Off Broadway shows, reviews, tickets and listings

Rock me, Amadeus! The suave Ryan Silverman—familiar to Broadway audiences for his stint of Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera and his many, many tours of duty as Billy Flynn in Chicago —plays Mozart's infamous seducer, murderer and all-around bad boy in a reinvention of the classic opera, featuring a new English translation and rock orchestrations by director Adam B. Levowitz. The principal cast also includes Rachel Zatcoff as Donna Elvira, Anchal Dhir as Donna Anna, Felipe Bombonato as Don Ottavio, Richard Coleman as Leporello and Edwin Jhamaal Davis as the Commander.

Jay Ellis (Insecure) and Stephanie Nur (Lioness) play an unlikely couple—he's a hip-hop superstar, she's an Afghani translator working in Kabul—in a new drama by Charles Randolph-Wright (Blue). Warren Adams directs the NYC premiere, whose cast also includes a pair of formidable stage vets, Noma Dumezweni (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) and Dariush Kashani (Oslo).

The extremely funny Kevin Zak—who has contributed jokes to Death Becomes Her, had a Kenneth Starr–ing role in Clinton: The Musical and created an Instagram industry of memes about Nicole Kidman and Amy Klobuchar—is the writer and director of this campily irreverent send-up of The Parent Trap. Russell Daniels and Aneesa Folds star as identical twins bent on reuniting their estranged parents, played by Lakisha May and Matthew Wilkas, and thwarting the plots of a gold digger played by Phillip Taratula. Tha cast is fleshed out by Jimmy Ray Bennett, Grace Reiter and Mitch Wood.  

Looking for a little escapism? The Italian escape artist Lord Nil keeps you on the edge of your seat as he narrowly survives—or will he?!—such perils as boiling grease, an axe and a circular saw. Each escape is connected thematically to one of the old seven deadlies, and his battery of pulchritudinous male and female assistants seems likely to induce at least one of them. 

Before Mean Girls there was Heathers, a pitch-black comedy about how high-school popularity can be murder. Kevin Murphy and Laurence O'Keefe'S 2014 musical based on that film now returns Off Broadway in a revised version, directed by the U.K.'s Andy Fickman, that is likely to appeal to newcomers as well as to the show's loyal fans (known as Corn Nuts, after one character's dying words). Heathers tells the story of a nice girl named Veronica who falls into the bad company of three cruel student dictators and a sociopathic newcomer who wants to rid the school of their ilk. The impressive cast includes Lorna Courtney (& Juliet), Casey Likes (Back to the Future), McKenzie Kurtz (Frozen), Olivia Hardy, Elizabeth Teeter and Broadway comic treasure Kerry Butler (Xanadu).

The story of Joy Mangano, a young single mother who cleaned up as the inventor and entrepreneur of a self-wringing mop, already inspired a 2015 film that earned Jennifer Lawrence an Oscar nomination. Now it is the subject of an original musical with a book by producer Ken Davenport and a score by AnnMarie Milazzo (with additional material by Amanda Yesnowitz), starring Betsy Wolfe (& Juliet) in the title role. Lorin Lotarro, best known as the accomplished Broadway choreographer of shows including Tommy and The Heart of Rock and Roll, takes on directing duties here and leaves the dances to Smash man Joshua Bergasse; the large cast also includes Jill Abramovitz, Charl Brown, Adam Grupper, Brandon Espinoza, Honor Blue Savage, Paul Whitty, Gabriela Carrillo and Jaygee Macapugay.

Company XIV's seductive take on Alice in Wonderland is a singular sexcess: a transporting fusion of haute burlesque, circus, dance and song. Impresario Austin McCormick has assembled an array of alluring and highly skilled artists, who look smashing in Zane Pihlstrom's lace-and-crystal-encrusted costumes. With its soundtrack of pop songs, attractive ensemble cast and immersive aesthetics—plus chocolate and specialty cocktails—Queen of Hearts feels like Moulin Rouge! for actual bohemians. Hell, it even has a cancan.—Raven Snook

Half a century after the fall of Saigon, Kenneth Ferrone directs the NYC premiere of this hit 2014 Austalian jukebox musical about the Vietnam War and the protest movement that emerged in response to it. The show's story, by journalist Bryce Hallett, incorporates more than 20 classic-rock staples made famous by such artists as Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Steppenwolf, Simon and Garfunkel, the Animals, the Impressions and Santana. The cast of six comprises Drew Becker, Cassadee Pope, Justin Matthew Sargent, Daniel Yearwood, Courtnee Carter and Deon’te Goodman.

Josh Sharp has been a pillar of the queer alt-comedy scene in New York, often working alongside his partner in subversive humor, Aaron Jackson, with whom he co-created the memorably outré 2023 movie Dicks: The Musical. Now he goes it alone, riding the recent vogue for comedic Off Broadway solo shows, with a collection of stories and jokes set to a massive PowerPoint presentation that includes some 2,000 screens to be clicked through. Will he slip on all those slides? Find out in a what is sure to be a manically amusing evening, directed by Oh, Mary!'s newly be-Tonyed Sam Pinkleton. 

Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More gave up the ghost last fall after 14 years, but fans of that immersive theatrical experience have a new show to tide them over: a smaller-scale work by Punchdrunk founder Felix Barrett that invites audience members to move barefoot through a labyrinthine installation inspired by Barry Pain’s 1901 gothic short story “The Moon-Slave," as adapted by the acclaimed British writer Daisy Johnson. Participants wear headphones and are guided through the 50-minute experience at the Shed via narration in the voice of Helena Bonham Carter. 

The Weir: Theater review by Helen Shaw

[Note: This review is for The Irish Rep's 2013 production of The Weir. The  company is now bringing the play back for its third encore production; John Keating, Dan Butler and Sean Gormley reprise their roles, now joined by Johnny Hopkins and Sarah Street.]

The title of Conor McPherson’s 1997 masterwork The Weir refers to a small dam, an interruption in the natural flow of a river. And certainly the Irish Repertory Theatre’s offering boasts a palpable liquidity, an accelerating rush of people swept off their feet by loneliness who are nonetheless caught and stilled in a village bar. In Ciarán O’Reilly’s production, we can almost feel the heat emanating from designer Charlie Corcoran’s photo-perfect pub; we actually lean closer to it when the wind howls. But the work moves beyond mere coziness; an excellent cast and McPherson’s profoundly felt humanism make the piece warming on some deep, maybe even soul-deep, level.

Barkeep Brendan (standout Billy Carter) suffers garrulous contrarian Jack (Dan Butler); Jack banters with sweet Jim (the always-tremendous John Keating); they all prod local made-good Finbar (Sean Gormley), whose return jabs can get a little fierce. McPherson’s title also, of course, eddies toward “weird” (this being the playwright of haunted thrillers Shining City and The Seafarer), and so when the men tell stories to Dublin “blow-in” Valerie (Tessa Klein), they turn to what another poet called “things counter, original, spare, strange.” Jack will eventually tell a story about a young man’s mistake—the kind that will set the course for the older man we see before us. “The future was all ahead of me. Years and years of it,” he says. It’s meant to be chilling, but he also accidentally comforts us, just as all the best ghost stories do.

The Weir. Irish Repertory Theatre (see Off Broadway). By Conor McPherson. Directed by Ciarán O’Reilly. With Dan Butler, Billy Carter, John Keating, Sean Gormley, Tessa Klein. Running time: 1hr 35mins. No intermission.