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      ‘Terce’ Review: How the Other Half Prays, in a Reimagined Mass

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      Heather Christian’s latest exploration of the religious sublime is a musical spectacle about the often overlooked “caregivers and makers.”When I’ve had the opportunity, as a wandering Jew, to visit the houses of worship of friends, I’ve never felt much in danger of conversion. But if I did, it would surely be the music that got me.That’s also been true for me when visiting the church of Heather Christian: I’m not sure what faith she’s selling, but I’m a sucker for the way it sounds. In “Terce: A Practical Breviary,” which opened on Sunday at the Space at Irondale in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, she offers a new installment in what is evidently a plan to remake the Catholic Mass of her childhood in egalitarian if cryptic new terms.She’s doing so one rhapsodic service at a time. In 2020 she offered “Prime,” her version of the 6 a.m. liturgy. “Terce,” produced by Here as the centerpiece of this year’s Prototype festival, advances three hours to midmorning. (The title derives from the Latin for “third.”) By then, a congregation would presumably be awake enough to absorb its sunlit richness.That richness does not depend on the usual elements of plays or prayer: characters and narratives, pipe organs and priests. “Terce” is not theater except to the extent that religious ritual, being a parent of theater, bears a family resemblance.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Broadway Shows to See This Winter and Spring

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      Broadway Shows to See This Winter and SpringA guide to the shows onstage now and scheduled to arrive this winter and spring, including “Cabaret,” “Hell’s Kitchen” and “The Outsiders.”What to See | Getting Tickets Illustrations by Golden CosmosWhat to SeeAnd suddenly, Broadway is packed again. After an autumn that wasn’t exactly overwhelmed with openings, spring is looking absolutely jammed, with 19 productions currently set to open between now and the deadline for Tony Awards eligibility in late April. But right now we’re in a quieter part of the season, which for audiences means deals are afoot — including the two-for-one offers that are part of Broadway Week, underway through Feb. 4.Last ChanceLeslie Odom Jr. and Kara Young, center, with the rest of the “Purlie Victorious” cast at the Music Box Theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesGutenberg! The Musical!Silliness runs amok in this musical comedy duet starring Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells (Tony nominees for “The Book of Mormon”) as Bud and Doug, a pair of theater-loving goofballs with big Broadway dreams for their show about Johannes Gutenberg, the 15th-century inventor of the printing press — so they’re giving a performance, playing all the roles themselves, to persuade an audience of producers. Written by Scott Brown and Anthony King (“Beetlejuice”), the show is directed by Alex Timbers, a Tony winner for “Moulin Rouge!,” who staged an endearingly zany Off Broadway production of “Gutenberg!” in 2006. (Through Jan. 28 at the James Earl Jones Theater.) Read the review.HarmonyBarry Manilow and Bruce Sussman retell the true story of the Comedian Harmonists — a Weimar-era vocal sextet of Jewish and gentile Berliners — in this long-gestating musical. With a cast that includes Chip Zien, Sierra Boggess and Julie Benko, the show is directed and choreographed by the Tony winner Warren Carlyle. Notably, this is not a jukebox show; the music, written and arranged by Manilow, is original. (Through Feb. 4 at the Ethel Barrymore Theater.) Read the review.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      ‘Gutenberg!’: A Guide to the Inventor Behind the Broadway Musical

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      “Gutenberg! The Musical!,” a comic meta-musical about two talentless dolts pitching a show about the father of the printing press, wraps up its limited Broadway run on Jan. 28.Written by Scott Brown and Anthony King and starring Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells (reprising their “Book of Mormon” buddy act), the show has drawn mixed reviews and strong box-office returns. But even before it opened, its mere existence on Broadway sent book and library nerds vibrating with anticipation and a bit of disbelief.There have also been grumblings from some traditionalists (of the rare book, not the Rodgers and Hammerstein, variety), along with some resignation. Well, why not a musical about Johannes Gutenberg? If Broadway can turn a semi-overlooked founding father like Alexander Hamilton into a household name and cultural hero, why should the guy whose invention helped jump-start mass literacy throw away his shot?Rannells with Josh Gad, left, in the musical, which reunited the pair onstage for the first time since they starred in “The Book of Mormon” over a decade ago. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesHamilton had some big fat biographies on his side. But as Gad’s character in the show notes, Wikipedia (correctly) declares records of Gutenberg’s life “scant.”Here is a primer for those who, even after seeing the show, might be left wondering: “Guten-Who?”What do we actually know about Johannes Gutenberg?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      ‘Stereophonic,’ a New Play About Making Music, to Open on Broadway

