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  • Kecia Lewis Makes Her Mark On ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ With a Tony Nominated Performance

    Kecia Lewis Makes Her Mark On ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ With a Tony Nominated Performance

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    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. Last week 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.’”

    Buy Tickets Here 

     

    Kecia Lewis Makes Her Mark On ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ With a Tony Nominated Performance

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    Joe Levy

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  • Review: Pandemic Meltdown Musical ‘Three Houses’ Finds Song in Solitude

    Review: Pandemic Meltdown Musical ‘Three Houses’ Finds Song in Solitude

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    J.D Mollison, Margo Seibert, and Mia Pak in Three Houses. Marc J. Franklin

    Hey, what’d you do for the pandemic? Sorry to be so 2022, but the topic’s hard to avoid regarding Dave Malloy’s Three Houses, currently running at the Signature Theatre. We certainly know what Malloy did: He wrote a musical triptych about Covid Times. Or rather, about three people losing their minds from isolation and introspection during lockdown in Latvia, Taos, and Brooklyn, and how they’re redeemed through connection in song. 

    Three Houses is a sort of companion piece to Malloy’s previous Signature outing (in the same space, too: the roomy and flexible Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre). Internet addiction was the theme in 2019’s Octet, set in a church basement redolent of AA meetings, but which really served as a metaphorical space for purging sins. Each of the eight characters in Octet got a number explaining how being Extremely Online derailed their lives. It ended, as Three Houses does, with a gently hopeful move towards peace. Where the earlier show was a cappella, Three Houses has a small but colorful ensemble of piano, organ, strings, and French horn (plus electronics). Malloy has also scaled down the number of protagonists. 

    Which invites us to do the math. Octet covered eight stories in 100 minutes. Three Houses rolls out a trio of tales in about the same time. An average of 12 minutes per character previously, 33 in the current one. I wish I could say that half an hour spent with Susan, Sadie, and Beckett over two continents was thoroughly engrossing. But there’s a draggy sameness to their quarantine journeys—reinforced by recurring plot details—that grows repetitive rather than resonant. Each narrative follows a pattern: post-romantic breakup, a person retreats to a temporary space during lockdown, goes nuts from loneliness, self-medicates, reconnects spiritually with grandparents and, bruised but wiser, recovers their senses. As an extra intertextual layer, the whole affair references “The Three Little Pigs,” with a bearded hipster bartender (Scott Strangland) standing in for the Big Bad Wolf. I’m not sure whether you’d call Three Houses a fable retconned as a covid parable, or a covid parable trapped inside a fable. Either way, it comes across as putting a hat on a hat.

    Mia Pak and Margo Seibert in Three Houses. Marc J. Franklin

    Anyway, let’s meet our appealing, young Pandy pilgrims. Newly single novelist Susan (Margo Seibert) flees to her grandmother’s house in the Latvian countryside. There, she delights in solitude, organizing granny’s sprawling library, smoking weed and getting lit on red currant wine. However, weeks of dissipation and self-loathing take their toll, and there’s an inevitable emotional collapse. Sadie (Mia Pak) decamps for her aunt’s ranch house in Taos and, not content with that escape from reality, retreats further into a Sims-like video game, building a replica of her grandparents’ house in Ohio. Sadie hits rock bottom spending 14 hours a day in her digital utopia. Beckett (J.D. Mollison) waits out the virus in a basement apartment, filling it with dozens of Amazon delivery boxes that symbolize his primary connection to the outside. Beckett also boozes (his Irish grandfather’s favorite plum brandy), hallucinates a giant, talking spider, and generally loses his marbles.

    Resourceful and witty director Anne Tippe stages these echoing odysseys in a handsome lounge bar designed by the collective dots, noirishly lit by Christopher Bowser. It’s karaoke night, and each person steps up to the microphone, like a latter-day plague exile in the Decameron, to relate their experience. Downtown theater icons Ching Valdes-Aran and Henry Stram hover on the periphery as enigmatic waiters who take on supporting roles as grandparents. Further variation from the sung-through monologues comes in the form of a trio of amusing puppets designed by the marvelous James Ortiz: a cutesy, Elmo-sounding Dragon (voiced by Pak); a gung-ho anime badger (Mollison); and a sexy English arachnid nicknamed Shelob (Seibert). 

    Mia Pak in Three Houses. Marc J. Franklin

    Lurking behind each narrator at the mic, the bartender signals their karaoke coda by blowing cigarette smoke into the spotlight. You know, huffing and puffing and blowing their you-know-whats down. By the end of the night, Strangland has donned a wolf’s head and grandmother’s nightgown (blurring Little Red and Little Pigs), and our cathartically healed heroes are encouraged to dance with the beast. The message: the monster is going to blow your house down anyway, so make peace with it. And: connect with strangers. Also: Your grandparents’ trauma explains your trauma. Mileage will vary on how hard such sentiments hit. 

    As with all Malloy projects (the apex of which is Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812), his score is entertainingly eclectic: pseudo-Baltic reels, electronica, and a plangent, earthly melding of folk and indie rock. Borrowing from baroque pop and musical theater, Malloy’s work achieves a sound world compositionally more complex than 99% of what’s on Broadway—yet engaging, due his literate humor and obvious love of popular idioms. Two numbers particularly stood out for me. In “Haze,” we get the perfect ballad for the walking wounded when Sadie sings, “My heart broke / And then the world broke / And then my brain broke too.” Later, Beckett shares a bitter insight in “Love Always Leaves You in the End.” Too often though, one sits through fussy, prosy verbiage that doesn’t sing so great, following a quirky story whose arc you can already predict. This is no knock on the nimble and charming Seibert, Pak, and Mollison, who do sterling service with hectic, challenging material.

    Malloy (juggling book, music, lyrics, and orchestrations) produces lovely passages, but dramatic tension and character development is where Three Houses starts to wobble on its foundations and devolves into an allegorical anthology with diminishing returns. Narration and description take up so much text, the action stalls in passive self-regard. Alternating speaking and singing might have been a wiser tactic or tightening each episode by ten minutes. For a writer inspired by loneliness, Molloy should seek out creative company: a book writer, for example, who could help shape his prodigious musical imagination, and push back when he blows too hard. 

    Three Houses | 1hr 45mins. No intermission. | Pershing Square Signature Center | 480 West 42nd Street | 212-244-7529 | Buy Tickets Here   

    Review: Pandemic Meltdown Musical ‘Three Houses’ Finds Song in Solitude

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    David Cote

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  • Best Bets: Madame Butterfly, Plantasia and Love, Loss, and What I Wore

    Best Bets: Madame Butterfly, Plantasia and Love, Loss, and What I Wore

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    Do you want to do something good for your neighbor? Of course, you do – it’s National Do Something Good for Your Neighbor Day. Our suggestion is to kindly invite your neighbor to one of this week’s best bets. Below, you can find our picks, which include film festivals, an opera outdoors, a botanical art show and more.

    The 17th Annual Palestine Film Festival will open on Friday, May 17, at 7 p.m. with a screening of Lina Soualem’s “festival favorite,” Bye Bye Tiberias, at Rice Cinema. In the film, the filmmaker tells the story of “her maternal relatives,” including her mother, the Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass, in hope of answering “the question ‘How does a woman find her place when caught between worlds?’” Each of the six features spotlighted throughout the three-day festival, which runs through May 19, will be preceded by a short film, and Bye Bye Tiberias will follow a reception beginning at 6:30 p.m. You may view the full lineup here and tickets to any of the screenings can also be purchased here for $10.

    A couple unable to conceive is diagnosed with a rather unique, newly identified syndrome, one which can only be cured by locating everyone the two have ever had sex with and having sex with them again. This is “the quirky premise” of The (Ex)perience of Love (Le syndrome des amours passées), which will open Five Funny French Films at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, on Friday, May 17, at 7 p.m. The film, directed by Raphaël Balboni and Ann Sirot, is the first of five curated comedies from France that make up the twelfth annual edition of the festival, which runs all weekend through Sunday, May 19. Tickets to any of the screenings can be found here for $8 to $10, as can the full lineup.

    click to enlarge

    Kinetic Ensemble will close their season on Friday,

    Photo by Jeff Grass Photography

    Kinetic Ensemble will close out their season on Friday, May 17, at 7:30 p.m. at the MATCH with a program titled At Play. The program not only features special guest Frame Dance Productions, but all the composers selected for the evening are living, American composers of marginalized identities. Cellist Patricia Ryan recently told the Houston Press as much as the ensemble loves “playing the old canon of Beethoven and Mozart, who still have relevance today, there’s something that’s really more tangible for us to play pieces by current, living composers, especially now that there’s an opportunity for previously marginalized groups who are able to now get the support and exposure that they deserve.” Tickets to the program can be purchased here for $15 to $30.

    In 1995, Ilene Beckerman published a “captivating little pictorial autobiography for adults, a life told through clothes,” that was also “a wry commentary on the pressures women constantly face to look good.” Nora Ephron and sister Delia Ephron turned the book into a 2008 play – featuring a series of monologues and ensemble scenes that reference those sartorial touchstones (from bras to prom dresses) – of the same name, Love, Loss, and What I Wore, which On The Verge Theatre will open at The Alta Arts on Friday, May 17, at 7:30 p.m. Performances are scheduled to run through June 9 at 7:30 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Monday, June 3, and at 3 p.m. Sundays. Tickets to the play can be purchased here for $30 to $40.

    This weekend it’s the Houston Grand Opera’s turn to take the stage at Miller Outdoor Theatre when HGO brings their production of Giacomo Puccini’s Madame Butterfly to Miller on Friday, May 17, at 8 p.m. The production of the classic opera, which was previously performed at the Wortham Theater Center earlier this year, became one of the company’s top-selling shows of that last ten years. As always, shows at Miller are free, and you can get reserve a ticket here starting at 10 a.m. today, Thursday, May 16, or you can head for the seating on the no-ticket-required Hill. Madame Butterfly will be performed a second time on Saturday, May 18, at 8 p.m. You can reserve a seat for Saturday beginning on Friday, May 17, at 10 a.m. here.

