as well as “It Might As Well Be Spring,” became jazz standards, covered by the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra. The season’s failure to deliver on its promise is clearly a recurring theme on Broadway and beyond.
But no discussion of spring on Broadway would be complete without “Springtime for Hitler” from Mel Brooks’ The Producers. The major song in the musical’s show-within-a-show, a favorable retelling of WWII from the perspective of a disgruntled Nazi, “Springtime for Hitler” shows Brooks’ thoughtful understanding – and appreciation – of spring’s metaphorical function in Golden Age musicals. As the tap-dancing, sausage-wearing Nazis sing lines like “And now it’s springtime for Hitler and Germany/Deutschland is happy and gay,” Brooks is sending up the positive traits associated with springtime in musicals like South Pacific and State Fair. And to the Nazis represented in the show, “springtime for Hitler” is indeed positive: it encapsulates their military campaign to take over the world. Brooks makes clear, however, that this seasonal rebirth is actually extremely dark. Peppered in with the image of a “happy and gay” Germany are lyrics about “U-boats…sailing once more.” In the song, springtime equals gaiety, but it also happens to equal “bombs falling from the skies again.” Combined with the schmaltzy musical style, movie-musical tap-dancing, over-the-top costumes, and of course the late, great Gary Beach’s acting, springtime in “Springtime for Hitler,” repeated over 20 times in the eight-minute song, becomes an absurd (and incredibly funny) dramatic irony.
Brooks’ hilarious treatment of springtime is similar to the season’s representation in a lesser known E.Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy song, “Springtime Cometh” from the 1951 flop Flahooley. Like “Springtime for Hitler,” “Springtime Cometh” relies on and leans into the audience’s positive associations with spring and its traditional representation in Golden Age musicals. Sandy/Penny and her genie (truly – don’t ask) sing about “lilacs growing on the clothesline,” “roses growing in the ashcan,” “hummingbird[s],” “merry maidens,” and repeat the word “springtime” six times in the short song. Harburg went one step further and even wrote the lyrics in a sort of faux Olde English: “Springtime cometh,” the characters sing. “Hummingbird hummeth,/little brook rusheth,/merry maiden blusheth…springtime cometh for love of thee.” Harburg pushes this construction even further for comedic effect with “Sugarplum plummeth,/Heart, it humpty-dummeth,/And to summeth up,/The Springtime cometh for the love of thee.” The faux Olde English language reaches its zenith with Harburg’s tongue-and-cheek reference’s to spring’s inherent sexuality: “Lad and lass/In tall green grass/Gaily skippeth,/Nylon rippeth,/Zipper zippeth…which is to say/Spring cometh.” Harburg’s ironic send-up of springtime is sexual, funny, self-aware, and, most importantly, irreverent.
Broadway clearly has a long-time fascination – and infatuation – with all things spring. From the huge number of songs with “spring” in their title (and chorus) – to ones that rely on springtime imagery like the lilac trees in My Fair Lady’s “On the Street Where You Live” – lyricists have used the season to convey and inspire romance, joy, lust, restlessness, loneliness, humor, and personal transformation in equal parts. So in this close-to-post-pandemic moment: crank up the Broadway show tunes, smell the flowers, and look forward to a new (and hopefully, better) day. As they say: “springtime cometh!”
Katie Birenboim is a NYC-based actor, director, and writer. She’s performed and directed at Classic Stage Company, Berkshire Theatre Group, Barrington Stage, City Center Encores!, The Davenport Theatre, and Ancram Opera House, to name a few. She is a proud graduate of Princeton University, member of Actors’ Equity, and hosts a weekly interview show on YouTube with theatre’s best and brightest entitled “Call Time with Katie Birenboim.”
In 1997 I did a one man play about a drunken Irish theatre critic at the Bush theater in London. St Nicholas! Written by Conor McPherson, which I subsequently performed the following year at Primary Stages in New York on 45th street, and for which I was honored with ‘The Lucille Lortel Award’!
But the previous year the play was premiered at the Bush Theatre in London. The Bush was a small intimate theatre with the audience on three sides. This particular night was a sellout performance. The audience were packed to the rafters.
Now St Nicholas is an extremely intricate complicated and fantastical text. With a sinewy comic thread! It demands an incredible level of Concentrated attention from the player. That evening started well.
But…About 6 minutes into the evening I noticed that sitting on front row…in…the middle…to my right was my ex girlfriend. Who I had recently broken up with. I was a little thrown by this …and wondered why on earth she had chosen that particular, really, quite prominent, seat.
I recovered from this slight ‘hiccup’ and continued, feeling proud of myself that I was not thrown by this ‘obstacle’. So I proceeded with renewed confidence.
After a few minutes, I’d just gotten back in stride when I turned to address my audience stage left and there sitting…in the middle of the left front row was…my ex ex girlfriend. The girl friend previous…to the girl friend…now sitting stage right. In fact these two young ladies were actually sitting…facing…each other. I didn’t panic… but, my anxiety…was, shall we say…mounting.
