“Gypsy” closed last night, “Jeff Ross: Take a Banana for the Ride” is opening tonight. Two more shows will close on Broadway by the end of the month, and no more will open until September 16. But these are not typical dog days of summer. There’s the official reopening this week of the Delacorte in Central Park. There is the 16th show announced for the new Broadway season. And there are lots of bubbles, to which I feel a personal connection: I’ll explain that – illustrate it even – after my reviews below of Mamma Mia, Ava and two Off-Off Broadway shows; news involving Phillipa Soo, Jeanine Tesori and Hansol Jung, more upset from the Kennedy Center; and videos from Mamma Mia and Just in Time.
The Week in New York Theater Reviews
“Mamma Mia,” reopening on Broadway after a ten-year absence, is much the same confection: same silly plot, same disco-era earworms by the Swedish pop group ABBA, same high-energy choreography, same outlandish costumes, and little-changed blue and white set. This is not a reimagined production…Personally, I found this “Mamma Mia” at its most exciting at the curtain call. This is when the long-retired girl group, Donna and the Dynamos, make a comeback in their neon-colored, spandex spacesuits from the 70s, backed by the ensemble’s calisthenic-like choreography, while the audience gets to sing along with ABBA’s catchiest hits, “Dancing Queen” and “Waterloo.” This is not something you can do while watching the 2008 Meryl Streep-Amanda Seyfried-Pierce Brosnan et al film adaptation (currently on Netflix) without feeling foolish.
I started feeling complicit in the exploitation of Ava Gardner by even attending “Ava: The Secret Conversations,” a play that Elizabeth McGovern has adapted from a book of the same name by celebrity journalist Peter Evans.
Although Eddie Redmayne was nominated for an Academy Award for “The Danish Girl,” he regretted taking on the role of Lili Elbe, as he told an interviewer several years later, because she was a transgender woman and he is not.
A decade after the 2015 film, a transgender woman is now portraying Lili Elbe, in “Lili/Darwin,” a solo show written and performed by Darwin Del Fabro. The play is best viewed as a work in progress: While often lyrical and passionately expressed, there is little dramatic incident to anchor it.
“Sea Glass” is billed as a contemporary feminist retelling of Cain and Abel, so I knew how it would end. Oddly, the ending felt tacked on – one of the reasons why Olivia Dennehy-Basile’s script ultimately didn’t work for me. Until that abrupt ending, I didn’t see much of a connection to the Biblical story, and, although the two main characters are sisters rather than brothers, I didn’t see much discernibly feminist about it either. There were some memorable exchanges along the way, but the longer the play went on (and it went on too long), the less I saw the point of it.
Yet if I struggled to appreciate the script, I’m not sorry I attended the production, because it features a promising young cast, especially Shaelin McKenna and Bryn Frazee as the sisters, both of whom are making their Off-Broadway debuts.
The Week in New York Theater News
“Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)” will open at Broadway’s Longacre Theater November 20. The show, which was a hit in London, is set in New York, featuring Sam Tutty as Dougal, an impossibly upbeat Brit who has just landed in New York City for the first time to attend the wedding of the father he’s never met, and Christiani Pitts as Robin, the sister of the bride and a no-nonsense New Yorker with a lot of errands to run—including picking up the groom’s estranged son from the airport. These two strangers begin their journey together, navigating New York City, secrets, and second chances.
There are now 16 shows with venues and precise dates in the 2025-2026 Broadway season.
While announcing the rebranding of his entertainment company, Andrew Lloyd Webber said: “The next major productions will be the Broadway transfer of Cats: The Jellicle Ball and my new musical, The Illusionist.”
“ Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” which debuted at the Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center last year, reimagined Lloyd Webber’s adaptation of t.s. elliott’s poems, as I wrote in my review: “Rather than set among cats in a junkyard, this “Cats” is reimagined among LGBT people of color on a runway in a makeshift ballroom. Rather than just decide which of them will ascend to the Heaviside Layer (which they still do), the characters engage in a vogueing competition, rooted in the tradition of Harlem drag balls “
Jeanine Tesori is Lincoln Center’s “visionary artist” for the coming season, with a whole series of events, including concert versions of her opera Blue and her musical Violet
Married couple Philippa Soo and Steven Pasquale will star in High Spirits, the 1964 musical by Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray based on Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit February 4-15, the first of three shows in the New York City Center Encores 2026 season
En Garde Arts 2025-2026 season:
Hansol Jung’s “Last Call, a play with cocktails” performed in private residences Sept 19-Oct 13
Jared Mezzocchi’s 73 Seconds
Spring 2026 Uncommon Voices: Samora la Perdida’s “Spanglish Sh!t,” Taibi Magar’s “Tokitae,” Bill Martin’s “The Turtle Story,”
Kennedy Center
The Kennedy Center honorees this year will be: country musician George Strait, l rock band KISS (Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Tommy Thayer, Eric Singer), actor Michael Crawford (best known for Phantom of the Opera), disco singer Gloria Gaynor (“I Will Survive”), actor and screenwriter Sylvester Stallone. At a press conference, President Donald Trump said that he will serve as host for the December event. He also said he was 98 percent responsible for choosing whom to honor, and shot down “wokesters.” (The official press release from the Kennedy Center did not mention Trump at all.)
Experienced theater producer Jeffrey Finn resigns from Kennedy Center. (NY Times) Anybody surprised?
In Memoriam
Jack W. Batman, 81, prolific theater producer, Tony winner for Pippin and Clybourne Park”
George C. White, 89, founder of Eugene O’Neill Theater Center
Terence Stamp, 87, Oscar nominated movie actor (Billy Budd, Superman, Priscilla Queen of the Desert), also starred on Broadway in Alfie in 1964
Patricia White, 77, long-time company manager of Woodie King, Jr.’s New Federal Theatre and noted figure in Black theater in New York as director, mentor, producer, backstage coordinator, grant writer, box office manager and administrator.
Ann Bogart’s tribute to director Robert Wilson, who died on July 31 at the age of 83 (American Theater)
“…To me, Wilson was a complete mystery. His theatre, which blended movement, silence, and image into haunting and new expressions, defied all the conventions I had been taught. I wondered: How did he conjure such extraordinary worlds onstage? What did he notice that others missed? Was he able to see and interpret things that were otherwise invisible or insignificant? Following him on the street became my own private ritual, a way to study not only his art but the man himself. “
The Week’s Theater Video
one of the videos in connection with the release of the new cast album of “Just in Time”
A Fringe Finale with Bubbles
I laughed when I read the article in the New York Times about the explosion of bubble art at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, profiling “four bubbleologists, as they like to be called.” This is not because I had dinner with one of them. I happened to sit next to Graham Maxwell, aka Maxwell the Bubblelogist, sharing a long table at a restaurant called the Mosque Kitchen, one of the eateries recommended to me by somebody who actually lives in Edinburgh. We got to talking; our conversation lasted longer than the average Fringe show. Such is the nature of Edinburgh during the Fringe: Overwhelmingly crowded (much to the increasing irritation of the locals) but with people who are all in the same bubble.
Bubbles seemed to be the theme of the Fringe season. The opening gala of Pleasance, one of the four big venues at the festival, featured a speech by the Pleasance director waxing poetic about…bubbles.
“Bubbles, they’re strange. They’re beautiful things, weightless and delicate, effervescent, brief and brilliant. They shimmer with color. They reflect the world around them, and they vanish almost as quickly as they came. And yet, for the briefest, briefest of moments, they are beguiling and full of magic.”
And,then, he got to the point – bubbles have some of the same quality as theater – but went on and one with the metaphor.
Later, the MC of the gala complained:
This is why I laughed.
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is in its last week of the 2025 season. I already miss it.
