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    Jean Smart Will Star in a One-Woman Broadway Show

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    The new play, “Call Me Izzy,” will begin previews in May and open in June at Studio 54.Jean Smart, a veteran stage and screen actress whose oft-praised comedic chops reached new audiences via the Max series “Hacks,” plans to return to Broadway this spring and summer in a one-woman show.Smart will star in “Call Me Izzy,” a dark comedy about a rural Louisiana woman. The play, which has not been previously staged, is written by Jamie Wax, a CBS News contributor, and is directed by Sarna Lapine, who also directed the last Broadway revival of “Sunday in the Park With George.”Smart, 73, is best known for her prolific work on television; she has won six Emmy Awards, for “Frasier,” “Samantha Who?” and “Hacks,” and has been featured in shows including “Designing Women” and “Mare of Easttown.”She made her Broadway debut in 1981 in the play “Piaf.” She has returned just once since, in a 2000 revival of “The Man Who Came to Dinner,” and was nominated for a Tony Award for that performance.“Call Me Izzy” is scheduled to begin previews on May 24 and to open June 12 for a 12-week run at Studio 54. The play is being produced by Robert Ahrens and P3 Productions (Ben Holtzman, Sammy Lopez and Fiona Howe Rudin), and is being capitalized for up to $5.4 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. More

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      ‘Mamma Mia!’ Is Returning to Broadway This Summer

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      The musical’s original run was the ninth-longest in Broadway history; a six-month return engagement will start in August.“Mamma Mia!” is returning to Broadway this summer after a decade away.The big-hearted musical, which combined Abba songs and abs to become a huge hit onstage and then on film, is scheduled to start previews on Aug. 2 at the Winter Garden Theater — where it spent much of its original run. The opening date is set for Aug. 14, and the run is expected to last at least six months.“I hope it will be a bit of an end-of-summer treat for New York,” said Judy Craymer, the British producer who initially commissioned the musical and has transformed it into a global business.The musical’s first New York engagement, with 5,773 performances from 2001 to 2015, made it the ninth-longest-running show in Broadway history. Its 50 productions around the world, in 16 languages, have been seen by more than 70 million people and have grossed more than $7 billion, the show’s publicists said.The musical’s mother-daughter story is set on a fictional Greek island, where family and friends have gathered for a wedding. The daughter is determined to use the occasion to figure out which among three of her mother’s ex-boyfriends is her father, whose identity she has never known.The plot, for many fans, is largely a scaffolding for an extremely popular set of Abba tunes and a lot of upbeat dance numbers (performed by actors in exuberant, and sometimes skimpy, costumes) that prompted occasional dancing by patrons in the aisles.“It’s the idyllic Greek holiday,” Craymer said, “and everyone wants to be on that island, cellphone free, having a fun time.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Review: Idina Menzel Climbs to New Broadway Heights in ‘Redwood’

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      The “Wicked” belter scales a 300-foot tree, and a mountain of songs, in a powerful if woo-woo musical about trauma and resilience.The musical “Redwood,” which opened on Thursday at the Nederlander Theater, features two great stars. One is an awe-inspiring force of nature. The other is a tree.The force of nature is Idina Menzel, who sings in 13 of the show’s 17 songs, of which seven are essentially solos. Has anyone ever belted so much, so tirelessly and hair-raisingly?But the size of the role is nothing compared with its emotional complexity and the depth of Menzel’s immersion in it. Her Jesse is a walking panic attack, an avoidant overtalker, an entitled princess and a grief-stricken mother. More astonishing, she is all of these at once, and right from the start. We meet her speeding westward from New York City with a terrible loss in the rearview mirror and no idea where she’s going.We know, though. The musical, by Tina Landau (book, lyrics and direction) and Kate Diaz (music and lyrics), with additional contributions from Menzel herself, is not named “Redwood” idly. Soon Jesse comes upon a grove of the giant trees near Eureka, Calif., and we meet our other star. She — for Jesse not only genders her but also names her Stella — is 14 feet wide and 300 feet tall and centuries if not millenniums old.I am sure redwoods are awesome in real life; I have never seen one. But the tree that Landau and her designers have put onstage is among the most beautiful and wondrous theatrical creations I can recall.Spectacular video by Hana S. Kim renders the tree’s towering swirl of branches on a series of 1,000 immersive LED panels.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Review: In ‘Eureka Day,’ Holding Space for Those You Hate

