Idina Menzel to return to Broadway in ‘Redwood’
Had it not taken two decades to develop and produce the film adaptation of “Wicked,” perhaps Idina Menzel would have received the opportunity to reprise her Tony Award-winning performance as Elphaba. (She at least got to play Maureen in the film adaptation of “Rent” along with most of the other original principal cast members.)
Instead, you can catch Menzel next season in her first Broadway appearance in a decade (since the forgettable musical “If/Then”) in “Redwood,” a new musical about, according to the press release, “one woman’s journey into the precious and precarious world of the redwoods” of Northern California. Menzel is credited as a co-creator of the musical along with composer-lyricist Kate Diaz and writer-director Tina Landau. It will begin previews on Jan. 24 at the Nederlander Theatre, which is where Menzel made her Broadway debut back in 1996 in “Rent.”
‘Tommy’ and ‘Home’ to close on Sunday
This is your final warning that the new Broadway revival of the rock opera “The Who’s Tommy” will close on Sunday at the Nederlander Theatre following a short run.
Lately, I have been wondering whether the production would have succeeded commercially under different circumstances, such as if the New York Times review had been more positive, if it had not opened in a season that was already crowded with revivals, if it had a star performer in the cast, and if the production was more transformative or newsworthy in nature. I felt the same way about the recent Broadway revival of “Spamalot,” which was a solid, entertaining production that could not even last through the end of the season.
This is hardly a new thought, but one wishes that there was a less expensive way to bring professional, full-scale productions of classic musicals to New York beyond either the Encores! series at City Center or increasingly high-priced Broadway revivals. Perhaps the ongoing concerns over the unsteady Broadway business model will finally lead to meaningful changes.
In the meantime, if you are interested, you have a few chances left to check out an excellent production of “Tommy.”
Another Broadway revival closing on Sunday is the Roundabout Theatre Company’s production of Samm-Art Williams’ three-actor coming-of-age drama “Home.” Williams, a noteworthy Black writer, recently died at the age of 78 while this production was in rehearsals. Serving as director is the ever-busy Kenny Leon, who previously directed the superb revival of “A Soldier’s Play” at the same theater immediately prior to the pandemic shutdown.
“Home,” which received an Off-Broadway revival in 2008 by the Signature Theatre Company, follows Cephus Miles (Tory Kittles), a young Black farmer in the mid-century American South, whose peaceful existence is interrupted by the loss of his childhood love, a prison sentence arising out of his refusal to fight in Vietnam, and a perilous trek to the North, where he becomes homeless. Two women (here played by Stori Ayers and Brittany Inge) portray all of the other characters.
It is a heartwarming, unapologetically sentimental drama. Even if one finds its dramaturgy to be a bit creaky by today’s standards, this is a fine, crowd-pleasing production, and one hopes that Roundabout will continue reviving other rarely-seen works of Black drama.
