Beaches, the musical, is not bad but it is fatally misguided. Its source material –  Iris Rainer Dart’s 1985 novel, later adapted into a cult film starring Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey – has retained its melodramatic grip on culture, if only for its Grammy-winning theme, “Wind Beneath My Wings.” It even shares the same threads of a female friendship spun throughout decades with this century’s most wildly successful Broadway adaptation, Wicked. But even with Dart returning to write the stage show’s book and lyrics (Thom Thomas assisting with the latter), it is very hard to care about anything onstage.

This is not the fault of its hard-working cast, led by Jessica Vosk (in the Midler role) and Kelli Barrett (in Hershey’s). A decade or so ago, when cynical exercises in screen-to-stage adaptations were popping up like Hollywood herpes (have we found a cure for Ghost: The Musical?), this would have been one of the better ones. It’s perfectly harmless, and just as forgettable.  Impressively, it took two directors, Lonny Price and Matt Cowart, to helm an underwhelming production which hobbles itself at nearly every turn.

Because, yes, we knew this was meant to tour as soon as its limited Broadway run closed, so James Noone’s set (designed to stay out of the way of David Bengali’s hideous projections) is ready to pack up and hit the road. Should anyone in the touring cast fall ill, Mike Stoller’s bland score and Jennifer Rias’ choreography can be performed by most passersby within a mile of your city’s performing arts center. Tracy Christensen’s costumes can be found at Sears right now, J. Jared Janas’ wigs at the Party City next door, and even the shadiest non-union house can quickly rig up Ken Billington’s lighting designs.

It’s a matter of a production playing us for suckers, and these poor performers getting socked in their stead. Vosk, particularly, though bereft of material to leave much of an impression, acquits herself as a strong lead. Her Cee Cee Bloom, a blowsy Jersey gal born for the stage, belts to the rafters and has charisma to spare. Try as the production’s marketing might to ignore the film, her raised-in-a-gay-bar cheek and series of flaming hairdos are pure Midler. In the musical’s best scene, when Cee Cee exposes her romantic Achilles’ heel and throws herself at the handsome John (Brent Thiessen), Vosk briefly attains the aching vulnerability of Barbra-as-Fanny’s star.

A small cast can usually be a practical matter, but why cast two actors to play the ladies’ teenage selves (Bailey Ryon and Emma Ogea) in, essentially, cameos instead of redirecting those funds toward more adults in the ensemble? The result is dismal group scenes and a criminal overreliance on wig-shifting from Thiessen, Ben Jacoby, Sarah Bockel and Lael Van Keuren (as the leads’ mothers), and especially Zurin Villanueva, who heroically whips up genuine comedy from the approximately twelve bit roles she’s made to play.

Why start the show with a rollicking Vosk song only to screech to a halt with two kid numbers, the first a grating ballad? The leads’ child versions are pretty winning, even if they evoke the queasy feeling of watching a youth pageant. Little Cee Cee (Samantha Schwartz), especially, is a sparky scene-stealer unfortunately saddled with an FBI raid’s wardrobe and a litany of swears in search of comedy.

Barrett, while appropriately prim for the WASPy Bertie White, doesn’t have nearly enough to work with, and their friendship suffers as a result. We’re meant to value her commitment to family and stability – the things star-on-the-rise Cee Cee will gleefully throw away – even as she dooms herself to family expectations and a jerk of a husband (Ben Jacoby). But her songs lack character, and her storyline takes a backseat to Cee Cee’s more obviously pyrotechnic one, and we’re left wondering what about her could lift up anyone’s wings.

That is, of course, until the finale, when the sands of time have eroded her health and Dart’s plot goes full tearjerker. But, by then, to paraphrase another improbably successful ‘80s shlockfest, the tears one might have shed for their dark fate grow cold and turn to tears of bewilderment.

Beaches is in performance through September 6, 2026 at the Majestic Theatre on West 44th Street in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here.

They say woke is dead. David Lindsay-Abaire has other ideas. 

Lindsay-Abaire’s new play The Balusters makes a highly entertaining if specious argument for the eventual triumph—bad-faith cultural backlash be damned—of social justice in left-leaning America. Solidly staged by director Kenny Leon, this world premiere from Manhattan Theatre Club is witty and always engaging, though its ham-fistedness might leave you longing for the nuance of Lindsay-Abaire’s past triumphs.

Lindsay-Abaire’s masterwork is surely the 2011 play Good People, a devastating dissection of class division in South Boston memorably led on Broadway by Frances McDormard (also at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, where Balusters now makes its home). A Pulitzer winner for his finely-built weepy Rabbit Hole, Lindsay-Abaire knows how to deliver a satisfying living-room smackdown. But he also has a wacky streak, evidenced by the playwright’s darkly comic 2001 work Kimberly Akimbo (and its 2021 musical adaptation, for which Lindsay-Abaire wrote the book), along with the slapstick silliness of his 2015 play Ripcord.