What on earth was going on? And of course various scenarios began to play out in my mind!
Had they come together?
And as some bizarre joke decided to sit opposite each other?
Or??….were they there by pure coincidence?
My brain became occupied with, what seemed endless permutations on these shifting scenarios. The text of the play, the main purpose of my attention, was drifting in my consciousness. And..ten minutes into the evening….the inevitable happened. I went up! Dried stone dead.
I struggled like a drowning man seeking a life raft. But after..a beat..which seemed a lifetime. I stopped turned to the audience, and said “Ladies and Gentlemen I’m afraid for reasons I can’t entirely explain, I need to start the evening over again! Apologies!” And so indeed I did…and it was truly scary!
“Will I get over the point where concentration abandoned me.”
And…”Will I indeed get through the entire evening….”
The moment where I had lost my way, was looming like one of those huge fences at the English Grand national horse race. Would I get over the fence? The moment arrived… and I lept the fence.. and..proceeded obsessively to the finish. After it was over, I left the stage exhausted!
I sat in my dressing room. There was a knock on my door. It was my ex-girlfriend. “Brian that was wonderful, what an incredible evening.” I was about to answer when there was another knock at the door. Enter my ex-ex-girlfriend “Brian that was wonderful, what an amaz….Oh hello, blank!
I was about to answer when there was another knock at the door. Enter my ex-ex-girlfriend “Brian that was wonderful, what an amaz….Oh hello, blank! Were you in?”
Ex-girl friend, “Yes, were you, wasn’t it wonderful
Ex-ex-girlfriend “Amazing!”
I sat there in a state of stupefaction! Me “But weren’t you?… didn’t you? ..Um..ah…see..?”
Both, “What?
Me, “Oh…Nothing…”
Ex girlfriend “ I was absolutely caught from the moment you came on!
I was in a sauna with my husband and 3 year old son on the Dingel peninsula when I received a phone call from Joe Papp asking me to start a multicultural Shakespeare company for him to play for the New York City school system.
Why me? He had seen a multicultural-multilingual production of ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA that I had directed at the Womens’ Interart Theater on 52nd Street. I put together a company: 5 Blacks, 6 Hispanics, 3 Japanese, 2 Whites and 1 Turk.
We played in the Anspacher theater at 425 Lafayette Street for one year and then moved to the Belasco Theater on West 44th Street as SHAKESPEARE ON BROADWAY. It was Joe Papp’s dream.
We played daytimes during the school week for high school and junior high school students. On Friday and Saturdays they could bring their families from great grandparents to babes-in-arms. It was all free.
I TOOK FIVE MONTHS TO DEVELOP THE COMPANY
First an hour of relaxation and physical work led by a member of the company who was a dancer.
Then an hour of vocal work led by another member of the company. Then, five hours of free form work to find out who these actors were.
The reason for these five months?
Commercial actors of whatever culture or race learned to “act white” back in the 80s. I wanted to know who these people really were, their customs, their talk, their heritage, themselves. That stuff is the bedrock of compelling theater and fine acting.
One day Rene Moreno, an Hispanic, was showing us something of his heritage when Vince Williams, a big black guy from a family of musicians in New Orleans, sitting near me watching in the audience, piped up with “My heritage is some guys standing on a beach waiting to be brought here to be slaves”. Necessary talk this. Five months of it.
What do high school students like? Sports teams, oh, yes!
We put sweats on the actors and we had a sports team. (Ruth Morley of ANNIE HALL fame did the costumes). THE NEW YORK SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL PLAYERS
AFTER 5 MONTHS, HERE’S THE DRILL!
The actors came out to introduce themselves “Hello. I’m . . .”
But-hold it! Is that theater? What is your moniker, what is your “John Hancock”?
What is yourself? Show me your essence!
Not easy. Maybe impossible. Try.
One actor was really good at juggling. One could do backflips. One had been trained at New York City Ballet. Got it? Too big a challenge? Yes. Try!
By now the kids were into it.
Bess Myerson, a former Miss America, now part of the city government saw just this much of the performance and gave us a big donation.
BLACKOUT. LIGHTS UP. AS YOU LIKE IT.
Natsuko was Rosalind. Celia was Regina Taylor—with a live boa constrictor around her neck. 25 pounds. Had his own dressing room.
“I can’t rehearse all day with this thing around my neck.” Of course not—but it had been her idea.
One matinee, lights came up and a big girl in the front row shot to the back of the house – faster than any animal I had ever seen run.
The snake was still on Regina’s shoulders.
We alternated AS YOU LIKE IT and ROMEO AND JULIET.
We played the Anspacher, the Mobile Unit in the parks all summer, and then added the Scottish play when we became SHAKESPEARE ON BROADWAY. Ching Valez played Lady M.
Oh, but she could.
After the students had seen the productions, the actors, as themselves, visited the schools and “played Shakespeare” with them.
