Living in Paradox
May 2022

Katrina Lenk, Patti LuPone, Marianne Elliott, and Me!

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. I hope you each receive all the love you have given.

     It’s been a paradoxical week. On the one hand, I have a lot of exciting news to share from my own small world. On the other hand, there was predictable yet devastating news in our world at large. I’ve been processing my feelings on the latter, but I think I’ll start with good news.

     The month of May has arrived and, with it, abundance. Tomorrow (May 9) is Tony Nominations Day! Watch the live announcement at 9am ET on the Tony Awards official YouTube page. Aaaaaaand, read my coverage with reactions from nominees on BroadwayNews.com! That’s right. This year, I’m covering the Tonys for Broadway News, the editorial site extension of the Broadway Briefing. In addition to Nominations Day coverage, I’ll publish an original feature each week of Awards season (May 9-June 11) with interviews from the casts and creatives of Tony-nominated shows. Plus, I’ll be inside the press room on actual Tony night (June 12) to offer a behind-the-scenes recap the morning after. All will be available on BroadwayNews.com and included in their daily Briefing. Of course, I’ll also include links in my next newsletter and on all my social channels. I am thrilled that I have a home for the season and couldn’t be happier that it is the growing theatre authority Broadway News.

     As many of you know, one of my favorite productions to come out of this season is the revival of Company. It is absolutely brilliant. On May 23, I will get to speak to visionary director Marianne Elliott (the only woman in history who has won two Tonys for direction), Tony-winning actor Katrina Lenk, who leads as Bobbie in this revival, and the two-time Tony-winning diva herself Ms. Patti LuPone, who plays Joanne in this production. The 92Y is hosting an exclusive advance screening of the documentary about the making of this Company revival: Keeping Company With Sondheim. The documentary premieres to the public on PBS May 27, but in-person attendees to our event will get to see it followed by an hour-long panel with this trio of women, moderated by me. Get your tickets for Monday, May 23 here! If you are unable to attend in person you can still tune in for the panel that night. 92Y offers virtual tickets to the talkback only. I hope each and every one of you will be there either in person or in spirit. It would mean so much to me for you to support me on this big night.

     Speaking of big nights, you may recall that back in November Spring Awakening celebrated its 15th anniversary with a reunion concert to raise money for The Actors Fund. I was truly truly blessed to sit in the audience that night. The reason I was in the audience is because I was asked by RadicalMedia—the production company producing the HBO documentary about this reunion—to sit for an interview as the journalist talking head to weigh in on the significance and impact of the show. (I didn’t make it into the final cut, but read my full recommendation below as to why you must still watch it.) The documentary, Those You’ve Known: Spring Awakening, dropped on May 3 on HBOMax. (Watch the trailer here.) As fate would have it, that was also the day we all found out of the draft decision by the Supreme Court of the United States to overturn Roe v. Wade.

     You see: The musical follows teenagers in 19th-century Germany who hit puberty and begin to question their bodies, their urges, their emotions, and the authorities around them that try to keep them in the dark and tell them they are wrong and bad for feeling what they do. And yet, these teens find themselves, find love, and find pleasure; they also find suffering, cruelty, shame, and fear. The show confronts it all: masturbation, molestation, depression and suicide, gay romance, straight romance, lust, joy, pleasure, sex, loss, and hope. The show’s own lack of shame in showing it all says to the audience: This is real life. Even if our characters feel shame, you shouldn’t.

     As an 18-year-old, this show blew my mind. Because what it said to me was: You are not crazy for feeling anything you do, you are normal. This is normal. An awakening is normal. The adults who tell you otherwise—or don’t tell you at all—or make you feel crazy are lying. The show is about the dangers of keeping our youth in the dark; of not trusting them to understand; of trying to curtail what is natural. As book writer and lyricist Steven Sater wrote on his Instagram: “Spring Awakening has always been a cry from the heart for fundamental human rights.”

     It’s a cry for freedom. Freedom to simply be—to live by nature instead of society’s contrived rules. This week, we need that cry for freedom.

     The overturn of Roe v Wade is about freedom. Some people in this country will get to do what they want with their bodies and some won’t. It’s not about babies or fetuses or five-year-olds. As someone smarter than I wrote, “You cannot be forced to donate blood, or marrow, or organs even though thousands die every year on waiting lists. They cannot even harvest your organs after your death without your explicit, written, pre-mortem permission. Denying women the right to abortion means we have less bodily autonomy than a corpse.” This is about free will. This is about the fact that people get to make their own decisions. Objects have decisions made to them. This decision strips anyone with a uterus of personhood. And, as many note, it doesn’t prevent abortion, it prevents safe abortion. It will disproportionately affect poor women and women of color. (Listen to the proven economics of it here).

