On Sunday, the biggest night on Broadway returned to its iconic home- New York City’s Radio City Music Hall. Outside of the theater, there were sparkling ballgowns as far as the eyes could see as Broadway stars took a night off from their usual eight-times-a-week performance lifestyle to celebrate the magic of theatre at the 75th annual Tony Awards.
On Sunday, an incredible Broadway season was celebrated as the biggest night on Broadway returned to Radio City Music hall for the first time since 2019 (after a smaller ceremony was held at the Winter Garden theatre in September of 2021.)
A story about mental health, trauma, and family issues, all told from the point of view of… an uncouth ten-year-old who still wets the bed?
In her shocking, bold and astonishing broadway show Dana H, Deirdre O’Conell lip syncs to tapes created by Dana Higgenbotham, telling the harrowing story of her five months of abduction, creating a theater experience unlike any other. The play is crafted by Higgenbotham’s son, Lucas Hnath, and the concept of the tapes is an extremely unique way to do a show, but Deirdre takes on the challenge with grace. She has now earned herself a Tony Award nomination for best leading actress in a play. We spoke to Deirdre on the red carpet for The Vineyard Theater Gala on Monday, taking place at the iconic Daryl Roth theater. The gala honored the amazing New York City Council Member Carlina Rivera, and celebrated the music of the extraordinary late singer-songwriter Laura Nyro with performances and speeches by Latoya Edwards, Julie Benko, Brandon Victor Dixon Mandy Gonzalez, Judy Kuhn, Anika Noni Rose, and Wilson Jermaine Heredia. It was truly such a special night to be apart of as we watched incredibly talented people share stories, words, and miraculous performances in support of this amazing theater. We spoke to Mandy Gonzalez, Julie Benko and Deirdre O’connell about what it meant to be there in support of the arts, check out the full conversation below!
This season on Broadway has taken us to new worlds, taught us life lessons, and entertained us beyond belief with the most magical teams of performers, designers, directors, musicians, and so much more. This year we’ve been brought to the Five Points in 1800’s Manhattan, gotten seranaded by the wives of Henry the 8th, watched life through the perspective of a queer Broadway usher, witnessed the highs and lows of a struggling family through the music of Bob Dylan, sat right in the studio during the making of Michael Jackson’s thriller video, and so much more. It’s truly been a season for the ages, and after Broadway’s reopening in September, being able to witness live performances has never felt so incredible.
The nominations for the 2022 Tony Awards we’re announced on Monday, being read by Adrianne Warren, a nominee herself for her show stopping performance of Tina Turner in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical last year. The nominations couldn’t be more well deserved, with the Pulitzer Prize winning musical A Strange Loop leading with 11 nominations. Not far behind, Larry Kirwan’s Paradise Square walked away with 10 nominations. The nominations this year marked so many historical triumphs, paving the way for years to come.
There is something so astonishing about the creation of a new story based on incredible music, and Connor McPherson’s Girl From The North Country proves that with seven nominations. The show features a family living in a boarding house, trying to survive through the ups and downs of life, with a score made up of the music of Bob Dylan. Mare Winningham plays a woman struggling with dementia, constantly going back and fourth between having a lifeless distance to her, to childlike outbursts. The role is incredibly complex and layered, and Winningham has earned a very well deserved nomination for best leading actress in a musical. “She’s such a great character for the way that Connor Mcpherson has threaded her through the play,” Winningham said while talking about her character. “She’s hearing things that the others aren’t. So even though she is in that boarding house, she is trying to figure out how to survive like all the rest of them, she is hearing music and the others aren’t. In some ways, she’s with you, with the audience, she crosses the fourth wall and participates.”
It’s a new era of Broadway, and the shows we have seen this season have transcended. “I think that I wanted to do something that was so overwhelming that it was only possible in live theater,” The Skin of Our Teeth Set designer Adam Rigg said while being asked about the creation of this incredible show. “I think that coming back after the pandemic, everyone had been staring at screens for two years. And if we’d done it before the pandemic it wouldn’t have been any smaller, but every production that I’d worked on had been very scared back just because of the nature of how we’re working and how we have to work now for safety. But this one we made it to scale, we wanted people to look at it and see that this is what we do- this is what we can do.”
Broadway is a constant representation of what we can do, and what we constantly continue to do. Michael R Jackson built his pulitzer prize winning musical A Strange Loop up from the ground, and he is now nominated for two Tony Awards, for best score and best book of a musical. Not only that, but his show is leading for most nominations this year, with an incredible 11 nominations. “I think the thing that kept me going was trying to understand the experience of Usher,” Jackson said. “I did draw from personal experience to write it, but at a certain point it became not about me, it became about the idea of me, of I, of self. And I wanted to try to capture that, that Black, queer, gay self in a jar. The nuance of it, the specificity of it. I felt that if I could do it on the level of other pieces of art that I felt moved by, that that would love the needle somehow. It just was the story itself, I had to understand the loop.”