At the end of our second season, I went, as a wife, to Gracie Mansion for dinner with the Mayor. My husband worked in the city government.
Bobby Wagner, head of the school board, was there. He told a story.
“I was in a school elevator and asked a teacher how her year had been. She said ‘Estelle Parsons’ Shakespeare program was the only good thing that happened all year.”
Estelle Parsons received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Blanche Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde, and was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Rachel, Rachel. She is well known for playing Beverly Harris, on the sitcom “Roseanne”, and its spinoff “The Conners”. She has been nominated five times for the Tony Award (four times for Lead Actress of a Play and once for Featured Actress) for her work in The Seven Descents of Myrtle, And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little, Miss Margarida’s Way, Morning’s at Seven, and The Velocity ofAutumn.
Beverly Jenkins is not afraid of a cut show. That’s a performance where there are more actors calling out than there are understudies or swings to replace them, and it requires a last-minute reconfiguration of everything from blocking to costuming to the placement of props.
For many people, this would be terrifying, but for Jenkins, who’s been a Broadway stage manager since the early 90s, it’s an opportunity.
“It’s a challenge I actually enjoy,” she says. “I know it’s a crazy thing to enjoy. It’s not something you wish for, but if you need to make it happen and you have the right people, you can make it happen.”
Case in point: At one performance of Broadway’s A Bronx Tale The Musical, she only had one Black actress available, even though there was a scene that required two. “I had to decide,” she recalls. “‘Do I have one Black female on stage, or do I have a Black female and a Black male in that other track?’ I’d planned for that, because you have to plan for that, even if it never happens. So I made the decision to have a Black male on stage, because otherwise it would have thrown some things off [to just have one person]. I spoke to some people; we made a few changes, and it worked. No problem.”
That solution indicates what a distinct style of stage management Jenkins has developed over her career, which includes landmark productions like Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk; the original Miss Saigon; and her current gig as the production stage manager for Hadestown.
The cast and crew of Hadestown
Crucially, she sees a cut show as a chance to connect. “It’s a community event,” she says. “You check with wardrobe, and they’ll make adjustments. The music department and the dance captains are involved. I always reach out to the director or the AD to make sure my choices are okay. And I take the personal trip to tell people what’s happening. I get a couple of extra steps in on my FitBit, and I’m good. I want to make sure I’m personally letting people know what’s going on before they step on stage.”
Those steps — up and down stairs, into the green room, into the wings — set Jenkins apart “Beverly runs a building, and she doesn’t have to open her computer to do it,” says Michael Rico Cohen, a fellow stage manager who has worked alongside her on A Bronx Tale The Musical, Amazing Grace, and Fully Committed.
“She is the person-to-person contact. She’s the problem solver. She’s the empathy master.”
Or to borrow a phrase Jenkins uses to describe herself, she’s a mom of many. “I’m fine with the tech,” she says. “It’s all good. I’m very calm, and I can call a cue just as well as the next person, but I believe my speciality is about being hands-on with the people. I put a lot of thought and care into everyone — not just the actors, but everyone — coming into that theatre.”
On every show, then, a big part of her job is figuring out exactly what this particular group of people needs. For instance, on Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk, the 1996 dance musical that uses tap to trace Black history in the United States, Jenkins worked with performers who were more familiar with the dance world than with Broadway. “Sorry Equity, but I had to bend the rules for this group of young men,” she says. “I had to assess the rules and see what they needed. Like, ‘I know this is half hour, and if you’re not here at half hour, then I need you to call me and tell me how far away you are. And as Iong as I know you’re coming, you get a five-minute grace period.’ And that’s something I still do, the five-minute grace period.”
On Noise/Funk, she also turned her office into an occasional daycare center, so that parents in the company could bring their children with them when there were no other options. She recalls, “I had Barney tapes. I had a playpen. I was like, ‘You’re not going to be forced to miss work because you’re doing the right thing with your child.’ I have to get my show up, no matter what. I have to figure out how to get the best show on stage today. And on that show, watching kids was part of it.”
For Amazing Grace, the 2015 Broadway musical that explores how the British slave trade inspired the titular hymn, Jenkins knew her job required extra compassion. She says, “Amazing Grace was important to me because of what was happening on stage. How hard is it that the first time you see Black people on stage, they are stuffed in a crate, and then they get pulled out, thrown on the ground, and shot in the back? So when the actors come off stage, how can they not carry that off stage? How do we make sure that these people are not carrying the feelings of trauma off stage with them?
“We had company morale-building events. We had t-shirt day. We made sure the dressing rooms were mixed, and that we weren’t keeping the Puritans over here and the Africans over here. It was good to see everyone put thought into how to make this a harmonious backstage area and still tell that particular story.”
It no doubt helped that Jenkins herself was spearheading the backstage culture. “She is wildly good at creating fellowship and community,” says Rachel Chavkin, the director of Hadestown.
