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Today on Broadway: Wednesday, April 2, 2025
00:18:26
Reviews for ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ on Broadway, Bourzgui to Play Orpheus, Bareilles Debuts Song from New Musical 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]
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Matt Tamminini
For Wednesday, April 2nd, 2025. I'm Broadway Radio's Matt Tamminini and I'm.
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Grace Aki
Tell Me on a Sunday Podcast Grace.
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Matt Tamminini
Aki Grace as we promised on yesterday's show, we are going to dive into the reviews for Glengarry Glen Ross on Broadway that officially opened on Monday night, but they aren't releasing these reviews until later and later. It's getting to be annoying, but nonetheless, we are here with the reviews and as I mentioned yesterday, I didn't expect there to be anything wildly great or wildly awful about these reviews, and they were fairly middle of the road. But you were there for opening night and you're going to talk about your opening night experiences here in a second. So we're going to run through these reviews because at this point I figure if you really wanted to dive into all of these reviews, you've had more than 24 hours to do so. But of course, this revival is playing at the Palace Theater and is currently slated to run through June 28. It is the iconic play written by David Mamet, and it is directed in this production by Patrick Marber and features a cast led by Kieran Culkin, Bob Odenkirk, Bill Burr, Michael McKeon, Donald Weber Jr. Howard W. Overshone and John Piricello. And as of recording time, the review aggregator site Did They like it? Has collected 20 reviews, 11 were positive, six were mixed, and three were negative. Jesse Green of The New York Times was mixed and I'm not going to dive into the full review as deeply with him as I normally do. But I will point out that his overarching thesis about this production is that the characters who are normally the ones who are having all the success don't feel like they're having success in this production. And the ones who seem to be the on the bottom end of the scale in normal productions of this show are the most interesting and compelling ones. So he thinks that there's been a bit of a shift, either purposely or just because of performances. He says, quote in the weirdly limp revival that opened on Monday at the Palace Theater, something has flipped. As played by Kieran Culkin, leading a sales team that also features Bob Odenkirk, Bill Burr and Michael McKean, Roma is no longer longer the master of everyone else's neuroses. He's neurotic himself, especially in the scene that ends the first act as he winds up for a pitch into the soul of a schlub. He is so deeply weird and interior that any semblance of a confident exterior evaporates. The man couldn't sell a dollar for a dime, he continues, and says, quote, and it's not just because this is such a patchy production or because Odenkirk and McKeon are nevertheless so good in it that the losers make the biggest impressions. The winners, once glamorous, now have nothing new to show us, whether in desperation or dignity, the defeated now do. That seems to be a kind of a feeling for many of the reviews. Kenji Fujishima, writing for Theater Mania, said, quote, what's missing from this revival of Glengarry Glen Ross is that sense of knife edge despair that might have made the play seem as harrowing as it is darkly funny. That probably won't matter to the theatergoers paying top dollar to see their favorite television and stand up comedy stars in person. For some of them, this may be their first encounter with this classic play and they could do worse. But this new Glengarry never quite makes a successful pitch for its bill of goods. One of the positive reviews was Greg Evans writing for Deadline. He said, quote, culkin, Odenkirk, Burr and castmates Michael McKean, Donald Wilbur Jr. Howard W. Overshone and John Pericello are so immersed and, yes, expert in that sleazy, duplicitous and forever captivating world of 80s madian that their combined talents turn the latest revival of Glengarry Glen Ross opening town at the gorgeously renovated Palace Theater into something thrilling. Similarly, Daniel Daddario, writing for Variety, said, quote, in the main, this is a surprisingly humane Glengarry, and that's no criticism, but it does mean this production is a bit of a surprise. Adam Feldman of Time Out New York was mixed, giving it three out of five stars, saying, quote, because it is so tautly and distinctively written, and since most of the actors are good, Glengarry, Glen Ross still basically works. It still hooks you in, but it doesn't seal the deal. I'll wrap up with Emilyn Travis writing for Entertainment Weekly, who was positive. She said, quote, the result is a zippy production that might not exactly break the mold or push its cast outside of their career established comfort zones, but still buzzes with life and unexpected humor all the same. Now, Grace, you have long loved Kieran Culkin leading this production, and you've gotten to see it twice now. So what happened on Monday night over at the palace and then the after party? What was your experience being at opening night for this?
