In photos obtained by Fox News Digital, the 57-year-old actor and the 50-year-old actress were spotted sharing warm embraces and holding hands while frolicking in the waves during their vacation in the Central American country.
Jackman showed off his fit physique as he went shirtless in a pair of navy blue and white floral patterned swim trunks while Foster displayed her toned figure in a royal blue bikini with skirted bottoms.
Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster turned up the heat in Costa Rica. (Backgrid)
The pair were pictured beaming while wading hand in hand through the ocean waves. Jackman was seen holding Foster from behind as they gazed toward the horizon. During one tender moment, the two wrapped their arms around each other as Foster closed her eyes.
The duo appeared to be in good spirits as they shared laughs and walked further into the water. Later, Jackman and Foster were seen strolling on the shore while chatting with a couple of friends.
The two packed on the PDA during a sunset beach outing in Costa Rica. (Backgrid)
The actor and the actress shared warm embraces during their beach day. (Backgrid)
Prior to embarking on a romance, Jackman and Foster were friends and co-starred together in the Broadway revival of the musical “The Music Man,” which ran from February 2022 to January 2023. The “Wolverine” star played conman Harold Hill while Foster played his love interest, librarian Marian Paroo.
In June 2022, Foster praised her co-star during an interview with Vogue magazine.
“He has an impeccable reputation of being the hardest working man, incredibly kind, and generous—and all of that is true. He disarms everyone, and he doesn’t make anything about him,” Foster told the outlet. “And he’s now become one of my best friends, which was a surprise, because you usually go into these things thinking, ‘Well, I hope we get along.’”
The two beamed while strolling hand in hand through the water. (Backgrid)
The two color-coordinated in blue swimwear. (Backgrid)
Foster and Jackman confirmed their romance in January. (Backgrid)
“We have been blessed to share almost 3 decades together as husband and wife in a wonderful, loving marriage,” the couple said in a statement shared with People magazine. “Our journey now is shifting, and we have decided to separate to pursue our individual growth.”
Jackman and his ex-wife Deborra-Lee Furness finalized their divorce in June. (Backgrid)
Foster and her ex-husband Ted Griffin split in 2024. (Backgrid)
“Our family has been and always will be our highest priority. We undertake this next chapter with gratitude, love, and kindness. We greatly appreciate your understanding in respecting our privacy as our family navigates this transition in all of our lives.”
The former couple shares two children together: Oscar and Ava. Jackman and Lee-Furness finalized their divorce in June.
Foster and Jackman previously co-starred in Broadway’s “The Music Man.”(Backgrid)
A year after Jackman separated from Lee-Furness, Foster filed for divorce from her ex-husband Ted Griffin in October 2024. Foster and Griffin, who were married for almost a decade, share daughter Emily.
In January 2025, Jackman and the “Younger” star confirmed their romance when they were spotted holding hands while enjoying a dinner date in Los Angeles.
In October, the couple made their red carpet debut. (Nina Westervelt/Variety/Penske Media via Getty Images)
The two officially made their red carpet debut as a couple in October 2025 when they posed for photos together at the Hollywood premiere of Jackman’s movie “Song Sung Blue.”
In December, the duo attended the 2025 Gotham Film Awards in New York City and Foster joined Jackman later that month for the New York premiere of “Song Sung Blue.”
Ashley Hume is an entertainment writer for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to ashley.hume@fox.com and on Twitter: @ashleyhume
If you can remember back to season two of Gossip Girl, you may recall an episode about aspiring designer Jenny Humphrey (Taylor Momsen) attempting to earn funding for her eponymous fashion line by staging a guerrilla show at a charity gala. In the middle of the stuffy reception, Jenny commandeers the A/V system, blasting punk rock while a squad of models, clad in her early-aughts emo designs, climb on tables.
Even the most dedicated Gossip Girl superfans may be surprised to learn that two of the models in that scene are The Testament of Ann Lee director Mona Fastvold and her longtime collaborator, Ann Lee choreographer Celia Rowlson-Hall. In a stroke of Hollywood luck, the pair met that day, becoming fast friends and launching a creative collaboration that would extend for nearly two decades. The 20-somethings worked together on music videos until their first major project: 2018’s Vox Lux, which was directed by Fastvold’s partner Brady Corbet, based on a story by Corbet and Fastvold, and choreographed by Rowlson-Hall.
But even during the Vox Lux days, Fastvold was dreaming of Mother Ann Lee, the founder of 18th-century religious sect the Shakers. “I remember probably close to a decade ago, her saying, ‘I want to make a film about Ann Lee,’” Rowlson-Hall tells Vanity Fair. It wasn’t until 2023 that Fastvold gave her collaborator an actual script and asked her to join the team. “I said, ‘Absolutely.’ I mean, I was gonna make it anyway. You know what I mean? We’re collaborators for life.”
The most expansive project in their partnership to date, The Testament of Ann Lee interprets the life of Ann Lee, played in the film by Amanda Seyfried,as a musical, transforming old Shaker hymns and their full-bodied worship (or “shaking”) into sequences of choreographed, euphoric dance. With some old images and a couple written accounts as historical guidance, Fastvold’s directive to Rowlson-Hall was simple: Go crazy.
As it happens, Rowlson-Hall grew up in a family that subscribed to another intense religion: Christian Science. That sect, she notes, was also founded by a woman. “I wanted to be Jesus when I was a little girl,” she says. Being chosen for Ann Lee felt like divine intervention: “It was just tapping into my entire youth and existence, and that prayer and that desire to have a connection to God.”
Philadelphia theaters are closing out the year strong with Broadway hits, holiday shows and staged retellings of famous books.
For the Christmas lovers, multiple theaters are putting on performances of “A Christmas Carol,” plus the Walnut Street Theatre has “A Christmas Story” on its schedule and Philly actor and writer Chris Davis is back with his one-man version of “The Nutcracker.”
Anyone looking for a break from the holidays can hit the books with Hedgerow’s version of “Little Women” and the Arden’s “A Wrinkle in Time.” Plus, Quintessence is putting on “The Pirates of Penzance,” and 1812 brings back its annual comedy show “This is the Week That Is.”
Here are 11 performances coming to local stages in December.
A Christmas Carol
Now-Jan. 4 | Various locations
Multiple Philly-area theaters are staging versions of the Charles Dickens’ classic. Catch performances from Lantern Theater Co. from Dec. 13-28, People’s Light in Malvern from now until Jan. 4 and “A Sherlock Carol,” adding in a twist with a story of Sherlock Holmes, at the Stagecrafters Theater from now until Dec. 14.
Now-Dec. 28 | Hedgerow Theatre Co. | Media, Delaware County
The musical version of Louisa May Alcott’s famous book reimagines the stories of Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy in song. The four sisters come of age during the Civil War and navigate love, friendship and loss. Tickets are $35.
A young pirate plans to marry his true love following his 21st birthday, when believes he’s free from his life of servitude. But a twist of fate regarding his birthday throws a wrench in his plans. Tickets are $65.
Now-Jan. 4 | Walnut Street Theatre | 825 Walnut St.
All Ralphie wants for Christmas is a BB gun, but a series of comedic, unfortunate events including turkey-stealing dogs, a frozen flagpole and pink bunny pajamas get in the way. The stage show is a musical version of the 1983 holiday movie. Tickets start at $31.
Nov. 28-Dec. 31 | 1812 Productions | 1714 Delancey Place
The annual political comedy from 1812 Productions is completely improv, so every night brings a new show mocking public figures. This year is the 20th anniversary of the performance. Tickets start at $55.
Nov. 29-Dec. 14 | Inis Nua Theatre Co. | 302 S. Hicks St.
At 4:40 a.m., time stops for everyone in the world except young singles Tom and Sara and a longtime married couple, the Forshaws. While the world remains at a standstill, the four neighbors connect and get to know one another. Tickets are $33.
This award-winning musical is a modern retelling of the Greek myth of Eurydice, a young girl who goes to work in the Underworld, and Orpheus, her lover who comes to save her. The show, which is playing at the Forrest Theater, won eight Tonys and a Grammy. Tickets start at $59.
Dec. 3-Jan. 25 | Arden Theatre Co. | 40 N. 2nd St.
Madeleine L’Engle’s famous children’s novel is reimagined for the stage, telling the story of siblings Meg and Charles Wallace, their friend Calvin and three witches who help the children travel through time and space. Tickets start at $40.
Dec. 5-14 | Playhouse West Philadelphia | 1218 Wallace St.
In modern-day Brooklyn, Nina’s estranged father, a former activist and Black Panther, reappears in her life. Throughout the show, the father and daughter unpack grief, betrayal and the lingering impact of political opposition. Tickets start at $15.
Chris Davis, a Philadelphia actor and writer, performs his annual performance that condenses the ensemble-cast Christmas ballet into a one-man show. Davis plays the titular character, as well as the mouse king, sugar plum fairy and Clara. Tickets start at $18.
In North Philadelphia during the 1950s, a Christmas-loving young girl named Amy finds a man in the snow outside her home. The characters later examine their beliefs as the stranger, named J.C., is later revealed as Jesus. Tickets are pay what you can.
NEW YORK (AP) — When she was still just a child, Meg Donnelly gave off a serious theater kid vibe. At 5, her favorite musical role wasn’t the sunny “Annie.” It was Mimi from “Rent,” the struggling erotic dancer who is also a heroin addict.
Donnelly grew up to become a film and TV star through her breakout role in Disney’s music-filled “Zombies” franchise and the ABC sitcom “American Housewife.” She’s also appeared on “The Masked Singer” and has a new EP, “dying art.”
This week, the New Jersey-raised actor returned to her first love — theater. Donnelly made her Broadway debut Tuesday in “Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” playing cabaret star Santine. She’ll be aboard the jukebox hit until March.
The show is about the goings-on in a turn-of-the-century Parisian nightclub, updated with tunes like “Single Ladies” and “Firework” alongside the big hit “Lady Marmalade.”
The Associated Press got a chance to ask Donnelly about her big night and how it fits into her blossoming career. Answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.
