News

Timothy West, the English star of stage and screen known for memorable turns in U.K. soaps “Coronation Street” and “EastEnders,” died on Tuesday. He was 90.

His children released a statement on Wednesday confirming the news. They said that West died “peacefully in his sleep” and was “with friends and family at the end.”

Born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England on Oct. 20, 1934, West went on to have a long career on stage and screen. He was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company for three seasons in the ’60s, and throughout his life frequently played the leading roles in “Macbeth,” “Uncle Vanya” and “King Lear.”

His first big screen role came in 1975 with the TV series “Edward the Seventh,” in which he portrayed the titular king from the age of 23 until his death. From 1983 to 1990, he starred as patriarch Bradley Hardacre in the comedy drama “Brass,” and also appeared in...

Andrew Scott will bring his one-man show of Uncle Vanya Off-Broadway this spring.

This marks the American premiere of the play, which sees Scott taking on every character in the classic Chekhov play. The show comes to New York after a West End run in 2023 and a filmed live capture of the show.

Performances begin March 11, 2025, at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, with opening night March 18. The play is set for a limited run of eight weeks.

Scott co-created the adaptation of Chekhov’s work with Simon Stephens (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time), designer Rosanna Vize and director Sam Yates. The play, which has eight characters, sees an older professor and his younger wife visit the rural estate run by family members Vanya and Sonya, with Astrov, the local doctor as a frequent visitor. After various flirtations, tensions come to a head when the professor says he...

He was in The Oa, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and played Roy Cohn in Fellow Travelers, but the stage is where Will Brill has found the most satisfaction and success recently, in A Case For The Existence of God, Uncle Vanya, and, just this year, as Reg in Stereophonic on Broadway, for which he received a Tony Award. On this episode he talks about building Reg by starting with his voice, why following playwright David Adjmi to a bar was a pivotal move, the importance of directorial affirmation, how his pre-show ritual has changed, and much more. Back To One […]

The post “Eventually What I Realized I Was Doing Was Trying to Create an Empathy Machine”: Will Brill, Back To One, Episode 306 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

He was in The Oa, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and played Roy Cohn in Fellow Travelers, but the stage is where Will Brill has found the most satisfaction and success recently, in A Case For The Existence of God, Uncle Vanya, and, just this year, as Reg in Stereophonic on Broadway, for which he received a Tony Award. On this episode he talks about building Reg by starting with his voice, why following playwright David Adjmi to a bar was a pivotal move, the importance of directorial affirmation, how his pre-show ritual has changed, and much more. Back To One […]

The post “Eventually What I Realized I Was Doing Was Trying to Create an Empathy Machine”: Will Brill, Back To One, Episode 306 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

William Jackson Harper has joined the cast of “The Morning Show” Season 4 at Apple TV+, Variety has learned.

Harper will appear alongside series leads Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston and fellow new cast members Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, and. Aaron Pierre. Billy Crudup, Mark Duplass, Nestor Carbonell, Karen Pittman, Greta Lee, Jon Hamm, and Nicole Beharie also star.

Harper will play the role of Ben, described as “the network’s self-assured and innovative Head of Sports.”

Harper is perhaps best known for his role in the critically-acclaimed NBC comedy series “The Good Place,” for which he received an Emmy nomination for best supporting actor in a comedy in 2020. Harper recently appeared in the Netflix limited series “A Man in Full” and has also starred in shows like “Love Life” and “The Resort.” In film, he has starred in features like “Midsommar,” “Dark Waters,” and “Paterson.” In theater, Harper was recently...

The Morning Show is expanding its sports desk.

The hit Apple TV+ series starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon has booked another star for season four. William Jackson Harper — the Emmy- and Tony-nominated actor beloved from The Good Place — has been cast in the role of Ben, who is described as the self-assured and innovative Head of Sports at the show’s fictional TV network.

The Morning Show‘s new cast continues to grow. Already announced are Oscar winner Marion Cotillard, as savvy operator Celine Dumont; Jeremy Irons as Martin Levy, the father to Aniston’s Alex Levy; and Genius: MLK/X star Aaron Pierre, in a guest role, as an acclaimed visual artist.

Rachel Marsh (Unstable) and John Hoogenakker (Dopesick, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan) also joining in recurring roles, with Marsh playing Alex’s new assistant Remy and Hoogenakker playing play an FBI agent named Andy (pointing to,...

The yellow Minionese-speaking Minions are back and Maxime Le Mal is the newest villain to cause mayhem in Illumination’s “Despicable Me 4,” directed by Chris Renaud and Patrick Delage. Will Ferrell voices the French supervillain who escapes from prison, which leads Gru (Steve Carell) and his family Lucy, Margo, Edith, Agnes and a new addition, Gru Jr., to go on the run.

“[Chris and I] have been trying to work together for a long time. [“Despicable Me 4″] was an opportunity where I was pitched the character of being the villain, this French bad guy, Maxime, and that’s all I needed to hear was ‘French’ and ‘bad guy,'” Ferrell told Variety at the film’s New York premiere in June.

“I’m being typecast now,” Ferrell jokingly said about playing Maxime following his role as the Mattel CEO villain in last year’s “Barbie.” “It’s always fun to be mean, in a silly way.

