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Today on Broadway: Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025
00:13:00
Broadway Flea hits record total, ‘Saturday Church’ reviews, gender ideology rules unconstitutional for NEA, 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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It's Kelly Clarkson here to talk all things Wayfair. The best place to buy furniture, decor and anything else you can think of to create a home you absolutely love. I know when I shop with Wayfair, I find options for every style. Whether I'm feeling boho or farmhouse, modern, traditional French country, I can find exactly what I need for my home and more. No matter your space, style or budget. Shopwayfair.com to make your home way more you Wayfair. Every style, every home.
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Welcome to Today on Broadway for Wednesday, September 24, 2025. I'm Broadway Radio's Matt Tammanini and I.
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Am Tell Me on a Sunday Podcast.
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Grace Aki Coming up this weekend, Grace, I haven't run this by you yet, but we will have our next Q and a Matt and Grace episode. If you have questions for us, send it to us@patreonrodreyvadio.com we'll answer some questions, come up with some questions for each other, and just talk through some things going on in the world of Broadway and theater in general. It's a pretty quiet week so far, pretty quiet news day, so hopefully you've got some spicy questions to give us something to talk about coming up in the Patreon feeds this weekend. And of course, if you want to hear that, you can head over to patreon.com broadwayradio or broadwayradio.com patreon Obviously, Grace, we are in the middle of Rosh Hashanah. It started on on Monday and it'll run through this evening. So is not a lot of news right now in respect for the High Holy Days. So there's not a ton going on. But we do have a little bit of news and we will start with some good news today. Now, Grace, we got some grand totals from the Broadway Flea Market and grand auction that took place over the weekend. And of course as every year is, they set a new record in the 39th year of the annual celebration for Broadway Cares, Equity Fights Aid. They announced that the record breaking total for this year was $1,633,803 and that 65 different Broadway shows and theatrical organizations had tables. This year. Fans bid on 156 silent and 67 live auction items while 54 Broadway stars signed autographs and posed for photos. Grace, I know you spent some money out there, but just a great total to have the opportunity to get some cool knickknacks and memorabilia but also support the incredible work that Broadway Cares does every year. And all of our friends who were out there posting videos of the stuff that they came up with. It was very cool. I love the things I don't know that I love the crowds. So I guess I'm gonna have to at some point put the Broadway Flea on my theatrical bucket list.
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It's a lot of fun, but I agree with you. I wish there was more of a level of it starts to become like a kind of a vulture fest, but interestingly enough, not from young folks. I only experienced a lot of stress and anxiety and kind of intensity from people ages 40s and 50s, which was kind of hilarious that the young people were the ones that were like really calm and respectful and just like supportive. So for what it's worth, people got to dial it back.
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Well, as somebody in his 40s, I promise that if I ever do end up over in Shubert Alley for Broadway Flea, I will not be arm wrestling or fighting or pushing for any memorabilia. I can promise you that. All right, Grace. We'd talked about the fact that the new musical from New York Theater Workshop, Saturday Church had opened over the past week. We hadn't had an opportunity to talk about the reviews yet, so I wanted to run through some of those today. This, of course, is based on the film of the same name that was written by Damon Cardassas. He adapts his script for the stage along with Pulitzer Prize winner James Ies, and the score for the musical is written by the great Sia, who brings some of her existing songs into the show and then has written some additional ones as well. And then Honeydejne has also added some additional music. It is directed by Whitney White, and the story follows Ulysses, a New York City teen caught between family expectations and his discovery of Saturday Church, a sanctuary for LGBTQ youth. The score kind of goes from gospel to house to pop and explores faith, belonging and the joy of liberation. We're going to start with a review from the New York Times. Again, they don't have a full time critic, so all of the reviews right now coming out of the Gray lady are from Stringers. This one comes from Brittany Samuel, and it was positive, although she had some reservations. She said, quote in the translation to the stage something weak. The dialogue is often direct to the point of artless, without nuance to play with. The actors are disarmed of that ever essential tool in theater subtext. The character's challenges make stops at expected traumatic checkpoints of a queer narrative, rejection which religious Aunt Rose disguises as protection, physical and sexual assault, suicide before the show culminates in a glittering ballroom scene as stark and convenient as a Shakespearean wedding. Audiences have become overly accustomed to this cycle of suffering, though in fairness to Cardassus and Imes, the issues they've penned remained ever present. What is refreshing about Saturday Church is that Cardassus and Imes resist making an enemy or a saint of either community. Ulysses is misunderstood by folks in Saturday and Sunday Church, but still finds splendor in both, she continues saying, quote an unimpeachable win for the production is the Tony Award winner J. Harrison G, who magnetically moonlights as two of Ulysses guides, Master Lewis and Black Jesus, as in yes, the Son of God. Battle, who is Bryson Battle, who plays Ulysses, is an industry newcomer. His vocals remain silken even when they reach for the rafters. His performance is wide eyed and honey dipped. We feel the joy when Ulysses tries his first brush of makeup and slips into heels. His thrill of self expression becomes contagious. I have talked about this before. Bryson Battle was a finalist on last season of The Voice, season 27. He was incredible on the show, both vocally and in terms of his performance, so this does not surprise me at all. Real quick, I want to hit a couple other ones. Jackson McHenry from Vulture was mixed saying, quote, the treacle in any case obscures noble intentions. The Trump administration has, especially in the last week, been motive hunting for any reason to vilify queer and trans people, and so it's impressive to see a nonprofit risk whatever paltry amount of federal funding it might still receive. Saturday Church, however, may be so intent on keeping things positive and palatable to the imagined center left White CIS ticket buyer one imagines that it never shifts into other gears. And then finally, Tim Tieman of the Daily Beast was positive saying, quote the musical directed by Whitney White and adapted from Damien Cardassus's 2017 film, switches between the heart tugging register of Ulysses's sense of isolation and the snap and pop of its excellent soundtrack. At least two songs should be released as singles right now. So Grace, I think as we talked about, like this show is at New York Theater Workshop. The word work is in the title of that venerable venue and it sounds like there are some really great things going on in this show, but probably still needs some development and that's hopefully what they're doing downtown during this Off Broadway run.
