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    ‘What the Constitution Means to Me’ Is This Season’s Most-Staged Play

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    Heidi Schreck’s play will have at least 16 productions around the country; last season’s most-produced play, “Clyde’s,” came in second.“What the Constitution Means to Me,” a challenging exploration of American legal history sparked by a student oratory competition, will be the most produced play at U.S. theaters this season, according to a survey released on Wednesday.The play, written by Heidi Schreck, will have at least 16 productions around the country, according to a count by American Theater magazine.The magazine conducts an annual survey of theaters to determine which shows, and which playwrights, are most popular. Productions of “A Christmas Carol” and works by Shakespeare, which are always widely staged, are excluded. The survey covers theaters that are members of the Theater Communications Group, the national nonprofit organization that publishes the magazine.“What the Constitution Means to Me” was staged on Broadway in 2019, with Schreck starring, and it was filmed for Amazon. (The play has a three-person cast, including a young person who debates the lead actress about the merits of the Constitution.)A production is now running at the Copley Theater in Aurora, Ill.; productions just closed at Main Street Theater in Houston, Syracuse Stage in New York, Capital Repertory Theater in Albany and Ensemble Theater Cincinnati. Other productions are planned at theaters including New Stage Theater in Jackson, Miss.Last season’s most-produced play, “Clyde’s” by Lynn Nottage, remains quite popular — it came in second this season, with at least 14 productions, and Nottage is the nation’s most-produced playwright, with 22 productions overall.Among the other most-staged plays this season are “POTUS,” by Selina Fillinger, and “The Lehman Trilogy,” by Stefano Massini.The complete lists of most-produced plays and most-produced playwrights are online at AmericanTheatre.org. More

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      How America’s Playwrights Saved the Tony Awards

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      The screenwriters’ strike threatened next month’s broadcast, a key marketing moment for the fragile theater industry. That’s when leading dramatists sprang into action.Martyna Majok, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, was revising her musical adaptation of “The Great Gatsby” after a long day in a developmental workshop when she heard the news: The union representing striking screenwriters was not going to grant a waiver for the Tony Awards, imperiling this year’s telecast.So at three in the morning, she set aside her script to join a group of playwrights frantically writing emails and making phone calls to leaders of the Writers Guild of America, urging the union not to make the pandemic-hobbled theater industry collateral damage in a Hollywood dispute. “I had to try,” she said.Surprising even themselves, the army of artists succeeded. The screenwriters’ union agreed to a compromise: it said it would not picket the ceremony as long as the show does not rely on a written script.“Theater is having a very hard time coming back from the devastating effects of the pandemic — shows are struggling and nonprofit theaters are struggling terribly,” said Tony Kushner, who is widely regarded as one of America’s greatest living playwrights, and is, like many of his peers, also a screenwriter. “Ethically and morally, this felt like a recognition of the particular vulnerability of the theater industry. It’s the right thing to do, and costs us nothing.”Kushner, who is best known for the Pulitzer-winning play “Angels in America,” is a fiery supporter of the strike who freely denounces the “unconscionable greed” of studio bosses and who showed up on a picket line as soon as it began. But he spent a weekend calling and writing union leaders in both New York and Los Angeles, urging them to find a way to let the Tony Awards happen, arguing that canceling them would have been far more damaging to theater artists than to CBS, which broadcasts the event.He was among a number of acclaimed dramatists — including David Henry Hwang and Jeremy O. Harris — who spent a weekend phoning and emailing union leaders. At least a half-dozen Pulitzer winners joined the cause, including Lynn Nottage (“Sweat” and “Ruined”), Quiara Alegría Hudes (“Water by the Spoonful”), David Lindsay-Abaire (“Rabbit Hole”), Donald Margulies (“Dinner with Friends”) and Majok (“Cost of Living”).“Cost of Living,” by Martyna Majok, is nominated for best new play. Majok joined other playwrights lobbying the writers’ union to allow the Tonys telecast to proceed. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesMajok, who is a first-time Tony nominee herself this year for “Cost of Living,” said, “I approached them with respect and gratitude for all they have done for me,” she said, “but this decision was impacting so many of my colleagues and friends deeply, in an industry that is still financially struggling.”Writers are never the main attraction at the Tony Awards. The annual ceremony centers musical theater, hoping that razzle-dazzle song and dance numbers will inspire viewers to get up off their couches and come visit Broadway. The telecast often struggles with how to represent serious drama.But playwrights say they treasure the Tonys, because the ceremony introduces new audiences to theater. “In one way or another, it’s all connected,” Kushner said.And for once playwrights actually had power, because in recent years, as the number of scripted series on television and streaming services has exploded, many of them have also taken jobs working in film and television, which pays much better than the theater industry. Many of the playwrights concerned about the Tony Awards were also members of the Writers Guild — some quite successful, like Kushner, who wrote the scripts for Steven Spielberg’s “Munich,” “Lincoln,” “West Side Story” and “The Fabelmans,” and Kenneth Lonergan, who wrote “The Waverly Gallery” for the stage and “Manchester by the Sea” for the screen.