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      Michelle Williams to Star in Off Broadway Revival of ‘Anna Christie’ With Mike Faist

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      The actress will lead a revival of “Anna Christie” at St. Ann’s Warehouse, directed by her husband, Thomas Kail, and co-starring Mike Faist.A big star is coming to the small stage: Michelle Williams, the Emmy-winning, Oscar- and Tony-nominated actress, will return to New York theater this fall to lead an Off Broadway revival of Eugene O’Neill’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1921 drama “Anna Christie.”Williams, who was last on Broadway in 2016, will play the main character, a former prostitute who falls in love with a seaman. The seaman will be played by Mike Faist, who was nominated for a Tony Award for originating the role of Connor Murphy in “Dear Evan Hansen” and who then had a supporting role in Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation of “West Side Story.”The production is scheduled to run from Nov. 25 to Feb. 1, with a two-week break during the winter holidays, in a 450-seat theater at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn Bridge Park. It will be directed by Thomas Kail, the Tony-winning director of “Hamilton,” who is married to Williams. The two previously collaborated on the 2019 streaming series “Fosse/Verdon.”“We met making TV about theater, and we always thought it would be fun to make theater together,” Kail said in an interview. He said he had long been interested in O’Neill — he wrote his college thesis on the playwright — and that Williams had long been interested in the role, which was originated on Broadway a century ago by Pauline Lord, and has been played since on Broadway by Celeste Holm, Liv Ullmann and Natasha Richardson, and on film by Greta Garbo.“Taking something that has existed in various forms, with multiple terrific productions over the years, and having the chance to be part of a lineage is something that I love about the theater,” Kail said, “and that’s certainly something that sparked when I started having conversations with Michelle about it.”Williams has had a varied career since her breakout role in the television series “Dawson’s Creek.” She won the Emmy for “Fosse/Verdon,” was nominated for a Tony for the play “Blackbird,” and has been nominated five times for Academy Awards, for “Brokeback Mountain,” “Blue Valentine,” “My Week With Marilyn,” “Manchester by the Sea” and “The Fabelmans.”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: He’s Here, He’s Queer, He’s the Future King of England

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      The Off Broadway play “Prince Faggot” aims to shock. But the real surprise is how good it is anyway.In 2032, a young man called Tips brings his boyfriend, Dev, home from college to meet the folks. Though cautious, Mum and Dad are neither surprised nor scandalized; after all, he’s 18, and they have known he was gay for a while.For the characters in Jordan Tannahill’s “Prince Faggot,” though, that gayness was long since a given. Early in the play, we are shown a famous picture of Tips at 4, looking adorable and, to them, arguably fey.Tips is better known to the world as Prince George of Wales, the oldest child of Prince William and Princess Catherine. The real Prince George is now 11. For that reason, I will hereafter refer to the character by his nickname. I am one of those who, as the play anticipates, resist the dragooning of a preadolescent boy into a dramatic argument about sexuality and monarchy — just as I cringe at the use of a slur I take no reclaimed pride in to market a title. If the playwright means to shock, mission accomplished.But here’s the real shocker: The play, which opened Tuesday at Playwrights Horizons, in a co-production with Soho Rep, is thrilling. Inflammatory, nose-thumbing, explicit to the point of pornography, wild and undisciplined (except in its bondage scenes) — yes, all that. Its arguments have so many holes in them, most hold water only briefly. Grievance is its top note: Tips is a whiner and Dev a theory queen. Love is everything and never enough.In other words, however objectionably conjectural, it’s real.Tannahill tries to sideline reality quickly though. In a throat-clearing prologue, he has the six actors (all exceptionally good in multiple roles) debate the propriety of telling the story in the first place. One (Mihir Kumar) argues that since “all children are ‘sexualized’ as heterosexual by default,” exploring a different framing is a kind of reparation. Another (K. Todd Freeman) retorts that to portray an actual child as queer is to invite a charge of grooming. A third (David Greenspan) adds wickedly, “Frankly, I think we’ve been doing a terrible job at grooming. I mean look at how many straights there still are.”From left, Rachel Crowl, K. Todd Freeman, N’yomi Allure Stewart and McCrea as the royals at the heart of the play.Richard Termine 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

