Curtain Call: Tina To Go On National Tour
Broadway: The producers of Tina: The Tina Turner Musical have announced their plans to take the production on a multi-year North American Tour. This biographical musical celebrating the career of the twelve-time Grammy Award winner earned 12 Tony nominations in 2019. The touring production plans to open at the Providence Performing Arts Center and intends to spread to more than 40 cities in its first run.
Brittney Johnson will be playing the role of Glinda in Broadway’s current run of Wicked. Previously an understudy for the role, Johnson is making history as the first black Glinda on Broadway to play the role full-time. This is far from the beginning of Johnson’s career as a Broadway actress. She has appeared in Motown, Sunset Boulevard, and was also the first black actress to play both the roles of Eponine and Fantine in the 2015 Broadway production of Les Misérables.
Lileana Blain Cruz makes her Broadway debut in an upcoming revival of The Skin of Our Teeth. The cast includes James Vincent Meredith, Roslyn Ruff, and Tony award-winner Priscilla Lopez.
The Skin of Our Teeth is a Pulitzer Prize-winning dark comedy that first opened in 1942. It tells the story of the Antrobus Family and their maid, Sabina, as they struggle to survive the numerous ancient disasters plaguing their New Jersey home. The production is set to open in April at the Vivian Beaumont Theater.
A Broadway revival of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When The Rainbow Is Enuf is set to open at the Booth Theatre in April. To celebrate its opening, the box office is offering a one-day ticket discount of $20.22. To activate the offer buyers need to use the code “FCG2022” at the box office online through Telecharge.
This groundbreaking revival will be directed and choreographed by visionary Tony award nominee Camille A. Brown. The choreopoem navigates the relationship between seven women as they embrace each other through song and dance, poetry, and music.
Off Broadway: Wish You Were Here, a new play by Sanaz Toossi, is set to premiere at Playwights Horizons’ Jay Sharp Theater in April. This work will be Toossi’s second off-Broadway premiere, as she is currently making her debut with English.
Wish You Were Here is a play telling the story of a sisterhood of Iranians in the year 1978: a time of widespread unrest. Written as a tribute to the friends of Toossi’s mother, the play is an intimate character study.
English, a play about a group of Iranian adults preparing for their TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) in a “English Only” classroom, recently had its run extended Off-Broadway by one week. The final performance date is now set for March 20th at the Atlantic Theater Company.
This production of English has been met with a stream of positive reviews and reactions from both seasoned reviewers and general audiences, even becoming a New York Times Critic’s Pick in late February. The final performance date is now set for March 20th at the Atlantic Theater Company.
Lloyd Suh’s The Chinese Lady is set to open at The Public’s Shiva Theater in March. Shannon Tyo and Daniel K. Isaac will be reprising their roles as Afong Moy and Atung. These performers played these parts previously at Theatre Row in 2018.
The play, inspired by a true story, follows the life of Afong Moy, who sailed into New York Harbor in 1834 and became a living exhibit. As she travels across the country, performing her identity, the play offers a reflective perspective on a young America.
Milwaukee Repertory Theater
Regional: The world premiere of New Age will take place at The Milwaukee Repertory Theater in March. This is a new play by Dael Orlandersmith, an Obie award-winner, and Pulitzer Prize Finalist.
New Age tells a story about four women in different stages of their lives, navigating their identities, sexualities, and insecurities. This is Orlandersmith’s second work to premiere at Milwaukee Rep.
The New York State Council on the Arts has awarded a grant to The Franklin Stage Company in support of Wakeman and Tolliver, a new play by Kyle Bass, author of 2019’s Possessing Harriet.
This play takes place at the dawn of The Civil War and is a fictionalized interaction between two historical figures: Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, a white woman who disguised herself as a man and joined a volunteer regiment of the Union Army, and Toliver Holmes, a black man who escaped from his Virginia enslavement and joined a Union Army regiment. The Franklin Stage Company is expected to provide more information concerning the staged reading of this work in the Spring.
International: Jeremy O. Harris’ Daddy: A Melodrama is set to open in London at The Almeida Theatre in the beginning of April. Harris’ other recognizable works include the Tony-nominated Slave Play and the A24 film Zola.
Daddy tells an intimate and provocative story of the relationship between Franklin, a young, black artist; and Andre, an older, white art collector. This melodrama explores the fragile tug-of-war between romance and commodification.