“Most playwrights are W.G.A. members, because they have to make a living and get health insurance,” said Ralph Sevush, the executive director of business affairs for the Dramatists Guild of America, which is a trade association of theater writers. “And yes, there was a great deal of lobbying of the W.G.A. by many of them to find a way to get the broadcast on.”The screenwriters’ union was torn over whether to assist the Tony Awards, with its eastern branch, filled with playwright members more sympathetic than the affiliated western branch, which is more Hollywood-oriented. It did not go unnoticed that many theatrical workers have been vocally supporting the writers’ strike, including Kate Shindle, the president of the Actors’ Equity Association, who has brought members of her union to the picket lines and who spoke with the heads of both branches of the screenwriters’ guild.“There was no master strategy involved — we were just standing up for the writers,” Shindle said. “But I’m happy with the way that it seems like a decision came about: writers talking to and debating with each other, which feels like the right thing.”The Tonys seem likely to be a rare exception. In the days following the greenlighting of the theatrical awards, this year’s Peabody Awards, which honor storytelling in electronic media, were canceled, and the Daytime Emmy Awards, which honor work on television, were postponed.Asked about the decision, Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, a vice president of the screenwriters’ guild’s eastern branch, offered an emailed statement that said, in part, “we recognize the devastating impact the absence of a Tonys would have on our New York theater community. Here in W.G.A. East, we have many, many members who are playwrights, and we are deeply intertwined with our sister unions whose members work in the theater.”Playwrights were not actually the first choice of Broadway boosters strategizing about how to save the Tonys — at first, industry leaders thought they might look to prominent politicians and famous actors to make their case. But they quickly realized that playwrights, because of their ties to the W.G.A., were better positioned to influence the discussion. Harris, who wrote “Slave Play,” and Gina Gionfriddo (“Rapture, Blister, Burn”) rallied writers to the cause, along with the agent Joe Machota, who is the head of theater for Creative Artists Agency.This year, they argued, would be an especially unfortunate time to downgrade the Tony Awards.Ariana DeBose, who hosted last year’s Tony Awards, is expected back this year, but it’s unclear what a ceremony without a script will look like.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBroadway attendance and overall grosses remain well below prepandemic levels, and new musicals are struggling — four of the five nominated shows are losing money most weeks.Unlike the Oscars, which generally take place after the theatrical runs of nominated films, the Tonys take place early in the run of most nominated musicals, so they can translate into ticket sales. The Tonys matter for plays in a different way: nominations and wins have an enormous impact on how often those works are staged, read and taught.“People that don’t work in playwriting don’t always have a meaningful understanding of how important Broadway is to Off Broadway and to regional theaters — they’re really a beacon for the community at large, and even if you don’t care about the glitz and the glamour, if they start to lose money, it has impacts all over the country,” said Tanya Barfield, a playwright and television writer who is the co-director of the playwriting program at Juilliard.After she heard her union had denied a waiver for the Tony Awards, a “heartbroken” Barfield joined a picket line with a homemade “I ❤️ the Tony Awards” sticker on her WGA sign. And she wrote union leaders. “We wanted to make sure theaters did not become a casualty,” she said.Another concern: this year’s Tony Awards feature an unusually diverse group of nominees, reflecting the increasingly diverse array of shows staged on Broadway since 2020. Five of this year’s nominated new plays and play revivals are by Black writers; four of the five nominees for best actor in a play are Black; the best score category for the first time includes an Asian American woman; and the acting nominees include two gender nonconforming performers as well as a woman who is a double amputee.“We need to showcase what we’ve been seeing with the diverse talent and rich storytelling of the past few years,” Majok said.The Tonys will be different this year. The event will take place, as planned, at the United Palace in Upper Manhattan, with a live audience, live performances of musical numbers from nominated shows, and the presentation and acceptance of awards. But there will be no scripted material (a draft script had been submitted, but will not be used) and no scripted opening number (Lin-Manuel Miranda had been planning to write one). Ariana DeBose, the Oscar-winning actress who had been named its host for the second year in a row, is still expected to take part, but it is not clear what role she will play.One new element that is expected at this year’s ceremony? Shout-outs to the striking screenwriters. Hwang, a W.G.A. member who called and emailed union leaders asking them to rethink their position on the Tonys, said, “I anticipate that there will be a lot of speeches that express our appreciation and support for the guild on Tony night.” More