A double-digit slip in the Nielsen ratings notwithstanding, the Tony Awards worked their magic at the box office, with this year’s winners, contenders and show-stealers reporting big increases in attendance and receipts.

Just a few examples: An Enemy of the People, Merrily We Roll Along and Stereophonic posted box office gains in the six figures.

In all, the 32 Broadway shows grossed $37,565,097 for the week ending June 23. That’s a 2% increase over the previous week, a more impressive bump than it seems at first glance: The previous week had 35 shows, including hefty money-makers Ben Platt: Live at the Palace, Uncle Vanya and Mother Play. The absence of those shows last week went a long way in explaining the 4% drop in attendance to 282,752.

Among the numbers:

An Enemy of the People, which starred the Tony-winning Jeremy Strong, broke its own house record at Circle in the Square, taking in $1,545,913 for its final week of performances,...

The Apple TV+ drama series “Sugar” has provided a showcase for a number of its stars, with the cast led by Colin Farrell but also including terrific turns from the likes of James Cromwell and Amy Ryan.

The neo-noir detective drama follows Farrell as a private investigator who searches for the missing granddaughter of a Hollywood producer. Created by “Thor” and “I Am Legend” screenwriter Mark Protosevich, the series is an homage-filled thriller that updates and pays dividends to the noir detective genre. Ryan shines in her role as Melanie Matthews, who used to be the step-daughter of the missing Olivia and develops something of a relationship with Farrell’s detective. Ryan, who younger viewers will mostly recognize from her days in “The Office,” demonstrates her impressive versatility as a performer here, as noted by critics.

Matthew Jackson (Looper) observed that “as great as Colin Farrell is, Sugar’s not...

For those keeping track of such things, nearly 10% – or $3,239,838 – of Broadway’s total $36.8 million box office last week was earned by productions directed by Taymors: The Lion King‘s Julie Taymor and her niece, The Outsiders director Danya Taymor.

And that’s before The Outsiders‘ big Tony-winning night on Sunday. Two of the musical’s four awards were Best Musical and Best Direction of a Musical. (Lighting and sound for musicals were the other two.)

As usual, stalwart The Lion King was Broadway’s top earner for the week, grossing $2,216,034. The Outsiders took in $1,023,804. Those numbers tally up to 9% of the Broadway total for the week ending June 16.

In all, the 35 Broadway productions grossed $36,851,329 for the week, a slight increase of 2% over the previous week but a solid 12% over the same time last year. Total attendance was 293,997, about even with the previous week but up 13% year-to-year.

While the impact of...

The first Broadway revival of the late Stephen Sondheim’s infamous flop “Merrily We Roll Along” will win the most Tony Awards of any show at the upcoming 77th annual ceremony, according to our official odds in all 26 categories. The original production, which ran for only 16 official performances back in 1981, earned a single nomination for Sondheim’s score, but this time around it will claim six trophies including Best Musical Revival, three performance awards, Best Director and Best Orchestrations.

The blockbuster musical revival will best by two a duo of plays – David Adjmi’s “Stereophonic,” the zeitgeist-grabbing production about the tumultuous recording sessions of a band on the brink of superstardom, and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins‘ “Appropriate” – that will each win four trophies apiece. Shaina Taub’s suffragist musical “Suffs” is right behind with three victories. Nominations leader “Hell’s Kitchen” will score only two wins, while nominations runner-up “The Outsiders” will likely go home empty-handed.

When Tony voters looked at their ballots for best musical in 1960, they must have felt lightheaded. They were tasked with choosing a winner among the latest Rodgers and Hammerstein (The Sound of Music), a political drama that would go on to win the Pulitzer (Fiorello!), a new kind of psychological biography (Gypsy), and an uproarious fairy-tale comedy (Once Upon a Mattress). I’m not sure if any of the 2024 nominees for best musical will stand the test of time quite like that stunning lineup. But as was true 64 years ago, there are at least four celebrated contenders vying, all equally convincingly, for the top prize.

Part of what makes this season’s best musical category particularly tricky to predict is the volume of productions that aren’t on the ballot here: At various moments throughout the season, in which 15 new musicals opened (and six have already closed), it would have...

Broadway box office held fairly steady as the industry settled into a post-Memorial Day summer, with most productions reporting some slippage from the holiday traffic highs.

In all, the 35 productions grossed $33,662,845 for the week ending June 2, down about 5% from the previous week (but up 8% over last year at this time). Total paid attendance was 280,253, down 2% from the previous week (but up 7% year over year). About 86% of all seats were filled.

The week’s sole newcomer was Ben Platt: Live At The Palace, the concert residency at the legendary, now renovated and reopened, venue. For his first six performances, Platt grossed $650,306, reflecting attendance at about 87% of available seats at the Palace (the percentage has been revised from an initial report).

Elsewhere on Broadway, a couple shows saw some box office slips as high-profile cast members were away. Merrily We Roll Along, with Daniel Radcliffe...

Broadway box office was down just a bit last week, about 3%, with the first week of the 2024-2025 season reporting a total gross of $35,295,405 for 34 productions. Total attendance was off just shy of 2% from the previous week, settling at 287,246.