Meg Donnelly in a scene from “The Winchesters” (Matt Miller/The CW via AP)
Meg Donnelly in a scene from “The Winchesters” (Matt Miller/The CW via AP)
AP: What was your debut like?
DONNELLY: It was really surreal. I feel like I’ve been working towards this since I was a little girl. When I was younger, Broadway was the only option. I was a full theater kid — that’s all I wanted to do. And, you know, life just took me in different directions. But this is something that I feel I was born to do and just being on stage last night, it kind of all just makes sense.
AP: You’re in the Al Hirschfeld Theatre. Do you think you ever saw a show there before?
DONNELLY: I definitely do. I saw “Kinky Boots” twice. I love “Kinky Boots.” And I think I saw “Kiss Me Kate” there, too.
AP: What’s your favorite musical?
DONNELLY: My favorite musical of all time is “Rent.” I saw it a lot when I was younger — maybe when I was too young — and my dream role has always been Mimi, which is really funny. So when I was like 5 or 6 auditioning for theater, they would be like, “What’s your dream role?” And everyone would be, like, “Annie” or “Matilda” and I’d be like, “Mimi!” They’d be like, “Oh my God, this kid!” So, it is very full circle because “Moulin Rouge” is based on the same opera as “Rent.” Satine is kind of Mimi.
AP: So much of your career makes this a natural step. You played a young woman who sang in a school production of “Little Shop of Horrors” on “American Housewife” and everything about the “Zombie” franchise screams musical theater. How do you describe your path here?
DONNELLY: There’s not a right or wrong path. You know, there’s so many things in my career where I’m like, “Oh, I wish I’d done that” or “Maybe I should have gone that way.” I’m a very chronic over-thinker. But it really doesn’t matter. I will say, being a part of Disney definitely changed my life.
“Zombies” franchise stars (left to right) Trevor Tordjman, Meg Donnelly, Milo Manheim, and Kylee Russell (Disney Channel/Kent Phillips)
“Zombies” franchise stars (left to right) Trevor Tordjman, Meg Donnelly, Milo Manheim, and Kylee Russell (Disney Channel/Kent Phillips)
AP: Another Broadway-adjacent step was when you were in the cast of NBC’s live telecast of “The Sound of Music” in 2013. You were the understudy for Louisa von Trapp, right?
DONNELLY: Yes, I understudied Louisa and Ella Watts-Gorman, who played Louisa, was so talented and amazing. I was praying that nothing happened to her. We weren’t really taught much. We knew the music, but that was pretty much it, so I was like, “Dear God, please, let everything go OK.”
AP: Audra McDonald starred in that, right?
DONNELLY: Oh my god. Listening to her sing on set was one of the best gifts I’ve ever been given.
AP: What about your own music?
DONNELLY: That is something that I really want to pursue. I feel like writing my own music is just so therapeutic for me, and I love performing on stage. Having to do a new show every single night and making everything different and feeding off the energy of the different crowd — that’s what I want to do with my own music as well.
AP: You did theater growing up alongside Helen J. Shen, who created her part in “Maybe Happy Ending,” right? Would you also like to originate a role one day?
DONNELLY: That was such a cool thing to watch her go through and it’s so personal, something that she built with them. That would be really, really cool. Just to have that connection to it as well. So, yeah, originating would be really like that would great.
Gavin Creel and Jonathan Groff in 2009. Photo: Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic
While speaking at the New Yorker Festival on October 26, Jonathan Groff shared the bittersweet story of his final interaction with Gavin Creel, whom he dated in 2009. The two hadn’t spoken in years but shared a text exchange after Groff mentioned how Creel had positively affected his life in a June 2024 New Yorker interview. “I got a text message a couple of days after the interview came out from Gavin Creel,” Groff told New Yorker journalist Michael Schulman, who wrote the original article. “We had dated 15 years ago. I shared in the interview how he’d changed my life and how that relationship altered the course of my existence.” After reading the quotes, Creel texted Groff that “I think I know now that I mean as much to you as you mean to me.”
Groff revealed that he and Creel had continued to chat “all the way up until the Tonys that year.” When Tony Night came, Groff won Best Actor in a Musical for his work in Merrily We Roll Along. “He texted me congratulations,” Groff said. “And that was the last interaction we ever had.” Creel died of cancer just three months later, on September 24, 2024.
In the interview that caused Creel to text him, Groff recalled coming out publicly to Broadway.com in 2009 after the couple attended the March on Washington for marriage equality together. Groff remembered “looking at Gavin, who was holding a bullhorn, directing people into the march,” and getting inspired to come out. “I was, like, I fucking love him so much,” he said. “I’m coming out.”
“I know it wasn’t your intent to close a loop with a guy I dated who was about to die,” Groff told Schulman. “But I really thank you for that.”
NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Author Jodi Picoult has the dubious honor of being banned in two mediums this fall — her books and now a musical based on her novel “Between the Lines.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m the first author who has now had censorship occur in two different types of media,” Picoult says. “Honestly, I’m not out here to be salacious. I am writing the world as it is, and I am honestly just trying to write about difficult issues that people have a hard time talking about because that is what fiction and the arts do.”
The superintendent of Mississinewa High School in Gas City, Indiana, canceled a production last week of “Between the Lines,” saying concerns were raised over “sexual innuendo” and alcohol references in the musical. Jeremy Fewell, the superintendent, did not respond to a request for comment.
“It’s devastating for us to know that these kids who put in hundreds of hours of hard work had that torn away from them because of the objections of a single parent,” says Picoult.
“What I know, perhaps better than most people, as someone whose books have been banned, is when one parent starts deciding what is appropriate and what is inappropriate for the children of other parents, we have a big problem.”
Picoult noted that the same Indiana high school has previously produced “Grease,” where the sexual innuendo and alcohol abuse is much greater, including a pregnancy scare, sex-mad teens and the line “Did she put up a fight?”
“Between the Lines” centers on Delilah, an outsider in a new high school, who finds solace in a book and realizes she has the power to write her own story and narrate her own life. “It is a very benign message. And it’s actually a really important one for adolescents today,” says Picoult.
The original work, which features a nonbinary character, had already been edited with licensed changes to make it more palatable for a conservative audience, including removing any reference to the nonbinary character’s gender orientation.
The production was scheduled for Halloween weekend at the Gas City Performing Arts Center. The show has music and lyrics by Elyssa Samsel and Kate Anderson, and a story by Timothy Allen McDonald, based on the 2012 novel by Picoult and her daughter, Samantha van Leer. It played off-Broadway in 2022.
Picoult, the bestselling author of “My Sister’s Keeper” and “Small Great Things,” has also written about the moments leading up to a school shooting in “Nineteen Minutes,” which was banned 16 times in the 2024-2025 school year, according to PEN America, making her the nation’s fourth most-banned author.
“I had 20 books banned in one school district in Florida alone because of a single parent’s objection and she admitted she had not read any of the books,” said Picoult, a PEN America trustee. “She said that they were banned for ‘mature content and sexuality.’ There were books of mine that did not even have a single kiss in them.”
The uptick in book banning has spread to stages as well. The Dramatists Legal Defense Fund has documented recently challenged plays and musicals from states including Pennsylvania, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Ohio and New Jersey after parents or teachers complained that the works’ social themes weren’t appropriate for minors.
The Northern Lebanon High School, in Fredericksburg, Pennsylvania, canceled a 2024 production of “The Addams Family,” citing concerns over scenes with violence, children smoking and subtle queer themes. Paula Vogel’s play “Indecent,” which explores a flashpoint in Jewish and queer theatrical history, was abruptly canceled in Florida’s Duval County in 2023 for “inappropriate” sexual dialogue.
Last year, the Educational Theatre Association asked more than 1,800 theatre educators in public and private schools across the U.S. about censorship. More than 75% of respondents reported pressure to reconsider their play and musical choices during the 2023-24 school year.
“We are not protecting kids,” said Picoult. “We are robbing them of materials that we use to deal with an increasingly complex world.”
NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Alicia Keys’ semi-autobiographical, coming-of-age Broadway musical is all grown up and leaving the nest. And, like any happy parent, Keys may visit it every once in a while.
A new “Hell’s Kitchen” cast has assembled in Cleveland for a national tour that will take them to the South, Midwest and West on a 28-city parade through 2026.
“It feels so good to know that it’s going to go across the country and this cast, let me tell you, is out of control. They’re so good,” Keys says. “Obviously, everybody can’t get to New York City. Everybody can’t go to Broadway.”
Those who catch the musical on the road may also get an extra treat. Keys says she’s liable to show up on some stops as a fairy godmother as it crosses the nation.
“I love, as an artist, bringing my energy to other artists. That’s really a fulfilling feeling. So, I’ll be fairy godmothering. You never know where you’ll see me.”
“Hell’s Kitchen” is about 17-year-old New York piano prodigy fueled by Keys songs like “Fallin’,” “No One,” “Girl on Fire,” “If I Ain’t Got You,” as well as several new songs, including “Kaleidoscope.”
It centers on a young woman named Ali, who like Keys, is the daughter of a white mother and a Black father and is growing up in a subsidized housing development just outside Times Square in the once-rough neighborhood called Hell’s Kitchen. She learns to hone her music skills, falls in love and reconciles with her sometimes overbearing mom.
Keys hopes audiences will come for her music, the story and the diverse cast: “It’s really exciting to be able to go somewhere and see yourself on the stage or to see your experience played out.”
The Ali on tour is 18-year-old Maya Drake, a recent high school graduate from San Jose, California, who endured a long, rigorous audition process. She was a fan of Keys before the musical popped up on her radar.
“The fact that I get to be in a show with somebody else’s music and, of all the people, it gets to be her — I got so lucky with that,” says Drake. “Just to have that connection is so special, and it makes the show feel 10 times more enjoyable.”
As part of her audition process, Drake came to New York to watch “Hell’s Kitchen” on Broadway, starring Jade Milan as Ali. “It’s a lot seeing it for the first time and she never leaves the stage,” says Drake, who remembers thinking: “To be a part of something that big would just be crazy.”
