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    BroadwayCon Panelists Tackle Diversity and Representation Onstage

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    The eighth annual fan event will host a variety of discussions about how to diversify stages, songs and scripts. Here are six to look out for.It’s the most musical time of the year, the weekend when thousands of fans from around the world descend on Midtown Manhattan for costume contests, Playbill swaps and theater idol meet-and-greets.This year’s BroadwayCon, which takes place July 21-23 at the Marriott Marquis hotel, gives fans the chance to preview new Broadway shows like the “Back to the Future” musical and the “Jaws” comedy “The Shark Is Broken,” catch up with original cast members from the not-exactly-family-friendly puppet musical “Avenue Q” and the storied rock opera “The Who’s Tommy.”The schedule also features thoughtful panels, many focused on issues of representation on Broadway, such as a planned discussion on roles for disabled actors, featuring the “Cost of Living” Tony Award nominee Katy Sullivan.Here are six you won’t want to miss.Celebrating Female and Nonbinary VoicesA group of female and nonbinary songwriters, among them Kristen Anderson-Lopez, the Oscar, Grammy and Emmy Award-winning co-writer of Disney’s “Frozen” (both the film and Broadway musical) and “Remember Me” from Pixar’s “Coco,” will spotlight recent achievements by female, nonbinary and gender-expansive composers and lyricists and discuss how the industry might open more doors to them.“Spotlight on Women and Nonbinary Musical Theater Writers,” Friday, 10 a.m.Diversifying StagesA panel of playwrights, composers and actors of color will discuss how to bring more work to Broadway that represents perspectives from beyond white American culture. Among them will be Jordan E. Cooper, who was recently nominated for two Tonys for writing and starring in the biting race comedy “Ain’t No Mo’” on Broadway; Helen Park, the first Asian female composer on Broadway, who earned a Tony nomination for “KPOP”; and Kristoffer Diaz, whose new musical, “Hell’s Kitchen,” written with the singer Alicia Keys, is slated to open at the Public Theater in November.“What Is the Future of Broadway? A Dream Session with Global Majority Playwrights and Musical Theater Writers,” Friday, 11:15 a.m.Restaging Problematic ClassicsA panel of directors, writers and producers will discuss how to revive musicals like “Miss Saigon,” “South Pacific” and “The King and I” with troublesome structural or political elements (or both). Participants will include Lear deBessonet, the artistic director of Encores!, a longstanding, popular New York City Center series that stages short-run productions of decades-old musicals, and Schele Williams, who is directing the upcoming Broadway revival of “The Wiz.” “That Wouldn’t Fly Today: The Art of Revising Revivals,” Friday, 3:45 p.m.Discussing Disability on BroadwayPerformers with disabilities have become a more common sight on Broadway stages lately, appearing in productions including “Cost of Living,” “A Doll’s House” and “Grey House.” For Katy Sullivan, who was recently nominated for a Tony for her performance in “Cost of Living” as the feisty wheelchair user Ani, it’s not just the presence of disabled actors in recent productions that is encouraging — it’s the types of roles they’re being cast in.“I would love to see a world where even more performers with disabilities are utilized within characters who aren’t necessarily written as disabled,” Sullivan said. The panel also includes Gregg Mozgala, her “Cost of Living” co-star; Madison Ferris, who became the first wheelchair user to play a lead role on Broadway when she starred in a 2017 revival of “The Glass Menagerie” opposite Sally Field; and David Connolly, who became the first amputee to perform on Broadway in a 1989 revival of the Civil War musical “Shenandoah.”“Ready, Willing and Very Abled,” Saturday, 3:45 p.m.Zachary Noah Piser was the first Asian American actor to play the lead role in “Dear Evan Hansen” on Broadway. He will speak on a panel about Asian American representation in theater.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesApplauding Asian American StoriesThe New York theater landscape has changed radically since Ali Ewoldt made her Broadway debut as Cosette in a revival of “Les Misérables” in 2006.“We for a long time had a very homogeneous way of telling stories,” said Ewoldt, who in 2016 became the first Asian American actress to play Christine in “The Phantom of the Opera” on Broadway. “So it’s exciting to me when Broadway and theater and TV reflect the world we live in, in all its complexity and diversity.”She and five actors of Asian American and Pacific Islander descent — among them Zachary Noah Piser, who in 2019 became the first Asian American actor to play Evan Hansen on Broadway — will celebrate recent representation in shows like “Here Lies Love,” “Camelot” and “Life of Pi” and discuss how to see even more of their communities’ stories portrayed onstage.“Telling Our Stories — Breaking the A.A.P.I. Box on Broadway,” Sunday, 11:15 a.m.Building a Latino FutureSix songwriters, playwrights, directors and actors, including Luis Salgado from “In the Heights” and the playwright Christin Eve Cato, will discuss the importance of creating, sharing and producing Latino-written works of musical theater, as well as the challenges they faced on their journeys to Broadway and the strategies that helped them break through.“El Futuro es Latiné: Dreaming of A More Diverse Theater Industry,” Sunday, 11:15 a.m. More

