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Everyone deserves to be connected. T Mobile and US Cellular are joining forces. Our networks are coming together bringing more T Mobile coverage all over the country. Switch to T Mobile and save up to 20% versus Verizon by getting built in benefits they leave out. Check the math@t mobile.com Switch and now T Mobile is available in a US cellular store near you Bigger network. The combination of T Mobile and US Cellular's network footprints will enhance the T Mobile network's coverage savings versus comparable Verizon plans plus the costs of options, benefits, plan features and taxes and fees vary. Savings with three plus lines include third free line free via monthly bill credits. Credit stop if you cancel any lines. Qualifying credit required
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hello and welcome to Last Week on Broadway for Monday, May 11, 2026. I'm Broadway Radio's Matt Scammenini. I am back from my trip to New York in which I saw 17 shows in eight days. Yes, that is more than two per day. I saw multiple shows on every day except for Monday, May 4th. Monday as always, usually a dark day for most New York City productions. But I did see one show that night and then saw at least two every other day, including a couple days with three shows to make up the difference. Now I will be rolling out my standalone review episodes for each and every show that I saw that was new for this season. There were three shows that I saw that I won't do individual episodes for, but I will talk about at the end of this episode. Those are just in time, which obviously opened last season. I went back to see it with Jeremy Jordan, my third time seeing the show. Then I also saw oh Mary, obviously Maya Rudolph now in the show. So I wanted to see it again. This was the sixth time that I saw oh Mary. Five on Broadway, one off Broadway. And then I saw a reading of a new musical called the Fitzgeralds of St. Paul that I will talk about at the end of the episode, just very briefly, because it's a, you know, a show in development. I'm not going to get too far into it, but I will give my brief thoughts on those three shows at the end of the episode. The rest of the longer, more standalone episodes I'm going to do in an order that makes sense to me. So I'm going to spell that out for you here. I'm going to start by doing the shows that are up for the Tony Award for Best Musical. I'm going to do this in alphabetical order. So that would be the Lost Boys, Schmigadoon and Titanic. Then I will do the the one show that I saw that is up for best play from this trip, that is the Balusters. Then I will go to the only show that I saw that is up for best revival of a musical from this past trip, that's Cat's the Jellicle Ball. Then I will do the two shows that are up for best revival of a play and those are Becky Shaw and Joe Turner's Come and Gone. Then I will do Off Broadway musicals that are up for various awards, Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, Drama League, those types of things in alphabetical order again, the 25th annual Putting County Spelling Bee, Masquerade and Mexicus. Then I will hit Proof, a Broadway show that did not get any Tony nominations, much to my shock. And then I will wrap it up with three Off Broadway shows that I saw as well that are not up for any major awards, 11 to midnight, amaze and Gotta Dance. My plan is to have one or two of those coming out each day starting tomorrow. I will work around other episodes that we will have in the feed. Obviously with the grosses and news updates that we do midweek, we'll work around that. I will also have a special episode coming up later today after the Outer Critics Circle announces our awards. I will run through who and what I voted for, but I wanted to wait until the winners were actually announced. So that will be coming up later today on Monday. But all right, with all of that out of the way, let's dive in to this week's news. And there's not a ton of like groundbreaking news, but there are some things that we want to get into. And let's start with a kind of an updated story that we talked about last week with the fire over at the Eugene o' Neill Theater. The Book of Mormon has officially canceled all performances through May 17. The show is hoping to get back in, quote, the coming weeks. We don't know if that means for sure they will start a week from today on the 18th. It sounds to me like it won't because they did say in the coming weeks, not in a week. But this was obviously announced last week, so who knows. According to the Ambassador Theater Group and the production of the Book of Mormon, the fire was limited to the follow spot booth at the o', Neill. But it was a pretty devastating fire, a three alarm fire. And the show's producers and ATG are quote, currently working with a team of industry professionals to begin repairs needed to the