    A galaxy far, far away comes to Jones Hall on Friday, May 17, at 8 p.m. when the Houston Symphony presents The Music of Star Wars. Conductor Steven Reineke will lead the Symphony through music from all nine films (the trilogy of trilogies which all feature works from noted composer John Williams) – in chronological order – along with selections from the standalone “Star Wars Story” films, Rogue One and Solo. The concert will also be performed in-hall at 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturday, May 18, and 2:30 p.m. Sunday, May 19. In-hall tickets are available here for $48.88 to $170. The Saturday evening performance will also be livestreamed, and access to the livestream can be purchased here for $20.

    Did you know that we get 60 percent of “our energy intake from just three plant species”? Those would be rice, wheat and maize, if you’re wondering. The point is, there’s a lot to appreciate about not only plants, but flowers, fungi and more, and you can celebrate these and the beauty of the botanical world on Saturday, May 18, from 5 to 9 p.m. when Hardy & Nance Studios presents Plantasia: A Botanical Art Show. The curated show will feature work in various mediums in 2D and 3D formats from artists all around Houston (and the surrounding area). Also, on hand for the third annual botany-appreciating art show will be Eden Plant Co. as well as food from Chicano BBQ. You can attend the art show for free.

    Sir Alan Ayckbourn’s Taking Steps, a two-act play set more than 50 years ago in a former-brothel-turned-possibly-haunted-house, will officially open at Main Street Theater on Saturday, May 18, at 7:30 p.m. Callina Anderson, whose character Elizabeth is the wife of a man thinking of buying the house, recently told the Houston Press that the play “is about what people are trying to get toward, to work toward, like a relationship or career,” adding that “the script is really funny” and that anyone who “wants a laugh” should see the show. Performances are scheduled 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and Sundays at 3 p.m. through June 15. Tickets can be purchased here for $35 to $59.

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    Natalie de la Garza

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  • Yale Drama Meets the Psych Ward: Invasive Species

    Yale Drama Meets the Psych Ward: Invasive Species

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    From Invasive Species, at the Vineyard Theatre.
    Photo: Julieta Cervantes

    Two imperious blondes haunt Maia Novi throughout her play Invasive Species: Gwyneth Paltrow and Eva Perón. At drama school, Novi is told that she needs to shear off her Argentinian accent and try to imitate Paltrow’s crisp-as-a-summer-blouse American one. (Specifically, Novi keeps listening to Paltrow’s narration of her Goop morning routine, played over the theater speakers so many times that you’ll pick up the inflection yourself.) Then, after Novi buckles under the pressure of school, seeks treatment for insomnia, and is abruptly sent to a New Haven psych ward, Evita enters the picture. Alternating — and sometimes overlapping — with scenes in the hospital, there are scenes of Novi as a star on the rise, cast in some splashy studio production of Evita with a British director who keeps telling her, “No, don’t use that Gwyneth voice or even your normal accent; give us something ‘authentic.’”

    The pressure to assimilate (Paltrow) while seeming authentic (Perón) — specifically, to give people the performance of what they think of as authentic (that version of Perón, after all, was written by a couple of Brits) — form the interlocking teeth of Invasive Species, a sprightly romp through the destruction of the self. Novi, who based the play on her own experience at Yale Drama, and her director Michael Breslin (of Circle Jerk) keep the pace quick as the play flits between several realities and temporalities, cross-cutting between surreal postcolonial satire and grim reality, as her supporting cast — a fine-tuned crew of Raffi Donatich, Sam Gonzalez, Alexandra Maurice, and Julian Sanchez — cover multiple roles.

    Novi gets stung by the acting bug (embodied by a slithering Sanchez in a literal insect mask; he gives a similar sliminess to Evita’s British director later on) while watching The Amazing Spider-Man as a kid, which makes her disdain Latin American movies and dream of a career in the U.S. She tries out clown school in France and then lands in New Haven among vapid and cutthroat Americans, their eyes gleaming with dreams of landing agents and turning red from all the coke they do. The Americans alternatively fetishize Novi for her foreignness — on a date over tacos, she convinces a hapless American bro that her family is tight with the narcos — and tell her to tamp it down, cut the accent, and conform. Then, when Novi is hospitalized and initially doesn’t know what is happening, the satire falls away: She’s stuck in a ward with a trio of teenagers and a dictatorial nurse (Donatich, also domineering as Novi’s agent, a nice resonance), struggling to understand how she’s gotten there and how she can get out. She can’t remember any phone numbers other than her parents’ (Gonzalez plays both mother and father, in a giant hat and a golf outfit; they’re both grandly useless). She keeps trying to explain to the staff that her behavior isn’t a sign of mental illness, it’s just what it’s like being an actor.

    Given that, in character, Novi is obsessed with a forthcoming acting showcase, it’s fitting that Invasive Species, now running Off Broadway after a stop at the Tank last summer, acts as a meta showcase for herself as an actor and writer. In white pants and a tank top, she struts around with confidence, whether as a newbie drama student not realizing she’s landed in a big and threatening pond or as a parodical Evita, a performance enhanced by Breslin’s clever Dior-shaped shadow projections on the wall behind her. But while Novi is comfortable and charming in bombastic absurdity, she can also scale down in scenes where she’s trying to connect with the teenagers around her in the ward, or when delivering a monologue about the origins of her invasive thoughts.

    While Novi tends to be affecting and real in those moments — in a way that’s appropriately charged, given her play’s skepticism of the “authentic” — they’re also scenes where Invasive Species tends to retract its claws. When she explores the lives of the teenagers around her in the psych ward, there are stretches of observation that are honed but not thorough, and we don’t escape the feeling that the teens are always seen at a distance. Of the several parts she plays, Alexandra Maurice is most significant as Akila, a queen bee of the ward (she has some sort of Jell-O monopoly) who befriends Novi and provides a dark, funny speech about an attempted overdose. But Akila’s presence fades amid the play’s building mania — she becomes, at the point where Novi needs to arrive at her thesis, primarily a conduit to that crucial realization.

    Novi has certainly thought carefully about re-creating those scenes in the ward. Her script cites Spalding Gray’s landmark Rumstick Road, a performance about his mother’s suicide, and notes that “situations in this play that are based on real events and real people should be treated with respect, dignity, and compassion.” That respectfulness, inarguably right as intention, sits awkwardly with the mania of the Hollywood and drama-school satires. Novi aims to use humor to tame the trauma, but the flow sometimes reverses, and the trauma makes the elements of the satire that aren’t well grounded seem all the more weightless. I kept wanting to know more about Akila and the other kids, more about the weird power dynamics of the ward, and less about how annoying your classmates can be. There is a limit on how interesting it can be to hear Yale people tell you how toxic Yale is (and this production is solidly Yale/Geffen-forward, from cast to directors to producer Jeremy O. Harris), and let alone to hear an actor describe their frustrations with a scatterbrained agent. Invasive Species moves fast and intends to please. By the end of the play, Novi wraps up her many threads quickly and neatly. It sent me out on a high, but it left me with the feeling there was so much more to be said — not just about those scenes in the ward but also when Novi approaches and then backs away from further discussing her mother’s mental illness. It put me in the position of a drama-school teacher giving that annoying post-performance note: Strong start, but you could dig even deeper?

    Invasive Species is at the Vineyard’s Dimson Theatre. 

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    Jackson McHenry

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  • Review: Flashy and Fake ‘Great Gatsby’ Caps a Weak Season

    Review: Flashy and Fake ‘Great Gatsby’ Caps a Weak Season

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    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  

     

    Review: Flashy and Fake ‘Great Gatsby’ Caps a Weak Season

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    David Cote

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  • Review: Steve Carell Is a Lovable Loser in a Fragmentary ‘Uncle Vanya ‘

    Review: Steve Carell Is a Lovable Loser in a Fragmentary ‘Uncle Vanya ‘

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    Steve Carell and Alison Pill in Uncle Vanya. Marc J. Franklin

    It’s Chekhov 101 to say his characters inhabit separate worlds that rarely converge. All those rueful doctors, vain landowners, stoic laborers, and pretentious artists jabber across the samovar without really connecting or changing. Sure, they level pistols at each other (and themselves) or profess undying love, but such flashes of passion smack of solipsistic play-acting. Therein lies the comedy dusted with melancholy. Still, if Chekhov’s people are not in the same play, you hope the actors inhabiting them will be. Such is not really the case in Lincoln Center Theater’s starry but arid Uncle Vanya, staged with noncommittal chill by Lila Neugebauer. 

    Mimi Lien’s scenic design bluntly underscores the sense that these “Russians” (scare quotes because they’re vaguely Americanized) are planets whose orbital paths do not intersect. Her set pieces crouch at the edges of the Vivian Beaumont’s broad stage, emphasizing psychic distance by maximizing negative space. The first two acts have a backyard, cottagecore vibe—picnic table, folding chairs, bench, and a huge black-and-white photograph of birch trees covering the back wall. (All very wood-ish.) The second act brings us inside the home of agricultural manager Vanya (Steve Carell) and his niece Sonya (Alison Pill), but the tasteful, midcentury decor seems equally repelled to the periphery. 

    The cast of Lincoln Center Theater’s Uncle Vanya. Marc J. Franklin

    If the furniture is having an existential crisis, so are the depressed folks perched on it. Vanya is a middle-aged crank who sacrificed love and happiness for duty, drudging for decades on a farm and funneling money to Alexander (Alfred Molina), a pompous fraud of an art professor. Alexander was married to Vanya’s deceased sister, and the homely, naïve Sonya is the product of that union. Elena (Anika Noni Rose), Alexander’s much younger second wife, is an exquisitely bored nymph after whom Vanya lusts—as does family friend Astrov (William Jackson Harper), a local doctor who moonlights in environmentalism and binge drinking. Oh, almost forgot: Sonya loves Astrov, Vanya hates Alexander, and there’s a non-speaking local youth (Spencer Donovan Jones) who casts sad, smoldering looks at Sonya. The last element is an invention by Neugebauer, yet another iteration of unrequited love in this matryoshka of misery.  

