Two Tony-nominated plays from the current Broadway season are being broadcast on television. Both of them originated decades ago, and have gained new relevance because of the current political landscape.
David Henry Hwang’s Yellow Face starring Daniel Dae Kim debuted on PBS’ Great Performances on Friday and will be streaming through June 30 on pbs.org/gperf and the PBS app. (which helps explain why Great Performances is one of the recipients of the 2025 Tony Award for Excellence in the Theater.) (My review)
The penultimate Broadway performance of George Clooney’s “Good Night and Good Luck” will be aired live on CNN from Broadway’s Winter Garden Theater on Saturday, June 7 at 7pm ET . The Tony-nominated play is based on his 2005 movie. Interesting that it’s CNN, not CBS, which would have been a full circle, since it’s all about CBS anchor Edward R. Murrow’s take-down of (an earlier demagogue) Sen Joseph McCarthy.
I wonder whether the reaction will be the same by TV viewers. As I wrote in my review, if there’s not much change in content from the movie, “Good Night, and Good Luck” on Broadway is transformed by its context. On the night I attended, the audience treated the play like the gathering of the like-minded at a public square, responding to this real-life drama from the 1950s as if a comment on life in America under Donald Trump. (My review.)
5 Takeaways from the Broadway 2024-2025 Season
The Broadway season was one in which the irreverent was relished (Oh, Mary; Dead Outlaw; Operation Mincemeat), while at the same time the sincere was revered (Good Night and Good Luck; Maybe Happy Ending; Purpose)
The Week in New York Theater Review and Preview
Jen Silverman might seem an unlikely writer to adapt August Strindberg’s 1888 play for this starry production featuring Liev Schreiber as a man trying to undermine a married couple portrayed by Justice Smith and Maggie Siff. Silverman uses the pronouns they/them and, before making their Broadway debut last year with “The Roommate,” was probably best known for the bawdy, genderqueer/feminist/lesbian Off-Broadway comedy entitled “Collective Rage…” (followed by 45 more words.) Strindberg (1849-1912) had a troubled relationship with women, according to his biographer Michael Meyer, who quotes the playwright as admitting his misogyny, and translates some egregious letters ( “”Woman, being small and foolish and therefore evil, should be suppressed, like barbarians and thieves…”)
But Silverman’s changes, including a different ending, make “Creditors” kinder to its characters, and to the audience. Full review
The Week in New York Theater News
2025 Drama League Awards: Nicole Scherzinger, Oh, Mary, Maybe Happy Ending
2025 Dorian Theater Award Nominations “Death Becomes Her” leading with seven nominations, followed closely by “John Proctor is the Villain,” “Purpose,” “Sunset Blvd,” each with six.
Poll: Broadway Showstopper of 2025?
Broadway grosses for the season-to-date surpassed 2018-2019’s record season-to-date box office for the first time – a significant measure of post-pandemic recovery. “However, Jason Laks, president of the Broadway League noted that the numbers are driven by a few productions – namely the recent celebrity-driven titles, with high ticket prices – and that otherwise the economics of Broadway are making it harder for productions to survive.” (Hollywood Reporter)
The Balusters by David Lindsay-Abaire (Kimberly Akimbo), directed by Kenny Leon (Our Town), coming to MTC’s Samuel Friedman Theater on Broadway in Spring, 2026. The Vernon Point Neighborhood Association is a passionate bunch, whether squabbling over historically inaccurate porch railings or debating trash can protocol. Still, no one is prepared for the neighbor-versus-neighbor battle royale that ensues when a newcomer to the board suggests the unthinkable: installing a stop sign on the corner of the enclave’s prettiest block
MTC is also bringing back Martyna Majok’s “Queens,” directed by Trip Cullman Off Broadway. The play about immigrant women in Queens, was produced at Lincoln Center in 2018. (My review.)
Public Theater 2025-2026 season
The Other Americans by John Leguizamo
Leguizamo as Nelson Castro, a Colombian-American laundromat owner in Queens grappling with a failing business and buried secrets. Begins September 11.