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Yeah, I mean, isn't that the point of working through shows? I mean, listen, the second that I heard about this show I said when is it coming? You know, and I think that this is a great opportunity for them to work on whatever that piece is going to look like. I think that, you know, the future of a show like this makes sense to have done in New York City because this is the scene for it. And I'm hopefully excited for more progress in the steps to, to getting it where it has some more longer commercial runs.
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All right. In a somewhat related topic, last week, and it kind of slipped through the cracks for me, but last week, a federal court in Rhode island ruled that the Trump administration executive order on gender ideology cannot be required of the National Endowment for the Arts when it comes to making grant decisions. The court determined that this new policy, which has been kind of in effect while new grants have been reviewed, is a violation of the US Constitution. You'll remember we talked about this at the time. But back in February, federal funds were said that they could not, quote, be used to promote gender ideology, including the false claim that males can identify as and thus become women and vice versa. This has kind of been included in the way that the NEA has been forced to operate during this year. Although the ACLU's Rhode island branch, on behalf of several theaters, filed lawsuit in March and claimed that it was, quote, an unlawful and unconstitutional exercise of executive power that has sowed chaos in the funding of arts projects across the United States. Several productions have already been impacted and theaters have had to kind of change up what their funding structure is going to be for this for this season. It is important to note that in addition to kind of the unconstitutionality of this, Judge William E. Smith, who is the senior district judge in this case who was appointed by George W. Bush, notes that in the 1965 law that actually established the National Endowment for the Arts, it said that grants have to be awarded on merit alone. So by putting on this policy that is making them subject to criteria beyond just merit. So the Rhode island court has basically said that the whole process of the NDA grants right now is in violation of the First Amendment. However, with final notice in effect, which is kind of what, like, the NEA has done to say like this is, this is. We're in this process of figuring things, these things out. Projects deemed to promote gender ideology are less likely to be approved for NEA funding this season. However, things are being examined on a case by case basis, and they will operate under this new finding as best they can moving forward. And then, Grace, we have some cast album news. We found out when the upcoming recording for Pirates of the Panzan musical will be released. You can start streaming it in digital formats on October 17, which is really not that far away, three weeks away, which is crazy that we're just like a week away from October, and then it'll be available on CD from Center Stage Records on November 14th. I'm really excited about this one, Grace. I knew, like, some of the Pirates of Penzance songs, like, beforehand, but to hear these new orchestrations and kind of like the New Orleans vibe to the whole thing, I'm really excited to, like, listen to this one and revisit it and hopefully maybe see some other productions of this version of the Gilbert and Sullivan classic, especially as this cast album gets out there into the wild.
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I mean, the preservation of this very special production, I think, is going to be so cool. And again, why I want people to be able to budget to. To have these cast recordings, because this is how we're able to get that next level of revivals down the line. And this is just very cool. So I, too, am excited. I'm sure there's going to be some high school next year that, you know, does this version or inspires them to do their. Just very exciting.
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Yeah. Especially because Gilbert and Sullivan's shows are in the public domain. So, like, there's nothing really stopping from anybody of doing their own kind of interpretation of the Pirates of Penzance and having a kind of a different feel to it. So we'll see if this script and this score gets officially released or if people just kind of go out on their own, which they are allowed to do because the copyrights have expired. Now, Grace, I'm going to send us off with a recommendation that I feel like is probably close to your heart. The great Jane Krakowski was recently on an episode of Kelly and Mark. She is getting ready, obviously, to come back to Broadway in oh, Mary. But in the conversation she talks about doing Here We Are in London and heaped praise upon praise to your boy Joe Mantello, having directed that show both in New York and then at the National Theater. So if you want to see the whole interview with Jane Krakowski, she talks about both of those things. We'll have it in the show notes. And remember, she is returning to Broadway as Mary Todd Lincoln for eight weeks from October 14th through December 7th. But clearly, Grace, it seems like she would love to work with Joe Mantello again, which I think basically every New York theater actor does as well.
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Me and everyone alive. I'm sorry. I love Joe Mantello so much.
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I know, I know. All right, that's all that we have for today. Thanks for listening to Today on Broadway. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Rodwayradio. And if you want more Broadway radio, head over to patreon.com broadwayradio Grace, where can people find you?
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You can find me at graceaki.
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All right, everybody, have a wonderful Wednesday, and we'll be back to talk to you tomorrow.