MAY 15, 2024

Dear Whisperites, 

The celebrities are coming! Even as we’re in the midst of wrapping up one Broadway season (and doesn’t every May Tony-campaign event feel a bit like an immersive staging of “the Blob” from Merrily?), producers are putting out announcements for the next. The ruling logic seems to be that, if you’re going to sell a show, you’ve gotta get a movie star — like, a very big star. Last week, Lincoln Center Theater announced Robert Downey Jr.’s Broadway debut in the play McNeal, in September, and then this week, we heard about George Clooney in Good Night, and Good Luck at a Shubert theater next spring. I think of them as a double act (Downey’s the Velma), complementing the very dad-appeal programming of Gyllenhaal and Washington doing Othello. 

But it’s still possible the season won’t look entirely like a Hollywood Reporter “Actors on Actors” roundtable. Darren Criss (not a giant star, except to Gleeks) is doing the robots-in-love musical Maybe Happy Ending, the Korean version of which won awards in Seoul; an American version premiered in Atlanta. 

Also, the Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard Death Becomes Her announced its own Broadway plans for the fall. I’ve heard good things about that being a camp delight, but only from gay men already obsessed with Jennifer Simard. (I would try to expand my sample size, but I don’t know anyone else.) Oh, and there’s also talk that the Off Broadway drama Job may be booking further employment at the Hayes. News for the gays and the not!

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New York Magazine says, “You are likely to leave Stereophonic wishing you could
buy the imaginary album immediately.” Well, now you can. The official cast
recording, featuring “exquisite” (Rolling Stone) original songs by Arcade Fire’s
Will Butler, is available to buy or stream everywhere. Visit StereophonicPlay.com
to hear the Tony®-nominated score of the most Tony-nominated play ever.

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This week’s grosses are here! Jackson McHenry, Jason P. Frank, Tom Smyth, and Rebecca Alter discuss.

Jason P. Frank: So, Back to the Future … The operating costs have gotta be massive, and I’m not sure how much more it can support doing just okay.

Jackson McHenry: They’ve got a tour starting soon, which I bet they hope also circulates interest back around to the full-on Broadway version. But it’s tough because so much other stuff is opening and getting more attention (aside from Roger Bart).

Tom Smyth: Casey Likes is doing Rent in Arizona for a weekend in July. That could bring in some Arizona tourism!

Jason: With Brita Filter as Angel. A 38-year-old Angel and a 22-year-old Roger — that’s a friend group I’d like to be part of.

Tom: Also, Roger Bart will be involved? 

Jason: Yes, there is a documentary screening beforehand with Roger Bart talking about his connection to Rent. Casey is also co-directing.

Jackson: The things it’s possible to see in Scottsdale. Meanwhile, Suffs is having quite a significant post-noms bump: up 12 percent in capacity! Though Suffs had the biggest change in capacity, Hell’s Kitchen is up the most in raw gross, 233k up to 1.5 million and 101 percent after those 13 nominations. The Wiz and Gatsby are just coasting along in the “Who needs good reviews or awards when you have a giant video screen and familiar IP?” club.

Rebecca Alter: The Heart of Rock and Roll at a 69 percent cap … nice.

Jackson: Lempicka is having its best week yet, of course because of and after announcing its closing. Just like Tamara, appreciated more after the fact. 

Rebecca: Woman is shape, form, canceled. 

By Sara Holdren

Photo: Matthew Murphy

Moisés Kaufman first saw the photographs that prompted the creation of Here There Are Blueberries in 2007. He first contacted Rebecca Erbelding, the archivist and historian who brought the photos to light, in 2010. The play — a documentary-style piece grappling with the images, which give a Nazi’s-eye view of Auschwitz — was written by Kaufman and Amanda Gronich and developed by Kaufman’s Tectonic Theater Project over more than a decade, building on research, interviews, and the company’s signature devising process of “moment work.” After premiering at La Jolla in 2022, it went to D.C.’s Shakespeare Theatre Company, just a short walk across the National Mall from the Holocaust Memorial Museum, where Erbelding works and where the photos live in the archives; more recently, during its previews at New York Theatre Workshop, the play became a Pulitzer finalist. There’s nothing hasty about Here There Are Blueberries — it has been built, piece by deliberately laid piece, over years, and its run at NYTW comes augmented with a whole series of talk-backs and scrupulously planned postshow discussions.

By Vulture Staff

Photo: Universal Pictures

Many tunes tried to come for the crown, but only one shall emerge as this year's earworm par excellence. 

Tom: It’s “Bluebird Through My Window” from Mary Jane. 

Jason: Tom’s right. Discussion done. Wait, also, are we including revivals? 

Zach Schiffman: I think song of the season not only means what the best song is but also what is everyone listening to/talking about. It may be my TikTok, but I do think “My Days” from The Notebook is that. Most uneven performance goes to “Woman Is.”

Rebecca: More like “Woman Was.” But “Perfection” is a bop of the year.

Devon Ivie: Roger Bart didn’t curse out a rando on the internet for me not to stump for … “It Works”!

Jackson: Thom Sesma’s mortician solo from Dead Outlaw will be the song of the year for me whenever they get around to releasing a recording.

Sara: The mortician song is brilliant.

Tom: Also, I believe that Hell’s Kitchen should have included Alicia Keys’s remix of the Sex and the City theme song from Sex and the City 2. 

Zach: Anyway, “Masquerade” is the actual answer.

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