    Uncle Vanya (a new take comes along every few years) is not exactly breakfast—as in, you have to work hard to screw it up—but its performers usually have solid support. Once they’ve polished their patronymics, they can settle into pathos-rich comedy tinged with Chekhov’s prophetic sense that pre-revolutionary Russia was about to crater under the idle protagonists’ feet. One of his signature tricks is musing about the generations to come. “People who are alive a hundred—two hundred years from now,” cynic-idealist Astrov wonders, “what will they think of us? Will they remember us with kindness?” Similar to the way that Shakespeare articulated unseen and unseeable inner life (Hamlet’s inky cloak), Chekhov cultivated anxious futurity in his restless people. Perhaps he was asking himself: Will my extremely specific Slavic material be relevant a century down the road?

    William Jackson Harper in Uncle Vanya. Marc J. Franklin

    The answer is yes, of course. Unless you’re allergic to Dr. Anton’s blend of bleakness and whimsy, the physician-playwright still grabs us with his clinical yet sympathetic dissection of human frailty. So, what are Neugebauer, her design team (including Kaye Voyce on costumes and Lap Chi Chu and Elizabeth Harper on lights), and an A-list ensemble doing to keep us focused on Vanya’s angsty journey from surly bitterness to…well, catatonic despair? The current version by the formidable Heidi Schreck (What the Constitution Means to Me) doesn’t attempt anything too radical. The language is more or less vernacular American with a light dusting of profanity (three shits, a fuck, a few hells and craps). Despite the modern clothing and furnishings, there are no smartphones or laptops in sight. When I first heard that Schreck was translating, I had this nutty hope she might flip the gender of the title figure. Gimmicky? Yep. But it would be something.

    That is, something more than an efficient but lukewarm modern-dress Vanya with fine actors who never quite gel. I’d see Harper (Primary Trust) in anything; he’s a sui generis compound of tetchiness, insecurity and warmth, but I didn’t particularly buy his friendship with Vanya or even his status as doctor. By the third act he has traded hospital scrubs for paint-spattered leisurewear, and you wonder if Astrov’s gone on sabbatical to improve his stippling and brushwork. Carell is the celebrity draw, of course, and it’s neat to see him modulate his movie-star shtick—bashful-teen-trapped-in-middle-aged-dude’s-body—to something rawer and more anguished. For Vanya’s hysterical third-act meltdown, bewailing years of waste, Carell leaps on the kitchen table and crawls across it, screaming at Molina like a plump tabby cat having its midlife crisis. 

    Others onstage seem either miscast (Rose) or under-directed (Molina), but Pill proves to be the evening’s MVP with a painfully yearning Sonya. The gawky spinster-in-training is red meat for young actors, and Pill radiates nervy panic from every pore. Pale and reedy, she scrunches her face into a rictus of pain, yet never tips into overacting. Rendered in English, some of Chekhov’s pet descriptors (not just in Vanya) are “weird,” “strange,” “stupid” and their variants. To be human is to be a freak, and Pill embodies that brokenness with a palpable heat I wish could have ignited everything around her.

    Uncle Vanya | 2hrs 30mins. One intermission. | Vivian Beaumont Theater | 150 W. 65th Street | 212-239-6200 | Buy Tickets Here  

     

    Review: Steve Carell Is a Lovable Loser in a Fragmentary ‘Uncle Vanya ‘

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    David Cote

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  • Best Bets: Latin Wave, California Gold and Philly Soul

    Best Bets: Latin Wave, California Gold and Philly Soul

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    It’s the last weekend of April and as we move into May, one thing’s for sure: There’s still plenty to do all around Houston. Ten acclaimed films from Latin America and a beloved musical-turned-opera are just a couple of things that have made this week’s list of best bets. Keep reading for these and more.

    Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “exhilarating” Pictures of Ghosts, a film that unfolds “at the crossroads of fiction and documentary” will open the 17th Annual Latin Wave: New Films from Latin America at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The 2023 film – “a cleareyed, deeply personal and formally inspired rumination on life, death, family, movies and those complicated, invariably haunted places we call home” – will lead off the series at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 25, and the series will continue with nine more films from Latin America set to be screened through Sunday, April 28. You can view the complete schedule, which includes films like Felipe Gálvez Haberle’s The Settlers and Lila Avilés’s Tótem, and a list of invited guests here. Tickets can be purchased to any of the screenings here for $8 to $10.

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    Houston Grand Opera presents The Sound of Music for the first time.

    Photo by Karli Cadel

    For the first time ever, Houston Grand Opera will stage Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s ever popular The Sound of Music, which will open at the Wortham Theater Center on Friday, April 26, at 7:30 p.m. Just as the 1959 musical, the opera’s book, by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, tells the story of the Von Trapp family, whose lives are changed with the arrival of new governess Maria – all against the backdrop of an expanding Nazi Germany. Sung in English with projected English text, the co-production with The Glimmerglass Festival will be directed by Francesca Zambello with HGO’s own chorus director, Richard Bado, conducting. Performances will continue at 2 p.m. Sundays; 7:30 p.m. April 30, May 4 and May 10; and 1 and 7:30 p.m. May 11 through May 12. Tickets can be purchased here for $25 to $210.

    On Friday, April 26, at 7:30 p.m. 4th Wall Theatre Company will open Florian Zeller’s The Father, a one-act play about a man with dementia. Elizabeth Bunch, member of the Alley Theatre‘s Resident Acting Company and director of 4th Wall’s production, recently told the Houston Press that “the structure of the play not only leaves you with doubts about the narrator but doubts as an audience member about what you’ve seen, about what is true and not true,” adding “that ultimately you have to understand the play with your heart instead of your mind.” Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and May 6, 3 p.m. Sundays and 2:30 p.m. May 11 at Spring Street Studio through May 11. Tickets are available here for $25 to $60, with the Monday, May 6, performance being pay-what-you-will starting at $5 at the door and $10 online.

    It was in March 1934 that composer Carl Orff chose 24 poems from “an anthology of medieval poetry in Latin” and framed them by “O Fortuna,” which is “a fatalistic chorus in praise of Fortune, the cruel goddess who brings both pleasure and suffering” and “the most famous part” of Orff’s resulting work Carmina burana. On Friday, April 26, at 8 p.m. the Houston Symphony will present Carmina burana, along with a world premiere by Jimmy López Bellido, at Jones Hall. The concert will also be performed on Saturday, April 27, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, April 28, at 2:30 p.m. Saturday night’s concert will also be livestreamed and access can be purchased here for $20. An additional performance at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, April 27, will feature Carmina burana only. Tickets to any of the in-hall concerts can be purchased here for $36 and $160.

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    Houston Chamber Choir tackles the music of California composers during California Gold.

    Photo by Jeff Grass

    The through line of California Gold, the program Houston Chamber Choir will perform on Saturday, April 27, at 7:30 p.m. at South Main Baptist Church, is composers from the Sunshine State. The University of Houston’s Dr. Betsy Cook Weber will serve as guest conductor, leading the 24 musicians of the choir in works by Eric Whitacre, Morten Lauridsen and John Cage, as well as the choir’s first performance of Igor Stravinsky’s Mass. It was in “a secondhand store in Los Angeles in 1942 or 1943” that Stravinsky, who would become a U.S. citizen with his second wife Vera in 1945, found “some Masses of Mozart,” which he described as “rococo-operatic sweets-of-sin,” and decided write a mass of his own. Tickets can be purchased here for $10 to $45.

    It’s the 50th anniversary of Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff’s “T.S.O.P. (The Sound of Philadelphia),” an “anthem for Philadelphia” and “an entire era of Black art and culture” that also lends its “name to an influential musical phenomena.” On Saturday, April 27, at 8:15 p.m. you can hear Philadelphia soul – or, as James Brown’s trombonist Fred Wesley called it, “putting the bow tie on funk” – at Miller Outdoor Theatre during The Philly Soul Sound Vol. 4 produced by Community Music Center Houston. Two four-part harmony groups, one male and one female, will join the show to perform iconic songs like “Love Train” and “Me and Mrs. Jones.” The show is free, and you can get reserve your tickets here starting at 10 a.m. on Friday, April 26, or you can take a seat on the no-ticket-required Hill. 

    The music of Bob Dylan and the writing of Irish playwright Conor McPherson comes together in Girl from the North Country, a Tony Award-winning musical that will open on Tuesday, April 30, at 7:30 p.m., courtesy of Broadway at the Hobby Center. Jennifer Blood, who plays matriarch and boarding house proprietor Elizabeth Laine in the show, recently told the Houston Press that it “is like nothing you’ve ever seen,” noting that though Dylan’s songs may not be overtly connected to the musical’s story, “there is something sort of magical and hard to understand about why it is so moving and beautiful.” Performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, and 1:30 and 7 p.m. Sunday through May 5 at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets can be purchased here for $35 to $95.

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    Natalie de la Garza

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  • Love is in the Alley’s Charming Production of Brontë Classic Jane Eyre

    Love is in the Alley’s Charming Production of Brontë Classic Jane Eyre

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    “Dear Reader…”

    If you would, allow me but a moment to…Okay, that’s as far as that intro’s going to go. But please do allow me to tell you about Elizabeth Williamson’s adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel Jane Eyre, now playing at the Alley Theatre.

    The novel, about the life and times of a young orphan girl, was published under Brontë’s pen name Currer Bell in October 1847, and has since gone on to become a staple of gothic fiction, required reading for lovers of romance, and a stalwart of AP English syllabi.

    Williamson’s adaptation opens with an 18-year-old Jane Eyre about to depart Lowood School, her home of the last eight years – six as a pupil and two as a teacher – to begin a new job, that of governess at Thornfield Hall. We quickly learn that, for Jane, Lowood School was a “grim, cruel place,” and that she has no friends or family to speak of. With this in mind, it’s easy to understand Jane when she declares, “I wanted change” – even if that change meant an unknown future at a secluded countryside estate.

