Beaches and Death. The Week in Awards. Broadway on the Talk Shows. #Stageworthy News

Memorial Day is both the unofficial start of summer and the federal holiday honoring the 1.1 million Americans who died fighting in U.S. wars; always a jarring dichotomy. But the closing of two Broadway musicals is how I thought up the headline.

“Beaches” played its final performance on Sunday, May 24, 2026 after 28 previews and 38 regular performances at the Majestic Theater. Plans are currently underway for a national tour to launch in 2027.
“Death Becomes Her” will end its Broadway run on Sunday, June 28, 2026 after some 19 months and about 650 performances at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater. It will launch a multi-year North American tour this September at Playhouse Square in Cleveland.

As it happens, there are several still-running Broadway musicals that feel appropriate for Memorial Day – Hamilton, Ragtime, and Operation Mincemeat. BroadwayHD recommends two musicals and a play, available on their streaming service: From Here to Eternity, HMS Pinafore, and Coriolanus

(Previous Memorial Day posts:
Remembering The American War Dead.
The First Memorial Day
Why Memorial Day: Frederick Douglass’ 1871 Speech)

The photograph up top is of “The Fallen 9000,” a large-scale temporary art installation created on Arromanches beach in Normandy, France, with 9,000 silhouettes etched into the sand to visually represent the massive loss of life during the D-Day landings.

The Week in Theater Awards

Schmigadoon Sweeps the Chita Rivera Awards. Lifetime Achiever Ann-Margret: “I could always find the rhythm.”

Watch Daniel Radcliffe, Nathan Lane, Joshua Henry et al accept Outer Critics Circle Awards in praise of community

2026 Tony Winners — YOUR Picks?

Laura Benanti and Tituss Burgess will be the hosts for “The Tony Awards: Act One,” handing out the first batch of awards from 6:35 – 8 pm June 7 on Pluto TV (which you can watch for free.)

All nominees for Best Musical and Best Revival of a Musical will be featured onstage during the Tonys, with the casts of “The Lost Boys,” “Schmigadoon!,” “Titaníque,” “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York),” “Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” “Ragtime” and “The Rocky Horror Show” all set to perform.

The Week in New York Theater Reviews and Previews

Animal Wisdom Review

Heather Christian is both everywhere and nowhere to be found in this revival of her “Animal Wisdom,” which she first performed nine years ago, and which she still struggles to define. Her tortured 500-word “composer’s note” is distributed to the audience as we enter a theater elaborately redesigned to suggest Christian’s childhood in Natchez, Mississippi….I have little doubt that Christian has structured this “ritual,” this “mass”…with erudition and craft. And Kenita R. Miller, Tony-nominated for “for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf,” has a charming presence and a golden voice. But “Animal Wisdom” struck me as largely busy, distracting and diffuse. It took until the last fifteen minutes of this two-hour opus – when a 34-member community choir added their voices in total darkness – for me to see the light.

Tribeca Festival 2026 preview for theater lovers

The musical “Hadestown” is brought to the screen with the original Broadway cast, followed by a live concert. Broadway songwriters Sara Bareilles and Alicia Keys are each profiled. There’s a documentary about a drag theater company putting on a production of “The Rocky Horror Show” in Wyoming. The 25th annual Tribeca Festival, running from June 3 to 14, directly appeals to theater lovers with such fare. But I’ve sorted through the hundreds of festival offerings for my list of 15 that might be of interest to theater enthusiasts, many less directly