Stage Whisperer Returns, Just Like So Many Andrew Lloyd Webber Shows

This is the initial edition of season two of Vulture’s theater newsletter Stage Whisperer. Every week, you’ll find us in your inbox with all the latest news, reviews, interviews, chats, gossip, laments, and more. You can sign up below. Also be sure to visit our new theater hub for all the information you could want about the shows that are on, Off, and Off-Off Broadway.

Somehow, Stage Whisperer returned. The leaves are turning, the sun is setting earlier, and far too many of the nonprofit stages are empty right now. Maybe you’ve got a hankering to go see a play, maybe you want to hear what people are talking about behind the scenes, maybe you’re just here to figure out what to take your parents to when they visit later this season (take them to Infinite Life! Have an awkward conversation about death afterward! Or take them to Job! And let them rant about how they’re right about Facebook!) — Stage Whisperer is here, once again, to provide.

We’re returning in a modified format, now with guest appearances and stories from Vulture’s various Whisperettes and links to recent reviews by Sara Holdren and my alter ego, Jackson McHenry.

But let’s not get bogged down in logistics. Since Stage Whisperer is in its moment of revivification, it only feels right to mention someone else plotting a comeback (or maybe the better word is return). Last season saw the closure of Phantom and Bad Cinderella (though Bad Cinderella Guest Wi-Fi lives on around 45th Street), and the end of a 44-year streak of Andrew Lloyd Webber productions on Broadway. Now, the Lord’s in a rebuilding season (pardon the sports metaphor), throwing revival spaghetti at the wall: Nicole Scherzinger’s doing Jamie Lloyd’s bloody Sunset Boulevard in London (the early responses from that have been over the top, but we at Stage Whisperer never trust overexcited Brits), the Perelman Center is kicking off its inaugural season with a ballroom take on Cats, Ivo Van Hove is working on a Jesus Christ Superstar in Amsterdam with the tagline “The original icon. Canceled� (very Lydia Tár), and Starlight Express is choo-chooing back to London. “Watch out for the big new plot twist, and you will discover why steam power is the future of the railway,� is an actual quote from Lloyd Webber’s press statement.

The idea seems to be that if you let enough people with bold ideas take a gamble at the back catalog, maybe something will pay off big — plus, you get a light dusting of prestige along the way. Whether any of those make it to Broadway remains to be seen, though it seems like one will take a longer path. Sammi Cannold’s Evita, staged with teen and adult versions of the blonde dictatress, got relatively soft buzz from its Boston tryout this summer. Though it’s currently running in D.C., from what I’ve heard, that meant putting off the original plan to bring it to Broadway with West Side Story’s Rachel Zegler. Ah well. I’ve heard she’s still interested in making a professional stage debut in something else. (Shrek revival?)

Speaking of the movie stars — where are they? Back at the beginning of the SAG-AFTRA strike, which will hopefully be resolved soon in the wake of the WGA reaching a tentative agreement, many people assumed that the lack of screen work might send stars to New York for this season. We’ll see a few of them soon (Sarah Paulson in Appropriate, Aubrey Plaza in Danny in the Deep Blue Sea, Rachel McAdams in Mary Jane), but that’s nothing more than your average sprinkling of marquee names. Blame scheduling and agents worried about having their stars stuck on stage when their big film projects rush back into production and/or promotion, presumably somewhere around the winter or early spring. Studios don’t want their talent tied up doing 8 shows a week when they could be extending the IP value of a franchise. Maybe that explains why Broadway grad Timothée Instagramed a visit to MTC back in July and yet is more likely to be spotted on Arrakis. –Jackson McHenry

This Week’s Openings

Purlie Victorious

September 27, 2023 | Music Box Theatre

Melissa Etheridge: My Window

September 28, 2023 | Circle in the Square Theatre

Jaja’s African Hair Braiding

October 3, 2023 | Samuel J. Friedman Theatre

Visit our full theater calendar for more shows and information.

Box Office Banter

Merrily We Roll Toward a Great Opening

This week’s Broadway grosses are in, and Merrily We Roll Along made $1.3 million. We gathered critic Jackson McHenry, writers Jason P. Frank and Rebecca Alter, and social-media editor Zach Schiffman to discuss.

Jason P. Frank: Okay. Let’s go, girls.

Jackson McHenry: Merrily We Roll Along actually making money on Broadway, who would’ve thought? I mean, many people who know the stars of this revival would have, but …

Jason: It’s truly insane. I mean, I’m biased after talking to them, but the story of Merrily becoming a hit is the kind of story that could be made into a musical.

Rebecca Alter: It really adds to the meta-story of the show. Its lore has always been in conversation with its themes. And this sort of changes that.

Jason: That’s true! I always saw Merrily as the tragic diva of the Sondheim shows. Like Gloria Swanson, clinging onto relevancy for dear life by the reputation of its creators.