“She exudes exuberance, but also doesn’t beat around the bush when she’s got a problem to work through. And she’s not precious, because she’s focused on problem-solving at every turn.”
Jenkins asserts that small touches help a company avoid bigger problems, particularly when they’re together for a lengthy run. That’s one reasons she runs a “turkey hand” contest for Thanksgiving, getting everyone in the building to trace their hand on construction paper and then turn it into a decorated turkey drawing. “And believe me, there are prizes, honey,” she says.
Cohen confirms, “There’s nobody that loves a turkey hand competition more than Beverly Jenkins. But it’s more than just turkey hands or door decorating contests or the Father’s Day barbecue. She’s a master of the casual-but-meaningful interaction. It creates a camaraderie and an immediate trust. It’s these little things that really make the building a happy place over a period of years. All of those things are just as important — and sometimes more — than announcing what we’re doing in understudy rehearsal on Friday.”
Mark Blankenship is the founder and editor of The Flashpaper and the host of The Showtune Countdown on iHeartRadio Broadway.
Adam Guettel and Tina Landau’s Floyd Collins—based on the true story of the Kentucky cave explorer—receives its long-awaited Broadway premiere in a new Lincoln Center Theater production, directed by Landau herself. While exploring a cave in a Kentucky mountainside, Floyd Collins, played by the incomparable Jeremy Jordan, becomes stuck between a rock and a hard place… literally. His rescue proves treacherous and soon captures national attention, drawing throngs of onlookers and reporters to the remote countryside. In the cavernous Vivian Beaumont Theater, Jordan’s physicality and emotional volatility create a palpable sense of claustrophobia… in the best possible way. Other notable performances include Taylor Trensch as the skittish reporter Skeets Miller, and Broadway newcomer Lizzy McAlpine, whose voice feels tailor-made for Guettel’s folk-infused score. Known for The Light in the Piazza, Guettel here crafts a soundscape that blends Americana, folk, and yodeling into something as unexpected as it is refreshing. Floyd Collins runs through June 22 on Broadway.
As Broadway artists and enthusiasts await the 2025 Tonys, there’s already so much to celebrate. This year’s class of nominees includes some historic firsts and notable exceptions to the rule, worth a shoutout. Read on!
Kara Young: Four Years, Four Noms
Breakout Broadway star Kara Young continues her impressive roll of nods with a fourth consecutive Tony nomination for Featured Actress in a Play—this time for playing Aziza Jasper in Purpose. She is now the first and sole Black artist nominated in this category for four consecutive years. Her previous nods were for her Broadway debut in Clyde’s (2022), followed by Cost of Living (2023), and Purlie Victorious (2024), for which she took home the award.
Photo by Marc J. Franklin
Pulitzer Power in the Best Play Category
In a major crossover between two of America’s greatest theatrical honors, three of the five Best Play-nominated pieces this season are already Pulitzer Prize finalists or winners. Purpose by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is already the recipient of the 2025 Pulitzer for drama, with Cole Escola’s Oh, Mary! cited as a finalist, and English won last year’s Pulitzer before making its Broadway debut this season. This year’s class of Best Play Tony nominees represents a staggering overlap—and evidence of the power of this season’s storytelling onstage.
Photo by Julieta Cervantes
Audra McDonald Makes Tony History
Broadway icon Audra McDonald has officially broken the record, becoming the most Tony-nominated actor in history. She already holds the record for Tony-winningest performer in Broadway history, with six to her name. Another milestone in an already impressive career. Her latest nomination—her 11th—is for her performance as Rose in the revival of Gypsy, breaking Chita Rivera and Julie Harris’s previous record of 10.
Photo by Daniel Rader
All Play Revivals Closed
In a highly unlikely turn of events, each of the four Best Revival of a Play nominees—Eureka Day, Our Town, Romeo + Juliet, and Yellow Face—had already closed by the time nominations were announced. That’s a strange plot and departure from norms, given that voters prefer productions still running during awards season. It’s normal for plays to open as limited engagements, but this often puts a wrench in Tony recognition later in the season; recency bias is (usually) real.
In the last 20 years, the Broadway catalog has grown to often include the jukebox musical, which uses previously written music to score a Broadway show. Sometimes, the music is used to tell a completely different and unrelated story, like that of Mamma Mia, & Juliet, or Rock of Ages, but more often, they are used to tell the life and career story of that very artist. With two new entries to the list this season, including Jonathan Groff’s suave singing as Bobby Darin in Just in Time and James Monroe Iglehart’s smooth satchmo Louis Armstrong in A Wonderful World, we are looking back at the history of these portrayals of music icons.
Michael Jackson – MJ the Musical (2022–Present)
Moonwalks and megahits define this electric look at Jackson during his 1992 “Dangerous” tour rehearsals. Myles Frost won the 2022 Tony Award for his portrayal of the King of Pop.
