New York Spotlight: May 2010

There are no new Broadway openings this month, but there’s plenty going on Off- and Off-Off-Broadway.

Nurse Jackie‘s Edie Falco and Tony nominee Alison Pill star in Naked Angels’ production of Chloe Moss’ Susan Smith Blackburn Prize-winning This Wide Night (Peter Jay Sharp Theater, May 8-June 20), which follows a female ex-con who is visited by her former cellmate. Another unexpected reunion takes place in Stephen Belber’s Dusk Rings a Bell (Atlantic Stage 2, May 19-June 20), in which a man and woman meet 25 years after a one-afternoon adolescent fling. The world premiere play features Paul Sparks and Private Practice star Kate Walsh.

Billy Crudup leads the cast of Adam Rapp’s The Metal Children at the Vineyard Theatre, beginning May 4. In it, a New York writer travels to a small American town to defend one of his young adult novels, which has been banned by the local school board. The play also features Betsy Aidem, Guy Boyd and David Greenspan. At New York Theatre Workshop, Kathleen Chalfant, André De Shields and George Bartenieff star in Karen Malpede’s Prophecy (May 27-June 20), which examines the legacy of wars in Iraq and Vietnam.

Fans of TV’s Glee are sure to want to catch the touring Glee Live! show when it plays Radio City Music Hall, May 28-30. Tony Award nominee Lea Michele, who stars in the series, is among the performers.

Marin Hinkle, David Gelles Hurwitz, Brian Kerwin, Polly Lee, and Matt McGrath are featured in Ellen Fairey’s Graceland, to be presented by LCT3 at the Duke on 42nd Street, May 3-29. This comedic drama is about two estranged siblings who are reunited when they try to make sense of their father’s recent suicide. Rob Campbell, Dana Eskelson, Ronete Levenson, and Elisabeth Waterston star in Sheila Callaghan’s Lascivious Something, presented by The Women’s Project at the Julia Miles Theater, May 2-June 6. The play takes place in a vineyard on a small Greek island, where an American and his young Greek bride, who have come for their first wine tasting, are joined by a fractious, uninvited woman.

John Larroquette, Johanna Day, Monica Raymund, and Michael Zegen comprise the cast of Oliver Parker! (Cherry Lane Theatre, May 9-June 6), Elizabeth Meriwether’s world premiere play about the unlikely friendship between a late teenager and an older man. Lisa Brescia, Autumn Hurlbert, Adam Kantor and Michael Puzzo are among the cast of Marisa Wegrzyn’s Killing Women at the Beckett Theatre, May 13-June 5. The play is a satire of corporate America as viewed through a company of professional assassins. Christian Campbell headlines Magnetic North (The Workshop Theater, May 6-16), about a man who reconnects with an old girlfriend, during a period of crisis in his marriage.

Amazing Race winner Reichen Lehmkuhl stars in a revised version of Anthony J. Wilkinson’s 2003 comedy My Big Gay Italian Wedding, at St. Luke’s Theatre, beginning May 5. GAYFEST NYC is back for its fourth year, with festival offerings including Romeo and Hamlet (May 6-16), Mother Tongue (May 13-23), The Legacy (May 20-June 5), Steve Hayes: Tired Old Queen at the Movies Live! (May 24-26), and the new musical This One Girl’s Story (May 27-June 6).

Irish Rep presents Sebastian Barry’s White Woman Street (May 7-June 27), set in Ohio in 1916, and about five outlaws who converge on a brothel. Michael Golamco’s Year Zero (May 18-June 13), presented at McGinn/Cazale Theater as part of the Second Stage Theatre Uptown Series, is about a Cambodian American teenager and his sister who try to reinvent themselves following their mother’s death.

Oren Safdie’s The Bilbao Effect (Center for Architecture, May 12-June 6) focuses on a world famous architect accused of contributing to a woman’s suicide. Also in an architectural vein are New York Resonance Ensemble’s repertory productions of Ibsen’s The Master Builder and the new play, The Glass House (both running May 16-June 5), the latter of which uses the design and building of Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House and Philip Johnson’s Glass House as its background.

Writer, composer, performer Cynthia Hopkins presents her latest, The Truth: A Tragedy at Soho Rep, May 6-30. International WOW Company will debut Reconstruction (May 6-23), which memorializes the venue it is performing at — the OhioTheater — and its impending closure in August. The Very Best of Penny Arcade (May 1-22) at the Laurie Beechman showcases the downtown provocateur’s work. Meanwhile, Vaginal Davis Is Speaking From the Diaphragm, at PS 122, May 15-27, features the unusual drag sensation joined by a rotating list of guest stars such as filmmaker Bruce LaBruce, Tony nominee Justin Bond, and former porn star Annie Sprinkle.