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.
A hilarious, side-splitting lesson on the power of subjectivity and personal conviction between friends.
Performing for only 17 weeks at The Music Box Theatre, ART on Broadway delivers laughs as big as the A-list cast. Set in Paris, present day, you can easily expect to be tickled by the dry quips shared between three best friends, as early as the opening act.
Bobby Cannavale’s character, Marc, finds himself utterly confused by the six-figure purchase of a painting acquired by his friend, Serge, played by Neil Patrick Harris. The tug of war between two strong opinions, where Marc sees a silly, expensive mistake while Serge sees a modern masterpiece, can only be won with a third player playing both sides. Enter their friend, Yvan, played by the delightfully dizzying James Corden, who’s too consumed with his own potentially expensive predicament to care about another’s art choice.
Corden is the angsty, high strung, high octane compliment to Cannavale’s confident swagger and Harris’ steady matter-of-factness. The chemistry and playful dynamics between the three friends are most convincing. The battle of differing opinions or the inability to commit to one at all, tests the loyalty between the friends, revealing the sneaky ways in which subjectivity can crack even long held bonds.
Will one painting ruin the friendships of three grown men? See ART on Broadway by December 21, 2025 at New York’s storied Music Box Theatre to find out. Playwright Yasmina Reza and Director Scott Ellis have executed a very fun and funny feat that’s only 100 minutes long.
It’s easy to expect critiques of fine art to be dramatic. But if you can make it hilarious as well, then why not go ahead and call it a masterpiece. Depending on who you ask, of course.
When quadruple threat (writer, composer, director, and producer) Eli Bauman began sketching out what would become 44: The Musical, he wasn’t in a writers’ room or a rehearsal hall; he was sitting alone in a Ramada Inn near the Charlotte airport.
What started as a moment of disbelief in 2016 has grown into one of Off-Broadway’s most surprising hits: a satirical pop-R&B musical about the Obama years, written, composed, directed, and produced by a man who freely admits he “had no idea what he was doing.”
Finding the spark
Jim Glaub: Was there a moment where you thought, I’ve got to make a musical?
Eli Bauman: Yeah, I can fairly pinpoint it. It was 2016. I want to say November 5th, right on Election Day of 2016. I worked on the Obama campaign in 2008. I spent a fairly frustrating two weeks working on the Hillary campaign [in 2012], which is about as much as I could do at that time. So the results came in. I was alone in a hotel room by the Charlotte airport and I thought back. I was like, “Wow, only eight years ago I was on the strip of Las Vegas celebrating. How did we get here?”
I just started laughing to myself as I do in moments of pain. And I just thought, you know, this is so absurd. And I had been thinking about taking a stab at writing a musical. I had no experience at all. But I was coming off of working on a show called Maya and Marty, and I ended up writing most of the music that appeared on that show basically out of sheer terror. I somewhat lied—well, it’s hard to say—I kind of lied to get that job. They were looking for a comedy writer who wrote music and they were like, “You can do that, right?” And I was like, “Sure, give me a weekend to just clean something up and send it to you.” There was nothing to clean up because there was nothing. So, in a panic, I went home over the weekend and plunked out something on the piano to write for Maya Rudolph because she did a Michelle Obama impression.
That song is actually in the show. I’m incredibly productive under immense amounts of pressure and entirely unproductive with anything short of an immense amount of pressure. I wrote the majority of the show during the pandemic because I couldn’t work. My wife and I had a three-year-old and then she was pregnant. So, my wife kept working and I took care of the kids and wrote this musical.
“The beauty of not knowing what you’re doing.”
JG: It’s such a dual thing—the politics and the theatre, both having the fake it till you make it energy. You said, “Well, yeah, I can do it,” and then you actually did it.
EB: I did. And it’s the beauty of not knowing what you’re doing—you also don’t know what you’re not supposed to do.
JG: Because you were fresh to the world of theatre, it freed you from the tropes?