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Grace Aki
Yeah, it was really great. I loved that there were so many supporters of all the cast members in attendance of the audience. You had, like, Adam Scott there. You had Jesse Eisenberg, who obviously most recently helped Kieran win an Oscar for his screenplay and direction of and co starring in A Royal Pain or A Real Pain. And it was just really nice to, like, just see that cohort of people, you know, you also had Bobby Cannavale in the audience, who had, I think, done other pieces by that playwright as well. And yeah, it was just, just nice. And I have to say that I was up in the box on the far right side of the, of the Palace. And what was cool was that I loved having the bird's eye view. Like, I loved getting to see because this time, very fortunately, I got to see it through press and whatnot on Saturday so that I could, you know, be able to talk about which you and I will talk about the production, I feel like, on another episode. But. But I think that more so last night with the surprise of getting to, to go in and fill in for my colleague for opening night, I got to watch Kieran's show and I got to watch Michael McKeon's show, and I got to watch a lot of people in their reactionary character stances, not when they're, you know, when Bob Odenkirk is, like, delivering his pages and pages of dialogue. I got to. About the Nyborgs. I got to watch Kieran as Roma, watching this really desperate man. And then they Switch roles in a second. And then he's incredibly desperate. And I just. I loved watching all of those actors act opposite their, you know, counterparts who are also incredible actors. Like, it was just great. It was great to watch. And the party was excellent. It was downtown. And when I walked into it, I looked at my colleague and I said, if there's one person that I think will be here that I'm gonna freak out over, it's Kenneth Lawn. And I'm not kidding. He was right there in front of me, and he was in the middle of a long conversation with his wife, J. Smith Cameron, and David Schwimmer, to which I did not interrupt. But there will be a day where I do. But it wasn't yesterday. And I got to watch just, like, everyone fawning over Kieran and just, like, knowing. I just so badly wanted to be like, sorry. One of my first ticket purchases in New York City when I moved here 10, 11 years ago was for your production of this Is Our Youth. And now I'm getting to see Kieran Culkin in, like, this hot time of notoriety in this other play. And it's just insane to think about. So, I don't know. It was just a really magical thing. I also got to talk to my friend Donald Weber, who is in the show, who is also, literally, he got practically a standing ovation last night. He really is such a standout in the show and as he is in every piece he does. But I just really love that he has returned to the palace once more since the good old days of Holler if you hear me.
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Matt Tamminini
I was wondering if that's where you were going to go with that. Yeah, well, as you said, Grace, we're going to be talking a little bit more in depth on some individual shows on Patreon throughout this spring. So if people want to hear that, they can head over to patreon.com broadwayradio broadwayradio.com patreon all right, let's talk real quick about last week's Broadway grosses. And aided by all of the new shows that are opening and spring break, things were very, very good on Broadway. There were 36 shows playing on the boards last week. In total, Broadway grossed $43,839,272. That is for the 13th week of this year. Last year, in week 13, Broadway only did $37 million. So that is almost $7 million more than it had done during the corresponding week last year. Last week, 311,399 people saw shows on Broadway and the average ticket price was at $140.78. Now we've been talking about the line of of what is making a show successful on Broadway. It used to be $1 million, then it was $2 million. Now we're up at $3 million. And last week not one, but two different shows eclipsed $2 million. Good Night and Good Luck continued to be the top show on the boards at $3,282,682 and it did it in seven performances again. Othello, though, also joined north of $3,000,000 at $3,160,084. And then we had another four over $2,000,000 Wicked, Hamilton, Lion King, and the aforementioned Glengarry Glen Ross, which had a bunch of press come in for first night press. So over the weekend a lot of those tickets were probably comp so increase even more next week. The rest of the shows north of the traditional $1 million line in descending order are Cabaret, the Outsiders, Gypsy, Aladdin, mj, Great Gatsby, Death Becomes Her, Moulin Rouge, Hell's Kitchen, Cursed Child, O Mary, Sunset Boulevard, Picture of Dorian Gray and Anne Juliet, Buena Vista, Social Club and Smash. Both are pretty close as well. And I do want to point out the four shows that began performances last week because I think that it's important to kind of know where those shows are starting. We'll just go in descending grosses order, but they all have different total number of performances, so I'll game those out for you. Old friends did $638,000 in seven shows last week. Extrapolated to eight shows, that's $729,000. Boop did 544,000 seven shows, that's $621.6K. Stranger Things did 434,000 in just two performances. Again, those first performances, especially for something like this, always drives a bunch of fans. But that isn't quite incredibly encouraging because if you take that over a normal playing week, that is $1.74 million. And then Floyd Collins did $350,000 in three performances to come in at $933.7K. And remember that Floyd Collins and Old Friends are both part of subscription series for Lincoln center and Manhattan Theater Club respectively. So those numbers, even as encouraging as they are, are a little bit different because of how many people might be coming because of their subscription and might not be factored in as they normally would or at a certain price or anything like that. In total, there were 29 Broadway shows last week that played to 90% capacity or more. Let's run through all the ones that were at 100%. Floyd Collins, Stranger Things, Wicked, and Othello, north of 100%. But below 101% are Hadestown, Glengarry, Picture of Dorian Gray, Hamilton, and John Proctor is the villain. Then we had Good Night and Good Luck at 101.57% and the Outsiders at 102.44. That's a lot. Grace. Like, it seems like this is oddly good. Like, is this just, like, hey, it's a good year. There's so many stars on the shows. There's like, every house is filled. But this is, like. Seems abnormally positive. And I'm not just talking about, like, the. The raw numbers because that's just a byproduct of increasing ticket prices, but, like, the capacity. The shows that are doing well. Like, it seems like there's more than normal. Is that just me?