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      How Lynn Nottage and Her Daughter Are Exploring Their Relationship in Writing

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      Can you collaborate with your mother, a Pulitzer-winning playwright, and develop your own voice too? Ruby Aiyo Gerber wasn’t too scared to try. Ruby Aiyo Gerber: For so long, I rebelled against wanting to be a writer, fearing that admiring any part of you was to be forever in your shadow. I had a lot of fear when starting the collaboration [on the opera “This House,” with the composer Ricky Ian Gordon, which premieres next year at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis; based on a play that Gerber wrote, it’s about a brownstone in Harlem and its inhabitants over a century] that I wouldn’t be able to be my own writer, that I’d be like a version of you, that my words would turn into yours. Lynn Nottage: In both librettos we’re collaborating on right now [for “This House” and another forthcoming opera tentatively called “The Highlands,” with the composer Carlos Simon], we’re dealing with intergenerational trauma, intergenerational love. A daughter grappling with her legacy, a daughter grappling with her relationship to her mother, a daughter trying to decide if she wants to take this gift that her mother has offered her. Embedded in the themes we’re exploring is our relationship.culture banner More

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      ‘Crumbs From the Table of Joy’ Review: Dreams on the Cusp of Womanhood

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      In Keen Company’s revival of Lynn Nottage’s 1995 play, a Black girl comes of age amid the churn of social change in midcentury Brooklyn.If Ernestine Crump were a Hollywood actress, she would change her name to something suitably alluring.“Like ‘Sylvie Montgomery,’” she says. “Or ‘Laura Saint Germaine’ — that’s French.”At 17, on the verge of graduating from high school, Ernestine is given to celluloid dreams and other flights of fancy.“But don’t you worry yourself,” she says, all teasing practicality. “When I’m onscreen I sure can act very white. That’s why I’m a star.”In Lynn Nottage’s bittersweet memory play “Crumbs From the Table of Joy,” at Theater Row, the year is 1950. Ernestine (a terrific Shanel Bailey), our narrator, is a recent transplant to Brooklyn, where she lives in a basement apartment with her rigid father, Godfrey (Jason Bowen), and impish sister, Ermina (Malika Samuel). They are a Black family on a largely white block; few of the neighbors will even speak to them.The death of the girls’ mother was the catalyst for the Crumps’ move north from Florida. Each of them is still undone by grief, perhaps Godfrey most of all. A baker by trade, he is newly sober and celibate, clinging to the teachings of the messianic leader Father Divine, whose portrait hangs on the living room wall. (The set is by Brendan Gonzales Boston.)More on N.Y.C. Theater, Music and Dance This Spring‘The Invisible Project’: The new show by the choreographer Keely Garfield at NYU Skirball is a dance, but it is also informed by her work as an end-of-life and trauma chaplain.Life in Photos: Larry Sultan’s photography, now starring in the play “Pictures From Home” and a gallery show, raise issues of who controls a family’s image.Musical Revivals: Why do the worst characters in musicals get the best tunes? In upcoming revivals, world leaders both real and mythical get an image makeover they may not deserve, our critic writes.Rising Stars: These actors turned playwrights all excavate memories and meaning from their lives in creating these four shows, which arrive in New York in the coming months.Asceticism is anathema to the girls’ glamorous Aunt Lily (Sharina Martin), their mother’s sister, who shows up unexpected from Harlem one day. Luggage in tow, flask ever-present, she announces that her own mother has asked her to take care of the girls.“She don’t think it’s proper that a man be living alone with his daughters once they sprung bosom,” Lily says, vividly.And that’s that, despite how objectionable Godfrey finds Lily’s fervent Communism and how disconcerting he finds her sexual availability.In Colette Robert’s quiet, mostly sure-handed production for Keen Company, “Crumbs From the Table of Joy” is a pleasure for several reasons: rarity, for one, this being the play’s first New York revival since its premiere in 1995.There’s also the fun of spotting — in a work that feels, improbable as it sounds, like a cousin to Neil Simon’s “Brighton Beach Memoirs” — glimmers of plays to come in Nottage’s oeuvre. Ernestine’s silver-screen fantasies bring to mind the satire “By the Way, Meet Vera Stark” (2011), about a trailblazing Black actress in Golden Age Hollywood. And Ernestine’s dressmaker’s dummy, draped with her graduation gown in progress, prefigures “Intimate Apparel” (2003).That dress, prim and white with lace at the neckline, is as much an emblem of achievement and possibility as Lily’s elegant tailored skirt suit — though Lily’s outfit also serves as an armor of bravado over dented dreams. (Costumes are by Johanna Pan.) A revolutionary at heart, and a life-altering inspiration to Ernestine, Lily is a determined counterpoint to the version of Black womanhood that the cautious Godfrey tries to instill in his daughters: chaste, sober, grateful and with only the tamest of ambitions.Lily, alas, doesn’t have the necessary resonance in this production. There’s a hollowness to Martin’s interpretation that unbalances the otherwise strong ensemble and the dynamics of the Crump household, which Godfrey throws into turmoil when he abruptly remarries.Like Father Divine, he chooses a white woman — Gerte (Natalia Payne, excellent), who lived through the war in her native Germany. Their first meeting, by chance, on the subway, is intensely fraught: she, lost, hungry and alone; he, terrified to engage because, as he has told his daughters more than once, “I don’t want to wind up like them Scottsboro boys.”Such are the clamorous forces shaping Ernestine’s coming-of-age. In the middle of the 20th century, in a corner of the big city, she’s figuring out who she wants to be.Crumbs From the Table of JoyThrough April 1 at Theater Row, Manhattan; keencompany.org. Running time: 2 hours. More

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      Lynn Nottage’s ‘Clyde’s’ Is the Most-Staged Play in America

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      An annual survey, suspended during the pandemic, resumes and finds theaters nationally doing fewer shows and torn between escapism and ambition.Theaters around America appear to be staging fewer shows than they were before the pandemic, but a lot of the work they are doing is by Lynn Nottage.An annual survey by American Theater magazine, conducted this year for the first time since the start of the pandemic, found that Nottage’s sandwich shop comedy, “Clyde’s,” will be the most-produced play in the country this season, with at least 11 productions. The survey also found that there were 24 productions of Nottage plays planned this season, which ties her with the perennial regional theater favorite Lauren Gunderson for the title of most-produced playwright in America.“Clyde’s,” which had a well-reviewed Broadway production starring Uzo Aduba that opened late last year, is peopled by characters who previously served time in prison, and its mix of laughter and social commentary, plus Nottage’s stature as a two-time Pulitzer winner, apparently appealed to those who program theater seasons. Among those staging the play are the Arden Theater Company in Philadelphia, the Arkansas Repertory Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theater, Center Theater Group in Los Angeles and TheaterWorks Hartford.“‘Clyde’s’ just hit the sweet spot — it has a multiracial cast, it addresses issues of incarceration and racial tension, it’s a comedy, and it’s really smart, and it’s by a Pulitzer winner,” said Rob Weinert-Kendt, the editor in chief of American Theater and an occasional contributor to The New York Times. “It’s a comedy, but it’s not turning away from the world.”Nottage, in an email, said she was pleased the play was finding an audience.“‘Clyde’s’ is a play about people trapped in a liminal space. It is also about community, healing, creativity, mindfulness and forgiveness,” she said. “I’m really quite humbled to be back on the most-produced list with this particular play, which speaks to the moment, as it is about the process of resurrecting one’s spirit and finding grace in the simple business of living.”Lynn NottageJingyu Lin for The New York TimesThe finding that fewer productions are being mounted is troubling, though not surprising — artistic directors around the country have been saying that they were ramping back up slowly after the pandemic shutdown because audiences have not come back in prepandemic numbers. The American Theater lists are based on a survey of theaters that are members of Theater Communications Group; in the 2019-20 season, respondents reported planning to stage 2,229 full-run shows; this season, even with the first-time addition of audio and streaming shows, as well as productions on Broadway, the count is only 1,298.The survey, which counts both plays and musicals but excludes work by Shakespeare and variations on “A Christmas Carol” (because there are so many productions they would swamp everything else), finds more diversity than in the past: Seven of the 14 most-produced plays are by writers of color, and 10 of the 24 most-produced playwrights are writers of color.Notably, though composers are not tracked by the survey, work with songs by Stephen Sondheim is experiencing a spike in popularity since his death last year, with at least 19 productions planned around the country. (In New York, there are three: “Into the Woods,” which opened on Broadway this summer; “Merrily We Roll Along,” running at New York Theater Workshop this winter; and “Sweeney Todd,” coming to Broadway next spring.)After “Clyde’s,” the other most popular shows include some crowd-pleasing entertainments — the comedy “Chicken & Biscuits,” a stage adaptation of “Clue,” the musical “Once” — alongside more challenging fare, like Nottage’s play “Sweat.” After Nottage and Gunderson, the most-produced playwrights are Matthew López, August Wilson and Dominique Morisseau. The complete lists are at americantheatre.org.Update: After publishing its survey results on Friday, American Theater magazine amended its lists to reflect new information. As a result, the statistics about the season’s diversity have been updated in this story. More

