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      Broadway Lights to Dim for Gavin Creel

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      The landlords also said they would reconsider their process for determining who to honor with full and partial dimmings.Broadway’s theater owners, facing criticism for their decision to dim the lights outside fewer than one-third of the 41 theaters in honor of the musical theater performer Gavin Creel, have succumbed to the public pressure and agreed that all their venues would acknowledge his death.In addition to Creel, a well-known and well-liked actor who died on Sept. 30 at age 48, the theater owners said they would also dim the lights of all theaters to honor Maggie Smith, the British stage and screen star, as well as the actor Adrian Bailey, both of whom died last month. The lights for Bailey will be dimmed Oct. 17; the dimmings for Creel and Smith will be scheduled in consultation with their families.In an email on Wednesday, the theater owners described their decision via the Broadway League, the trade organization that represents them and speaks on their behalf.The lights-dimming ritual, which goes back decades, has been an increasingly fraught one for the nine entities that own and operate Broadway theaters. That small group decides not only which Broadway alumni merit such public recognition when they die, but also how many buildings should go dark, based on how those landlords evaluate the theatermakers’ contributions.In other words: Stephen Sondheim, James Earl Jones and Chita Rivera were recognized with lights dimmings at all theaters, but memorializing accomplished but less-universally known individuals with partial dimmings has been fraught. Those decisions have often been followed by pushback from artists and audiences: over whether to dim lights at all for the comedian Joan Rivers (the theater owners at first decided no, and then yes), and how many theaters should dim lights for the performers Jan Maxwell (at first one, then two), Marin Mazzie (at first six, then all) and Hinton Battle (at first nine, and then all).When the Broadway League announced, on Friday, that the theater owners had decided on a limited dimming for Creel — at first 11, and then 12 theaters after they added the Eugene O’Neill, where Creel starred in “The Book of Mormon” — a backlash arose on social media.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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      Jonathan Groff, Fresh Off Tony Win, Will Return to Broadway as Bobby Darin

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      “Just in Time,” a new musical about the “Mack the Knife” pop singer, will open next spring at Circle in the Square in Manhattan.Jonathan Groff, who won his first Tony Award in June for starring in a hit revival of “Merrily We Roll Along,” will return to Broadway next spring to play Bobby Darin in a biomusical he has been developing for years.The musical, “Just in Time,” is to begin previews March 28 and to open April 23 at Circle in the Square Theater in Midtown Manhattan. The theater, with its close approximation of an in-the-round experience, will be configured to accommodate an immersive nightclub-like staging, with a 16-person cast, an onstage big band, two stages and some cabaret-style seating.The show began its life in 2018 at the 92nd Street Y as a five-performance concert called “The Bobby Darin Story,” and has been developed through a number of workshops. In an interview, Groff said he hadn’t been sure what to expect from that initial run, but that “it lit me up.”“There is some sort of kinetic magic that happens with the live execution of his material,” said Groff, 39, who was also a Tony nominee for “Hamilton” (he played King George III) and “Spring Awakening” (his breakout role). He has worked extensively on television (“Glee,” “Looking” and “Mindhunter”) and reached global audiences with his voice work as Kristoff in Disney’s “Frozen” films.Darin, a singer-songwriter whose pop career peaked in the 1950s and ’60s, is best known for the songs “Splish Splash,” “Mack the Knife” and “Beyond the Sea.” He suffered from a heart condition, and died at the age of 37.“Dramatically he’s really interesting, because what do you do when your whole career is on borrowed time?” said the musical’s director, Alex Timbers, who won a Tony Award for directing “Moulin Rouge!” “His life was lived at high-octane speed. A woman he thought was his sister ended up being his mother. He went on a whole voyage into folk and pop and then decided he was a nightclub animal.”The musical has a book by Warren Leight (a Tony winner for “Side Man”) and Isaac Oliver and will be choreographed by Shannon Lewis. The show was conceived by Ted Chapin, who wrote the initial script and produced it at the Y as part of that institution’s long-running Lyrics & Lyricists series.“We all got invested and excited about the idea of telling his life story in this environment of a night club,” Groff said. “We’re playing with the genre of the biomusical, trying to find our own unique point of view and way into not only his story but also the genre itself. There’s a bit of experimentation happening here.”The lead producers of “Just in Time” are Tom Kirdahy, Robert Ahrens and John Frost; the musical is being capitalized for up to $12.5 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. More