After the tour cast was announced, the actors were invited onstage at the Shubert Theatre to cheers after a performance, and Drake got to meet and speak to veterans like Jessica Vosk and Kecia Lewis, who won a Tony Award in the show.
“That was a really special moment,” she says. “Sharing advice and getting insight from the people that are currently doing the show helped us understand what you’re about to get into and some things that can help.”
The tour coincides with the publication of “Hell’s Kitchen: Behind the Dream,” a photo-heavy book that charts the show’s 13-year evolution — from crafting the show with book writer Kris Diaz and director Michael Greif to how it would end up with costumes, casting, choreography and staging.
After Cleveland, the tour goes to Pittsburgh, Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Denver, Oklahoma City, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, San Diego and other cities.
Drake is, naturally, looking forward to the show going to California, especially the stop in San Francisco, the closest stop for friends and family from San Jose. She’s also excited to be on the road.
“I really have not traveled a bunch of my life, which is kind of ironic because I’m about to do a lot of traveling,” says Drake, who trained at the Children’s Musical Theater San Jose. “I’m definitely excited to go everywhere.”
Keys, who watched the show win two Tony Awards and the 2025 Grammy for best musical theater album, thinks the musical about her old New York neighborhood can thrive away from the Big Apple.
“This is a story inspired by my experiences growing up in New York City, for sure. And, yes, it is a New York story, 1,000%. The thing is, though, the story truly is timeless,” she says. “It’s such an emotional, honest, raw, authentic story that it doesn’t matter if it’s in Cleveland, or if it’s in Detroit, or if it’s in Manhattan or Atlanta.”
NEW YORK — When Lear deBessonet, the incoming artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater, was thinking about what should be her first show as its new leader, she landed on something sweeping, very American — and some unfinished business.
She had just directed an off-Broadway concert version of “Ragtime” — a big, soaring musical celebrating early 20th-century America — that had wowed critics despite being a bare-boned production with some actors reading from their scripts. Might it fit the bill if she filled it out?
“What you’re hoping is to make work that’s going to be meaningful in people’s lives, and I really felt that it was. And that it was in a way that wasn’t finished,” the Tony Award-nominated director says. “It really warranted the full flourishing of the idea.”
She gets her wish this fall as 33 actors buoyed by an 28-piece orchestra announce her arrival with a full-throated Broadway revival of the stage version of E.L. Doctorow’s bestselling novel. Previews begin Friday; opening night is Oct. 16.
“Ragtime” is the story of three distinct groups of characters navigating their way through the turbulent racial and economic times of 1906 in New York City — a Jewish immigrant with his young daughter, a well-to-do white family and a Black piano player.
“Because ‘Ragtime’ has, in fact, so many stories with multiple protagonists, there is an opportunity for people to connect with it in many different ways that reflect their own history, their own family’s history, their own experience,” she says.
Tony Award-nominee Joshua Henry leads the cast and views it as the perfect musical for this moment. “How we see each other, how we hear each other is right now at the forefront,” he says.
“I think ‘Ragtime’ puts the spotlight on how we have been successful and not successful doing that in the past, and I feel that’s going to help us move forward.”
The revival is part of a slate of shows that deBessonet is crafting for the multi-Tony Award-winning, three-theater complex on the Lincoln Center campus, one that has built a reputation for new plays and sumptuous revivals of great musicals.
“The work we make here I want it to be something that anyone of any background — whether they are visiting New York City or were born here — could come in and feel restored to humanity, feel connected to other people,” she says. “Part of why I’m such a passionate advocate for the theater as an art form is, I really believe, it’s a place where we can gather across difference.”
DeBessonet this season is also bringing over the London hit “Kyoto,” a political thriller about the climate accords, and a revival of “The Whoopi Monologues” with Kerry Washington and Kara Young. There also will be a family holiday opera and a comedy series in its rooftop off-Broadway venue.
“I feel like always as an artist there’s a natural humility. I’m making an offering. I am cooking dinner for somebody. I’m going to invite them to come and eat dinner at my house and I really hope they enjoy this food. I hope they find it delicious and nourishing,” she said.
Henry has watched deBessonet cook — both leading an arts organization and directing a massive musical. He’s talked to carpenters and electricians and people in the organization and says the mood is buoyant.
“There are some people who have been there for decades and are now talking about just the breath of fresh air that her leadership is bringing,” he says. “If this is any indication of what she’s capable of, Lincoln Center is in phenomenal hands for years to come.”
These are turbulent times for cultural institutions, with President Donald Trump putting pressure on the Smithsonian and Kennedy Center to be more in line with his vision. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been defunded, accused of woke programing.
DeBessonet, whose roots are in Louisiana, calls Lincoln Center Theater “one of the most magical temples of the theater” and that her mission is to “find stories that have deep resonance for our time.”
“We are an organization that supports great artists making great, complex, meaningful, thought-provoking works of art,” she says. “There will be many different viewpoints that are expressed in the art.”
Before coming to her new perch, deBessonet directed productions of “Into the Woods” and “Once Upon a Mattress” that went on Broadway as artistic director of the Encores! program at New York City Center. Now with “Ragtime” she’s taking a third musical to Broadway.
“It’s a story that really invites us to engage our complex, deep feelings about where we are now and where we have come from,” deBessonet says. “It’s exactly the type of work that I think belongs at Lincoln Center Theater.”
Let us be the first to tell you: October is a packed month at Philly theaters.
Between a number of companies kicking off their 2024-2025 seasons and special Halloween productions, there are tons of shows taking to the stages across the region. In fact, there are so many list belore would become unwieldy if we included them all, but there are a few more deserving of quick mentions: the Arden’s one-week extension of “POTUS,” the Wilma’s production of “Dog Man: The Musical,” based on Dav Pilkey’s beloved series and the Esparanza Arts Center’s original trilingual show, “Nichos.”
Here are 11 more shows at theaters in and around Philadelphia this October:
Oct. 1-6 | The Academy of Music | 240 S. Broad St.
If you can’t get enough of the “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” TV series, “The Book of Mormon” might quench your thirst … or cleanse your palette. The musical comedy from the creators of “South Park” follows two missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as they travel to Uganda and attempt to convince unenthusiastic residents to join the faith. Tickets start at $29.00.
Oct. 3-Nov. 3 | Plays and Players Theater | 1714 Delancey St.
The annual variety show from 1812 Productions returns this month with musical parodies, improv and sketch comedy. This year, the show is themed around the presidential election, and political comedy fans might recognize Producing Artistic Director Jennifer Childs, who’s also directing “POTUS” at the Arden. Tickets start at $38.00.
Oct. 4-20 | Philadelphia Theatre Co. | 480 S. Broad St.
Premiering for the first time in the city, La Egoísta tells the story of Josefina, a Philadelphia stand-up comedian whose career is taking off right after the death of her mother and the sudden illness of her sister. The show was written by Philly’s Erlina Ortiz, the 2022 winner of the National Latine Playwright’s award and the director of the Power Street Theatre. Tickets start at $25.00.
Oct. 5-27 | The Media Theatre | Media, Delaware County
The talent of Elle Woods extends beyond legal expertise and the perfect shade of pink in this comedic production based on the hit movie. The award-winning show will leave audiences smiling and feeling a new sense of self-confidence, the theater says. Tickets start at $35.
If spooky is more your vibe, the Media Theatre is also putting on a one-night performance of “Dracula The Musical In Concert” on Oct. 28.
Oct. 8-20 | Lightbooth Blackout | Chester, Delaware County and Oct. 31-Nov. 3 | Center City Stage | 825 Walnut St., 3rd Floor
The Mary Shelley classic gets a refresh in this performance from Lightbooth Blackout in partnership with the Lone Brick Theatre Company at Widener University. The new adaption fuses the book’s text with modern dialogue and an original score is played live during the show. Tickets start at $20.
If you can’t get enough of the bolted monster, Center City Stage is doing a stage production of “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” The show starts out with a group of young artists together in a storm, but everything changes once lightening strikes. Center City Stage calls the show is an immersive experience that “blurs the line between reality and fiction.” Tickets are $25.
The semi-biographical show by Jonathan Larson, the late composer and co-creator of “Rent,” hits this suburban stage this month in Norristown. The musical follows a New York City composer on his 30th birthday as he’s on the precipice of his big break, starring Broadway’s Robi Hager and Angel Sigala alongside Montgomery County native Elena Camp. Tickets start at $25.
Oct. 9-27 | Hedgerow Theatre Company | Media, Delaware County
Delaware County native Dave Droxler wrote and stars in this autobiographical play about some of his most ridiculous and difficult moments in life and how his idol, Robin Williams, helped him through it. The show comes to the area after an off-Broadway run last year that won it five Broadway World awards. Tickets start at $35.
Oct. 9- Nov. 3 | Walnut Street Theatre | 825 Walnut St
Newark supergroup Franki Valley and the Four Seasons take the stage again in this Tony award-winning jukebox musical. Featuring hits like “Sherry,” “My Eyes Adored You” and “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You,” the show changes “seasons” to show the perspective of each of the group’s members. Tickets start at $49.
The Grammy-nominated choral drama tells the story of Matthew Shepard, a young gay man who was murdered in a hate crime incident in 1998. Philadelphia conductors Rollo Dilworth and Jay Fluellen lead more than 500 singers in play’s the final movement. Tickets are $36.
Oct. 10-20 | Bob & Selma Horan Studio Theatre | 62 N. Second St.
The Strides Collective’s production follows a gas station attendant who joins a past-life regression support group after the death of her ex-girlfriend. A hypnotherapist leads members of the group, who turn into the people from the protagonists’ life, through their journeys to find themselves. Tickets start at $25.
Oct. 11 – Nov. 3 | Bucks County Playhouse | New Hope, Bucks County
It’s not science fiction, Ariana Grande’s brother, Frankie Grande, returns for the titular role as Dr. Frank-n-Furter in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Based on the 1975 cult film, the musical follows an innocent couple who seek shelter at an old castle and encounter mad scientist Frank-n-Furter. Tickets start at $75.
VENICE, Italy (AP) — “ Joker ” is a hard act to follow. Todd Phillips’ dark, Scorsese-inspired character study about the Batman villain made over a billion dollars at the box office, won Joaquin Phoenix his first Oscar, dominated the cultural discourse for months and created a new movie landmark.
It wasn’t for everyone, but it got under people’s skin.
Knowing that it was a fool’s errand to try to do it again, Phillips and Phoenix pivoted, or rather, pirouetted into what would become “ Joker: Folie à Deux.” The dark and fantastical musical journey goes deeper into the mind of Arthur Fleck as he awaits trial for murder and falls in love with a fellow Arkham inmate, Lee, played by Lady Gaga. There is singing, dancing and mayhem.
If Phillips and Phoenix have learned anything over the years, it’s that the scarier something is, the better. So once again they rebelled against expectations and went for broke with something that’s already sharply divided critics.
As with the first, audiences will get to decide for themselves when it opens in theaters on Oct. 4.
“HOW ARE YOU GOING TO GET JOAQUIN PHOENIX TO DO A SEQUEL?”
Any comic book movie that makes a billion dollars is going to have the sequel talk. But with “Joker” it was never a given that it would go anywhere: Joaquin Phoenix doesn’t do sequels. Yet it turned out, Phoenix wasn’t quite done with Arthur Fleck yet either.
During the first, the actor wondered what this character would look like in different situations. He and the on-set photographer mocked up classic movie posters, like “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Yentl” with the Joker in them and showed them to Phillips.
“Sometimes you’re just done with something and other times you have an ongoing interest,” Phoenix said. “There was just more to explore. … I just felt like we weren’t done.”
So Phillips and his co-writer Scott Silver got to work on a new script, one that leaned into the music in Arthur Fleck’s head. Then his dreary Arkham life turns to Technicolor when he meets and falls for Lee, a Joker superfan.
“Joaquin Phoenix is not going to do a line drive. He’s not going to do something that’s fan service,” Phillips said. “He wanted to be as scared as he was with the first movie. So, we tried to make something that is as audacious and out there and hopefully people get it.”
LADY GAGA FINDS LEE’S VOICE, AND LOSES HER OWN
One decision that’s already sparking debate is casting someone with a voice like Lady Gaga’s and not using that instrument to its full power. Phillips, who was a producer on “A Star is Born,” wanted someone who “brought music with them.” But Lee isn’t a singer.
Actor Lady Gaga and director Todd Phillips delight in returning to Venice Film Festival with “Joker: Folie à Deux,” as Gaga reveals why she sings differently in the eagerly anticipated sequel. (Sept. 5)
“Singing is so second nature to me, and making music and performing on stage is so inside of me. Especially this music,” Gaga said. “I worked extensively on untraining myself for this movie and throwing away as much as I could all the time to make sure I was never locking into what I do. I had to really kind of erase it all.”
Phoenix, who wasn’t quite sure what it would be like working with someone who has such a larger-than-life superstar persona, found Gaga to be refreshingly unpretentious and available. And as an actor, he admired her commitment to the character.
“Her power is in singing and singing a particular way,” he said. “For her to sacrifice that through character, to do something that people would call a musical, but to not be performing it in the way that would sound best as a singer but to approach it from the character was a very difficult process. I was really impressed with her willingness to do that.”
In addition to writing a “waltz that falls apart” for the film, Gaga is releasing a companion album, “Harlequin” on Friday with song titles including “Oh, When the Saints,” “World on a String,” “If My Friends Could See Me Now” and “That’s Life.”
Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix at the Venice Film Festival. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)
SORRY PUDDIN’, THIS AIN’T MARGOT ROBBIE’S HARLEY QUINN
“We’re never going to outdo what Margot Robbie did,” Phillips said. “You have to do something 180 degrees in the other direction.”
Sure, Lee will still casually light something on fire to get some time alone with Joker, but the tumult is more internal. And Gaga threw herself into making Lee something new: A real person, grounded in a reality that came before her.
“I spent a lot of my time on developing her inner life (which) for me had a lot to do with her storm and what thing was always making her about to explode,” Gaga said. “There’s a particular kind of danger that she carries with her, but it’s inside and it’s kind of explosive.”
“DO YOU JUST WANT A BRUTE?”
Phoenix and Brendan Gleeson, background center, in a scene from “Joker: Folie à Deux.” (Niko Tavernise/Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)
Brendan Gleeson didn’t have much hesitation about joining the ensemble. He’d worked with Phoenix before on “The Village” and was in awe of what he’d done on the first movie.
“He has an absolute relentless integrity and curiosity and drive,” Gleeson said. “He won’t just plough the same furrow for its own sake.”
But he also didn’t want to play the simple version of an Arkham prison guard.
“I said, look, do you just want a brute? Because I’m not sure I just want to do a brute,” Gleeson said. “He wanted something more. We tried to find layers in this guy.”
CREATING MAYHEM
Anyone who has worked with Phoenix knows that he likes to keep things fresh. That may mean something as small as changing the location of a prop or as big as throwing out choreography that you’ve been rehearsing for months at the last minute.
“I think we both love mayhem and not just in movies but on the set,” Phillips said. “It had to feel like anything can happen.”
Gaga, director Todd Phillips, and Joaquin Phoenix at the Venice Film Festival. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP, File)
With the crew 95% the same as the first, everyone was ready to be flexible. Gaga, too, dove right in, suggesting that they sing live on camera.
“It changed the whole making of the film,” Phillips said. “We were not only singing live, we were singing live differently every take.”
THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT?
Since Arthur killed Robert De Niro’s talk show host Murray Franklin on live television in the first film, he’s become a kind of icon and curiosity thanks in no small part to an oft referenced, but never seen, television movie that was made about him. Now, the trial is going to be televised as well.
“Underneath it all, there’s this idea of corruption and how everything is corrupt in the system, from the prison system to the judicial system to the idea of entertainment, quite frankly,” Phillips said. “This idea that in the States at least, everything is entertainment. A court trial could be entertainment, and a presidential election can be entertainment. So, if that’s true, what is entertainment?”
NO LONGER A COMPLETE WILD CARD
It’s easier to be to the insurgent, not the incumbent, Phillips said. Although a Joker film is never going to fly completely under the radar, the spotlight is undoubtedly more intense this time around.
“You do feel like you have a larger target on your back,” Phillips said.
While much of the film was made on Warner Bros. soundstages in Los Angeles, the production did go back to New York to film again on the Bronx staircase (which now come up on Google Maps as the Joker Stairs) and outside a Manhattan courthouse. The production staged a massive protest scene, with Gaga, almost concurrently with the media frenzy around the Donald Trump hush money trial as if there weren’t enough eyes on them already.
Some are also handwringing about the sequel’s bigger budget and whether it can match the success of the first. But Phillips has learned to take it in stride.
“There’s a different amount of pressure, but that just comes with making movies,” he said. “You can’t please everybody and you just kind of go for it.”
Gleeson has an even sunnier outlook.
“It has kind of arthouse movie integrity on a blockbuster scale. It’s great news for cinema, is the way I look on it,” Gleeson said. “If these event movies can continue to have depth and can be so conflicting like this one, is we needn’t worry about the future of cinema.”
SO, IS IT A MUSICAL?
Phoenix and Lady Gaga in a scene from “Joker: Folie à Deux.” (Niko Tavernise/Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)
One thing Phillips didn’t mean to do was ignite a discourse about what is and isn’t a musical. He’s just trying to manage expectations.
“People go, ‘what do you mean it’s not a musical?’ And it is a musical. It has all the elements of a musical. But I guess what I mean by it is all the musicals I’ve seen leave me happy at the end for the most part, ‘Umbrellas of Cherbourg’ not being one of them. This has so much sadness in it that I just didn’t want to be misleading to people.”
NEW YORK — The four stars who helped shape the new musical “Swept Away” — John Gallagher Jr., Stark Sands, Adrian Blake Enscoe and Wayne Duvall — will steer the nautical tale to the commercial waves of Broadway.
The tale about four men stranded in the Atlantic Ocean after a 19th-century shipwreck features songs from The Avett Brothers — especially their 2004 album “Mignonette” — and drops anchor at the Longacre Theatre in October.
“This musical, much like our relationship, revolves around the theme of brotherhood. Being able to watch John, Stark, Adrian and Wayne team up in the development of ‘Swept Away’ over these years has been the precise definition of brotherhood,” The Avett Brothers said in a statement.
The show has a story by John Logan, the Tony Award-winning playwright of 2009’s “Red” and screenwriter behind “Gladiator,” “The Aviator” and “Skyfall.” It premiered at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in early 2022 and then went to Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.
The Washington Post said the show “aligns with such boundary-pushing musicals as ‘Next to Normal’ and ‘Dear Evan Hansen,’” while MD Theatre Guide said: “With themes of sacrifice, absolution, and confession, ‘Swept Away’ unfolds like Christian parable, albeit one better aligned with Easter than Christmas.”
Tony-winner Michael Mayer will direct the show and reunite on Broadway with Gallagher, who won a Tony in the original 2006 production of his “Spring Awakening.” Mayer also directed both Gallagher and Sands in “American Idiot.”
“Making this new show with my frequent collaborators John Gallagher Jr. and Stark Sands as well as the rest of this marvelous company continues to be deeply gratifying. I can’t wait to share the work with Broadway audiences this fall,” Mayer told The Associated Press.
Sands is a two-time Tony nominee for his performances in “Kinky Boots” and “Journey’s End,” Duvall was last on Broadway in “1984” and Enscoe starred opposite Hailee Steinfeld and Jane Krakowski, in Apple TV’s “Dickinson.”
Broadway musicals set at sea are not uncommon, such as “Anything Goes,” “Titanic” and “Dames at Sea.” But some have fared less well, like “The Pirate Queen” and “The Last Ship.”
NEW YORK — “Stereophonic,” the play about a Fleetwood Mac-like band recording an album over a turbulent and life-changing year, got a lighters-in-the-air cheer at the Tony Awards on Sunday, winning best new play while theater history was made for women as Broadway directors and score writers.
“Oh, no. My agent gave me a beta-blocker, but it’s not working,” Adjmi said. He added that the play took 11 years to manifest.
