Daily Archives: August 30, 2021

How we respond to this moment is what our grandkids are going to ask us about, the Tony Award-winning actor and director Ruben Santiago-Hudson said, on Tuesday, during the latest installment of The New Yorker Live, the magazines monthly event series for subscribers. Broadway is preparing to reopen next month, after the pandemic forced theatres to take a year-and-a-half-long hiatus, and the industry faces a changed world. Santiago-Hudson and David Byrne, the musician and producer best known as the front man of the Talking Heads, joined the New Yorker staff writer Vinson Cunningham to discuss how they hope to shape the contours of this age.

I will not allow Broadway, or any theatre, to assume that they can come back with the same attitudes that they had prior to the pandemic, and prior to the racial strife that tore this country apart, Santiago-Hudson said. His noted solo show Lackawanna Blues, an autobiographical, blues-inspired play about the woman who raised him, returns on September 14th. American cultural institutions are reckoning with racial injustice and looking for ways to address it, both in the substance of their work and in the way that their organizations operate. Santiago-Hudson said that he had called on the Manhattan Theatre Club, which is presenting his show, to rise to the challenges of the moment: Acknowledge the land youre on; acknowledge the labor that built this country. Look at your staff and revaluate the percentages in there. Revaluate the parity of men and women; look at the pay-scale differences. Look at what youre developing, where youre seeking your art from. What does your board look like? But, he added, One thing I know for certain: they want change as well.

Byrne said that the events of 2020 and 2021 have altered his perspective on his own show, the Tony-winning theatrical concert American Utopia, a performance based on Byrnes 2018 studio album of the same name. Adapted by Spike Lee into a film for HBO last year, the live show, which combines themes of protest with a tone of resilience and joy, reopens, at the St. James Theatre, on September 17th. Some of the things that I address in the showwhether its voting, race, immigration, all those thingsare, if anything, more relevant, more of the moment than they were then, he said. Which is kind of hard to believe.

The two also discussed the public-health challenges of reopening theatres while the Delta variant is spreading, and why the communal experience of live performance is irreplaceable. Both are eager for Broadway to returnsafely, of course, in accordance with the guidance of the Actors Equity union and the C.D.C., including mask wearing for audience members and special protocols for ticket taking. And yet the need that we have to be together is justits overwhelming, Byrne said. It really is part of who we are.

The clip above includes highlights from the New Yorker Live discussion, including how the Broadway community fared during the shutdown, how to speak the truth through songwriting, and why its important to make art that reflects what the country looks like. Subscribers to The New Yorker can watch the full conversation, as well as all previous installments of The New Yorker Live, at newyorker.com/live. Check the page in the weeks ahead for details about upcoming events, and subscribe to gain access.

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Watch Highlights: The Return of Broadway at The New Yorker Live - The New Yorker

In the winter of 2004, Akash Kapur and his wife Auralice moved to Auroville, not to look for something new, but to look into the past. Both of them had grown up in Auroville; the latter leaving after the sudden death of her parents, John Walker and Diane Maes, when she was 14. Like the rest of their community, they never really understood those deaths. This is the mystery Akash Kapur sets out to solve in Better to Have Gone and slowly they come to understand how the tragic individual fates of John and Diane intersected with the collective history of their town. This is a book about the human cost of our age-old quest for a more perfect world. It probes the under-explored yet universal idea of utopia, and portrays in vivid detail the daily life of one utopian community.

The ghats, sometimes buzzing with mortal activity, sometimes deathly calm, the lanes lined with wall in the hole shops promising nirvana, the many temples, the sadhus, the urban populace, the fleeting visitors... Banaras is a living landscape, with elements of antiquity, symbolism and built-in environments created and recreated by agencies that have made it the city that millions throng. In Banaras: Of Gods, Humans and Stories, author Nilosree Biswas and photographer Irfan Nabi discern the engaging narrative of a unique chromosome that makes Banaras. Written about so many times, the book is the authors attempt to understand a city that has intrigued her since childhood, so much so that she goes back to it again and again.

by Nilosree Biswas

& Irfan Nabi.

Niyogi Books.

Pages 240. Rs1,750

Published in 1972, this book is the last of Mahadevi Varmas prose works, and the most neglected as well. However, it is a work that demanded attention, for in the preface to the book she writes that all her prose stems from her writings about animals. The book, aptly titled Mera Parivaar, brings together her world of animals, her family. The relationship that began with saving a chick in her childhood persisted till the very end of her life. Animals were the only beings permitted beyond the living room of her house; Gillu the squirrel being the special one who ate off her plate, died clinging to her finger. This work sprang from the fount of Varmas feelings for animals. It has been translated into English for the first time by Ruth Vanita, a professor at the University of Montana.

by Mahadevi Varma.

Translated by Ruth Vanita.

Penguin Random House.

