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      Ruben Santiago-Hudson Brings ‘Lackawanna Blues’ to Broadway

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      About six months ago, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, the creator of the play “Lackawanna Blues,” asked a friend to open a vacant theater for him.“I just needed that — to sit in the seats, to walk on the stage,” Santiago-Hudson said in an interview this week. “For the past 50 or so years, I’ve had some time every year in the theater: to see a play, to be in a play, to direct a play, to write a play. All of a sudden that was taken away.”On Tuesday, Santiago-Hudson got to return to theater in a big way: “Lackawanna Blues” — which he wrote and directed, and in which he plays every part — began previews on Broadway, in a Manhattan Theater Club production at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater on West 47th Street.The play, which was first presented Off Broadway in 2001, and adapted into a television movie in 2005, is a reminiscence of Santiago-Hudson’s youth near Buffalo, and is centered on the character of Nanny, who ran a boardinghouse and imparted strength and morality to generations around her.At a ribbon ceremony outside the theater on West 47th Street, where ticketholders and gawkers dodged rush-hour traffic, Representative Carolyn Maloney offered an unabashed New Yorker’s defense of Broadway. “What would New York be without Broadway?” she asked. “Seriously, it’s what makes the city feel so great. If we didn’t have Broadway we might as well be in Chicago or some other big city.”S. Epatha Merkerson, who played Nanny in the television movie of “Lackawanna Blues” (and was a longtime fixture on “Law & Order”), was on hand for the preshow festivities.“We’re baaaack!” she said, referring to Broadway.A Broadway production of “Lackawanna Blues” by Manhattan Theater Club had been planned for a couple of years. Lynne Meadow, the company’s longtime artistic director, said in an interview she saw it as a celebration of “heroism,” which she said is even more apt now. The play was presented with music by Bill Sims Jr., as performed by the blues guitarist Junior Mack.“This is a play about healing,” Santiago-Hudson said. “This is a play about community, about how we help each other, about what generosity means. This is what we need.” More

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      Lin-Manuel Miranda Sings ‘New York, New York’ Outside ‘Hamilton’ Theater

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      Three hours before showtime, Lin-Manuel Miranda — the “Hamilton” creator who wrote the music, book and lyrics for the hit musical — burst out of the front doors of the Richard Rodgers Theater with a bullhorn and was met with the shrieks and applause of a crowd gathered on West 46th Street.He was there to lead a group of Broadway performers in a rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “Theme From ‘New York, New York,’” creating a sort of mood-setting overture for the night ahead.New York New York!!!! pic.twitter.com/iEW3tUxL0H— Luis A. Miranda, Jr. (@Vegalteno) September 14, 2021
      “Get a mask, get vaccinated and come see live theater!” said Miranda, who also played Alexander Hamilton in the original Broadway cast.The appearance was not publicized until about 4 p.m., when Miranda tweeted a photo from inside the theater and announced a so-called Ham4Ham, which, before the pandemic, was a performance by “Hamilton” cast members outside the theater that accompanied a lottery for tickets to see the show. (There would be no free tickets today, Miranda said.)Passers-by and Broadway superfans rushed to the scene as soon as they saw the social media announcement.Eva Ferreira, a 10-year-old “Hamilton” fan who has memorized nearly every word of the musical, watched with her parents, who had taken her to New York City for her birthday.Four teenagers — all aspiring Broadway performers who had spent the day in class at Steps Conservatory — sprinted to the theater from the subway after they saw Miranda’s tweet. They stood in the crowd in awe of the group of performers — the kind that they hoped to be one day.Jessica Payne and her husband ran down from their hotel room to catch Miranda and the other performers. Their spring 2020 trip was canceled because of the pandemic, so they had flown in from Colorado recently to see eight Broadway shows in six days after “a year and a half of heartbreak” while the industry was on pause.“We both cried when the plane landed,” Jessica Payne said, listing the shows the couple was planning to see (“Wicked” is on the schedule tonight). “We’re so happy to be here.” More

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      ‘Chicago’ Polishes Its Razzle-Dazzle Right Until Showtime