Neil Diamond – A Beautiful Noise (2022–2024) Diamond’s life and lyrics shine in this bio-musical that spans decades of sequins and songcraft.
Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons – Jersey Boys (2005–2017, 2021 Off-Broadway) The falsetto, the flair, the mob ties — a Tony-winning tribute to New Jersey’s finest that gave this musical theatre subgenre its kickstart.
The Temptations – Ain’t Too Proud (2019–2022) From street corners to superstardom, the Temps’ story grooves through betrayal, brotherhood, and “My Girl.”
Carole King – Beautiful: The Carole King Musical (2014–2019) The shy songwriter turned solo superstar gets her due, piano and all.
Billie Holiday – Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill (2014) Audra McDonald made history channeling Lady Day in a harrowing, jazz-soaked final concert.
Cher – The Cher Show (2018–2019) Three Chers, one legend — from Sonny & Cher stardom to solo icon status.
Gloria Estefan – On Your Feet! (2015–2017) Conga lines and Cuban rhythms power this celebration of the Estefans’ rise from Miami to the world stage.
Donna Summer – Summer: The Donna Summer Musical (2018) Disco’s reigning queen reigned again through three performers, each reflecting a different era.
Tina Turner – Tina: The Tina Turner Musical (2019–2024)
Raw vocals and resilience define this high-octane journey through Tina’s turbulent life and legendary hits.
A wild western true story gets the folk rock treatment from composer David Yazbek, bookwriter Itamar Moses, and director David Cromer in Dead Outlaw at the Longacre Theatre. Andrew Durand, as the titular deceased fugitive, gives an outrageously dynamic performance, made all the more impressive considering how much of the show he spends completely idle. Julia Knitel is another cast standout, showcasing range and rhythm in her multiple roles with varying interactions with the corpse, before and after his untimely end. The material asks the audience to lean in and ponder its larger themes of mortality, living the life we’ve got, and the legacy that we leave behind after it. Overall, the onstage band and their interplay with the storytelling around them give this show a unique and quirky quality that surprises and delights those searching for weirdness in their Broadway diet.
Kimberly Belflower’s new play gives a 21st-century take on Arthur Miller’s The Crucible through the lens of a Georgia high school classroom’s study of the classic. Directed with riveting pacing and youthful energy by Danya Taymor, the play packs punches that are at once jarring and sobering, elevated by the twitching set and lighting design from AMP and Natasha Katz, respectively. The strong ensemble cast includes standouts Sadie Sink and Fina Strazza, surrounded by a bevy of character actors breathing freshness into the unfortunately ever-timely themes of women’s rights and agency. By the play’s emotionally enthralling climax, the audience has been on quite a thought-provoking and endlessly expressive journey of rage, tenderness, and revelation.
The 2015 Broadway revival of The Color Purple, directed by John Doyle was a landmark production. The show performed at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre and ran for over a year and a half, spotlighting powerhouse work from newcomers and established performers alike. The revival won two Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Musical and Best Leading Actress for Cynthia Erivo. Since it ended its run in 2017, the cast has moved on to some pretty big projects. Let’s take a look at where the stars of this moving production are now.
Cynthia Erivo (Celie)
Cynthia Erivo’s star has only continued to rise since her Tony-winning Broadway debut. Shortly after The Color Purple, she transitioned into film with her acclaimed role as Harriet Tubman in Harriet (2019), earning Oscar nominations for Best Actress and Best Original Song. She went on to star in HBO’s The Outsider (2020), play Aretha Franklin in Genius: Aretha (2021), and appear as the Blue Fairy in Disney’s Pinocchio (2022). She took on the iconic role of Elphaba in Wicked: Part One (2024) and will reprise the role for Part Two (2025), opposite Ariana Grande. Erivo sang a moving rendition of ‘Defying Gravity’ from the blockbuster musical at the 2025 Oscars. She is now not only an EGOT nominee but a bona fide Hollywood A-lister. What’s more, she’s hosting this year’s Tony Awards!
Jennifer Hudson (Shug Avery)
Already an Oscar winner by the time she made her Broadway debut as Shug Avery, Jennifer Hudson has continued to thrive. She delivered a soulful turn as Aretha Franklin in Respect (2021), and currently hosts The Jennifer Hudson Show, a daytime talk show that’s won her a Daytime Emmy. She also voiced Young Nana in the animated film Sing 2 (2021). In 2022, JHud got her EGOT when the new Broadway musical she produced, A Strange Loop, won the Tony for Best Musical, proving her GOAT status as the youngest woman to ever achieve that.
Danielle Brooks (Sofia)
Danielle Brooks followed her Tony-nominated Broadway debut with a mix of screen and stage work. She reprised Sofia in the 2023 film adaptation of the Color Purple musical, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. On television, she played Leota Adebayo in Peacemaker (2022), earning praise for her comedic timing and emotional depth. Brooks also returned to voice acting in Close Enough and remains a vocal advocate for diversity in entertainment.