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      Lorraine Hansberry Statue to Be Unveiled in Times Square

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      A life-size likeness of the pioneering playwright will be unveiled in June as part of a new initiative to honor her legacy.When the Los Angeles-based artist Alison Saar was commissioned a little over four years ago to sculpt a statue of the playwright Lorraine Hansberry, she had just one thought: “Am I the right person for the job?”“I don’t really work with likenesses,” said Saar, 66, whose artwork focuses on the African diaspora and Black female identity. “But they said, ‘No, no, we want it to be more of a portrait of her passion and who she was beyond a playwright.’”The request had come from Lynn Nottage, the two-time Pulitzer-winning playwright, as part of an initiative she was developing with Julia Jordan, the executive director of the Lilly Awards, which recognize the work of women in theater. The Lorraine Hansberry Initiative was designed to honor Hansberry, who was the first Black woman to have a show produced on Broadway.“She’s just part of my foundational DNA as an artist,” Nottage said in a phone interview on Wednesday. “Throughout my career, if I needed to look to structure, or storytelling, or inspiration, I could go to ‘A Raisin in the Sun,’ this perfect piece of literature.”The statue, a life-size likeness of Hansberry surrounded by five movable bronze chairs that represent aspects of her life, and, Saar said, invites people “to sit and think with her,” will be unveiled in Times Square on June 9. The event will include performances and remarks from Nottage and Hansberry’s 99-year-old older sister, Mamie Hansberry. It will remain in Times Square through June 12, and then begin a tour of the country over the next year or so on its way to its permanent home in Chicago, Hansberry’s birthplace.Lorraine Hansberry in 1959, the year she made history when she became the first Black woman to have a play reach Broadway. David Attie/Getty ImagesBut, Nottage said, they also wanted a more forward-looking way to honor Hansberry, leading to the initiative’s second prong: A scholarship to cover the living expenses for two female or nonbinary graduate student writers of color who create for the stage, television or film. Beginning next year, the $2.5 million scholarship fund will give its first recipients $25,000 per year, generally for up to three years — the typical length of a graduate program. (LaTanya Richardson Jackson, who was nominated for a Tony Award for her role as Lena Younger in the 2014 Broadway revival of “Raisin,” the Dramatists Guild and the National Endowment for the Arts are among the initial donors.)“So many graduate programs for writers at elite institutions like Juilliard, Yale and Brown now offer free tuition,” Nottage said, “but you see people not taking a place because they can’t afford to take three years off to pay for rent, computers, food and travel, which could be, on average, anywhere from $15,000 to $35,000 per year.”“It would’ve made a huge difference for me,” Nottage said of the scholarship fund. “When I was at the Yale School of Drama, one of the actors told me I could get public assistance to pay for groceries and electricity, and when I showed the welfare department in New Haven my financial aid package — I was doing work-study — they were like, ‘Oh, yeah, you’re living below the poverty line.’”Hansberry, who was just 34 when she died of pancreatic cancer in 1965, is best known for “Raisin,” a semi-autobiographical family drama that tells the story of an African American family living under racial segregation on the South Side of Chicago. The play, which opened on Broadway in 1959 with Sidney Poitier in the cast, would go on to win the New York Drama Critics’ Circle award for best play, making Hansberry, at 29, the youngest American and first Black recipient of the award.The life-size statue shows Hansberry holding a flame. It will be surrounded by five movable bronze chairs that represent aspects of her life and work. Nolwen Cifuentes for The New York TimesHansberry was also active in political and social movements, including the fight for civil rights, regularly writing articles about racial, economic and gender inequality for the Black newspaper Freedom. She also wrote letters signed “L.H.N.” or “L.N.” — for Lorraine Hansberry Nemiroff (her husband’s last name) — to The Ladder, a monthly national lesbian publication. In those letters, she wrestled with issues she faced as a lesbian in a heterosexual marriage and the pressure on some lesbians to conform to a more feminine dress code.Her older sister, Mamie, recalls Lorraine being bookish from a young age. Their parents allowed them to sit out on the sun porch during visits from prominent individuals, such as the poet Langston Hughes and Paul Robeson, the singer, actor and activist. “Daddy wanted us to be able to listen to some of the distinguished people who came by the house,” she said.Lorraine Hansberry would write letters to congressmen — “My mother would find them when she was cleaning her room,” Mamie Hansberry said. “She was free to write to anyone,” Mamie said, “and they would answer!”It is that spirit that Nottage and Jordan said they hope to cultivate in the next generation of playwrights. The statue’s tour will begin with stops at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem (June 13-18) and Brooklyn Bridge Park (June 23-29) before traveling to cities like Atlanta, Detroit and Los Angeles. It is also set to make stops at historically Black colleges and universities, including Spelman College in Atlanta and Howard University in Washington.Jordan said the initiative will also work with local theaters and artists to present Hansberry’s work, as well as the work of contemporary writers of color, in conjunction with the sculpture’s placement. New 42, the nonprofit organization behind the New Victory Theater, has also created a resource guide to teach middle- and high-school students about Hansberry and “Raisin,” which will be free for schools and organizations to use.“I do think that if Hansberry had continued to write and develop as an activist, one of the things she would’ve done was amplified voices of other women of color,” Nottage said.Jordan said she and Nottage had already raised $2.2 million of their $3.5 million goal for the statue construction costs, tour and scholarship fund. By 2025, Jordan said, they expect to support a total of six playwrights per year.“Everyone wants to produce these women,” Nottage said. “But we want to make sure people are prepared — that they’re secure in their voices and secure in their craft — so they don’t fail when they get that opportunity.” More