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      It was six hours before showtime for “Chicago,” which was reopening after an 18-month hiatus, and the cast was gathered onstage at the Ambassador Theater to hear a choreographer and director’s notes from the final dress rehearsal. After this many months offstage, a few details still needed polishing, even after weeks of rehearsals.“Act Two: Bianca, you are early with your ‘Hello, suckers,’” Greg Butler, the associate choreographer, said to Bianca Marroquín, who was playing Velma Kelly. He asked her to walk offstage and try the entrance again.“Hello, suckers!” Marroquín said a moment later.“Fierce, that’s how we do it,” Butler responded.And with that, the cast of “Chicago,” the long-running musical by John Kander and Fred Ebb, got back to business.“Eighteen months is a lot,” Marroquín, who had played Roxie Hart before playing Velma, said in interview, coming off the stage to sit in the empty auditorium. “Everyone went through a lot of trauma and anxiety, and it wasn’t easy for us. Life goes boom-boom and takes the stage away. That was tough.”She spoke of the emotions of being back. “This is what we do,” she said. “Without this, our life sort of dimmed.”Now “Chicago,” which is celebrating its 25th anniversary on Broadway this year, is waiting to see what its next chapter will look like. Tourists, who make up two-thirds of the overall Broadway audience, are especially important to “Chicago.” One of the big lingering questions is when (or if) they will start flocking back.“We are certainly a tourist-driven show,” said Walter Bobbie, the show’s director. “We are going to find out. When you get to be past 10 years old, the New Yorkers who want to see the show have seen it.”One of the people on hand for Tuesday’s opening performance was a lifelong New Yorker, Peter Massaro, who paid $250 for a premium package from Mastercard that included dinner and a meeting with members of the cast. (“I’m still shaking,” he said afterward.)Massaro first saw “Chicago” 20 years ago. “I haven’t seen it since,” he said. “I’m a huge Bob Fosse fan. It’s a great show from start to finish. The dancing alone.”Massaro, who wore a rhinestone bow tie for Broadway’s return, said he had no concern about seeing a show in the midst of a pandemic. “They check for vaccines and masks,” he said. “People are respectful of that, especially in the Broadway community.” More

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      Lindiwe Dlamini Returns to 'The Lion King' Stage

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      Lindiwe Dlamini has spent 24 years of her life with “The Lion King.” She was with the show when it tried out in Minneapolis, and has been in the Broadway production for its entire run.Needless to say, the last 18 months have been jarring, and she’s happy to be back.“Oh my God — it’s a huge one tonight,” she said. “I’m excited and anxious and every emotion you can think of. Mostly it’s really exciting to be back. We’ve been away a long time.”In an industry that loves its superlatives, “The Lion King” has more than its share. It’s the highest grossing show in Broadway history (nearly $1.7 billion) and its worldwide grosses (more than $9.3 billion) exceed those of any film, Broadway show or other entertainment title in history.The show has over the years had 25 productions around the world that have played to nearly 110 million people; it has been performed on every continent (except Antarctica) and in nine languages (English, Japanese, German, Korean, French, Dutch, Mandarin, Spanish and Portuguese).All of its productions closed during the pandemic, but with tonight’s Broadway reopening there are now five productions of “The Lion King” open, and by January there should be 10, in New York, London, Paris, Hamburg, Tokyo and Madrid and touring in North America, Britain, Japan, and elsewhere around the world.The musical, which opened in 1997 (and won six Tony Awards, including best musical) is the third longest running Broadway show (after “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Chicago”) and Dlamini is the only member of the original cast still performing in the show. She became an American citizen through the show (she is from South Africa), married another cast member and made a life around her work here; she is in the ensemble, and tonight plays a hyena, a lioness, a flock of birds and a square of savanna.How was it being out of the show for the first time? “It was weird,” she said. “I’ve been doing this for 24 years now, and to just stop out of nowhere! I was on a bus, on my way to work, when I got the call, and I had to get off at the next stop.”The shutdown has also been traumatic. Her husband, daughter, son and sister all got Covid (they recovered), and back in South Africa, a cousin and her husband died of the disease.“I’ve been so worried about people back home, and I couldn’t go home and be with my family,” she said. “It was tough, and it was very emotional.”And what is it like being back? “Really, really emotional,” she said. “It’s such a huge part of my life.” More

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      ‘Hamilton,’ ‘The Lion King’ and ‘Wicked’ Creators Welcome Back Broadway

