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    Review: In ‘The Outsiders,’ a New Song for the Young Misfits

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    The classic coming-of-age novel has become a compelling, if imperfect, musical about have-not teenagers in a have-it-all world.For many young misfits and wannabes, “The Outsiders,” published in 1967, is still a sacred text. Written by an actual teenager — S.E. Hinton drafted it in high school — it spoke with eyewitness authority to teenage alienation. Even if its poor “greasers” and rich “socs” (the book’s shorthand for society types) now seem like exhibits in a midcentury angst museum, their inchoate yearning has not aged, nor has Hinton’s faith that there is poetry in every soul.These tender qualities argue against stage adaptation, as does Francis Ford Coppola’s choppy, murky 1983 movie. (It introduced a lot of young stars, but it’s a mess.) The material doesn’t want sophisticated adults mucking about in it or, worse, gentling its hard edges for commercial consumption. Harshness tempered with naïveté is central to its style and argument. To turn the novel into a Broadway musical, with the gloss of song and dance that entails, would thus seem a category error worse even than the film’s.And yet the musical version of “The Outsiders” that opened on Thursday has been made with so much love and sincerity it survives with most of its heart intact. Youth is key to that survival; the cast, if not actually teenage — their singing is way too professional for that — is still credibly fresh-faced. (Five of the nine principals are making their Broadway debuts.) That there is no cynical distance between them and their characters is in itself refreshing to see.Also key to the show’s power is the director Danya Taymor’s rivetingly sensorial approach to the storytelling, even if it sometimes comes at a cost to the story itself. Many stunning things are happening on the stage of the Bernard B. Jacobs Theater — and from the sobs I heard the other night, in the audience, too.Some of those sobs came from teenagers, who can’t have seen in recent musicals many serious attempts at capturing the confusions of youth. Though witches, princesses and leaping newsboys can be entertaining, their tales are escapes from reality, not portraits of it. From the start, “The Outsiders” is gritty — literally. (The stage is covered with synthetic rubber granules that kick up with each fight and footfall.) There is no sugarcoating the facts as Hinton found them: Her Tulsa, Okla., is an apartheid town, the greasers subject to brutal violence if they dare step into the socs’ territory or, worse, lay eyes on their girls.But the unavoidable cross-clan romance — between the 14-year-old greaser Ponyboy Curtis (Brody Grant) and the soc Cherry Valance (Emma Pittman) — is something of a MacGuffin here. The score, by Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance of the folk duo Jamestown Revival, working with Justin Levine, gives them just two songs, neither really about love.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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Review: In ‘Jonah,’ Starring Gabby Beans, Trust Nothing, and No One

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      Gabby Beans shines as a time-hopping protagonist tracing her trauma in Rachel Bonds’s slip-slidey new Off Broadway play.Roundabout Theater Company’s website tells you right up front that the title character of “Jonah,” Rachel Bonds’s slip-slidey, stunning new play, “is not all he seems.” And if you click on the link to the production’s content advisory, self-harm, suicide and physical abuse are among the topics it flags.All of that can leave a theatergoer in a state of wariness — which, it turns out, is a great way to watch this play: trusting nothing, unsure where reality lies, guard firmly raised against any kind of charm. Mind you, “Jonah” will charm you anyway, and make you laugh. So will Jonah, the adorable day student (or is he?) whom Ana, our teenage heroine, meets at her boarding school (or does she?). Who and what is illusory here?The notes I took during the show are filled with skepticism like that about my own perceptions, even as Danya Taymor’s all-around excellent production, which opened Thursday at the Laura Pels Theater, lured me right in.The flirty, funny banter between the self-assured Ana (Gabby Beans, in a top-of-her-game performance) and the more broken-winged Jonah (a disarming Hagan Oliveras) is utterly adolescent, as is the way they occupy their bodies. They still have the flop-on-the-floor looseness of little kids, but it’s mixed with cheeky daring (mostly hers) and mortified caution (mostly his), because hormones and desire have entered the picture.“I don’t want to be weird,” Jonah says in Ana’s dorm room, when things between them edge toward intimacy, “and I just want you to feel OK and safe and my whole body is basically an alien colony, I have been colonized by sex aliens and I’m sorry.”With a flash of white light and a zapping sound, the comforting comedy of that milieu vanishes, as does Jonah. Ana is now in her bedroom at home, where a guy named Danny (Samuel H. Levine), who appears to be her brother, gives off a profoundly creepy vibe. (The set is by Wilson Chin, lighting by Amith Chandrashaker and sound by Kate Marvin.)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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Outsiders’ Heads to Broadway in March