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      Break a Leg but Never Whistle: How Stage Superstitions Live On

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      The return of the Scottish play (that’s “Macbeth” to the rest of you) is a reminder of the idiosyncratic rituals and routines that bring actors comfort.Theaters are superstitious places, sites of myth, ceremony and invocation. And no stage superstition has more adherents than the one shrouding Shakespeare’s Scottish play: Anyone in a theater who speaks the name Macbeth aloud, except when rehearsing or performing the play, risks catastrophe.“I said the Scottish play’s title onstage,” the playwright Lynn Nottage recalled recently. “And the next day my mother died.”When Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at this year’s Oscars ceremony, Twitter wags invoked the curse. Moments before the fracas, Rock had hailed Denzel Washington, a star of Joel Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” saying: “‘Macbeth!’ Loved it!” When performances of the current Broadway revival of “Macbeth” were canceled after its leading man, Daniel Craig, tested positive for coronavirus, talk of the curse swirled again.Daniel Craig in the title role of “Macbeth.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAdmittedly, the “Macbeth” prohibition has its origins in nonsense, as an invention of the 19th-century critic and essayist Max Beerbohm. In 1898, Beerbohm wrote a column claiming, falsely, that a young male actor had died just before the play’s debut. But the taboo took, and stories of “Macbeth”-adjacent injuries, accidents and deaths began to accumulate. (Don’t fear: If you pronounce the name by accident, you can counteract the curse by leaving the theater, performing a ritual that often involves spinning and spitting, and then asking to be let back in.)More recently, this taboo has kept company with other stage shibboleths — don’t say “good luck,” don’t wear green, don’t give flowers, don’t whistle, don’t put mirrors onstage, always leave a light on.Superstition isn’t unique to the theater, of course. But as Marvin Carlson, a theater professor and the author of “The Haunted Stage,” pointed out, theater does encourage otherworldly thinking. “There are very few haunted banks,” he said. “But most theaters are said to be haunted. It’s a very, very common feature. Clearly there is something about the aura of theaters.”Anjna Chouhan, a lecturer in Shakespeare studies, agreed: “They’re bizarre spaces, right? They’re weird spaces where people are performing fantasy, and emotions run so high.”A lot can go wrong during live performance — a flubbed line, a missed cue, a wonky prop. Chouhan suggested that actors may subscribe to superstitions and engage in some very particular preshow and post-show rituals as a way of keeping this contingency at bay. “There’s a lot to be said for ritual and routine,” Chouhan said. “It’s the way that you enforce your control over things that can’t be controlled.”Some actors always leave the dressing room on a certain foot, others say a prayer. Some carry lucky charms. “When you take on a character, you’re doing something dangerous. You’re in some way playing with your essence or your soul,” Carlson explained. “You take a charm to protect yourself as much as you can.”Revisiting the Tragedy of ‘Macbeth’Shakespeare’s tale of a man who, step by step, cedes his soul to his darkest impulses continues to inspire new interpretations. On Stage: Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga star in Sam Gold’s take on the play. Despite its star power, the production feels oddly uneasy, our critic writes. Onscreen: In the “Tragedy of Macbeth,” Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand embody a toxic power couple with mastery. Break a Leg: Shakespeare’s play is known for the rituals and superstitions tied to it. How does the supernatural retain its hold on the theater world? Beyond ‘Macbeth’: This spring, there’s an abundance of Shakespearean productions in New York City. Here is a look at some of them. The Times spoke to a handful of performers currently in Broadway shows — believers and skeptics — about superstitions, personal rites and whether they have ever had a moment in the theater that flirted with the supernatural. (No “Macbeth” actors would participate. Is there a superstition associated with speaking to reporters?) These are edited excerpts from the conversations.D. Woods, foreground, in “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow Is Enuf.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesD. Woods‘For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow Is Enuf’Are there any theater superstitions that you subscribe to?Definitely the one about “Macbeth.” Definitely break a leg.Have you ever had an experience in theater that felt out of the ordinary?The first day that we moved into the Booth, the original theater that “For Colored Girls” opened in, there were things falling. In our dressing room, we put a bag up on a shelf, and it would just fall down. Kenita Miller is my dressing room mate. We both looked at each other, like, “Oh, Ntozake is here. She is here to greet the space.”Do you have a preshow ritual?I light palo santo for good vibes, good energy. And I play a lot of music just to get me in the mood. I do wear a couple of crystals that one of our wardrobe team gave us. If I need to stay focused, I’ll wear a tiger’s eye. If I want to make sure that I’m really on top of my voice, I’ll wear the blue one. That’s the throat chakra.Is there anything special that you keep in your dressing room?I have a picture of my great-aunt. Her name is Mary Childs. She was a performer in her day. A tap dancer. When I was coming up, she was so encouraging. So I bring her to the theater.Michael Oberholtzer‘Take Me Out’Are there any