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Matt Scammani (0:31)

Welcome to Today on Broadway for Tax Day Tuesday, April 15th. Grace, are you done with your taxes?

Grace Ake (0:37)

We'll find out.

Matt Scammani (0:40)

You have until the end of Tuesday to get those things done. My accountant will be filing an extension for me so because I have not gotten all my stuff together. But anyway on Broadway Radio's Matt Scammani.

Grace Ake (0:50)

And I'm Tell Me on a Sunday podcast Grace Ake Grace, we have not.

Matt Scammani (0:54)

Had an episode of Today on Broadway since Thursday morning. So much has happened. But I do want to make sure that you check out everything that was in the feeds of over the weekend. We had a new episode from Jan Simpson. We had a great conversation on yesterday's show where I talked with members of my group Chat Ashley Hufford and Kaitlin Berg about what we think will be nominated for Tony Awards ahead of some interviews. So make sure that you were listening to all of that. But we are back for the rest of this week to get through Today on Broadway episodes. And Grace, I thought we would be starting with the reviews from Smash even though they are a bit dated. But instead huge news coming from the world of Hamilton because yesterday it was announced on the Today Show Live that Leslie Odom Jr. Will be coming back to Hamilton as part of the 10th anniversary celebration for the show. He will do a 12 week limited run as Aaron Burr just in case you thought he might be doing a different role. He will be going from September 9th through November 23rd. Grace as soon as I got this press release I jumped on the website, spent about 45 minutes in the queue and tickets are expensive. They were selling very quickly. Tickets are obviously going to be expensive for this, but this feels good. I would not be surprised if there are maybe some other OBC cast members that are going to be returning to the show as well and they might announce those later and maybe they won't overlap with with Leslie. But this is so cool. I think because Hamilton became such a phenomenon by the time people kind of realized how cool this show was and how awesome Leslie's performance was, it might have been too late to get tickets to see him. And now it's an opportunity for those of us who never saw him do this role than in the pro tape to be able to see him on stage at the Richard Rogers Theater eight times a week for effectively three months.

Grace Ake (2:38)

I mean, listen, we're about to be at Hamill 10, right? Like the, the 10 year anniversary of everything. I think this is really smart, the fact that he's willing to come back. And so, yeah, like I'm, I'm really thrilled at the fact that they're smart and getting the people in to say, hey, you may have already seen this. You may have seen a bunch of different casts. You may have already seen the pro tape. People are still going to run to that theater for the September 9th first show back with Leslie Hilton Jr. So I think it's amazing.

Matt Scammani (3:11)