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      ‘The Big Gay Jamboree’ Review: A Golden-Age Fantasia on Steroids

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      The goofball spirit that made Marla Mindelle’s “Titaníque” a hit is missing from her equally campy new show drenched in pop-culture references.When “Titaníque” opened in a cramped basement space two years ago, few would have imagined that the show, a commingling of the James Cameron disaster movie and the Celine Dion songbook, would amount to more than a short-lived lark. Yet it is still running — in a proper, aboveground theater — and has spawned productions in Britain, Canada and Australia.Now Marla Mindelle, a writer of “Titaníque” who played the Dion role, is back with “The Big Gay Jamboree,” another raunchy, campy, hyperactive musical drenched in pop-culture references (though, this time, there is an original score). But whereas “Titaníque” had the casual flair of a tossed-off joke that somehow landed, “The Big Gay Jamboree” works itself into a tizzy with little to show for it. At least this time the production is starting off at a street-level venue, the Orpheum Theater, where it opened on Sunday.In “The Big Gay Jamboree,” Mindelle, who wrote the book with Jonathan Parks-Ramage and the score with Philip Drennen, takes on the juicy lead role of Stacey, an aspiring actress who, after a drunken blackout, finds herself transported to Bareback, Idaho, in 1945. Stacey may be awake, but she feels as if she is in a dream and a nightmare rolled into one. The dream part is that this hard-core show-tune fiend is not in a regular small town but in the musical-theater version of one. The nightmare is that she can’t leave. It’ll be familiar territory for fans of the TV series “Schmigadoon!,” in which a couple are marooned in a golden-age musical.As Stacey tries to figure out a way back to her regular life and her godawful millionaire boyfriend, Keith (Alex Moffat, a “Saturday Night Live” alumnus), she gets to know her new supporting cast, including the man-hungry Flora (Natalie Walker) and the man-hungry Bert (Constantine Rousouli, the “Titaníque” co-writer and co-star).It’s not long before Stacey realizes that life in a Broadway fantasy is not all it’s cracked up to be, and the good old days weren’t so great for men of a certain persuasion and women who enjoy a good time. Idaho in the 1940s probably wasn’t all too hot for Black men either, even if the town loves its music director, Clarence (Paris Nix), especially — only? — when he leads the gospel choir.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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      Ken Page, Who Starred in ‘Cats’ and Voiced Oogie Boogie, Dies at 70

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      His career on Broadway spanned decades. But he has probably best known for providing the voice of the boogeyman in “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”Ken Page, whose extensive Broadway career included standout roles in “The Wiz” and “Cats,” but whose rich baritone voice reached its widest audience as Oogie Boogie in the perennial hit animated movie “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” died on Monday at his home in St. Louis. He was 70.His death was confirmed by Dorian Hannaway, a longtime friend. She did not cite a cause.Mr. Page, a St. Louis native, arrived on the New York theater scene in 1975 as the understudy, and later the replacement, in the role of the Lion in “The Wiz.” The next year, his showstopping rendition of “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat” as Nicely-Nicely Johnson in a revival of “Guys and Dolls” brought him his first acclaim.Mr. Page revisited the role of Old Deuteronomy, which he had originated on Broadway. in the St. Louis Municipal Opera Theater’s 2010 production of “Cats.”The Muny“Sometimes it really does happen. Sometimes the fairy tale comes true,” Clive Barnes of The New York Times wrote in 1976. “It happened on Wednesday night at the Broadway Theater to a young unknown, Ken Page.”His many other Broadway credits included the original Broadway productions of “Cats,” in which he played the dignified Old Deuteronomy, and “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” the musical revue built around songs written or recorded by Fats Waller. Offstage, he was probably best known for voicing Oogie Boogie, the infamous boogeyman in Henry Selick and Tim Burton’s 1993 stop-motion classic, “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” It was a role that Mr. Page would revisit often, in video games and at Halloween celebrations.According to a statement released by his agent, Mr. Page was preparing for upcoming appearances as Oogie Boogie when he died.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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      Sarah Snook to Make Broadway Debut in One-Woman ‘Dorian Gray’