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      A hilarious new Broadway production asks: Can the superwoke vaxxers and anti-vaxxers at an elite private school learn to get along?Just in time, laughter is making a big comeback on Broadway. Better yet, it comes in several varieties.For catty yowling, check out Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard, wringing necks in “Death Becomes Her.” For helpless giggles, there’s Cole Escola as that cabaret legend Mary Todd Lincoln in “Oh, Mary!” And if you enjoy the hysteria of family fireworks, “Cult of Love” should leave you gasping.But the funniest character now on Broadway isn’t even a human being — or not exactly. Getting the biggest belly laughs in Jonathan Spector’s “Eureka Day,” which opened on Monday at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, is a yellow thumbs-up emoji.The emoji appears — chipper then aggravating then weirdly insidious — in a livestream meeting of parents and executive board members at Eureka Day, an upscale private school in Berkeley, Calif. As Don, the principal, tries to handle a looming crisis, using every banality at his new-age disposal, the conversation in the chat veers correspondingly out of control. His attempt to “unpack” issues calmly has instead disgorged a torrent of personal attacks, vulgar language and childish invective. By the end of the scene, the third of the play’s quick seven, the thumb seems like a different finger entirely.Spector’s hilarious poison-pen satire of educational wokeism has led us to that point with great care. A Manhattan Theater Club production, directed bracingly by Anna D. Shapiro, it begins, in 2018, with a kind of dramaturgical canapé to whet our appetites for the main dish. As the lights come up on the school’s bright library, prominently featuring a social justice collection, Don (Bill Irwin) is leading the board in a discussion about a proposed addition to the drop-down menu on the prospective parent application. Should it include “transracial adoptee” as an option among the many other ethnic identities offered?The point is argued with elaborate courtesy bordering on incomprehensibility. Meiko (Chelsea Yakura-Kurtz) says “the term itself is not offensive,” but Suzanne (Jessica Hecht) thinks it might be offensive “when you contextualize it in that way.” Eli (Thomas Middleditch) feels that failing to add the term would amount to a kind of erasure, given that “our Core Operating Principle here is that everyone should Feel Seen by this community.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Cult of Love’ Review: We Wish You a Wretched Christmas

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      A hilarious, harrowing holiday gift from Leslye Headland, who brings another unhappy family to Broadway. Zachary Quinto and Shailene Woodley star.Though figgy pudding is on the menu, Evie Dahl has a different Yuletide horror in mind. “Christmas is exactly the time to talk about the things we never talk about,” she tells her reluctant siblings.No, Evie, no!Alas, despite the happy presence of stars including Zachary Quinto, Shailene Woodley and Mare Winningham, the annual ritual dinner of the Dahls is doomed from the start of Leslye Headland’s “Cult of Love,” a rip-roaring home-for-the-holidays dramedy that opened on Thursday at the Helen Hayes Theater. What begins as a cheery reunion in a New England farmhouse decked out like Santa’s workshop ends as a collective meltdown with carols.Because Evie, even if she’s bossy, is right. The four Dahl children, now in their late 20s through early 40s, have plenty of grudges that urgently need airing. But how? Ginny, their passive-aggressive control freak of a mother, will not admit into her home any problems, doubts or identities that violate her sense of upbeat Christian propriety. So what if her husband, Bill, is hovering on the edge of the abyss of Alzheimer’s? Ignore it, excuse it; it will go away.The same applies to the couple’s firstborn, Mark, a divinity student turned lawyer who has lost his faith in both callings. (When he says he’s no longer a Christian, Ginny responds, “That’s not true.”) Evie, their second, a chef, is a lesbian. (“Or not,” Ginny adds.) Johnny, their third, of no known profession, is a recovering drug addict. (“If you all say so,” Ginny allows.) And Diana, the youngest? She’s either a Christmas miracle, complete with baby on board, or just psychotic, espying the devil and speaking in tongues.If that setup doesn’t exactly sound funny, there’s a reason. Though “Cult of Love,” like many unhappy family reunion plays, draws big buckets of humor from the toxic brew of religion and repression, those buckets also draw blood.Headland knows just how to get there, suggesting deep familiarity with the territory. But she also has a gift for complication and construction, as was already evident in “Bachelorette,” her Bridezillas Gone Wild breakthrough play of 2010. (That play, like this one, was a Second Stage Theater production, and later became a movie.) Loading pattern on pattern — a holiday-season design don’t for most — is for her an opportunity to dizzy us down to hell.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Avett Brothers Musical ‘Swept Away’ to Close on Broadway After Short Run

