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Today on Broadway: Tuesday, May 6, 2025
00:21:56
Dolly Musical Finds Its Dollys, ‘Ragtime’ Revival Tease, Pulitzer Prize for Drama Announced Since 2016, “Today on Broadway” has been the first and only daily podcast recapping the top theatre headlines every Monday through Friday.
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- [00:00]
Unknown Male Speaker
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- [00:47]
Matt Tamminini
Welcome to Today on Broadway for Tuesday, May 6, 2025. I'm Broadway Radio's Matt Tamminini and I'm.
- [00:53]
Grace Aki
Tell Me on a Sunday podcast.
- [00:54]
Matt Tamminini
Grace Aki Grace, we have to start with the biggest news of the day. What the hell is going on in your world?
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Grace Aki
Oh my gosh. I was like, oh no. What's the biggest news? Okay, so as of the past I feel like 48 hours I have been given a green light by Soho Playhouse where I previously got to do my play to Free a Mockingbird for a one night performance last year. It is now being asked to go back for two weeks for a 10 show run starting next week, literally May 12th through the 25th. Which is insane. But you know what, Matt, you and I talk about a lot that like I don't have enough to do and I'm just always looking for that next thing. But no, I'm, I'm like actually really excited and honored to be doing this. Not only at a place that I really love and respect, but also for the community and during API month. I've never really gotten to do that, which means a lot to me. And while my mom is here, she's going to be able to see it for one night during Mother's Day weekend. So I'm really excited. I may or may not have bullied her into extending her trip a day, but no, I'm just, I'm really pumped. I've also got great conversations coming up. Partnerships. Q and A is with some of our favorite people. Cough Cough. Ashley Hufford, Maggie Hill. Great stuff going on and some cute collaborations as well. So be on the lookout. But please follow along if this has ever been of interest to you and honestly to any of our listeners that have ever streamed the show or seen it live. I genuinely could not be doing this now if it not if it weren't for the people that have talked about the show in general and come to see it. So thank you very much. But I'm very excited to do this starting this next week. Jesus Christ.
- [02:32]
Matt Tamminini
Yeah. And what's cool about this is, is that you are doing it. Like you said, was it 10 shows over two weeks. But there are Monday performances. So if you are looking for something to do on a Monday night, head down to the Soho place. And correct me if I'm wrong. Did I see Fleabag at the Soho Playhouse? Did I literally see.
- [02:50]
Grace Aki
Yes. Hannah Gadsby's show, Phoebe Waller Bridges, Fleabag job also two years ago now.
- [02:57]
Matt Tamminini
Oh, my God, that's right. Yeah.
- [02:59]
Grace Aki
So it's just, it's, it's a absolute home for solo artists and innovative plays. And I'm just excited to be a part of that little lineup.
- [03:06]
Matt Tamminini
We, of course, will have information on where you can purchase tickets in the show notes, and obviously we will be talking about that. It might make your recording schedule even more hectic than it already was, Grace. But we will figure that out because what an amazing opportunity this is. All right, let's move on to some less important but I guess potentially interesting news to people because yesterday Dolly Colon in Original Musical announced the three leads who will be playing Dolly Parton throughout the course of her life. And we're going to have to talk about this because there's a number of topics in this news item that I want to get into. But the three stars that will lead the production at the Fisher center for the Performing arts in Nashville, Tennessee, beginning on July 18 and running through August 30 are Katie Rose Clark, Kerry St. Louis and Quinn Titcomb. Obviously, Katie Rose Clark and Carrie St. Louis are Broadway favorites. Both have played Glinda Katie Rose Clark most recently in Merrily We Roll Along, Good Friend of yours, and F's Carrie St. Louis was most recently on Broadway as Glenda has done a ton of other shows, was in Kinky Boots for a long time. And Quinn Titcomb is from South Florida, who apparently a bunch of performers I know in Florida have worked with her as well. What's interesting about this one is that none of these three were involved as one of the finalists for the online search for Dolly Casting Call. However, the producers have announced that two performers from the finalist group of 15 that was flown to New York for in person auditions earlier this year are going to be a part of the company in some capacity. Now, this is kind of what. When that was announced, Grace, I had. I don't remember if you and I talked about or if it was just me. That's kind of what I assumed at this point when. Or maybe the youngest. Youngest one. But I would guess that they will be in the ensemble will potentially be standbys or understudies for one of the Dolly roles. So that is incredible. I know you love Katie. Here's what's interesting to me about this, though. Presumably these three dollies are. Or these three actresses are playing dolly in three different parts of their lives. During the workshops, Kelly O'Hara had played one of the dollies and along with Carrie St. Louis. But now Katie Rose Clark is taking over the role that. That Kelly had done. The age difference, though, is where I'm starting to wonder because Katie Rose Clark and Carrie St. Louis are only five years apart. And I think that's fine. You can age them up and down. But I do think it's interesting that if they're not going to be significantly different in age, what's the need to have multiple people do it? Does that make sense? Or am I. I know maybe I get stuck up on age when you're doing these things, but it is interesting that they have gone from somebody at Kelly O'Hara's age who is. She's. I think she's 49 to Katie Rose Clark, who's 40. And Carrie St. Louis is 35. So it's interesting to me that they've kind of made these changes in a different direction, presumably because Kelly had other things going on. I don't know. But I did find that a little striking that they're going to have to really try to convince me that Katie and Carrie are significantly different in age.