The total attendance figure for the week ending May 26 indicates that a healthy 91% of available seats were filled.

In all, 21 of the 34 productions reported some slippage heading into the Memorial Day Weekend holiday. A couple productions played either fewer or comped shows: Mother Play canceled two performances due to illness in the company, with total receipts dropping $186,154 to $451,737. Cabaret had a fully comped Tuesday performance, with receipts off a commensurate $243,584 to $1,721,760.

Among the shows playing full schedules, the biggest slides in dollar amounts were reported by A Beautiful Noise; The Who’s Tommy, Illinoise; and The Great Gatsby. Gatsby remained at a 90%+ capacity/attendance figure, with 93% of seats filled.

Attendance for Broadway’s just-ended 2023-2024 season held roughly steady with last year even as it remains nearly 17% below pre-pandemic levels, according to box office figures released today by the Broadway League.

The year-end stats indicate that the 71 Broadway productions on the boards from May 22, 2023, to May 19, 2024, grossed a combined $1.54 billion – $1,539,278,706, to be exact- with total attendance at about 12.3 million.

The dollar figure represents a very small slip in box office tallies from last season – about 2% from the $1,577,586,897 in 2022-2023. Total attendance was up less than a percentage point from last season.

This year’s total attendance indicates that about 90% of all available seats were filled, compared to last year’s 88%. Average ticket price for the season just ended was $125.27, about 2% lower that last season’s $128.43.

While roughly even with post-pandemic figures, the numbers continue to indicate that Broadway has yet to make a full recovery from the 18-month Covid shutdown.

Babes by Pamela Adlon, co-written and starring Ilana Glazer, debuts in limited release with films by Hang Song-soo and Bertrand Bonello and docs on a controversial Venice Biennale, ground-breaking female clerics, and the Blue Angels Navy Squadron. A trio of festival favorites expand. While eyes now are on fare at Cannes — where Neon has been making high-profile moves — each week Stateside remains a test of indie film’s theatrical boundaries in a post-Covid, streaming-centric marketplace.

There have been notable hits. A24’s I Saw The TV Glow by Jane Schoenbrun is having a nice run so far as is Evil Does Not Exist — Sideshow/Janus Films’ second outing with Ryusuke Hamaguchi after Oscar-winning Drive My Car. (That 2021 Japanese film about a...

The Drama League Awards unveiled their slate of winners at an in-person ceremony on Friday, May 17. The event was hosted by Frank Dilella at the Ziegfeld Ballroom, where attendees toasted the best of Broadway and Off-Bradway.

The biggest winner of the day was Sarah Paulson, who claimed the coveted Distinguished Performance Award for her fiery role in “Appropriate.” That play, by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, also took home the League’s trophy for Best Revival of a Play.

See 2024 Dorian Theater Awards nominations announced: LGBTQ journalists champion ‘Merrily We Roll Along,’ ‘Stereophonic,’ ‘Oh, Mary!‘

The Distinguished Performance Award is unique in that a performer may only win the award once in their career. After prevailing, they are never eligible again. The category is also a massive catch-all race that includes actors of all genders, roles of all sizes, and both Broadway and Off-Broadway productions. This year, 54 thespians were included as nominees.

Winning...

Broadway’s spring roster seemed to settle into a Tony season box office ranking, with the strongest of the newcomers maintaining their draws and the weakest continuing downward slides.

In that first category were repeat sell-outs An Enemy of the People, Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club and Hell’s Kitchen, with both The Outsiders and Stereophonic inching onto that turf. The Outsiders was up $129,650 from the previous week to a big $1,023,827, and Stereophonic jumped $92,392 to $683,911. All five shows were well represented among Tony nominees.

A second batch of newcomers, though not hitting sell-out status, nonetheless were very strong performers during the week ending May 12. Appropriate was up more than $43,000 to $702,686, filling 91% of its seats; Mary Jane and Mother Play both held steady, with attendance around 97% of capacity; Suffs, The Great Gatsby and The Wiz each posted box office jumps of more than $100,000, settling into the impressive 91% to 95% of capacity terrain.

Galeca: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics unveiled nominations for their 2nd annual Dorian Theater Awards on Monday, March 13. Galeca’s 39-member theater wing decided this season’s crop of nominees, which honor the best of Broadway and Off-Broadway.

The nominations list is dominated by the current revival of “Merrily We Roll Along” and new play “Stereophonic.” Both productions netted six nominations a piece. In the case of “Merrily,” that tally includes bids for its Tony-nominated trio of stars: Jonathan Groff, Lindsay Mendez, and Daniel Radcliffe. “Stereophonic” managed one better with four members of its cast nominated in the same featured performance category: Will Brill, Eli Gelb, Tom Pecinka, and Sarah Pidgeon. The individual acting races at the Dorian Awards are gender neutral.

The Best Broadway Musical category features Tony Award nominees “Hell’s Kitchen,” “Illinoise,” “The Outsiders,” and “Suffs,” along with the closed David Byrne tuner “Here Lies Love” and soon-to-be closing “Lempicka.