building. As of this point, all ticket holders who are impacted by the cancellations will be notified by their point of purchase on how to reschedule their tickets or to get refunds. I did hear Bobby Lopez on NPR's show, wait, wait, don't tell me this weekend. And he was talking about the fact that when the show comes back, it will lead into the special 15th anniversary celebrations that the show has planned on having. I imagine these things were in the works long before the fire, but Josh Gad, Andrew Rannells, other members of the original Broadway company will make appearances in select performances in June. Bobby, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the writers of the show, will also appear in special performances throughout June and in the special week that they're going to be doing. I haven't seen any official announcements of this, but I did hear it in part because I took tuned in in
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the middle of it.
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So I didn't hear all the details. But keep an ear out for that. And if you love Book of Mormon, it would be a good idea to as soon as they announce the official dates for those things to jump on tickets. All right. We are in the middle of awards season, as you know, and last week we found out the winners of the 80th annual Theater World Awards. This organization gives awards to 12 actors who make either their Broadway or Off Broadway debut this season. The ceremony will be held on June 2nd at the Longacre Theater. It'll be hosted, as it always is, by our very own Peter Felicia. The winners this season are Ben Ehlers for Death of a salesman, L.J. bennett for the Lost Boys, Madeline Brewer for Becky Shaw, Adrien Brody for the fear of 13, IO. Edebury for proof, Alden Ironreich for Becky Shaw, Luke Evans for the Rocky Horror Show, Will Harrison for Punch Roll, River Life Smith for Caroline. The only Off Broadway entry into this list, Leslie Manville for Oedipus, Robert Silk Mason for Cat's the Jellicoe Ball, and Sam Tutty for two strangers carry a cake across New York. The 17th annual Dorothy Loudon Award for Excellence in the Theater, which is also given from the Theater World Awards Board, goes to Rachel Sterling for Giant. The Theater World Awards also give out the the John Willis Award for lifetime achievement in Theater. They have not yet announced that winner, so that should be coming fairly soon. All right, let's get into some show and casting news. We've already heard about a number of shows announcing extensions post Tony nominations and we got another one on Thursday, and that is Schmigadoon who announced that they are extending by four months, 17 extra weeks. So instead of closing on September 6, they will now close on January 3. Unless of course they extend again. The show is doing well, not exceedingly well, but if it wins Tony Awards and I feel like some people are starting to believe that this is the front runner for Best Musical, that could certainly pick up and turn this into an open ended run either officially or unofficially. In another not surprising extension news at all, although this was not prompted by the Tony Awards. As we talked about on the grossest episode last week in Maya Rudolph's first week over at Omar, not only did the show set a new one week box office record for its run, but it also set a new record for the Lyceum Theater. So Maya has extended her run as Mary Todd Lincoln by two weeks. She will now play through July 5th. Having her playing Mary Todd Lincoln on July 4th seems lovely and wonderful. Going to some casting news this is something that I'd actually talked about when it was announced that Kara Young would be jumping into the production of David Auburn's Proof, and that is the fact that she had already been announced to be co starring in an upcoming reimagining of Whoopi Goldberg's solo show, the Whoopi Monologues from Lincoln Center Theater. Not only is it going to star her, Kerry Washington is also going to be in it. It's being turned into an ensemble piece with a number of women. But Proof is currently scheduled to play through Sunday, July 19th. But the Whoopi Monologues begins performances on July 7th, which is, I'm believing why she was not originally cast in the show and had to come in as a replacement. But now we know that to two time Tony winner Carrie Young will be exiting the production on Sunday, June 28 and she will be replaced by Tony Award winner Adrian Warren. So barring something unforeseen like an extension, which I don't think is going to happen, Adrian will be in the role for the final three weeks of the run on Broadway. In other replacement casting news, last week it was announced that Issa Briones will be exiting her role as Connie Francis in Just in time on May 29, which is a couple Fridays from now. From what I understand, this is related to shooting for the Pit. Patrick