EB: It helped creatively, too, because I couldn’t—and still can’t—write anything that’s particularly recognizable as musical theatre from a trophy standpoint. It’s just not in my wheelhouse. The whole show is just pop songs, R&B songs—they’re all very radio friendly. That turns out to be the thing I can do: write hooks. So I feel like this show works for people who have seen Wicked 25 times and also people who had never heard of Wicked until the movie came out.
Building the sound of satire
JG: You wouldn’t have called yourself a composer before this. How did you land on what kind of music it should be?
EB: There’s a song that I’m very proud of in the show called How Black Is Too Black… and obviously I am not Black—spoiler alert—so I suppose it is risky for me to take this on. But I thought, what is a style of music that rides the edge of something that is a traditionally Black musical form, but white people are able to digest it? And I thought, okay, Motown is kind of that sound. How Black Is Too Black is a very kind of Motown-feeling, evergreen type of sound.
In the show, Sarah Palin has a big opening number. I conceived of her as this big rock figure—knee-high leather boots, verging on dominatrix. I had this one kind of cool guitar line in my head that feels almost like Black Sabbath. That song, which is called Drill Me, is completely that style. To me it’s all about the hook. Once I have the hook, the rest falls into place.
Most of the songs have a pop-song structure, so the lyrics are the easy part for me. Once I have the hook, then I know what I’m building towards. The way I write comedy, the way our scenes are written, are very percussive and melodic and have their own flow to them.
I say to the guy who plays Mitch McConnell in our show—he’s hilarious—I have the most fun writing that character because in real life Mitch McConnell says everything in a drawl, so our Mitch McConnell says everything in a drawl. Larry Cedar, who’s played the role since the first reading, is a drummer, and so I write that character very percussively. All of the dialogue in that is musical. If I put a score to it, it would work.
Our music director Anthony Brewster, “Brew,” would get my demos and we’d flesh them out together. He’d say, “Oh, okay, I guess we learned gospel passing chords this weekend,” and I’d say, “That’s right, Brew.” Learning on the job is the best way to do it. Pressure is good—and fear of humiliation is a good motivation for me.
Campaigns, creativity, and connection
JG: It’s so rare that we in theatre get to engage with someone who’s actually worked in politics. Are there overlaps between that world and this one?
EB: It is very true. There’s a lot of overlap in skill set. Managerially you’re running a structure—similar to how campaigns operate. From a directing standpoint, our audience is very engaged in the show and we love that, and I pay a lot of attention to what strikes a chord with people. It’s very similar to campaign messaging. Ultimately, you throw a bunch of stuff at the wall, and you’re listening to feedback. I don’t listen to that much feedback from experts. I listen to feedback from the audience.
At the first show, I came out and addressed the audience and said, “Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen here at all. This could be a big mess. What I can promise you is that all of the noise out there… we’re going to leave that out there for the next couple hours. I want to invite everyone into a spirit of joy in this room. This is not going to be a typical musical theatre thing where everyone has to sit quietly. I want people to have fun.”
What I’ve stumbled upon is that our audience comes out feeling joyful and hopeful. It’s come all the way around and reflects what 2008 felt like. There’s something tragic in it too, but something beautiful about feeling like at one point we all felt hopeful and joyful, and we’ll get there again.
Nostalgia and now
JG: You’ve called it nostalgic, even though that era wasn’t that long ago.
EB: I think we’re nostalgic for a feeling, and our audience responds to that. These are all characters that exist in real time. The show lives both in the past and the present because all of these people are still doing stuff—good, bad, and in between. I didn’t set out to write a nostalgia piece, it’s just how our audience has taken it.
It started in that hotel room in 2016. I love studying history, it’s fascinating to me how nonlinear it is. There’s something instructive but also beautiful about being able to look back and feel both puzzled and wise. I try not to live in the past, but I do try to learn from it. This is somewhat my way of trying to make sense of how history has moved—and moved so quickly—over the last dozen years.
Breaking into Broadway’s “machine”
JG: Has it been eye-opening navigating Broadway and its red tape?