Paul Simon appeared as the musical guest on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Monday night to perform “Slip Slidin’ Away” in celebration of Colbert’s 60th birthday.

Simon, 82, staged a faithful, intimate rendition of “Slip Slidin’ Away” with just an acoustic guitar and a microphone. The song, which originally appeared on Simon’s 1977 compilation album Greatest Hits, Etc., has become a fan-favorite since its release. Watch Simon’s stirring performance of the track below.

Colbert opened the show by announcing his 60th birthday, joking, “I am now the same age as Ian McKellen when he was cast as Gandalf.” Before Simon’s closing performance, the show’s guest was longtime Colbert collaborator Steve Carrell. The two discussed their early days performing in Chicago, Carrell’s recent run in Uncle Vanya on Broadway, and they reprised their “Even Stevphen” segment from their days as correspondents on The Daily Show.

The great Broadway Crunch of Spring 2024, when 18 new productions opened between mid-March and late April – 19 if you count the commercial transfer of Appropriate – seems to be showing early signs of the inevitable shake-out, with one show (Lempicka) closing soon and a few others already playing to houses with attendance at 80% of capacity or less.

For the week ending May 5 – the first full week after the April 30 Tony nominations announcement – while overall box office was down about 7% for all shows and attendance off about 6% from the previous week, a good number of the newcomers were filling more than 90% of their seats. Some much more.

Selling out were An Enemy of the People, which grossed $1,048,286; Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, grossing $1,920,289 and not far off from the August Wilson Theatre’s house record set by the recent Funny Girl; and Hell’s Kitchen, $1,270,519.

A very slight tier below were the newcomers...

The opening, multi-minute shot of “Evil Does Not Exist” stares upwards at the trees, floating backwards through the forest, while Eiko Ishibashi’s haunting score casts a spell on us. It’s contemplative but not peaceful; weirdly arresting, like a thriller with no tangible thrills. It’s almost a shock when the story kicks in, but writer/director Ryusuke Hamaguchi looks at his characters much the same way. He’s fascinated and concerned by who they are and what they might do, and he watches them float by.

Hamaguchi’s previous film, “Drive My Car,” was a nearly three-hour drama about a man directing a stage version of Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” where every character speaks a different language. Along the way, he formed a relationship with his production-mandated chauffeur who — fittingly enough — drives his car, as they listen to recordings of his recently-deceased wife reading the script. You...

Alfred Molina has gone viral for sharing an emotional story to Vanity Fair about his father, who never vocally supported his son’s acting career. Molina once had the chance to become the manager of a restaurant for a higher salary. He turned it down to pursue the arts, which baffled his father. This was long before Molina became a Tony and BAFTA-nominated actor, plus an iconic movie villain thanks to Doctor Octopus in Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man 2.”

“When I was very young, my dad got me a job as a waiter in the restaurant where he was working. If I say so myself, I was a good waiter to the point where the management offered me the chance to do a two-week management training course,” Molina said. “I turned it down because I got an acting job. My father says, ‘This acting job, how much are they paying you?...

The 2024 Tony Awards nominations were announced on Tuesday, April 30. Out of all the nominees spread across 26 categories, 23 fascinating facts, stats, trivia and achievements stand out as particularly noteworthy.

1. The following shows only received one Tony nomination: “The Great Gatsby,” “Gutenberg! The Musical!,” “Monty Python’s Spamalot,” “Patriots” “Uncle Vanya” and “The Who’s Tommy.”

2. The following Broadway productions from this past season were completely snubbed: “The Cottage,” “Harmony,” “The Heart of Rock and Roll,” “How to Dance in Ohio,” “I Need That,” “Once Upon a One More Time,” “The Shark is Broken” and “The Wiz.”

3. The following individuals nominated last year are recognized again this year: Kai Harada, Tim Hatley, Amy Herzog, Brian d’Arcy James, Natasha Katz, Bradley King, Tom Kitt, Gareth Owen, Emilio Sosa, Jessica Stone, and Kara Young.

SEETony Awards snubs: ‘Patriots,’ Steve Carell, Chip Zien …

4. Some noteworthy names who happen to be nominated for producing at least one...

Stereophonic became the most nominated play in Tony Awards history Tuesday, scoring a surprisingly strong 13 nominations for the 2024 Tony Awards, including acting nods for almost the entire cast. Several other shows also saw most of their leading roles nominated, including Days of Wine and Roses, which closed early but still saw nominations for its leads Kelli O’Hara and Brian D’Arcy James, as well as Merrily We Roll Along, which saw nominations for its three leads, Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez.

Stereophonic also landed a best score nomination, a bit unusual since the production is a play, but it features original songs written by ex-Arcade Fire member Will Butler for the fictional band at the center of the story. While the songs in the play have been praised, the nomination is a bit atypical given that most of the songs featured in the musical are delivered in snippets,...

With 36 productions eligible for this year’s Tony Awards, there were plenty of names missing when nominations were announced by Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Renée Elise Goldsberry on Tuesday morning. Among the most surprising 2024 Tony nominations snubs was “Patriots.” Peter Morgan‘s history play about Russia earned three Olivier Award nominations last year, including Best New Play, Actor (Tom Hollander) and Featured Actor (Will Keen). In New York, it only scored one for Michael Stuhlbarg, who took over the role played by Hollander in the UK; Keen, who reprises his role as Vladimir Putin, did not score a nomination in a category stuffed with “Stereophonic” performers.