Isaiah Johnson (Mister)
Isaiah Johnson continued his stage career with performances in regional productions and workshops, as well as a turn in Hamilton (Los Angeles production) and the musical adaptation of The Notebook. He’s appeared in television series such as The Good Fight and Bull, and remains an in-demand stage actor.
Kyle Scatliffe (Harpo)
After The Color Purple, Kyle Scatliffe took on the emotional role of Tom Robinson in Broadway’s To Kill a Mockingbird (2019–2020). He also appeared in The Prince of Egypt in London’s West End, and continues to perform on national tours and concert stages across the U.S.
Joaquina Kalukango (Nettie)
Joaquina Kalukango has become one of Broadway’s most celebrated leading ladies. In 2022, she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her electrifying performance in Paradise Square, in which she belted the show’s 11 o’clock number ‘Let it Burn.’ She had previously earned a Tony nomination for Slave Play (2019) and appeared in Regina King’s film One Night in Miami (2020). She also had a six-episode stint as Esme in the TV show Lawmen: Bass Reeves.
Lawrence Clayton (Ol’ Mister)
Broadway veteran Lawrence Clayton brought depth to Ol’ Mister in The Color Purple, and continued to shine in the national tour of Les Misérables (as Bishop Myriel) and regional theater productions across the country. He made guest appearances on The Last O.G. and Bull, and continued to mentor young performers while remaining active in educational theatre. Clayton sadly passed away in 2020 at the age of 64.
Grasan Kingsberry (Buster)
A standout dancer and ensemble member he moved on to book big Broadway shows like Once On This Island (2017–2019) and Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations (2019–2022). In 2020, he was in the film The Aerialist. What’s more, he’s found a life in artistic offstage leadership, having recently choreographed and performed in regional productions of Rent and Caroline, or Change.
It’s rare for a show to be the launching catalyst for so many performers. The futures these artists found in TV, Film, and Theatre are proof enough that this revival was pretty incredible, and incredibly cast, rich with talent.
This year, Broadway’s timeline glitters with gold (and diamond!) anniversaries of the shows that shaped American musical theater — from tap-dancing showgirls to revolutionary rap. From golden age classics to 21st-century defining productions, there are a lot of Broadway milestones worth celebrating this year!
A Chorus Line – 50 Years
Opened: July 25, 1975
The quintessential behind-the-curtain musical, A Chorus Line gives us a vulnerable yet epic look at the hopes and dreams of the artists that make up the lifeblood of Broadway: the ensembles. A chorus line ran for 15 years (breaking the record for longest-running show at the time) and forever changed how we looked at the performers who make up musical theatre ensembles.
Chicago – 50 Years
Opened: June 3, 1975
Murder, jazz, and razzle-dazzle. Kander & Ebb’s Chicago remains a seductive satire of fame and corruption, with Bob Fosse’s style stamped into every hip roll. While the original had a modest run, the 1996 revival is the longest-running American musical in Broadway history — and it’s still dazzling us with new celebrity castings, such as Pamela Anderson and Jinkx Monsoon, to keep audiences coming through the doors. Here’s to all that jazz!
The Wiz – 50 Years
Opened: January 5, 1975
Legacy: This revolutionary, soulful spin on The Wizard of Oz brought an all-Black creative team and cast to Broadway and won seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical. With songs like ‘Ease On Down the Road,’ a movie adaptation with Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, and a funky, fearless energy, The Wiz paved the way for a more inclusive Broadway. Just before the Wiz had its big 50th birthday, the show celebrated with a limited-run revival last year following a national tour!
Guys & Dolls – 75 Years
Opened: November 24, 1950
Damon Runyon’s New York never sounded so good. To say this show rocked the boat is an understatement. Considered one of the best-written musicals of all time, Frank Loesser’s Guys & Dolls is the kind of big musical score you picture when you think of the perfect Broadway show! With gambling, girls, and that classic Broadway sound, we’re keeping our eyes peeled as we hope for a revival soon.
Carousel – 80 Years
Opened: April 19, 1945
A granddaddy of modern Broadway form, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s sweeping second collaboration brought bold operatic voice and tragic romance to the young American theatre industry. With ‘If I Loved You’ and ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ standing out as classic songs we still hum today, Carousel expanded the emotional vocabulary of the art form and remains one of the most revered scores of all time.
Pal Joey – 85 Years
Opened: December 25, 1940
The original antihero, Joey, our pal, leads this iconic Rodgers and Hart musical. Ahead of its time, especially in terms of its themes of sexual politics and gritty realness, this show shocked audiences at the time and provoked conversation beyond the typical feel-good escapism of most shows around it. What was once the edgy adolescence of the genre finding its voice is now a pillar of the medium. We’re excited to see the upcoming revisal at Arena Stage in their 75th season, as it revolutionizes the show yet again through its reflection of the 20th century!