     The coincidence of the dual release (the Decision draft and the documentary) is most pronounced in the fact that, as Sater wrote of his show, “A young girl asks her mother how babies are born, but is met with only lies and deceit—and later dies of a botched backstreet abortion.” Think about what we trade with this decision. Because this ruling will impact other rights—to contraception, same-sex marriage, and on….

     So yes, I am celebrating what is going to be an exciting month to come and I invite you to follow all of my work. But I also invite you to reflect and act. I know some of you, perhaps a majority, have moral objections to an abortion. But that does not have to mean you object to abortion rights—because abortion rights are freedom rights. With that in mind, here are "5 Ways to Protect Abortion Rights." Consider donating to organizations that will fund services for women in states whose abortion trigger bans will activate if Roe is indeed overturned. Lobby your state representatives to enact laws like this one in Connecticut. Give an extra hug to a woman in your life.

     As always, I have podcast updates, article links, videos, this month’s recommendations and the upcoming calendar below. Thank you for reading, following, and supporting. Buy your tickets for May 23! Love and all that jazz, Ruthie

92Y Event

On May 23, Tony-winning actor Katrina Lenk, two-time Tony-winning legend Patti LuPone, and two-time Tony-winning director Marianne Elliott take the stage of the 92Y in Manhattan for a panel moderated by ME!

 

The event begins with an exclusive advanced screening of the new documentary Keeping Company With Sondheim, which goes inside the rehearsal and creation process of the current Broadway revival of Company. 
In-person attendees will get to see the doc ahead of its public release and hear our Talk. Those who can't make it in person can purchase online tickets for the talkback only. Don't miss this! I'm making certain it's epic.

 
Buy Tickets

My best friend Elena and I, age 18, with Jonathan Groff at the stage door after seeing Spring Awakening on Broadway. Click the button to watch the documentary Those You've Known: Spring Awakening on HBOMax.

 
Watch

MJ: The Musical released a video of its opening number. Honestly, it doesn't even do it justice, but...

Why We Theater Season 2

 

Have you listened to the latest? 

 

David Byrne's American Utopia and Expanding Cognition to Solve Problems

 

mini David Byrne's American Utopia meets The Prophet

 

Addressless and Homelessness

 

mini Addressless meets Choose-Your-Own Activity

 

Why We Theater Now: April 2022

Articles You'll Love

 

I've been looking back on some Playbill articles I'm particularly proud of and—since I'd be impressed if anyone has read all of my work—I'm including them here:

 

Jordan Donica Is Broadway's Modern Gentleman

(Fun fact: Jordan is now playing Rapunzel's Prince in Into the Woods at City Center)

 

The Secret to Dear Evan Hansen, Fosse/Verdon, and tick, tick, Boom!... Writer Steven Levenson's Success? Agility.

 

Read My Self-Published Work on Medium

Like my work? Medium's new policy says I have to hit 100 subscribers before I can earn money on my stories. Follow me on Medium so I can keep getting paid to work! Click below.

 
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Recommendations: 

*If these recommendations inspire you to check out something new, I’d love to know! Tag your post about it with #ruthierecommends. (To know the full breadth of what I have already seen, check out my Instagram.)

 

1. Those You’ve Known: Spring Awakening. The 2007 Tony Award-winning Best Musical Spring Awakening is my formative show. It is the show that absolutely changed my life and made me who I am, and this gorgeous documentary, released May 3 on HBOMax, illustrates why. Spring Awakening: Those You’ve Known is an absolute must. I don't care if you're a musical theatre fan. This documentary isn't about that. This is about what happens when we tell kids the truth and when we don't. Because THAT is why the show became a massive hit — it's what we NEEDED and still need. The movie weaves the musical’s plot, the story of *making* the musical, the story of making the 15th Anniversary Reunion Concert, the actual Reunion Concert, and the personal impact of this show on its people all in 83 minutes. I was actually interviewed for the film, as a journalist offering perspective on the show’s success and impact. I didn’t make the final cut; they chose to give Jonathan Groff more screen time—which is more than ok. But you will see my name in the end credits and I am honored to have my name anywhere near this film. You all will recognize the faces in this cast because the show was cannon for each of these performers (Jonathan Groff of Hamilton, Lea Michele of Glee, Gideon Glick of To Kill a Mockingbird and Maisel Season 4, Skylar Astin of Pitch Perfect and Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, recording artist Lauren Pritchard, Krysta Rodriguez of The Addams Family and Hercules, Lilli Cooper of Tootsie and Fraggle Rock, John Gallagher Jr. of American Idiot and The Newsroom). Watching the film conjured the magic of this time in my life. This show said to me, and so many others, you're not crazy. We all feel this. I know it documentary will reassure you in the same way. So watch it. NOW. HBOMax. (Watch the trailer here.)

