New York Spotlight: April 2011

One of the most highly anticipated events of the month is the New York Philharmonic’s concert presentation of Stephen Sondheim’s Company at Avery Fisher Hall, April 7-9. Neil Patrick Harris stars as Bobby, with the stellar cast also featuring Craig Bierko, Stephen Colbert, Jon Cryer, Katie Finneran, Christina Hevdricks, Aaron Lazar, Patti LuPone, Jill Paice, Martha Plimpton, Anika Noni Rose, Jennifer Laura Thompson, Jim Walton, and Chryssie Whitehead.

Meanwhile, the 2011 Broadway spring season wraps up with several high-profile shows. Ben Stiller, Edie Falco, and Jennifer Jason Leigh headline the starry cast of John Guare’s The House of Blue Leaves, being revived at the Walter Kerr Theatre, beginning April 4. David Cromer helms this play, set during the Pope’s 1965 visit to New York City. The cast also features Christopher Abbott, Susan Bennett, Jimmy Davis, Halley Feiffer, Mary Beth Hurt, Alison Pill, and Thomas Sadoski.

Award-winning director Joe Mantello returns to his acting roots by starring in Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, at the Golden Theatre beginning April 19. This chronicle of the early years of the AIDS epidemic will also feature Ellen Barkin, Patrick Breen, John Benjamin Hickey, Luke MacFarlane, Jim Parsons, and Lee Pace. Tony Award winners Mark Rylance and John Gallagher, Jr. star in Jerusalem, at the Music Box Theatre, beginning April 2. The play focuses on Rooster (Rylance), a former daredevil motorcyclist and modern-day Pied Piper.

Two-time Tony Award winner Donna Murphy stars in the new musical, The People in the Picture, to be presented by the Roundabout Theatre Company at Studio 54, beginning April 1. The show focuses on a theater star in pre-war Poland and now a grandmother in New York City who is determined to pass on her stories to the next generation.

Soprano Lauren Flanigan and baritone Kim Josephson star in Stephen Schwartz’s new opera, Séance on a Wet Afternoon, directed by Scott Schwartz for New York City Opera, April 19-May 1. Based on the novel by Mark McShane and its 1964 film noir adaptation, the opera focuses on Myra Foster, a trance medium who involves her passive husband in a plot to kidnap the daughter of a neighboring family. Another musical adaptation is A Minister’s Wife, being presented by Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre, beginning April 7. Kate Fry, Marc Kudisch, and Bobby Steggert head the new tuner, based upon George Bernard Shaw’s Candida.

Saana Lathan and Stephanie J. Block star in of Lynn Nottage’s new play, By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, at Second Stage Theatre, April 6-May 22. The play takes a 70-year journey through the life of a headstrong African-American maid and budding actress, and her tangled relationship with her boss, a white Hollywood star desperately grasping to hold on to her career. The cast will also feature Daniel Breaker, David Garrison, Kimberly Hebert Gregory, Kevin Isola, and Karen Olivo.

Sir Derek Jacobi stars in the title role of Shakespeare’s King Lear (BAM Harvey Theatre, April 28-June 5). Michael Grandage directs this play about an aging monarch who divides his kingdom. Earlier in the month, Olivier Award-winning company Cheek by Jowl brings its production of Macbeth to the Harvey, April 5-16.

Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega stars in Carson McCullers Talks About Love (Rattlestick Theatre, April 20-June 4), playing the notable author as she talks and reminisces about love and art and life. The show will feature 16 original songs featuring music by Vega and Tony Award winner Duncan Sheik.

Emmy Award-winner Leslie Jordan, Varla Jean Merman (aka Jeffery Roberson), Kyle Dean Massey, Jenn Colella, Jim Newman, and Savannah Wise are featured in writer/director Willard Beckham’s new musical comedy Lucky Guy (Little Shubert Theatre, April 28-July 24). Set in Nashville, Tennessee, the musical weaves a tale of down-home dreamers and low-down schemers all willing to do whatever it takes to come out on top.

David Greenspan stars alongside Lisa Banes, Stephen Bogardus and others in his new play, Go Back to Where You Are, at Playwrights Horizons, through May 1. Leigh Silverman directs the production, about a forgotten chorus boy from the theater of Ancient Greece, stuck in a lonely purgatory these past 2000 years, who is sent back to earth on a mission from God. Jill Eikenberry stars in the world premiere of Bekah Brunstetter’s Be a Good Little Widow (Ars Nova, April 20-May 14), about a recently widowed young woman whose mother-in-law (Eikenberry) offers her advice on the proper way to mourn.

Alison Fraser, Jenn Gambatese, Mamie Gummer, and Hamish Linklater will be among the cast members of David Ives’ School for Lies, at Classic Stage Company, April 13-May 22. The work is adapted from the Molière classic The Misanthrope. The Vineyard Theatre presents Christopher Shinn’s new play, Picked (beginning April 6), about a young actor who prepares for his life to change when a legendary director casts him as the lead in a big-budget Hollywood movie.

The acclaimed Belarus Free Theatre returns to New York with three shows performing in repertory, April 13-May15, at La MaMa E.T.C.: Being Harold Pinter, Zone of Silence, and Discover Love.

Also of note: a return engagement of National Theatre of Scotland’s Black Watch (St. Ann’s Warehouse, April 16-May 8); Young Jean Lee and Future Wife’s We’re Gonna Die ( Joe’s Pub, April 1-30); John Kelly in The Escape Artist (PS 122, April 15-30); Melba Moore’s new cabaret show, Forever Moore (Café Carlyle, April 27-May 7); Pan Asian Repertory’s production of Derek Nguyen’s Monster (West End Theatre, through April 17); Ute Lemper in The Bukowski Project (Abrons Arts Center, April 14-23); Laurel Haines’ Future Anxiety, directed by Jim Simpson (The Flea, April 15-May 26); South Wing Theatre Company’s Epona’s Labyrinth (HERE, April 7-23); and Barefoot Theatre Company’s staging of Joseph Sousa’s Teeth of the Sons (Cherry Lane Studio Theatre, April 20-May 14).