The revival of “The Who’s Tommy” also significantly underperformed. Gold Derby users predicted it would land three nominations for Best Musical Revival, Best Actor for Ali Louis Bourzgui and Best Choreographer for Lorin Latarro, but it only earned one bid in the top revival category.

The Alicia Keys musical Hell’s Kitchen and new play Stereophonic, about a fictional band in the 1970s, led the Tony nominations with 13 nominations each.

The Outsiders, a musical based on the 1967 S.E. Hinton book, followed with 12 nominations and the revival of Cabaret, starring Eddie Redmayne and Gayle Rankin, followed with nine nods.

With its 13 noms, Stereophonic set a record for the most Tony nominations for a play, surpassing previous record holder Slave Play’s 12 noms in 2020.

Stereophonic‘s surprisingly strong performance even included a best score nomination despite it being a play.

In the best musical category, Hell’s Kitchen and The Outsiders were nominated, alongside the dance-based show Illionise, with music from Sufjan Stevens’ album and a book by Justin Peck and Jackie Sibblies Drury; Suffs, a musical about the women’s suffrage movement with a score and book by Shaina Taub; and Water for Elephants, based on the 2006 novel,...

The 2023-2024 Broadway season that kicked off last June with the opening of “Grey House” featured 36 productions of new and revived musicals and plays. This staggeringly crowded year – especially this spring with its 19 openings in March and April alone – means that the nominations for the 77th Tony Awards will likely be as unpredictable as ever, so review our official racetrack odds in the top 17 of 26 categories. The nominations will be announced on the morning of April 30 by Tony winners Jesse Tyler Ferguson (“Take Me Out”) and Renée Elise Goldsberry (“Hamilton”).

These official odds for the 77th Tonys are derived from the predictions of our Experts, Editors, Top 24 Users, All-Star Top 24 and all our Users, who make up the largest and often savviest bloc of predictors.

Below, see our 2024 Tony Awards predictions in 17 of the 26 categories. Make or edit your predictions before the nominations are unveiled on April 30.

Musicals

Best Musical...

The 2023-2024 Broadway season has been positively packed with an abundance of talent as dozens of new productions danced across New York City stages. The nominating committee for the Tony Awards usually does a great job in selecting the best of the best, thanks to a fair system that requires committee members to see all eligible productions. But given the sheer volume of shows this season, David Buchanan and I thought it best to remind these voters of contenders most in need of recognition.

David and I sat down to stump for 10 Tony Awards hopefuls who find themselves on uncertain ground heading into nominations (plus a few shoutouts to some stellar designers). Watch the full video slugfest above to hear our passionate pleas to the voters on the nominating committee. Hey Tony voter nominators, please don’t forget these incredible artists!

See 2024 Tony Awards eligibility rulings (round 3): ‘Uncle Vanya...

The Tony Awards Administration Committee met for the fourth and final time during the 2023-2024 Broadway season on April 26, to discuss eligibility of 12 productions for the 77th Annual Tony Awards in 2024.

The productions discussed were: “The Wiz,” “Suffs,” “Stereophonic,” “Hell’s Kitchen,” “Cabaret,” “The Heart of Rock and Roll,” “Patriots,” “Mary Jane,” “Uncle Vanya,” “Illinoise,” “Mother Play,” and “The Great Gatsby.”

The most impactful decision of this announcement is the determination that both Steve Carell and William Jackson Harper will be eligible for Lead Actor in a Play for the Lincoln Center Theatre revival of “Uncle Vanya.” Most prognosticators assumed that Harper would contend in the Featured Actor race. This category switch means that Lead Actor in a Play will have a guaranteed five nominees. Conversely, Anika Noni Rose was not bumped up to the Lead Actress in a Play category, so that race will contain just four guaranteed nominees...

April on Broadway, to mangle a phrase from a showtune classic, is bustin’ out all over with no fewer than 14 new plays and musicals set to open before the April 25 Tony Award eligibility cutoff date. So crowded are the final weeks of the 2023-24 theater season that three days each will see the openings of two shows, a Broadway rarity.

Check this page to see Deadline’s takes. Whether you use this page as a guide or as an invitation to argue, drop by often for the latest on Broadway’s offerings. And there’ll be plenty of offerings indeed — here’s the schedule of April openings: The Outsiders (April 11), Lempicka (April 14), The Wiz (April 17), Suffs (April 18), Stereophonic (April 19), Hell’s Kitchen (April 20), Cabaret (April 21), Patriots (April 22), The Heart of Rock and Roll (April 22), Mary Jane (April 23), Illinoise (April 24), Uncle Vanya (April 24), Mother Play (April 25), The Great Gatsby (April 25).

Below...

Welcome to Tony Talk, a weekly column in which Gold Derby contributing theater editors Sam Eckmann and David Buchanan discuss the Tony Awards race. With less than a week to go before nominations for the 77th Tonys are announced, we discuss the recently-opened and raved-about new play “Stereophonic” and consider how many of its performers might earn nominations in those challenging Featured Actor and Actress races.