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      The new musical, about a shipwreck and its aftermath, opened Nov. 19 at the Longacre Theater.“Swept Away,” a darkly elegiac musical featuring the songs of the Avett Brothers, will end its Broadway run Dec. 15, less than a month after opening.The musical, about a 19th-century shipwreck and its aftermath, explores the lengths to which human beings will go in order to survive. Although set in fictional circumstances, it is based on a real 19th-century tragedy that led to an important legal case in Britain.“Swept Away” began previews Oct. 29 and opened Nov. 19 at the Longacre Theater. At the time of its closing it will have played 20 previews and 32 regular performances.The show cost up to $14.5 million to capitalize, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and that money has not been recouped. The weekly grosses were consistently well below what it cost to run, which is unsustainable.“Swept Away” is the second new musical of this season to close shortly after opening, following “Tammy Faye,” at a time when new musicals face an ever-more-challenging path on Broadway.The Avett Brothers have a devoted fan base, and “Swept Away” was praised by the New York Times’s chief theater critic, Jesse Green, who described it as “really about the gravest decisions humans can make, the depths of souls that are darker than the sea’s.”But other reviews were mixed, and the musical, like the actual history that inspired it, includes cannibalism, which, although not featured prominently in marketing materials or press coverage, may have been a turnoff for some potential ticket buyers. Broadway is also packed with shows, many of which feature more familiar titles or performers, and “Swept Away” was unable to break through in that crowded marketplace.Many of the show’s songs were featured on the Avett Brothers album “Mignonette,” and a cast recording is scheduled to be released in February. John Logan, the Tony-winning author of “Red,” wrote the musical’s book, and it was directed by Michael Mayer, a Tony winner for “Spring Awakening.”The 90-minute show centers on four men stranded on a lifeboat — the only survivors of the shipwreck. They are played by John Gallagher Jr., a Tony winner for “Spring Awakening,” as well as Stark Sands (“Kinky Boots”), Adrian Blake Enscoe and Wayne Duvall.The lead producers of “Swept Away” are Matthew Masten, Sean Hudock and Madison Wells Live (founded by Gigi Pritzker). Before arriving on Broadway, the musical had runs at Berkeley Repertory Theater in California in 2022 and at Arena Stage in Washington in late 2023 and early 2024. More

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      ‘Glicked’ Fans Rejoice in Bloodshed and Broadway Songs

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      Swords clashing and blood curdling screams of gladiators emanate from one room. Across the hallway, witches belt out show tunes.That’s the sound of “Glicked.”Last year, moviegoers swarmed to see “Barbenheimer” — the combined name for “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” — when the films opened on the same day. Now, there is a push from the casts and fans of “Gladiator II” and “Wicked” — which both opened across the country on Friday — to recreate that energy for another double feature with a blended name.Isabelle Deveaux and Emma Rabuano skipped out of theater six at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Brooklyn at 2:38 p.m. on Friday, after watching “Gladiator II.”At 6:15 p.m., the pair, both 25, planned to return to the Alamo Drafthouse to see “Wicked.” The crossover, Ms. Deveaux said, “felt so specifically catered to our interests.”Diego Gasca of Los Angeles went with friends to the opening day of “Wicked” at AMC Lincoln Square 13 in Manhattan, but he said that he was not interested in seeing “Gladiator II.”Colin Clark for The New York TimesOn the surface, the two films, which have a combined running time of over five hours, appear vastly different. One is a family friendly musical prequel to “The Wizard of Oz,” while the other is an R-rated epic sequel about murder, war and the Roman Empire. But Ms. Deveaux and Ms. Rabuano see some common ground in the films.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Review: In ‘Death Becomes Her,’ Spiking the Fountain of Youth

