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Saturday, October 12
LAST CHANCE (MA)→ Attention Boston: It’s your last chance to catch “Breaking Bad” star Bryan Cranston play Lyndon B. Johnson in The American Repertory Theater’s production of All The Way. While it is the end for Robert Schenkkan's new play in Beantown, it might not be the end for Cranston and our 36th President… rumors of a Broadway transfer are imminent. (Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle St., Cambridge, MA. Info/tickets.)
GO (CA)→ Hugh Jackman takes his song-and-dance show on the road with Hugh Jackman…One Night Only. The concert, a benefit for the Motion Picture & Television Fund (MPTF), will feature the Tony winner’s famous Broadway razzle-dazzle in starry Hollywood. (8 PM, Dolby Theatre, 6801 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA. Info/tickets.)
Sunday, October 13
LAST CHANCE→ The life of Shlomo Carlebach, a German Jew who escaped the Nazis to come to America to become a spiritual leader and soul music pioneer, is at the center of the new musical Soul Doctor. Eric Anderson gives a magnetic performance as Carlebach, who strikes up a friendship with a young soul singer named Nina Simone (a jaw-droopingly good Amber Iman). (Circle in the Square Theatre, 1633 Broadway at 50th St. Click here for Playbill Club discount tickets.)
LAST CHANCE→ The true-life friendship between a young Muhammad Ali and aging comedian Stepin Fetchit makes up Will Power’s new play Fetch Clay, Make Man. Ray Fisher, K. Todd Freeman and Tony winner Nikki M. James star and Des McAnuff directs the tale of two controversial and complicated African-American iconoclasts struggling with the racial tensions of the 1960s. (New York Theatre Workshop, 79 E. 4th St. Click here for Playbill Club discount tickets.) Monday, October 14
PREVIEWS→ The world faces a deliciously over-the-top ending (read: killer bees, tidal waves, shark attacks, etc.) in the campy new Off-Broadway musical Disaster! Playbill’s own Seth Rudetsky stars and co-wrote (with Jack Plotnick) the jukebox musical that pulls from disco and rock hits of the 1970s like “Hot Stuff,” “I Am Woman,” “Knock on Wood” and “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” to describe the groovy and grim scene onboard a floating discotheque. Officially opens Nov. 4. (St. Luke’s Theatre, 308 W. 46th St., btwn. Broadway & 8th Ave. Click here for Playbill Club discount tickets.)
GO→ The sisters Garland — Liza Minnelli and Lorna Luft — reunite onstage for the first time in 20 years for the 2013 edition of the Actors Fund annual concert Nothing Like a Dame. Luft hosts the evening’s festivities, dubbed Lorna’s Pink Party, that also boasts appearances by fellow sister act Ann Hampton Callaway and Liz Callaway, Jim Caruso, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Phyllis Newman and Marcia Strassman. Proceeds benefit the Phyllis Newman Women’s Health Initiative and the Dr. Philomena McAndrew Fund of Tower Cancer Research Foundation. (Repeat performance Oct. 21, Birdland, 315 W. 44th St., between 8th & 9th Aves. Info.)
GO (FREE)→ The stars of the latest stage incarnation of Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years — Adam Kantor and Betsy Wolfe — perform songs from the cult musical’s new cast album. (4 PM, Barnes and Noble, 150 E. 86th St. Info.)
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PREVIEWS→ Two-time Tony Award winner Mark Rylance begins his marathon performance of the Bard with the first of two performances direct from Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. Rylance will play Olivia and Richard, Duke of Gloucester, respectively, in the Globe’s celebrated all-male versions of Twelfth Night (beginning Oct. 15) and Richard III (beginning Oct. 19). Officially opens Nov. 10. (Belasco Theatre, 111 W. 44th St., btwn. 6th & 7th Aves. Click here for Playbill Club discount tickets.)
GO (FREE)→ Here’s your chance to catch a musical in the making for free! Nancy Opel, Steve Blanchard and Bryce Ryness are among those Broadway folks on hand for a free staged reading of the new musical comedy Bleeding Love. (LABA Theatre at the 14th Street Y, 314 E. 14th St., btwn. 1st & 2nd Aves., reservation required. Info.)
Wednesday, October 16
OPENING→ Elizabeth Olsen and Julian Chi star as the title lovers in Classic Stage Company’s production of Romeo and Juliet. Joining the doomed lovers in fair Verona are Daphne Rubin-Vega (as the Nurse), T.R. Knight (as Mercutio), Daniel Davis (as Friar Laurence) and David Garrison (as Lord Capulet). (Through Nov. 10, Classic Stage Company, 136 E. 13th St., btwn. 3rd & 4th Aves. Click here for Playbill Club discount tickets.)
Thursday, October 17
OPENING→ Tony winner Roger Rees and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio star in the Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of Terence Rattigan’s The Winslow Boy. Rees plays the devoted father of the title character who finds himself in legal trouble following a petty crime. Lindsay Posner directs Rattigan’s classic play, inspired by a real-life event, that hasn’t been seen on Broadway in over 60 years. (American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42nd St., btwn. 7th & 8th Aves. Click here for Playbill Club discount tickets.)
Friday, October 18
PREVIEWS→ Fantasia Barrino and Dulé Hill star in After Midnight, Wynton Marsalis’ love letter to the Harlem Renaissance. Warren Carlyle is at the helm of the new musical that puts a fresh spin on the jazz and swing music of Duke Ellington’s famous Cotton Club of the 1920s and 30s. Officially opens Nov. 3. (Brooks Atkinson Theatre, 256 W. 47th St., btwn. Broadway & 8th Aves. Info/tickets.)
WATCH→ The PBS Arts Fall Festival kicks off a seven-week culture marathon highlighting everything from Broadway to Babs! Host Anna Deavere Smith will begin the series this Friday with Julie Andrews, Audra McDonald, David Hyde Pierce, Josh Groban, Itzhak Perlman, Michael Bublé and others celebrating 40 years of "Great Performances." Continuing every Friday throughout October and November, viewers can expect a look at Stephen Sondheim’s Company with the New York Philharmonic, Moby-Dick from San Francisco Opera and a finale of all finales with the airing of Barbra Streisand's Back to Brooklyn concert! (9PM ET, check local listings. Info.)
Blake Ross is the editor of Playbill magazine. Follow her on Twitter @PlaybillBlake.
The stars of Broadway's After Midnight chat with Playbill Video:
