Heat waves? Downpours? This week demonstrated that New York theatergoers are as tenacious as postal couriers are supposed to be, stayed by neither rain nor heat nor gloom of night — not even fear of the unvaccinated.
“The symphony of noisy New York… seems to be rising in volume every day now. On sunny summer days and humid nights, the streets are filled again,” the Washington Post’s Peter Marks writes in an overview of New York’s cultural rebound that’s largely about the excitement over what’s coming. But there’s plenty already here, such as the city’s intimate cabarets (as Elysa Gardner details in the New York Times, leading with Joe Iconic welcoming the crowd at Feinstein’s/54 Below by saying “Thank you all for risking your lives by coming out tonight.”) There is also outdoor summer theater, much of it in city parks, from the newly opened Little Island (which I’ve written about here and here) to “Merry Wives” in newly reopened Delacorte in Central Park to “Seize the King” in Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park, where, as I recount in my review below, theatergoers waited out the rain for 45 minutes.
The Week in Reviews
Fruma-Sarah (Waiting in the Wings)
Book Review: Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created “Sunday in the Park with George”
The Week in Theater News
There are now 43 shows with reopening/opening dates for the Broadway 2021-2022 season.
“Waitress” will reopen September 2, and close January 9. Its composer Sara Bareilles will be its star through October 17. “And the U.S. Small Business Administration has awarded the production $10 million as part of its disaster relief program for the live entertainment industry,” according to Broadwa Journal
Phone rings, door chimes, in comes “Company” — a month earlier. The gender-reversed musical will now start previews November 15, and open December 9, 2021. The cast, led by Katrina Lenk and Patti LuPone, has now been completed.
Alice Childress
La Chanze will lead the Roundabout’s Broadway premiere of Alice Childress’s “Trouble in Mind,” the 1955 play that follows a Black actress in rehearsals for a troubled Broadway production.
The Park Avenue Armory has canceled all remaining performances of Robert Icke’s Enemy of the People, to enable performer Ann Dowd to “address a pressing family matter.” (My review.)
Sleep No More
“Sleep No More,” the immersive, site specific version of Macbeth that launched in 2011, starting the whole trend of immersive theater in New York, will reopen at the McKittrick Hotel on October 4th. (My review back in 2016, after it had already been running for five years.)
Eyes on New York: An interactive theatrical journey now through September 6 at a newly created 150-seat performance space on Staten Island
The Costume Industry Coalition, formed in May, 2020, will be presenting “Showstoppers! Spectacular Costumes from Stage & Screen” August 5 to September 26 in the now-defunct Modells on 42nd Street, with some 100 costumes from such shows as A Soldier’s Play, Aladdin, Chicago, Come From Away, The Cher Show, Dear Evan Hansen, Frozen, Golden Child, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, The Lion King, Moulin Rouge! The Musical, Mrs. Doubtfire, The Phantom of the Opera, Six and Wicked.
Stars in the House will offer its first in-person ticketed fundraiser September 12 at 7 PM at Town Hall
Theater blog roundup: Are theater screens here to stay?
Rest in Peace
Paul Huntley, 89, famed wigmaker, who designed for hundreds of Broadway shows, from “Uncle Vanya” in 1973 to “Tootsie” in 2019 and the forthcoming “Diana.”