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      ‘Cost of Living’ Review: Worth Its Weight in Gold

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      Subtle connections bridge the worlds of two caregivers in Martyna Majok’s 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, making its Broadway debut.How do we connect with people? How do we care for them? And what does it all cost, both fiscally and emotionally? These are just a few of the questions Martyna Majok poses in her wrenching 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “Cost of Living,” which opened on Monday night at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater in Manhattan.After debuting at the Williamstown Theater Festival in 2016, “Cost of Living” ran Off Broadway in 2017 in a Manhattan Theater Club production at New York City Center. Now Majok is making her Broadway debut, arriving with an impressive inventory of awards and praise for her poignant, socially conscious work, which includes “Sanctuary City” (2021) and “Ironbound” (2016).In her Pulitzer Award citation, the committee wrote that Majok “invites audiences to examine diverse perceptions of privilege and human connection.” She does this whether exploring the worlds of undocumented immigrants or working-class New Jerseyans holding on by a thread.As “Cost of Living” begins, Eddie is certainly looking for connection — and redemption, and a way out from under the specter of loneliness since his wife’s death. On this particular night, he says, he’s been stood up for a date with his dead wife, Ani. He sits on a stool center stage at a bar, a shelf of bottles adorned with multicolored string lights floating behind him.What Eddie (an affable David Zayas), a 40-something unemployed truck driver from Bayonne, N.J., leaves out in this impromptu bar eulogy to his wife are the tough times: his years of alcoholism and then a separation.From here the play, tenderly directed by Jo Bonney, jumps back in time, when Eddie and Ani are separated. It’s a few months after a devastating accident left Ani (Katy Sullivan) a quadriplegic and double amputee. Eddie wants to help with her home care; Ani, resentful and depressed, wants to be left alone.Not too far south of Bayonne, in Princeton, Jess (Kara Young) is struggling to stay above the poverty line. A recent alum of the Ivy League school, she’s nevertheless interviewing for a job as an aide to John (Gregg Mozgala), a grad student with cerebral palsy. Jess is direct but guarded when it comes to her life, and John is pretentious and calculating, though he gets Jess to open up with his knavish charm.Kara Young, left, as the caregiver to Gregg Mozgala who plays a grad student with cerebral palsy.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe play’s scenes alternate between the two stories of these caregivers, with a turntable set that rotates from Ani’s criminally beige living room and bathroom to John’s upscale, modern apartment with towering windows and a gray-tiled, sit-in shower stall. (The polished scenic design is by Wilson Chin.) Bonney’s deft negotiation of these separate settings and stories is just one of the ways “Cost of Living” impressively teeters between two main axes — the body, and the economy of its care — without toppling over.There’s a satisfying parallelism to the dynamics between the two pairs — the chemistry, the witty repartee, the heartbreak one character offers, intentionally or unintentionally, to another. Each twosome exists in their separate bubbles of Jersey life until they finally intersect. And yet Majok’s sharp writing is never predictable; even when she seems to be leading us down the path to a conventional love story, she pivots and offers an unexpected development — like a wife who sends texts from beyond the grave or a romantic invitation that turns out to be a slick power play.Bonney’s direction adds an extra layer of cohesion to the story: subtle connections that bridge the worlds, like Eddie and Jess each walking separately to the same gentle patter of rainfall on a stormy day (sound design by Rob Kaplowitz).Each of the four cast members performs with a three-dimensional pop of life. Eddie’s insistent affection and optimism is comically at odds with Ani’s dry deadpan. Sullivan’s fiery Ani speaks in a kind of poetry of insults and expletives. Young’s Jess is bright, brusque and uncompromising, even when her life is going sideways. And Mozgala portrays John as someone who is slippery, coy and clever, with a shadiness beneath.Majok’s script insists on the casting of diverse and disabled actors, helping to deepen an affecting work that readily breaks your heart, drags you through hurt and then kisses you on the forehead, sending you off with a laugh.This play left me breathless, and I’m not just using a manner of speech. As I made my way through the crowd of people exiting the theater, I took hard, shallow breaths, knowing that one deep inhale could set off a downpour of tears. This production either broke or mended something in me; I felt — brilliantly, painfully, cathartically — near the point of physical exhaustion.It seems as if the tears, the chuckles, the full body ache of feeling is the currency of an outstanding work of art. We give nearly two hours of attention, and great theater offers us empathy and humanity in return: riches of which even the world’s wealthiest can only dream.Cost of LivingThrough Oct. 30 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, Manhattan; manhattantheatreclub.com. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. More