    Upon arriving at Thornfield, Jane learns from the housekeeper, Mrs. Fairfax, that her charge is Adèle, the young, French-speaking ward of the estate’s absentee owner, Mr. Edward Rochester. Jane spends three seemingly uneventful months settling into life at Thornfield – uneventful aside from the mysterious, cackling laugh that sometimes echoes from the house’s third story – when Mr. Rochester returns. Though their introduction has all the elements of a meet-cute, Jane describes it as “an incident of no moment, no romance, no interest,” saying only that “it marked with change one single hour of a monotonous life.”

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    Melissa Molano as Jane Eyre and Ana Miramontes as Young Jane in Alley Theatre’s production of Jane Eyre.

    Photo by Lynn Lane

    But trust, dear reader, that’s not the end of it. Mr. Rochester appears quite taken with Jane, and she with him and, well, is it really a spoiler to say that Mr. Rochester and Jane are endgame?

    Anyway, in short order, Jane saves Mr. Rochester from a fire; Mr. Rochester abruptly leaves and returns with a group of strangers, one of which may soon be his fiancée; Jane is summoned to the bedside of her dying aunt (the very person who sent Jane to Lowood instead of honoring the promise she made to Jane’s uncle to raise her as her own child); and an unexpected visitor arrives from Jamaica and leaves Thornfield mysteriously bitten and bloodied. And that’s just the first act.

    Williamson’s play is unfailingly faithful to its source material while being downright breezy in comparison to the 466-page brick that is Brontë’s novel (that’s 466 pages in my 1993 Barnes & Noble hardcover though, of course, copies may vary). The tightness of the script, a delightfully successful distillation of Jane Eyre to its mostly romantic and occasionally spooky core, is a slap of wrongness to the face of anyone who thinks a work of 19th-century Victorian-era literature wouldn’t make for non-stop action or appease a 21st-century attention span. Director Eleanor Holdridge helms the pleasingly dynamic production with ease. Special credit, too, to Williamson, as well as Holdridge and a superbly talented cast, for mining possibly every moment of humor from the story for our viewing pleasure.

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    Melissa Molano as Jane Eyre in Alley Theatre’s production of Jane Eyre.

    Photo by Lynn Lane

    Melissa Molano plays our heroine with delicate care and a firm hand, handling every Janian line with an endearing honesty and earnest sincerity. Though Jane begins the story with no family or friends, the audience serves as something of a surrogate companion, as Jane monologues to the audience. Not only does it stay true to the intimacy of the novel’s first-person narration, it allows Molano’s Jane to become a dear friend almost immediately. It is, however, during the explosion of emotion in the second act, Jane’s moonlight mutiny, that Molano most has the audience in the palm of her hand.

    Jane Eyre is a romance, and Molano’s chemistry with Chris Hutchison’s gruff Mr. Rochester is captivating. Hutchison manages to deliver each of Mr. Rochester’s blunt and smart-ass comments with a charm that allows you to appreciate their developing relationship without pause.

    Aside from Molano and Hutchison, every actor plays two or more roles, slipping in and out of them with chameleon-like ease: There’s Susan Koozin, who goes from kindly housekeeper to attic-bound madwoman with a zombie-like countenance, and the childlike turn Ana Miramontes takes playing two couldn’t-be-more-different young ladies, the excitable Adèle and the beleaguered young Jane. Melissa Pritchett’s dour Grace Poole, which contrasts with the seemingly well-meaning but stifled Bessie.

    Then there’s Joy Yvonne Jones, who earns laughs as the shade-throwing Blanche Ingram just as easily as she does with a single “uh uh” uttered as servant Leah. Todd Waite stealing focus, albeit briefly, as John, Colonel Dent and Mr. Wood, and Gabriel Regojo’s rigid St. John Rivers, though he stands out even more as Jane’s bratty cousin John Reed.

    Finally, nothing says both Gothic and an English countryside setting like a stormy night – complete with the sound of pelting rain, blinding white flashes of lightning and loud cracks of thunder – which is exactly what audiences walk into when they take their seats in the Hubbard Theatre. The stage is mostly bare, shrouded in shadows with a single, flickering oil lamp set on a desk, but scenic designer John Coyne quickly proves its dexterity. Valérie Thérèse Bart’s serviceable costumes, Alberto Segarra’s moody lighting and Melanie Chen Cole’s rich sound designs, which range from string heavy instrumentals that set the (metaphorical) stage to one particular cacophonous moment that elicits very real chills.

    The point, dear reader, is that Williamson and the Alley have mounted a Jane Eyre production that is very nearly perfect, so much so that you won’t need the threat of failing English class to stay awake through it. Instead, the show comes and goes in a most pleasing blink of an eye, something anyone can appreciate, but especially anyone who’s sat down by desire or coercion to read the 466-page book.

    Performances continue at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, through May 5 at Alley Theatre, 615 Texas. For more information, call 713-220-5700 or visit alleytheatre.org. $29-$81.

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    Natalie de la Garza

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  • Best Bets: Earth Day, Noche Caliente and a Spring Festival

    Best Bets: Earth Day, Noche Caliente and a Spring Festival

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    In honor of Earth Day, which is coming up on April 22, as well as National Exercise Day, we encourage you to walk to whenever you can to reach out best bets, or at least take public transport. It will be worth it, as this week we’ve got a musical inspired by a cult classic, a spring festival, and a classic ballet. Keep reading for these and much more.

    February marked the 60th anniversary of the start of Beatlemania – specifically, February 1964 was when four lads from Liverpool appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, playing along to “She Loves You,” for “a whopping 73 million viewers and an in-studio audience of 700.” Sixty years may have passed, but on Thursday, April 18, at 7:30 p.m. you can join the Houston Symphony as they welcome a band of Beatles lookalikes and soundalikes for Classical Mystery Tour: A Tribute to The Beatles at Jones Hall. The concert will feature more than two dozen of The Beatles’ classic songs – “Yesterday,” “Hey Jude,” and “Penny Lane” to name a few – all played as they were originally recorded. The show will be performed a second time on Friday, April 19, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets to either in-hall performance can be purchased here for $63 to $195.

    On Friday, April 19, at 7:30 p.m. Houston Grand Opera will present Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s take on the legend of Don Juan, Don Giovanni. Luca Pisaroni, the bass-baritone who’s set to play the title character, recently told the Houston Press that “Don Giovanni has an aura of mystery and there is an historical relevance, a vocal and acting challenge that as an artist and a singer you cannot ignore,” adding that the music is “amazing,” noting that “every time you get close to it, you realize how profound the music is and how modern it is compared to what we were hearing at that time.” Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Fridays, Saturday and Wednesday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Wortham Theater Center through May 3. Tickets can be purchased here for $25 to $210.

    A 1936 propaganda film inspired Kevin Murphy and Dan Studney to create Reefer Madness: The Musical, which The Garden Theatre will open at the MATCH on Friday, April 19, at 8 p.m. The musical – based on a famous (or infamous) “low-budget exploitation film” turned cult classic that “was financed and commissioned by a church group with the intention to raise awareness on the ‘dangers’ of marijuana to a ludicrous degree” – celebrated its 25th anniversary last year, and you won’t want to miss this chance to get in on the party. Additional performances will run through April 27 and are scheduled for 1, 6 and 10:30 p.m. Saturday, April 20; 2 p.m. Sunday, April 21; 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 25; 8 p.m. Friday, April 26; and 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, April 27. Tickets can be purchased here for $23 to $28.

    The first Earth Day dates back to April 22, 1970 – a time before the existence of the Environmental Protection Agency or legislation like the Clean Air and Clean Water acts. Across the nation, 20 million people turned out, making the day a “the precursor of the largest grassroots environmental movement in U.S. history.” On Saturday, April 20, from noon to 5 p.m. you can celebrate Earth Day at Discovery Green. The afternoon will feature performances from Calmecac Indigenous Arts Dancers and Lee’s Golden Dragons; music from Jukebox Trainwreck, a band that “recycles” songs you know into something new; art demonstrations, live painting, and a “battle” of chalk artists; art installations, such as art cars and solar and wind power sculptures; documentary shorts; crafts; lots of opportunities to find ways to get involved and more much. All are welcome to the free event.

    Witness the world premiere of Music for New Bodies, the first collaboration from composer Matthew Aucoin and director Peter Sellars, on Saturday, April 20, at 8 p.m. at Brockman Hall for Opera in The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. DACAMERA and The Shepherd School of Music will present the piece, inspired by the poetry of Jorie Graham, and performed by five vocalists and an 18-instrument ensemble comprised of Shepherd School of Music students and DACAMERA Young Artists. The concert will be followed by a conversation with Aucoin, Sellars and Joseph Campana, poet and director of the Center for Environmental Studies at Rice, moderated by DACAMERA’s Artistic Director Sarah Rothenberg. Tickets can be purchased here for $41 to $81.

    The celebration of different Hispanic cultures through music will make for a “hot night” at Miller Outdoor Theatre on Saturday, April 20, at 8:15 p.m. during the 23rd Annual Noche Caliente featuring David Sánchez and produced by the Diaz Music Institute. Sánchez is “recognized as one of the greatest tenor saxophonists in the world,” the winner of a Latin Grammy in 2005 and someone “known for exploring and combining his Latin heritage, Pan African influences, and the fundamentals of jazz in his music compositions.” During the concert, Sánchez performing with Houston youth group “Caliente,” under the direction of Grammy-nominated music educator Jose Antonio Diaz. The event is free, and you can get reserve your free tickets here starting at 10 a.m. on Friday, April 19, or you can plan for the ticketless seating on the Hill. 

    If you’re not aware, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, opened in 1924, which means this year we’re celebrating the museum’s 100th anniversary. The perfect way to start the celebration is during the museum’s Spring Festival – New Beginnings on Sunday, April 21, from 1 to 5 p.m. in the Brown Foundation, Inc. Plaza and the Cullen Sculpture Garden. The family-friendly event will include musical and dance performances, international food vendors, artmaking stations and activity tables, such as a table to see an Arabic calligraphy demonstration (with the Islamic Arts Society) and story time (with the Houston Public Library), and much more. Admission is free all day to both the museum’s permanent-collection galleries and the Spring Festival. No tickets needed for the outdoor activities, and you can reserve a free ticket to enter the museum here.

    Fun fact: Despite Swan Lake being one of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “sure-fire hits for ballet companies around the world” – along with The Nutcracker and The Sleeping Beauty – “was a critical failure when it was first performed by the Bolshoi Ballet in 1877.” Critics aside, “the audience lapped it up,” and on Sunday, April 21, at 2 p.m. you can catch the classic ballet at the Wortham Theater Center when Performing Arts Houston brings World Ballet Series: Swan Lake to town. The project features hand-painted sets, more than 150 costumes and, of course, all of the ballet’s classic moments, such as the Dance of the Cygnets, Odile’s 32 fouettés and the Black Swan pas de deux. The ballet will be performed a second time on Sunday, April 21, at 6 p.m. Tickets to either performance can be purchased here for $45 to $125.

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    Natalie de la Garza

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  • Best Bets: Rebirth, Houston’s Got Bollywood and The Taming of the Shrew

    Best Bets: Rebirth, Houston’s Got Bollywood and The Taming of the Shrew

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    Interestingly, today is National Barbershop Quartet Day. We don’t have any barbershop quartets on this week’s list of best bets, but we do have plenty of musical performances, from a Tony Award-winning musical about an American icon to Bollywood in the Bayou City, as well as films, dance, and theater shows. Keep reading for these and more events on our list of best bets.

    For decades, Rob Reiner’s 1987 film The Princess Bride, “a high-spirited adventure that pits true love against inconceivable odds,” has been charming “legions of fans with its irreverent gags, eccentric ensemble, and dazzling swordplay.” On Thursday, April 11, at 7:30 p.m. Performing Arts Houston will welcome the actor who played heroic farm boy Westley, Cary Elwes, to Jones Hall for The Princess Bride: An Inconceivable Evening with Cary Elwes. Following a screening of the film, Elwes, who authored As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales From the Making of The Princess Bride, will join Houston Public Media‘s Ernie Manouse to give audiences a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film during a moderated discussion. A second screening is scheduled for Friday, April 12, at 7:30 p.m. and tickets to either are available here for $39 to $99.

    The 1950s-style American sitcom meets William Shakespeare in Classical Theatre Company’s upcoming production of The Bard’s The Taming of the Shrew, which opens at The DeLuxe Theater on Friday, April 12, at 7:30 p.m. Director Dana Bowman has noted that the classic is “definitely a sexist play,” and their approach is to “look back at the 1950s and sort of see what parallels we can draw” while staging it as sitcom – like Father Knows Best or The Dick Van Dyke Show – so “it can still be fun.” The production, which will conclude the company’s season-long celebration of iconic women, will run through April 20 with performances scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and April 15; 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays; and 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets can be purchased here for $10 to $30.

    Art on wheels once again comes to the streets of Houston as The Orange Show Center For Visionary Art presents the 37th Annual Art Car Parade, led by Saint Arnold’s founder Brock Wagner and scheduled to start at 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 13, on Allen Parkway between Bagby and Dallas. Orange Show Executive Director Tommy Ralph Pace recently told the Houston Press that he thinks the event “is more about celebrating the spirit of creativity that the city of Houston has,” adding that “it’s such an incredible honor to be able to steward this celebration for the city.” If you can’t get your fill of art car celebrations, information about the events around the parade, such as the Art Car Ball on Friday, April 12, can be found here. The parade is free to attend.

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    Houston’s Got Bollywood returns to Miller Outdoor Theatre on Saturday with Once Upon a Time to Happily Ever After.

    Photo by Navin Mediwala

    Bollywood, the “humorous moniker for the Indian cinema industry,” will come to Miller Outdoor Theatre on Saturday, April 13, at 8:15 p.m. during Houston’s Got Bollywood – Once Upon a Time to Happily Ever produced by Moksh Community Arts. The dance-theater performance by Naach Houston will feature 50 dancers in beautiful costumes telling short stories across four acts, all of which draws from the “extravagant song-and-dance scenes, romantic melodrama, and eye-catching set designs” Bollywood is known for. Like all shows at Miller Outdoor Theatre, this one is free and you can reserve free tickets here starting at 10 a.m. on Friday, April 12, if you want an assigned, covered seat. Alternatively, you can bring a blanket or lawn chair and head for the ticketless seating on the Hill.

    There’s a new dance collective in town, and you can get your first look at the Skylar Campbell Dance Collective when they present their debut showcase, titled Rebirth, at 7 p.m. on Sunday, April 14, at the MATCH. Campbell, a principal dancer with Houston Ballet, curates the evening, which features works from Guillaume Cote, Kristina Paulin and Alexei Ratmansky, along with world premiere commissions from Julia Adam, Robert Binet, Connor Walsh and Jack Wolff. Completing the program will be the talents of dancers from Houston Ballet and National Ballet of Canada, as well as live music provided by Tonya Burton and Yvonne Chen of the Monarch Chamber Players. Tickets to the performance, which is expected to run about 60 minutes, can be purchased here for $45.

    In 1979, tension between the fishing community of Seadrift, Texas, and an influx of Vietnamese immigrants led to the shooting of a local white man by a Vietnamese man, an incident that got the attention of the Ku Klux Klan and would later inspire the film Alamo Bay. On Tuesday, April 16, at 7 p.m. Asia Society Texas, in partnership with Humanities Texas, will present a screening of the documentary Seadrift followed by a talk and audience Q&A with Tim Tsai, the film’s director. Tsai has said that questions about Seadrift – like “Are the Vietnamese still there? Is it possible for a community to heal from past division and violence? If yes, how?” – “compelled” him “to find out more.” Admission is free, but registration is required here.

    The Tony Award-winning musical about the woman born Cherilyn Sarkisian but known today simply as Cher will come to the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts on Tuesday, April 16, at 7:30 p.m. when Theatre Under the Stars opens the national touring production of The Cher Show. Cher is played by three actresses in the production, and one of those actresses, Morgan Scott, recently told the Houston Press that she thinks Cher’s “re-invention of herself is what makes her absolutely so incredible,” adding that the show – even for non-Cher fans – is “a really uplifting and empowering show to go to.” Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays and Sundays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 2 p.m. Sundays through April 28. Tickets can be purchased here for $40 to $139.

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    Natalie de la Garza

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  • Willy Wonka Experience’s The Unknown Has a New Gig

    Willy Wonka Experience’s The Unknown Has a New Gig

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    Photo: Daily Mail/YouTube

    Sure you’ve heard about the mortifying ordeal of being known. But what about being The Unknown? The viral, execrable Willy Wonka Experience in Glasgow may have closed up shop, but it’s not forgotten. Who could forget that sad Oompa Loompa? The children’s experience became the stuff of legends when posters got ahold of the AI script, disappointing decor, and original character The Unknown, who popped out from behind a mirror and disturbed kids and adults alike.

    The London Dungeon has decided to preserve a meme in amber and hire Felicia Dawkins, a.k.a. The Unknown, as a player in their haunted attraction. “Training and performing with the London Dungeon actors is honestly a dream come true. The costumes and make-up are next level, and to have a script that isn’t AI-generated is something new for me,” Dawkins told the Mirror. Dawkins has been in rehearsals for a few weeks, and her first show was Sunday, April 7. “I’ve always been a fan of the Dungeons so this feels like a full circle moment working in London,” the Glaswegian Dawkins said, “who knew that strange experience would lead me here.” Dawkins will be playing Nun, the Jester, and the Tower Warden, sans shiny mask.

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    By Bethy Squires

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  • Barbara Rush on how she wants to be remembered in exclusive 1986 interview

    Barbara Rush on how she wants to be remembered in exclusive 1986 interview

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    Barbara Rush discussed her most cherished project, how she wanted to be remembered in exclusive 1986 interview

    Rush said, ‘I would like to be that kind of person’ about her portrayal of a women’s liberation pioneer

    Actress Barbara Rush, known for her work on film, TV and stage, gave an exclusive interview in 1986 about her most cherished project.The one-woman play showcased the extraordinary life of Bess Alcott Garner, a woman 50 years ahead of the Women’s Liberation Movement. Rush revealed a woman who liberated herself through a zest for life, learning and travel.Rush’s performance captured Garner’s independent spirit and intellectual curiosity, aspects that deeply resonated with Rush herself. Garner epitomized a relentless pursuit of knowledge and experience that Rush admired.Rush said the play was her most satisfying success, embodying the idea that it is never too late to explore new horizons or redefine oneself.As “A Woman of Independent Means” concluded its run, Rush hoped her epitaph would read, “To be continued,” a testament to her belief in the ongoing journey of self-discovery and adventure. WATCH the exclusive interview and hear in her own words how Rush wanted to be remembered. Barbara Rush died on Easter Sunday. She was 97.

    SAN FRANCISCO —

    Actress Barbara Rush, known for her work on film, TV and stage, gave an exclusive interview in 1986 about her most cherished project.

    The one-woman play showcased the extraordinary life of Bess Alcott Garner, a woman 50 years ahead of the Women’s Liberation Movement. Rush revealed a woman who liberated herself through a zest for life, learning and travel.

    Rush’s performance captured Garner’s independent spirit and intellectual curiosity, aspects that deeply resonated with Rush herself. Garner epitomized a relentless pursuit of knowledge and experience that Rush admired.

    Rush said the play was her most satisfying success, embodying the idea that it is never too late to explore new horizons or redefine oneself.

    As “A Woman of Independent Means” concluded its run, Rush hoped her epitaph would read, “To be continued,” a testament to her belief in the ongoing journey of self-discovery and adventure.

    WATCH the exclusive interview and hear in her own words how Rush wanted to be remembered.

    Barbara Rush died on Easter Sunday. She was 97.

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  • Spectrum 8 Theatre to reopen under Scene One Entertainment

    Spectrum 8 Theatre to reopen under Scene One Entertainment

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    ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — A legendary movie theater in the city of Albany will once again be shining films across the silver screen. The Spectrum 8 Theatre on Delaware Avenue will reopen under the management of Scene One Entertainment.

    Spectrum 8 first opened in 1983 and held its last screening on Feb. 22. The theater was known for playing a variety of film genres, including independent, foreign, avant-garde, and widely released features.

    Many of its beloved characteristics will return when the theater reopens. Scene One Entertainment is owned by Capital Region native Joe Masher.

    “The overwhelming response to the theatre’s closing last month prompted me to move faster with the building’s owner to get the cinema reopened,” Masher said in a press release. “I’ve been working very closely with [Spectrum 8 co-founder] Keith Pickard to bring the heart and soul back into the Spectrum. The art gallery will be reactivated and the calendar that was published monthly will return.”

    In addition, moviegoers can also expect to find a return of the theater’s locally-sourced cakes,
    pastries, cookies, mint brownies, and real butter on the popcorn. The Spectrum will also serve alcoholic beverages once it obtains a liquor license.

    This will be the third theater operating for Scene One Entertainment in upstate New York — Scene One Movieland in Schenectady and Scene One Wilton Mall Cinemas.

    The theater is expected to be up and running in April.

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    Courtney Ward

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  • Best Bets: The Outsider, Amélie and Ronstadt Revue

    Best Bets: The Outsider, Amélie and Ronstadt Revue

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    We’re moving into a new month this week, and keeping in mind the upcoming April showers that will allegedly bring May flowers, we’ve got plenty of things to do that are rain or shine and/or indoors. Keep reading for this week’s list of best bets.

    In Paul Slade Smith’s play, The Outsider, the man who wants it least becomes governor and you can find out what happens next when Mighty Acorn Productions and WCO Productions present the show at the MATCH on Thursday, March 28, at 7:30 p.m. Director Frances Limoncelli recently described the play as “a hilarious comedy” that makes “fun of American politics without bringing parties into it,” adding that it’s actually “a very uplifting and loving send-up of American politics” and should be “a relief for audiences who are probably pretty worn out with just how upsetting, angry, and divisive American politics has been in recent years.” Performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays, and April 1 and 3; 3 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays; and 3 p.m. Sundays through April 7. Tickets can be purchased here for $35.

    Some call it “camp,” and it “frequently shows up on those so-bad-it’s-good lists,” but Berry Gordy’s Black cinema classic, 1975’s Mahogany starring Diana Ross, also “offers some serious cultural insights.” And as Houston Museum for African American Culture film curator Jasmine Jones recently told the Houston Chronicle, the film is “pretty well-loved in the [Black] community.” On Thursday, March 28, at 7:30 p.m. HMAAC and Houston Cinema Arts Society will screen the film – a “rags-to-chiffon-to-self-discovery story” about “a gritty gamine from the Detroit hood who is mesmerized by the transformative power of fashion” – at the DeLUXE Theater. Tickets can be purchased here and are priced on a sliding scale starting at $10, and don’t forget to don your best 1970s-era fashion for the occasion.

    Language stands as a barrier between father and son in Don X. Nguyen’s play, The World is Not Silent, which you can catch at the Alley Theatre this Thursday, March, 28 at 7:30 p.m. Nguyen’s family fled Vietnam for Nebraska when he was three years old, and of the “semi-autobiographical play,” Nguyen told the Houston Press that he and his father have always had a “communication gap,” which resulted in Nguyen penning a multilingual show – with English, Vietnamese, American Sign Language and Vietnamese Sign Language – that is “full of humor and warmth.” Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, and 7 p.m. Sundays, through April 14. Tickets can be purchased here for $43 to $75.

    The French Cultures Festival continues and makes a stop at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston this weekend with three screenings of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s 2001 film Amélie (Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain). The “unconventional romantic comedy sees Amélie – played wonderfully by Audrey Tautou – encounter a series of fellow oddballs, and provides glimpses into the curious lives of others while celebrating the unique charm of France’s capital city,” and it “captured the hearts of audiences upon release.” Since then, “its rich legacy continues, having inspired a musical, and even the name of a newly-discovered species of frog.” The first screening is set for Friday, March 29, at 7 p.m. Two additional screenings are scheduled for 7 p.m. on Saturday, March 30, and 5 p.m. Sunday, March 31. Tickets to the screenings can be purchased here for $7 to $9.

    Linda Ronstadt – who “became a pop icon in the 1970s, reigning over the radio and dethroning rock heavyweights like Elton John and Led Zeppelin on the charts” – may be retired from performing, but on Friday, March 29, at 8 p.m. you can still hear some of her most classics songs during the Ronstadt Revue Featuring Gesenia at Miller Outdoor Theatre. Gesenia will perform songs like “You’re No Good” and “Blue Bayou” during the free performance, and you can get reserve your free tickets here starting at 10 a.m. on March 28. As always, seating on the Hill is ticketless and, if you can’t make it out, you can watch the show on the Miller Outdoor Theatre website, YouTube channel, or Facebook page.

    Not only is Romeo and Juliet “the most ambitious” of Sergei Prokofiev’s “non-operatic scores,” it is arguably Prokofiev’s “most loved score today.” On Friday, March 29, at 8 p.m., Houston Symphony will present selections from the score during Romeo and Juliet + Dvořák’s Cello Concerto at Jones Hall. Conductor Xian Zhang will lead the Symphony in Prokofiev as well as Dorothy Chang’s Northern Star, and cellist Brinton Averil Smith will join to take on Antonín Dvořák’s Cello Concerto. The concert will be performed a second time on Saturday, March 30, at 8 p.m. Tickets for either in-hall performance can be purchased here for $36 to $120. If you can’t make it, Saturday night’s show will also be livestreamed and access can be purchased here for $20.

    Two men in a fictious Texas town fight over the use of the N-word in Thomas Meloncon’s Stagolee and the Funeral of a Dangerous Word, a world premiere that will officially open at Main Street Theater on Saturday, March 30, at 7:30 p.m. The author and associate professor at Texas Southern University recently told the Houston Press that he hopes “we come to a better understanding of this word, a word that has been used as a weapon of mass destruction both internally and externally.” Though opening night is sold out, performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays (with no performance scheduled on March 31) through April 21. Tickets for the production can be purchased here for $35 to $59.

    Get ready for an evening of Latin American music on Saturday, March 30, at 8 p.m. during Romance! Produced by the Houston Latin American Philharmonic Orchestra at Miller Outdoor Theatre. This performance marks the third year that the Houston Latin American Philharmonic Orchestra, comprised of 50 musicians and under the lead of Glenn Garrido, stops by Miller. You can get reserve your free tickets here starting at 10 a.m. on March 29, or you can head for the ticketless seating on the Hill. 

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    Natalie de la Garza

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  • Former theater teacher in Kannapolis is facing allegations of sex crimes involving student

    Former theater teacher in Kannapolis is facing allegations of sex crimes involving student

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    A former theater teacher at a Kannapolis high school is facing multiple charges for alleged sexual miscoduct with a student.

    A former theater teacher at a Kannapolis high school is facing multiple charges for alleged sexual miscoduct with a student.

    Getty Images/iStockphoto

    A former theater teacher at A.L. Brown High School in Kannapolis was arrested March 19 on felony charges alleging he had inappropriate communication with a 15-year-old student, a press release said.

    The Kannapolis Police Department investigated after receiving information about Jordan Correll’s alleged misconduct the day before his arrest, police said.

    The investigation led police to allege inappropriate communication and sexual acts by Correll toward the student.

    Ashley Forrest, a spokesperson for the school district, confirmed Correll, 29, was employed as a theater teacher from August 2020 until March 19. She said he was no longer employed by the school district when the arrest was made.

    “Kannapolis City Schools continues to work closely with the Kannapolis Police Department and we are unable to comment further as they conduct their investigation,” Forrest said in a statement. “The district wants to reassure our community that we remain dedicated to maintaining a safe and respectful environment for all.”

    Correll was charged with indecent liberties with a student, four counts of indecent liberties with a child, and two counts of statutory sex offense with a child less than or equal to 15 years of age.

    He was being held in the Cabarrus County Jail with bond set at $1 million.

    Related stories from Charlotte Observer

    Jeff A. Chamer is a breaking news reporter for the Charlotte Observer. He’s lived a few places, but mainly in Michigan where he grew up. Before joining the Observer, Jeff covered K-12 and higher education at the Worcester Telegram & Gazette in Massachusetts.

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  • Icon Patti LuPone Shares ‘A Life in Notes’ in Masterful Eisemann Center Show

    Icon Patti LuPone Shares ‘A Life in Notes’ in Masterful Eisemann Center Show

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    “Music is a gift, and has a power to crystallize a moment,” said a breathless Patti LuPone on Saturday night, moments after sweeping onto the Eisemann Center’s Hill Performance Hall stage, on the receiving end of the first of many standing ovations. “This is my life in music — so far.”…

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    Preston Jones

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  • Theater Review: Broadway’s ‘The Notebook’ Is Shallow, Boring and Slow

    Theater Review: Broadway’s ‘The Notebook’ Is Shallow, Boring and Slow

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    Joy Woods and Ryan Vasquez as ‘Middle Allie’ and ‘Middle Noah’ in ‘The Notebook’ on Broadway. Copyright 2024 Julieta Cervantes

    The Notebook | 2hrs 20mins. One intermission. | Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre | 236 West 45th Street | (212) 239-6200

    Why are Broadway musicals suddenly so lousy? Many reasons, I can safely assume: geniuses die, leaving a hole in history with no one to replace them; teams of amateur hacks are everywhere, filling gaps once occupied by Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Oscar Hammerstein, Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, Lerner and Loewe, and Comden and Green; considering the garbage they listen to every day, it’s no wonder wanna-be songwriters couldn’t write a memorable melody or an intelligent lyric line with a gun to their heads; clueless producers with no taste plunk down plenty of money to finance projects without a hope in hell of commercial success. Nobody has written a classic musical score with any originality and style since the death of Stephen Sondheim.

    After his lovely and haunting Light in the Piazza, I had high hopes for Adam Guettel, but this season’s flop, The Days of Wine and Roses, proves the rumor that he spends every waking moment thinking of ways to avoid any comparison to his illustrious grandfather, the one and only Richard Rodgers. So what we’re getting instead of fresh, original musicals is increasingly forgettable carbons of old movies. The newest disappointments are The Notebook and Water for Elephants, a pair of gooey, predictable and temporary tearjerkers based on two of those corny romance novels cut from the same fabric as The Bridges of Madison County that teenagers drag to the beach with a nickel pack of Kleenex.

    More about Water for Elephants next week, but first The Notebook,  saccharine fiction by Nicholas Sparks that found its way into an inevitable 2004 movie that shamelessly poured on more schmaltz as it chronicled events in the labored story of Allie and Noah, a pair of lovers who survive endless pitfalls for five decades and still love each other long after mutual devotion has been invaded by personal tragedy. The movie tells the story of their saga through the eyes of two separate versions of Allie and Noah, who are of different ages. The device was annoying, but I remember enjoying it anyway. With older Allie and Noah played by ravishing Gena Rowlands and charming James Garner, and younger Allie and Noah played by beautiful Rachel McAdams and handsome newcomer Ryan Gosling before he became a Ken doll, what’s not to like?

    Maryann Plunkett (left), Joy Woods (center) and Jordan Tyson (right) as Allie in ‘The Notebook’ on Broadway. Copyright 2024 Julieta Cervantes

    The choppy, overwrought new Broadway production turns Allie and Noah into three couples instead of two, and every time they waft in and out of each other’s story, their races change along with their genders. The old Allie is now an elderly blonde in a nursing home suffering from dementia, and the old Noah, who seems years her senior, is black. She doesn’t know if he’s the janitor or a fellow patient, but one thing she never suspects is that he’s been her husband for 54 years. Cut to two periods in their youth, and the two Allies are suddenly black, and their Noahs are white. They all sing loud, which is not the same thing as good, but to no effect because the score is so forgettable that the songs seem to be inserted for the sole purpose of dragging out the running time. To make everything doubly confusing, old Allie doesn’t know who anyone is, including herself. From the baffled comments overheard during intermission, the audience didn’t seem to know, either. It is doubtful that half the audience knew all those people they were watching were playing the same two characters.  

    Before Noah can rehabilitate Allie and bring her back to normal, he has a stroke and now there are two lovers in terminal danger. No mention is made of the interracial pairings, so it is unfair to dwell on that aspect of the confusion, but when all six Allies and Noahs sing together, chaos reigns. What worked on the screen in a lugubrious, long-winded way doesn’t work on the stage at all. Both Ingrid Michaelson, who penned the boring, surface-deep songs, and Bekah Brunstetter, who wrote the shallow, sentimental book, are making their Broadway debuts, and the lack of experience shows. The badly needed element of poignancy to add depth to cardboard characters is nowhere in sight.

    The cast of ‘The Notebook’ on Broadway. Copyright 2024 Julieta Cervantes

    This a shame because Maryann Plunkett and Dorian Harewood, who play Older Allie and Older Noah, are engaging pros who deserve a better showcase. I was especially excited to see Harewood in a leading role that guaranteed Broadway stardom at last. I once shared the stage with him in one of those all-star AIDS benefits in Hollywood that showcased the historic songs of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe and he sang a heartbreaking arrangement of “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face” and “Gigi” I have never forgotten. I thought the stardom that had unfairly eluded him in the past would finally happen at last when he co-starred in the 1974 Broadway musical Miss Moffat, the musical version of The Corn is Green, starring the one and only Bette Davis. Alas, it closed in previews.

    Now, here he is, at last, excellent as always but woefully denied any kind of show-stopping number you could confidently call memorable. This is the fate of the entire cast, unexceptionally choreographed by Katie Spelman and directed with mediocrity (there’s that over-riding keyword again) by Schele Williams, both of whom are also making their soggy Broadway debuts. Michael Greif, curiously listed as a second director for reasons known only to the producers, has done fine work elsewhere, but in The Notebook, he doesn’t appear to do much more than move the actors from one dark part of a room into the next, like furniture.

    The result is a shallow, boring and totally irresolute The Notebook that crawls at a snail’s pace.

    Buy Tickets Here

    Theater Review: Broadway’s ‘The Notebook’ Is Shallow, Boring and Slow

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    Rex Reed

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  • Wild, Whimsical, Irreverent Beetlejuice at Broadway at the Hobby Center

    Wild, Whimsical, Irreverent Beetlejuice at Broadway at the Hobby Center

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    There’s a little movie from 1988 called Beetlejuice. You may have heard of it. Directed by Tim Burton and starring Michael Keaton as the title character, it’s kind of famous. Well, there’s a musical version, one that opened on Broadway in 2019, and guess where it is now on tour.

    That’s right. Beetlejuice (the musical, the musical, the musical) is here in Houston, courtesy of Memorial Hermann Broadway at the Hobby Center, and it’s both exactly what you’d expect and nothing at all like you’ve seen.

    But first, the story.

    Somewhere in New York, teenager Lydia Deetz’s mother dies. Somewhere in Connecticut, married couple Adam and Barbara Maitland find themselves unceremoniously, well, recently deceased, too. When Lydia’s father buys the Maitlands’ former home and moves the two in, Lydia discovers that not only can she see ghost-Adam and ghost-Barbara, but that they have something in common: Lydia wants to go home to New York, and Adam and Barbara want their house back. But there’s an elephant in the room. His name is Beetlejuice, and he has every intention of using this situation to his advantage. Specifically, he needs someone living to say his name three times. Once they do, he’ll be visible to people and, if that seems like a bad thing, it’s because it is.

    Because he’s a demon.

    As longtime owners of a mock copy of the Handbook for the Recently Deceased will surely recognize (i.e. fans of the film will no doubt notice), the musical is much more a reimagining of Burton’s film than a faithful adaptation. The book, by Scott Brown and Anthony King, takes some big liberties – “What a departure from the source material,” says Beetlejuice in an early meta moment – but the show is all the better for it, balancing heart with humor and crass with sensitivity. It’s a balancing act that director Alex Timbers handles well amidst the chaotic frenzy that is most of the show.

    click to enlarge

    Isabella Esler (Lydia), Will Burton (Adam) and Megan McGinnis (Barbara) in Beetlejuice.

    Photo by Dan Norman, 2023

    That said, there’s still plenty of nostalgia here, with the production hitting on the film’s most iconic characters, looks, and sounds which, yes, include the Harry Belafonte tunes. I know I, for one, would be rioting if the show didn’t include some bit of “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” and “Jump in the Line (Shake, Señora).” Eddie Perfect wrote the original music and lyrics for the show and, while the songs certainly serve the story and aren’t bad, per se, there aren’t really any breakout numbers either. Connor Gallagher’s choreography does its best to enhance the fun of the numbers and does, but…Let’s put it this way, I don’t know if you’ll leave humming any tune other than Belafonte’s.

    But that’s not really why we’re here. We’re here for Beetlejuice and the demon of the hour does not disappoint.

    Is it possible to be a scene-stealer in a show where you play the titular character? Probably not, but Justin Collette certainly owns every second he’s on stage. As “the ghost with the most,” Collette is a naughty fourth-wall breaker with a throaty growl that nods to Michael Keaton’s classic performance and a screaming delivery that is even more reminiscent of (and rivals) the late Sam Kinison. The jokes fly, fast and furious, and Collette’s timing is unmatched – especially when he rides the never-ending waves of the audience’s appreciation. Needless to say, they ate up every bit of Collette’s performance.

    Isabella Esler is the heart of the production, balancing out and calming the show with her vulnerability as a young girl dealing with the devastation of losing her mom. It’s impossible not to feel for her when she sings of being invisible, and even more so later during the numbers “Dead Mom” and “Home.” Of course, Esler also puts on a fun performance during the second act’s “Creepy Old Guy” bit.

    As the white-bread couple coming into their own post-mortem, Megan McGinnis (Barbara) and Will Burton (Adam) are pretty fun to watch. They rapidly establish themselves and get out their anxieties during “Ready, Set, Not Yet,” and spend much of the rest of the show being harassed by Beetlejuice and bonding with Lydia. And that’s exactly what you want to see from them.

    click to enlarge

    Justin Collette (Beetlejuice) in Beetlejuice.

    Photo by Matthew Murphy, 2022

    Jesse Sharp makes the believable turn from weirdo-aloof-dad to kind-of-normal, kind-of-understandable dad as Charles. Sarah Litzsinger’s Delia is over-the-top obnoxious, but still somehow likable in the end and that’s skill.

    Abe Goldfarb’s Otho with the Toyota Prius is just right in terms of not minding so much when he ends up stuck in a Beetlejuice-designed wacky (and deadly) game show. With a very particular laugh, Kris Roberts’s Maxine Dean certainly catches the eye, but it’s Roberts’s later turn as Juno, an angry old Netherworld worker with a surprising connection to Beetlejuice that makes for a good if unexpected villain.

    Special mentions also go out to Jackera Davis as a sweet-voiced Girl Scout named Sky, who opens the second act with an unexpectedly fun number (aptly titled “Girl Scout”) and Hillary Porter’s Miss Argentina, who drops “What I Know Now” with gusto befitting a former beauty queen.

    Beetlejuice has an undeniable carnival-like feel, a current of whimsy and irreverence running through the show’s length that is only heightened by scenic designer David Korins. Korins has crafted an ode to Burton with his sets, all conspicuously lit by Kenneth Posner’s bold lighting designs and enhanced by Peter Nigrini’s projections.

    Burton’s spirit lives through the designs – sometimes only in spirit but sometimes quite literally with clear references to the filmmaker’s work. The expressionistic approach uses lots of angles, exaggerations, and distortions perfect for a show that only grows more outrageous as it goes on. The characters romp through a simple country house, to the same house redesigned with the more modern sensibilities of the Deetz family, and finally to the kind of hellish landscape you’d expect if you hired someone like Beetlejuice as your interior designer.