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Grace Aki
Yeah. No, I don't think it's just you. And listen, we're coming into our peak spring. Like, this is the time people are, you know, going on spring break. They're coming into town. The weather is getting warmer. Like, this is kind of like par for the course. But at the same time, I know a lot of people have had discourse around celebrity shows and. Or, you know, otherwise, or, you know, new musicals, old musicals, things like that. Regardless, everyone on the street is having a lift, I hope. And I think that we are just, like, further encouraged that people are wanting to see live theater. They are wanting to experience something new. They are wanting to experience a lot of familiarity. You know, we do have a lot of shows that have previously played on Broadway multiple times that people are coming to. So I think that what we're looking at now is just, like, maintaining those high capacity margins and seeing where that goes forward.
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Matt Tamminini
Yeah, absolutely. All right, let's go over to a show that is making some casting announcements. Yesterday we found out who is going to take over the roles of Orpheus and Eurydice over at the Walter Kerr Theater beginning in May. That will be the erstwhile Tommy, the pinball wizard Ali Lewis Borsgi. He'll be taking over as Orpheus. And playing Eurydice will be Myra Malloy. They will start on May 6th. They will be replacing Carlos Valdez and Hayley Kilgore, who will play their final performances on May 4th. Allie Louis Borsgi, obviously. I saw him on the company tour. Saw him in Tommy. Saw him in We Live in Cairo. Absolutely fantastic. Myra Malloy actually did the voice of Moana in the Thai version of the Disney film. She won Thailand's Got Talent and she was on. She was an understudy for Kim in the national tour of Miss Saigon. So this one should be very exciting and looking forward to heading back to the Walter Kerr to see them because I'm gonna be there for the last week. Oh, no, maybe I am going to see them. Hold on. I think I'm going to see them. I'm actually going to see them when I'm in town next month. I didn't realize that I was going to until we were literally recording this. So, yeah, so I will be checking them out in a little bit over a month. We also got news yesterday, Grace, of what is going to happen with the live stage capture of Merrily We Roll along as part of Cinemacon and everything that has been going on with all of these movie announcements that you've probably seen on social media. Yesterday it was announced that Sony Pictures Classics has acquired the filmed version of the Broadway revival that won a ton of Tonys. There's been no release date as of now, but I guess that's probably a pretty good indication that we are going to get it in a movie theater. Sony does not have a streaming service of its own. They're kind of known as a free agent when it comes to streaming stuff. So I would imagine that this will go first two movie theaters and that should be incredibly exciting for us to have the opportunity to see that on a big screen. Now, Grace, apparently there is going to be a very, very big event happening later this month on RuPaul's Drag Race because they're going to get. They're going to give out an award called the giving us lifetime achievement award. This will happen on the season 17 finale happening on April 18, and there in person to accept the award will be the one and only Liza Minnelli. Past recipients of the award include Bob Mackey and Elvira Cassandra Peterson. Obviously, there has been a ton of people who have taken Liza Minnelli's iconic look and used it on the show, including Alexis Michelle. So this seems perfect. Good for Liza to have the opportunity to get out there in public and do this. I think that should be a ton of fun. We also got some information about an invitation only industry reading of a new play that I'm actually going to be going to on Friday. It is called Dishon with Divine. It is a new play written and directed by Donnie and it will feature Josh Layman who is currently on Broadway in Death becomes her playing the iconic drag artist Divine, who was in so many John Waters films, but of course most famously as Edna Turnblad in the Hairspray film. It is being presented on Friday for two performances. We'll have information in the show notes if you are an industry member who would like to attend. And then finally, Grace. I've got a couple of recommendations. The first is we have video of Betsy Wolf singing the song the Shape of Things from Joy, a new musical that's going to be playing off Broadway this summer and then at a great event that I know we both had multiple friends at over at Sony hall on Monday night. It was an event for Maestra. Sara Bareilles debuted the first song for the new musical that she is writing called the Interestings. The song is called Enough that is currently playing underneath us right now and is a great insight into this work in progress that she is doing and it should be hopefully coming to the stage in the fairly near future for getting at least one song.
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Unknown Speaker
Would you recognize it once it had arrived or would something else shift as you step inside? Some subtle discontent, Some prideful, private new lament reminding you to never touch stuff? No, not enough.
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Matt Tamminini
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 BroadwayRadio. You can follow me on Instagram at bwwmatt. Grace, where can people find you?
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Grace Aki
You can find me at its Grace Aki everybody.
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Matt Tamminini
Have a wonderful Wednesday and we'll be back to talk to you tomorrow.
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Unknown Speaker
Chasing a ghost My girl I'm so tired of helping Enough God I wish that you could see it from my side how it's everywhere it's always been it's right beside your critic's eye and now it's time that you decide Am I enough?
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