“This was a very hard journey to get up here,” he said. “We need to fund the arts in America.” He dedicated it to all the artists out there.
Danya Taymor — whose aunt is Julie Taymor, the first woman to win a Tony Award for directing a musical — became the 11th woman to win the award. She helmed “The Outsiders,” a gritty musical adaptation of the classic American young adult novel.
“Thank you to the great women who have lifted me up,” she said, naming producer Angelina Jolie among her list.
Then Shaina Taub, only the second woman in Broadway history to write, compose and star in a Broadway musical, won for best score, following such writers as Cyndi Lauper, Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori. Taub, the force behind “Suffs,” had already won for best book earlier in the night.
Her musical is about the heroic final years of the fight to allow women to vote, leading to the passage of the 19th Amendment. “If you are inspired by the story of Suffs, please make sure you and everyone you know have registered to vote and vote, vote, vote!” she said. Taub also said the win was for all the loud girls out there: “Go for it,” she urged.
Earlier, Alicia Keys electrified the show when she teamed up with superstar Jay-Z on their hit “Empire State of Mind.” Keys appeared at the piano on the stage of the David H. Koch Theater in Lincoln Center as the cast of her semi-autobiographical musical, “Hell’s Kitchen,” was presenting a medley of songs. She began singing her and Jay-Z’s 2009 smash before leaving the stage to join the rapper on some interior steps to wild applause.
Host Ariana DeBose kicked off the telecast with an original, acrobatic number and Jeremy Strong took home the first big award of the night as Broadway’s biggest party opened its arms to hip-hop and rock fans.
Strong, the “Succession” star, landed his first Tony for his work in the revival of Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 political play “An Enemy of the People.” The theater award for best lead actor in a play will sit next to his Emmy, Screen Actors Guild Award and Golden Globe.
The play is about a public-minded doctor in a small town who discovers the water supply for the public spa is contaminated but his efforts to clean up the mess pits his ethics against political cowards.
“This play is a cry from the heart,” he said.
Kara Young, the first Black performer to be nominated for a Tony three consecutive years in a row, won this time as best featured actress in a play for “Purlie Victorious,” the story of a Black preacher’s scheme to reclaim his inheritance and win back his church from a plantation owner.
“Thank you to my ancestors,” she said, adding thanks to her mom and dad, brother, partner, cast, her co-star Leslie Odom Jr. and her director, Kenny Leon. She saved her last thanks to playwright Ossie Davis and his star Ruby Dee, who originated the role.
“Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe cemented his stage career pivot by winning a featured actor in a musical Tony, his first trophy in five Broadway shows. He won for the revival of “Merrily We Roll Along,” the Stephen Sondheim- George Furth musical that goes backward in time.
“This is one of the best experiences of my life,” Radcliffe said, thanking his cast and director. “I will never have it as good again.” He also thanked his parents for playing Sondheim in the car growing up.
Kecia Lewis, who plays a formidable piano teacher in “Hell’s Kitchen,” took home her first Tony. The 40-year veteran made her Broadway debut at 18 in the original company of “Dreamgirls” and endured amazing moments and heartbreak.
“This moment is the one I dreamed of for those 40 years,” she told the crowd. ”Don’t give up!”
“Appropriate,” Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ play — centered on a family reunion in Arkansas where everyone has competing motivations and grievances — was named best play revival. Jacobs-Jenkins in his remarks thanked Davis, saying there would be no “Appropriate” without “Purlie Victorious.”
Three-time Tony-honored Chita Rivera got a tribute by Tony winners Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Bebe Neuwirth. Images of her work in “Chicago,” Kiss of the Spider Woman” and “West Side Story” were projected while dancers mimicked her hit numbers. DeBose, who won an Oscar in Rivera’s old “West Side Story” role of Anita, also joined in.
DeBose, a three-time host, started the main telecast with a nod to “Chicago” by holding up a newspaper with the headline, “She’s Back!!!” and then jumping into the original song “This Party’s for You,” which had a disco vibe with hip-hop elements and multiple acrobatic lifts.
The song was a cheer for those who sacrifice for their art and she took a gentle swipe at other entertainment types: “You’ll learn that film and TV can make you rich and make you famous. But theater will make you better.” She ended the song with a dramatic backward fall from a pillar.
“Stereophonic,” a play about a Fleetwood Mac-like band recording an album over a turbulent, life-changing year, was leading the Tony count with four, including for director Daniel Aukin and for actor-bassist Will Brill. Among those Brill thanked were his therapist and bass teacher.
“The Outsiders” also won two pre-show Tonys: best sound design for Cody Spencer and best lighting design for Hana S. Kim and Brian MacDevitt.
Dede Ayite’s work on “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding” won best costume design of a play. Jonathan Tunick won best orchestrations for “Merrily We Roll Along” and Linda Cho earned the Tony for best costume design for a musical for “The Great Gatsby.” The best choreography award went to Justin Peck for “Illinoise.”
NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — “Stereophonic,” the play about a Fleetwood Mac-like band recording an album over a turbulent and life-changing year, got a lighters-in-the-air cheer at the Tony Awards on Sunday, winning best new play while theater history was made for women as Broadway directors and score writers.
“Oh, no. My agent gave me a beta-blocker, but it’s not working,” Adjmi said. He added that the play took 11 years to manifest.
“This was a very hard journey to get up here,” he said. “We need to fund the arts in America.” He dedicated it to all the artists out there.
Danya Taymor — whose aunt is Julie Taymor, the first woman to win a Tony Award for directing a musical — became the 11th woman to win the award. She helmed “The Outsiders,” a gritty musical adaptation of the classic American young adult novel.
“Thank you to the great women who have lifted me up,” she said, naming producer Angelina Jolie among her list.
Then Shaina Taub, only the second woman in Broadway history to write, compose and star in a Broadway musical, won for best score, following such writers as Cyndi Lauper, Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori. Taub, the force behind “Suffs,” had already won for best book earlier in the night.
Her musical is about the heroic final years of the fight to allow women to vote, leading to the passage of the 19th Amendment. “If you are inspired by the story of Suffs, please make sure you and everyone you know have registered to vote and vote, vote, vote!” she said. Taub also said the win was for all the loud girls out there: “Go for it,” she urged.
Earlier, Alicia Keys electrified the show when she teamed up with superstar Jay-Z on their hit “Empire State of Mind.” Keys appeared at the piano on the stage of the David H. Koch Theater in Lincoln Center as the cast of her semi-autobiographical musical, “Hell’s Kitchen,” was presenting a medley of songs. She began singing her and Jay-Z’s 2009 smash before leaving the stage to join the rapper on some interior steps to wild applause.
Host Ariana DeBose kicked off the telecast with an original, acrobatic number and Jeremy Strong took home the first big award of the night as Broadway’s biggest party opened its arms to hip-hop and rock fans.
Strong, the “Succession” star, landed his first Tony for his work in the revival of Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 political play “An Enemy of the People.” The theater award for best lead actor in a play will sit next to his Emmy, Screen Actors Guild Award and Golden Globe.
The play is about a public-minded doctor in a small town who discovers the water supply for the public spa is contaminated but his efforts to clean up the mess pits his ethics against political cowards.
“This play is a cry from the heart,” he said.
Kara Young, the first Black performer to be nominated for a Tony three consecutive years in a row, won this time as best featured actress in a play for “Purlie Victorious,” the story of a Black preacher’s scheme to reclaim his inheritance and win back his church from a plantation owner.
“Thank you to my ancestors,” she said, adding thanks to her mom and dad, brother, partner, cast, her co-star Leslie Odom Jr. and her director, Kenny Leon. She saved her last thanks to playwright Ossie Davis and his star Ruby Dee, who originated the role.
“Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe cemented his stage career pivot by winning a featured actor in a musical Tony, his first trophy in five Broadway shows. He won for the revival of “Merrily We Roll Along,” the Stephen Sondheim- George Furth musical that goes backward in time.
“This is one of the best experiences of my life,” Radcliffe said, thanking his cast and director. “I will never have it as good again.” He also thanked his parents for playing Sondheim in the car growing up.
Kecia Lewis, who plays a formidable piano teacher in “Hell’s Kitchen,” took home her first Tony. The 40-year veteran made her Broadway debut at 18 in the original company of “Dreamgirls” and endured amazing moments and heartbreak.
“This moment is the one I dreamed of for those 40 years,” she told the crowd. ”Don’t give up!”
“Appropriate,” Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ play — centered on a family reunion in Arkansas where everyone has competing motivations and grievances — was named best play revival. Jacobs-Jenkins in his remarks thanked Davis, saying there would be no “Appropriate” without “Purlie Victorious.”
Three-time Tony-honored Chita Rivera got a tribute by Tony winners Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Bebe Neuwirth. Images of her work in “Chicago,” Kiss of the Spider Woman” and “West Side Story” were projected while dancers mimicked her hit numbers. DeBose, who won an Oscar in Rivera’s old “West Side Story” role of Anita, also joined in.
DeBose, a three-time host, started the main telecast with a nod to “Chicago” by holding up a newspaper with the headline, “She’s Back!!!” and then jumping into the original song “This Party’s for You,” which had a disco vibe with hip-hop elements and multiple acrobatic lifts.
The song was a cheer for those who sacrifice for their art and she took a gentle swipe at other entertainment types: “You’ll learn that film and TV can make you rich and make you famous. But theater will make you better.” She ended the song with a dramatic backward fall from a pillar.
“Stereophonic,” a play about a Fleetwood Mac-like band recording an album over a turbulent, life-changing year, was leading the Tony count with four, including for director Daniel Aukin and for actor-bassist Will Brill. Among those Brill thanked were his therapist and bass teacher.
“The Outsiders” also won two pre-show Tonys: best sound design for Cody Spencer and best lighting design for Hana S. Kim and Brian MacDevitt.
Dede Ayite’s work on “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding” won best costume design of a play. Jonathan Tunick won best orchestrations for “Merrily We Roll Along” and Linda Cho earned the Tony for best costume design for a musical for “The Great Gatsby.” The best choreography award went to Justin Peck for “Illinoise.”
