In honor of the upcoming final performance in New York of “Blue Man Group” on Feb. 2 following a run of over 17,000 performances in the East Village, the show’s co-founders, Chris Wink, Matt Goldman, and Phil Stanton, will retake the stage as “Blue Men” at special performances on January 9 and 24. I recently re-attended the show for the first time in 20 years and had a blast. Despite the demise of the New York run, the wordless spectacle of drumming and bald men covered in blue paint will live on in productions in Boston, Las Vegas, and Orlando.
‘Concert for America’ to return in time for Inauguration Day
On January 20, 2017, immediately following the first inauguration of Donald Trump to the presidency, Broadway radio personality and music director Seth Rudetsky and his husband James Wesley Jackson produced a sold-out “Concert for America” benefit event at Town Hall to raise money for nonprofit groups that protect women’s health, the environment and civil liberties. On January 20, 2025, Rudetsky and Jackson will present a new “Concert for America” that includes appearances from Ali Stroker, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Cecily Strong, Kelli O’Hara, Rosie Perez, and Susie Essman. “We did our first Concert for America on Inauguration Day 2017 and we were thrilled! Not only because it sold out so quickly, but because we received so many messages afterwards describing how the concert provided the audience with joy, peace, and hopefulness…We’re going to do it again with the help of the incredible artistic community that always steps up for any community or person facing adversity,” Jackson said in a statement.
Experimental theater icon Richard Foreman dies at 87
The well-known avant-garde director and playwright Richard Foreman, who for decades presented experimental works annually through his Ontological-Hysteric Theater in the East Village, died on Saturday at 87. Foreman’s shows were creepy, chaotic, perplexing, dreamlike, and disturbing spectacles, with Foreman’s disembodied voice booming from loudspeakers, harsh lighting, strings hanging over the audience, young actors being moved around like mindless pawns, random theoretical musings and total lack of narrative.
There has been a lot of interest in Foreman’s work recently. The Wooster Group’s recent production of Foreman’s 1988 drama “Symphony of Rats” will receive an encore run in March. “Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey,” the first new play written by Foreman in a decade, was staged at La MaMa in December in a production by Kara Feely. During the fall, Foreman’s legacy was celebrated at NYU with panel discussions and an archives exhibit.
Back in 2004, my very first article published in amNewYork was an interview with Foreman about his latest work at the time, “King Cowboy Rufus Rules the Universe,” which was an otherworldly interpretation of the presidency of George W. Bush.
Disney on Ice tackles ‘Frozen’ and ‘Encanto’ in double bill
Over the weekend, my kids and I attended the latest installment of “Disney on Ice” at the Prudential Center in Newark, which is a double bill of “Frozen” (act one) and “Encanto” (act two), which meant ice skating and aerial acts in the midst of the audience singing along to “Let It Go” and “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” while dining on snow cones in cups modeled after the snowman Olaf. The show will play the Barclays Center in Brooklyn next week beginning January 16. Perhaps this will be followed by a double bill of “Moana” and “Beauty and the Beast.”
