Playhouse 46, an Off-Broadway venue in the Times Square area, has recovered $40,000 following a break-in in which blank checks were stolen from its box office and then cashed, as reported by Playbill.com.
“Make Me Gorgeous! The True Story of Kenneth ‘Mr. Madam’ Marlowe,” starring drag artist Darius Rose, is currently playing at the theater. Jennifer Pluff, executive director of Playhouse 46, told Playbill.com that no one employed by the theater or the show was involved in the break-in.
Actors’ Equity authorizes developmental workshop strike
Actors’ Equity Association, the professional stage actors’ union, voted last week to authorize a “development strike” against the Broadway League, though it has not yet initiated such a strike, which would forbid its members from participating in pre-production developmental workshops.
In 2019, Equity brought a month-long development strike, which resulted in a new contract with the Broadway League (the trade organization representing theater owners and producers) providing for higher wages and profit sharing for actors who take part in developmental workshops. It marked Equity’s first strike in almost half a century.
“We know that show development is work,” Equity Executive Director and Lead Negotiator Al Vincent, Jr. said in a statement. “This development work hopefully leads to successful shows, some of which have long lives with many iterations that can make a lot of money for producers. We know there is no revenue from the development sessions themselves, but it’s still work, and that doesn’t change whether there’s revenue today or whether it’s an investment producers are making against future profits. And that work must be appropriately compensated.”
Tyne Daly exits ‘Doubt’ due to health issues
Tyne Daly has exited the new Broadway revival of John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “Doubt,” which is currently in previews, due to unidentified health issues.
The announcement after Daly missed the first set of preview performances due to being hospitalized. Last week, Daly’s understudy, Isabel Keating (best known for playing Judy Garland in the 2003 musical “The Boy from Oz”) played the fearless elementary school principal Sister Aloysius.
Beginning this week, screen actress Amy Ryan (who last appeared on Broadway two decades ago in a revival of “A Streetcar Named Desire”) will take over the role.
‘My Son’s a Queer’ postpones Broadway run
“My Son’s A Queer (But What Can You Do?),” a solo comedy written and performed by Rob Madge, which was on the verge of beginning previews at the Lyceum Theatre following successful runs in London’s West End and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, has postponed its Broadway debut to next season.
Although no reason was cited for the change in the press release, it may be due to the unexpectedly large number of shows set to open on Broadway this spring, even in spite of serious post-pandemic box office challenges.
‘Ragtime’ reunion concert to be screened in movie theaters
No official announcement has been made yet, but Fandango.com currently indicates that a film capture of last spring’s one-night-only reunion concert of the original cast of the 1998 Broadway musical “Ragtime” will be screened in movie theaters in March. The sold-out benefit performance was originally planned for 2020 and was then postponed due to the pandemic.
Participating original cast members included Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Peter Friedman, and Judy Kaye. Kelli O’Hara played Mother, the role originated by the late Marin Mazzie.