EB: Yes. Like any industry that you don’t belong to or have experience in, you’re like, “Wait, what’s that?” I’ve had some frustrations with how risk averse I sometimes find theatre. I’m somewhat of a renegade by nature and I don’t really like conventional wisdom. Sometimes it’s just how much machine you have to get through (and honestly how expensive that machine is) where I’m just like, come on guys, we’re trying real hard here to just put something up on its feet.
It’s Monica and I who make all of the decisions. We have more outsiders than insiders. Now we have insiders where we need to have insiders in the management level, and outsiders where we need to have outsiders, in the big decisions and in some of the creative. I don’t ever want to lose the original spirit of the show, which is a bunch of people who didn’t know what they were doing. There’s something beautiful and unique about that. But we definitely needed professionals in the managerial departments. I’m the first one to admit that I don’t know everything.
What’s next for 44’s accidental auteur
JG: Now that you’ve had a taste of the musical theatre bug, are you going to keep going?
EB: Yeah. I’m writing something that kind of combines things—a TV project that has a ton of music in it and basically a musical within it. I think I need a break. This was such a herculean effort to get up on its feet. Every venue is different, every city is different. [44 played in Los Angeles and Chicago prior to New York.] I need a break from the grind. But creatively, it feels like it’s right in my wheelhouse.
The writing is the easy part for me. The directing I basically got into just to avoid a director coming in over top. It was a practical decision more than a passion decision. Now I love it, but to some extent I just didn’t want someone coming in and—even if my voice is not perfect—it at least comes from one place. The producing is exhausting. I love it and I hate it. Everything lands on my desk… from the construction of a staircase to someone twisting their ankle. It never ends.
Unfortunately, I think the addiction has started. I am a control freak, so I can’t promise that I’ll stop. I just need a break. I also have a seven-year-old and a four-year-old, so I’m surrounded by chaos—but that’s for my therapist to figure out.
JG: You’re really choosing chaos.
EB: Well, I have chosen that path.
44: The Musical is playing at the Daryl Roth Theatre through December 7, 2025. For tickets and more information, visit 44theobamamusical.com.
Ben Lerner spoke with Vanessa Aurora Sierra, Beetlejuice The Musical’s new Miss Argentina for its current (third!) Broadway engagement. The scene-stealing role performs the popular Act II Netherworld anthem “What I Know Now,” complete with high notes and high kicks. Vanessa is brand new to the cast, fresh from the Broadway production and national tour of A Beautiful Noise, the Neil Diamond musical. Below, she discusses her past and present work onstage, why performing in Latina roles is so important to her, dream roles, and more.
Q: How did you get involved with Beetlejuice for this third Broadway engagement of the show?
Vanessa: I actually was on the national tour of A Beautiful Noise before I found out about joining the Broadway company. I’d been in for Beetlejuice I think 10 times, at least, from like 2021, just over and over again. So this kind of came totally out of the blue — I was in LA on tour and they called me and were like, “Hey, we’re going back to Broadway. Would you want to be a part of that?” And I was just like, “Well yeah, I would!” [laughs]
Q: Before your Broadway debut in A Beautiful Noise and now Beetlejuice, what have your favorite past gigs been?
Vanessa: I worked at Paper Mill [Playhouse], which was like a dream for me, because I’m from New Jersey. So that was like my home theater. That was kind of like my Broadway growing up. It was always, “I want to work at Paper Mill!” I got to do On Your Feet there, which was a dream show. I’ve also worked in Chicago — I love Chicago so much. I did West Side Story at the Marriott Theatre and got to play Anita, which meant a lot to me, because I come from a really proud Puerto Rican family on both sides. Playing Latina roles means a lot to me, so I’m really glad I’ve gotten to do a bunch of that in my career so far.
Q: Oh wow, what was it like to play such an iconic role as Anita?