David Buchanan: Hey Sam! We are officially less than a week away from the Tony nominations, and now that we have a tiny bit more clarity on the Best Musical race as shows like “Suffs” and “Hell’s Kitchen” have opened, I’m starting to really fret those pesky featured performer categories. A lot of shows this season are large ensemble pieces; last week, for example, saw the opening of the terrific play “Stereophonic,” which has an impeccable seven member ensemble. But I don...

Steve Carell is reuniting with Tina Fey and Universal Television.

The Office grad has closed a deal to co-star in Netflix’s The Four Seasons, the update of the 1981 Alan Alda feature film of the same name. The role reunites Carell with Tina Fey after the duo starred as a married couple in the 2010 movie Date Night.

Ordered straight-to-series in January after Netflix won the show following a bidding war after the conclusion of last year’s dual strikes, the adaptation was co-created by Fey and her fellow 30 Rock alums Lang Fisher and Tracey Wigfield.

Production on the series is slated to begin later this year. The original film, written and directed by Alda, revolves around three couples who take vacations together each season and explores the changes in the group dynamic when one of couples splits up and the man brings a much younger woman on subsequent trips. The...

Steve Carell (The Morning Show) has been tapped to star opposite Tina Fey in The Four Seasons, the Netflix comedy series based on the 1981 Universal film of the same name, which she’s co-created with former 30 Rock colleagues Lang Fisher and Tracey Wigfield.

Carell comes to the project after starring opposite Fey in the 2010 comedy Date Night, directed for Fox by Shawn Levy. Details as to the role he’s playing are under wraps. Written and directed by Alan Alda, produced by Martin Bregman, and starring Alda and Carol Burnett, the Four Seasons film tells the story of three couples who vacation together every season.

Hailing from Universal Television and Fey’s production company Little Stranger, Inc., The Four Seasons will be exec produced by Fey, Fisher, Wigfield, David Miner, Eric Gurian and Jeff Richmond. Alda and Marissa Bregman will produce the series scripted by Fey, Fisher and Wigfield, which...

A very busy Broadway held its own last week, with 36 productions pulling in a combined $34,650,614, a good 10% increase over last year at this time.

About 92% of all available seats were occupied, with total attendance of 299,107 about 15% greater year-over-year.

No fewer than five shows opening during the week ending April 21, with an additional six in previews. Nearly all of them, with one exception, were at 90% of capacity or more.

The Wiz opened at the Marquis on April 17, grossing a hefty $1,481,592 and filling 99% of seats; Suffs opened April 18 at the Music Box, filling 93% of seats and grossing $555,012; Stereophonic opened April 19, selling out at the Golden, grossing $335,737; Hell’s Kitchen opened April 20, 98% capacity at the Shubert, grossing $776,634; Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club filled all seats for six shows at the August Wilson, though several heavily comped press performances and two “duel opening” comped performances saw receipts fall significantly from the previous week,...

“I’m always waiting for something different, a different and new challenge,” reveals Anika Noni Rose. A worthy challenge arose in the form of Anton Chekhov, and the latest Broadway revival of his classic play “Uncle Vanya.” The actress had never performed in a Chekhov play before, but for her first Broadway role in 10 years, she “thought it was just time to do something for me that was going to be very different.” Watch the exclusive video interview above.

Rose portrays Yelena in the revival, who is wedded to the older and egotistical professor Serebryakov (Alfred Molina). At their rural estate, the glamorous Yelena expresses boredom and begins to question whether her life choices have led her to the right destination. When Yelena agrees to help Sonia (Alison Pill) discover if her feelings for Astrov (William Jackson Harper) are reciprocated, she unknowingly unleashes a fiery passion in him which overwhelms the estate.

The nominees for the 2024 Drama League Awards were announced April 22, 2024, by Vanessa Williams and past Drama League winner Bebe Neuwirth. Winners will be announced during the 90th Annual Drama League Awards ceremony at the Ziegfeld Ballroom on Friday, May 17.

These kudos honor both Broadway and Off-Broadway productions and are famous for their catch-all acting category, the Distinguished Performance Award. An actor can only win it once in their career. After they have won, they can never be nominated again. This year, a whopping 54 performers are nominated.

See 2024 Tony Awards eligibility rulings (round 2): ‘Appropriate’ is officially a revival, ‘The Notebook’ actors split up

The expansive production categories mean that many Tony Awards hopefuls heard their name called this morning. Ten Broadway musicals were nominated in the Outstanding Production of a Musical race. Notable omissions include “Back to the Future: The Musical,” “The Great Gatsby” and critical darling “Days of Wine and Roses...

Broadway’s busy spring was reaching peak bloom last week as the season’s final batch of new shows – save for the upcoming Sufjan Stevens musical Illinoise – was in previews, boosting total box office receipts to an impressive $39,445,823.

The figure for the week ending April 7 marks a 6% increase over the previous week. Attendance was 305,211, a 12% bump over the previous week (and 9% higher than last season at this time). In all, 37 Broadway productions filled 94% of available seats.

