← BroadwayRadio
BroadwayRadio
Today on Broadway: Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025
00:13:40
‘Rob Lake Magic’ announces quick Broadway closure, Debbie Allen to direct Maya Angelou play, Matt reviews MCC’s ‘Caroline’ Since 2016, “Today on Broadway” has been the first and only daily podcast recapping the top theatre headlines every Monday throug...
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:02]
A
Welcome to Today on Broadway for Wednesday, November 12, 2025. I'm Broadway Radio's Matt Tamnini. I'm coming to you a little bit later in the evening over on Patreon, actually quite a bit later. It's after 11 o' clock while I'm recording this, because I was out at the MCC Theater seeing Caroline, the new show by Preston Max Allen that is actually closing up this week. So I'm going to talk about that at the end of the episode. I'm not going to make you wait until it's in the Patreon because it is closing this weekend and I want to make sure you hear that. But I went and saw it. Dear friend Ashley Steeves, who longtime listeners will remember was a co host of this show for many a year. But I do want to get you through all of the news and I'm actually a little bit glad that I waited to record because this was not the case when I left. It is the case now. But we did get the unfortunate news that Rob Lake Magic with special guest the Muppets is going to close early and it's closing this weekend. It is actually going to wrap up shop on November 16 this Sunday. It had previously been a 12 week limited holiday engagement. Obviously, as we're talking about the grosses here in a little bit, it has not done especially well over at the Broadhurst Theater. So as of closing time it will have done 20 previews and four regular performances. That is a grand total of 24 shows. The show does feature a handful of Muppets, Kermit the Frog, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo Rolf Animal, Miss Piggy, obviously, though not the run that they would have hoped for. But if you want to make sure that you get the chance to see the Muppets in their Broadway debut as well as Rob Lake and his Broadway debut as well, get over to the Broadhurst before the end of the week. In other news, earlier this week it was announced that the phenomenal Debbie Allen has joined the developmental process of a new show called Phenomenal Woman, Maya Angelou as the director. It is being written by Angelika Sherry and it is looking to come to a stage in 2028 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Angelou's birthday. The title takes its name from a a poem by Maya Angelou about female empowerment and the show itself is considered a play with music and we'll look at both the life and work of the acclaimed poet, actress and civil rights leader. It had previously had productions in North Carolina and in Houston in 2023. But now with Debbie Allen at the helm, it is looking to come to a stage in just a little over two years time. Whether that is on Broadway or not, who knows. But nonetheless it is very exciting. Angelika Sherry is known for her plays the Profit Cycle trilogy as well as the forthcoming Broadway musical Wanted for which she wrote the book and lyrics that formerly known as Gun and Powder will be coming to Broadway presumably in 2026. Debbie Allen, of course is a two time Tony nominee as a performer for west side Story and Sweet Charity. She previously direct the Cat on a Hot Tin roof production in 2008 and will be represented on Broadway in the spring this season with the revival of August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone all right, let's dive into last week's Broadway grosses and because of, I'm guessing the holiday weekend leading into like Veterans Day maybe, we saw a fairly significant jump over the previous week even though there was one fewer show playing on Broadway. We had 34 shows running last week and the grosses came in at 40,693,000 doll. That is the highest that Broadway has been since just around before the Tonys time. So that is a market improvement 2020% over the previous week. Attendance was up 10% to come in at 305,502 people sitting in Broadway seats and the average ticket price rose $11.11 coming at $133.20pennies. As has been the case for quite a while now. Hamilton led the way with $3,889,642 at the box office. It was followed by both Wicked and Chess, north of 2 million. Wicked came in at 2.29 and Chess was at 2.01. Lion King and Waiting for Godot rounded out the top five. They were followed in descending order by the show's north of seven figures, starting with Art Mamma Mia. Just in time. Death Becomes her Ragtime maybe Happy Ending Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which I imagine is going to shoot up next week with Tom Felton joining the Broadway production. Then we had Omari, mj, Buena Vista Social Club, Aladdin, Moulin Rouge, Outsiders, the Queen of Versailles and Beetlejuice. The Great Gatsby in Ryan McCartney's final week on Broadway did $960,888. Every single show on Broadway last week saw week to week increases that included Rob Lake Magic, however, that was still at the bottom of the grosses ladder, bringing in only $276,904. In total, 23 of Broadway's 34 shows played to capacities of 90% or more. Wicked and Ragtime were right at 100%. Oedipus, maybe happy Ending and Hadestown were all a little bit over 100%. Hamilton came in at 101.51 and then just in time continues to lap the field at 103.3% capacity getting into some show and Casting news Yesterday it was announced that yet again Slam Frank is going to extend Off Broadway. The show is described as an intersectional, multi ethnic, genderqueer Afro Latin hip hop production focusing on the Anne Frank Story. The show's co creator Andrew Fox will continue with the role of the director and Mr. Van Daan through the final weeks of performance. It is now going to play at Asylum NYC through December 28th. Wild show from what I hear, but you now have an opportunity to check it out even more. On yesterday's show I talked about the fact that the new group has found a new permanent home with a 30 year lease at the Theater at St. Clement's and yesterday it announced its season. It will bring three works to the venue starting in winter of 2026 with a revival of the musical the Adding Machine. Then in the summer of next year you will have Preston Crowder's baching and then in the fall of 2026 we will have Adam Rapp's jackals. The specific dates, casting and full creative team information will be announced at a later date. But that is exciting. Those are some very interesting shows, especially the Adding Machine, which I've never seen, so I'm actually looking forward to checking that one out. While sticking with musicals, we're going