We loved getting to chat with the 2022 Tony Award nominees! Tune into CBS on June 12th at 8pm to watch the show!
The 1997 play is playing on Broadway for the first time and stars part of its original cast.
This season of off broadway has taken viewers to magical places, shown us the true meaning of life and morality, made us laugh with hilarious solo shows, and so much more. It’s truly been an incredible season, and Sunday’s Lucille Lortel Awards celebrated the magic of these beautiful shows. Created in 1985 by the Off-Broadway League and named for the award winning actress and producer who was honored with a theater in her name, the awards honor the excellence of the time, dedication and craft of Off-Broadway shows.
It was the first time the awards had been held in person in three years, and it was a joyous occasion for all involved. Awards were given to recipients in 16 categories, with two honorary awards also bestowed. The Awards were distributed in a ceremony at NYU Skirball hosted by three pairs of stars from stage and screen: Jared Grimes (Broadway’s “Funny Girl”) and Jeff Hiller (HBO’s “Somebody Somewhere”), Krysta Rodriguez and Jelani Alladin (“Hercules”), and Jennifer Simard and Christopher Sieber (“Company.”) The Lucille Lortel Awards are produced by the Off-Broadway League and Lucille Lortel Theatre, with additional support provided by TDF.
The big winners of the night were David Lindsay-Abaire‘s Kimberly Akimbo, and Heather Christian’s Oratorio For Living Things, each taking home three awards. Additional winners included Black No More, English, Fairycakes, Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord, Letters Of Suresh, On Sugarland, Prayer for the French Republic, Sanctuary City, The Chinese Lady and TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES, 1992.
The inaugural Outstanding Ensemble award was presented to the cast of Ars Nova’s Oratorio For Living Things. Both Performer in a Musical awards were presented to Kimberly Akimbo – Lead to Victoria Clark andFeatured to Bonnie Milligan. The Atlantic Theater Company production with Book and Lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire and Music by Jeanine Tesori, also received the award for Outstanding Musical. Sanaz Toossi’s English, a co-production of Atlantic Theater Company and Roundabout Theatre Company, took home the award for Outstanding Play.
Two special honorees this year we’re granted incredible awards. Deirdre O’Connell was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award by Heidi Schreck; and David Henry Hwang was inducted onto the famed Playwrights’ Sidewalk by Jeanine Tesori.
We we’re so honored to witness this beautiful celebration of off broadway! Here more about the awards here!
Are ya 1? Are ya 2? Are ya 3?…and the extension of the “Happy Birthday” song continues, much to the dismay of those dreading adding another year to their tally. Noah Haidle’s latest play (and Broadway debut), Birthday Candles challenges the negative connotations of the passage of time and ideas associated with getting older, as it focuses on aging as the concept of adding tools to life’s toolkit and wisdom to one’s rhetorical autobiography (and on the amount of goldfish and buttery, vanilla cake one can consume).
But truly, what’s in a lifetime? Time doesn’t end when you go to college. Time doesn’t end when you find love. Time doesn’t end if/when you get married. Time doesn’t end when you have kids, grandkids, and then on. Hell, time doesn’t end if you end a first marriage and pivot the direction of your career at age 48. If anything, time moves on and new opportunities are presented to you. The good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly, and everything in between. Birthday Candles touches a bunch of extremely relatable themes such as mental health, questioning one’s self identity, priorities, boundaries, but most importantly (in my opinion) is that it’s never too late.
We had the remarkable opportunity to sit down with Noah and connect on Birthday Candles.
TK: Firstly, what a BRILLIANT piece of work. Congratulations! Poignant, sophisticated, yet casual, relatable, funny yet emotional. How did you go about approaching a piece that could tap into all of those emotions and more?
NH: I knew if I got this one right it could be a very effective play (as opposed to some of the plays I’ve written which have been complete shit), so I tried to approach it with great caution.
TK: Process wise, how long did this take you to write?
NH: Six years. The first word I wrote for this play was in April of 2016 and the last was a week before opening in April of 2022. With a total of just over 15,000 words, that’s like 6.8 words a day, which is pretty much as many as the list of ingredients of mayonnaise. Pretty slow.
TK: One of the things I love most about Birthday Candles is that it shows that life is not perfect, but it happens. People make mistakes. Sometimes huge mistakes, but it’s never too late to change your mind and revisit prior thoughts. Was this theme based on any event(s) in particular for you?
NH: Yes. More than I would prefer.
TK: Debra Messing. That’s it. The way she portrays Ernestine at every stage, it’s remarkable. Do you have a favorite aged Ernestine of hers?
NH: My favorite is her hunched and surly 107 year old. I don’t know if I’ll be so lucky to make it that long, but if I do, I want to be exactly like Debra’s rambunctious yet open hearted 107, including, of course Debra’s otherworldly sense of comedic timing.