A healthy number of the recent arrivals played to full houses, including An Enemy of the People, Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, Stereophonic, Uncle Vanya, The Great Gatsby, and The Outsiders. They joined the usual sell-outs Hadestown, Hamilton, Merrily We Roll Along, Moulin Rouge! and Wicked.

Among the spring arrivals:

The Outsiders, in previews at the Jacobs and opening Thursday, sold out its seven performances, grossing $732,073; Lempicka took in $357,757 for seven previews at the Longacre,...

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi retreated into a rural village outside of Tokyo to make “Evil Does Not Exist,” his first film following the global success of “Drive My Car,” which won the 2022 Best International Feature Oscar. The Japanese director found himself perhaps uncomfortably in the worldwide spotlight after being known for indies like “Asako I & II” and “Happy Hour,” and so “Evil Does Not Exist,” winner of the 2023 Venice Silver Lion and Fipresci prizes, is a return to minimalist basics — an ecological parable wrapped up with unexpected thriller elements, and a movie he shot in secret.

IndieWire shares the exclusive trailer for the film, out in U.S. theaters May 3 from Sideshow and Janus Films, below. While “Evil Does Not Exist” wasn’t eligible for the International Feature Oscar due to its release date in Japan, Hamaguchi had a great run at the 2022 Academy Awards — along with the “Drive My Car” International Feature win,...

With his victory on Monday at the Critics’ Circle Theatre awards, Andrew Scott has made history. The Irish performer, recognized as best actor for his one-man West End show, “Vanya,” previously was named best actor at the 2024 Critics’ Circle Film Awards for his performance in “All of Us Strangers.” He’s the first person to win lead actor Critics’ Circle prizes in both film and television in the same year.

“It’s a thrilling delight,” Scott says. “I’ve been involved with both film and theater ever since I started acting when I was 17 years old. I’ve always worked between the two mediums. So to have these two projects, which were very dear to me, be recognized is more than I could have wished for.”

In the case of “Vanya,” Simon Stephens’ adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya,” Scott played all of the show’s eight roles. That was a herculean task,...

In the final two months of the 2023-2024 Broadway season, seven new plays and play revivals join a slate of 15 total dramas eligible for the 77th Tony Awards. With so many buzzy revivals and new works set to begin performances in the few weeks before the Tony nominations are announced on April 30, our users have been busy updating their choices for the most likely nominees in seven of the 11 play categories. See below for a breakdown of how our official odds have changes in the top categories since our last predictions center update on March 12, according to the 800 users currently making their picks. Scroll to the bottom of the article for a tall of nominations by show in seven of the 11 play categories.

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“Prayer for the French Republic” — Although this critically-acclaimed production closed on Broadway on March 3, it has been gaining momentum in our predictions center. We had previously...

“It is a pretty great crop of plays this year, several that have become big commercial hits,” declares Sam Eckmann about the many dramas and revivals in contention for nominations at the 77th Tony Awards. Sam and I met for the very first time this season to discuss the 15 productions eligible for nominations, reviewing our picks in seven of the 11 play categories. Watch our 2024 Tony Awards slugfest above.

In the top category of Best Play, we overlap on four of our five predicted nominees: “Stereophonic,” “Prayer for the French Republic,” “Mother Play” and “Patriots.” While I tentatively pick the upcoming “Mary Jane” by Amy Herzog for the fifth slot, Sam backs “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding” by Jocelyn Bioh, saying it “got amazing reviews, enough to break in here.” We also discuss a possible surprise nomination for either “The Cottage” or “Grey House.” The other eligible productions are “I Need...

It has only been 12 years since New York audiences saw a production of Henrik Ibsen’s classic nineteenth-century play “An Enemy of the People.” But unlike that last staging at the Manhattan Theatre Club, the version that just opened at Circle in the Square Theatre on Mar. 18 is a departure, thanks to the vision of director Sam Gold and a new adaptation of the text by Pulitzer Prize finalist Amy Herzog. “Enemy” runs through June 16, the day of the 2024 Tony Awards.

Gold has attracted star-wattage to his remounting of the Ibsen play with Jeremy Strong in the title role of Dr. Thomas Stockmann, who uncovers that the spas that have made his Norwegian town a booming tourist destination are in fact highly contaminated and will cause many visitors to get sick and potentially die. Michael Imperioli is his brother, Peter Stockmann, the mayor of the town who immediately turns on...

Illinoise, a theatrical adaptation of Sufjan Stevens’ 2005 album, will move to Broadway in April, slipping in under the wire for this season’s Tony Awards consideration.

The musical, which is currently playing Park Avenue Armory through March 23, will transfer to the St. James Theatre. The first performance of the show on Broadway will take place April 24 at 2 p.m. and will also be the show’s opening night. The eligibility cut-off date for the Tony Awards is April 25.

The limited engagement is scheduled to run through Aug. 10.

The production is directed and choreographed by Justin Peck, resident choreographer and artistic associate of the New York City Ballet, who also choreographed Steven Spielberg’s 2021 film West Side Story. Peck wrote the book of the show, alongside Jackie Sibblies Drury, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Fairview and Marys Seacole.

