NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani turns out to be polarizing in a way even he didn’t realize: His Broadway favorites. In a post-election interview with CNN, he said he used to belt out “Waving through the Window” from “Dear Evan Hansen” during his long commutes to Albany. This generated a Reddit thread:
garden__gate: Notice he suspiciously waited until AFTER the election to reveal this damning information!
Haiviolet: i knew he had to have some kind of flaw
noozees: Finally a politician that supports my controversial cause!
Comprehensive-Fun47: It’s so fun to sing along to this song. How does this not earn points in the theater community?
Magnus-Pym: I gotta be honest, I wouldn’t have supported him if I knew this
Electronickey6323: I hate that show but you can’t deny Zohran would be an amazing Evan
Affectionate Bed 289: This makes me hope he shows up to present/ talk at the Tonys next year
That is certainly possible. A lesser-known fact about him is his background in show business, sort of: Six years ago, as a rapper who went by the name Mr. Cardamom, he released a video “Nani,” foul-mouthed and funny, starring his grandmother. (See below)
Will Mayor Mamdani be a Broadway booster? Will his focus on affordability extend to the theater?
“New York, this power, it’s yours”: Zohran Mamdani Victory Speech Video and Full Transcript
A history of mayors on Broadway, including which one was called Mr. Broadway, and why:
The Week in New York Theater Reviews
The Queen of Versailles,” Stephen Schwartz’s latest musical, which stars Kristin Chenoweth as the real-life billionaire’s wife Jackie Siegel, comes far closer to Jackie’s favorite childhood TV show, “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” than to the morality tale about the pursuit of the American Dream that it tries to be. The production is impressively designed and wonderfully acted; the show has a pleasant enough new score by a high-profile composer who’s on a roll (his 1976 musical “The Baker’s Wife” is opening later this week Off-Broadway, and “Wicked: For Good” is being released later this month.) But it doesn’t adequately answer for me Sondheim’s essential question: Why should this be a musical?
This R&B musical comedy about Barack Obama’s first term as president…feels mounted ten years too late. It has a catchy score splendidly sung by a talented cast, but do we really want to be reminded about Herman Cain and Sarah Palin? And while there are some satirical moments that land, there is more often an uneasy mix of tones, and much that is of questionable taste.
By the end of “Kyoto,” a play about the effort it took to achieve the first international agreement to address the climate crisis, we come to understand — perhaps too well – that it was a long, painstaking and frustrating process. The Kyoto Protocol, which 84 nations initially signed in Kyoto, Japan in 1997, came after nearly a decade in which great world powers and tiny island nations alike argued endlessly with one another over priorities and punctuation.
“This is all about language, Don. Punctuation. Down to the last comma,” an atmospheric physicist tells Don Pearlman at a “plenary session” in Sweden in 1990, when Pearlman, portrayed by Stephen Kunkin, is just starting to get involved. Don is the narrator of “Kyoto,” and its central character, which is a sly move, because he is also the villain.
The Week in New York Theater News
The 5 Best Musical Theater Album Grammy Award Nominations 2026
Broadway at the Thanksgiving Day Parade Past and Present
The casts of the Broadway shows Buena Vista Social Club, Just in Time, and Ragtime will perform at the 2025 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on November 27, 2025. The 99th edition of the annual parade will also of course feature the Radio City Rockettes who this year are celebrating their 100th anniversary.
At the link above: a video of the new balloons, one of which I guess you can argue is Broadway affiliated (Shrek), and some of the Broadway performances at the parade over the past decade, including Hamilton in 2016, Lea Michele in 2022, and Billy Porter in 2024.
Ragtime extended through June 14, 2026 – an added six months
Also extending; Are the Bennet Girls Ok, Beau the Musical, Heaux Church, Queens, The Ziegfeld Files
Has theater become everybody’s church? (NY Times)
Nothing Can Take You From the Hand of God” “Oh Happy Day!,” “Saturday Church,” “Flaming September,” “Heaux Church” and “Oratorio for Living Things,” all draw on, and wrestle with, deep knowledge of church settings and music for their emotional core.
