New York Spotlight: April 2005

Here’s a quick look at some of the shows blossoming around New York this April.

There are seven Broadway openings: First up is Julius Caesar; Denzel Washington stars as Brutus in this production of Shakespeare’s political thriller, which is directed by Tony winner Daniel Sullivan and opens April 3 at the Belasco. April 4 sees the opening of the Broadway premiere of Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolias at the Lyceum, featuring a starry cast that includes Delta Burke, Marsha Mason, Christine Ebersole, and Frances Sternhagen. On April 7, James Earl Jones and Leslie Uggams open in the revival of On Golden Pond, Ernest Thompson’s moving family drama; it’s playing at the Cort. Billy Crudup and Jeff Goldblum star in Martin McDonagh’s dark The Pillowman, which opens at the Booth on April 10.

Then there’s the new Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas musical, The Light in the Piazza, adapted from Elizabeth Spencer’s romantic novel, which opens at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont on April 18. Natasha Richardson and John C. Reilly will be headlining the Roundabout’s revival of Tennessee Williams’s classic A Streetcar Named Desire; it pulls into Studio 54 on April 26. And the Broadway premiere of the London hit Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, adapted from the timeless Sherman Brothers musical film, lands at the newly renamed Hilton on April 28.

Off-Broadway openings this month include the Classical Theatre of Harlem’s production of Caligula, starring André De Shields (it opens April 1); What of the Night, based on the writings of Djuna Barnes and starring Jane Alexander, opening at the Lucille Lortel on April 6; Classic Stage Company’s staging of Marivaux’s hilarious The False Servant, opening on April 10; Jeffrey Hatcher’s new play A Picasso, opening at Manhattan Theatre Club on April 19; the hit production of David Rabe’s Hurlyburly, starring Ethan Hawke and Parker Posey, re-opens Off-Broadway at 37 Arts on April 20; and the internationally acclaimed post-World War II play Beast on the Moon, starring Louis Zorich and Omar Metwally, opening at the Century Center on April 27.