Around Broadway

Cherry Jones, who won acclaim for her portrayal of Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie on Broadway this past fall, has made a quick return to the New York stage. She’s starring in a new play, When We Were Young and Unafraid, by Sarah Treem, a writer for the Netflix series "House Of Cards."

Benjamin Scheuer is a New York City singer-songwriter and the star — in fact, the only performer — in a new Manhattan Theater Company production called The Lion directed by Sean Daniels. In this autobiographical show, Scheuer, who’s just 32, reflects on the ups and downs of a fairly turbulent life as told through story and song.

Broadway's latest jukebox musical — a show built around pre-existing songs — is a new twist on this now-familiar theatrical form. Holler If Ya Hear Me is inspired by music of the late rap star Tupac Shakur. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood discusses the show, its source material, the fictional story created to support the music and the challenges of turning a highly theatrical music form into actual theater.

The playwright Ayad Akhtar won the Pulitzer Prize last year for his breakthrough play Disgraced, about the clash between traditional Islamic beliefs and contemporary American culture. He returns to similar themes in his new play The Who & the What, which is being presented by Lincoln Center Theater as part of its LCT3 series at the Claire Tow Theater.

If the witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth need a lot of space to cook up their double helping of toil and trouble, they've got it at the Park Avenue Armory. That’s where the latest New York staging of Macbeth is being presented. The lavish and action-packed production is a joint effort between the Armory and the Manchester International Festival. It is also the New York stage debut of acclaimed actor and director Kenneth Branagh, who takes the title role (he is co-director here, with Rob Ashford).

The versatile actor Jim Dale takes the stage solo in his new show, aptly and modestly entitled Just Jim Dale. Accompanied by the pianist Mark York, the show, directed by Richard Maltby Jr., is an autobiography in song, story and even a little dance. It plays at the Roundabout Theatre Company's Laura Pels Theater.

Irish playwright Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan isn’t even 20-years-old, but the play is already getting its third New York production. The latest does have a couple of special characteristics. The play is being presented for the first time in a Broadway house at the Court Theatre and leading the cast — and, presumably, the tourist-ticket trade — is Daniel Radcliffe, best known as the big screen Harry Potter.

The latest silver-screener to migrate to the Great White Way is Bullets Over Broadway, Woody Allen’s 1994 film about a playwright who becomes entangled with mobsters. The musical-comedy, set in the 1920s, employs hits of the era such as "Let’s Misbehave," and lesser known Tin Pan Alley tunes, and includes a cast of seasoned Broadway performers, as well as TV star Zach Braff. The production is directed and choreographed by the award-winning Susan Stroman.

Nominations for the 68th annual Tony Awards were announced Tuesday, with tough competition in several categories. For instance, Tyne Daly, Cherry Jones and Audra McDonald are among the nominees for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play; Sutton Foster, Idina Menzel and Kelly O'Hara are all nominated for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical. 

The Off-Broadway musical Violet has found new life on Broadway in a revival by the Roundabout Theater Company. Directed by Leigh Silverman, the production features Broadway star Sutton Foster.

One of the most celebrated voices of our era meets one of the most distinctive voices of an earlier era. Audra McDonald, the five-time Tony-winning singer and actress, becomes the latest performer to channel Billie Holiday in the Broadway revival of Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill at Circle in the Square Theater. Written by Lanie Robertson and directed by Lonny Price, we see Holiday performing at a Philadelphia nightclub just a few months before her death in 1959.

A star-packed cast — Toni Collette, Michael C. Hall, Tracy Letts and Marisa Tomei — is assembled for the Broadway debut of a playwright known for “experimental theater.”

Les Miz s back. (Did you know it had ever gone away?) The original Cameron Mackintosh theatrical colossus ran for more than 15 years before closing in 2003, then came back for a brief encore in 2006.  Les Miserables returns again with the same producer (Mackintosh), same score (Alain Boublil and Jean-Michel Schönberg) and even the same theater (the Imperial on West 45th Street), but in what is described as a “new production” directed by Laurence Connor and James Powell.

The people at Disney Theatrical Group, who produce the company’s live shows, have certainly had a genie in a bottle for the past 20 years, coming up with hit stage musicals based on the films "Beauty and the Beast," "The Lion King," "Mary Poppins," "The Little Mermaid" and others. But now they’re letting that genie out: "Aladdin," the 1992 film that featured Robin Williams as the voice of the genie, has joined the ranks of Disney’s screen-to-stage properties.

Yo, Adrian! I’m on Broadway! It might not be the last movie you ever expected to see turned into a Broadway musical, but it’s probably not one of the first either. Nevertheless, here it is: “Rocky,” the Oscar-winning 1976 movie written by and starring Sylvester Stallone, has now been set to song and dance.

Actor Bryan Cranston’s roles keep getting bigger. He gained fame for his work on the TV sitcom “Malcolm in the Middle,” then went on to even greater acclaim — and three Emmy awards — for his work on the drama “Breaking Bad.” Now he’s making his Broadway debut playing a bigger character than either Malcolm’s father Hal Wilkerson, or the “Breaking Bad” high-school-teacher-cum-meth-dealer, Walter White.

Sarah Ruhl's new play Stage Kiss follows the antics of two actors who renew an old romance when they appear together in an antique drama from the 1930s. Jessica Hecht and Dominic Fumusa star in the production, which is directed by Rebecca Taichman for Playwrights Horizons.

A lineup of famous Yankees from several eras past and present are on the same stage in Bronx Bombers, a new play now running at the Circle in the Square Theatre. Babe Ruth and Derek Jeter are the roster bookends in Robert Simonson's play, which centers on famed catcher Yogi Berra, played by Peter Scolari. The play’s first act is set in 1977, when Berra was a coach with the Yankees. In the second act, the dimension of time is set aside, allowing a meeting of legendary Yankee team members.

Theater that knocks down the wall between performers and spectators has become a fashionable trend in recent years. Sleep No More, an interactive riff on Macbeth, has been a runaway hit, playing for more than two years in Chelsea.

Two Irish farmers, Anthony and Rosemary, are deeply tied to the land. Because they grew up as neighbors, they also have deep ties to one another, but their personal connections are not all positive.