Director Jessica Stone at the opening night of Water for Elephants at the Imperial Theatre on March 21, 2024 in New York City. Jenny Anderson Photo/Courtesy of Polk & Co
Jessica Stone—who directed last year’s Tony-winning Best Musical, Kimberly Akimbo, and may just have directed this year’s Tony-winning Best Musical, Water for Elephants—first met her husband, actor Christopher Fitzgerald, onstage. This was back in 1999, when there were still babes in arms and rehearsing, appropriately enough, a New York City Center Encores! production of Babes in Arms, the Rodgers and Hart perennial. Specifically, it was while rehearsing a fast-paced, roughhouse rendition of R&H’s “I Wish I Were in Love Again.”
“It was a very physical number,” Stone tells Observer. “The first day we met, we were kicking each other and beating each other up.” But the result was gang-busters. “When you work hard at something and people appreciate it, you feel pretty great.”
Four years later, they returned to the stage of that triumph, Fitzgerald having lured her there, using the ruse that Encores! musical director, Rob Fisher, wanted to see them. When it became clear Fisher was a no-show, Fitzgerald dropped to one knee and popped the question. She said yes. They now have two sons, 17 and 15, but they travel on quite different showbiz planes.
Not long after Babes in Arms, Stone traded in her dancing shoes and for a director’s megaphone. Fitzgerald remains a clown prince of Broadway—he handled three roles in the recent revival of Spamalot—while Stone toils behind the scenes.
Stone sees her switch from dancing to directing as a natural progression. “I always had a desire to collaborate with other kinds of storytellers, to think about the story in a larger way than just the character that I was playing,” she says.
Nevertheless, she tiptoed into this new profession. Whenever she had free time between gigs, she’d sign up to assist friends who were already directors—Joe Mantello, Christopher Ashley, David Warren—and acquaint herself with varied works from Shakespeare to Shaw to Simon.
Paul Alexander Nolan and the cast of Water For Elephants.Matthew Murphy
One of her director-friends, the late Nicholas Martin, started her off on solo-directing in 2010 when he provided her with the mainstage at Williamstown and she filled it with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Just to make it characteristically complicated, she used an all-male ensemble and had everybody double-cast. “I loved the puzzle of it,” she admits. “It’s so silly, and that score is just so elegant. It elevates the entire evening. I just love that show.
“Even then, I didn’t know that I was pivoting away from acting. I thought, ‘Oh, that was kind of a lark,’ but, when serious job offers to direct started coming in, I realized I was more interested in those than in the acting offers. I’d lost my desire for that a while ago, and I felt much happier, more fulfilled and excited. Also, I had much more energy for directing than I had for acting.”
Stone guided Kimberly Akimbo—about a teenage girl suffering from a form of progeria, which causes her to age four-and-a-half times faster than normal—to no less than five Tony wins out of seven nominations. The elaborately staged Water for Elephants—which uses horse and elephant puppets to help tell the story of a run-down, one-ring circus traveling through the Depression —has seven Tony noms itself.
Both shows seem, on paper, difficult if not impossible to musicalize. “I gravitate toward stories that intertwine pain and hope and joy in any given second,” Stone says. “When I was presented with the opportunity to think about Water for Elephants, it was less about ‘Ooooh, this sounds hard—I want to do it’ and more about ‘How’d I do that—and still have the train and a stampede and puppetry? What might it look like?’”
She knows who to thank for getting her somewhat unwieldy epic vision on stage. “I had the luck to work with an incredible producing team—Jennifer Costello and Peter Schneider—who allowed a lot of room for research and development and a lot of time to sit down with Rick Elice and the writers to crack the code,” she insists. Then, there’s that surprisingly tuneful and sprightly score from an aggregate of seven known collectively as PigPen Theatre Co.
Strengthening her stage vision are the idyllic memories of her own circuses from childhood. “ I loved the circus as a kid, and I still love it, as an adult,” she says. “There’s such skill and such fragility in the entire experience, such trust among the company members because they hold each other and carry each other.”
But circus love wasn’t exactly what drew her to the project. “The attraction was the fact that the main character loses everything, and it changes the entire trajectory of his life,” she opines. “He faces again his life, and what he chooses to do with what’s left of it—how he uses that previous chapter of his life to teach himself to think about what he might want to do next.”
This would be Jacob Jankowaki, a veterinarian who loses his parents in a car crash. Transitioning from an Ivy League school to anywhere, he hops a cross-country train shared by the Benzini Brothers Circus, and his life is upended. Grant Gustin, in his Broadway debut, has this lead role. He was recommended by friends to Stone, who “knew he was the guy as soon as we met.”
Young Jacob, too, develops a circus love—specifically for the beautiful horseback-rider (Isabelle McCalla), who unfortunately is married to the ringmaster (Paul Alexander Nolan). I say “young Jacob” because there’s an old Jacob (Gregg Edelman), who muses over the life that he survived.
Grant Gustin, Paul Alexander Nolan, Isabelle McCalla and the company of Water For Elephants.Matthew Murphy
Thus running around loose in Water for Elephants is a circus story, a love story, a triangle and a memory play. That’s a lot for a director to crack her whip over. Stone had help from choreographers Shana Carroll and Jesse Robb, scenic designer Takeshi Kata and costume designer David Israel Reynoso, each of them Tony nominated themselves.
She also had time. Water for Elephants unfurled its tent for the first time last year for a world premiere at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta. “I think it’s important to give new musicals a chance to breathe,” Stone contends. “People say, ‘Oh, it takes seven years to make a musical,’ and, in a funny way, it really does. It’s not just the time it takes to write and revise and design. You need room to look at it and then to step away from it. We had so much support at the Alliance. It gave us the opportunity to see it on its feet first and then make changes where we still wanted to that the story. We were able to tinker and make a few changes, actually, upon leaving Atlanta.”
Stone said goodbye to a performing career some time ago and doesn’t miss the acclaim that went with it, but she relishes the kudos she’s getting for directing Water for Elephants. “I love that people really enjoy the show, that they scream at the end of Act I, that they leap to their feet at the end of Act II and tell me it takes their breath away. That’s the thing that moves me. I’m proud of the show we’ve all created. I love the team that I worked with and the company of actors. And I feel really, really proud that this show is getting the kind of praise it’s getting.
“When you get a nomination for Best Musical, it belongs to everybody. You don’t make a musical without everybody. That’s the thing I’m most pleased about, what nobody told me when I was an actor. When you’re a director, you work so closely with every single person on a project. This one has a lot of people attached to it, and there’s not a bad apple in the bunch. It’s an incredible group of storytellers—on stage and off—and Water for Elephants is truly the thing that makes me happy to hang my hat on because it’s a show that belongs to all of us.”
Kecia Lewis as Miss Liza Jane and Maleah Joi Moon as Ali in Hell’s Kitchen. Marc J. Franklin
Alicia Cook, a resident of Manhattan Plaza on West 43rd once upon a time, changed her name to Alicia Keys in part because of the 88s on her piano and the doors they would unlock for her. That was 27 years and 16 Grammys ago, when she was just 16. Her debut album, Songs in A Minor, came out when she was 20 and won her the first five of those Grammys. These days she’s writing for Broadway. Her jukebox musical Hell’s Kitchen — now transplanted at the Shubert Theater four blocks away from the subsidized housing complex she grew up in — is a hometown favorite, winning 13 Tony nominations, one for each year Keys worked on the show. “Greatness can’t be rushed,” she’s said.
The show (with a book by Kristoffer Diaz) recounts a fictional facsimile of Keys’s budding years of creativity in the projects, sprinkling in new songs with her best-known r&b, hip-hop, and pop hits like “If I Ain’t Got You,” “Girl on Fire,” and “Empire State of Mind.” Maleah Joi Moon plays Ali, a 17-year-old girl in freefall, and Shoshana Bean is her single mom, but but a third character emerging from the sidelines proves to be the play’s most memorable: Miss Liza Jane (Kecia Lewis), a no-nonsense teacher who sparks—and deepens—the teen’s musical talent, giving it focus and direction: Voila! a songwriter is born.
Two weeks ago Lewis got the Lucille Lortel Award and Actors’ Equity’s Richard Seff Award. Lastweek the Outer Critics Circle crowned her Outstanding Featured Performer in a Broadway Musical. Yep, she’s up for two more yet-to-be-determined awards: the Drama Desk and the Tony.
Not only does Lewis strike a compelling presence in the show, she also makes her mark musically with a couple of Keys songs, “Perfect Way to Die” and “Authors of Forever.” The creative collaboration that went into making these songs stage-worthy cemented the bond between the singer and the songwriter. “She wants to know what your ideas are, what you’re thinking, how you’re building the character,” Lewis tells Observer of Keys. “And she was kind enough to share with me what she was thinking when she actually wrote those two songs—what was going on in her heart and mind—and then allowing me to bring out my own version of that, my own truth.”
Alicia Keys and Kecia Lewis attend the 77th Annual Tony Awards Meet The Nominees Press Event at Sofitel New York on May 02, 2024 in New York City. Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions
Lewis comes to the role of a teacher and mentor with experience—she’s spent most of her days seesawing between teaching and theater. “Hell’s Kitchen is a perfect match for where I am in my life and my career,” she says. At the Atlantic Theater, she’s taught stage acting. She’s done some teaching at her alma mater, NYU, and conducted a master class at Juilliard. In leaner times, she’s even been known to work survival jobs at elementary schools.
Fortunately, there haven’t been a lot of those. Broadway and Off-Broadway have kept her busy, originating or creating or replacing—roles like Asaka in Once Upon This Island, “Mama” Morton in Chicago, the title role in Mother Courage, et al. The original cast of Ain’t Misbehavin’ revue reconvened for the 1988 revival, and she stood by for Nell Carter and Armelia McQueen.