    William Ivey Long’s costumes (with assists from Charles G. LaPointe’s hair and wig design, and makeup by Joe Dulude II) fit the world Korins has created perfectly. As does all the trickery living in this production, a mix of Jeremy Chernick’s special effects and the magic and illusion designs of Michael Weber, and Michael Curry’s puppets (it’s sand worms, people, there are sand worms).

    Beetlejuice is a wild ride, non-stop and thrilling, with an eager-to-please personality that’s hard to resist. Not that anyone seemed to be trying to hard. And really, why would you? Don’t you want to be entertained? If so, on entertainment alone, I don’t know if you’ll see a better show in Houston this year. And that’s definitely saying something.

    Performances will continue at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 1:30 and 7 p.m. Sunday through March 10 at The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-2525 or visit broadwayatthehobbycenter.com or thehobbycenter.org. $40-$250.

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    Natalie de la Garza

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  • Masculine Dynamics at Play in Rec Room’s Deeply Perceptive King James

    Masculine Dynamics at Play in Rec Room’s Deeply Perceptive King James

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    Quite famously, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick viewed male homosociality as being shaped like a triangle. Two men and one woman, through which they would express their intense feelings (because heaven forbid they ever expresses their feelings to each other). Sedgwick tracked this through a couple of centuries of English literature, in which a woman always served as the third point on that triangle. Probably because those 17th- and 18th- century authors could not have foreseen the coming of a 6’9 basketball prodigy from Akron, Ohio.

    Luckily, playwright Rajiv Joseph lived through the era of that power forward-playing messiah-turned-Judas-turned-back-to-messiah, and has used that man, Lebron James, as the third point on the triangle to explore the tension-filled friendship between Cleveland Cavalier-loving fans in King James, now playing at Rec Room Arts.

    The play opens in 2004, where Cleveland barkeep Matt needs cash and needs it fast. He needs it so much that he’s willing to part with his Cavs’ season tickets – tickets, mind you, for James’ rookie season. His potential buyer is Shawn, whose third job of writing (third after temping and washing dishes) just gave him the disposable income necessary to fulfill a longtime promise to himself to buy good Cavs tickets. Well, almost. Matt’s asking price of $6,500 for two tickets to the remaining 19 Cavs’ home games is too much for Shawn. But between Matt’s desire to sell the tickets to someone who will appreciate them (not to mention, again, his desperate need for money), and Shawn’s persistence and shared love of the Cavs, it’s not long before the men find themselves making a deal. It’s a deal that leads to a friendship that spans the next 12 years, which we check in on at different major milestones in James’ career.

    Despite its title and set up, King James is not about basketball (so no, no basketball knowledge is required going in). But it does use the sport to pose an interesting question: Is male friendship so tenuous (dare I say fragile) that the actions of a completely unrelated basketball player can threaten its very existence? For Joseph, the answer appears to be a resounding yes, and it’s not because basketball is so special. It’s because of the way men can and cannot communicate. For Matt and Shawn, their strongest feelings get conflated with the moves James makes, everything getting filtered through the prism of Lebron James and the Cavs – they’re friends “because of” the tickets; to Matt, Shawn leaving for New York is akin to Lebron leaving small-market Cleveland for Miami; etc.

    Through this, Joseph has crafted a tight, incisive look at a friendship that is both incredibly familiar and revealing, with part of its beauty being in the revelations that emerge in everyday conversations, masterfully brought to life actors Antonio Lasanta and Blake Weir. King James is a two-hander – deftly directed as one act with four quarters scenes by Philip Kershaw – and it’s a pleasure to watch the dynamic between Lasanta and Weir grow as the play progresses, their rapport going from stilted and awkward strangers to the comfortable camaraderie of good friends. But for Matt and Shawn, theirs is a mixed-race friendship, and we know it’s only a matter of time before someone (Matt) finally steps on a of landmine. It’s briefly teased when Matt makes an assumption that’s got Shawn asking Matt if he looks poor in 2003, and finally explodes when Matt says that James “lacks class” and doesn’t “know his place” later.

    The show is relatively short, clocking in somewhere under 90 minutes, and it really seems that Joseph makes a point of saying what he needs and then getting out as quickly as possible. Though it’s done well, it leaves Lasanta and Weir with the task of quickly and believably navigating from playful and hopeful to uncomfortable and resentful in record time, which they do beautifully.

    Speaking of beautiful, the show opens on a Stefan Azizi-designed set, cleverly lit by Coda Pariselli. It is every bit the neighborhood bar. Sturdy wood and red fairy lights grace the rotating, can’t-wait-to-see-the-other-side set. (And the little curio shop on the other side doesn’t disappoint at all.) Azizi and sound designer Robert Leslie Meek work together to establish and move time forward. There’s the Walkman giving way to earbuds, and a Motorola Razr turning to smart phones that are practically glued to the characters’ hands; while into the theater, Meek pipes in audio of key moments – the announcement of Lebron James as the first pick of the 2003 NBA draft, his infamous decision to take his talents to South Beach – as well as music, such as DJ Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win” to lead into 2010 and an excellently executed use of Chingy’s “Right Thurr” in 2003. Leah Smith’s on-point costumes round out the production’s design, with particular credit going to the store uniforms.

    Success may swing like a pendulum between Matt and Shawn in King James, but Rec Room’s production is nothing but successful. In the space of four little slices of life, every aspect of the production serves to mount a show fit for a (basketball) king.

    Performances of King James will continue at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays through March 16 at Rec Room, 100 Jackson. For more information, visit recroomarts.org. $5-$40.

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    Natalie de la Garza

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  • Off to Never Never Land: ‘Peter Pan’ flies again in a new tour after some much needed changes

    Off to Never Never Land: ‘Peter Pan’ flies again in a new tour after some much needed changes

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    NEW YORK — A new, inclusive stage production of “Peter Pan” flies out on a U.S. tour this month, telling the classic tale of a boy who refuses to grow up — but without references that, ironically, have aged poorly.

    Gone are elements harmful to Native people, in are a few new songs and the setting of Victorian England has been scrapped in favor of modern America with a multicultural cast.

    “Part of the why I wanted to do this is that it will be kids’ first experience in the theater, and I want them not only to fall in love with “Peter Pan,” but to fall in love with the theater and to come back,” says director Lonny Price.

    The show is based on the 1954 musical version — originally starring Broadway legend Mary Martin — with a score by Morris Charlap, additional lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and additional music by Jule Styne.

    Playwright Larissa FastHorse, who made history on Broadway in 2023 with her satirical comedy “The Thanksgiving Play,” was tapped to rework the story. She says she found the character of Peter Pan complex, the pirates funny, the music enchanting but the depictions of Indigenous people and women appalling.

    In the previous version, there were references to “redskins” throughout, a dance number with cringy gibberish for lyrics called “Ugg-A-Wugg” and Tiger Lily was described as fending off randy braves “with a hatchet.”

    “My goal for doing it was to make it not cause harm,” FastHorse says. “Because the music is so beautiful. The story is complicated and beautiful. It makes you laugh, it makes you cry, it does all those things and has so much magic.”

    The tour kicks off in Maryland this week and travels to North Carolina, Ohio, Illinois, Washington, D.C., South Carolina, Florida, Arizona, Nevada, California, Missouri, Texas and Georgia.

    “Ugg-A-Wugg” has been cut, replaced by the melody from a tune from the little-known 1961 Comden-Green-Styne musical “Subways Are for Sleeping,” married with new lyrics from Amanda Green, Adolph Green’s Tony Award-nominated daughter.

    Price also found in the original creators’ papers a “haunting, beautiful” song called “I Went Home,” which tells of a time when Peter returned home and found his window barred and another kid sleeping in his bed. Martin had asked for it to be cut before the premiere, fearing it was too sad. Price put it back in, arguing audiences are more mature these days.

    “I think kids can be a little upset now,” he says. “I don’t think it’s upsetting. I think it’s moving. I think it’s just a very moving piece. I don’t think anyone’s heard that song since 1954.” There’s also a reprise of “I Won’t Grow Up” for the second act curtain raiser called “We Hate Those Kinds,” sung by the pirates with lyrics by Green.

    FastHorse widened the concept of Native in the musical’s Neverland to encompass several members of under-pressure Indigenous cultures from all over the globe — Africa, Japan and Eastern Europe, among them — who have retreated to Neverland to preserve their culture until they can find a way back. Price hails it as an “elegant solution,” adding FastHorse “ was just the perfect writer for us.”

    FastHorse is the first ever Indigenous artist to revise the story, and she has done more than correct the perceptions of Native culture. She’s also deepened the women characters: Tiger Lily and Wendy both sing now, they both dance, they both fight and they speak to each other without Peter.

    FastHorse and Price’s version takes place in a modern day, middle class United States not Victorian England. The cast includes children of various races and ethnicities.

    “I want every child in this nation to look out their window of the national tour, to look out the window and believe Peter can fly by their window,” says FastHorse. “Our cast looks like America.”

    Price stresses that despite the changes, the fabric of the show has been maintained, especially the beautiful language lifted from James M. Barrie’s classic tale, like the notion that the birth of fairies comes from a child’s first laugh.

    “Peter Pan” is a hardy vehicle in any case, with five major Broadway revivals, countless tours, NBC’s 2015 “Peter Pan Live” with Allison Williams, the animated series “Jake and the Never Land Pirates,” the Broadway shows “Peter Pan Goes Wrong” and “Peter and the Starcatcher” and 2023’s live-action “Peter Pan & Wendy,” which added girls to the Lost Boys and featured a Black actor as Tinker Bell.

    Price says the appeal of Barrie’s work is intergenerational, grounded in notions of freedom, motherhood, innocence and a very human ambivalence about growing up.

    “Kids are afraid of growing up. Some of them want to grow up really fast. I think all adults have this conflicted relationship with growing up. So I think it’s a meditation on that and mortality as well,” says Price. “If you look at all of the themes of it, they’re very primal to us all.”

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    Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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