Ball, who is in Becky Shaw. They wrap up their run on Tony Sunday, so a fairly close one week apart, Issa will be replaced by former Broadway radio guest Olivia Holt, who made her Broadway debut about three years ago in Chicago. She's also been seen on a lot of television shows, including one of my all time favorite superhero shows, Cloak and Dagger, in which she played the Titular Dagger Holt will begin performances as Connie Francis the day after issa leaves on May 30th. Moving off Broadway on Friday, it was announced that the new Duncan Sheik musical Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen will make its Off Broadway premiere later this fall. It will play at the Chelsea Club, which is formerly known as the McKittrick Hotel. We don't have the exact dates, but we do know that the show does feature a book by another former Broadway radio guest, Leah Nanako Winkler, and it'll be directed and choreographed by Tony winner Rob Ashford. The actual venue that is going to be in is being called the Night Egg, which is inside the Chelsea Club. So very confusing when they could have just kept calling it the McKittrick Hotel and everyone would have known what you were talking about. Now, we've talked about this show in the past, but it is based on a manga book which is kind of like an anime graphic novel. It is believed that this is the first manga to be developed into an American musical in the English language. Frank Wildhorn has written a musical, written the music to a musical of a manga in the past, but it was not in English. So should be interesting to see what this is all about when it begins performances. Listen later this fall Speaking of an adaptation, the Public Theater's world premiere play with music adaptation of the Academy Award winning film Girl Interrupted has announced that it will extend even before it begins performances. It will have its first performance on May 13th. We'll talk about that a little bit more later in the episode. And it has already announced a one week extension. Instead of wrapping up on June 21, it will now play through June 28 and then moving from downtown to the Public Theater up to the theater district over at the west side Theater. It was announced that stage and screen star Claiborne Elder will take over the role of Dr. Oren Scravello, DDS in Little Shop of Horrors, following Andy Carl's run. Carl will end his turn as the demented dentist on May 24th and Claybourne will take over on May 26th. All right, let's dive into this week's theatrical schedule. As I mentioned tonight, Monday, May 11, the 2026 Outer Critics CIR Awards will be announced. We will have a ceremony and recognizing all of the winners later in May, but there will be a press release that goes out with all of the winners. Then on Tuesday, the new musical from the Vineyard Theater. Man, I don't know how to say this one Girls Chance music. But each of those words are flanked by musical notations for repeats. So I'm guessing it's just girls chance music, but maybe it's just girls girls chance chance music music. I don't know either way. It was written and composed by Issa Davis and is being directed by Pam McKinnon. The show begins performances, as I said, on Tuesday and is scheduled to run through June 21st. It focuses on four gifted teenagers who collaborate and collide one pivotal summer at a prestigious girls music program in Berkeley. As their connections intensify, the world outside thrums with a steady undercurrent of disaster and emergency and they must find new ways to improvise on stage and off. The show features Gianna de Gregory Rivera, the Notebook on Broadway favorite Hilary Fisher, Naomi Lada and Yina Sung. Also on Tuesday at the Club Off Broadway, we will get the first performance of the official run for Heated Rivalry, the Unauthorized Parody. It features book music and lyrics and orchestrations by Dylan Mark Coral and is directed by Alan Clifford and choreographed by Brooke and Tiffany Engen. The cast is led by Jay Armstrong, Johnson as Ilya, Jim and Moon as Shane. Ryan Redmond, Cherry Torres and Ryan Duncan round out the cast as well. Then, speaking of the Notebook, as I did a minute ago, on Tuesday night over at the Dr. Phillips center for the Performing Arts here in Orlando, the Run for the Notebook national tour will begin. It is going to be here in Orlando through May 17th. As you all know, I love this show and do not believe that it got its fair shake on Broadway. I saw it three times on Broadway, but I really, I love this show so I'm very much looking forward to seeing the changes that they've made on tour. Some of the changes I'm not fully on board with just from a conceptual standpoint, but nonetheless, still ecstatic to be able to see this tour, especially because Alicia Delorier is playing Middle Alley and she is always fantastic from Once on this island and Hamilton and so much more. So I will have my review of that