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      Lin-Manuel Miranda felt joyful seeing Elmo in Times Square.Julie Taymor sees visual poetry in a moment where the audience, as well as her characters, are masked.And Stephen Schwartz is just happy to see audiences again.The creative minds behind “Hamilton,” “The Lion King” and “Wicked” are delighted that their shows are running again. But, even more important, they’re relieved that theater is back.“People are ready,” said Taymor, the director of “The Lion King,” “and it’s time.”Schwartz, the composer and lyricist of “Wicked,” said the long months of streaming have been no substitute for live theater.“The thing about live theater is it’s a community, not just onstage, but with the audience the whole theater becomes a community, and we’ve just really really missed that,” he said. “You can’t equal that experience on screens — on little screens or even big screens — it’s just not the same as live people and a live audience and what happens every night between them and among them in that theater. That’s irreplaceable.”The three creators spoke to The New York Times in a joint interview Tuesday afternoon as they prepared for their own shows to open. They had decided to open on the same night to call attention to Broadway and to signal that the industry is open, ready for visitors and prioritizing safety (all theatergoers must be vaccinated, except children under 12, and masked).“Broadway is a huge part of New York City — what defines New York City, and the economy of New York City,” Schwartz said. “So we are really thrilled to be back, and we want everyone out there to know it’s safe to come and join us.”Taymor said theater has a particularly important role to play in times when the world is confronting so many challenges. “This is what we do as theater people, especially in the dark times,” she said. “This is exactly what we’re here for — we’re here to inspire and excite.”Miranda, who not only wrote “Hamilton” but also starred in the original production, said he was relieved to see theater back.“There was a lot of fear that this day would never come,” he said. “Just even walking over here and seeing Times Square bustling, and seeing Elmo again, and I saw the line around the TKTS booth for the first time in a year and change, and so I’m just really thrilled that theater’s back.” More

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      ‘Six’ Is Back in Rehearsals and Hoping to Get to Opening Night

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      The red velvet seats at the Brooks Atkinson Theater on West 47th Street were covered by tech tables of computers, cables and consoles operated by designers, directors and stage managers. An audience was not due until the first preview on Friday night.But the anticipation was nevertheless high for a dress rehearsal of “Six,” the British musical dreamed up by two college students that imagines the wives of Henry VIII as pop stars.In one of the more poignant examples of the pandemic’s toll on the theater, the musical’s opening night turned out to be its closing night instead: The show had been scheduled to open March 12, 2020, the day Broadway shut down.Now “Six” will find out if the loss of 18 months has cost the show any momentum; its original opening had been buoyed by advance sales, multiple productions, a hugely popular soundtrack and fans who had been following the show since its 2017 premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.So there were effusive whoops and cheers from the crew in attendance when the curtain came up on the show’s six queens, fully decked out in their sparkly costumes, glittering boots and — in some cases — crowns.“We’re finding ways of readjusting the show to who these performers are now — who these queens are at this moment in time, who their 2021 selves are, where these songs are coming from,” said Jamie Armitage, who directed the musical with Lucy Moss. “There’s a depth and fire to some of the performances which I haven’t seen before.”“I think it’s the time away, realizing what theater means and what it means to congregate,” Armitage continued, adding that the show’s theme was newly resonant: “The group is more powerful than the individual.”The production’s diverse, all female cast and band — and its message of sisterhood and self-empowerment — also resonates with the lessons of the lockdown period, specifically a heightened awareness about the importance of equal opportunities for women and people of color. The musical concludes by calling out “patriarchal structures.”The dress rehearsal went smoothly, running its 85-minute, intermission-free duration without any apparent technical hitch. And after the confetti had fallen on the curtain call, the two directors rehearsed the bows again. Then they introduced a new idea: The cast took selfies from the stage. “Six” will start previews on Friday, the same night David Byrne’s “American Utopia” begins a return engagement, as Broadway’s reopening gathers momentum. Another 28 shows are scheduled to begin performances before the end of the year.As the “Six” actors dispersed for a dinner break — before returning to the theater for notes — Moss, who co-wrote the show with Toby Marlow, said she was feeling cautiously optimistic.“Until it’s open and running I’m not going to be like, ‘We’re back,’ because who knows what’s going to happen?” she said. “It makes you very grateful for every moment in the room.” More

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      TV is highlighting Broadway this week. Here’s how to watch.