Yeah. And I'm interested what else they do because Hamilton has never been shy about doing big things for big events. Like, we didn't get the ham for ham performances around Tony season last year. I wonder if we're going to do that this year because of the, of the anniversary. Those were always cool. Where they had other shows that were nominated for musical Tony Awards come and perform outside the Richard Rodgers. I wonder if we'll get something like that this year. But they know how to celebrate things over at the Richard Rodgers. And I cannot wait for this. All right, Grace. Last week, after we were done recording for the week, Smash officially opened on Broadway. And by this time, if you were interested in the reviews, you've probably seen most of them. But I do want to run through just the basics. Of course it is open at the Imperial Theater. This is based on the iconic TV show of the same name. It features a book by Rick Ellis and Bob Martin and features music by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman. That all comes from the TV show. Originally, it is directed by Susan Stroman, but she does not do the choreography. Instead, that is Joshua Berghes, who won an Emmy award for choreographing the TV show. The cast is incredible. Of course, we have Jacqueline B. Arnold, Brooks Ashmanskas, John Bailman, Caroline Bowman, Bella Coppola, Casey Garvin, Robin Herder, Christine Nielsen, Krista Rodriguez, Nicholas Matos, and more. Grace. It's interesting because I feel like I don't know if there has been a more divisive show in recent memory when it comes to the reviews. Because did they like it has at this point collected 20 different reviews. Eight are positive, six are mixed, and six are negative. We'll start with the New York Times Jesse Green, who made the show a critics pick. He said, quote, smash, which opened on Thursday at the Imperial Theater, is more of a who'll do it and when the big song comes, it's a killer. But the effect is the same. It's the great musical comedy no one saw coming. Conversely, Brittany Samuel of Broadway News was negative. She said, quote, smash sells the promise of slap happy Broadway. But don't be fooled. Ellis and Martin have salted the whole thing with disdain. Contempt is what they must have for actors, writers, influencers, young people in general, all of whom are mocked and flattened into a obnoxiously one dimensional beings in their unsteady and inadequate book. From there, Christian Lewis, who reviewed the show for Variety said, quote, for those fans dying for more Smash content, this musical will absolutely scratch that more than seven year itch. For those uninitiated, this production offers a high energy, fun musical comedy within a phenomenal score. Either way, it is in fact what you've been needing. Kristen Baldwin from Entertainment Weekly was also positive saying, quote, with its transition to the stage, Smash finally realizes its full potential as a hilarious, pointed satire that both skewers and celebrates the great White Way. Chris Jones of the New York Daily News was negative saying, quote, that quality of surprise crucial to the best episodes of the TV show is missing from the new live musical staging, which opened Thursday night at the Imperial Theater. Especially given the level of talent involved here, the adaptation will be deeply disappointing even for die hard fans of the source material. And I'll wrap up with Robert Hoffler, who is positive from the wrap, who said, quote, susan Stroman directs and she hasn't been this good with a cast since she brought the producers to the stage over two decades ago. The Smash ensemble is every bit as talented as that legendary cast. A wonderful quirk of the direction and book is that the show's musical numbers are for the most part backstage looks at the rehearsal process. Broadway aficionados will love it. Now, Grace, I don't know if you've seen it. I have not seen it, so I have no comment on where I fall in on these reviews yet. But like it almost feels to me because of the hate watching nature of Smash's TV run, that these reviews are actually kind of meta and kind of perfect in a way that feels very Smash.

Grace Ake (7:15)

Yeah, I forget the, the, the critic that you were just citing a moment ago that kind of talked about how it feels. The writers, whomever are involved, have a who who was that?

Matt Scammani (7:29)

That was Brittany Samuel From Broadway News, who said that Rick Ellis and Bob Martin feel to have a level of contempt for basically everybody that they talked about.

Grace Ake (7:38)

Yeah, I'm not gonna speak for those two writers, but my feeling of being in the theater was very much matched by that. It was really, honestly, like, felt it was really painful for. For some of it, frankly, which sounds so like, like green of me to be. Like it hurt my feelings, but like, it actually felt like, you know, when you see a show that is about the making of theater, let's say, or the making of any type of art, you would hope that the people that are writing it that you can feel that they, at the end of the day, love that, you know, that they love the creation, they love the art form, they love everybody that touches the art form. They can have criticisms, but at the end of the day, they appreciate the artistic process. And I felt like the 2025 lens of this feeling in the room for me, as a person who creates things and also works on behalf of a lot of theatrical properties, it felt like there was a lot of hate there. And I don't know if that's from years of working through this business. I obviously don't have the tenure that the individuals that have worked on the show, but I have done a lot of this. And particularly there was one line in I know what I do in terms of, like, content creators and influencers and how, you know, using or utilizing and partnering with people to kind of get the next generation of theater goers out there. There is a specific line that's uttered by a character that says they're talking about influencers. And they say something like, you know, those stuck up, entitled brats, like, they're like, those phrases are used when talking about content creators. Like, it's the reason they have to do the show. And I'm just like, okay, so who do you think talks about the excitement around the TV show turning into a stage adaptation? Content creators, like, like, you know what I mean? And so it's. It was just very alienating for me as a viewer that so often, like, there's a lot of criticism over the fact that, like, it's a joke that they're all mad because someone gave their leading actor a book for research. Now any other, you know, thing you'd say, like, oh, that's like, nice that she cares enough about the project, but it's this laugh line that they're like, actors are meant to be stupid. That's why we pay them to not read or do research. And it was just it's just a lot of, like, randomly aggressive mental gymnastics of how harshly it feels that these people don't like the current state of Broadway. Okay, well, then I, you know, this. This should have felt like a love letter. Or, you know, you can have your criticisms. I'm not saying that you have to like everybody that touches this. There's obviously a lot that goes into it that is exhausting and painstaking and all those things, but more times than not, I felt like the people or. Or I felt like whatever was going on on stage was in an adverse, hateful rhetoric to what we all do and why we do it. And that was really hard to watch.

