Reviewing the Drama: Broadway, Off-Broadway, Ballet, Movies, and TV Reviews

Coming to the Boards Dates and a theatre are set for the Broadway bow of The Present , Andrew Upton 's adaptation of Chekhov's Platonov . Starring Oscar winner   Cate Blanchett  ( Blue Jasmine ) in her Broadway (but not NY stage) debut, The Present  will take up residency at the Barrymore Theatre. Previews begin December 17, with opening night set for January 8, 2017. The limited engagement is scheduled to conclude on March 19. Visit Playbill for more, including ticket on-sale dates. We'll have to wait a little while, but Angela Lansbury  is confirmed for her Broadway return. (She was last seen on Broadway in The Best Man .) The nonagenarian will tread the boards in a revival of  The Chalk Garden , written by Enid Bagnold , as part of the 2017-2018 season. Playbill has details. Movie Musicals Moving Ahead It's confirmed: Emily Blunt ( Into the Woods ) and Lin-Manuel Miranda ( Hamilton ) will star in the new Mary Poppins movie. As...

As The Total Bent charts a musician's arc, we're presented with an exploration of the intersection of religion, politics, and art. One never existed without the other; any revolution in one was fomented by the others. Political revolutions were/are almost always in response to religiosity, and they've been spurred, bolstered, defeated, crystallized, or in some other way represented by art. If you know me, you know these themes resonate with me. The show, however, didn't quite work. The latest offering from Stew (text and music) and Heidi Rodewald (music), the duo behind Passing Strange , focuses on Marty Roy (a phenomenal Ato Blankson-Wood ), a young black man in Montgomery, Alabama, at the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement. The Total Bent opens, though, with Marty's father, Joe Roy (a captivating Vondie Curtis Hall ) singing a would-be protest song (that features an electrifying blues strut). Joe and Marty quickly come to blows over music's place in th...

Dear Evan Hansen Coming to Broadway The incredible original musical, Dear Evan Hansen , will bow on Broadway beginning this November. (The musical, which had a run in DC, is finishing its sold-out, extended run at off-Broadway's Second Stage this week.) Written by Benj Pasek + Justin Paul (score) and Steven Levenson (book), Dear Evan Hansen conveys what it's like to be teenager now, what it's like to have more opportunities for connection than ever before but still feel lonely. Star Ben Platt gives a deeply affecting performance. No official word on casting, though I can't imagine Platt (and Rachel Bay Jones , playing Evan's mother) wouldn't be asked to make the transfer. A theatre and exact dates have not been announced, but you can visit dearevanhansen.com to sign up for updates. (Other Shows) Coming to the Boards Another production has been added to Roundabout 's 2016-2017 season, a revival of Arthur Miler 's The Price . Previews will b...

Friend art, according to a faux dictionary definition emblazoned on the wall of Second Stage's uptown theatre, is "art a friend makes that a person is forced to go see and/or support out of obligation to the friendship." With Friend Art , playwright Sofia Alvarez explores the challenges and opportunities inherent in friend art. Sitting through Friend Art  (and then reading Alvarez's bio), you get the sense that this is a personal play for her. Perhaps she's been the friend creating "art"; maybe she's been the friend who has had to go see such "art"; or maybe she's been both. Friend Art  focuses on four friends: engaged couple Molly (a strong Zoe Chao ) and Kevin ( Aaron Costa Ganis ), and ex-couple Lil ( Anabelle Lemieux ) and Nate ( Constantine Maroulis ). When Molly was in her 20s, she was pursuing her dream of being an actress. Now in her early 30s, she has a corporate job, one with stability and a comfy paycheck. Kevin, 32, ...

For my final ballet outing of NYCB's spring season, I attended a 21st century choreographers program. First up was a repeat viewing of Justin Peck 's Belles-Lettres , a chamber piece (of sorts) that premiered at the 2014 Fall Gala. ( I saw it a couple of weeks later .) Featuring nine dancers, including the newly minted principal Taylor Stanley , Belles-Lettres  plays with shapes and formations, and the way things look from different angles. (I can imagine Peck thinking about how the choreography looks from the orchestra as compared to how it looks from the fourth ring—a head on view compared to a bird's eye view.) It's a pretty ballet, with nice moments for each of the four couples ( Kristin Segin and Jared Angle ; Indiana Woodward and Adrian Danchig-Waring ; Brittany Pollack and Stanley; and Rebecca Krohn and Tyler Angle ), and a well-integrated creator/tinkerer in Anthony Huxley . After a brief pause was Nicolas Blanc 's first ballet for NYCB, Mot...

Coming to the Boards The New Group has announced its 2016-2017 season, and it will begin with a revival of Sweet Charity , starring Sutton Foster . The production will be directed by Leigh Silverman (with whom Foster worked on Violet ) and choreographed by Joshua Bergasse ( On the Town ). The season will also include The Whirligig , a new play by Hamish Linklater , starring Zosia Mamet and Maura Tierney ; Wallace Shawn 's Evening at the Talk House ; and All the Fine Boys , written by Erica Schmidt . Playbill has details. ... MTC has added the Broadway debut of August Wilson 's Jitney (directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson ) to its 2016-2017 season, as well as Martyna Majok 's Cost of Living (directed by Jo Bonney). Broadway.com has more. ... The Public Theater has announced, in full, its 2016-2017 season. Highlights include the world premiere of Saint Joan , reuniting Here Lies Love collaborators David Byrne and Alex Timbers ; a revival of David Hare 's Plen...

Though Paula Vogel 's Indecent is a new play and tells a story I didn't know, it reminded me of stories I've heard before. With the subtitle, "the true story about a little Jewish play," Indecent tells the tale of Sholem Asch's play, God of Vengeance . In the early 1900s, Asch was a Polish Jew and a writer. Shortly after getting married, he wrote "a little Jewish play," and tried to get it produced. The trouble was that the little Jewish play depicted Jews as— shonda alert—actual, flawed human beings, humans with desires, and, ahead of its time, lesbian characters. At first, power players in the Yiddish theatre scene were wary of producing God of Vengeance , afraid of how it portrayed Jews. Asch challenged, "Why does every Jew on stage have to be a paragon?" Why can't Jews on stage, he argued, represent the full complement of Jews in real life? The power players were unmoved. But Asch persevered. God of Vengeance became the l...