Vanessa: It was absolutely unreal. I was still in college — my second semester of senior year! I grew up doing the Paper Mill Summer Conservatory, and I saw someone that I had grown up with in those programs on the email chain. I was like, “Hey girl! I haven’t seen you in almost five years. Are you in this show?” And she said, “Yeah, I’m playing Maria!” I was like, “Well, I’m playing Anita!” Two New Jersey girls. They had no idea we knew each other. They cast us in these roles. We got super close throughout and formed this sisterhood. We got to do the show in the round, too, which I think is such a good way to do the show, because it feels like everything is in this microscope. Because its specifically a Puerto Rican character, it just meant the world to me to have my family in the audience — they lived through that time, so to talk about what their experience and just to feel that pride. I feel that pride today, too, in Beetlejuice. It means so much to bring that representation to the stage.
Q: When they called you on tour for Beetlejuice, did they have you audition yet again?
Vanessa: I had gone in like maybe a year [before], because when I was auditioning for the tour, they kept switching me around. Like, “Do we want you for Lydia? Do we want you for—?” So I was kind of bouncing around a little bit. But they had all these sessions on tape. From like 2021 — so long ago. I had gone in when I was doing Beautiful Noise on Broadway and did the Miss Argentina side and song —so that was it!
Q: How was the rehearsal process when much of the cast was returning?
Vanessa: Jenni Barber, the Delia, and I were kind of like the new girls in town. We had two weeks to learn it. It was funny because her and I were never in the same scenes, so it was kind of like a show-and-tell. I’d do the dance numbers by myself. She’d be watching and cheering from the sides. Then she’d go up and do the scene work and I’d be watching. It was really, really fun. Then we had a week with the full company — kind of a prolonged put-in [rehearsal], I would say. Michael Fatica taught me the show. He’s the associate choreographer and he’s just the best person to learn it from, and I felt super supported.
Q: Had you seen the show — and this role — performed before? If so, how did it inspire you?
Vanessa: Yes, I was able to see the original cast. I think it was pre-pandemic. I’m huge fan of Beetlejuice myself and grew up watching the movie. I remember seeing Leslie Kritzer do [Miss Argentina], and I was just like, “Oh my god. She’s a star.” It was back when she did both Delia and Miss Argentina at the same time, so that was crazy to watch! [Once cast,] I did do the thing where I don’t listen to the cast album and don’t watch videos of people who have done it, because you want to try to find your own way into it. Like, who my Miss Argentina is and how she speaks to me. But still, when I saw Leslie Kritzer do it, I was like, “I have some big shoes to fill.”
Q: If you could swap roles with anyone on Broadway right now, which would it be?
Vanessa: Ooh, that’s a great question. First that’s coming to mind is Little Shop of Horrors. I just saw my friend in it and I love that production. But also, Wicked. Being blue and having paint on my face [as Miss Argentina] has been giving me the Elphaba itch! A lot of my friends at the [Beetlejuice] stage door are like, “I see the green in your ears still!” [laughs] I think I’d have to say Elphaba. Such a dream role.
Ragtime has risen at Lincoln Center. The musical revival, based on E.L. Doctorow’s 1975 historical fiction novel, opened October 16 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater as a transfer of New York City Center’s hit Encores! production from last fall. The cast and direction are largely the same, but unlike City Center, with its huge capacity and sky-high balconies, this Ragtime feels intimate, performed in the round with stadium seating — so everyone can see the performers’ faces. The result is transcendent: a glorious revival of a musical masterpiece that is always timely, but remarkably so in 2025.
Set in NYC suburb New Rochelle during the early twentieth century in the years leading up to World War I, Ragtime blends the stories of real life personalities like Evelyn Nesbit, Emma Goldman, and Harry Houdini with the fictional tales of a wealthy white family, a poor immigrant family, and Coalhouse Walker Jr. and Sarah, a Black pianist and his lover. The stories intertwine over a decade, at times comically and often tragically, tackling racism, classism, xenophobia, and the unrealized American dream.
Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty’s score is breathtaking, spanning genres and gorgeously performed by a 28-piece orchestra. It’s elevated to new heights by the lead performances and large ensemble cast. As Coalhouse, Joshua Henry is a vocal and dramatic tour de force. The sheer power and range of his instrument is otherworldly, and the Tony for Best Actor should be locked. Nichelle Lewis devastates as Sarah, with a wholly different vocal performance from role originator Audra McDonald — Lewis and Henry’s “Wheels of a Dream” is sensational. Caissie Levy, Brandon Uranowitz, and Ben Levi Ross are in top form, giving nuanced and moving performances as Mother, Tateh, and Younger Brother, respectively.