theater superstitions that you subscribe to?I subscribe to most of them. I broke the cardinal one about a week ago, I said the name of the Scottish play. So I had to go outside. I had to do the whole thing.Have you ever had an experience in the theater that felt out of the ordinary?All the time. Some people get freaked out by that type of thing. I welcome it. Interestingly enough, we went out to Yankee Stadium a week or two ago. We went out to the bullpen in the outfield. There was so much energy there. So yeah, I absolutely believe in it. And I like to think I’m attuned to it. I try to submit to it, embrace it.Do you have a preshow ritual?Before I go onstage, I find a place in the theater and I get down on my knees and just give over to the universe, just express gratitude for this opportunity.A.J. Shively‘Paradise Square’Have you ever had an experience in the theater that felt out of the ordinary?Never in any kind of scary or frightening way. But whenever I go into an old Broadway house, I go onstage and look at the house and think about the incredible people who have seen this exact view before me. I went out on the stage here at the Barrymore, where the original “Streetcar” was. I said, “Stella!”Do you have a preshow ritual?I made my Broadway debut in “La Cage Aux Folles.” An actress, Christine Andreas, told me to go down to the stage when the audience is filing in to just feel their energy and send your energy out. I’ve done that ever since.What about a postshow ritual?I reward myself with a pint of ice cream.Ramin Karimloo (right, with Beanie Feldstein) as Nick Arnstein in “Funny Girl.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesRamin Karimloo‘Funny Girl’Have you ever had an experience in the theater that felt out of the ordinary?I’ve been in theaters on my own. When I was on tour in Scotland, there was this one room that had a piano that I would play. One night I was up there on my own. And I certainly felt something. There was nobody there, but I felt like someone was there.Do you have a preshow ritual?I have to floss and brush my teeth before I go onstage. I want that clarity in my mouth. It’s a reset point. So before the show, and at intermission, I floss and brush.Or a postshow ritual?I do like a sipping tequila and a nice Japanese whiskey waiting for me. But it depends on the part. Sometimes it’s hard to shake it off and I’ll need a shower. It’s that idea of cleansing.Shoshana Bean‘Mr. Saturday Night’Have you ever had an experience in a theater that felt out of the ordinary?I’m often the last person to leave. You would think because of all those rumors and stories, that it would be a scary place. But there is no more peaceful, comfortable place to be than alone in a theater. It really is the most magical feeling, just feeling protected and not alone.Do you have a preshow ritual?The only ritual I have is making sure I warm up. It takes like 45 minutes. I like to do it at home. I want to not be worried about who can hear me.Or a postshow ritual?During “Waitress” [while playing the show’s protagonist, Jenna], I did — whiskey and usually a bag of potato chips. My voice doctor at the time was like, “You have to leave her at the theater. You can’t bring her home with you. It’s literally hurting you, taking her pain home with you.” I loved her so much. I didn’t want to leave her.John Earl Jelks‘Birthday Candles’Are there any theater superstitions that you subscribe to?Not whistling is one. The other one is having a light on somewhere. You never want to see a dark stage.Have you ever had an experience in the theater was out of the ordinary?At the Hackney Empire. That’s in London. It’s a place where Laurence Olivier performed and all the other great British actors. They were always talking about how it had ghosts. I remember coming early one day, and I was hearing dressing room doors close. I went up and there was no one there.Do you have a preshow ritual?I have a piece of a chain that August Wilson gave me on opening night of my first Broadway show, “Gem of the Ocean,” and I have a picture of my deceased wife. So that’s the ritual: I blow her a kiss and hold on to this piece of chain.Shuler Hensley (left, with Hugh Jackman) as Marcellus Washburn in “The Music Man.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesShuler Hensley‘The Music Man’Do you have a preshow ritual?When I get to the theater, which is usually at least an hour before curtain, the first thing I always do is put on my costume. I’m not really functioning in my part until I get the costume on. People make fun of me, but if I don’t do that, I get really nervous.Or a postshow ritual?I try to be the last actor out of the building. It honestly feels like I’m locking up the theater for the night. I don’t know why I enjoy that.Is there anything special that you keep in your dressing room?I’m very big on smells. I have a cold mist diffuser and 12 bottles of different scents. I try to never have the same scent twice.Jennifer Simard‘Company’Are there any theater superstitions that you subscribe to?I don’t say good luck. It’s always break a leg. The good news is, I am incapable of whistling. So I don’t have to worry about that.Do you have a postshow ritual?It’s either a hot Epsom salts bath or a cold immersion bath, which is a nightmare. And I have these air compression boots that I put on at home. If I don’t do one of those, I feel like it’s going to affect the show the next day.Is there anything special that you keep in your dressing room?It’s called a miraculous medal [a devotional item]. I first found out about them from my late mother. Whenever someone was ill, or going through loss, she would give them to people. There was one that she had, that was very special. We had it pinned to her when she was passing. It means a great deal to me. So when I get nervous, that is my talisman. More

