There ARE straight plays on Broadway, contrary to the impression left by the 2018 Tony Awards, which showcased only the musicals. Maybe not a Scandal exactly, but Kerry Washington can set them straight. She is in one of the two new plays that were announced this past week for the new Broadway season, both with starry casts and intriguing premises. (See The Week in New York News, below)
But it’s hard to complain too much about an awards show that hono43e the drama teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who had shielded her students from the mass shooter on Valentine’s Day, and then featured her students singing “Seasons of Love” from Rent. At the same time (and perhaps not coincidentally), the Tony voters ignored a flashy musical that stereotyped high school students.
Members of the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas H.S. sing from Rent.#TonyAwards pic.twitter.com/P5nQad2V2G
— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) June 11, 2018
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The Tonys also went big for a little show. The day after, three different people told me that they had never heard of The Band’s Visit. Here are seven photographs, three videos and my rave.
2018 Tony Recap
Some 6.32 million people watched the Tony Awards on Sunday night, according to preliminary ratings from the Nielsen company. This is up from 6.06 million last year. The slight increase is reportedly due to Bruce Springsteen.
List of winners The Band’s Visit Sweeps. Love to Harry Potter, Angels in America. (Tony voters were mean to Mean Girls; froze out Frozen.) 
The 10 Best Moments in the 2018 Tony Awards
Week in NY Theater Reviews
Fruit Trilogy
The three new plays by Eve Ensler about women and the use and abuse of their bodies together seem to take us on a journey from disembodied to full-bodied; from pain to pleasure; from exploitation to celebration. If there are fewer insights and less humor over much of the 80 minutes of Fruit Trilogy than in her last play — if much of the rage is vague — Ensler returns to form in the last of the trilogy “Coconut,” a celebration of full-bodied pleasure that is in equal measure shocking and exhilarating.
Week in NY Theater News
Kiss Me Kate has a date. (Three dates actually.) The @RTC_NYC revival starring @kelliohara at #Studio54 will begin performances Feb 14, 2019, open March 14, close June 2. pic.twitter.com/X6awAMwB16
— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) June 11, 2018
Kerry Washington and Steven Pasquale will star in “American Son” a play by Christopher Demos-Brown, directed by Kenny Leon that takes place in a florida police station in the middle of the night, with a mother searching for her missing teenage son. It is scheduled to begin October 6, 2018, run through January 27, 2019. It opens November 4, 2018 at the Booth Theater.
The Lifespan of a Fact” will star Daniel Radcliffe, Cherry Jones and Bobby Cannavale in a true story that begins with an essay written about a Las Vegas teenager who committed suicide. But the fact-checker assigned to make sure the piece is accurate begins to wonder whether any of it is true.
The play is scheduled to run September 20th through January 13, 2019 and open at Studio 54 on October 18, 2018.
Israeli actor Sasson Gabai, who played Tewfiq the Egyptian band lead in the 2007 film The Band’s Visit, will play the character in the Broadway musical The Band’s Visit, starting June 26, replacing (Tony winning) Tony Shalhoub.
Sky Lakota-Lynch steps into the role of Jared Kleinman in Dear Evan Hansen beginning tonight.
This week is spotlight on Broadway — even on @HBO, streaming nine Broadway adaptations
#InTheHeights movie sets release date of June 26, 2020
MT 🇵🇷 Lin-Manuel Miranda
There’s a release date…
And a great script by @quiarahudes…
And a talented director in @jonmchu…
And a new home at @WarnerBrosEnt…
Is…is this really happening this time? pic.twitter.com/bSwsxWyFYS— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) June 7, 2018
Cuomo to campaign in Cynthia Nixon’s Broadway backyard
No, the Broadway Musical Isn’t Doomed
Those who say that the Broadway musical is hopelessly degraded, writes NYU prof Laurence Maslon, ” betray a lack of perspective for Broadway history and, most disconcerting to me, a bias against children and their predilections.”
All 41 Broadway Theaters, Ranked (quirkily)
The worst is the Hayes theater, the best is the Richard Rodgers, according to New York Magazine writer Natalie Walker.
RIP Mikhail Ugarov and Elena Gremina, Moscow Theater Rebels