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      A new musical adaptation of a popular novel by S.E. Hinton will begin performances in March.Get ready to rumble.“The Outsiders,” a new musical adaptation of the 1967 S.E. Hinton novel of teenage alienation, as well as the 1983 Francis Ford Coppola film starring Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze and Ralph Macchio, will begin performances on Broadway this spring. The cast has yet to be named.The musical is set in Tulsa, Okla., in the 1960s and follows an increasingly bloody conflict between rival gangs — the East Side have-nots, the Greasers, and the West Side haves, the Socs (short for “socials”). It will begin previews at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theater on March 16, with an opening slated for April 11.“The Outsiders” was initially set for a world premiere at the Goodman Theater in Chicago in June 2020 before the pandemic delayed and then scuttled those plans. When the production finally began performances in California in February, it had a nearly three-hour run time, with a cast of 25 led by Brody Grant as Ponyboy Curtis, an orphaned 14-year-old who lives with his older brothers, Sodapop (Jason Schmidt) and Darrel (Ryan Vasquez), both of whom have left school to support him. (Sky Lakota-Lynch played his best friend, Johnny Cade.)Angelina Jolie was announced last week as a lead producer. Jolie, whose credits as a film producer include “Maleficent” and “Unbroken,” saw the world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego this year with her 15-year-old daughter, Vivienne, whom she said will serve as her assistant (the pair also attended a touring production of “Dear Evan Hansen” in Philadelphia last year).While some critics found the musical’s ambitious scale appealing, others thought the story was weighed down by too many characters and themes. “Awkward, yearning, fast on its feet, the show, like the adolescents it describes, is still trying on various identities,” Alexis Soloski wrote in a review for The New York Times, though she praised the “effortless yet thoughtfully diversified” casting of the Greasers, who, like the Socs, are white and male in both the book and the movie, as well as the “gorgeous, mournful music.” (The songs are by Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance, of Jamestown Revival, as well as Justin Levine, who won a Tony Award for his orchestrations for “Moulin Rouge! The Musical.”)Danya Taymor (“Heroes of the Fourth Turning,” “Pass Over”), who directed the La Jolla production, will return for the Broadway run, as will the rest of the creative team. The book is by Adam Rapp (“The Sound Inside”) and Levine, who also handled the arrangements and orchestrations, with choreography by Rick and Jeff Kuperman.In addition to Jolie, the show’s producers also include American Zoetrope, the San Francisco film production company founded by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas; as well as Sue Gilad and Larry Rogowsky (“Moulin Rouge!,” “Funny Girl”).Hinton’s novel, which was published when she was a teenager, has long been celebrated for its relatable protagonist and unpolished authenticity. But those same qualities have also put it on frequently challenged books lists for its portrayal of gang violence, underage smoking and drinking and strong language.“The Outsiders” joins two other Broadway productions that have announced dates for next year. “Prayer for the French Republic,” Joshua Harmon’s dark comedy about a family grappling with antisemitism in France, opens in January; and “The Notebook,” a musical adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’s best-selling romance novel, opens in March. More

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      ‘The Outsiders’ Review: Growing Pains Both Brutal and Poetic