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      ‘MJ’ Review: Michael Jackson Musical Won’t Look in the Mirror

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      A new jukebox musical tells the story of Michael Jackson. Except for the big story.“There are a lot of strange stories making the rounds,” says a documentary filmmaker interviewing Michael Jackson.Understate much?Michael Jackson was such a magnet for strange stories that they nearly obliterated his gift. Yet in defensively brushing off the ones that don’t matter while pointedly ignoring the one that does, the new musical “MJ,” which opened on Tuesday at the Neil Simon Theater, may be the strangest Michael Jackson story yet.Not all strangeness is bad, of course, and within the confines of the biographical jukebox genre, “MJ,” with a book by Lynn Nottage, is actually pretty good — for a while. Directed and choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon, whose ballet background has found a natural outlet in dance musicals like “An American in Paris,” the show starts with confidence and verve in a natural setting: the rehearsal room. There, Jackson, along with his dancers, backup singers and band, is in the final stages of preparation for his 1992 Dangerous tour, a four-continent, 15-month marathon.That framing means that our first look at the musical’s version of Jackson is as a man at work, without the distraction of Bubbles the chimp, the Elephant Man bones, the hyperbaric chamber, the fading skin color, the disappearing nose — or the accusations of pedophilia that would begin to emerge a year later, at first in tabloids and then in lawsuits and eventually in police investigations.As such, we get the joy of discovery, both of Jackson before the fall and of Myles Frost, a real find in the role. Singing “Beat It” as he enters, Frost offers not just a willowy simulacrum of the star in perfect copies (by the designer Paul Tazewell) of his classic regalia — black jacket, gold brocade, tilted fedora, white socks scrunched to the ankles — but an eerie mimicry of his mannerisms. The breathy voice; the head-down, eyes-up gaze; the interjectory squeals and yelps: Frost has them down cold.Perhaps too cold. Absent any deeper revelation of the singer’s character, Frost’s performance of the songs — which include MTV-era chartbusters like “Bad,” “Billie Jean,” “Man in the Mirror” and “Thriller” as well as less-familiar numbers — soon begins to seem animatronic, as if he were created by Disney imagineers. It doesn’t help that there are so many of them; 37 titles are listed in the program, some barely one-verse samples.But Wheeldon’s choreography — performed by Frost along with a superb if amazingly jacked ensemble — remains compelling longer, offering a three-dimensional version of what most of us have seen only from distant arena seats or in dark videos on depthless screens. (The show’s “Michael Jackson movement” is credited to two additional choreographers, Rich + Tone Talauega.) The stage patterns are far more varied and expressive than in similar musicals, scoring points without words as they deliver the thrills and, following the biomusical road map, pave the way between present and past.Christian Wilson as the preteen Michael and Ayana George as his mother, Katherine, in the show.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesTake the sequence in which the Jackson 5 makes a smash appearance singing “ABC” at an Apollo Theater amateur night in 1969. Seamlessly Wheeldon swirls the giddy brothers from the stage to a scene of celebration in their hotel room, at least until their perfectionist father (Quentin Earl Darrington) demands, with the warmth of a cult leader, that despite their exhaustion they rehearse into the night. When the preteen Michael (Christian Wilson at the performance I saw) stands up to him and gets slapped so hard he falls to the floor, his mother (Ayana George) comforts him by singing “I’ll Be There” as he goes to bed.What Katherine Jackson’s responsibility might have been, besides providing a lullaby, is not considered; she is still alive. In any case, after all this, Wheeldon returns us to the 1992 rehearsal room with a trenchant gesture: The dancers pull the linens away to reveal the bed as a bunch of tour trunks.Jackson’s was undoubtedly a hard childhood. Though Nottage uses clichés from the jukebox playbook to dramatize that story — including an interviewer to prompt the reminiscences (Whitney Bashor) and three actors to divvy up the role at different ages (Tavon Olds-Sample is delightful as the teenage Michael) — she does so crisply and in a format that makes it seem almost natural. Having members of the 1992 entourage take all the supporting roles in the flashback scenes is both efficient and convincing.But the tale is mostly humorless, a problem not alleviated by Jackson’s occasional impish antics (he shoots a water pistol at his business manager) or the constant underlining of the emotional argument. (“You sang that song like you’ve been living with heartbreak all of your life,” Berry Gordy tells the preteen Michael after he performs “I Want You Back.”) As the joys of the early scenes begin to fade, “MJ” settles for baldly providing, in the relatively small space allotted to words, an avalanche of astonishing and sorrowful facts.Which is why the absence of the biggest one is so jarring.In agreeing to write what is essentially an authorized biography — the show has been produced “by special arrangement with the Michael Jackson estate” — Nottage apparently made a compromise: She would note his minor oddities while avoiding the most troubling accusations against him. Even so, there are pat explanations for every peccadillo, from the plastic surgeries (“This is Hollywood,” Jackson says. “Who hasn’t gotten a new nose?”) to the hyperbaric chamber (“I started that rumor. I thought it would be funny”). His father’s viciousness is likewise given a gloss coat of justification: “My hand ain’t nearly as heavy as the world’s gonna be on your Black ass if you step outta line,” he says.Frost, center, amid the zombies, in “Thriller.” Nearly 40 songs are listed in the program, including his biggest hits.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIn this, “MJ” is trying to have it both ways. It wants to blame everything sad and weird about Jackson on others (especially the press, who are equated with the zombies in “Thriller”) but credit him alone for his every good deed and success. Acknowledgment of the choreographers and songwriters he collaborated with is mostly saved for the program.This defensiveness, constantly asserting his genius as if it were in question, eventually becomes dulling, like any act of bad faith. And so as the show, anticipating its star’s trajectory, disintegrates in the second half, the pleasure that compensated for its inherent ickiness can no longer do the job. “MJ” becomes a grind of obfuscation, a case of willfully not looking at the man in the mirror.Would it have been possible to make this musical otherwise? Could you successfully market as a family-friendly Broadway extravaganza a show whose main character, though never convicted of a crime, settles two sexual abuse cases out of court and dies before two others are dismissed because the statute of limitations has run out?Unlikely — and perhaps you could argue that Broadway is not in any case the place to interrogate such questions. Musicals based on real people have always elided their worst traits. Even that fascist enabler Eva Perón was sugarcoated and sanctified. Of course, her estate did not have a “special arrangement” with the producers of “Evita.”Ultimately, the problem with “MJ” is not its ethical stance but the way that stance distorts its value as entertainment. Even the combined power of Jackson’s material and Wheeldon’s reanimation of it cannot make up for the emptiness at its center; we cannot understand or accept the main character if he’s deliberately kept from us.A line from “Man in the Mirror” applies here as well: “If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change.” What “MJ” needed was either a lot more time to pass before daring to mount it — or a different, deeper, more considered main character.MJAt the Neil Simon Theater, Manhattan; mjthemusical.com. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes. More

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      Review: In ‘Intimate Apparel,’ Letting the Seamstress Sing