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      Hilarious star turns from Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard make the mostly unfunny 1992 film into an intermittently memorable Broadway musical.Not since Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne themselves performed there in 1958, leaving a trail of scrapes and bite marks in their wake, has Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theater housed such equal-billing dragons as the ones Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard play in “Death Becomes Her.” The musical, which opened on Thursday, stars the two comic treasures as lifelong frenemies for whom the “lifelong” part is an understatement. Their animosity is eternal.That Hilty and Simard make it so jolly is a big relief and a big surprise. The 1992 Robert Zemeckis movie on which the show is based may be a queer camp classic, but its misogynistic ick factor is high. The leads — Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn — are shot leeringly yet unflatteringly, a queasy combo. The violence they do to each other is more vivid than the vanity at its root. What binds them, even in acrimony, goes largely unexplored. And, fatally, the film is not very funny.For its first 30 minutes, the musical is nothing but. When introduced, Hilty’s Madeline Ashford is a star of a certain age being hoisted by chorus boys in a creaky vehicle called “Me! Me! Me!” Its opening number, “For the Gaze,” establishes her epochal narcissism while also winking, in its title pun, to the material’s cult audience. The staging, by Christopher Gattelli, goes so breathtakingly over the top — costume changes, key changes, cameos by both Liza and Judy — that half the lyrics get lost in the laughs.Though best known for her vocal chops — fully exploited here in glossy songs by Julia Mattison and Noel Carey — Hilty is an inventive and beguiling comedian, putting a warm spin on even the meanest zingers. Indeed, one of the improvements in Marco Pennette’s book for the musical is that those zingers seem like love pinches, painful but titillating. They are often self-directed, too, and thus a kind of self-pleasure. When Simard’s Helen Sharp tells Madeline she’s stunning, the diva responds, with evident delight, “Well, thanks to my hair, makeup and neck team.” She also credits “that tapeworm diet.”Simard is simply brilliant. I say “simply” advisedly; it takes a lot of craft and homework to stand next to Hilty and not be outdone. Happily, her Helen is an astonishing creation of disappointment and disparagement: Dorothy Parker boiled down to a syrup, spitting takedowns like sour candies. “Love her like a twin,” she says of Madeline, in a voice of squeaky chalk. “Who stole my nutrients in the womb.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Elf on Broadway Review: Grey Henson Is on the Nice List

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      The musical, starring Grey Henson, has gotten Buddy delightfully, entirely right. But he is trapped inside a creaky adaptation.Santa Clauses are pretty interchangeable. The real Santa’s close friend Buddy the elf would disagree, but it’s true: Put on the red costume, hide behind the glossy beard, manage a few ho, ho, hos and anyone will do.Buddy, though? That’s a much tougher role to cast — and not only because Will Ferrell made him such an indelibly adorable doofus in the 2003 movie “Elf.” In “Elf the Musical,” Buddy is the one character in whom we must absolutely believe: a full-grown man in a green elf suit with curl-toed boots, naïve and wonder-struck in the big city.Get it wrong and it’s a recipe for cringe. Get it right and you’ve cracked the code of all-ages comedy, the kind that will leave children and grown-ups equally helpless with laughter.In its latest Broadway outing, starring an exuberant Grey Henson in the title role, “Elf the Musical” has gotten Buddy delightfully, entirely right. From his first spoken line — the word Santa, cried joyously with what sounds like at least five exclamation points — he is enchanting in his silliness.He cartwheels across the stage because why wouldn’t he? A trusting, uninhibited goofball, he lives in his body the way children do, nearly bursting with eagerness. But Buddy is 30; he can show you how many that is on his fingers, flashing what look like boneless jazz hands.Directed by Philip Wm. McKinley, “Elf” is loaded with playful, energetic dance numbers.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More