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      How ‘Passengers’ Retooled After a Performer’s Injury

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      The 7 Fingers company was about to begin performances of its multidisciplinary, train travel-themed show “Passengers,” and it was in a big pickle: A cast member was injured while practicing an especially tricky segment. It was anticlimactic — initially nothing seemed askew at the Tuesday evening rehearsal I had been observing — but the consequences were weighing on everybody. The first preview, at the Perelman Performing Arts Center in Lower Manhattan, was a mere two days away.The troupe, which specializes in a hybrid of circus and theater incorporating movement and music, had been running through part of a hand-to-trapeze segment. That discipline combines ground and aerial acrobatics, and is a signature number of the director and choreographer Shana Carroll. She had developed it for the Cirque du Soleil show “Paramour,” then took it to the 7 Fingers, the Montreal-based collective she helped found in 2002.Like many circus acts, hand-to-trap (as it’s commonly referred to), is spectacular but also dangerous. A flyer is catapulted up or dropped down by porters on the floor and one on a trapeze. There is no net or mat underneath the trapeze, because that’s where the floor team stands.The director and choreographer Shana Carroll, with her back to the camera, observing the juggler Pablo Pramparo, during rehearsal of “Passengers.”Amir Hamja for The New York Times“My safety mat becomes my porters, my colleagues,” said Marie-Christine Fournier, who is this production’s flyer.At one point on Tuesday, Fournier was in the air, dangling from the wrists of Eduardo DeAzevedo Grillo, a porter who was hanging upside down, batlike, from a trapeze. He released her and she gracefully dove into the arms of seven company members who were waiting underneath them.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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      Two Fresh Looks at Molière: ‘Imaginary Invalid’ and ‘Prosperous Fools’

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      Red Bull Theater’s smart “The Imaginary Invalid” and Taylor Mac’s dismaying “Prosperous Fools” attempt to engage with the French writer’s comedy.Based on. An adaptation of. After. Inspired by.When these words precede the title of a new production of a classic play or the name of a long-dead writer, chances are good you’ll be in for a ride. Now two shows drawing from Molière — Red Bull Theater’s revival of “The Imaginary Invalid” and the Taylor Mac play “Prosperous Fools,” both running through June 29 — illustrate, with widely diverging degrees of success, how far that ride can go.In “The Imaginary Invalid,” Jeffrey Hatcher compresses the plot of Molière’s three-act comedy, from 1673, into a 90-minute romp, and rewrites the jokes but preserves the essence of the story and characters.The production, now running at New World Stages, reunites Hatcher with the director Jesse Berger, with whom he had cooked up marvelously funny takes on Nikolai Gogol (“The Government Inspector”) and Ben Jonson (“The Alchemist”). Happily, lightning can strike thrice.Aside from nods to “Les Misérables” and Édith Piaf, the play’s structure is intact, and still revolves around the hypochondriac Argan (Mark Linn-Baker). The doctors administering the treatments he constantly requests (all played by Arnie Burton) appear to have graduated from Quack U. “All these things they do to you, it’s like you donated your body to science but they couldn’t wait,” Argan’s no-nonsense maid, Toinette (Sarah Stiles), tells him.He does not listen, of course — though Molière and Hatcher aim their arrows at Argan, they also skewer profit-driven snake-oil peddlers and greedy bad agents.Much of the plot involves efforts to fleece or deceive Argan, and much of the production is shamelessly focused on making the audience laugh. Which it does, thanks to a company of expert farceurs who look to be tremendously enjoying themselves — like “Oh, Mary!,” this show understands that perfect silliness requires perfect execution.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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      ‘Angry Alan’ Review: John Krasinski Explores the Manosphere