later in the week as well. So if you are someone who is getting the Notebook coming to your city sometime in the near future, I will give you my thoughts on that later this week. Then on Wednesday over the Public Theater. As I mentioned earlier, the new play with music adaptation of Girl Interrupted will begin performances. It features a book by Pulitzer Prize winner Matina Mayock and original music by the great Amy Mann. Joe Bonnie directs and Sonya Taya choreographed. So what an absolutely incredible creative team for this one. And unsurprisingly, the cast is also a tremendous to Raya Campbell, Gabby Campo, Juliana Canfield, Manuel Feliciano King, Princess Mia Pak, Catherine Reese, Sally Shaw, the great Emily Skinner, and more certainly one that I think we need to be paying attention to. Obviously anytime Martina Mayo does anything, it's it's noteworthy. But with a cast and creative team like this one, I and source material for that matter, it is certainly a show that I would keep an eye on especially. Especially because we know the Public Theater likes to transfer things to Broadway, especially right now when they are having some financial issues. So anything they could get from downtown up to the main stem would certainly help their bottom line. So keep an eye on this one then On Thursday, the Off Broadway return engagement for well, I'll Let yout Go, written by Bubba Wyler and directed by Jack Syrio, will begin performances at Studio Seaview. It is a seven week run. This is a show that has five Drama Desk nominations including Outstanding Play and for the Outer Critic Circle. We nominated it for two things, so definitely one that you'll want to see if you missed it. In its first run, the cast features Quincy Tyler Bernstein, Cricket Brown, Will Dagger, Emily Davis, Matthew Marr, Danny McCartney, Constance Shulman and Amelia Workman. Then from Playwrights Horizons, the new play Jerome will also begin performances on May 14th. It is currently scheduled to play through June 21st. It was written by John J. Caswell Jr. Directed by Dustin Willis. Jerome is a ghost town in the secluded Arizona backstory and it is also home to Khan and Doane, an aging gay couple who've built a quiet life far from the chaos of cities and other people until a stranger arrives fleeing his damaged past and falls into their arms. The cast is led by Steven Spinella, George Bennett Watson and Ken Barnett. Then on Friday, the Drama League Awards will announce their winners. Now keep in mind that this is a bit of a unique awards giving organization because they don't do nearly as many awards. They do outstanding production of a play, musical revival of a play, revival of a musical, direction of a play, direction of a musical. And then they have 50 nominees for distinguished performance award and only one winner can only win it once in your life. So basically anybody that you have ever heard of that was any show on or off Broadway this season was nominated. They also have four like non competitive awards that they will give out to Camilla Forbes for contribution to the theater, to Casey Levy for distinguished achievement in Musical theater, to David Cromer for the Founders Award for Excellence in Directing and to Scott Ellis getting their gratitude award. And then on Saturday we have two shows beginning previews, one on Broadway, one off Broadway. Starting first over at the Shubert the with Celebrity Autobiography which was just announced last week, we talked about it. It is a crazy quick thing happening. Apparently it's been in the works for a while and they couldn't get everybody signed and everything. But this is a show that was created by Eugene Pack and his run around New York City, Off Broadway and in cabaret spaces for many, many years. It was originally going to come to Broadway in 2018 and then it all kind of fell apart before that holiday season season. But the cast that we know of so far is great, including people like Mario Cantone, Jeff Hiller, Jackie Hoffman, Gayle King, Andrea Martin, Bobby Moynihan, Kenan Thompson, Neil Bardalas, Rita Wilson. If you were thinking about going to see Celebrity Autobiography, make sure that you go to their website, which I'll have a link to in the show notes and see who is performing on what day because it does rotate quite a bit. So if you want to see someone specifically, you definitely need to make sure who that is. And then over at Lincoln Center Theatre at the Claire Towel Theatre, the new play A Woman Among Women, written by Julia Mae Jonas and directed by Sarah Cameron Hughes, will begin performances. It is scheduled to play through June 28. It is a summer day in Northampton, Massachusetts and Cleo, founder of the local Women's Wellness center, holds court in her backyard as friends, family and neighbors pass through the air hums with a tension that may destroy the community she's worked so hard to build. Then on Sunday we will have