“New York City is where you want to be in January,” Pat Kaufman, commissioner of NYC Mayor’s Office of Media & Entertainment, said on the opening night Friday of the Association of Performance Arts Professionals annual convention. (“If you really want to be in Florida,” she added, “just keep that to yourself.”) For proof, she pointed to the website JanArtsNYC. My proof is the abundance of shows from the January theater festivals, seven of which I saw and reviewed last week – shows about repression in Iran, refugees from Russia, and climate change in Australia; there’s an example of the still-happening digital theater, while a pandemic-era Internet hit turned into in-person theater. (Links below)
Only one show is opening on Broadway this month, but 29 Broadway shows that have opened over the last 29 years are still running. And they each offer the chance at discounts year-round (Broadway Rush and Lottery Policies) but Broadway Week offers 2-for-1 tickets for performances from January 21 to February 9, which are on sale now. (Book using code BWAYWK25. “upgraded seats” code BWAYUP25.)
Theaters, and theater artists, are undeniably struggling (see news about Signature and the Atlantic). But theater persists, heroically. Earlier on Friday at the APAP conference, I sat in on a pitch session with more than a dozen companies describing their shows to a ballroom full of bookers. Some of the show titles, or company names, sounded like Superheroes: Melt (from a roller skating dance company based in Montreal, Le Patin Libre), Vortex (from the Humanhood dance company),and the company Twin Flames (Native by Nature: Hugging the Cactus)
The Week in New York Theater Reviews
Under the Radar Festival
SpaceBridge. Russian Refugee Kids at La MaMa
Blind Runner. Responding to repression in Iran
The 7th Voyage of Egon Tichy (redux)
The International Fringe Encore Series
Prototype Festival
PhysFestNYC
The Week in New York Theater News
Stagehands go on strike against the Atlantic Theater Company (NYTimes)
Two new plays, “Grief Camp” and “I’m Assuming You Know David Greenspan,”which started previews last week, are being postponed indefinitely.
Auditors for Signature raise “substantial doubt” about the 34-year-old nonprofit theater company’s survival (Broadway Journal)
Full cast announced for Boop The Musical opening at Broadway’s Broadhurst Theater April 5: Jasmine Amy Rogers as Betty Boop, Ainsley Melham, Stephen DeRosa, Anastacia McCleskey, Angelica Hale, Phillip Huber, Aubie Merrylees
With Erich Bergen and Faith Prince
Joined by Lawrence Alexander, Courtney Arango, Colin Bradbury, Tristen Buettel,Joshua Michael Burrage, Victoria Byrd, Dan Castiglione,Rebecca Corrigan, Ian Gallagher Fitzgerald, RJ Higton, Nina Lafarga,Morgan McGhee, Ryah Nixon, Lizzy Tucker, Christian Probst, Ricky Schroeder, Gabriella Sorrentino, Derek Jordan Taylor, David Wright Jr., Damani Van Rensalier and Amy Van Norstrand
Daniel Breaker will take over from Lillias White the role of Hermes, and Merle Dandridge from Allison Russell the role of Persephone in “Hadestown” starting Feb 18. (As previously announced, Hailey Kilgore will begin playing Eurydice; Carlos Valdes, Orpheus; and Tom Hewitt, Hades on January 14)
Eureka Day has been extended to February 16. A play about the vaccine debate, it has one of the most hilarious scenes of anything that opened on Broadway in 2024
Concert for America will take place on Inauguration Day (January 20th) at Town Hall, organized by Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley Jackson, and starring Stokes Mitchell, Cecily Strong, J. Smith-Cameron, Javier Muñoz, Rosie Perez and Susie Essman
Year 4 of Roundabout’s Refocus Project (which previously presented unfairly neglected plays by Black, Latin, and Asian-American playwrights, respectively) will feature plays by Migdalia Cruz and William S. Yellow Robe, Jr.
This year the Roundabout Underground Residencies will be introduced to provide two playwrights – Vichet Chum and Nikki Massoud -with time and space to work on one of their plays
There are TWO autobiographical (or “semi-autobiographical”) shows coming to New York stages about a queer son’s relationship with his mother
Matt Doyle (Company, War Horse) to co-star with Caroline Aaron (The Marvelous Mrs Maisel) in Conversations with Mother, Matthew Lombardo’s comedy spanning five decades between an Italian matriarch and her gay son. Theater 555, Feb 7-May 11.
Amil Mansoor performs his story as a queer son who tries to reconcile with his hijabi mother in “AMM(i)GONE” as they work together to adapt Antigone in Urdu. March 13 – April 7 at The Flea
(What I wrote in my review of Gypsy: ” If the racial composition of the cast requires a certain amount of mental jiu-jitsu on the part of the audience, it’s a suspension of disbelief to which New York theatergoers have grown accustomed.”)
In Memoriam
Abigail McGrath, 84, actor, writer and co-founder of Off Center Theater, devoted to progressive works and plays for children