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      In an Off Broadway play, the former Jim Halpert of Dunder Mifflin dives into a darker world of male grievance.Roger is jazzed. He’s spent money he doesn’t have, including the child-support payment he owes, on a gold ticket to a men’s rights conference. Nor does the gathering disappoint. The Detroit hotel where it takes place is brimming with guys taking back their power. But guess what’s best? Angry Alan, the internet personality who opened Roger’s eyes to the evils of the gynocracy, is scheduled to speak. This is going to be great!For Roger, anyway. Not so much for us.It is perhaps a clue to the over-thick ironies of Penelope Skinner’s “Angry Alan,” which opened Tuesday at the new Studio Seaview, that the horde of inspired men at the conference is represented by, count ’em, two dummies and some faceless paintings on a backdrop. Offered in Sam Gold’s staging as a joke, like the rest of their gender, they are mere markers in a loaded argument. Even Roger, though played exceedingly well by John Krasinski, is a place holder: a straw man incarnate.Krasinski works hard to disguise that. As he proved during nine seasons as the gemütlich Jim Halpert on “The Office,” he performs charm, titrated with a satire of charm, very well. Here, in a role that runs to more than 10,000 words, some of them Roger’s and some of them his unflattering imitations of the women around him, that good-guy appeal has a lot of work to do.Because Roger is not a good guy. Though he believes himself to be supportive and reliable, the play keeps dropping heavy hints to the contrary. His first wife got uncontested custody of their son. The son doesn’t speak to him. He lost his BMW-level job at AT&T under unexplained circumstances, and is now the dairy manager at Kroger. Perhaps worst, he is paranoid about his girlfriend, Courtney, who has enrolled in a nude life-drawing class at a community college. Her classmates wear T-shirts that say things like Mind Your Own Uterus.Courtney’s recent behavior and new friends are the immediate cause of Roger’s descent into the manosphere. There, Angry Alan teaches him that women, far from being victims of a male-dominated society, run the world and have done so for decades. Men must fight back to restore the proper balance.Perhaps these loathsome ideas seemed like news in 2018, when “Angry Alan” premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. (Don Mackay, credited with creating the play with Skinner, played Roger there and, later, in London.) The title character might have introduced audiences to recently emerged manopshere figures like the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, who advocates a return to traditional gender roles, and the British influencer Andrew Tate, a self-proclaimed misogynist with millions of followers.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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      ‘Angry Alan’ Review: John Krasinski Explores the Manosphere

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      In an Off Broadway play, the former Jim Halpert of Dunder Mifflin dives into a darker world of male grievance.Roger is jazzed. He’s spent money he doesn’t have, including the child-support payment he owes, on a gold ticket to a men’s rights conference. Nor does the gathering disappoint. The Detroit hotel where it takes place is brimming with guys taking back their power. But guess what’s best? Angry Alan, the internet personality who opened Roger’s eyes to the evils of the gynocracy, is scheduled to speak. This is going to be great!For Roger, anyway. Not so much for us.It is perhaps a clue to the over-thick ironies of Penelope Skinner’s “Angry Alan,” which opened Tuesday at the new Studio Seaview, that the horde of inspired men at the conference is represented by, count ’em, two dummies and some faceless paintings on a backdrop. Offered in Sam Gold’s staging as a joke, like the rest of their gender, they are mere markers in a loaded argument. Even Roger, though played exceedingly well by John Krasinski, is a place holder: a straw man incarnate.Krasinski works hard to disguise that. As he proved during nine seasons as the gemütlich Jim Halpert on “The Office,” he performs charm, titrated with a satire of charm, very well. Here, in a role that runs to more than 10,000 words, some of them Roger’s and some of them his unflattering imitations of the women around him, that good-guy appeal has a lot of work to do.Because Roger is not a good guy. Though he believes himself to be supportive and reliable, the play keeps dropping heavy hints to the contrary. His first wife got uncontested custody of their son. The son doesn’t speak to him. He lost his BMW-level job at AT&T under unexplained circumstances, and is now the dairy manager at Kroger. Perhaps worst, he is paranoid about his girlfriend, Courtney, who has enrolled in a nude life-drawing class at a community college. Her classmates wear T-shirts that say things like Mind Your Own Uterus.Courtney’s recent behavior and new friends are the immediate cause of Roger’s descent into the manosphere. There, Angry Alan teaches him that women, far from being victims of a male-dominated society, run the world and have done so for decades. Men must fight back to restore the proper balance.Perhaps these loathsome ideas seemed like news in 2018, when “Angry Alan” premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. (Don Mackay, credited with creating the play with Skinner, played Roger there and, later, in London.) The title character might have introduced audiences to recently emerged manopshere figures like the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, who advocates a return to traditional gender roles, and the British influencer Andrew Tate, a self-proclaimed misogynist with millions of followers.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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      Broadway Dreams Were Dashed, Then Rob Madge Knocked on Some Doors

