New York Spotlight: March 2011

Tony Award winners Sutton Foster and Joel Grey lead the cast of The Roundabout’s Broadway revival of Anything Goes (Stephen Sondheim Theatre, beginning March 10), directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall. Featuring a classic Cole Porter score, the musical is set on board a cruise ship as two unlikely pairs set off on the course to true love. The principal cast also includes Colin Donnell, Adam Godley, Laura Osnes, Jessica Stone, and John McMartin.

Norbert Leo Butz, Aaron Tveit, Tom Wopat, and Kerry Butler star in the new musical Catch Me If You Can (Neil Simon Theatre, beginning March 11). Based on the 2002 Steven Spielberg film of the same name, the Terrence McNally-Marc Shaiman-Scott Wittman tuner centers on a con artist pursued by an FBI agent. Wonderland. A New Alice. A New Musical (Marquis Theatre, beginning March 21), an update to Lewis Carroll’s classic story, stars Janet Dacal as a modern-day Alice who goes down the rabbit hole in search of her daughter. The score is by Frank Wildhorn.

A number of high-profile comedians come to the Great White Way this season, although not necessarily performing comic fare. Robin Williams stars in the title role of Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (Richard Rodgers Theatre, beginning March 11), by Rajiv Joseph. This darkly comic tale follows the intertwined lives of two American marines and one Iraqi gardener. Chris Rock makes his Broadway debut in Stephen Adly Guirgis’ The Motherf**cker With the Hat (Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, beginning March 15), about a couple dealing with issues of addiction. The cast also includes Bobby Cannavale, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Annabella Sciorra, and Yul Vázquez.

In a more comic vein, Kathy Griffin takes to the Broadway stage in her stand-up show Kathy Griffin Wants a Tony (Belasco Theatre, March 11-19), featuring all-new material about her hilarious observations and run-ins with celebrities. Also, Jim Belushi stars alongside Robert Sean Leonard and Nina Arianda in Garson Kanin’s comedy Born Yesterday (Cort Theatre, beginning March 31), which focuses on a not-so-honest businessman and a not-so-dumb blonde out to “capitalize” on everything Washington has to offer.

Four-time Tony Award winner Jerry Zaks directs Sister Act (Broadway Theatre, beginning March 24), featuring a score by Alan Menken and Glenn Slater, based upon the 1992 film about a disco diva put into protective custody in a convent. Patina Miller plays Delores, the singer forced to get into the habit, while Tony winner Victoria Clark portrays Mother Superior. Speaking of nuns, stage and screen star Kathleen Turner returns to Broadway in Matthew Lombardo’s High (Booth Theatre, beginning March 25), playing Sister Jamison Connolly, who agrees to sponsor a 19-year-old drug user and finds her own faith challenged.

Tony Award winner Beth Leavel stars in the new Broadway musical Baby It’s You (Broadhurst Theatre, beginning March 26), playing Florence Greenberg, the woman who discovered The Shirelles and created Scepter Records. The production features a score filled with doo-wop, pop and rock ‘n’ roll classics. The National Theatre of Great Britain brings its acclaimed production War Horse to Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater, March 16-June 26. The work, based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo, is set during World War I as Joey, young Albert’s beloved horse, is sold to the cavalry and shipped to France.

Off-Broadway is also hopping. Michael Cristofer, Linda Emond, Michael Esper, Bruce MacVittie, Steven Pasquale, and Stephen Spinella head the cast of Tony Kushner’s newest play, The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures (Public Theater, March 22-June 12). Laurie Metcalf stars in Sharr White’s The Other Place (MCC Theater at the Lucille Lortel, March 11-April 24), playing a scientist with a potential breakthrough in Alzheimer treatment drugs.

Alan Campbell, Jonathan Hammond, Nikka Graff Lanzarone, Elizabeth Stanley, Bob Stillman, and Max von Essen are among the cast members in the musical revival of Michael John LaChuisa’s Hello Again (52 Mercer Street, March 4-April 3), adapted from Arthur Schnitzler’s play La Ronde. Broadway veterans Howard McGillin and Rebecca Luker will appear in City Center Encores!’s Where’s Charley? (March 17-20), George Abbott’s musical adaptation of Brandon Thomas’ classic college farce Charley’s Aunt. Klea Blackhurst, Elizabeth Loyacano, and Jim Stanek are among the cast members of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, at Theatre at St. Clement’s, March 12-April 3. The musical is based on Betty Smith’s iconic American novel of the same name.

Edward Hall’s all-male Shakespeare troupe, Propeller, performs The Comedy of Errors at BAM’s Harvey Theatre, March 16-27. Meanwhile, John Douglas Thompson stars in the title role of Theatre for a New Audience’s Macbeth (The Duke, March 12-April 22). Also Shakespeare-related is Classic Stage Company’s Double Falsehood (March 11-April 3), believed to be an adaptation of the long lost play Cardenio by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher. And British theater company Punchdrunk presents Sleep No More in a site-specific production (beginning March 7). Based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth, it involves theatergoers moving through the venue, experiencing events from Shakespeare’s play in an intimate and often surprising manner.

Marisa Tomei and Frank Whaley play the title characters of Wallace Shawn’s Marie and Bruce (The New Group at the Acorn Theatre, March 14-May 7). Vivienne Benesch, Daniel Jenkins, Deanne Lorette, and Stephen Barker Turner star in Keen Company’s revival of Michael Frayn’s Benefactors (Clurman Theatre, March 22-April 30).

Also of note: Bathsheba Doran’s new play Kin (Playwrights Horizons, through April 3); Mike Birbiglia’s new solo My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend (Barrow Street Theatre, beginning March 18); Laurence Mark Wythe’s new musical Tomorrow Morning (Theatre at Saint Peter’s, March 21-April 23); Canned Ham (Dixon Place, March 3-26), a solo performance by Tom Hudson a.k.a. gay porn star Gus Mattox; Clifford Chase’s Winkie (59E59 Theaters, March 5-April 10), about a teddy bear accused of terrorism; Women’s Project’s revival of Room (Julia Miles Theatre, March 12-27); Vampire Cowboys’ latest, The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent G (Incubator Arts Project at St. Mark’s Church, March 24-April 16); the Flamenco fantasia Between Worlds (New World Stages, March 4-May 22); the Hamlet-inspired comedy Wittenberg (Pearl Theater Company at New York City Center, March 11 – April 17); and TACT’s Three Men on a Horse (Beckett Theatre, March 14-April 16).