Ragtime opens with a lone child actor on an empty stage. When the full ensemble rises from the back of the stage, it’s a chills-inducing moment — the first of many. And when Sarah’s Friend (the spectacular Allison Blackwell) belts “Till We Reach That Day” at the end of the first act, praying through grief for an America that is truly antiracist and finally free of discrimination, it’s palpable that day has still not been reached. Don’t miss the opportunity to witness this story, with this score, sung by this cast — at the Vivian Beaumont Theater until January 4, 2026. Tickets at: https://www.lct.org/shows/ragtime/
Broadway has always danced its way into history—one step, kick, and pirouette at a time. From Balanchine’s groundbreaking ballet in On Your Toes to Justin Peck’s haunting modern storytelling in Illinoise, choreography has been the heartbeat of the American musical. These are the numbers that stopped shows, broke rules, and redefined what movement could mean on stage.
1936 – “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue,” On Your Toes Choreography: George Balanchine This was the moment ballet crashed Broadway’s party. Balanchine’s “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” combined classical technique with the grit of gangsters and showgirls, turning a tongue-in-cheek story ballet into a thrilling, dramatic centerpiece. It was the first time a full-length ballet sequence was integrated into a musical’s plot. The number marked the arrival of serious dance on Broadway and opened the door for choreographers to become storytellers, not just decorators.
1943 – “Dream Ballet,” Oklahoma! Choreography: Agnes de Mille Broadway changed forever the moment Laurey fell asleep. Agnes de Mille’s “Dream Ballet” wasn’t just a dance, it was the first time choreography told a character’s subconscious story. Fifteen minutes of swirling tulle, heartbreak, and innovation that announced that dance could think instead of a shout, and Broadway never stopped listening.
1957 – “Cool,” West Side Story Choreography: Jerome Robbins Snaps, slides, and explosions barely contained. Robbins gave the American musical a new vocabulary: ballet laced with street tension. “Cool” is still studied as the moment dance became emotion’s twin.
1975 – “One,” A Chorus Line Choreography: Michael Bennett Gold hats, high kicks, heartbreak. “One” immortalized the chorus: uniform, dazzling, and unseen. The finale that turned dancers into myth and mirrors.
1975 – “All That Jazz,” Chicago Choreography: Bob Fosse Smoky, syncopated, and sinister. The opening of Chicago reintroduced Fosse’s aesthetic as cultural gospel: hips low, fingers alive, everything precise and dangerous. It’s Broadway stripped to attitude and anatomy.
1980 – “We’re in the Money,” 42nd Street Choreography: Gower Champion A tap extravaganza gleaming with Depression-era optimism. Champion’s staging turned tap into a glittering survival dance, resilience in rhythm.
1992 – “Slap That Bass,” Crazy for You Choreography: Susan Stroman A jazz fantasia where bodies become instruments. Stroman’s dancers pluck invisible strings and bounce like basslines, proving that dance is music made visible.
2002 – “Movin’ Out,” Movin’ Out Choreography: Twyla Tharp Billy Joel’s music meets Tharp’s muscular modern dance in a show that tells its story entirely through motion. Jazz, ballet, and rock collide in a piece that made Broadway feel brand new.
2005 – “Electricity,” Billy Elliot Choreography: Peter Darling A working-class boy discovers his power through motion. The number builds from confusion to catharsis, part tap, part rebellion. A child discovering freedom mid-air.
2014 – “An American in Paris Ballet,” An American in Paris Choreography: Christopher Wheeldon Wheeldon’s luminous dream ballet brought Gershwin’s score to life with balletic sweep and cinematic grace. The sequence blurs realism and reverie, transforming post-war Paris into living art. It reignited Broadway’s love affair with classical form.
