David Finkle

With Data, Michael Libby has written an unquestionably significant play wrenched not only from today’s headlines but possibly also ripped from headlines heading our way in the frightfully near future. Furthermore, he’s unleashed a work that fits into a category that may be entirely new or at least still thin: The Intellectual Horror Drama.

Directing the off-kilter caboodle is superb lyricist David Zippel, who on this (first?) directorial outing is less than superb. As someone who might be imagined wanting lyrics acted as often as possible, he instead prefers exaggerating singers’ professional clichés. He adamantly doesn’t eliminate the fave one where a last note is sustained as a singer raises an arm in vocal triumph. On the last number of so many famous Bacharach songs reprised, all three simultaneously do the sustained-note-arm-raise.

The intriguing Hanging Rock allure has been adapted as a musical, book and lyrics by Hilary Bell and music (and arrangements) by Greta Gertler Gold, and directed with somber celebratory flourish by Portia Krieger. Although comparison with previous formats may be uncalled for, they are also inevitable. The stage version has much to recommend it, but there are troublesome drawbacks.

In 2025, Lucas Hnath, one of our foremost contemporary playwrights who never misses, has contributed a Tartuffe revival that consists of so many off-rhymed couplets they may outnumber the couplets properly rhymed. So much so that this “new version” is instantly a disorienting miss. It’s why I cannot in good conscience recommend the production unreservedly.

More precisely, what’s offered—with only a few exceptions—are mild facsimiles of the original numbers. Yes, the numbers are mounted but for the most part, as staged, they lack the élan, the electricity, the ebullient personality with which the original creators and, of course, the original dancers infused them. (The only original choreographer working here is Randy Skinner.)

Then there’s the acting, singing and brief dancing. Pitts’s performance, especially svelte and stylish in Gilmour’s night-at-the-Plaza gown, is mercurial throughout, making Robin’s initial annoyance and then intelligent concern thoroughly penetrating. As to newcomer Tutty, who took home last year’s Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his take on the imported Dear Evan Hansen: His “New York” introduction makes it dazzlingly clear that a London musical leading-man hasn’t been carried in on the local theater tide since Tommy Steele in Half a Sixpence and Anthony Newley in The Roar of the Greasepaint-The Smell of the Crowd. Tutty’s appealing looks, pure voice, comic instincts, and obvious acting skills, and somehow resemblance to a living Teletubby make him the huge plus for a vital Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) run.

Final observation: At a point in the 1970s, Schwartz had three shows running on and off-Broadway: Godspell, Pippin, and The Magic Show. (There might even have been a fourth—The Baker’s Wife.) Right now, he’s matched the three-record with Wicked showing no signs of ever closing on Broadway, this one also on Broadway, and The Baker’s Wife currently revived off-Broadway. Congrats to him for that kind of rare happenstance. Imagine the personal pleasure as well as the weekly royalties.

Watching 44 The Musical with jaw dropped, a dazed reviewer gets to thinking about Michelle Obama’s observation that “When they go low, we go high.” No going high about these made-up Obamas. They and their musicalized pals and detractors go limbo-bar low. If the former first lady was as uncomfortable in the White House as so frequently hinted, her fears of what she’s been put at risk for are only confirmed by this scruffy property.

First, let’s hear it for the highly effective elements: Christian’s music is both sumptuous and austere. That’s to say, its presentation as a modern-day oratorio sounds exactly right, certainly as conducted by Jane Cardona and interpreted by the six-part orchestra playing unseen above the end of the room where audience members enter and exit. The resultant overarching spirituality catches listeners in the palm of its many, many pages of exacting measures.

Though The Honey Trap clamps down in an emotionally stunning conclusion, a reviewer’s mild query is whether in the Dave/Charlie twist does McGann risk confusing literally inclined spectators too much before revealing his devastating destination?

Affectively supporting him, the cast members often shift from one character to another by nothing more than shucking a pullover—say, Jacob’s mum to a probation officer and back (Lucy Taylor). Two-time Tony winner Victoria Clark, not singing a note, and Sam Robards lift the second act as James’ parents Joan and David. Alongside Harrison, they touchingly play their individual struggles to find forgiveness for Jacob, just as Jacob struggles to find forgiveness for himself. Does he? That’s the point of the reach-for-the-Kleenex finale. No description here, other than to say that its like may not be equaled on any stage this season or possibly for a few seasons to come.