Oh Happy Day! By Jordan E. Cooper
An impending flood is the least of the Johnson family’s troubles in this reimagining of Noah’s Ark by the author and star of Ain’t No Mo’ Begins Oct 2
Did You Eat? Written and Performed by Zoë Kim
Kim’s autobiographical journey through love’s many forms. Begins Oct.14
The Seat of Our Pants by Ethan Lipton
A musical based Upon the Play The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder. Begins Oct 23
Inititative by Else Went
Seven teens tracked from 2000-2004. Begins Nov.4
Ulysses by Elevator Repair Service
January 2026
Antigone (This Play I Read in High School) by Anna Ziegler
Cast to feature Celia Keenan-Bolger (Chorus) and Tony Shalhoub (Creon)
Public Charge by Julissa Reynoso and Michael J. Chepiga
former United States Ambassador Julissa Reynoso chronicles the life of a diplomat. Winter/Spring 2026
Jesa by Jeena Yi
When four estranged Korean American sisters reunite in Orange County to perform their father’s Jesa—a traditional ritual honoring the dead—old wounds erupt, secrets surface, and ghosts (literal and emotional) refuse to stay buried. Winter/Spring 2026
Brooklyn Academy of Music’s 2025 Next Wave Festival features several works of theater and theater hybrids.
Oct 22 & 24—26….Caroline Guiela Nguyen’s LACRIMA (Theater)
Set in a Parisian haute couture fashion house
that’s been commissioned to create a wedding dress for a British princess. From France to India, this choral theater performance traces all of the hands that create the dress over the eight months and thousands of hours of work needed to finish it.
Nov 19—23………..Andrea Voets’ FOR REAL (Theater/Music)
A theatrical radio show about the intellectual undermining of women
Dec 3—7……………Leslie Cuyjet’s For All Your Life (Dance/Film/Theater)
a performance, film, and social experiment that investigates the value of Black life and death, drawing on the life insurance industry for method and metaphor.
Jan 15—17…………Richard Foreman’s What to Wear (Theater/Music/Opera) presented as part of Prototype 2026
funny post-rock opera skewering the superficial pressures of society.
Oct 22—Jan 17…..Franklin Furnace’s 50th Anniversary (Visual Art/Performance Art)
News from the War on Culture
he NEA Grant Terminations and What it Means for the Future of American Theatre (BroadwayWorld)
Alarmed by Trump, Kennedy Center workers push to unionize (NY Times)
“We demand transparent and consistent terms for hiring and firing, a return to ethical norms, freedom from partisan interference in programming, free speech protections and the right to negotiate the terms of our employment.”
Dead Outlaw cancels a performance at the Library of Congress after the Librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla D. Hayden, was fired by the Trump administration. (NY Times)
Playwright John Logan is donating $40,000 to Berkeley Repertory Theatre — the same amount the company was set to receive as a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (SF Chronicle)
Trump’s Broadway dreams get a second act with Kennedy Center takeover. (Washington Post)
“When Trump conducted a hostile takeover of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in February — replacing every board member appointed by President Joe Biden with his own, who in turn installed him as chairman — the move shocked and dismayed many in the arts community. “We’re going to make sure that it’s good, and it’s not going to be woke,” he told reporters, while also admitting that he had never been to a show at the Kennedy Center.
“But in context, perhaps this makes some perverse sense. As the most powerful man in the world, he seems to have found a way to give his theater career a second act. At 23, endlessly bored with managing Brooklyn rental apartments for his father, Trump had tried to find an escape to a more glamorous life on the Great White Way. Maybe the Kennedy Center takeover wasn’t an act of capriciousness but an attempt to come full circle on his Broadway dreams deferred.”
In Memoriam
Charles Strouse, 96, Tony-winning composer and lyricist of Bye Bye Birdie, Applause, and Annie — and Nick and Nora, Rags, and Golden Boy
“Mr. Strouse had more than a dozen Broadway shows to his credit and composed some of the most enduring musical theater numbers of his era: “Put On a Happy Face” and “Kids (What’s the Matter With Kids Today?)” from “Bye Bye Birdie,” which opened in 1960 and featured lyrics by his frequent collaborator Lee Adams; “But Alive” from “Applause” (1970), a musical adaptation of the movie “All About Eve” starring Lauren Bacall, with lyrics by Mr. Adams; and “Tomorrow” and “It’s the Hard-Knock Life” from “Annie”(1977), with lyrics by Martin Charnin.”