the Drama Desk Awards. Obviously besides the Tonys, this is the most prestigious of the awards given out to theater in New York City every single season. So we will have that ceremony hosted by the one and only Marla Mendel on on Sunday night. Then we'll have an opening off Broadway as well from the signature theater of the new place by Heather Christian called Animal Wisdom. It is directed by Kenan Tyler Oliphant. This is a show that is a one person show and Heather Christian actually originally did it on her own. Kenita Miller will be stepping into the role for this run. Step into a musical seance like no other, where the veil is thin, the music is wild, and the spirits of memory come roaring to life. Anything by Heather Christian is worth seeing and anything with Kenita Miller is also worth seeing. So certainly one to keep an eye on. Then on Sunday over In Brooklyn at St. Anne's Warehouse, we will have the first preview for the Donmar Warehouse's production of the Maids. It is a new version written and directed by Kip Williams who is known for doing the Picture of Dorian Gray here on in London and on Broadway. Dracula with Cynthia Erivo in London and probably on Broadway at some point as well. The cast is led by Bridgerton's Euron Ha, House of the Dragons, FIA Sabin and Olivier Award nominee Lydia Wilson. The Maids is currently scheduled to run through June 14, and then as it is a Sunday, we also have a couple shows closing. The new group's production of the Adding Machine and bam's production of Hamlet will wrap up next Sunday as well. All right, as I said, I wanted to talk briefly about the shows that I saw that I'm not going to be doing standalone episodes for. I did see first, Just In Time with Jeremy Jordan. This was a wild experience. One, Jeremy is great and charming. He still seemed to be getting his footing a little bit. He stumbled over a few lines, especially at the beginning, but once he got into it, everything was great. But we got there and we were told that they would be shooting some B roll during this performance, which is totally normal. We probably many of us have been there for B roll performances in the past, but this was something altogether different because before the show, Lance Roberts, who is one of the company members, came out and informed us that in addition to the cameras that we could already see, they would be using drones to capture footage during some of the big dance numbers. And he told us not to look at the drones. One, because it would take away our enjoyment of what was happening on stage. But two, it would not be useful footage if everybody's like staring at the drones as they fly through rather than looking at the stage. Now, the drones were only deployed during the big, loud fun dance production numbers. But if you've ever been around a drone, they're loud. Like you can hear them. You can hear the propellers whirling and or droning on, I guess. So like if they got them up and going before the music got too loud, you could certainly hear him. It wasn't distracting or anything, but it was obviously something that I had never encountered before, especially in an indoor theater. But it wasn't a huge deal. But certainly something that I will not forget anytime soon and hopefully won't have to deal with all that often. But Jeremy was wonderful. Just an incredible voice, which I think is so interesting about Jeremy's performance. Performance compared to Jonathan Gross. I didn't see Matt Morrison, but where Groff just kind of sounded like Grof throughout, Jeremy definitely sang differently as Jeremy. As if you know the show at the beginning of the show and at the end of the show he is Jeremy Jordan and then becomes Bobby Darin. He definitely put on more of a smooth, loungey crooner voice when he became Bobby Darin, which is very subtle, but certainly something I noticed because he let out his full, you know, rock God tenor voice at the beginning and the end, especially at the end in the curtain call. But it was noticeable in a nice added touch that gave us a little bit more of the reality of the world. This was the first time obviously that I'd seen Issa Briones as Connie Francis. And even though she is leaving, if you have a chance to see her at Circle in the Square before she leaves, do it. I had seen her in Hadestown. I thought she was wonderful in that, but she was incredible. I mean, she was so good. Acting, comedy, singing, Blown Away by by Issa Now, I. I think Gracie Lawrence, who is the original Connie Francis, blew my mind because I didn't really know anything about her. But she doesn't really sound like Connie Francis and doesn't really sound like somebody singing from that era. And while Issa certainly was more of a modern voice than like a Connie Francis, you know, impression would be, she did seem to fit a little bit more into what I know of Connie Francis vocally. So that was a nice touch as well, but