Aida – 25 Years
Opened: March 23, 2000
An Elton John-driven Disney Theatricals spectacle, that started as a celebrity-filled concept album based on an Italian Opera, this show transports its leads and audiences to Ancient Egypt in the most fun, pop-filled way. Five Tony noms, four wins, and Time-stamped in the best 10 shows of the year, Aida ushered Disney and Broadway into the 21st century.
Hamilton – 10 Years
Opened: August 6, 2015
Do we even need to say it? If you’re reading this article, you’ve heard of Hamilton. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop history lesson redefined what Broadway could be and transcended the genre beyond what any other show ever has. With a cast that looked at America then through a cast made up of America now, Hamilton became a global cultural force, winning 11 Tonys, a Pulitzer, millions of fans, and syndicating to even have a Roblox presence. It’s crazy to think this show is already 10 years old.
From the golden age to the streaming era, these shows have left footprints — and tap marks — all over the stage. Whether you saw them in their original runs, caught a revival, or discovered them through cast albums and TikTok, their stories endure.
Which anniversary are you celebrating this year?
Let us know @bwaysbestshows — and stay tuned for special features on each title throughout the year.
If you’ve walked past the Palace Theatre lately and seen David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross on the marquee, you’re not imagining things — yes, a play is taking over one of Broadway’s most famous musical houses. And not just for a quick run — this revival, scheduled to run for over three months, marks a real Broadway milestone: the longest-running play ever at the Palace.
That’s a bold statement for a theater as legendary as the Palace. Since opening its doors in 1913, the Palace has welcomed the biggest showbiz stars, from vaudeville legends Judy Garland and Fanny Brice to countless blockbuster musicals. Some of Broadway’s biggest musical spectacles — La Cage aux Folles, Beauty and the Beast, Aida, and An American in Paris, to name but a few — have taken up residence in the storied house.
Beauty and the Beast ran at the Palace Theatre between 1994 and 1999, before moving to the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. (Joan Marcus)
But plays have popped up here and there — although they didn’t stay long. In 1975, The First Breeze of Summer, a moving family drama first produced by the Negro Ensemble Company, made a move to the Palace but ran for only a month. In 1977, George Bernard Shaw’s Caesar & Cleopatra, starring Rex Harrison, ran a relatively longer 38 performances — although still a blink by Palace standards.
Next was a near-unbelievable string of one-night-only performances. In 1979, Break a Leg, a backstage farce by Ira Levin (of Deathtrap renown) and featuring the great Julie Harris, opened and closed in one night. The next year, A Meeting by the River, a stage adaptation by Christopher Isherwood of his own novel, played only one performance. And in 1981, Frankenstein, Victor Gialanella’s stage version of the classic, starring great John Glover, closed on opening night — the third straight play at the Palace to last for a single performance.
David Margulies, Jack Weston, and Joseph Leon in Break A Leg on Broadway, 1979 (New York Public Library)
Even before that series of short-lived shows, Shaw’s London Assurance — revived in 1974 and starring Donald Sinden and Roger Rees — fared no better than a month of performances, meanwhile having the idol cast to spare. Therefore, while the Palace has dabbled every now and then in straight plays, they’ve been rare visitors to a theatre more famous for showstoppers and overtures rather than snappy dialogue and tempered tension.
Some of that’s just the nature of the venue. The Palace is a big house, and musicals — with their spectacle, dance numbers, and big sound — traditionally have been the obvious choice to fill that room with energy. But Glengarry Glen Ross is defying that trend now, demonstrating that a quick-paced, verbally dexterous play can hold its own in a venue built to accommodate Broadway’s biggest spectacles.
It’s happening at a fascinating moment in the life of the theater. Having been closed for nearly six years for a thorough makeover — including the now-notorious mission of raising the entire theater 30 feet off the ground to make way for new construction beneath it — the Palace reopened in 2024 with a Ben Platt concert residency and Elton John and Jake Shears’ Tammy Faye.
And yet now, Glengarry Glen Ross is bringing a whole new kind of drama to that stage — and making history with it. With its all-star cast led by Kieran Culkin, Bob Odenkirk, Bill Burr, and Michael McKean, this revival of Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play is bringing incisive dialogue and life-and-death suspense that can pack the Palace in a whole different way than crowds are used to.
So you don’t often see a play take over one of Broadway’s biggest musical houses, but Glengarry Glen Ross is here to remind us that there’s room for any kind of theater at the Palace—and sometimes, a good well-timed insult can hurt as much as a high note.
Since the beginning of the medium, musicals have had title songs which grabbed audiences and brought out the heart of the art they exist within. It’s almost a requirement for a great musical to have a song that’s named the exact same thing as the show. Let’s take a look through the history of great musicals—past, present and future—and shout out some of the best title songs of all time:
‘Oklahoma’ from Oklahoma
From what is widely considered to be the first ever book musical, ‘Oklahoma’ spells out what makes a great titular song. Coming midway through the second act, this joyous celebration of the song, which happens in the big wedding scene brings out the love the characters have from their home state. With the repeated spelling out of the name of the grand land they belong to, if you’ve ever encountered this show, you’ve certainly never had trouble spelling the state north of Texas since.