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      The “Succession” actress will play all 26 characters in a stage production of the Oscar Wilde novel.Sarah Snook, the Australian actress who captivated and chilled television audiences as Siobhan Roy on “Succession,” will make her Broadway debut next year in a much-praised and technologically innovative adaptation of “The Picture of Dorian Gray.”Snook plays all 26 characters in the play, which she previously performed to great acclaim earlier this year in London, winning an Olivier Award for best actress.The play will transfer to New York in March, playing at a Shubert theater. The specific dates and theater have not yet been announced.“The Picture of Dorian Gray” is a late 19th-century novel by Oscar Wilde about a man who sells his soul so that he may remain young and beautiful, while the titular artwork ages. The story has repeatedly been adapted for stage and screen.This new “Dorian Gray” is adapted and directed by Kip Williams, who is the artistic director of Australia’s Sydney Theater Company, where the show began its life with another actress. Although Snook will be the only actor onstage, there is an onstage camera crew that captures, projects, and plays with her image.The lead producers are Michael Cassel, an Australian producer who has become increasingly active on the global stage, and Adam Kenwright, a British producer who was previously an executive at Ambassador Theater Group.Snook is one of many members of the “Succession” cast to turn to the stage following the end of the HBO series. Among them: Jeremy Strong, who played her brother Kendall, starred on Broadway earlier this year in a revival of “An Enemy of the People” and won a Tony Award for his performance; Kieran Culkin, who played her brother Roman, is also scheduled to come to Broadway in the spring for a revival of “Glengarry Glen Ross.” More

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      Review: Daniel Dae Kim as a Playwright Unmasked in ‘Yellow Face’

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      David Henry Hwang’s 2007 play, now in a fine Broadway revival, is a pointed critique of identity, masquerading as a mockumentary.To write yourself into your own play is to put on a very curious mask. If it’s flattering, is it honest? If it’s honest, why bother?Those questions, both as artistic choices and as problems of social identity, are powerfully and hilariously engaged in the revival of David Henry Hwang’s “Yellow Face” that opened on Tuesday at the Todd Haimes Theater. The answers are deliberately equivocal. On one hand, this Roundabout production, directed (as was the 2007 original) by Leigh Silverman, stars the exceedingly likable and handsome Daniel Dae Kim as Hwang’s stand-in, called DHH. On the other, this DHH is a worm.So too is the sinuous story, which requires a ton of exposition to get on its way. DHH, exactly like Hwang, won a 1988 Tony Award for his Broadway debut, “M. Butterfly.” His 1993 follow-up, “Face Value,” won only notoriety. Closing before its official New York opening, it earned the nickname “M. Turkey.”From left, Kevin Del Aguila, Kim, Shannon Tyo and Marinda Anderson. The supporting cast, mismatched to roles without regard to gender or race, are all wonderfully inventive, our critic writes.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“Face Value” was Hwang’s theatrical response to the “Miss Saigon” controversy, in which the producer Cameron Mackintosh, importing that megamusical from London in 1991, sought to import its star, Jonathan Pryce, as well. But because Pryce is white, and his character is Eurasian, protests against the casting ensued. Nevertheless, the show went on — and on and on — with Mackintosh dismissing the dispute as “a storm in an Oriental teacup.”Hence “Face Value”: a broad farce, set in part at the “Imperialist Theater,” about the casting of a white actor in the title role of a musical called “The Real Fu Manchu.”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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      ‘Water for Elephants’ to Close on Broadway

