New York Spotlight: April 2008

As the deadline for Tony consideration draws nearer, there’s a mad dash of new shows opening up on Broadway. Morgan Freeman, Frances McDormand, and Peter Gallagher lead the cast of Clifford Odets’ drama The Country Girl (beginning April 3). The play, about a down-on-his luck alcoholic actor and his unhappy wife, is helmed by Tony and Academy Award winner Mike Nichols.

Laurence Fishburne stars in the solo show Thurgood (April 12-July 20) at the Booth. The play is a biographical portrait of Thurgood Marshall, who rose from a childhood in the backstreets of Baltimore to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Roundabout Theatre Company presents a revival of Christopher Hampton’s tale of seduction and betrayal, Les Liaisons Dangereuses (April 12-July 6), directed by Rufus Norris and starring Laura Linney, Ben Daniels, Sian Phillips, Mamie Gummer, and Kristine Nielsen.

Christine Baranski, Gina Gershon, Mary McCormack, Mark Rylance, and Bradley Whitford are featured in Boeing-Boeing, Marc Camoletti’s comedy of errors about a man having affairs with three stewardesses, which comes in for a landing at the Longacre Theatre beginning April 19.

Yet another Broadway revival is Manhattan Theatre Club’s presentation of Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls (April 15-June 22) with a starry cast including Mary Beth Hurt, Mary Catherine Garrison, Jennifer Ikeda, Elizabeth Marvel, Martha Plimpton, Ana Reeder, and Marisa Tomei.

A late contender in the Tony race is Nick Blaemire and James Gardiner’s musical Glory Days (beginning April 22), which moves to Broadway’s Circle in the Square following a successful run earlier this year at Virginia’s Signature Theatre. The show is about four high school buddies reuniting for the first time about a year after graduation.

Also on the musical front, New York City Opera presents Harold Prince’s production of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide (April 8-30), with Daniel Reichard, Lauren Worsham, Judy Blazer, and Richard Kind. The avant-garde troupe The Civilians presents Paris Commune (April 4-20) as part of the Public Theater’s LAB initiative. Written by Steven Cosson and Michael Friedman, the musical play uses a versatile company of performers to bring the 1871 Paris revolution to explosive life.

Off-Broadway’s Vineyard Theatre closes out its season with Jenny Schwartz’s God’s Ear (April 9-May 18), about a young couple struggling through their relationship after the loss of their child. Brian d’Arcy James, John Gallagher, Jr., and Jim Norton star in the Atlantic Theater Company’s production of Conor McPherson’s Port Authority (April 30-June 15), which weaves the story of three generations of Irishmen as they experience loss, failure, and the elusiveness of love. At New York Theatre Workshop, Elevator Repair Service presents the company’s adaptation of the first chapter of The Sound and the Fury (April 15-May 18.)

At the Brooklyn Academy of Music, South African actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona bring back to New York Sizwe Banzi Is Dead (April 9-19), which they co-created with playwright Athol Fugard. Later in the month, BAM presents Endgame, April 25-May 18. John Turturro, Alvin Epstein, Elaine Stritch, and Max Casella star in Samuel Beckett’s absurdist classic. Also in Brooklyn, the Irish company Druid presents Enda Walsh’s The Walworth Farce (April 15-May 4), about what happens when we become stuck in the stories we tell ourselves about our lives.

Ayub Khan-Din’s Olivier Award-winning Rafta, Rafta makes its American premiere, courtesy of The New Group, beginning April 16. Scott Elliott directs this comedy about two Anglo-Indian families in London joined by the marriage of their children. Second Stage has the New York premiere of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s Good Boys and True (April 23-June 1), about a disturbing scandal at an all-boys prep school.

The Classical Theatre of Harlem premieres Ty Jones’ Emancipation (April 10-May 4), about the 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner, at the historic Audubon Ballroom. Charles Mee has yet another world premiere, Fire Island, making its debut at 3LD Art & Technology Center, (April 10-May 3). David Grimm’s Steve & Idi comes to Rattlestick Theatre (April 23-May 24) , while 29th Street Rep presents a stage adaptation of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 film, The Conversation (April 3-May 4).

Tony nominee Lisa Kron stars in Deb Margolin’s Time Is the Mercy of Eternity (West End Theatre, April 21-May 10), comprised of four short plays about the effects of love, violence, and obsession on the body and soul.
The Women’s Project presents crooked (Julia Miles Theater, April 11-May 11), about a 14-year-old aspiring writer whose storytelling forces those around her to grapple with matters of faith, fantasy, and the flesh. Mexican playwright Javier Malpica’s Our Dad Is in Atlantis, about young brothers left with their grandmother in a rural village, is at the Theatres at 45 Bleecker, April 4-20.

Intar presents the world premiere of All Eyes and Ears (Lion Theatre, April 29-May 22), written by Rogelio Martinez, and directed by Eduardo Machado. Set in 1961 Cuba, the play is about a one-time seamstress whose new government job forces her to confront uncomfortable truths about herself. Pan Asian Rep presents The Missing Woman (West End Theatre, April 2-12), about a painter’s yearning for his portrait subject who comes to life. The five-character play is performed in Vietnamese.

Jeff Cohen directs the world premiere of Hilary Bettis’ American Girls at the 45th Street Theatre, April 3-27. The show tells the story of two 14-year-old mid-western girls on a collision course with pop culture and faith. Mark Twain’s Blues, at the DR2 Theatre April 2-May 10, has the noted author’s famous characters Huckleberry Finn and Jim confront their creator. Umbrella, about two strangers on a rooftop trying to find common ground, finds shelter at Theatre Row’s Kirk Theatre, April 11-May 4.