TK: Bravo to you for tackling mental health, aging, divorce, illness in relatable and practical ways – what is one key takeaway you wish for audience members to take away from seeing Birthday Candles? (it can be more than one)
NH: That life is a miracle. (Might as well go big, right?)
TK: How many goldfish have you owned in your life?
NH: One. As a kid. Spot. The idea for the play began when I was telling my wife about Spot and she misinterpreted my reminiscences as an expression of deep longing to own another goldfish and surprised me with a new, unwanted goldfish for my birthday. (If you haven’t seen the play, this anecdote will mean nothing, if you haven’t seen the play, you totally should).
We loved chatting with Noah as much as we loved watching his writing play out on stage. With brilliant direction by Vivienne Benesch, this play is funny, heart-wrenching, emotional at its core – a work for all ages.
P.S. – Debra Messing is truly outstanding in this work! What she is able to accomplish in those 100 minutes is beyond impressive and worthy of a visit to the American Airlines Theatre alone.
Birthday Candles is a Roundabout Theatre Company production and runs thru May 29. You can learn more about the show and ticket information by visiting: https://www.roundabouttheatre.org/
“It’s about a Black gay man writing a musical about a Black gay man who’s writing a musical about a Black gay man who’s writing a musical about a Black gay man, etc.,” or in short, it’s about life. That’s what 25-year-old Usher (Jaquel Spivey), the main character of Strange Loop says.
Photo credit: Marc J. Franklin, 2022
The “big, Black, and queer-ass American Broadway show” by Michael R. Jackson (writer, music, lyrics) opened on April 26 at the Lyceum Theatre and it just might be the most self-reflective piece currently on Broadway. Behind the raw and self-deprecating comedy, Strange Loop still manages to address serious issues of identity, racism, religion, and the politics of being fat, Black, and queer, but somehow the delivery is more entertaining than offensive.
Well, don’t fall asleep but it’s a cognitive-science term that was coined by this guy named Douglas Hofstadter. And it’s basically about how your sense of self is just a set of meaningless symbols in your brain pushing up or down through one level of abstraction to another but always winding up right back where they started. It’s the idea that your ability to conceive of yourself as an “I” is kind of an illusion. But the fact that you can recognize the illusion kind of proves that it exists.
We watch Usher, who is himself a Broadway usher and musical theater writer, get in his own way of writing musicals with his self-doubt and unresolved trauma of growing up big, Black, and queer. Those struggles provide the meat for the production, but the core is truly Usher’s inner thoughts, which gives the show its movement.
It is hard to imagine Jaquel Spivey’s portrayal of Usher being his Broadway debut. As Usher, Spivey is powerful, smart, transparent, comical, and familiar as he confronts the audience with queer conversations and a visual representation of trauma through musical numbers and monologue.
Photo credit: Marc J. Franklin, 2022
Technically, Usher is the only character in the show, but he’s far from lonely as six “Thoughts” (portrayed by James Jackson Jr., John-Michael Lyles, L Morgan Lee, John-Andrew Morrison, Jason Veasey, and Antwayn Hopper) surround his every move from the start of the show until the end. These “Thoughts” also come in as Usher’s mom, dad, doctor, dating app prospects, ancestors, self-loathing, financial struggle, sexual ambivalence, etc., and they never leave the stage (at least not completely). And with the pressure from his mom, Usher is writing a Tyler Perry-like gospel play (per her request) which becomes a huge parody scene of its own, revealing stereotypes and downright abuse both in Usher’s family and religious community.
By this end, everything falls apart, both the play we’re watching from the audience and the play Usher is writing (and the one he’s not). It all falls apart or it all comes together in one large number, “AIDs is God’s Punishment.” By this time, the question is finally raised: “So that’s it? That’s really how the show ends? He just turns his back?”
You’ll have to decide whom the aforementioned question refers to once you see the show. And as far as the question of whether he’ll heal, change or be utterly overcome by his own sabotaging thoughts, whether he’ll succeed as a writer or continue to shy away from writing his dark truth, well, these things are all outside the bounds of a very, very strange loop because inside that loop, it seems as if change is just an illusion. And if change is an illusion, what does that make of Usher’s thoughts? What does that make of Usher?
Photo credit: Marc J. Franklin, 2022
Starring ANTWAYN HOPPER, L MORGAN LEE, JOHN-MICHAEL LYLES, JAMES JACKSON, JR., JOHN-ANDREW MORRISON, JASON VEASEY, and introducing JAQUEL SPIVEY
Book, Music, & Lyrics by MICHAEL R. JACKSON
Choreographed by RAJA FEATHER KELLY
Directed by STEPHEN BRACKETT
For tickets, click here.
Almost fifty years after its first run on Broadway, the theater piece is back and just as heartbreaking as it was before.