2. Take Me Out. Consider this a full-throated, big-hearted, unabashed recommendation for this play. A revival of the 2003 play I did not see, I entered knowing only the premise: a pro baseball player comes out. The play begins with the narrator—one of the players on the team modeled after the Yankees—trying to articulate how “the mess” or “the thing” began. Richard Greenberg’s writing is so superb you will think at least four times that you have reached “the thing.” This play actually surprised me in its plot, with legitimately unexpected twists and turns. THAT is fantastic drama. The cast is 100 percent strong links. Jesse Tyler Ferguson is a gift to the theatre. We should never forget how good he is, how locked in he is, how believable he makes every single beat. His power of influence is incredible because whatever he feels, he provokes us to feel, too. The man made me teary over the game of baseball. Patrick J. Adams (Suits) fits snugly into this role and Jesse Williams (Grey’s Anatomy) calibrates ego and ease of his character into charm. Michael Oberholtzer is a name I’ve written down after he owned his character. Julian Chi (Tim Kono! Only Murders in the Building) is measured and sensitive and beautiful. Brandon J. Dirden continues to bring the power and swag. But really, the story is the star here. I urge you to go and see this… to watch it unwind like the most perfect pitch that just takes. you. out. Through June TK at Second Stage Theater Company on Broadway.

3. Harmony: A New Musical. Beautiful and moving, this new musical unearths the lost story if the Comedian Harmonists, an all-male sextet singing group from Germany who rose to fame across Europe and America in the 1920s and 30s, as the world began to collapse. The group is a mix of Jews and gentiles and really portrays assimilation and the shock of Nazis targeting Jews by blood in a new way. It’s a story if friendship and lost music, regret and remembrance playing Off-Broadway at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park. Legend Chip Zien (the original Baker in Into the Woods) leads the cast and holy crap I cannot describe this performance. He leaves it all out there and proves why he is in the hall of masters. Sierra Boggess (The Little Mermaid, The Phantom of the Opera) is elegant as ever. But the exciting triumph of the show (aside from uncovering yet another piece of history I knew nothing about) are the six young men who play the harmonists. (Pay special attention to Danny Kornfeld and Blake Roman.) The voices on these guys demonstrate ridiculous—and all too rare—technique. My ears and heart are grateful. Only through May 15!

4. The Minutes. This new play by Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Letts is a slow burn, such a slow burn I hesitated to put it on the list. But, ultimately, the unsuspecting explosion in the play’s “third act” (it’s only 90 minutes) compels me to put it on the list. The entirety takes place at a town council meeting in a nondescript American everytown called Big Cherry. Much of it is mundane—it’s authentic in its portrayal of small town politics. But when it hits, it pummels and teaches an ugly but necessary lesson about history, who gets to write it, who perpetuates it, and what we’re so damn afraid of.

5. Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe. Patrick Radden Keefe bowled me over with his book Say Nothing, a non-fiction book about the Irish Troubles that read like a thriller. (It was named one of the best books of the decade.) For his next feat, he tackled the history of the Sackler family, the family behind Purdue Pharma and Oxycontin. I cannot imagine how many boxes of research hit his ceiling in his process of writing this and he synthesizes it all into a provocative, thorough, and clear story about how this family not only contributed to (if not created) the opioid epidemic in America, but how they completely transformed medicine and pharmaceuticals through their advent of medical marketing. The most compelling chapters are the earliest, about the three young Sackler boys (Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond) born in the 1910s in Brooklyn and how their unstoppable drive birthed the company and attitude that would change and shock the world.

6. “Still” by Alita Moses. This new single just dropped May 6 from singer and artist Alita Moses, who is currently on tour with five-time Grammy winner Jacob Collier. The track is ethereal and comforting, and her vocals are just incredible. I’ve known Alita since she was in elementary school, my younger sister’s best friend. (West Hartford readers, you’ll remember her from KP concerts and Pops n Jazz.) She has always had an ineffable quality about her voice. It’s effortless and soars with delicate power. I am so unbelievably proud of her success. Listen to her song. It’s a great groove around the house, do a little yoga song. Listen here.

As always, if you need show recommendations or if you have theatre questions, please get in touch! I LOVE to answer. Keep tabs on RuthieFierberg.com. 

Thank you for your enduring support.

Calendar - New York Openings and Re-Openings


BROADWAY

Every show in the 2021–2022 Broadway season is now open!

 

OFF-BROADWAY

 

The Vagrant Trilogy (Now playing through May 15)

The Public Theater

By Mona Mansour, directed by Mark Wing-Davey

"Delves into the Palestinian struggle for home and identity ... a single epic story told in three parts. In 1967, Adham, a Palestinian Wordsworth scholar, goes to London with his new wife to deliver a lecture. When war breaks out at home, he must decide in an instant what to do—a choice that will affect the rest of his life. The two parts that follow explore alternate realities based on that decision." 

