Frank Wood, Aya Cash
By: Isa Goldberg
March 21, 2023: Emily Feldman’s new play, “The Best We Could ” (a family tragedy), at The Manhattan Theatre Club, while contemporary in style, harkens back to classical Greek tragedy.
Narrated by a character named Maps (Maureen Sebastian), the tale comes to life seamlessly, as the actors walk into the events, and circumstances that will determine their fate. Maps leads us on this father daughter road trip, while pointing out to the audience from the very beginning, that this is a performance.
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Lena Horne
Fantastic finds from Broadway Babe this week include Carol Burnett, Lena Horne, Angie Dickinson & Burt Bacharach, and new documentary on The Music Man’s Meredith Wilson.
March 19, 2023: Broadway Babe, Randie Levine-Miller has some great nostalgic finds to share this week, including Carol Burnett, starring as “Calamity Jane” sixty years ago; an excellent documentary about Lena Horne; Angie Dickinson and Burt Bacharach, hosting the “Hollywood Palace” variety show; and a recently produced documentary about Composer/Lyricist, Meredith Willson, who gave us “The Music Man” and “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.”
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Micaela Diamond and Ben Platt.
By: David Sheward
March 18, 2023: Perhaps the most powerful moment in Parade, the stunning revival of Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown’s 1998 musical about the infamous Leo Frank case, is a silent one. Ben Platt, who gives a stirring performance as Frank, a man falsely accused of murdering a young girl, sits silently high up on Dane Laffrey’s evocative set, lit by Heather Gilbert to suggest a jail cell. Platt remains seated at a simple table throughout the intermission with a look of desperation on his face. We know the character’s ultimate fate—Frank was kidnapped and lynched after his sentence was commuted to life in prison—and it makes this unspoken sequence all the more shattering.
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Park West Gallery Launches First Annual “Painted in New York” Artist Competition.
March 19, 2023: Park West Fine Art Museum & Gallery announced their first annual “Painted in New York” artist competition on March 6. They are searching for the best artists in New York. The lucky winner will be offered a year-long contract and, upon mutual agreement, the opportunity to showcase their original art at the Park West SoHo location for a special three-month exhibition.
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George Pettignano
Celebrity chef Sal Scognamillo hosted a special luncheon with a Sinatra-inspired vocalist @ the renowned Patsy’s at 256 West 56th Street,
March 18, 2023: Celebrity Chef Sal Scognamillo hosted a special luncheon with a Sinatra inspired singer, George Pettignano, at the renowned Patsy’s on Saturday afternoon. Sal is the third-generation chef at the legendary Italian restaurant where Frank Sinatra and other celebrities have been frequent quests over the years.
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Jessica Chastain and Okieriete Onaodowan.
By: Samuel L. Leiter
March 17, 2023: Jessica Chastain’s compelling performance of Nora in the current revival of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House at the Hudson Theatre reminds us not only that this is the most frequently revived of all the Norwegian dramatist’s plays but that Nora is one of the most sought-after roles by a leading actress of any from the late 19th century on. The role it replaced as an inevitable marker of female stardom was Marguerite Gautier in Dumas fils’ Camille.
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Lindsay Mendez, Jonathan Groff and
Daniel Radcliffe in
“Merrily We Roll Along”.
B’way Update: Final Sondheim; Merrily Finds Theater; No More Room
By: David Sheward
March 17, 2023: There are ups and down on and Off-Broadway this week. The last Stephen Sondheim show is finally announcing dates and a theater as is the Broadway transfer of New York Theater Workshop’s revival of Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along. And one upcoming Broadway show has been forced to shut down before it even began performances.
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Natey Jones (center) and the company of ‘The Harder They Come’ at The Public Theate
By: Paulanne Simmons
March 16, 2023: The Harder They Come , a musical based on the 1972 Jamaican crime film directed by Perry Henzell and starring reggae singer Jimmy Cliff, has all the elements of a hit: a lovable rogue hero played by a talented lead (Natey Jones as Ivan), great music and an enthusiastic ensemble. It also benefits from the swiftly moving direction of Tony Taccone and Sergio Trujillo.
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Tony nominee and Emmy winner Sheryl Lee Ralph of Dreamgirls and
TV’s Abbott Elementary Fame to Sign New Book Friday & Saturday
By: Ellis Nassour
March 14, 2023: Indefatigable Tony nominee as the co-star of the legendary Dreamgirls and 2022 Grammy winner for ABC’s smash hit Abbott Elementary Sheryl Lee Ralph can now add author to her list of accomplishments: Author. She is doing two signing events Friday and Saturday for her new book, DIVA 2.0: 12 Life Lessons from Me for You (Wordee Books; Trade Edition).