- [06:02]
Grace Aki
I don't think that they're going to have to work that hard only because those. Both of those actresses are very, very good. And I think I genuinely believe, because I don't have Inside Baseball, even though I will be eventually getting to work on a part of this. So I just. Full disclosure there, but I don't. But I don't know the logistics or like anything about the show currently, like, of how that's working. But I do feel in my heart of hearts that like Carrie can age down and Katie Rose can age up, like they are both very capable of those things. So it would not shock me if that's the trajectory of those things that will be successful ultimately due to the magic of performance and Hair and makeup. You know what I mean? Like, I genuinely believe that that is within their capacity. I love Katie Rose. I love that she's getting to originate this, like, genuine, like, yell out. The last time that we got to see her originate a role in this capacity was it Allegiance, like, a long time ago. So she's just.
- [07:05]
Matt Tamminini
Lots of revivals, lots of replacements. Yeah.
- [07:07]
Grace Aki
And she was a part of the heart of rock and roll for a really long time. Merily came in between that. But, like, I. I'm obsessed with getting to see her do this. Yeah. And it's like, like she. She's been a part of so many different things. And I just feel like this is a fantastic moment for her specifically and Carrie. But of course, if you go on a deep dive, you see Carrie take a photo with Dolly Parton months and months and months ago.
- [07:29]
Matt Tamminini
Oh, my God. Yeah.
- [07:29]
Grace Aki
So, I mean, if the people were not, like, paying attention, like, where were you? But I do. I am excited about all of the trajectory for all of this. I hope I'm trying to find a day that I can go down to see this in Nashville, because that just doesn't happen where you get to go see a show about a person, like, in their heartland for an out of town tryout. Like, it's not often getting. When they did Neil Diamond, Beautiful Noise, they did it in Boston because they all seem like Sweet Caroline and like, that just made sense. But that's not as, like, integral part of Dolly's, like, life is so Tennessee and Dollywood and all that. So I'm very excited about it. I have the butterfly dolly patch ready to go for my bag. It's going to be great. But I'm glad that we finally got to go live with those announcements.
- [08:14]
Matt Tamminini
Absolutely. All right. Another thing that went live on Monday Grace, and also something that I believe you are working on. There's not a lot of details, but the Lincoln Center Theater social media account showed a video of who I believe is Joshua Henry, if not somebody who looks remarkably like Joshua Henry from the back, walking across Lincoln Center Plaza to a piano and then plunking out the notes for the beginning of Ragtime. And there's a caption that says, this is the music of something beginning. This is no surprise. We've talked about this. This is something that has been expected. But because Lir Debessinet directed the City center production of Ragtime, she is now the artistic director of Lincoln center, it is presumed that they are going to be doing a Ragtime revival on Broadway at Lincoln center in this upcoming season, I would imagine that a ton of the folks that we saw at City center will be joining this production, if not all of them. In fact, I mentioned some stuff going on with Casey Levy last week. So I don't know if you can talk about anything with this social media video, Grace, but lots and lots and lots of people really excited about that getting announced or getting posted yesterday.
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Grace Aki
Yep, it was a really good video.
