The Lights Are Coming Back On — All Over Town

YOUR HUDDLED MASSES YEARNING TO BE RICH

When “The Lehman Trilogy” opened at the Park Avenue Armory in the spring of 2019 (yes, that was exactly a million years ago), Ben Brantley of The New York Times called it “genuinely epic” and praised it for “resurrecting vanished lives and worlds.” The Hollywood Reporter called it “theatrical storytelling at its most thrilling.”

And now it’s coming back, this time to the Nederlander Theater. Ben Power’s adaptation tells the story of three Bavarian brothers arriving in New York in the mid-19th century and how wildly successful they are until their corporation goes down in flames more than 160 years later. The set and video design have been described as genius — but remember, the same visuals don’t always look the same in a new theater.

Happily, we’ll still have Simon Russell Beale and Adam Godley onstage — with Adrian Lester replacing Ben Miles (which is like saying, “Oh, no! Meryl Streep is filling in for the star. Can she handle it?”) — and Sam Mendes directing.

“The Lehman Trilogy,” by Stefano Massini, adapted by Ben Power, Nederlander Theater, 208 West 41st Street, thelehmantrilogy.com. Running time: 3 hours 20 minutes. Previews begin on Sept. 25. Opening night: Oct. 14. Limited run: Closes on Jan. 2, 2022.

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***SEE UPDATE — CASTING NEWS! — AT THE END OF THIS ARTICLE. AUG. 5, 2021******

NOBODY HAS TO EXPLAIN CINDERELLA OR PINOCCHIO TO US

Of course you’d love to see another production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” What’s not to like? Drugs (to Elizabethans, a potion, a “special flower … rubbed on a sleeper’s eye”), hallucinations and something that passes for love but leads only to unconscious coupling.

But Douglas Carter Beane, who has given the theater world so much, including one of my all-time favorites (“And the Little Dog Laughed”), knows what we won’t admit.

We don’t really know much about Titania and Oberon’s marital problems. We don’t know much about the private lives of any ancient fairy royalty, really. So Beane’s next downtown offering is basically “Midsummer’s Night” but with familiar fairy-tale folk.

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“Fairycakes,” which opens at the Barrow Street Theater in October, has an intriguing cast. Mo Rocca (yes, the guy who does news-feature segments and Mo-bituaries on TV — that’s him in the top photo) is top-billed, so he must be the equivalent of Puck. Then there’s Julie Halston (in purple in photo — I have always seen her as somebody’s Fairy Godmother).

I loved Ann Harada (in blue in photo) in “Avenue Q,” especially when she sang the immortal lyrics “The more you love someone, the more you want to kill them.” Maybe they’ll cast her as an evil queen. Or she could totally be Snow White.

And who knows what they’ll make of Jackie Hoffman (in glasses in photo), whose distinctive persona has taken her from “Hairspray” to “Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish”? She’s almost always unforgettable, one way or the other.

AUG. 5, 2021, UPDATE: JUST ANNOUNCED. MO ROCCA WON’T BE PUCK; HE’ll BE GEPETTO — YOU KNOW, PINOCCHIO’S DAD.. (CHRIS MEYERS WILL BE PUCK.) JULIE HALSTON WILL BE TITANIA — KIND OF. ANN HARADA WILL BE TURNIPSEED. AND JACKIE HOFFMAN WILL BE MOTH. AND JASON TAM WILL BE CUPiD.

OUT-AND-OUT PASSION FOR THE NATIONAL PASTIME “Take Me Out” cast members, from left: Patrick J. Adams, Jesse Williams and Jesse Tyler Ferguson.

WHEN I GROW UP, I WANT TO BE AN OBSESSIVE BASEBALL FAN

The revival of Richard Greenberg’s Tony-winning “Take Me Out” was supposed to open in April 2020, but you know what happened to that spring. That year. That everything.

Now it’s going to arrive just in time for spring training 2022. In a play about a major-league baseball player coming out as gay, you’d think that player — Darren Lemming (Jesse Williams) — would be the central figure.

But the protagonist is really Mason Marzac* (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), described in Ben Brantley’s review of the original Broadway production as “a solitary middle-aged gay man” who now represents Darren, “a lonely money manager” who “has given his heart to the game of baseball.” Very recently.

*P.S. Am I the only one here who remembers Megan Marshack?

 “Take Me Out,” by Richard Greenberg, directed by Scott Ellis. Hayes Theater, 240 West 44th Street, 2ST.com. Previews begin: March 9, 2022. Opening night: April 4, 2022.

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WAY, WAY, WAY PAST THEIR OWN BROADWAY DEBUTS

THERE WAS SOMETHING UNUSUAL about the Theater World Awards this year (Sunday, July 11), and it wasn’t just the fact that the evening was a streaming event, rather than an in-person ceremony. We’re used to that. It was the fact that there were no Theater World Awards – at least not any regular ones.   

Normally, the group hands out a dozen awards each year, half to men and half to women — performers making their Broadway debuts. The awards began in 1945, and early winners included Marlon Brando, Burt Lancaster, John Raitt, Barbara Bel Geddes, Betty Comden and Carol Channing.

Sometimes children won, among them Patty Duke (“The Miracle Worker”), Cynthia Nixon (“The Philadelphia Story”) and Andrea McCardle (“Annie”).

But the 2021 show didn’t honor any Broadway newcomers. Instead, it handed out prizes to three major Broadway luminaries, with special awards going to André De Shields, Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald.

AUDRA McDONALD, 51, who received the Dorothy Loudon Award for Excellence in Theater, certainly didn’t need to fill in a spot on her bookshelves. She already had six Tony Awards. Her last role on the New York stage was nonmusical, in  “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.” On this awards show, she performed a few bars of “Summertime,” which she sang in “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess” nine years ago.  

And after McDonald’s segment, we heard a full rendition of “Summertime,” sung by Phillip Boykin, who starred with her as Crown (Bess’s bullying ex-boyfriend) in that 2012 musical. It was thrilling to hear those notes, normally trilled by a soprano, in his booming baritone. Another note of evolution in language. When Boykin sang, the line that normally ends “with Daddy and Mammy standing by” became “with Daddy and Mommy standing by.”

ANDRÉ DE SHIELDS, 75, won a Tony for his most recent stage triumph — in “Hadestown,” which will be back in the theater on Sept. 2, they say. His star-making job was the title role in “The Wiz” in the ‘70s, but he’s also very well known for “The Full Monty” and “Ain’t Misbehavin’.” A clip from another awards presentation was shown, with De Shields sharing some life advice,  “Surround yourself with people whose eyes light up when they see you coming.”

PATTI LUPONE, 72, knows theater can be unpredictable. Her newest show didn’t quite make it to its Broadway opening night last year, but it’s coming back. This new production of “Company,” also starring Katrina Lenk (as the first female Bobby/Bobbie), will be restarting previews in November and opening in December. You know, “Ladies Who Lunch” has always felt like a Christmas song to me. Well, maybe the day after Christmas.