When The Drowsy Chaperone arrived on Broadway in 2006, Lewis arrived flying a plane as Trix the Aviatrix. “That’s probably in my top five theater experiences,” she figures. “This was a cast of people who, half-kiddingly, considered ourselves the oldest cast on Broadway. The baby of our company was the star of the show, Sutton Foster. She was 30. The rest of us, mostly, were 45 and above, but there was a settled heart and spirit about that, an enjoyment and confidence about what we have been doing so long. That kind of atmosphere, on stage and off, made for an amazingly good time.” The cast hung out together because they enjoyed each other’s company. “On Sundays, Sutton brought in bagels and breakfast things, and we’d meet up before the matinee.”
Hell’s Kitchen’s Miss Liza Jane, her new favorite role, is a composite of several Manhattan Plaza people who help Alicia find her way. Audiences adore this character. Coming and going, Lewis gets her claps and her laughs. Lewis attributes the audience’s warm embrace to fact that almost everyone has had someone in their life like Miss Liza Jane. “A relative, a neighbor, a school administrator, someone who really saw you and believed in you and pushed you to be your best,” she says. “I have been blessed to have quite a few Miss Liza Janes in my life over the years. One in particular that I’m utilizing to create this character: a voice-and-diction teacher of mine in high school—she’s deceased now—Mrs. Koehler. I went to the High School of Performing Arts—the old one on West 46th—and a lot of my classmates would say, ‘Are you doing Mrs. Koehler? Is that Miss Koehler?’”
The film that made that high school famous—Fame—was shot in the summer of ’79, and Lewis didn’t arrive until September of ’79, along with Danny Burstyn, Helen Slater, and Lisa Vidal.
“This is my 40th year in show business!” she gleefully points out. “June 15 will be 40 years to the day when I stepped into the Imperial Theater—age 18—hired by Michael Bennett to begin my journey with Dreamgirls. Now—to have Hell’s Kitchen, to have this kind of role and have it all at this time—is full-circle for me. All this combined in my own life, matched with this character and this group of young people—so many of them making their Broadway debuts—it’s just perfect.”
Some of the plot of Hell’s Kitchen parallels Lewis’ own life, including the problems and worries of a single mom raising an artistically inclined child. Her son, Simon, is almost 21 and “continuing the theater tradition,” his mother beams proudly. “He’s going down the route of stagehand and, right now, is finishing his training at the Roundabout Theater Company’s Internship Program.
“Raising a kid in New York City is a herculean feat. I was lucky enough that I lived in Long Island, so I was a little removed from the city, but the problems still are there—and practically anywhere in this country: the racial undertones of raising Black children or biracial children. We have to train and protect our children with a hyper-vigilance other people don’t know about.”
When Lewis reaches the Shubert Theater every day, her motherhood comes to full bloom, given how many young people are in the cast. “I love that,” she admits. “I think, since I was young, the essence of who I am is a bit of a protector. I’ve always been that. I resisted it when I was young. I wanted to be the ingénue or the pretty girl boys wanted, but I’ve come to embrace and greatly appreciate when young people want to be around me as an older person. I think that’s special.”
The cast calls her Mama. “I didn’t tell them to call me that,” says Lewis. “It’s when they call me Legend that I begin to suspect they’re speaking code for ‘old actress.’”
Jeremy Jordan and Eva Noblezada in The Great Gatsby Evan Zimmerman
There’s something almost quaint about The Great Gatsby’s arrival at the end of a crowded Broadway season (11 new musicals and revivals bowed in the past six weeks). This splashy transfer from New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse assumes a market hungry for a semi-faithful adaptation of F. Scott’s Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel about second lives and broken dreams. Perhaps producers regarded Six and & Juliet as proof of concept: take a literary source or historical footnote, pump it up with dance tunes and quasi-feminism, and rake in the cash. But those shows brazenly deconstruct and dumb down their content for the TikTok–addled hordes; Gatsby, on the other hand, clings to a shred of dignity until, like its title fraudster, it flops into a pool with a bullet in the back.
Don’t misunderstand me: The Great Gatsby is not a smart, tasteful musical that can’t compete with tackier ones. It simply fails to be tacky enough. The jazz-based score by composer Jason Howland and lyricist Nathan Tysen (Paradise Square) ventures into funk, Disney princess ballad, and a touch of Britpop. Despite the eclecticism of the musical palette, none of the songs stick in the ear, despite strenuous vocalizing by Jeremy Jordan (Newsies) and Eva Noblezada (Hadestown). These attractive Broadway vets portray, respectively, nouveau riche mystery man Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan, the girl he loved, who cravenly married the old-money domestic abuser Tom (John Zdrojeski, out-acting everyone on stage). The story—you will know from reading the book or seeing other versions—is narrated by Nick Carraway (Noah J. Ricketts), Daisy’s cousin and Gatsby’s neighbor. Like Gatsby, a veteran of World War I, Nick has a front-row seat to a Jazz-Age New York soaked in bootlegger booze, cynicism, and infidelity.
Noah J. Ricketts, Sara Chase, and John Zdrojeski in The Great Gatsby. Evan Zimmerman
Adapting the novel for a medium dependent on action and plot, there’s a danger in lifting Gatsby out of the ironic and melancholy filter of Nick’s voice. Ricketts may quote lines from the book at the beginning and end of the show, but for the most part we’re left with raw story elements, and they start to resemble a melodramatic parade of morose, wealthy people cheating on each other and secondary (working-class) characters paying for it. Gatsby manipulates Nick into setting up an affair between him and Daisy; Tom looks down his nose at Gatsby, even as he conducts a sordid affair with Myrtle (Sara Chase), the blowzy wife of Wilson (Paul Whitty) a gas-station owner on Long Island. Wilson is mixed up with the bootlegging operations of Gatsby and gangster Meyer Wolfsheim (Eric Anderson) and suffers from a bad conscience. All this seedy stuff goes down much smoother stirred into a cocktail with Fitzgerald’s velvety prose.
The burden is on songs to make us care about the protagonists’ inner lives and struggles. But the numbers are so generic, the lyrics so interchangeable, they add little meat to the characters’ bones, simply reinforcing Gatsby as a self-deluded romantic and Daisy as a woman frustrated with the gender limitations of her time. The b-plot involving Nick’s romance with spunky golfer Jordan Baker (Samantha Pauly) gives off comic sparks but goes nowhere when Nick realizes that Jordan is just as selfish and immoral as the rest of her circle. That arc follows the novel, but makes you wish book writer Kait Kerrigan had taken more liberties with the material than simply condensing plot and virtue signaling about the sexism of the times. She excises Tom Buchanan’s odious racism (which even the book mocks) and glosses over the late-revealed story of how James Gatz reinvented himself as Jay Gatsby—the story Nick learns after the great one’s death—which would have made a touching song. Instead, a chorus of gyrating flappers and jazz daddies slink back on to gloat over his death: “Look how he tricked ’em / Now he’s a victim / Well, at least he made a splash / New Money!”
Noah J. Ricketts and Samantha Pauly in The Great Gatsby.Matthew Murphy
Everyone wants to profit off Gatsby. The novel passed into public domain in 2021; there are bound to be more adaptations, hopefully bolder ones. It’s worth looking to the past for clues. The theater troupe Elevator Repair Service unlocked the classic by performing every word in a seven-hour reading/séance called Gatz. In the exact opposite direction, filmmaker Baz Luhrmann deployed movie stars and hyperkinetic camera work to evoke a fever-dream exaltation of the text. Both versions are infinitely more intelligent and engaging than what’s on at the Broadway Theatre. We await word about another musical take with tunes co-written by Florence Welch trying out in Boston next month.
Who knows how long this busy yet unfocused Marc Bruni staging can survive in a highly competitive, largely lackluster season. Providing distraction from tepid songs and plodding lyrics there’s eye candy in Paul Tate de Poo III’s gilded sets and copious video projections, and Linda Cho’s glittery costumes. A couple of prop antique cars roll center stage in freshly waxed glory, promising a joy ride that never comes. Those looking for escapism in an oversaturated and underwhelming spring, be warned: The Great Gatsby gets as much mileage as the yellow Rolls-Royce. Flashy body, no engine.
The Great Gatsby | 2hrs 30mins. One intermission. | Broadway Theatre | 1681 Broadway | 212-239-6200 | Buy Tickets Here
Amber Riley explains why she rejected an intimate scene during her stint on the hit Fox series, ‘Glee.’
US Weekly reports, the actress shocked her former co-stars, Kevin McHale and Jenna Ushkowitz, as she broke down what occurred behind the scenes on their podcast And That’s What You REALLY Missed. On the digital show, the actors discussed their time on the popular musical program.
Producers wanted Amber’s character, Mercedes, and another member of the school’s glee club, Sam, played by Chord Overstreet, to knock boots.
The singer shared, “There was supposed to be an episode where she lost her virginity to Sam.” According to Amber, she told the executive producer, Brad Falchuk, “Absolutely not.”Alternatively, Falchuk proposed a suggestive moment instead of a “full-blown-sex scene.”
“He said, ‘Well, what if we just you know, have you guys hold hands and walk into the room and then like close the door?’”
Amber still wasn’t having it and offered Falchuk another definitive, “No.” Her co-host Kevin was impressed with Riley’s courage and assertiveness. Furthermore, he admired that she stood her ground and didn’t do a scene that she wasn’t comfortable with responding, “Amazing. Respect.”Additionally, Amber noted, “I said, ‘I’m not doing it. I don’t ever tell you guys ‘no.’ I don’t fight about anything… But, this?!?” Equally important, she stated the sex scene didn’t make sense for her character’s progression. Mercedes committed to remaining a virgin until she was married on Season 5. The ‘Dancing With The Stars’ alum didn’t understand why the fictional high-schooler wouldn’t “stick to her guns.”
“It just would have been so awkward, and I feel like it would have read awkward,” Riley said. “I also just feel like, yeah, it wasn’t what my character would have done. I just didn’t feel that way.”
Mercedes and Sam, played by Chord Overstreet, did have romantic scenes that she was comfortable with. In part because Overstreet gives “Bambi” energy.
“He’s just so sweet,” Amber said of co-star. “It was very much so like his character. He’s like boy Bambi.”
“I didn’t date a lot in general, so, like, living that out on television was awkward”, the 38-year-old admitted.