- [09:31]
Matt Tamminini
Okay, fair enough. All right, let's move in to some awards talk here. And we have three different awards to go through, so I'm going to go through them quickly. But we're going to start with the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, which was just announced a little bit before we started recording. And. And the winner is Brandon Jacobs Jenkins's Purpose that has won, while the other finalists were oh Mary by Cola Scola and the Ally by Itamar Moses. In addition, New York Magazine and Vulture theater critic Sarah Holdren was a finalist in the criticism category, which is tremendous. I think Purpose is an excellent, excellent choice for this because remember, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama generally goes towards a play that says something about life in America. And that certainly does. I think Omar does as well. But because it is set 100 plus years ago, 150 years ago, at this point, it probably has less to do with current life in America as much as Purpose does. So what an absolutely incredible honor to Brandon Jacobs Jenkins to be able to have that on his resume and certainly something that is well deserved. Then let's go to the Theater World Awards, which are given to an actor either in their Off Broadway or Broadway debut. These honorees will be recognized on June 2 in a ceremony that'll be hosted as always, by our own Peter Felicia. The award recipients are Alana Arenas for Purpose, Kit Connor for Romeo and Juliet, Patsy Ferran for A Streetcar Named Desire, Tom Francis for Sunset Boulevard, Jack Malone for Operation Mincemeat, Paul Mescal for A streetc Name Desire, Louis McCartney for Stranger Things, the First Shadow, Marjan Neshat for English Jasmine, Amy Rogers for Boop, Nicole Scherzinger for Sunset Boulevard, Helen J. Shin for maybe Happy Ending and Sarah Snook for the Picture of Dorian Gray. The Dorothy Loudon Award for Excellence in Theater, honoring an outstanding performance in a Broadway or Off Broadway production, will be given to Shailene Woodley from Cult of Love, which I think is fantastic because I love that show. And the John Willis Award given for lifetime achievement in the theater will be presented to Leslie Uggams. And then the 2025 TWA special award for Outstanding Broadway debut will be presented to George Clooney, who is both performer and playwright for Goodnight and Good Luck. He co wrote Goodnight, Good Luck with Grant Heslove Grace. Before we get into the Off Broadway Awards, any thoughts on the theater world slash Pulitzer Prizes?
- [12:03]
Grace Aki
I want to say that I don't know what will happen with the Tony Awards. So that aside, Marjan Neshat, getting these shout outs is very important. It' exciting. I'm obsessed with the continuation of talking about Cults of Love and English specifically because both of those shows appeared not in this springtime season and also were a part of these like incredible nonprofit theatrical companies, Second Stage and Roundabout. And I just want to commend both of them for taking incredible risks and chances with these spectacular pieces of work. Like, I'm very happy that these are continued conversations about those works.
- [12:39]
Matt Tamminini
Absolutely. We'll go through these pretty quickly, but the Lortel Awards were announced on Sunday evening at the NYU Skirball center and a ton of great shows that I saw and loved and some shows that I unfortunately missed were honored. Let's go through them quickly. The outstanding play winner was Here There are Blueberries, which is actually still running from Moises Kaufman and Amanda Gronig. Outstanding musical went to Three Homes by Dave Malloy. I loved that show. Singing at Signature last summer. The outstanding revival went to Art Class by Tejush Slobodone Zeonik, adapted by Norman Allen. Outstanding Solo show went to Vanya, starring Andrew Scott. Outstanding director was Igor Goliak for Our Class, which played multiple places over the past year. Outstanding choreography was a tie between Conor Gallagher for the Big Gay Jamboree and Lynn Taylor Corbett for Distant Thunder. Outstanding Lead Performer in a Play went to Carrie young for table 17. Outstanding feature performer in a Play went to Michael rashon for table 17. Outstanding lead performer in a Musical went to Seren Monet west for Madea Reversed and Outstanding Feature Performer in a Musical went to Paris Nicks for the Big Gay Jamboree. Outstanding ensemble went to our class. If you want to see all of the award winners from this year's Lortels, you can head over to the Show Notes. All right, getting away from like the fun good stuff casting awards, we'd have to talk about the fact that the NEA has been hit with a a1,2 sucker punch over the past few days. On Friday, the Trump administration released its 2026 budget and sent it to Congress. And in that budget, they have completely eliminated the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a number of other similar organizations. The Trump budget also proposed a 13% increase in defense spending totaling over $1 trillion. The NEA budget is a very meager 207 million in comparison. On the same day on Friday, non for profit theater and arts organizations around the country received a form letter from the NEA that said that even though they had been previously scheduled to receive grants for this upcoming season, those grants have now all been rescinded. These grants could have been anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000. It is believed that theaters, specifically 148 theaters, were going to receive $3.73 million. And we don't know if all of that has been rescinded, but a lot of it has been revoked. The organizations that had their their funding pooled all received a form letter not specific to each of them, but it said that the officials in the agency were prioritizing projects that quote, reflect the nation's rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the President. Consequently, we are terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities. The NEA will now prioritize projects that elevate the nation's HBCUs and Hispanic