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      At La Jolla Playhouse, the musical adaptation of the novel and film has considerable appeal, but is weighed down by too many characters and themes.LA JOLLA, Calif. — No one sings during the rumble scene in “The Outsiders,” a new musical at La Jolla Playhouse adapted from S.E. Hinton’s 1967 novel of teenage alienation and Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film version. The nine-person orchestra — guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, some mournful strings — stays silent, too. Instead, young bodies, about 20 of them, supply their own percussive music, falling to the cork-covered floor, groaning into their mikes, as stage rain soaks them through.This violence is for show, of course. Those kicks and punches don’t actually connect. But the brawl, at least at first, is not aestheticized. It’s a fistfight, not a dance — brutal, futile, wet, raw and sad.“The Outsiders,” despite its considerable appeal, can’t yet bear too much reality. Awkward, yearning, fast on its feet, the show, like the adolescents it describes, is still trying on various identities. Directed by Danya Taymor from a book by Adam Rapp, with gorgeous, mournful music and lyrics from Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance, of Jamestown Revival, and Justin Levine, this La Jolla version (and I’m sentimental enough to hope that there will soon be other versions) is a musical with growing pains, currently serving too many characters, too many themes, too many styles. But when it reaches its full height, it might really be something to see.Largely faithful to the book and for better or worse, to the film, which a New York Times critic once witheringly described as “a laughably earnest attempt to impose heroic attitudes on some nice, small characters,” the show is set in 1967 Tulsa, Okla. Amid an environment of vacant lots and broken-down cars (the set, inventive and peculiar, is by Amp featuring Tatiana Kahvegian), it maps the increasingly bloody conflict between the Greasers, the East side have-nots who inspire the title, and the Socs, short for “socialites,” the West side haves.In the book and the movie, both gangs are white and all male. Here the Greasers have been effortlessly yet thoughtfully diversified. (Sarafina Bush’s vivid, considered costumes keep the gang distinctions clear.) There is at least one other significant departure, involving the death of a beloved character, but this, too, is purposeful and apt.More on N.Y.C. Theater, Music and Dance This SpringMusical 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.Gustavo Dudamel: The New York Philharmonic’s new music director, will conduct Mahler’s Ninth Symphony in May. It will be one of the hottest tickets in town.Feeling the Buzz: “Bob Fosse’s Dancin’” is back on Broadway. Its stars? An eclectic cast of dancers who are anything but machines.The overarching concern of “The Outsiders” are the ways in which these teenagers, largely abandoned by their elders, misunderstand the world and one another. At the febrile center of the story is Ponyboy Curtis (played here by Brody Grant), an orphaned 14-year-old who lives with his older brothers, Sodapop (Jason Schmidt) and Darrel (Ryan Vasquez), both of whom have left school to support him.A sweet kid with a poet’s soul, Ponyboy stays up late reading Charles Dickens and glories in sunsets. “Robert Frost is quite talented,” he tells Cherry Valance (Piper Patterson), the Soc goddess he meets at a drive-in. (Frost’s brief ode to youth and decay, “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” runs through “The Outsiders” as a leitmotif.) But when a phalanx of drunken Socs attack him and his best friend, Johnny Cade (Sky Lakota-Lynch), Ponyboy finds himself enmeshed in the local violence.From left, Ryan Vasquez, Brody Grant, Jason Schmidt and Daryl Tofa in the musical, directed by Danya Taymor.Rich Soublet IIThe great allure of the book, and now the musical, are the big feelings that it illustrates and invites. Hinton wrote the book while still in high school and maybe because she was a woman (the S.E. stands for Susan Eloise), she articulated for her male characters rich and ardent emotional lives, which fuel the musical’s plaintive score. Though “The Outsiders” — in every form — argues that it is often easier to hate than to love and understand, it does not hesitate to show the passionate relationships (never erotic, but often with a force that borders the romantic) among the Greasers.The show makes a few correctable missteps. An opening number, directly referencing the opening lines of the book and with projections by Tal Yarden, focuses on Paul Newman in “Cool Hand Luke,” an odd distraction (and a tenuous reference for the under-50 crowd) when we haven’t yet met the principal characters.Only in the third number, “Grease Got a Hold on You,” does the story’s engine finally catch. (Given the preexistence of “Grease” and “Hairspray,” an alternate title for the show could have been “Pomade.”) There’s also an incidence of hand-holding, pushing a platonic friendship toward the romantic, that feels strained, especially given Hinton’s stalwart displacement of sexuality. A climactic scene involving a fire is not yet convincingly staged.There are trickier hitches, too. This is Ponyboy’s story, yet he is hardly its most compelling character. And despite Grant’s earnest, lush-voiced performance, the eye moves inexorably toward other figures, like Vasquez’s Darrel and Patterson’s Cherry and Lakota-Lynch’s Johnny and especially Da’Von T. Moody’s Dallas, a muscled hood with a gangster’s pose and a big, wounded heart beneath it, who can twirl a baseball bat like a majorette’s baton.Though Taymor, aided by the design team and the choreographers Rick and Jeff Kuperman, manages some striking and playful images, the relationship between the real and the symbolic remains uneasy. (Are we always in the vacant lot? Is this some junkyard passion play? Why is a car now vertical?) And “The Outsiders” sometimes throttles its own exuberance. Taymor (“Heroes of the Fourth Turning,” “Pass Over”) hasn’t yet worked out how to offer a work that feels dangerous and true without flattening the pleasures that a musical can provide.If “The Outsiders” means to steer its muscle cars toward Broadway, which it should, further development will almost certainly smooth these variances in focus and approach. Even now, such discord has a way of receding when the youthful, gifted performers are freed to do what they do best: to move and to sing.Musically, the score is polyglot, borrowing confidently from folk, bluegrass and rockabilly traditions, with occasional gestures toward soul and Broadway balladry. This is a story about conflict, internal and external, but it also allows, in songs such as “Great Expectations” and “Stay Gold,” for luxuriant and surprising concordance. For the hopeless, for the loveless, for the misunderstood, which is all of us, Greaser and Soc, young and old, “The Outsiders” offers the promise of harmony.The OutsidersThrough April 2 at La Jolla Playhouse, La Jolla, Calif.; lajollaplayhouse.org. Running time: 2 hours and 35 minutes. More

