Our home-away-from-home in NYC, the Westin Times Square
We are almost off to NYC. Our home base will be the Westin Times Square, which is less than three blocks from all four theaters we will be attending, as well as most restaurants and many tour destinations. So I just thought I would give you a quick update on everything we are doing. Tours, shows, restaurants and all the other stuff you do when you are taking a “Broadway Tour.” (It also gives me a chance to send out one more post to make sure everything is working here on the website before we go.) As I mentioned in my last post, we will be seeing three musicals and one straight play. For those of you who don’t know what a “straight play” is, that means it’s a drama or comedy that’s not a musical. Here are the shows we are seeing:
The Plays
I had seen an article in the New York Times about all the plays currently on Broadway, but I somehow lost it. Thankfully, Kathleen (the master of the internet) found it for me again. Since the NY Times is behind a paywall, I grabbed their blurbs about our four plays, and here they are. Keep in mind that the links to the reviews are behind the same paywall, so you won’t be able to read them without an NYT subscription. But you can click the play’s title to see its page.
This is the show that tiptoed onto Broadway and quietly took the 2025 Tony for best musical. Robot neighbors in Seoul, nearing obsolescence, tumble into odd-couple friendship in this wistfully romantic charmer of a musical comedy by Will Aronson and Hue Park, starring Darren Criss (through May 17), a Tony winner for his performance, and Hannah Kevitt. With Tony-winning direction by Michael Arden (“Parade”). (At the Belasco Theater.) Read the review.
A sneaky compassion lies at the heart of this caper of a show, a deliciously eccentric London import that won the 2024 Olivier Award for best new musical. Now with an American ensemble, it’s a riff on a bizarre true story from World War II, when British Intelligence, keen to misdirect the Germans, dressed up a dead man as a Royal Marine major, planted a fake invasion plan on him and dropped him in the sea for the enemy to find. Beware the emotional ambush hiding inside its poignant standout number “Dear Bill,” sung by a proper, middle-aged secretary who has been through war before. (At the Golden Theater.) Read the review.
Channeling the deliriously outrageous, emphatically queer downtown spirit of Charles Ludlam and his Ridiculous Theatrical Company, this arch comedy by Cole Escola (“Difficult People”) was a fizzy Off Broadway hit. The title character is a sozzled, stage-struck Mary Todd Lincoln— a very loose cannon largely ignored by her husband, the president (John-Andrew Morrison), who is occupied with assorted sexual exploits and the bothersome Civil War. Maya Rudolph (from SNL, Loot and more) plays the teacher he hires for Mary. Maya Rudolph makes her Broadway debut in the title role from April 28 through June 20. Sam Pinkleton, a Tony winner for this production, directs. (At the Lyceum Theater.) Read the review.
With a song list full of pop hits, this frolicsome musical comedy imagines — with an assist from Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife — what happens when Juliet goes on living sans her Romeo. (At the Stephen Sondheim Theater.) Read the review.
The Food
I can’t believe I almost forgot to mention the food. We have three group dinners and one breakfast included. Break-Away is taking us to Tony’s di Napoli, Marseille, and Bond 45NY. Since our three other dinners are on our own and right before our plays, and some are on Friday and Saturday night, we wanted to make sure we had reservations for those nights. We are eating at the world-famous Sardi’s, a tapas place called Boqueria, and a Greek place on another night called Kellari. We have rounded up some friends and friends of friends to join us at dinners. You will, of course, have complete reports on all of them.
Lots of places to go and lots of things to see!
Tours
Besides the plays, we have numerous tours scheduled for us by Break-Away Tours, the travel company that is taking us to NYC. These include tours of Carnegie Hall, the Top of the Rock, Radio City Music Hall, a private tour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a tour of Lincoln Center and a theater workshop with someone (director, writer, actor) from one of the plays we are seeing. All that, along with a harbor cruise, the 911 Museum, the Museum of Broadway, Whew, I am tired already, and we haven’t even left yet.
I think that about covers it. Expect posts starting on Friday morning from the Westin Times Square, our home for those six nights. We can’t wait.
There’s no place that communicates as much – and as quickly – as Times Square does. — Jan Vogler