Pages 168. Rs399

With the political patterns beginning to worry, with the Muslim community being made to feel threatened for being the other, it was important for author Humra Quraishi to help people comprehend the ground realities of present times. Quraishi says she had never imagined that a day would come when she, an Indian Muslim, would be looked upon as a suspect just because she greeted with a loud and clear As-Salaam-Alaikum, or because she was critical of the government of the day. In the recent past, several Muslim scholars have tried to reason being a Muslim in India. This book is based on the authors writings of the last many years, including on the living conditions of Muslisms and the challenges they face in everyday life.

the Largest Minority Community in India

by Humra Quraishi.

Aakar Books.

Pages 292. Rs595

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Backflap - The Tribune

When she first came to India in 1963 to stay for a year, Gail Omvedt was 22 years old. Earlier, she had been a student at Carleton College, where that other great scholar of anti-caste movements, Eleanor Zelliot, was teaching. Her journey east presaged other such crossings, notably by seekers of various kinds, including musicians and music lovers.

For her part, she returned to university and enrolled for graduate study at the University of California at Berkeley, and did not come back to India until 1971 to begin work on her dissertation on the Non-Brahman Movement in that part of the country. This would go on to become a pioneering study in English, of Mahatma Phule and his movement: Cultural Revolt in a Colonial Society: The Non-Brahman Movement in Western India, 1873-1930.

But Omvedt did not only work at her research. The tumultuous politics of the times engrossed her attention and soon she found herself attending meetings held by trade unions, new Left formations and anti-caste groups in Maharashtra.

Having come of political age in the United States of the 1960s, she turned her attention to the most important contradictions that marked the social order in India: of caste and gender. And as she grappled with these divisions she realised that existing frameworks of analysis, Marxist or feminist, as she had known them, were not adequate to unravel the conundrum of inequality exemplified in the caste order, or indeed to the bewildering and complex operations of patriarchy in the Indian context.

In a note that she wrote to the Canadian feminist zine, Off Our Backs in 1985, she observed that the inadequacy of Left theorising was being increasingly felt in India, and not only in feminist circles but also amongst those engaged in peoples science and health movements, in environmental circles and those fighting religious chauvinism and casteism. As to what feminism could offer, she conceded, was not clear either, but it was a terrain worth exploring.

And explore she did, spending time with womens groups and movements, thinking along with others, fellow feminists, trade unionists, women labourers, domestic workers, students and this exploration is writ large in her 1979-80 publication, We shall Smash this Prison: Indian Women in Struggle.

Meanwhile, she raised a plethora of questions, impelled by the feminist politics that came to be, from the late 1970s, and was focused on womens sexual subordination, in the family and elsewhere. Women were sexually exploited and cultural oppressed, but not always in the same way. Lower caste, Dalit and working-class women were subject to what she termed social patriarchy, while women from the upper castes were subject to the punitive ethics of the family (see her remarkable Violence against Women: New Movements and New Theories in India, published in 1990).

She looked to the writings of the historian Sharad Patil to understand the making of a social structure that was shaped by caste hierarchies on the one hand, and conjugal and familial arrangements, on the other.

It was not that she agreed with him entirely, but his Dasa-Shudra Slavery opened up ways of thinking about family and caste, and as important to her, suggested how one might rework Engels theory of the origin of family, private property and the state.

Meanwhile, she remained a purveyor of anti-caste politics in the present, even as she wrote of its pasts, of Phule and Shahu Maharaj, and subsequently of Ambedkar: and called attention to the various ways in which it had come to permeate popular struggles, whether of the Bahujan Samaj Party, or the Bahujan Mahasangh, or of peasant organising.

This latter came to absorb her attention in the late 1980s and thereafter, when, along with her husband, Bharat Patankar, she was drawn to peasant protests. Sharad Joshis Shetkari Sanghatna appeared to her an interesting experiment in viable agrarian populism, and she was particularly admiring of how it mobilised women to its ranks and the manner in which the organisation addressed womens claims on land and their assertion of equality and dignity, within the home and the community.

She was watchful too of environmental struggles, but while she was taken with their logic, could not always abide by their reasoning. In the 1980s, along with many others, including her mother-in-law, Indutai Patankar, she co-founded the Shramik Mukti Dal, a toilers movement, which sought to address issues to do with drought, water use and the shrinking of the commons, on account of various development projects, including dams and power projects.

The practical work undertaken under the aegis of the movement, and the example set by other such efforts, supported by non-conventional Left groups, such as the Lal Nishan Party, led her to theorise issues to do with development, science and progress in two ways: in the circumstances given to the populace, and how they might work with these, without conceding the justness of their demands and also with regard to the greater common good that looked to the interests of small producers, the working poor and women, especially the most marginal amongst the latter, single, deserted and widowed individuals.

Through the 1980s and even after, she kept up with writings on peasant struggles, concerns and resistance: the pages of the Economic and Political Weekly and the Journal of Peasant Studies bear witness to her incessant commitment to justice for agrarian India. And here, she had to confront, parley with and fight back arguments that challenged her own: from Marxist theorists, fellow sociologists and other equally keen watchers of the Indian agrarian scene, such as the late K Balagopal.

