Concluding Aug. 11
The Nance (Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre). Lincoln Center Theater's world-premiere production of Douglas Carter Beane's The Nance stars Tony Award winner Nathan Lane as a gay burlesque performer facing a changing world. According to LCT, "A nance, according to Webster's Dictionary, is 'an effeminate or homosexual man.' In the world of 1930s burlesque, a nance was a wildly popular character, a stereotypically camp homosexual man, most times played by a straight performer. In The Nance, playwright Douglas Carter Beane tells the story of Chauncey Miles, a headline nance performer in New York burlesque, who also happens to be a homosexual. Integrating burlesque sketches into his drama, Beane paints, with humor and pathos, the portrait of a homosexual man, living and working in the secretive and dangerous gay world of 1930s New York, whose outrageous antics on the burlesque stage stand in marked contrast to his messy offstage life." Visit LCT.org.
Choir Boy (Off-Broadway at MTC Stage II at City Center). The American premiere of Tarell Alvin McCraney's Choir Boy, a play with gospel music, features Nicholas L. Ashe, Kyle Beltran, Tony Award winner Chuck Cooper, Grantham Coleman, Austin Pendleton, Jeremy Pope and Wallace Smith. Here's how MTC bills the play: "The Charles R. Drew Prep School for Boys is dedicated to the creation of strong, ethical black men. Pharus (Jeremy Pope) wants nothing more than to take his rightful place as leader of the school's legendary gospel choir. Can he find his way inside the hallowed halls of this institution if he sings in his own key?" Visit NYCityCenter.org.
Nobody Loves You (Off-Broadway at the Tony Kiser Theatre). Second Stage Theatre's New York premiere of the new musical comedy Nobody Loves You, about a grad student who is unexpectedly cast on a reality TV dating show, features Heath Calvert, Bryan Fenkart, Roe Hartrampf, Autumn Hurlbert, Leslie Kritzer, Lauren Molina, Tony nominee Rory O'Malley and Aleque Reid. Nobody Loves You, according to 2ST, "follows a philosophy grad student who auditions for – and surprisingly finds himself cast on – a reality TV dating show, all in an attempt to win back his ex-girlfriend. But when an unexpected on-set love connection threatens to ruin his plan, manufactured drama collides with real emotion in this original new musical." Visit 2ST.com.