Amber expressed she was worried about how her character would be viewed and presented since she was a “bigger girl on television.”“So you wanna kind of protect that, and I think they did an excellent job.” We agree that the intimate scene would have been unnecessary for their characters. Sex sells, but Riley proved couples can thrive on camera without doing the horizontal mambo. If you’re a musical comedy lover, “Glee” is available on Hulu, Apple TV, Disney Plus, Vudu, and Prime Video.RELATED: Amber Riley Says ‘Glee’ Costar Lea Michele ‘Would Probably Say She Doesn’t See Race’
The Connector | 1hr 45mins. No intermission. | MCC Theater| 511 W 52nd Street|646–506-9393
Musicals love a con artist. Harold Hill, Max Bialystock, the fraudsters and flimflammers of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Catch Me If You Can—flamboyant prevaricators really inspire show tunes. In 2016, an arguably morenuancedfibberarrived with Dear Evan Hansen, in whichtheawkward titular teen becamesocial-media famous through deceit. DEH casts a twitchy shadow overThe Connector, the wan, predictable tale of a cub reporter who fabricates his way to success at a prestigious magazine. Indeed, the lead role of Ethan Dobson belongstoBen Levi Ross, who played Evan on Broadway two years ago. (Even the character names echo.) But whereas the Pasek & Paul hit evoked sympathy for their troubled antihero, The Connector is a tediousshuffle to Ethan’s inevitable unmasking. With songs.
No spoiler alert needed. Since wealready know that director Daisy Prince got the initial concept from the Stephen Glass publishing scandal, Ethan’scareer is fated to flop. Glass was a clever thing fresh out of college who won the admiration of editorsatTheNew Republic,until they realized that his too-good-to-be-true political and cultural exposés were…yeah, made up. This all went down in the mid– to late’90s, roughly two centuries ago in publishing years. (In 2003, the whole saga was recounted in a novel by Glass and as well as a movie.) Today, the tale ofauthorial hubris in a world with editorial standards seemsdownright quaint, as media smolders on a bonfire of algorithms while AI weaponizes disinformation for the illiterate.
Scott Bakula and Ben Levi Ross in The Connector. Joan Marcus
Book writer Jonathan Marc Sherman and composer-lyricist Jason Robert Brown have been busywith their tracing paper. Like Glass, Ethan is Jewish and an Ivy League grad with a supposedly brilliant prose style (whichSherman quotes sparingly from).An article that ran in Ethan’s Princeton paper made a splashand, faster than you can say, “narcissistic personality disorder,” the weaselly scribe hasflattered his way into the heart of Conrad O’Brien (Scott Bakula), the crusty boozehound who edits The Connector, a vaguely political, vaguely literary rag. In Beowulf Boritt’s spare but inventive scenic design, the back wall of the stage is hung with galley pages which Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew’s lights and projections play upon evocatively. (Another thing marks this piece as a creature of the 1990s: at a climactic moment, the set dramatically “collapses.” Once upon a time, every director did that.)
On the sidelines watching Ethan’s methodicalascent is Robin Martinez (Hannah Cruz, sharp and appealing), who works the copy-edit desk when not pitching Conrad articles he never greenlights. Robin correctly identifies the secret sauce of Ethan’s success asbeing male. In no time, Ethan begins turning in a series of colorful essays that are suspiciously light on verifiable sources. There’s a Greenwich Village Scrabble master (Max Crumm, hamming it up) who hustles competitors with wildly obscure words. When Ethan interviews a street-smart youth (Fergie Philippe) who claims to havewitnessed the mayor of Jersey City smoking crack with teenagers, the Connector’s staunch fact-checker, Muriel (Jessica Molaskey) beginsto suspect embellishment. Given how Ethan whipsaws from swagger to squirming in Ross’s mannered performance, you wonder why no one else see red flags. Because writers are weirdos? Since the main dramatic tension is guessing when Ethan will be caught, one wishes Sherman had crafted a wittier, more charismatic cad, or allowed us to admire the mechanics of his deception (as Patricia Highsmith does so zestfully in her Ripley books).
Ben Levi Ross and Hannah Cruz in The Connector.Joan Marcus
Thisbrings up an overall weakness: whom are we supposed to root for? Sherman’s often leaden and stilted bookwon’t convince anyone who has worked in media, and he half-heartedly builds up Robin as the real hero of the story, too little too late. (She leads the charge to reveal his ethical lapses.) As a complacent, cliché-spouting Boomer, TV veteranBakula does his gruff best, and he’ssurrounded by usuallyeffective actors (such as Daniel Jenkins and Mylinda Hull) forced to breathe life into broad caricatures: The Connector’soverly stuffy lawyer and an OCD fan of the magazine who sends persnickety, fact-checking letters. “I wonder if [Ethan’s] from New England,” goes one of her notes.“He sure writes like it.” Flattering Robin, Ethan tells her, “You write like a modern combination of Eudora Welty and Janet Malcolm.” Such stuff doesn’t even look good on paper.
Following a book that lurches from satire to workplace drama, Brown’s score surfs various idioms, none of which really stick. There are stretches of ’90s powerpop (reminiscent of Jonathan Larson), bossa nova, Hamilton–style hip hop, and an overblown sequence set in Israel (or which Ethan claims happens in Israel) where klezmer rock gives wayto a Bo Diddley beat. Brown is too strong a composer not to produce intriguing melodies and colorful orchestration and arrangements, but few songs emerge from dimensionalpeoplewith conflicts we can care about; it’s mostly abstract notions of language, truth, or sexist power structures. Having contributedmajor works such as Parade and The Bridges of Madison County, plus the beloved two-hander The Last Five Years, Brown deserves a better foundation for his talents.
Perhaps you know the five reportingessentials: the Who, What, When, Where, and Why. I’ll stick with Why. Why make this a musical? Lying equals heightened reality equals breaking into song? Journalism scandals have been explored more satisfyingly in plays such as The Lifespan of a Fact and CQ/CX.Another Why:Whyshould we care? Toward the end as Ethan spirals in flames, he sings an angry,nihilisticrant that expands into something bigger and darker:
There never was a notebook.
There never was a phone call.
There never was a magazine.
There never was, there never was.
There never was an airplane,
There never was a prophecy,
There never was a motorcade,
There never was a Holocaust.
It’s unclear why this disgraced, unreliable person is bitterly alluding to Holocaust denial or conspiracies around 9/11 and JFK’s assassination in light of his own falsehoods. Is he awed by the power of writing to shape perceptions of reality, or consumed by shame?Either way, it feels like pure posturing by the creative team: manipulative shorthand to make us believe this dated cultural footnote is Extremely Relevant. Cynical distrustof modern media is as old as Citizen Kane. I don’t buy the suggestion that a fantasist at The New Republicpaved the way for FOX News or Russian bots on social media. Do a rewrite; theydon’t connect.
Movie theaters and audiences settled for seconds this weekend. With no new wide releases on the schedule, a mob of holdovers sustained the North American box office, which was led by “ The Beekeeper ” in its third week of release.
Amazon MGM Studios’ Jason Statham actioner earned $7.4 million to take the No. 1 spot, according to studio estimates Sunday. It was down only 14% from the previous weekend and brings its running domestic total to $42.3 million. Globally, it has crossed $100 million.
Paramount’s “ Mean Girls ” musical, which is also in its third weekend, was close behind, with $7.3 million. The movie has now earned $60.8 million in North America.
In third place, Warner Bros.’ “ Wonka ” added $5.9 million in its seventh weekend as the Timothée Chalamet-led musical inches closer to $200 million domestic. It’s currently at $195.2 million in North America and $552 million globally.
Rounding out the top five were Universal and Illumination’s “Migration,” with $5.1 million, which pushed it over the $100 million mark domestically, and Sony’s romantic comedy “Anyone But You,” with $4.8 million, bringing its total to $71.2 million.
“Overall, it’s a very slow weekend in terms of sheer box office but a fantastic weekend to be a moviegoer,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “The strikes created a lot of headwind, but the destruction to the release calendar is creating opportunities and potential. It’s an ever-changing ecosystem.”
Those that benefited included the Hindi-language action film “Fighter,” which debuted in sixth place with $3.7 million, “Godzilla Minus One,” which was re-released in black and white for a week and cracked the top 10, and several awards contenders.
This was the first moviegoing weekend following Oscar nominations. While many top contenders are already available to watch in the home, including “Oppenheimer,” “Barbie,” “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “The Holdovers,” several films still in theaters got sizable boosts from the buzz. Amazon and MGM’s “American Fiction,” nominated for five awards, including best picture and best actor for Jeffrey Wright, got a 65% bump in its seventh week, with $2.9 million in ticket sales.
Searchlight’s “Poor Things,” nominated for 11 Oscars, including best picture, best director and best actress for Emma Stone, got a 43% boost from last weekend with an estimated $3 million. The Yorgos Lanthimos film has now earned $51.1 million globally.
“To have high-quality Oscar contenders rise above the noise is really important,” Dergarabedian said. “Because it’s a quiet weekend, these films were really able to make their mark in the top 10.”
A24’s “The Zone of Interest,” which had five nominations, including best picture and best director for Jonathan Glazer, expanded to 317 screens, where it earned $1.1 million. The studio said most audiences in top markets were under 35.
Universal had leading Oscar nominee “Oppenheimer” in 1,262 theaters, where it earned an additional million dollars this weekend. Focus Features also added 1,140 screens for its big Oscar contender, Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” which is also streaming on Peacock. It added an estimated $520,000, bringing its running total to $19.3 million. “The Holdovers” also earned $3.3 million internationally for a $31.2 million global total.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. “The Beekeeper,” $7.4 million.
2. “Mean Girls,” $7.3 million.
3. “Wonka,” $5.9 million.
4. “Migration,” $5.1 million.
5. “Anyone But You,” $4.8 million.
6. “Fighter,” $3.7 million.
7. “Poor Things,” $3 million.
8. “American Fiction,” $2.9 million.
9. “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” $2.8 million.
10. “Godzilla Minus One,” $2.6 million.
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This story has been updated to correct the spelling of director Glazer’s first name to Jonathan, instead of Johathan.