Illinoise features a full company of dancers, including So You Think You Can Dance...

Update, with vocalists announced: Illinoise, the acclaimed dance-musical stage adaptation of Sufjan Stevens’ 2005 concept album Illinois, will transfer from Off Broadway’s Park Avenue Armory to Broadway’s St. James Theatre next month, arriving just a day before this season’s Tony Award eligibility cut-off date.

The musical, with direction and choreography from Justin Peck and a book by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury, begins performances with a matinee at the St. James on Wednesday, April 24, which will serve as the engagement’s Tony-qualifying opening performance. Broadway reviews will be embargoed to Friday, April 26, a day after the April 25 Tony cut-off.

In a busy late-season Broadway schedule unrivaled in memory, Illinoise becomes the 14th show scheduled to open between April 11 and April 25. Three of those dates will see not one but two shows open: Patriots and The Heart of Rock and Roll on April 22; Illinoise and Uncle Vanya on...

“I was really looking to create something kind of in the style of Noel Coward, but with a feminist twist,” explains playwright Sandy Rustin of “The Cottage.” She took her first stab at the script for this riotous farce back in 2013 and spent a decade fine tuning the feminist comedy before her Broadway debut this season. Watch the exclusive video interview above.

The play begins with Sylvia (Laura Bell Bundy) and Beau (Eric McCormack) on an erotic escape to their cottage in the English countryside. The audience soon discovers that the pair are not married, and instead having a wild affair. But Sylvia winds up questioning her views on marriage and social status when the deceived spouses arrive at the house with affairs of their own. Given the homage to classic madcap Coward scripts, a murderous ex-lover is also headed to the cottage to stir up some tension (and some...

Since their inception, the directing categories at the Tony Awards have mostly been a boys’ club. Not only are the vast majority of winners men, but so are most of the nominees. But the 2024 ceremony could upend these statistics as more women are helming Broadway shows than ever before. This could finally be the year where they make up the majority of directing nominees.

This season there are 13 women directors on Broadway. Four of them will contend for Best Director of a Play: Lila Neugebauer (“Appropriate” and “Uncle Vanya”), Anne Kauffman (“Mary Jane”), Tina Landau (“Mother Play”), and Whitney White (“Jaja’s African Hair Braiding”). Another nine women will vie for Best Director of a Musical: Sammi Canold (“How to Dance in Ohio”), Rachel Chavkin (“Lempicka”), Rebecca Frecknall (“Cabaret”), Maria Friedman (“Merrily We Roll Along“), Mari Madrid, Leigh Silverman (“Suffs”), Jessica Stone (“Water for Elephants”), Danya Taymor (“The Outsiders”), and...

Actress Toni Collette discussed her journey from a working-class neighborhood in northwest Sydney to Hollywood star in a masterclass at the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra talent and project development event on Friday.

The Oscar-nominated Muriel’s Wedding, Little Miss Sunshine, Knives Out and Unbelievable acting star is among six top cinema professionals attending Qumra, alongside directors Leos Carax, Claire Denis, Atom Egoyan and Jim Sheridan as well as sound editor and designer Martin Hernández.

Colette said she had been drawn to performance from an early age, firstly through musical theatre and tap dance.

“My father said I came out of the womb with jazz hands towards the light,” she joked.

Looking back on her early career, Collette recalled how she had dropped out of Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Art Nida after being offered the part of Sonya in a 1992 stage production of Uncle Vanya by Neil Armfield.

This...

The Casting Society (CSA) on Wednesday announced the lineup of presenters for the 39th Annual Artios Awards, with gala celebrations taking place simultaneously on March 7 at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles, the Edison Ballroom in New York City and – on the same day – at the White City House in London.

Presenters at the Los Angeles ceremony (hosted by Niecy Nash-Betts) will be Wells Adams (“The Bachelor” franchise), Kate Berlant, Tantoo Cardinal (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Auli’i Cravalho, Stephanie Courtney, Ronald Gladden (“Jury Duty”), Sarah Hyland (“Modern Family”), Trace Lysette, James Marsden (“Jury Duty”), Kevin Miles (Jake from the State Farm commercials), Ashleigh Murray (“The Other Black Girl”), Michael Urie, Ming-Na Wen and Sofia Wylie (“High School Musical: The Musical: The Series”).

SEECasting Society announces Emmy winner Niecy Nash-Betts, Alex Edelman as dual hosts of the Artios Awards on March 7

Also at the Los Aneles ceremony, David Oweloyo will...

Annette Bening still likes to swim, despite the brutal eight hours a day she spent in the water for her Netflix film Nyad. Bening stars as Diana Nyad, who, at 64, became the first person ever to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage. Bening trained for a year to perfect her stroke, and got to know Nyad herself, with Jodie Foster alongside her, starring as Nyad’s real-life friend and coach, Bonnie Stoll. “I swim all the time, it’s become part of my staying sane,” Bening says now, adding that she learned from Nyad that pushing oneself beyond what you thought you could do is “a way to know yourself, and that’s a way to expand your own idea about yourself in the world, and also increase your joy, and increase your appreciation.” Here, Bening looks back over some favorite moments in her career, from The Grifters,...