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      The musical, based on the best-selling novel, featured dazzling acrobatics and puppetry. Its final performance will be Dec. 8.“Water for Elephants,” a circus romance adapted from Sara Gruen’s best-selling novel, will close on Broadway on Dec. 8, the latest big-budget musical to shutter during a challenging time for the theater business.The musical was capitalized for up to $25 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That’s at the upper end for Broadway musicals, although producing has generally become more expensive postpandemic; the show, with a large cast of actors and acrobats, is also costly to run, and it will close at a loss.At the time of its closing, it will have had 25 previews and 301 regular performances at the Imperial Theater. The show is planning a national tour to begin in Baltimore in the fall of 2025.“Water for Elephants” had an initial run last year at Alliance Theater in Atlanta; the Broadway production opened March 21 at the Imperial Theater. Jesse Green, the chief theater critic for The New York Times, gave it an enthusiastic review, calling it a “stunning, emotional production” and said “it leads with movement, eye candy and awe.” Most other reviews were also positive.The show has been struggling at the box office; last week it grossed $623,896, according to figures from the Broadway League, which is not enough to sustain a musical of this size. During that week the show played to houses that were, on average, just 62 percent occupied.The show was nominated for seven Tony Awards, including best musical; it won none. Reflecting a trend on Broadway, the show has a huge cadre of credited co-producers; the lead producer is Peter Schneider, a former Disney executive who was also among the lead producers of “The Lion King.”“Water for Elephants” features songs by PigPen Theater Co. and a book by Rick Elice; it is directed by Jessica Stone. The show makes heavy use not only of acrobatics, designed by Shana Carroll, but also puppetry (to depict animals), designed by Ray Wetmore, JR Goodman and Camille Labarre.The show is the fifth musical to announce closing dates since early May, following “Lempicka,” “The Heart of Rock and Roll,” “The Who’s Tommy” and “The Notebook.” Broadway is always a difficult industry, and most shows fail, but the odds of success are particularly long now that production costs have risen, audience size has fallen and a high volume of shows are competing for attention. More

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      Alicia Keys, LaChanze and Billy Porter Celebrate Black Theater

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      The stage stars were among more than 600 people who turned out for an evening of dinner and performances to benefit Black Theater United.LaChanze was in the mood to celebrate.“I am so ready to party,” the actress, wearing a sequined red gown with a bold red lip, said on the red carpet before the second annual Black Theater United gala at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in Midtown Manhattan on Monday night.LaChanze is the president and a founding member of Black Theater United, a nonprofit that aims to combat racism in the theater community. She was one of more than 600 people — including the singer Alicia Keys, the actor Billy Porter, the actress Kristin Chenoweth and the pop-classical musician Josh Groban — who gathered at the grand event space for a live auction, dinner and performance on a night when most Broadway shows were dark.The gala raised money for the nonprofit founded by an all-star team of Black theater artists, including the Tony Award winners Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Phylicia Rashad and LaChanze in the summer of 2020 in response to the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis.Mr. Mitchell remembered a call at the time with Ms. McDonald, the director Schele Williams and LaChanze. “They just started saying, ‘We’ve got to do something,’” he said.The organization now offers programs for aspiring young Black theater artists including student internships, a panel and discussion series, a musical theater scholarship and a program that aims to educate artists of color about designing for the theater.From left: Nichelle Lewis, Stephanie Mills and Sydney Terry performing “Home” from “The Wiz.” Ms. Mills was the original Dorothy in the 1975 production of the musical, a retelling of the classic “Wizard of Oz” story.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More