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Okieriete Onaodowan and Jessica Chastain in “A Doll’s House”.
By: David Sheward
March 11, 2023: Before Jamie Lloyd’s minimalist and strangely powerful revival of A Doll’s House, Henrik Ibsen’s prophetic proto-feminist masterpiece, begins, audience members at the Hudson Theater are treated to the spectacle of Oscar-winning Jessica Chastain sitting in a simple chair on a revolving turntable. As Chastain is spun slowly around, she fixes the audience with a cold stare. Many whip out their camera-phones to take videos or pictures, as if she were an art exhibit. This pre-show photo op reinforces Ibsen’s theme of society treating women like dolls or objects. Chastain is objectified by the audience just as Ibsen’s heroine Nora is objectified by her condescending husband Torvald. The year of the play (1875) is superimposed above Soutra Gilmour’s stark, bare setting to remind us that such sexism has been around for a long time and it hasn’t gone completely away.
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Eric Comstock, Barbara Fasano, Sean Smith
By: Alix Cohen
March 13, 2023: There’s still musical sophistication to be found in Manhattan. Every Saturday at 5:30, Eric Comstock assumes the piano at Birdland delivering an amalgam of vocal and musical jazz, American Songbook, and wry repartee. Aided and abetted by vocalist Barbara Fasano and bassist Sean Smith, the artist’s almost nonchalant skill is showcased in late afternoon respite. As always, there are unfrequented choices among the recognizable.
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Golden Oldies from Broadway Babe feature Stephen Spielberg’s 1995 AFI Tribute, Nat King Cole, Dinah Shore, Ginger Rogers, George Burns and Ethel Merman plus 1985’s Night of a 100 Stars.
March 10, 2023: Broadway Babe, Randie Levine-Miller has some more incredible finds for us to enjoy including: The Night of 100 Stars, with over 200 stars, plus Sandy, the dog! Also, a star- studded American Film Institute tribute to Steven Spielberg from 1995 (28 years ago), and we know how much more he’s contributed to keeping us entertained since then; the legendary Dinah Shore, along with fellow legends, Nat King Cole, Ginger Rogers and George Burns; and 15 minutes of Broadway great, Ethel Merman, singing a medley of her hits!
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Jimmy Kimmel Hosts Oscars 95, the 95th Academy Awards, Live
Sunday on ABC. Ten 2022 Films In the Running for Best Picture
By: Ellis Nassour
March 10, 2023: The 2023 Academy Awards will telecast live from Hollywood and the Dolby Theatre this Sunday at 8 p.m. EDT/5 p.m. PDT. Hosting is producer and late-night star Jimmy Kimmel, returning to the Oscar stage for his third time. He claims to be “unslappable and unflappable,” referring to his previous gig when he was caught in the middle when the wrong film was announced at Best Picture and, more recently, when the “shockingly infamous incident” was seen live across the globe.
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Sheboyhood: a solo show by Craig Zehms is A funny, poignant account of a childhood and adolescence in Sheboygan, WI, and discovering how to chart one’s own path.
March 10, 2023: Growing up in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Craig Zehms didn’t always succeed at attempting to fit in with conventional definitions of masculinity, drawn to dance instead of baseball and children’s theater instead of army games. As a teenager, he began to come to terms with his sexuality in an era when no road map or role models existed. Funny, poignant, and life affirming, “Sheboyhood” resonates with anyone who has felt different, alive, or has traveled an uncharted path.
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Malika Samuel, Shanel Bailey
By: Samuel L. Leiter
March 9, 2023: In recent years, Lynn Nottage, with a Tony nomination (MJ)and two Pulitzer Prizes (Sweat, Ruined) , has soared into the stratosphere of American playwriting, much—but not all—of her work focusing on African American concerns. So an opportunity to revisit one of her earlier works, Crumbs from the Table of Joy , which premiered at Off Broadway’s Second Stage in 1995, and is now being revived by Off Broadway’s Keen Company at Theatre Row, is a welcome one, if only to see how far her work has come since then. Numerous moments glow with Ms. Nottage’s talent, but, overall, the play (and production) is patchy, the work of a young writer feeling her artistic oats, even if they haven’t entirely been digested.
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