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      The main reason that “Wicked,” “Hamilton” and “The Lion King” decided to start performances on the same night is that they thought they could attract more attention to Broadway that way.It looks like they were right.Even though four shows had already started running, and dozens more have yet to come, there has been a flurry of television coverage of Broadway this week, all serving to remind viewers that performances have resumed.Here are some highlights that might be of interest:This morning, Good Morning America did a segment on the reopening.Over the weekend, CBS Sunday Morning featured the return of “Wicked”:Jimmy Fallon is discussing the return of Broadway all week on “The Tonight Show.” Tonight he’s scheduled to feature “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical,” tomorrow is “Dear Evan Hansen,” Thursday is “Six,” and Friday is “Wicked.” Last night, he featured an Off Broadway musical, “Little Shop of Horrors,” which is scheduled to reopen Sept. 21, starring Jeremy Jordan, at Westside Theater.On “The Late Show,” Stephen Colbert talked last night with Jeff Daniels about next month’s return of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and tomorrow night he is expected to talk with Stephen Sondheim, whose “Company” revival is coming in November.For those of you who are Spectrum subscribers, Spectrum News NY1 will feature a Broadway reopening special at 6:30 tonight. And for those of you who are TikTok users, Disney will stream “Circle of Life,” the opening number of “The Lion King,” live at 7 p.m. at @DisneyOnBroadway. More

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      A Climate Opera Arrives in New York, With 21 Tons of Sand

