This is a good week to be in either England or New York or both! Several of the shows I’d most like to see are taking place there. Fancy some pond-hopping? Here are my Best Bets: September 28th – October 4th
RAGS THE MUSICAL – Classic Stage Company – New York, NY – September 28th – September 29th
This is a musical from lyricist Stephen Schwartz (Wicked), book writer Joseph Stein (Fiddler on the Roof) and composer Charles Strouse (Applause). It was a notorious flop that only ran for four regular performances after 18 previews.
Despite that, Rags received five Tony Award nominations including Best Musical.
It’s a story of Jewish immigrants who find the promise of America very difficult to mesh with the realities they face in New York City in 1910.
Was it really that bad? This week’s concerts can shed some light on Rags. The cast of 16 includes Julie Benko (Funny Girl revival), Steven Skybell (Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish) and Judy Kuhn, who played Bella Cohen in the original production.
Judy Kuhn is a reason to see any show. There is also a revised book by David Thompson (The Scottsboro Boys – a woefully under-appreciated musical).
Leigh Silverman directs the concert with music direction by Mary-Mitchell Campbell.
Monday’s performance is sold out. But tickets remain for Tuesday’s show.
For tickets and more information, please go HERE.
TOPDOG/UNDERDOG – Steppenwolf Theatre – Chicago, IL – Now – November 1st
I saw this Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Suzan-Lori Parks in 2002. I hadn’t seen it again until last night.
Director Kenny Leon (who directed the most recent Broadway revival of the play) helms this production.
Ensemble members Glenn Davis and Namir Smallwood play brothers Lincoln and Booth. (Those were their given names from their parents who thought it would be funny.)
The two brothers are living less-than-ideal lives. Lincoln is paid to dress like the president at an arcade where people can use cap guns to shoot him. It’s not much, but it’s a living. He’s staying with Booth is his studio apartment. Booth is unemployed and pining for Grace who he claims is hot for him. Both brothers are nowhere near the American dream. Could a return to a con game make the difference for them?
Davis and Smallwood give stunning performances. Leon’s direction is taut. The large gold American flag curtain tells you everything you need to know about the themes in Parks’ play. I liked this play so much more than I remember liking it nearly a quarter century ago.
For tickets and more information, please go HERE.
Look for my interview with Kenny Leon beginning on Tuesday, September 29th.
THE STANDARD OF LIVING – Theatre Royal Haymarket – London, England – Now – December 12th
OPENING NIGHT: SEPTEMBER 29th
A new play by James Graham (Punch) directed by Nicholas Hytner (Giant)? Sold.
This world premiere tells the story of John Maynard Keynes. He was principally responsible for Britain’s funding of the arts. He was a major economist and aided in recovery from World War I.
He was married to ballerina Lydia Lopokova. He was in love with Duncan Grant. He was a member of the Bloomsbury Group and a close confidant of Virginia Woolf. You’d think he had a good life, wouldn’t you?
But amidst the economic chaos, he wasn’t so sure. What should life for a man like that really be or need to be?
Rory Kinnear stars as Keynes. Ballerina Natalia Osipova plays Lopokova. Thomas Flynn plays Grant.
This is precisely the kind of play I’d want to see. Topical, even though set in a different time and place; a quality cast with a first-rate director, and a playwright who doesn’t shy away from challenging material.
For tickets and more information, please go HERE.
BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE – Schwartzman Center – Oxford, England – Now – October 10th
OPENING NIGHT: October 1st
Does the name Laura Kieler ring a bell? She was a good friend of playwright Henrik Ibsen.
Unbeknownst to her at the time of the play’s first performances, she was the inspiration for the character of Nora in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House.
Playwrights Ellice Stevens and Billy Barrett ask questions about Ibsen’s appropriation and who has the right to tell someone else’s story. Or as Hamilton says, “Who lives, who dies, who gets to tell your story.”
Peter Clements plays Ibsen. Sophie Steer plays Suzannah Ibsen. Stevens plays Nora. Jacoba Williams plays Kieler and Yasser Zadeh plays Victor Kieler and Torvald. All cast members are credited as “devisors.”
Barrett directs.
For tickets and more information, please go HERE.
SOON – Out of the Box Theatrics at The Loft at St. Luke’s Theatre – New York, NY – September 30th – November 8th
This musical by Nick Blaemire had its world premiere 11 years ago at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA and received generally good reviews.
But here’s what makes it interesting to me. The musical deals with a horribly agoraphobic woman, Charlie, who doesn’t want to leave her apartment because the outside world and its problems.
Her roommate, her on-again/off-again boyfriend and her mother try to persuade her to venture out into the world and leave her apartment.
Blaemire wrote what strikes me as an incredibly prescient musical. Doesn’t this sound like it could be a pandemic-era story? Makes for a new perspective!
Ava Delaney plays Charlie. Mylinda Hull plays her mother, Adrienne. Mike Millan plays her roommate, Steven and Oliver Richman plays her boyfriend, Jonah.
Will Blum directs.
For tickets and more information, please go HERE.
SMALL TOWN: A JOHN MELLENCAMP MUSICAL – Ogunquit Playhouse – Ogunquit, ME – October 1st – November 1st
I’ve made it abundantly clear that I don’t like jukebox musicals as a rule. So why include yet another one?
Unlike musicals such as Mamma Mia! which shoehorned existing ABBA songs into a flimsy narrative, this one features songs that are written by a story-driven songwriter: Mellencamp.
Will it work? I give it better than even money odds given that Small Town is based on Jack and Diane – two young people in love who just want to make a better life for themselves.
Jack is played by Dillon Klena and Diane is played by Morgan Higgins. It’s a fairly large cast.
But I want to mention one of my favorite actors: Annie Golden. I first enjoyed her in the film version of the musical, Hair. She was in the original short-lived production of Sondheim’s Assassins as Squeaky Fromme. Most recently she was in the City Center Encores! production of Into the Woods that went to Broadway.
Naomi Wallace (One Flea Spare) wrote the book and Lisa Peterson (Good Night, Oscar) directs.
For tickets and more information, please go HERE.
MICHAEL HERSCH FESTIVAL – MISE-EN_PLACE – New York, NY – October 2nd – October 4th
I didn’t know anything about composer Hersch until I received a press release about the second Michael Hersch Festival.
What prompted me to explore his work is that the last festival took place ten years ago. One highlight from that 2016 festival was, according to the New York Times, a performance of The Vanishing Pavilions which was a work for solo piano.
So I listened to it. And I was intrigued. 23 suites performed live by Hersch on an album released in 2013. I’m going to do more exploring in the weeks ahead.
There’s a lot to explore the first weekend in October.
October 2nd will feature Images from a Closed Ward, a 13-movement string quartet that had its world premiere in 2012. FLUX Quartet will be performing.
October 3rd has the New York City premiere of two chamber works with soprano Ah Young Hong as the singer along with two other works for violin.
October 4th has Hong returning along with performances by violinist Miranda Cuckson and cellist Coleman Itzkoff.
The highlight will certainly be a rare performance of excerpts from The Vanishing Pavilions performed by Hersch.
For tickets and more information, please go HERE.
I’m disappointed that I can’t just travel to every show I’d love to see. So if you catch one of these shows, let me know what you think.
That’s all for Best Bets: September 28th – October 4th.
Enjoy your week!
Go see a show!
Main Photo: Glenn Davis and Namir Smallwood in Topdog/Underdog (Photo by Michael Brosilow/Courtesy Steppenwolf Theatre Company)