Zach Schiffman: I wonder how the long-term life of Merrily looks if it wins Tonys and tours. It’s not a common show regionally or in schools. Does it become like Into the Woods where you can find it all over each year?

Jason: I think Merrily is destined to become a regional house standard after this.

Zach: It’s perfect for schools: The ensemble is used sparingly and you only need five good kids.

Jackson: I think Lady Bird really helped its reputation in this whole arc and definitely at least helped the movie (which will maybe arrive in a few decades) get made.

Rebecca: We need to get Lucas Hedges in there for REAL.

Jason: Now that’s a star casting I would support. I think he’s Frank in Lady Bird! And Beanie is Mary. Okay, art imitating art.

“The gift of the Off Broadway run was that getting to live it allowed us to layer it, because the more we lived it, the more it became clear how fucking brilliant the writing is.�

–Jonathan Groff, from our recent interview

Featured Review

Slapstick and Plague: Mary Gets Hers

By Sara Holdren

Is there a more terrifying, fascinating, weirdly appealing time in the occidental imagination than the Middle Ages? There’s an undeniable frisson in the clash between its ruthless reality and its mythos, which ranges from ultra-romantic to sublimely silly. Our brains (eventually) know that girls got married off at 12, or died of their first pregnancy, or got sent to abbeys to avoid getting raped, or got raped, or all of the above. But oh, those castles, those pointy hats, those sleeves!

That tension between brutality and whimsy sits at the center of Emma Horwitz’s Mary Gets Hers. Or at least, it’s supposed to. The play’s starting point is irresistible: Horwitz is riffing on a medieval closet drama by Hrotsvitha, a canonness at an abbey in Lower Saxony (somewhere in modern Germany) during the tenth century, and an all-around badass who’s generally considered the first woman historian, the first woman Germanic poet, and the first Western dramatist since the fall of Rome. Hrotsvitha’s Abraham, or the Rise and Repentance of Mary was itself a playful adaptation — the canonness modeled her writings after those of the Roman playwright Terence, creating Christian morality plays that were unusually strong on character and comedy.

Let’s Fight…

…About Taran Killam Joining Spamalot

The news that Taran Killam will play Lancelot in the Spamalot revival before Alex Brightman takes over in January ignited our Slack channel and led to a staff schism. Jason, Rebecca, Zach, and Devon Ivie weighed in. 

Jason P. Frank: Ughhh, do not want.

Rebecca Alter: Jason, WHAT! How do you NOT WANT this? I’m excited about it. Why not Taran Killam as Lancelot! Suddenly something INTERESTING about this production.

Jason: I just don’t like Taran Killam. This production is boring, but this isn’t how I want it to become interesting. The only Taran Killam thing I’ve ever liked is when he did the entire Robyn “Call Your Girlfriend� dance.

Rebecca: I like him.

Devon Ivie: I like him too!

Rebecca: FIRSTLY, he was great in Stuck in the Suburbs. SECOND, his “Call Your Girlfriend� dance is one of the best things to ever come out of Studio 8H. THIRD, he always reminded me of, like, a softer iteration of Will Ferrell who didn’t do much but I’d want to see him do more for curiosity’s sake. FOURTH, if you have EVER seen him do “Dentist!� from Little Shop of Horrors at Encores you know he can do Lancelot with some rehearsal time and training. He’s like when they cast the goofy boy from the football team (not a star player so they don’t care they’re losing him for a half-season) in the school play and everyone loves it. I’m okay with a bit of that every once in a while! And FIFTH AND MOST OF ALL above all these other reasons, Bever Hopox is a great, reliable Comedy Bang! Bang! character going on a decade now.

Zach: I am most confused by the January recast. Neither Taran Killam nor Alex Brightman is famous enough to warrant the recast and I don’t think Taran meaningfully moves any tickets. It ruins any Tony chances for either of them and Alex could be ripe for a Tony right now.

Jason: I think Alex Brightman’s casting is of a piece with my general feeling on this revival — it’s a lot of first-thought musical-theater people, who are unlikely to elevate the material particularly far. Spamalot is a Broadway show that I’ve never found particularly thrilling and feels like standard musical-theater comedy. It has none of Monty Python’s sense of fun and originality.

Zach: Such a good point. This makes me think Cecily Strong should have been Lady of the Lake.

Overheard at the Theater

People stay talking shit in the bathroom line.

“So Megan Mullally is feuding with Debra Messing.�

“Why?�

“I don’t know.�

—At Broadway Cares screening for Dicks: The Musical.

“Schmackary’s cookies are real?�

—A person on the Q train discussing this Broadway-focused season of Only Murders in the Building.

Further Reading

➽ The Nederlander Organization drops Ticketmaster in favor of its own ticketing service. 

➽ Richard Kind will lead a Paris production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

➽ The Wiz is coming to Broadway on April 17. 

➽ David Byrne will host a special performance of Here Lies Love on September 28 benefiting his nonprofit, Arbutus.

➽ Daveed Diggs and Emmy Raver-Lampman are expecting a baby!