 

SUFFS (Now playing; Extended May 15)

The Public Theater

Starring Jenn Colella (Come From Away), Nikki M. James (The Book of Mormon), Grace McLean (The Great Comet) Phillipa Soo (Hamilton) 

Book, music, lyrics by Shaina Taub; Directed by Leigh Silverman (The Lifespan of a Fact); Music direction and supervision by Andrea Grody (my friend, West Hartford native & MD of The Band's Visit)

 

The Lucky Star (Now playing through June 12)

59e59

By Karen Hartman, directed by Noah Himmelstein

Starring Steven Skybell (Yiddish Fiddler on the Roof) and Alexandra Silber (Fiddler on the Roof)

"The discovery of a stash of over two hundred letters in three languages opens clues to an untold history in THE LUCKY STAR — a gripping true story of resilience and determination, a family torn apart by war, fighting to emigrate, escape and survive." 

 

Islander (Now playing through July 30)

"Kirsty Findlay (Olivier Award nominated) and Bethany Tennick (The Stage nominee Best Performer in a Musical) create a world of characters while live-mixing and layering their voices, harnessing looping technology to create a dazzling and unexpected soundscape."

 

Wish You Were Here (Now playing through May 29)

Playwrights Horizons

By Sanaz Toosi (English), directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch

"It’s 1978 and protests are breaking out all across Iran, encroaching on this suburb where a tight-knit circle of girlfriends plans weddings, trades dirty jokes, and tries to hang onto a sense of normalcy. But as the revolution escalates, each woman is forced to join the wave of emigration or face an equally uncertain future at home."

 

Exception to the Rule (Now playing through June 26)

Roundabout Underground

By Dave Harris, directed by Miranda Haymon

"Playwright Dave Harris’s new play crackles with humor and suspense—confronting the tactics for surviving institutions that were not built for you."

 

The Bedwetter (Now playing through July 3)

Atlantic Theater Company

Book by Joshua Harmon (Prayer for the French Republic) and Sarah Silverman

Music by Adam Schlesinger

Lyrics by Sarah Silverman and Adam Schlesinger

Directed by Anne Kauffman, choreographed by Byron Easley

Starring Bebe Neuwirth and Caissie Levy

"Meet Sarah. She’s funny. She’s dirty. She’s 10. And she’s got a secret that you’ll never guess (unless you read the title)."

 

Belfast Girls (May 11–June 26)

Irish Repertory Theatre

By Jaki McCarrik, directed by Nicola Murphy

"1850, on board a ship bound from Belfast to Sydney. Five young women seek to become “mistresses of their own destiny.” But some find they cannot escape the nightmare of the lives they are leaving behind."

 

soft (May 12–June 19)

MCC Theater

By Donja R. Love, directed by Whitney White

"In Mr. Isaiah’s classroom, in the halls of the correctional boarding school where he teaches, and in the depths of his students’ imaginations. After one boy dies by suicide, Mr. Isaiah is committed to saving the students he teaches from a world that tries to crush their softness."

 

what the end will be... (May 12–July 10)

Roundabout Theatre Company

By Mansa Ra, directed by Margot Bordelon

"Three generations of men live under one roof and grapple with their own truths of what it means to be Black and gay." 

 

Fat Ham (May 12–June 12)

By James Ijames, directed by Saheem Ali

"Juicy is a queer, Southern college kid, already grappling with some serious questions of identity, when the ghost of his father shows up in their backyard, demanding that Juicy avenge his murder. It feels like a familiar story to Juicy, well-versed in Hamlet’s woes."

 

Epiphany (Begins May 26)

Lincoln Center Theater

By Brian Watkins, directed by Tyne Rafaeli

"An eager host gathers old friends to try and resuscitate a forgotten tradition. But when the guest of honor is unusually late, the group becomes unmoored, craving answers. And there might not be enough wine, or goose, or time to fend off the long-neglected questions that now haunt their souls."

 

Chasing Andy Warhol (Now playing; Closes June 12)

Immersive theatrical walking tour

Created and directed by Mara Lieberman

 

Just For Us (Another encore engagement June 13–July 23)

Greenwich House Theater

Alex Edelman’s must-see solo show. MUST.

My Philosophy

I believe in art's power to create change. Art—particularly theatre—can help us reflect, determine, and, sometimes, change our beliefs. I hope that you all continue to engage with the storytelling and art around you—wherever you are and whatever level—and that you entertain different points of view. Advocate for your principles while always leaving room to hear others and evolve. Let's stay engaged, thoughtful, and active. 

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