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      Lynn Nottage’s play about a Black woman in 1905 becomes an opera, with music by Ricky Ian Gordon, that forefronts voices ignored by history.We begin with joyful ragtime, that musical theater fallback for telling Black stories of the early 20th century.But the sound is muffled, distorted. The party is elsewhere in the boardinghouse where our heroine, Esther, a shy, plain woman of 35, sits in her room sewing corsets and camisoles for socialites and streetwalkers. She is too serious and too ambitious to descend to the parlor and cakewalk with the revelers.So is “Intimate Apparel.” In musicalizing Lynn Nottage’s play of the same title, Ricky Ian Gordon, working with a text by Nottage herself, wants more for Esther than a quick dance and a slick tune. A woman so bent on betterment in an age that makes it almost impossible deserves the most serious and ambitious musical treatment available — and gets it in the knockout Lincoln Center Theater production, directed by Bartlett Sher, that opened at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater on Monday.That the play was excellent to begin with was no guarantee of a viable libretto. But looking back on its 2004 Roundabout Theater Company premiere, starring Viola Davis as Esther, you can see that “Intimate Apparel” already had the necessary ingredients for a powerful opera: spine, scope and poetry.The spine remains neatly articulated. The first scene quickly establishes that Esther (Kearstin Piper Brown) has the discipline and drive to make a career of her handiwork; with the savings she sews into the lining of her crazy quilt she plans one day to open a beauty salon. The scene also establishes her pride, as she rejects the last-chance men who come to the parties given by her landlady, Mrs. Dickson.“Pride’ll leave you lonely,” Mrs. Dickson (Adrienne Danrich) warns.We next meet two of her clients, whose lives express in contrasting ways the limitations Esther hopes to escape. Mrs. Van Buren (Naomi Louisa O’Connell) has every luxury a white woman of privilege could want, including the pink silk crepe de chine corset that Esther brings to her boudoir for a fitting. But Mrs. Van Buren, trained only to be a wealthy man’s wife, has no options when her husband loses interest.Though poor and Black, Mayme (Krysty Swann) is likewise at men’s mercy for her few luxuries — which, amusingly, include the same corset as Mrs. Van Buren’s. (“What she got, you want,/What you got, she want,” Esther comments.) Instead of an absent husband Mayme has johns who are often vile or violent, yet she is closer to Mrs. Van Buren than either might like to think.Brown and Arnold Livingston Geis as Mr. Marks, a fabric salesman, in the opera at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesEsther’s friendship with the women is more than professional but nevertheless circumscribed by class and race. (She has never entered Mrs. Van Buren’s house through the front door, and presumably never entered a brothel at all.) Her third professional friendship is even more delicate. Mr. Marks (Arnold Livingston Geis) sells fabric on Orchard Street, saving the most beautiful bolts for her. Though he is the only man ever to recognize and encourage her gift, he is literally untouchable: an Orthodox Jew.But he is not the only man to flirt with her. Esther is surprised — and then, almost against her will, gratified — to receive a letter from a Barbadian laborer working on the Panama Canal. It seems that George Armstrong (Justin Austin) is looking for a pen pal to counter, with beautiful words, the filth and harshness of his job. As Esther can neither read nor write, she depends on Mrs. Dickson to tell her what George is saying; and then on Mrs. Van Buren and Mayme to forge suitably Cyrano-like replies.I will say no more about the plot except that at the end of Act I Armstrong arrives in New York to marry Esther, who wears an exquisite dress made with fabric she bought from Mr. Marks. If she is not what might have been expected from their correspondence, neither, she gradually realizes, is he. In Act II we learn why.Many plays sewn so tightly unravel completely as they stretch toward their crisis. Not “Intimate Apparel”; with its eye on the big picture, it maintains both its integrity and its tension to the end. Never stinting on detail — or, apparently, period research — Nottage forces the audience to keep sight of the larger pressures pushing all her characters into situations they must eventually escape more explosively.I focus on the story because it is usually the problem with opera, as books are with musicals. Nottage has cut perhaps half of her play to make room for Gordon’s music, and in doing so has made the smart if painful choice to retain only what is most narrowly tailored to the plot and yet most allusive. What we call poetry in opera is not really the verse (though Nottage’s libretto is lightly rhymed where necessary) but the rich texture of everything doing double duty.Courtship by mail: Brown and Justin Austin as George Armstrong.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesSo too with Gordon’s lush yet intricate score, which soars into the timeless atmosphere of operatic writing (though he calls his hybrid works “operacals”) while always regrounding us in the specifics of period and character. In numbers like “No One Does It for Us,” repeated choruses do more than ram home lovely melodies; they underline the similarities between Esther and Mayme, who sing it. And it is not for nothing that George’s letter arias from Panama are typically accompanied by a ghostly chorus of other men, as if to question their strange intimacy.None of these smart choices would matter if the performers could not make hay of them, but Sher has assembled and tuned an unusually fine cast of opera singers who can actually act. Brown is especially heartbreaking as Esther — and astonishingly tireless in a huge role. (Chabrelle Williams takes over for the Wednesday and Sunday matinees.) Her scenes with Geis as Mr. Marks are so gentle and rich in subtext you don’t want them to end. But all six leads are terrific, and the ensemble of eight other singers performs dozens of roles, each quickly and perfectly etched.Sher’s staging in the 299-seat Newhouse, on a simple turntable set by Michael Yeargan, is a marvel of constant movement that never feels busy, and the costumes by Catherine Zuber are exquisite even when plain. As always, it is a joy to hear an opera in an intimate space with acoustics so clear and natural — the sound is by Marc Salzberg — that the captions projected on the walls of the set are rarely needed. And though the voices are prioritized in Gordon’s orchestration for two pianos, the presence of the instruments, on platforms above the stage, is not incidental. As played on Friday evening by Nathaniel LaNasa and Brent Funderburk, they seemed to have dramatic roles of their own, representing not only the need of women, especially Black women, for emotional independence, but also the world of 1905 that forbids it.In that sense “Intimate Apparel” — even more as an opera than as a play — is an act of rescue. When Esther tells Mrs. Van Buren, as they write the first letter to George, “My life ain’t really worthy of words,” she means that she isn’t special enough to be made permanent on paper. That isn’t true; as Nottage and now Gordon have shown, she is worthy of even more. She is worthy of music that is finally worthy of her.Intimate ApparelThrough March 6 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, Manhattan; lct.org. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes. More