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      Review: ‘Pass Over’ Comes to Broadway, in Horror and Hope

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      Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s play about young Black men in peril inaugurates the new season with unexpected joy.On Wednesday night, when a preshow announcement informed the 1,200 or so people at the August Wilson Theater that they were “one of the first audiences back to see a real Broadway play,” the response was the kind of roar you’d expect for a beloved diva returning from rehab. And “Pass Over,” by Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu, does not disappoint in that regard. Having survived pandemic jitters (so far) and its own circuitous path to get there, it emerged like a star: in top shape, at full throttle and refreshed by some artful doctoring.If it seems strange to talk about a tragedy in such terms, keep in mind that though “Pass Over” is forthrightly centered on the plight of two young Black men in an urban police state, its ambition is so far-reaching that it embraces (and in Danya Taymor’s thriller of a production, succeeds as) comedy, melodrama and even vaudeville. In that, it emulates the vision and variety of its most direct sources: “Waiting for Godot,” the Samuel Beckett play about tramps biding their time in eternity, and the Book of Exodus, about an enslaved people seeking the Promised Land.In “Pass Over,” the tramps and the enslaved are combined in the characters of Moses (Jon Michael Hill) and Kitch (Namir Smallwood). They are men of our current time who live on the streets of a city not unlike Chicago, yet also on a pre-Emancipation plantation and in Egypt more than three millenniums ago.The history of slavery everywhere is a heavy symbolic weight for individual characters to carry, but the suffering of men like Moses and Kitch in a racist society right now is not out of proportion to that of their forebears. When they try to make a list of everyone they know who has “been kilt” by the police, it takes a very long time to name them while also distinguishing their particulars. Among many others there are Ed with the dreadlocks (not light-skinned Ed), “dat tall dude got dat elbow rash,” Kev and “dat otha” Kev, Mike with “dat messed up knee.”They expect at any moment to be next.Yet as Moses and Kitch move through a day’s attempts at diversion from this horror, including their oft-rehearsed roughhousing routines and games of “Promised Land Top 10” — Kitch wants a pair of new (but “not thrift store new”) Air Jordans — Nwandu forces us to look beyond their struggle to their full humanity. Despite their encounters with a clueless white gentleman called Mister and an enraged police officer called Ossifer (both played by Gabriel Ebert) they remain witty and warmhearted, belligerent only to cover their need for each other, and filled with big dreams accompanied by the almost unbearable burden of hope.Their biggest dream is to “pass over” — an equivocal phrase that shifts its meaning as the 95-minute play moves through various theatrical genres. (There’s no intermission; in an introduction to the script, Nwandu writes that if Moses and Kitch can’t leave, “neither can you.”)At first, “pass over” means simply to get off the streets: to achieve, if not the fine foods and soft sheets on their Top 10 lists, then at least a decent meal and a bed that is not made of sidewalk. Later the phrase takes on larger meaning as their plight evokes and even merges with that of Black people escaping slavery and the biblical Israelites recalled on Passover. Yet later it becomes part of a suicide pact by which they hope to end their suffering together, and “pass over” into paradise.Many of these moments may be familiar to you if you know “Waiting for Godot,” in which Beckett’s tramps similarly rehearse old routines, contemplate hanging themselves from a spindly tree, deal with mystifying visitors and share their moldy turnips. (In “Pass Over,” the tree becomes a lamppost; the turnips, a pizza crust.) Yet even in earlier versions of the play — originally produced by Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago in 2017, then filmed by Spike Lee and revised for Lincoln Center Theater in 2018 — Nwandu never bound herself to her templates, leaving Beckett’s absurdism behind as the needs of her particular story required. Those needs took her to strange places.From left, Smallwood, Hill and Gabriel Ebert, as Ossifer, who is not a caricature so much as a compendium of sadistic police officer tropes. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIn rewriting for Broadway, she has gone even further. Not only has she decided to push the play past tragedy into something else, but she has also, in its last 10 minutes, let its innate surrealism fully flower in a daring and self-consciously theatrical way. (The transformation is gorgeously rendered in Wilson Chin’s scenic design, Marcus Doshi’s lighting, Justin Ellington’s sound and even, in their removal, Sarafina Bush’s costumes.) Somehow Nwandu gives us the recognition of horror that has informed drama since the Greeks while also providing the relief of joy — however irrational — that calls to mind the ecstasies of gospel, splatter flicks and classic musicals, all of which are sampled.Taymor’s production could hardly support that vision better. Though I was at first troubled by how strongly she stresses the comedy — given the almost ritualized clowning, it was no surprise to see Bill Irwin credited as a movement consultant — it soon became clear that allowing the humor full rein allows the same to terror. In pushing both extremes further forward, often letting them spill into the theater with winks and shocks, Taymor asks the audience to accept its role in the story and perhaps also its complicity.She has also shaped the performances, which were already excellent three years ago, into something that seems to go deeper than acting. Like Laurel and Hardy, who were surely among Beckett’s models for his tramps, Hill and Smallwood have a kind of anti-chemistry that draws them closer the more they squabble.Hill, as befits a character named Moses, has the heavier burden of a vision to carry out; you can see his body resist the weight and then wonderfully, if only temporarily, lift it. Smallwood, as Kitch, the epitome of a pesky younger brother, knows just how to get under Moses’s skin because that’s where he needs to be for safety. For both of them, “You feel me?” is almost a password.Of course, when Mister hears it, he fails to understand. “I’d rather not,” he says.As Mister, Ebert manages the virtuoso trick of making obtuseness both weird and charming, at least for a while. But watch him try to sit down at one point, his lanky body becoming an expression of hypocrisy as he snakes one way then slumps the other. Later, when Ebert returns as Ossifer, hard and unbending, you barely know him, and certainly don’t want to.Ossifer is not a caricature so much as a compendium of sadistic police officer tropes. Yet Nwandu’s larger view makes the choice to write him that way more than an expedience. Without ever forgetting its origin in American racism, “Pass Over” broadens to include every kind of -ism, including the ultimately unanswerable one of existentialism. She is asking not only why Black men must live in fear of having their bodily integrity stolen but also why all humans must, in any age and place.And if she waffles a bit near the end, never quite landing the final leap across the river, she lets us bathe in the hope of it anyway. After all, as the roar at the start of the show announced, we have already begun to pass over some things; the existence of “Pass Over” on Broadway is proof of that. Do we dare to hope that as a new season begins, new promised lands are possible too?Pass OverTickets Through Oct. 10 at the August Wilson Theater, Manhattan; passoverbroadway.com. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. More