2019 – “El Tango de Roxanne,” Moulin Rouge! The Musical Choreography: Sonya Tayeh Raw, sensual, and explosive. Tayeh’s fusion of contemporary and ballroom forms turns desire into violence and heartbreak into art. It’s a masterclass in emotional choreography.
2024 – “Illinoise Ballet,” Illinoise Choreography: Justin Peck No words, no dialogue, just bodies and Sufjan Stevens’ music translating memory and loss into dance. Illinoise is the latest reminder that Broadway choreography can still astonish without uttering a line. If Agnes de Mille invented narrative dance, Justin Peck made it human again.
Across decades, Broadway has proven that the stage can be a powerful place for protest. From groundbreaking musicals to provocative plays, these productions turned resistance into art, reminding audiences that theatre has always had the power to challenge, inspire, and spark change.
Hair: Flower Power, Anti-War, and Social Revolution From its opening, Hair broke the mold. Against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and a rapidly changing America, Hair brought anti-war sentiment, sexual freedom, and racial integration into Broadway’s spotlight. Songs like “Aquarius” and “Let the Sunshine In” became anthems for a generation disenchanted with traditional norms. It wasn’t just a show, it was a movement, embodied night after night in public protest, civil disobedience, and counterculture style.
Les Misérables: Barricades That Resonate Across Time Set in 19th-century France but speaking to so many modern struggles, Les Misérables became a perennial symbol of revolution and unity. The iconic moments, including the barricade scenes into “Do You Hear the People Sing?”, transforms political despair into collective hope. It deepened with every revival, every global protest, carrying forward the message that when the few oppress the many, resistance is inevitable.
Parade: Unearthing Injustice, Out in the Open Parade tells the true story of Leo Frank, a Jewish industrialist in the early 1900s who was wrongly accused, tried, and lynched in Georgia. The musical forces audiences to confront racism, antisemitism, and miscarriage of justice, not through allegory, but through character, testimony, and heartbreak. The 2023 Broadway revival brought even more urgency, with protesters outside the theater echoing the very biases Parade indicts, proving that the past is never as far behind us as we might like to think.
John Proctor Is the Villain: Rewriting the Myth for Today’s Reckonings Kimberly Belflower’s John Proctor Is the Villain reframes The Crucible’s Salem mythos in a rural Georgia high school, between teenage girls and their complicity, accusations, and silences. The play becomes protest theatre. It interrogates gender, power, and the legacy of witch hunts, literal and metaphorical. It’s a sharp reminder that the stories we’ve inherited aren’t neutral; they shape what we accept or fight against.
Liberation: Reclaiming Feminist Voices In Bess Wohl’s Liberation, six women convene in a 1970s Ohio rec center to form a consciousness-raising group. Through candid conversations about their lives, the play delves into the complexities of second-wave feminism, memory, and generational change. Praised as “the best play I’ve seen this season” by Vulture, Liberation intertwines personal narratives with broader social movements, highlighting the enduring relevance of feminist activism. Liberation is in performances at the James Earl Jones Theatre through January 11, 2026: https://liberationbway.com/
These Broadway moments remind us that protest takes many forms, and that art, at its most fearless, can move hearts and minds.
There’s nothing quite like the lights, music, and energy of Broadway, but those ticket prices can dim the excitement fast. The good news is that scoring affordable seats isn’t a secret art. It’s a mix of timing, flexibility, and knowing where to look. Whether you’re a local theatre fan or visiting the city for the first time, here are the best ways to land a great deal and still get swept up in the magic of Broadway.
Top Ways to Get Discount Broadway Tickets
TKTS Booths (by TDF) Classic same-day deals, often up to 50% off. Visit the red-steps booth in Times Square or Lincoln Center. Check the TKTS app first to preview what’s available.
Digital Lotteries Many shows offer $10–$40 tickets through daily online lotteries. Enter early, and act fast if you win since claims close quickly.
Rush and Student Rush Tickets Day-of bargains, usually $30–$60, sold when the box office opens. Some are open to everyone, others require a student ID.
Standing Room Only When shows sell out, a few standing spots open for cheap. Ask at the box office; these go fast for popular productions.
