This Week on Broadway for March 16, 2025: Ghosts

BROADWAYRADIO

03/16/25

James Marino,Michael Portantiere,Peter Filichia

This Week on Broadway for March 16, 2025: Ghosts

Subscribe: RSS

Peter Filichia, James Marino, and Michael Portantiere talk about Ghosts @ LCT, A Streetcar Named Desire @ BAM, The Triumph of Love @ The Huntington Theatre (Boston), The Jonathan Larson Project @ at the Orpheum Theatre, Have You Met Jane Goodall and Her Mother? @ Ensemble Studio Theatre, What Makes It Great? @ Merkin Concert Hall, and I Can Get It For You Wholesale revival cast recording at Classic Stage Company.

Hamish Linklater and Ella Beatty. Credit to Jeremy Daniel

“This Week on Broadway” has been coming to you every week since 2009. It is the longest-running running Broadway and theatrical podcast with hundreds of shows giving thousands of reviews and interviews.

Subscribe to BroadwayRadio in Apple Podcasts by CLICKING HERE.

Support BroadwayRadio on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/broadwayradio

Patreon listeners get This Week on Broadway first, on Sunday afternoon before it is released to the general public on Sunday evening.

Panel:

Peter Filichia | [email protected] | Facebook
PETER FILICHIA is a playwright, journalist, and historian with a number of books. Peter’s new day-by-day desk calendar – A SHOW TUNE FOR TODAY – 366 Songs to Brighten Your Year – has been released! Peter also has columns at Masterworks Broadway, Broadway Select, and many other places.

Show Tune for Today is: I cannot hear the city from the sweet smell of success

Michael Portantiere | [email protected] | Facebook
MICHAEL PORTANTIERE is a theater reviewer and essayist. He is the founder and editor of CastAlbumReviews.com. He is also a theatrical photographer whose photos have appeared in The New York Times and other major publications. You can see his photography work at FollowSpotPhoto.com.

Nathan Lane’s birthday is Feb 3!

March 22 is Sondheim’s Birthday (and ALW) Every Day A Little Death pub date

James Marino | [email protected] | Facebook
BroadwayStars

Note: This week we had listeners join us while recording. These listeners are Patreon members who support BroadwayRadio. If you would like to join us in the future, become a supporter at Patreon.com/BroadwayRadio.

Pre:

Doug Besterman orchestrated three Broadway shows currently running: Death Becomes Her, Boop, and Smash

Andrew Fox, creator of Slam Frank, The Anne Frank Hip Hop Musical

@slamfrankmusical

Reviews:

Lily Rabe and Billy Crudup. Credit to Jeremy Daniel.

PF + MP: Lincoln Center Theater’s production of Ghosts @ Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, through April 13, 2025

Lincoln Center Theater’s production of GHOSTS, a play by Henrik Ibsen featuring a new version by Mark O’Rowe, directed by Jack O’Brien

GHOSTS features Ella Beatty, Billy Crudup, Levon Hawke, Hamish Linklater and Lily Rabe.

After several years abroad, Helena Alving’s (Lily Rabe) son, Oswald (Levon Hawke), has returned home. He carries with him a terrifying secret. Ibsen’s GHOSTS is a devastating moral thriller in which ideas of love, duty and family are mercilessly put to the test. This new version, written by one of Ireland’s leading playwrights, Mark O’Rowe, and directed by Jack O’Brien, grabs you by the throat from the outset and refuses to let go – all the way to its electrifying climax.

GHOSTS will have sets by John Lee Beatty, costumes by Jess Goldstein, lighting by Japhy Weideman, sound by Mark Bennett and Scott Lehrer, and original music by Mark Bennett. Chris De Camillis will be the Stage Manager.

PF + MP: A Streetcar Named Desire @ BAM, through April 6, 2025

A Streetcar Named Desire
Almeida Theatre Production
By Tennessee Williams
Directed by Rebecca Frecknall

Hot off two sold-out runs in London’s West End, this staggering revival of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire stars Oscar nominee Paul Mescal (Gladiator II, Aftersun, All of Us Strangers) alongside Patsy Ferran (Living, God’s Own Country) and Anjana Vasan (Killing Eve, Black Mirror), arriving at BAM for a limited five-week run.

Olivier Award-winning director Rebecca Frecknall (Cabaret, Summer and Smoke) helms an empathetic and powerful vision of one of the greatest American plays ever written.

Left to right: Vincent Randazzo, Avanthika Srinivasan in The Triumph of Love; directed by Loretta Greco; photo by Liza Voll

PF: The Triumph of Love @ The Huntington Theatre (Boston), through April 6, 2025
Written by Marivaux
Translated by Stephen Wadsworth
Directed by Loretta Greco

MP + PF: The Jonathan Larson Project @ at the Orpheum Theatre, through June 1, 2025

Conceived by Jennifer Ashley Tepper and directed by John Simpkins, the 90-minute musical features more than 20 undiscovered songs by the Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning writer. It celebrates the dozens of unheard songs, unfinished and unproduced musicals, and pop songs found in files and boxes when the visionary writer of RENT died suddenly at the age of 35 in 1996.

The five-person cast features Adam Chanler-Berat, Taylor Iman Jones, Lauren Marcus, Andy Mientus and Jason Tam

This Week on Broadway for December 29, 2024: Jennifer Ashley Tepper

PF: Have You Met Jane Goodall and Her Mother? @ Ensemble Studio Theatre, through March 30, 2025

written by Michael Walek, directed by Linsay Firman*

featuring Brittany K. Allen, Jordan Donaldson, Kristin Griffith, Tommy Heleringer, and Rami Margron

The Tanzanian government allowed Jane Goodall to study chimpanzees in the wild under one condition – she must bring a chaperone. So, Jane invited her mother.

MP: What Makes It Great? @ Merkin Concert Hall

Host Rob Kapilow unravels and explores great musical masterpieces with audiences and performers on stage, asking what makes great music great? He takes listeners inside the music, unraveling, slowing down and recomposing key passages to hear why a piece is so extraordinary. Next, the piece is performed in its entirety, followed by a Q&A with the audience and performers. Characterized by his unique ability to create an “aha” moment for his audiences and collaborators, whatever their level of musical sophistication or naiveté, Kapilow’s work brings music into people’s lives: opening new ears to musical experiences and helping people to listen actively rather than just hear.

PF: Cast Album — I Can Get It For You Wholesale revival cast recording at CSC

Review at Cast Album Reviews by Forrest Hutchinson

News:

Next Week:

JM: All Nighter

Broadway in Memorium

Broadway Leading Ladies headed to PBS / Next to Normal London (Cassie Levy)

Peter’s Brainteaser:

How many musicals that begin with the word “the” have been nominated for the Best Musical Tony but lost it?

That’s not the question: I’ll tell you that two dozen have.

However, if you drop “the” from one of them, you’ll have the name of a racehorse that won a Triple Crown — no, not the Triple Crown whose racetracks are mentioned in BELLS ARE RINGING, but a Triple Crown for three entirely different types of races.
What’s the name of the musical, and the horse that almost had the same name?

Michael’s Musical Moments

The Music of Lerner and Loewe

Music Opener:

OPENER: “Almost Like Being in Love” from BRIGADOON — Jack Cassidy (1957 Studio Cast Recording)