Matt Scammani (10:41)

Yeah, that's very frustrating. I'm going to see it in May when I'm in town, so I'm going to have to get both my knives out and my bucket of popcorn for this one. All right, one thing that hopefully will be a little less aggressive for folks, because I feel like this show is made for content creators. Because yesterday we got details about the upcoming Broadway revival of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. That'll Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter. We found out that the show will begin previews on September 13, ahead of a September 28 opening night at the Hudson Theater. It is a strictly limited engagement playing through January 4th. Of course, I would not be surprised if that extends. Jamie Lloyd is obviously producing and directing, as we've talked about before. Bill and Ted back together on stage Grace, I feel like the content creators, maybe even outside of the normal theatrical community, are going to have a ball with this one.

Grace Ake (11:35)

I'm really excited about this. I hope that I get to work in some capacity on it, but I just think it's wild. I never thought it's kind of like a mental. Like. Like a Mad Libs of theater like Jamie Lloyd directed Waiting for Godot revival. Bill and Ted's excellent adventure. Like, you're like, what are the. Like, you know, who would have thought? But also, like, they're gonna be great. Like, I just. I know that they are going to be great, and I'm very interested in Keanu Reeves, famously, in any capacity. So it'll be great.

Matt Scammani (12:05)

Yeah, absolutely. All right. Speaking of other big stars, we got some information over the weekend late last week about a new West End production of Arthur Miller's All My Sons that will be led by Bryan Cranston, Marianne Jean Baptiste and Papa Asiedo. This is a production that is going to be coming to London's Wyndham's theater beginning on November 14th and is currently slated to play through February 7th. If you are only familiar with Bryan Cranston out of that group and don't know Marianne or Papa, they are faces you have seen in many things coming from the uk and this is one of those star studded productions, Grace, that we've talked so much about happening here in New York that is going to be happening in London and I would not be surprised if at some point we end up hearing transfer rumors about this because this is such an absolutely an incredible group of performers. And of course this is a reuniting of Cranston and director Ivo Van Hove who is bringing this show to the stage after they had worked together previously on network. But great cast, we'd love to see that potentially transfer. One upcoming London show that we already know is thinking about transferring is a new play called Born with Teeth and it will star current Doctor who Shuddhi Gatwa and Edward Blumell, who I guess Grace, correct me if I'm wrong here, they had been on the TV show Sex Education together on Netflix. I didn't know that but the show pits Christopher Marlowe and an up and coming playwright named William Shakespeare against each other as they are kind of jostling for theatrical supremacy in the uk. It is also going to play London's Wyndham's Theatre and it is being directed by Daniel Evans who actually just finished up playing Marlow in an RSC production of a show. So that is very exciting. And they've already talked about the fact that while it's going to run from August 13th through November 1st of this year, just before that, all my sons that they are looking forward to a potential 2026, 2027 Broadway bow of the show. So some big, big names, Grace taking to the stage in London and I would not be surprised if one or both of those shows makes its way across the pond. All right, let's bring it back to New York and go off Broadway. Just recently the Signature Theater Off Broadway announced its 35th anniversary season and it has three shows by two playwrights. The first one will be a return Off Broadway engagement for Heather Christian's Oratorio for Living Things. I am so excited that this is coming back Off Broadway. It had previously played at Ars Nova and I was supposed to see it. Grace. I don't remember if it was 2021 or 2022 and my performance was like in the last weekend and it got canceled because there were too many people in the cast with COVID So I'm dying to see this production it features a full company of singers and instrumentalists that are like in and around the audience and kind of bring to life this one of a kind theatrical sonic experience. But that'll be the first show in the season. Then we'll have a new play from Lauren Yee. It'll be the New York premiere of Mother Russia and it is set in 1992St. Petersburg as the Soviet Union has collapsed. And then the season will wrap up with a new show by Heather Christensen called Animal Kingdom. It is a musical that'll be directed by Kenan Tyler Oliphant that blends storytelling, requiem and family mythology and a musical ritual that dives into the relationship between the soul, the scene and the unseen. Did you get to see Oratorio for Living Things? I Can't Remember?