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      Written by David Adjmi and featuring songs by Will Butler, the drama follows five musicians making an album in the 1970s.“Stereophonic,” an acclaimed behind-the-music play about a disputatious band recording a studio album, will transfer to Broadway this spring following a buzzy and sold-out Off Broadway run.The play, written by David Adjmi, is set mostly inside a Sausalito, Calif., recording studio, and follows five musicians and two sound engineers through a year in the 1970s. The story — featuring romance, infighting, drug use and a solo-star-in-the-making — resembles that of Fleetwood Mac, but Adjmi says he had many inspirations for the play.The 14-week Broadway production is expected to begin previews April 3 and to open April 19 at the Golden Theater.The Off Broadway run, over 10 weeks last fall at the nonprofit Playwrights Horizons, garnered strong reviews. Writing in The New York Times, the critic Jesse Green called it “relentlessly compelling.”The show also won significant praise for its original songs, which were written by Will Butler, a former member of Arcade Fire.Adam Greenfield, the artistic director of Playwrights Horizons, described the play as being about “a group of brilliant artists who are at odds with each other, trying to figure out how to collaborate without killing one another, even when killing one another might be the easier way out.” Also, he said, “it’s set in a world that is incredibly sexy — the West Coast rock scene of the ’70s,” and “it has a killer title.”Adjmi has been working on the play for a decade; he said the idea first came to him while he was listening to a Led Zeppelin song on a plane and wondering what it would have been like to be in the studio when they were recording it.“I saw it in my mind’s eye, and I thought, this could be a great idea for a play,” he said. “I didn’t know anything about the recording process, but I would talk to experts and try stuff out.”The process, which included inviting engineers to comment on the script as it evolved, resulted in a high level of verisimilitude, down to the details of a much-praised set by David Zinn.The production is directed by Daniel Aukin; the entire Off Broadway cast, including Will Brill, Juliana Canfield, Tom Pecinka, Sarah Pidgeon and Chris Stack as the musicians, as well as Andrew R. Butler and Eli Gelb as the engineers, is expected to transfer to Broadway.The show will be capitalized for up to $4.8 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It is being produced by Sue Wagner, John Johnson, Seaview, Sonia Friedman Productions, Linden Productions, and Ashley Melone & Nick Mills. More

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      ‘Harmony,’ Barry Manilow’s Passion Project, to Close on Broadway

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      The musical, which Manilow wrote with Bruce Sussman, is about a German singing ensemble that collided with the rising Nazi regime.“Harmony,” Barry Manilow’s long-in-the-works musical about an early-20th-century German sextet that ran afoul of the Nazi regime, will end an abbreviated Broadway run on Feb. 4.Manilow and his longtime collaborator Bruce Sussman have been working on the show for more than a quarter-century, inspired by a documentary film about the Comedian Harmonists, an ensemble that included some Jewish members, which was unacceptable to the Nazis.The musical, directed by Warren Carlyle, opened on Nov. 13; at the time of its closing it is expected to have played 24 previews and 96 regular performances. It was capitalized for up to $15 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission; that money has not been recouped.Manilow wrote the music for the show; Sussman wrote the book and the lyrics. Over the years, the show had productions in San Diego, Atlanta and Los Angeles, and then in 2022 there was a successful Off Broadway production at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Manhattan’s Battery Park neighborhood.The Broadway production features Chip Zien portraying a surviving member of the group, reflecting back from 1988 to its history in the late 1920s and early ’30s. Ken Davenport, Sandi Moran and Garry Kief are the lead producers; they announced the closing Tuesday evening.The show opened to mixed reviews, and has been running at a time when overall Broadway attendance has not yet rebounded to prepandemic levels. Last week, “Harmony” grossed $534,769, which is not enough to sustain a musical of its size; its houses, at the Barrymore Theater, were just 77 percent occupied, according to data released by the Broadway League.Many shows are struggling, and industry leaders are worried about this spring, when there is a sizable crop of musicals and plays planning to open, while production costs are high and audience numbers remain lower than they once were. Another musical, “Shucked,” closed on Sunday after a 10-month run, and last year’s Tony-winning musical, “Kimberly Akimbo,” has announced that it will end its run in April. More

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      Covid, Crutches, Surgery: For Christopher Abbott the Show Somehow Went On