to get off the stage, at least for a little bit because yesterday Hollywood Reporter reported that Sabrina Carpenter, Broadway star for all of three or four days before the Pandemic shut down her run in Mean Girls, she's going to star in and produce a musical version of Alice in Wonderland that is going to be done by Universal Studios. This is a film that she's kind of been working on. She brought to Universal at one point and has kind of been developing it along with them. It is going to be penned and directed by Lorraine Scafaria, who is best known for writing and directing the Jennifer Lopez crime movie Hustlers, which many, many people loved. Mark Platt is going to be one of the producers for the film. I'm not exactly sure if this means that Sabrina is going to be writing the music for it or just performing it where the music is coming from is not exactly clear, but nonetheless, Serena Carpenter doing a musical, whether it's on stage or screen, is exciting to a lot of folks. All right, I want to give my thoughts on the play Caroline, which is running over at MCC just through this Sunday. It is written by Preston Max Allen, who I've loved a long time from his off Broadway show We Are the Tigers. The show stars Amy Landecker, Chloe Grace Moretz and River Life Smith. The official plot description reads, when Maddie is forced to seek the help of her long estranged mother, she finds herself unable to shield her daughter Caroline from the inescapable circumstances that fractured their family. It is directed by David Cromer and not to give too much away, especially because it's in a lot of the materials with content warnings and stuff. But Caroline, who is the daughter, the youngest of the three characters in the show, is a trans nine year old girl and that plays into a lot of the inciting action that leads to it. And there is some content warnings about anti trans violence in, in the show as well, so be noted about that. But the show was actually quite lovely and Ashley and I were talking afterwards like we expected it to be a lot more dark and challenging and you know, one of those shows where like everybody is awful and everything is difficult and everything is hard. And this show certainly has tons of difficult circumstances that basically all of the characters are dealing with. But what I love about Preston's writing in this show and obviously David's direction as well, but especially the writing is that all of the characters are well rounded, especially the two adult characters. They're, they're fully fleshed out human beings that are not only very flawed as we all are, but also very sympathetic. And like you feel the pain, the pain that has led them to be who they are and how they react to things is palpable, but it's also understandable. Like there, there are certainly, you know, there are certainly characters that you root for more than others, but like, you can at least sympathize with where all of the characters come from. And the performances are remarkable. Chloe Grace Moretz has been a star for decades at this point, even though I'm not even sure that she's 30 years old, but she was a child actor, she was a star at a very young age and like the kick ass movies, so she's a pro, does a remarkable job in this very, very complex and complicated character. Amy Landecker is also just like somebody who, if you don't know who she is by name, I guarantee you have Seen her in dozens of TV shows and movies and all those types of things like Transparent Handsmate, Handmaid's Tale, the Minx. So many different things. She's just a remarkable actor. And then Riverlight Smith is a young non binary actor. And river does a remarkable, remarkable job. You know, it's one of those things where there was one moment when I just thought to myself, you know, we haven't gotten to whatever the dramatic turn is going to be because at that point I didn't know what it was. But, but I would be okay just kind of living with these characters and hearing them kind of hash out the problems that have plagued them personally and interpersonally and with their families. Like I would, I would just kind of watch them talk through those things. Then of course, there's a big dramatic turn as an in all plays, like it couldn't sustain that just kind of status quo for long. But it was just such a lovely look at conversations that I think people are having in homes across the country when dealing with trans people coming out, non binary people coming out. And it was a kind of, a really, kind of sweet look at those conversations, even though they were very difficult and at times contentious conversations. Preston is a trans man, so obviously he knows quite a bit about what those circumstances are like. But nonetheless a wonderful show. 90 minutes, no intermission, running through Sunday. So if you are interested in the show, would highly recommend that you get over to MCC and check it out. Finally, I will wrap up the show with a recommendation. The three main stars of the current Broadway revival of Chess appeared on the Tonight show on Monday. That is of course, Nicholas Christopher, Aaron Tveit and Lea Michele. They sat on the couch and did some talking, but they also performed, formed a medley. So I have a link to the Playbill article that has the videos of both of those segments if you want to check that out in the show notes. All right, everybody, that's all that we have today. Thanks for listening to Today on Broadway. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram broadwayradio. And if you want more broadwayradio, head over to patreon.com broadwayradio I don't know when Grace is coming back. It might be tomorrow. I'm not 100% sure. But if you have not seen the videos that I posted or tons of other theater people posted online, Grace's wedding. I don't even know what to say. It is not. It was not a wedding. It was a full on, fully produced show with some of the best performers in the world. We'll talk about all that when Grace is back, if she wants to. But like performances from Andrew Cobur, Ren Rivera, Caroline Bowman saying with one look, Vincent Michael, who is currently making his Broadway debut in 2000 and 20 strangers Jess Darrow from Encanto, who sang who is Luisa? And Encanto sang Alex Brightman performed the Ceremony. Marina Kondo, who was the understudy for Bobby on the company tour, saying, marry me a little. Alex Newell saying, I'm forgetting other people. I think that I mentioned Ren Rivera. There was a comedian. It was just a wild night and absolutely what you would expect from Grace and F. So we'll we'll dive into the theatricality of it all when Grace is back. But nonetheless, thanks for listening. Have a wonderful Wednesday, and we'll talk to you tomorrow.