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      “Sun & Sea,” an operatic installation that won the top prize at the Venice Biennale, is being staged at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.On a rainy morning last week, a beach arrived at the front door of a theater in Brooklyn.Or at least the raw ingredients for one: 21 tons of sand, packaged in 50-pound bags, 840 of them. Wheeled into the BAM Fisher on pushcart dollies, they were unceremoniously dropped onto the theater’s tarp-covered floor with a dull thud.Once opened and spread around, the sand would form the foundation of “Sun & Sea,” an installation-like opera that won the top prize at the Venice Biennale in 2019 and has emerged as a masterpiece for the era of climate change. Neither didactic nor abstract, it is an insidiously enjoyable mosaic of consumption, globalization and ecological crisis. And its next stop is the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where it opens on Wednesday and runs through Sept. 26.Over 20 tons worth of sand were brought to the BAM Fisher for the production in 50-pound bags.George Etheredge for The New York Times“The way it delivers its ideas, it’s totally surprising,” said David Binder, BAM’s artistic director. “It disarms you and lures you in. That’s not the way we’re used to receiving work about the issues of our day — what we’re all facing in this summer of fires and floods and what we’ve done to the planet.”For the work’s creators — Rugile Barzdziukaite, Vaiva Grainyte and Lina Lapelyte — the reception of “Sun & Sea,” only their second collaboration, has been something of a Cinderella story, as they said in a recent video interview. But as much as it is a fairy tale, the work is the fruit of a friendship that began in the Lithuanian town where they all grew up.Barzdziukaite eventually became a director; Grainyte, a writer; Lapelyte, a musical artist. In working together, they were attracted to opera, they said, because it provided “a meeting place” for their individual practices. As a trio, Grainyte added, “we can listen to each other and dive into this process without fighting or dealing with egos.”The sand was used to create an indoor beach for “Sun & Sea,” which uses the setting for a musical meditation on climate change and globalization.George Etheredge for The New York TimesTheir first project was “Have a Good Day!,” which traveled to New York for the Prototype festival in 2014. Like “Sun & Sea” it approached its subject — the thoughts of supermarket cashiers, and cycles of consumption — with a light touch. The cast of 10 singers, all women to evoke a typical store in Lithuania, shared stories that charmed until, in their accumulation, they took on the nauseating excess of the photographer Andreas Gursky’s similarly themed “99 Cent.”“The idea was to have this zoom-in approach using micro narratives,” Grainyte said, “but also being conscious that we also belong to this part of buying and selling circles.”It was important to the three creators that, while bitterly ironic, “Have a Good Day!” was not polemical. “We tried to really avoid the ‘one truth’ because it’s never black and white,” Lapelyte said. “That goes the same with ‘Sun & Sea.’ When we talk about the climate crisis, it’s never coming with one view.”George Etheredge for The New York TimesGeorge Etheredge for The New York Times“Sun & Sea” is more ambitious: still subtle, intimate and haunting, but sprawling in scale. From a sliver of sand, Barzdziukaite, Grainyte and Lapelyte extract broad implications. The beach, after all, is a battleground of the Anthropocene that both embraces and defies nature. It’s a destination deemed worth flying around the world, expelling tons of carbon, to simply lounge on — though not without a heavy dose of sunscreen to avoid a burn, or worse.The characters in Grainyte’s libretto, which is both plain-spoken and poetic, are overworked and over-traveled, both self-righteously against technology’s intrusion in their lives and welcoming of it. Their stories are told as monologues and vignettes, broken up by choruses of sinister serenity.Often, the characters are oblivious. “What a relief that the Great Barrier Reef has a restaurant and hotel!” one woman sings. “We sat down to sip our piña coladas — included in the price! They taste better under the water, simply a paradise!” Her husband seems unaware that his burnout isn’t so different from that of the earth itself as he sighs melodically, “Suppressed negativity finds a way out unexpectedly, like lava.”“Sun & Sea” in Venice, where it won the top prize at the Venice Biennale in 2019.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesSome characters find beauty in the horrors of modern life. “The banana comes into being, ripens somewhere in South America, and then it ends up on the other side of the planet, so far away from home,” one sings. “It only existed to satisfy our hunger in one bite, to give us a feeling of bliss.”Another, in the most unforgettable image of the opera, observes:Rose-colored dresses flutter:Jellyfish dance along in pairs —With emerald-colored bags,Bottles and red bottle caps.O the sea never had so much color!“We didn’t want to be too declarative,” Barzdziukaite said. “At some point, Vaiva was taking off all the words which were dealing with ecological issues directly.” The final work amounted to about half of what was written.George Etheredge for The New York TimesGeorge Etheredge for The New York TimesWhat they didn’t want was to give the impression that they were climate activists. “It would be unfair to say that,” Grainyte said. “If we were activists, we wouldn’t create this work that is traveling the world.” (The production, like many in the performing arts, isn’t the most eco-friendly: For the BAM presentation, all that sand was transported by truck from VolleyballUSA in New Jersey to Brooklyn.)But that doesn’t mean “Sun & Sea” avoids responsibility by design. Political art is a spectrum, and its creators are aware that they are wrestling with unwieldy and urgent topics; they just want their opera to “activate,” as Lapelyte put it.Crucial to that effect are, beyond the text, the music and visual presentation. The electronic score — earworm after earworm — provides minimal accompaniment for the singers, and was written to reflect the ease of leisure.After “Sun & Sea” closes, the sand will be vacuumed up, sanitized and repurposed.George Etheredge for The New York Times“We wanted it to be quite poppy, that it would remind you of a song that you know well but you can’t say which,” Lapelyte said. “And at the same time it’s very much reduced to very few notes, and it’s also repetitive like a pop song.”The action, while largely improvised by volunteers who flesh out the cast, is obsessively managed by Barzdziukaite. Participants are asked to arrive wearing specific colors (mostly calming pastels). While the roughly hourlong opera is sung in a loop, they are instructed not to seem to be acting, nor to acknowledge the audience. For the performers, the experience shouldn’t be any different from a trip to the beach.“We are very much using this documentary approach in every aspect,” Barzdziukaite said. Observant audience members might notice how casually plastic fills the space; a pair of partially buried headphones, or some abandoned toys, will be familiar sights.George Etheredge for The New York TimesIn Venice, audiences left “Sun & Sea” to be confronted by countless cheap souvenirs and towering cruise ships. When the run ended, the city was flooded. Heavy rain will also have preceded the piece’s arrival in Brooklyn, with the storm carrying the remnants of Hurricane Ida having killed over 40 people in New York and three neighboring states. None of this is lost on the creators, who find themselves wrestling with what it means to make subtle art in a world whose natural disasters increasingly have the heavy-handedness of agitprop.“I feel like I’m living in a dissonance and asking myself what’s next and how I should behave,” Grainyte said.Those who attend the BAM production might find themselves asking similar questions. They won’t see tchotchkes crowding Venetian shops, but perhaps on the way home they will take another look at the garbage on the subway tracks or the shelves of miniature Empire State Buildings in Midtown.If there’s any waste they shouldn’t be worried about, it’s all that sand. After “Sun & Sea” closes, it will be vacuumed up, sanitized and repurposed as a beach volleyball court, maybe, or as a playground. But probably never again as an opera.Sun & SeaWednesday through Sept. 26 at BAM Fisher, Brooklyn; bam.org. More