serving institutions. Celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, foster AI competency, empower houses of worship to serve communities, assist with disaster recovery, foster skilled trade jobs, make America healthy again, support the military and veterans, support tribal communities, make the District of Columbia safe and beautiful and support economic development of Asian American communities. Funding is being allocated in a new direction in furtherance of the administration's agenda. Obviously many of those things in that form letter are great and I think a lot of people and arts organizations support them. Some of those things make you scratch your head a little bit. But I think is the bigger issue is that what they put on paper is probably not actually going to be how it is going to be delegated in terms of the money that is sent out. This is obviously part of an ongoing storyline that has taken place across the arts industry since Trump retook office that we have talked about numerous times. So this is going to devastate many, many not for profit theater organizations, especially theaters, and it will probably lead to many of them having to close their doors or consolidate or something. So a really, really difficult time for arts organizations across the country. All right, let's get into some more happy news. Grace and I wasn't sure if this was going to happen because it has happened so many other times and I just wasn't confident that it was going to happen again. But Omar is not going to be closing in June. It had been planned to wrap up its run in June, but that's not going to happen because it is now extending through at least September 28th. Cola is going to depart the production again, this time on June 21st, and replacing them will be for six weeks. Titus Burgess. We knew that when Titus did the show originally it was like a very, very short run. So this makes a ton of sense that he is coming back to the show and very excited not only for people to get to see Titus, maybe I'll get to see Titus, but that more people will have the opportunity to discover Omari, presumably because of all of the recognition that it will get for the Tonys. And then Grace heading out to the other coast. I had to look and see what I would be doing from August 1st through 3rd and unfortunately I'm already scheduled to be on a cruise because otherwise I would be at the Hollywood Bowl. Because we already know that Cynthia Erivo is going to be in a concert production of Jesus Christ Superstar. Now we know that Adam Lambert is going to be playing Judas. With all due respect to Brandon Victor Dixon, when Jesus Christ Superstar Live was announced on NBC, even before they announced John Legend and Sara Bareilles, I believe I said get Adam Lambert to play Judas. Like this is what I've wanted for years and at this point I'm not going to be in Hollywood to see it. So I'm just going to have to beg them to transfer this to Broadway. Grace.
- [18:12]
Grace Aki
Yeah, listen, if there's a will, there's a way. And I feel like with a cast like that that is also so far very like celeb theater, Broadway centric, It's not crazy, you know, when's the last time we had Jesus Christ Superstar on Broadway? Was it Paul Alexander Nolan? Paul Alexander Nolan, famously, and then on TV with John Legend. But I don't know. Yeah, I guess, I guess it would be time if the direction is exciting enough, you know what I mean? So I don't think you're crazy, but I'm curious to see the rest of the cast fill out.
- [18:45]
Matt Tamminini
Yeah, I'm assuming it's not going to transfer, although it is being directed and choreographed by Sergio Trujillo and Stephen Aremis is doing the musical direction, which they obviously have tons and tons of experience with doing shows on Broadway. Neil Maron and Robert Greenblatt, who I believe were both producers on Jesus Christ Superstar live on tv, are going to produce it. We have seen star studded theatrical productions at the Hollywood bowl many, many times over the years. And none of them have transferred. So I'm not expecting this to transfer, but I would really love it to. And I will certainly be watching all of the YouTube videos that are eventually released. And finally, Grace, my recommendation today sends us back down to the NPR offices in Washington, D.C. because Sunset Boulevard did a tiny desk concert featuring Nicole Scherzinger and Tom Francis. They did with one look, as if we never said goodbye, the perfect year. And Tom actually played a little guitar on this. So I love this. I love all the tiny desk stuff. So seeing more and more Broadway shows do that, especially during this Tony season, is tons of fun. 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. Grace, where can people find you?
- [19:56]
Grace Aki
You can find me at the Soho Playhouse May 12th through the 25th. And those tickets are already online, so please check it out. And it's Graceaki.
- [20:04]
Matt Tamminini
Yeah, like, I'm leaving. Literally like 36 hours before your first show. I think I've gotta come back. I think I have to. No way.
- [20:12]
Grace Aki
Wait, that would be amazing. Okay, I have.
- [20:14]
Matt Tamminini
And also, like, it works out really well because I was supposed to go see my first ex husband with a friend of the show, Mary Lou Henner in it, on Thursday of this week, but they canceled the Thursday performances when the new cast came in. So, like, my ticket got canceled. So, like, if I can see both of you, I feel like I have to. Even if I just come up for like 24 to 48 hours, I have.
- [20:35]
Grace Aki
To come back and in the middle of Tony season, no doubt come off Broadway.
- [20:39]
Matt Tamminini
Yeah, absolutely. And maybe I'll finally get to see. We had a world, which I have seen yet. That's like the. The one thing this spring that I really wanted to see that I haven't had a chance to. We'll see.
- [20:48]
Grace Aki
Smart.
- [20:48]
Matt Tamminini
Yeah. So yeah, we'll see. All right, everybody, have a wonderful Tuesday. We'll be back to talk to you tomorrow.
- [21:01]
Unknown Male Speaker
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