Grace Ake (15:51)

No. I was really sad. I have never seen her work.

Matt Scammani (15:54)

Me neither. That's one of these things that will be at the top of my list. So if you want more information about that, head over to the show Notes Also Off Broadway, we found out that the current stars of Little Shop of Horrors, Elizabeth Gillies and Milo Manheim, have extended their run in the show. They are now going to play through June 1st as Audrey and Seymour, respectively. And then, unfortunately, in some bad news off Broadway, we found out that Conversations with Mother, the Off Broadway show for Matthew Lombardo that stars Caroline Aaron and Matt Doyle, will be closing up shop over at Theater555 a little earlier than originally planned. The show will now end next Monday on April 21st. It had previously been scheduled to play through May 11th. I'm assuming anytime something closes early that it's because they don't think they're making them enough in tickets. But I have heard that Tony Award winner Matt Doyle has another big gig happening that will take him far, far, far out of town. So I don't know if maybe the scheduling of that. I'm not sure when it starts, but maybe the scheduling plays a factor in that. But we will have to wait and see. And then sticking off Broadway, the play from Joy Behar, my first ex husband that has had a steady rotation of stars come in and do the show. It's going to get one new star, but just for one day only because Behar's co host on the View, Whoopi Goldberg, is going to do a matinee performance of the show on Wednesday, April 30. As of now, that is the only time Whoopi is going to step into the show. But having an opportunity to have her in the show from Joy is is very, very cool. And then finally, Grace, we got details about when the Jennifer Lopez big screen adaptation of Kiss of the spider woman will be available to watch in theaters. It will come to movie theaters across the country on October 10th. So that should be something that a lot of theater fans will look forward to this fall and into awards season. All right, Grace, that's all the news. Anything I missed over the weekend that, like, we should talk about, like, recommendation wise, something cool happened, Anything like that?

Grace Ake (18:03)

Not that I can remember. There's so much going on. We still, I mean, I'm, I'm still waiting to open up all of the shows that are being worked on. We're hitting, we're about to hit that, you know, Tony deadline cutoff, probably. What is it next week?

Matt Scammani (18:17)

No, no, it's. We've still got about a couple of weeks. I think the eligibility deadline is the 27th. So that's like just under two weeks.

Grace Ake (18:24)

Yeah, that's, that's close. So, yeah, there's a lot happening. But again, like I've, we've seen so many new shows opening. I know that as we're speaking, they're about to open. John Proctor is the villain. All these great things. So I can't wait to see what the reviews are for that. I still haven't seen it, so I have to see it in person after reading it for many years. But yeah, it's just a good time. Go see theater.

Matt Scammani (18:45)

Yeah, absolutely. All right, everybody, that's all that we have for today. Thanks for listening to today on Broadway. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram rodwayradio and you can follow me www. MattGrace. Where can people find you?

Grace Ake (18:55)

You can find me at. It's graceaki.

Matt Scammani (18:56)

All right, everybody, have a wonderful Tuesday and we'll be back to talk to you tomorrow.

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Stage and the site is live that.

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