More than that, Quijada and Robinson suddenly reveal themselves not only as singers and masters of their instruments but as adroit actors, further enhancing their purpose. Robinson probably has more acting challenges, but both, as directed by David Mendizábal and choreographed by Tony Thomas, imbue Mexodus with unmissable drama.

That manosphere quadrant is being invaded again, zut alors, with a revival crisply directed by Scott Ellis and this time marquee-boasting, in alphabetical order, Bobby Cannavale, James Corden, and Neil Patrick Harris. Although bowing early in the 2025-26 season, it already shows strong signs of eventual Tony noms when the time comes.

That alone is worth the price of admission. Okay, the entire production is worth more than the price of admission. If there’s any drawback to what’s on view, it may be that the early clowning somewhat delays McCraney’s up-close-and-personal view of brothers unsuccessfully trying to align. (Inevitably, men in the audience who have a brother will focus, even if fleetingly, on their sibling.)

The area where this Mamma Mia! is far from deficient is in the cast. While there’s not a single Broadway marquee name among them, not a one isn’t giving an outstanding performance, not a one undeserving of marquee status. They prominently include Christine Sherrill as single mom Donna Sheridan; Amy Weaver as bride-to-be Sophie Sheridan; Jalynn Steele and Carly Sakolove as Donna BFFs Tanya and Rosie; and Rob Marnell, Jim Newman, and Victor Wallace as possible fathers Harry Bright, Bill Austin, and Sam Carmichael.

What Gardner is shorn of in McGovern’s piece are too many of the quotes that might have come up in a straightforward interview. That’s way too unfortunate. Here for the record is only one lively remark: ‘I do owe Mickey one thing: he taught me how much I enjoyed sex.’

Zak has nudged them to yell every line at the top of their lungs so trippingly on the tongue that any number of his jokes(?) are lost in the gibble-gabble-gargle.

The effect of these sequences is an audience-gripping silence... a silence that threatens to halt breathing, a silence during which not even a single cough breaks through, a silence worth the admission price.

Anyway, the myriad reasons to see (and hear!) Heathers are small in number, whereas the myriad reasons not to see (and hear!) it—unless you’re a Corn Nut—are much larger.

What Max has written—the outcome of which won’t be divulged—is a study of a woman, perhaps like millions of other women, in a society where their resources, other than as efficient homemakers, are regularly and sometimes cruelly repressed. The playwright appears convinced that the feminist movement (possibly as a feminist himself, in a happy marriage) has had an effect but so far a limited one.

They all deserve to be singled out, Linn-Baker foremost as buffoonish Argan. He’s especially pleased with Argan’s enemas and regular posterior massaging events. Burton, playing his three parts and as the action proceeds having to make quick and then quicker changes, has the showiest assignment(s). His seen-it-all attitude as Dr. Purgon is particularly amusing. Daniels—dressed by costumer Tilly Grimes as what resembles Humpty Dumpty going to a birthday party for six-year-olds—gets giggles simply by standing still. Stiles’ knowing looks are attention-getters. Okay, safe to say they’re all outstanding.

Are there any other mitigating attractions? There are Hill’s vocals. He sings several of Cole’s signature chart-toppers, delivering entirely his 1949 winner, “Nature Boy.” (A better play might have followed how Cole came to record the mystic Eden Ahbez song.) Sadly, he doesn’t get through the entire “Mona Lisa” (Ray Evans and Jay Livingston), which won the 1950 best song Oscar but might not have if Cole hadn’t sung it to Top 40 acclaim.

Whatever of this makes sense might keep ticket-buyers interested, if not wholly involved, thanks to the proliferating special effects.

Very notably, Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp. is mounted as a vaudeville evening with velvet curtain and vaudeville lights circling the proscenium. Set designer Miriam Buether’s sumptuous curtain and Isabella Bryd’s flashy lights are augmented between the first and second one-acts by Junru Wang, who pulls off an impressive balancing act; and later by Maddox Morfit-Tighe, an ultimately five-pins juggler. Highly adept at what they do, they’re also obviously employed to imply how the production is to be regarded. This is only vaudeville. Got it? So what if the production isn’t start-to-finish thoroughly effective? Like a vaudeville bill, there’s still enough to muse on satisfactorily.

What’s on display is unmitigatedly glorious. In other words, Sondheim as nonpareil influencer may be repeatedly remembered with a breathless retrospective, but as the new extravaganza also demonstrates, his belief in the potential of the musical to break new ground will persist.