Promo Codes and Discount Sites Websites like BroadwayBox, TheaterMania, and Playbill Deals regularly post limited-time codes for 20–50% off.
Membership Discounts Join programs like TDF or industry groups for exclusive early access to discounted tickets.
Special Promotions Keep an eye on seasonal events like Broadway Week or Kids’ Night on Broadway, which offer two-for-one or free youth tickets.
Group Sales If you’re seeing a show with ten or more friends or coworkers, call the theater’s group sales office. Bulk bookings often mean built-in discounts.
Papering Lists Some organizations quietly “paper the house” with free or ultra-cheap tickets for members. Try Club Free Time or local arts newsletters.
Affordable Broadway seats do exist; you just have to know where and when to look. With a bit of planning, patience, and the right mix of apps, booths, and insider programs, you can see world-class theatre without emptying your wallet.
Based on the book, Right from Wrong, by Jacob Dunne, Punch on Broadway tells the story of a young man battling himself and everyone else in Nottingham, England. Adapted for the stage by British playwright, James Graham, and directed by Adam Penford, Punch hits every reservoir of emotion between the opening and final act.
Jacob, played flawlessly by Will Harrison as the lead antagonist turned protagonist, takes the audience along with him as he grapples with cause and effect of his environment versus his life choices. Jacob found understanding and community in the Nottingham streets while his single mother worked long hours to build a respectable life for her son. Jacob is also plagued with a spectrum of disabilities which only add fuel to his internal fire to snuff out a modicum of meaning or purpose to his life. Punching back at everyone and thing that have taunted or dismissed, Jacob becomes a habit that ultimately knocks him onto his most painful, but inspired trajectory yet.
The Punch cast is small and mighty, with many actors playing multiple characters within Jacob’s scarred reality. Costumes and set changes are minimal too, because in this story, it’s the characters’ rollercoaster of raw emotions that need no filler or color. As an audience member, you’ll revisit loss and grief, the anxiety of self-doubt, the rush of a new flirty crush, the weight of societal and familial pressures. You may laugh at times or cry at others, but you’ll easily leave humbled by your own life choices, and the idea of real second chances.
Harrison lends buckets of dialed-in energy to his portrayal of Jacob, amongst many other standout performances. Lucy Taylor as Jacob’s “mum” will leave you breathless as she reckons with the fate of the boy she raised. And then you meet another mum, played by Judith Lightfoot Clarke, whose grief is most palpable after the one punch that would change all.
This October, Broadway offers a striking mix of revivals and premieres. From a cult-favorite musical rising again to an intimate family drama, the fall season promises variety and impact. Here are the four productions opening this month.
Beetlejuice
Palace Theatre | October 8, 2025 Broadway’s favorite ghost makes his return in Alex Timbers’ high-octane staging. With its blend of outrageous humor, eye-popping design, and devoted fan following, Beetlejuice reclaims the spotlight at the newly reopened Palace Theatre.
Ragtime
Lincoln Center Theater | October 16, 2025 One of Broadway’s most sweeping and powerful musicals comes back in a revival directed by Lear deBessonet. Starring Joshua Henry, Caissie Levy, and Brandon Uranowitz, Ragtime offers a timely reflection on identity, change, and the American dream.
Liberation
Broadway Theatre | October 22, 2025 Set in 1970s Ohio, Liberation follows Lizzie as she gathers a circle of women determined to reshape their lives and their world. Decades later, her daughter steps back into that unfinished revolution and confronts what it means to inherit a movement. Written by Bess Wohl and directed by Whitney White, this new play examines freedom, legacy, and the fight to carry change forward.
Little Bear Ridge Road
Booth Theatre | October 30, 2025 Playwright Samuel D. Hunter and director Joe Mantello bring a quiet intensity to this new drama starring Laurie Metcalf and Micah Stock. Set in rural Idaho, Little Bear Ridge Road explores grief, family, and endurance with Hunter’s trademark emotional precision.