‘Hello Dolly!’ from Hello Dolly!
There may not be a more iconic pair of words sung in the canon of theatre than “Hello Dolly!”? If youre anything like us, you can’t even just read those words without hearing them in tune. This song sticks with you, and it alone makes the show its named after worthy of its place in the history of musical theatre. An iconic character moment, Dolly announces to us, in a way full of the character’s iconic personality, that She. Is. Back. This tune is so good, they even bring it back at the end for a reprise.
‘The Sound of Music’ from The Sound of Music
One of the few musicals to really transcend the form in popularity, and with a subsequent movie that is one of the most famous of all time, ‘The Sound of Music’ is a stunning opening number that gives us the name of the show and teaches us so much about the journey we’re getting ready for. The joy and vibrance of the song, and Maria who sings it, greets us into the beautiful landscape of this show’s world, and teaches us everything we need to know about how Maria views the world. The hills are alive, and when this song hits, so is the audience.
‘Phantom of the Opera’ from The Phantom of the Opera
I mean come on! Of course ‘Phantom of the Opera’ is here! It’s inside our hearts and probably yours, given that this is one of the most successful shows of all time. With one of the greatest riffs in history from Christine, a boat sequence burned into all of our brains, and an electric score that combines the classical, operatic context with Webber’s modern (at the time) sensibilities, there’s a reason this show was on Broadway for 35 years.
‘Sunset Boulevard’ from Sunset Boulevard
For those of you on tiktok, this song isn’t just stuck in your head, but a video of a man marching down Shubert Alley, in the 2024 revival, singing it accompanies the tune. That is a good representation of just how sensational this show’s titular number is, and the way this show took over Broadway each time it’s run on the great wide way. It’s not as cheery as the other title songs on this list; Foreboding, intense, and grand, this opening track really gives you a sense of the Hollywood thriller in store for you as this musical begins.
‘Rent’ from Rent
While growing up is looking at this musical and saying, “Why don’t those damn kids just pay their rent!?”, this opening number title song gives us the context we need to buy in to Jonathan Larson’s sensational grungy, 90s-set adaption of La Boheme. The drums! The electric guitar! THE ANGST! This number introduced audiences to the unique voice of its writer and its revolutionary stylistic additions to the canon shaped a generation of musical theatre writers.
’Mamma Mia!’ from Mamma Mia!
Here we go again! What started as ABBA’s iconic song became the anthem for one of the most beloved and successful musicals of all time. Pure joy in the form of pop music, Mamma Mia, both song and show, are a hoot and a half. The show and this song brings us in to the central drama of the story, and into the party that is this show’s complicated, messy, and loving family dynamic. There’s a reason the movie adaptation is the 15th highest grossing movie-musical of all time. And most exciting of all, Mamma Mia is returning to broadway this Summer!
‘In the Heights’ from In the Heights
The second the claves hits, you know In the Heights isn’t your grandma’s classic, Jazz-derived musical. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s pre-Hamilton Broadway outing is flourishing with the vibrant musical culture of its world. Lin brought hip hop, authentic latin styles, and pop to musical theatre with this show, and as Usnavi raps us through a warm welcome to a day in the life of the Washington Heights community, he builds a framework for what this show has in store. From the dissatisfaction that exists in the community to the routines we will soon see disrupted, Lin proved himself a true scholar of the form, building an outstanding, bullet proof, and innovative titular number to open one of the best musicals of the 21st century.
‘Maybe Happy Ending’ from Maybe Happy Ending
‘Maybe Happy Ending’ (the song) brings out everything that makes the show it’s named after great! A simple, yet deeply meaningful and evocative duet sung by two robots, this number reinforces the themes of the show and brings us into the home stretch of the journey in a truly perfect way (NO SPOILERS). By the time this song ends, there isn’t a dry eye in the audience, and it’s no wonder people are running back to see this show more than 10 times.
‘Smash’ from Smash
NBC’s short-lived television series Smash is making the leap to the Broadway stage this spring, bringing with it many of the big, brassy showtunes written for the show-within-a-tv-show Bombshell, including the appropriately titled ‘Smash’ about dreaming to be a hit star in a hit show. Marc Shaiman & Scott Wittman’s earworm of a score plays even better made meta, coming off the stage as opposed to through the screen.
Idina Menzel swings and sings from the treetops in Broadway’s new tree-centric musical, Redwood. With a soaring pop-infused score by Kate Diaz, Menzel stuns in this emotionally charged production. She’s joined by standouts Zachary Noah Piser as her late son and Khaila Wilcoxon as a Redwood botanist and fellow tree lover, both delivering powerhouse performances that match Menzel’s formidable belt. Under Tina Landau’s direction, this tale of grief, growth, and connection is as sweeping as the towering trees it celebrates.
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