The Balusters is a collision of these two aesthetics, as though Lindsay-Abaire’s proficiency for well-made plays is battling it out, moment for moment, against that penchant for wacked-out fun. The result is a welcome blend of highbrow and low. And that tonal mismash proves fitting for Lindsay-Abaire’s setting, a Neighborhood Association Group in the (fictional) suburban enclave of Vernon Point—a place where very privileged people are very serious about very trivial matters. In Vernon Point, the notion of a neighbor installing, gasp, "Aluminium siding on a Victorian!” is enough to throw certain residents into hysterics. 

The preservationist-versus-progress fracas at the play’s center is set off by a new arrival, Kyra (Anika Noni Rose), who suggests installing a stop sign on a corner near her home. Kyra is alarmed, quite reasonably, by speeding drivers hurtling through the intersection. But longtime President of the Neighborhood Association, Elliott (Richard Thomas), is far more dismayed by the prospect of spoiling a perfectly preserved esplanade. Looking down their street, he explains to Kyra, is “like standing in an old postcard.” 

We’re not exactly in the land of delicate nuance here. When Elliott starts raging (albeit with a plastered, polite smile on his face) against a neighbor’s installation of period-inaccurate balusters on their porch, he declares: “The balusters are important—they hold everything up.” Subtle stuff. 

Kyra’s proposal sets off a well-mannered battle between herself and Elliott that escalates, gradually, into full-on emotional warfare. Other members of the Association are forced (or in some cases, are all too happy) to pick a side. An over-qualified ensemble of season theater veterans are here enjoying themselves immensely, with standouts including the razor-sharp Jenna Yi, a dryly hilarious Carl Clemons-Hopkins and a carefully controlled Maria-Christina Oliveras. 

I was especially thrilled by the always excellent Michael Esper as mild-mannered Alan, who grows increasingly frazzled every time his security updates are interrupted. Alan finally snaps when he is accused by Willow, the group’s resident “PC scold” (played meekly by an underserved Kayli Carter), of the worst crime imaginable: hurtful microaggressions. 

In terms of humor, Lindsay-Abaire pitches the tonal balance near perfectly. Everyone gets their turn as the target of sharp barbs: the over-sensitive Willow, driven to tears by an accusation of performative allyship; the imperious Ruth (Margaret Colin), whose constant insults are exposed as weakly defenses; and even Kyra herself, whose outward pretence of good manners is carefully punctured. In truth, Kyra likes a bit of drama, like all of them (and just like us). And it’s great fun when the play devolves into a diva-off between Rose and Thomas, who is in his element. 

Yet reflecting on the play after viewing, the takeaway starts to feel muddy. Sure, Lindsay-Abaire has his equal opportunity fun mocking all these various open-minded denizens of this closed-off community. But ultimately, Elliott is cleanly presented as our villain, a brick wall of dogmatic resistance to even the most gradual change. Elliott becomes an easy avatar for all the old, white leaders who refuse to step aside and make space for fresh leadership. He must be brought down, and when he is, we shall all triumphantly applaud. 

None of that is wrong, but it is maybe a little easy.  More fatally, Lindsay-Abaire has never really given us a fully-rounded sense of Kyra, a character who feels half-formed despite the best efforts of Rose (first-rate as always). There are glimpses here and there, especially in Rose’s flashes of righteous anger, of a more complex characterization. But by the end, she feels more like a representation of generalized “change.” Meanwhile the villainous Elliott, for all his awfulness, always feels like a real person. His obstinance is placed in a fuller cultural context than any understanding Lindsay-Abaire can access in writing Kyra. 

The Balusters concludes with a victory for social justice and the raising up of marginalized voices in a manner that feels tidy. It’s satisfying, yes—and perhaps Lindsay-Abaire is allowing himself a bit of fantasy by pushing that still-raging right-wing backlash out of his narrative frame. But great satire surely has to confront the ugliness, not pretend it away. The culture wars are still raging, and there is no victory in sight—nice as that might be to imagine. 

The Balusters is now in performance at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on West 47th Street in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here. 

Seems like some more felines are headed to Broadway, kinda. This morning, it was announced that production company Seaview will lead a revival of Tennessee Williams’ Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, directed by Tony Award Winner Sam Gold. 

This strictly limited engagement in Spring of 2027 will reunite Gold with Seaview, following their collaborations on An Enemy of the People and Romeo + Juliet. Additional casting and creative team information will be announced at a later date. 

“Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is the pinnacle of what the theatre can do. Two of the greatest roles for actors in the cannon, delivered to us by the world’s most original playwright,  at the very height of his poetic powers, exploring themes that feel as shockingly honest and blood boiling today as they did 70 years ago”, states Sam Gold. “I couldn't be more excited to bring this masterpiece back to New York next season.”

“It's been such a gift to be making work with Sam Gold over the last four years,” said Greg Nobile Seaview’s co-founder and CEO. “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof will mark our fifth production together, and I am certain Sam's vision to bring Tennessee's extraordinary and timeless characters to life next season will once again thrill and delight audiences.”

“We’re thrilled to partner with Sam and Greg and their teams on this production,” said Michael Barra, CEO of ILP Theatrical. “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is among Williams’ most iconic works, and as such we’ve taken great care to place it in the right hands for its return to New York after fourteen years. We’re so excited for audiences to see Sam’s vision come to life on Broadway next season!”