Jim Glaub sat down with Mike McLinden (Our Town, Hello Dolly!, Purpose, and the upcoming Little Bear Ridge Road) to discuss the pivotal and thankless job of Company Management; Broadway’s most under appreciated role. They balance the books, manage the cast, serve as first line HR, liaise with producers, and keep the machine running, all while staying out of the spotlight. For our Unsung Heroes series, Mike talks about what it really means to hold a show together.
Q: For people who don’t know: what is a company manager?
Mike: We’re hired by the producer and general manager to oversee the day-to-day operations of the show. We run payroll, pay the bills, settling with the box office, and keep the show on budget. But we’re also the first people to see problems brewing, whether that’s a dressing room that’s too warm or an actor who needs support. At the end of the day we are a conduit for communication. Basically, if you look at a show and wonder, ‘Who does that?’ it’s probably the company manager.
Q: As far as I can assume, nobody grows up saying, ‘I want to be a company manager.’ How did you find your way into this world?
Mike: I studied stage management and lighting design in college. My first company management internship was almost by accident, at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival, a scrappy operation where the CMs also were on the run crew. Later, I spent summers at the Glimmerglass Festival, and that’s when I realized this work played more to my strengths. I wasn’t also running a show and juggling things outside my wheelhouse. Eventually, I landed at the Frankel office in New York on Standing on Ceremony Off-Broadway and then Leap of Faith. That was my front row view of legendary company managers like Kathy Lowe, and from there, every job I’ve gotten has traced back to those connections.
Q: Has there been a moment where you thought, I can’t believe this is my job?
Mike: All the time. During the Hello, Dolly! revival, I watched a rehearsal where the title number was just supposed to be marked. Suddenly Bette and the ensemble were full-out performing it, and I thought, ‘wow, small town Illinois kid in a Broadway theatre, pinch me.’ On the flip side, I’ve also dealt with stars threatening not to go on over something relatively trivial. That’s when you think, ‘Really? This is what I’m juggling today?’
Q: What’s harder: the numbers or the people?
Mike: Definitely the people. Everyone has lives outside the theatre… bad news at home, stress, illness. My job is to support them through that. If they don’t feel safe or valued, the show suffers.
Q: Has empathy ever changed the course of a situation?
Mike: Coming back after COVID, morale was low. People were on edge, worried about shutdowns. Small gestures like bagel Sundays, drinks after rehearsal, gave the company a chance to breathe. It bought goodwill and shifted the mood.
Q: Company management is so under the radar. How do you help people discover this as a career?
Mike: The NMAM apprentice program through our union is a huge step . It’s two years of seminars, training, and mentorship before becoming a full member. I also jump at any chance to talk to colleges. Students need to know you don’t have to sing or dance to build a career in theatre. And I love showing them: I didn’t move to Chicago like my peers, I tried New York, and it worked.
Q: What kind of person thrives in this role?
Mike: Someone with a knack for data, but who’s also a people person. And someone who doesn’t need the spotlight. If people outside the company know my name, something probably went wrong.
Q: If you could company manage any show in Broadway history, which would it be?
Mike:Phantom of the Opera. My grandma played the soundtrack constantly. And to be at the center of that phenomenon, a show that became a household name before the internet, that would’ve been extraordinary.
Q: This is a thankless job. What’s the best thank you you’ve ever received?
Mike: Glenda Jackson thanked me in her Tony speech. Nothing will ever top that. She was an icon, and to hear my name from that stage… I fell out of my chair.
Company managers are rarely in the spotlight, but without them, Broadway wouldn’t run. As McLinden proves, the role is equal parts accountant, counselor, negotiator, and cheerleader. Perhaps it’s time Tony speeches made ‘thank you, company manager’ as common as thanking agents and producers.
Pictured: Mike, Glenda Jackson, and SMs for Three Tall Women. Backstory on this photo from Mike: “Glenda had this sweatshirt that she wore EVERYWHERE. NYT Panel, she wore it. Tony Nominee luncheon, she wore it under a green camo jacket from Ann Roth. It drove some folks on the team a little crazy, so for closing we all got one and wore it.”