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      A Milestone for Broadway as ‘Pass Over’ Begins Performances

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      The play is the first staged on Broadway since the pandemic-prompted shutdown, and is one of seven by Black writers planned this season.Anne Grossman and Jennifer Rockwood hustled into Broadway’s August Wilson Theater shortly before 8 p.m. Wednesday and, beneath their face masks, smiled.They had shown their proof of vaccination, passed through metal detectors, and, as they stepped down into the lobby, marveled at being back inside a theater. “It’s thrilling” Grossman said, “and a little unsettling.”The two women, both 58-year-old New Yorkers, were among 1,055 people who braved concerns about the highly contagious Delta variant in order to, once again, see a play on Broadway. It was the first performance of “Pass Over,” by Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu, which is the first play staged on Broadway since the coronavirus pandemic shuttered theaters in March of 2020.“I wanted to be part of the restart of live theater.” Rockwood said.The play, both comedic and challenging, is about two Black men trapped under a streetlight, afraid that if they dare to leave their corner, they could be killed by a police officer.The crowd, vaccinated and masked but not socially distanced, was rapturous, greeting Nwandu’s arrival with a standing ovation, and another when she and the play’s director, Danya Taymor, walked onstage after the play to hug the three actors.Those attending the play were required to show proof of vaccination to enter, and to wear masks while inside the theater.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesThe night was significant, not only as Broadway seeks to rebound from a shutdown of historic length, but also as it seeks to respond to renewed concerns about racial equity that have been raised over the last year. “Pass Over” is one of seven plays by Black writers slated to be staged on Broadway this season, and, like many of them, it grapples directly with issues of race and racism.“Thank you for celebrating Black joy!” the playwright, Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu, told celebrants at an afterparty on West 52nd Street, outside the theater.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesThe street in front of the August Wilson Theater was cordoned off for a block party after the show. Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesPatrons expressed a mix of emotions. “I am a little nervous about being in a theater setting, because I haven’t been in that type of setting since the pandemic began, but a lot of precautions were taken, and that gives some comfort level,” said LaTasha Owens, 45, of New York. “But this is timely, and of interest, so I’m looking forward to being back.”After the play concluded, hundreds of people gathered for a block party on West 52nd Street, in front of the theater, chatting and dancing as a D.J. played music and exhorted “If you had a good time, I need to hear everybody say ‘Pass Over’ right now!”Playgoers danced at the block party after the show. Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesThe party was held outside in part to reduce Covid risk.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesNwandu addressed the crowd from a balcony above the theater marquee, saying she felt like “Black Evita!” “Do you know how crazy it is to write a play about a plague and then live through a plague?” she asked. Later, she added, “Thank you all so much for being vaccinated, and thank you for celebrating Black joy.”The play is not the first show on Broadway since the pandemic erupted: “Springsteen on Broadway,” a reprise run of a Bruce Springsteen concert show, began performances on June 26, and there have been a few special events and filmed performances in theaters since the shutdown. But the return of traditional theater is a milestone for the industry; the start of “Pass Over” will be followed on Sept. 2, if all goes as planned, by the resumption of two musicals, “Hadestown” and “Waitress,” and then on Sept. 14 five shows are slated to begin performances, including the tent pole musicals “Hamilton,” “The Lion King” and “Wicked.”The audience gave a standing ovation to the three actors, Jon Michael Hill, Namir Smallwood and Gabriel Ebert.Jeenah Moon for The New York Times“Pass Over” was previously staged at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater in 2017, and that production was filmed by Spike Lee and is streaming on Amazon. The play then had an Off Broadway production at Lincoln Center Theater in 2018. Nwandu has substantially revised the ending for Broadway. More

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      ‘Pass Over,’ About Black Men Trapped by Dread, Heads to Broadway

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      The play, by Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu, has previously been staged at several prominent theaters and filmed by Spike Lee for Amazon.“Pass Over,” a searing play about two Black men trapped by existential dread in a world where too many of their peers have been killed by police, is coming to Broadway.A team of producers who include the playwright, Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu, said Tuesday that they would mount a new version of the play at the August Wilson Theater on Broadway later this year. The production will be directed by Danya Taymor.The play, an 85-minute riff on “Waiting for Godot,” began its life in 2017, directed by Taymor at Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago. That production was filmed for Amazon Prime Video by Spike Lee, and in 2018 the play ran at Lincoln Center Theater. It has since had several other productions, including at the Kiln Theater in London.The play, in which two friends pass time on a city street corner, sharing fears and dreams, was prompted in part by the death of Trayvon Martin, and draws on the Book of Exodus. Nwandu reworked the play’s ending between the Steppenwolf and Lincoln Center productions, and said she now plans to do so again. In earlier versions, one of the two main characters died at the end; Nwandu said that in the Broadway version, they will both survive.“I wrote the other versions of the play out of anger, and out of a desire to shock white people into caring about the fact that Black lives matter,” Nwandu said. “Now I’m ready to step back from that role of needing to indict white America. White America has been indicted, and continues to be indicted, by the actual death of Black people, so nobody needs to see that theatrically rendered anymore.”She said the play “is still largely a lament,” but that she is now envisioning a tonal shift at the end, as she thinks about her own emotional well-being and that of her audience. “We all know we need some sort of communal healing,” she said. “We have to witness. We have to grieve. And we have to heal, so we can go out into the world and fight these battles.”The Broadway production will have an eclectic producing team: Matt Ross, a longtime theater publicist who is becoming more active as a producer; Jujamcyn Theaters, the company that operates the August Wilson Theater; Lincoln Center Theater, the nonprofit that presented the play Off Broadway; Concord Theatricals, a publishing and licensing company with a growing footprint in the theater world; Renee Montgomery, a retired basketball player who is an owner of the Atlanta Dream W.N.B.A. team; the actor Blair Underwood; Madeleine Foster Bersin, who, along with Ross, was part of the producing team for “What the Constitution Means to Me”; and Nwandu.The cast has not yet been announced. More