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      The British performer is bringing “My Son’s a Queer (but What Can You Do?)” to City Center this week, after an earlier run was canceled.“Everybody needs a good setback in their life and gosh, 2024 did that for me.”That was Rob Madge, speaking on video last month from their London home. A theater maker who identifies as nonbinary, Madge smiled wide into the camera and, wearing a crisp white guayabera-style shirt that was mostly buttoned, looked as if they were on their way to a “White Lotus” resort happy hour.But Madge wasn’t talking about cocktails and island intrigue. They were recalling dashed Broadway dreams.In February 2024, the Broadway run of Madge’s autobiographical show “My Son’s a Queer (but What Can You Do?)” was postponed just weeks before it was to begin preview performances at the Lyceum Theater. There was talk of opening on Broadway the following season, but that never materialized.In a statement last month, the show’s producers, Tom Smedes and Heather Shields, said “the heartbreaking decision” to call off a Broadway run was because “the risks of launching and sustaining the production were simply too great” for the show’s “long-term health.”The actor in the production, which incorporates projected scenes from the “living room shows” that Madge performed as a kid.Mark SeniorMadge, 28, said having Broadway fall through prompted them to consider difficult and dueling questions, the likes of which plague any theater artist putting work into the world.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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      Billy Porter in ‘La Cage aux Folles’ Highlights City Center Season

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      Also in the lineup: “Bat Boy: The Musical” and a production of “The Wild Party.”A musical comedy about a half-boy, half-bat creature, directed by a Tony winner, and an all-Black revival of the farce “La Cage aux Folles,” starring Billy Porter, will highlight the 2025-26 musical theater season at New York City Center.The four-show lineup is the first chosen by the center’s new vice president and artistic director of musical theater, Jenny Gersten, who is taking over programming from Lear deBessonet, who was named the artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater.Gersten, who had for three years been the artistic director of the Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts before joining New York City Center as vice president and producer in 2020, said she aimed to focus on the original mission of the 32-year-old Encores! concert series, which stages short-run productions of decades-old musicals, many of which are rarely revived.“A lot of people think about the Encores! series as being for revivals of musicals that you might not otherwise see, but the rationale for Encores! was always the chance to hear the orchestrations as they were originally intended,” she said.First up is the annual gala presentation, which will be “Bat Boy: The Musical” (Oct. 29-Nov. 9). This irreverent horror-rock musical, inspired by stories from a supermarket tabloid, centers on a cave-dwelling creature (Bat Boy) who searches for acceptance and love in a small town. It will be helmed by Alex Timbers, who won a Tony Award in 2021 for directing “Moulin Rouge! The Musical.” The story and book are by Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming, with music and lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe (“Legally Blonde: The Musical”).Next, the Encores! series will begin with a production of the supernatural musical comedy “High Spirits” (Feb. 4-15), based on Noël Coward’s 1941 play “Blithe Spirit” about a man coping with his dead wife’s ghost. Though the musical, whose score and book are by Hugh Martin (“Meet Me in St. Louis”) and Timothy Gray, was nominated for eight Tonys, it won none and was never revived on Broadway. It will be directed by Jessica Stone (“Kimberly Akimbo,” “Water for Elephants”).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