Broadway: The April crush
The past two weeks on Broadway have been “the equivalent of the theatrical Super Bowl,” said Sarah Bahr in The New York Times. Following tradition, a wave of openings arrived just before the April 25 cutoff date for Tony Award eligibility. But the rush this year was unprecedented. In the final 11-day stretch, 14 plays and musicals opened, which is, “to put it plainly, absurd,” said Adam Feldman in Time Out. But the packed calendar does make for a busy spring. Besides the debut of Stereophonic (see review), the final nine days before the Tony deadline have seen Broadway openings of Suffs, a musical about America’s early-20th-century suffragists and Hell’s Kitchen, a musical based on the life and songs of Alicia Keys that had debuted off-Broadway last fall. Also bowing in were a revival of The Wiz that arrived following a 13-city national tour and a Cabaret revival that stars Eddie Redmayne and features an elaborate cabaret pre-show. Arriving even closer to the deadline were Patriots, a London import in which Michael Stuhlbarg portrays the oligarch who engineered Vladimir Putin’s rise; Mary Jane, a drama showcasing the Broadway debut of Rachel McAdams; and Mother Play, from Pulitzer winner Paula Vogel. Need more? There was also a new musical adaptation of The Great Gatsby; The Heart of Rock and Roll, a Huey Lewis jukebox musical; a revival of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya starring Steve Carell; and Illinoise, a musical inspired by a 2005 Sufjan Stevens album.