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      “I thought this could be my swan song, in terms of the angry-young-man thing,” said the actor of his rocky run of “Danny and the Deep Blue Sea.”Christopher Abbott was about halfway through a performance of “Danny and the Deep Blue Sea” when he felt something go wrong. The 37-year-old actor had been sitting onstage — his character, a brutish trucker, proposing marriage to a tormented woman played by Aubrey Plaza — and as he went to get up, he couldn’t straighten his leg.That early December injury — he had a bucket handle meniscus tear — was followed in short order by a case of Covid and arthroscopic surgery. And then he returned to the stage, performing for several weeks on crutches, through the end of the show’s 11-week run on Saturday night.The play, a two-hander, is a 1984 drama by John Patrick Shanley about two hardened people who meet in a Bronx bar and wind up spending a night together. The run, staged Off Broadway at the 295-seat Lucille Lortel Theater, was unusually bumpy.Abbott and his co-star, Aubrey Plaza, during a curtain call on the final day of performances.Lanna Apisukh for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Charlotte St. Martin to Step Down as President of Broadway League

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      No reason was given for her unexpected retirement after 18 years in the pivotal role.In a surprise announcement on Tuesday, Charlotte St. Martin, who has served as president of the Broadway League since 2006, said she would be stepping down from her current role next month.As the leader of the league, a trade association representing producers and theater owners as well as presenters from around the nation, Martin has held one of the most pivotal positions in the theater industry. The league plays an important role in promoting Broadway, handles labor negotiations with the many unions representing theater workers on Broadway and on tour, and collects and distributes data about Broadway’s economic health and the demographics of its audience.The League also presents, alongside the American Theater Wing, the Tony Awards, which is the annual ceremony honoring the best shows and performances on Broadway.St. Martin’s retirement, effective Feb. 16, comes as Broadway — which is made up of 41 theaters concentrated in and around Times Square — is still struggling to rebound from the lengthy pandemic shutdown. The economics of Broadway have become increasingly challenging as production costs have risen while audience levels remain lower than they were before the pandemic.The league said in a statement that St. Martin would continue to advise the organization through this year’s Tony Awards, which are scheduled to take place on June 16. Jason Laks, the league’s executive vice president and general counsel, will run the organization on a day-to-day basis until St. Martin’s replacement is chosen; the league is overseen by a board that is chaired by Kristin Caskey, an executive vice president of the Ambassador Theater Group. More

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      ‘The Emigrants’ Review: A Troubled Show Finally Debuts

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      Krystian Lupa’s latest work had its premiere in Paris after an earlier attempt collapsed. The delay would have been a good time to rethink the four-and-a-half-hour show.The spotlight is rarely on them. Yet as the technical crew moved furniture between scenes of Krystian Lupa’s new play “The Emigrants,” which finally had its world premiere in Paris on Saturday, they were watched as carefully as headline performers.Without these inconspicuous figures, the show can’t go on — and for much of the past year, a dispute with technicians has kept “The Emigrants” from the stage. Initially scheduled to debut last June at the Comédie de Genève, a prestigious Swiss playhouse, that production was canceled less than a week before opening night.At the time, the Comédie de Genève cited differences in “work philosophy” and “values” between its team and Lupa, 80, a longtime luminary of European theater. An article in the Swiss newspaper Le Temps said that the theater’s crew had been “mentally and physically exhausted” by Lupa’s attitude in rehearsal. In a reply published in the French newspaper Libération, Lupa apologized for two violent outbursts during rehearsals, but maintained that technicians “should at least attempt to adapt” to a director’s creative process.Members of the Comédie de Genève technical crew responded with a long letter, describing “multiple instances of disrespect, scoldings, taunting, scenes of drunkenness and humiliations, as well as chaotic organization.”The play’s director, Kristian Lupa, at the Odéon earlier this month. An earlier attempt to stage “The Emigrants” in Geneva collapsed after members of the technical crew walked out.Woytek Konarzewski/SIPA, via Associated PressThe domino effect was swift, and the prestigious Avignon Festival, which was supposed to present the work this past summer, pulled out, too. The Odéon — Théâtre de l’Europe, a Paris theater where Lupa has been a frequent guest over the years, ultimately stepped in to make up for the lost rehearsal time this winter, allowing for a belated premiere using its own technical crew. (No performances of “The Emigrants” are currently planned beyond the Paris dates.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More