Cynthia Nixon Runs for Governor. Lin-Manuel and Ben Platt Duet for Gun Control. Week in NY Theater

Cynthia Nixon, two-time Tony winning actress best-known for portraying lawyer Miranda Hobbes in the “Sex and the City” TV series and movies, has officially entered the race for governor of New York against incumbent Andrew Cuomo.

Nixon as Regina in The Little Foxes

New York Times: “If elected, Ms. Nixon would become the first female governor in New York history. She would also be the state’s first openly gay governor.”

“I have always been pretty willing to try things,” Nixon told me in November, 2015. She was talking about having become a theater director. I guess she wasn’t kidding.

Cynthia Nixon on stage — in The Little Foxes , , directing “Steve,” directing “Rasheeda Speaking”

At last year’s Tony Awards she gave one of the few political speeches,  while accepting the award as best featured actress for “Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes.”  She quoted a famous line from the play  ‘There are people who eat the earth and eat all the people on it, other people who just stand around and watch them do it,” She then added: “My love, my gratitude and my undying respect go out to all the people in 2017 who are refusing to just stand and watch them do it.”

Below: Watch Lin-Manuel Miranda and BenPlatt in “Found Tonight”

Miranda and Platt sing “Found Tonight” — a mashup of Hamilton’s “The Story of Tonight” and Dear Evan Hanson’s  “You Will Be Found” to raise funds for the March 24th protest against gun violence, March for Our Lives

 listen to the mash-up on choice of streaming services here fo

Week in New York Theater Reviews

Escape to Margaritaville

Admissions

In “Admissions,” an aggressively provocative play by Joshua Harmon at Lincoln Center, a white admissions officer (Jessica Hecht), who is committed to increasing diversity at an elite prep school, comes face to face with her hypocrisy when her 17-year-old son Charlie (Ben Edelman) isn’t accepted into Yale, while his black friend and classmate Perry is….Harmon wants the play to be about how white people (meaning liberal white people) view race – which can be summed up as: Though they hate to admit this, they’re ambivalent.

Week in New York Theater News

Harper Lee’s estate has sued the creators of the Broadway adaptation of To Kill A Mockingbird, claiming it deviates too much from the novel, especially in its depiction of Atticus Finch (“This Atticus is more like an edgy sitcom dad”)

March 13 was Arts Advocacy Day. The arts are more than just numbers, but they are certainly that: The arts contribute $764 billion to GDP and create 4.9 million jobs, according to the National Endowment for the Arts. Behind these numbers is what community arts educators see in the hearts and minds of students and community members every day. Folksbiene has found a director for its Yiddish-language production of Fiddler on the Roof — Joel Grey. “For me, it feels like Fiddler is coming home” July 4-Aug 26 Museum of Jewish Heritage. Actor Sammy J. Williams, a star of the original 1975 A Chorus Line, has died at the age of 69.

Author: New York Theater

Jonathan Mandell is a 3rd generation NYC journalist, who sees shows, reads plays, writes reviews and sometimes talks with people.

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