absolutely remarkable. And with all due respect to Erica Henningson, the original Sandra Dee, and Sadie Dickerson, who I've also seen in the role, I think Carrie St. Louis is the best I've seen of the three. And you maybe by a considerable margin. Obviously she is most likely going to be playing Dolly Parton on Broadway here in this coming season, but she was really, really good as Sandra Dee. Funny, tough, but sympathetic and an unbelievable voice. So loved this cast. Highly recommend you check it out before Issa leaves. Then I saw Omari again with Maya Rudolph. Also the first time I had seen Cheyenne Jackson in the role everybody else I had seen in previous runs. You know, I've seen this show six times now. Most of that was because it fit as an extra slot in my schedule. I think four of them probably I did as like their five o' clock matinee. I don't know that I would be seeing this show still if it wasn't for that. Everybody I've seen has been great, but to me it has a bit of diminishing returns. And also, like, I've loved Betty Gilpin and Maya Rudolph in this role. I love them both as actors and performers, but to me, it is just so hard to try to live up for It. Cole's humor is so absurd that unless you're somebody like an Amy Sedaris or maybe Jinx Monsoon. I did not see Jinx. So I don't know. But like, it's so hard to make some of those jokes land as well as they did with Cole Cole if you don't have that level of absurdity. Now maybe I am just fortunate because I saw Cole do it four times. So I'm comparing everybody to Cole and, and perhaps many of the people in the audience, Maya Rudolph fans especially, don't know and just think it's a really funny show. Maya seemed to me to be playing it straighter than obviously Cole, but, but Betty as well. Don't get me wrong, very funny. Love Maya Rudolph. And it was an enjoyable time. Time. But to me, I, I just think there's something lacking when we are getting normal comedians to do that role because while they are funny and they can mine the, the, the, the script and the character for laughs, it's not the same as if you have somebody who's just bonkers, completely unhinged. I, I actually think that Jane Krakowski probably has some of that. So I didn't see her either. But I would imagine that her brand of bonkers wackiness probably played well with it as well. But to me, that's what you need to make this show really, really work. And then I do want to mention the reading that I saw was more of a presentation because it wasn't at a normal rehearsal studio. It was actually at the Laurie Beechman Theater. And it is a new musical called the Fitzgeralds of St. Paul about F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. It is a new musical written by Christy Bauer and it was directed and choreographed by Danny Mefford, who, ironically enough, I saw this the day after I saw the 25th annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. So it was nice to see two of his shows back to back. But it stars Julie Banko as Zelda Fitzgerald and Bobby Conti as F. Scott Fitzgerald. A nice show, a two hander. The music does at least make nods to the jazz era. So that was really fun to hear. These two incredible talents seeing that music. It was maybe a little repetitive in terms of that style without giving us too much to break it up, but they are two of the best working, so obviously enjoyed that tremendously. All right, everybody, thank you for sticking around for a long episode today. That's all I've got for you. If you want more Broadway radio, head over to patreon.com broadwayradio and keep an eye out for the new Broadway radio app coming soon. Thanks again for listening. This has been Matt Tamnini. I will talk to you very soon this week. Lots to do this week with all of my New York reviews, My Notebook review from here in Orlando. Then throw in things like my outer critics ballot and the grosses and news updates so you'll be hearing a lot of me. And as we move towards the Tonys, we will be having some really fun episodes discussing the awards in the coming weeks. So thanks again for listening. I will talk to you soon.
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Everyone deserves to be Connected T Mobile and US Cellular are joining forces. Our networks are coming together bringing more T Mobile coverage all over the country. Switch to T Mobile and save up to 20% versus Verizon by getting built in benefits they leave out. Check the math@t mobile.com Switch and now T Mobile is available in a US cellular store near you. Bigger network the combination of T Mobiles and US Cellular's network footprints will enhance the T Mobile network's coverage. Save savings versus comparable Verizon plans plus the costs of options, benefits, plan features and taxes and fees vary. Savings with three plus lines include third free line free via monthly bill credits. Credit stop if you cancel any lines. Qualifying credit required.