The 1990s saw Omvedt look to a different sort of scholarship: while she continued to be interested in peoples movements, the lives of women and matters to do with the environment, the stubborn casteism of Indias elites, on full display during the Mandal-Masjid years, led her to focus on all matters that she had hitherto been concerned with, from the point of view of social justice.

Whether economic growth and distributive justice, democracy and freedom, sexual equality and emancipation from patriarchy: these were to be realised in and through measures that brought material relief, social uplift and cultural freedom to the Bahujan-Dalits of India. Her scholarship too came to be focused on these matters: Dalit Visions: the Anti-caste movement and Indian Cultural Identity, Dalits and the Democratic Revolution: Dr Ambedkar and The Dalit Movement in Colonial India and Ambedkar: Towards an Enlightened India were all products of these years.

An interesting transitional volume in this regard was Reinventing Revolution: New Social Movements, which signalled perhaps for the last time, her desire to retain dialogic engagement with the Left and various peoples movements.

But given that such dialogues as she envisaged, especially with the Left and with feminists, did not quite unfold in the manner she imagined they would, she crossed this threshold to move on to another way of political being and writing.

This period also saw her writing in the popular press the lively column she wrote for The Hindu in the late 1990s featured many valuable and at times contentious observations about faith, caste, social habit, belief and Hindu philosophy.

Meanwhile, she honed this manner of writing, creating, as she remarked, a hybrid genre that combined expert scholarship and activist journalism and which found its fulsome expression in two volumes, both published in the new millennium: Buddhism: Challenging Brahmanism and Caste and the fervently written, Seeking Begumpura: The Social Vision of Anticaste Intellectuals.

She also created a blog by the same name and kept it active until a few years ago. Subsequently, she wrote a pedagogic book, on caste through history, and her last work appears to have been translations of Tukaram.

Omvedt wrote and thought in context: her writing was situated and addressed particular realities. But she ensured that the present, whatever moment it was that she was addressing, was not folded into itself. She placed it in times unfolding, looking beyond and after: a fine instance of this manner of expounding the moment is to be had in an essay that examines the reasons for the Bahujan Samaj Party wanting to name the University of Kolhapur after Shahu Maharaj.

But rather than only focus on the politics of the hour, she uses the occasion to dwell on Shahu and his historical role (Economic and Political Weekly, August 13, 1994). Or consider her early essay on Maratha assertion in the 1980s: she takes us through the making of Maratha identity, and pulls in developments from the 19th century into her story, differentiates between identity markers in the past and present, points to the way such assertion looked to align with or keep away Dalits and through his remarkable sociological and historical journey she folds the present into an ongoing dialectic of caste and secularity (Economic and Political Weekly, February 6, 1982).

Her studies of Phule and his times, the non-brahmans in Bombay union politics, the relationship between Communists, nationalists and the Non Brahman Movement are very valuable for what they tell us about the emergence of a distinctive third sort of politics in late colonial India.

As much as nationalism and communism, the anti-caste assertion was a response to the times, and its adherents straddled several political traditions, seeking to align them along the plane of a common justice. Omvedt might be said to have rendered anti-casteism a formidable political and cultural tradition of dissent, and one that had its own vision for the India to be.

That meant that it could not be viewed only in terms of its relationship to colonialism: rather it had to be understood as offering a substantive critique of the internal logic of Indian society and by that token, pushing at the boundaries of words such as freedom and equality.

These words, Omvedts work makes clear, have to be understood in more expansive ways. Political liberty did not translate automatically into social emancipation: this latter had to be fought for and won on the terrain of the nation-to-be. Likewise, equality could not be construed only in terms of what was being denied to subject peoples: it was to be realised by the subject peoples in their relationship to each other as well.

Perhaps Omvedts most contentious writings have to do with the land, caste, class and gender questions: and while her gender politics is less contested, her arguments on Indias agrarian worlds have elicited sharp commentary and critique, chiefly from the Left. However, in order to understand her theorising of peasant worlds, as also her Marxism, as these were expressed in the 1980s, we need to also locate her in context: she examined Indian arguments within the broader context of an evolving Asian Socialism.

The contours of this latter had been sketched in briefly in independent Left circles in the United States in the 1960s, and amongst the many who argued for various sorts of socialisms was the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars. This comprised a group of academics who came together to set themselves against US policy in Asia that was clearly anti-communist and which viewed Asian Studies as a discipline that ought to aid its cold war objectives.

These men and women eventually came to be found in the late 1960s, the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars. Omvedt wrote for the Bulletin from the early 1970s, and well into the 1990s, and her views on Communism were shaped by the comparative histories of the present that its pages presented.

Developments in China, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines pointed to the need to revalue socialist arguments that had emerged in European and Russian contexts, and Omvedt saw her own work as doing this for India. She made it clear that the view from the field cannot be adduced from theoretical claims or indeed from tidy socialist concepts.

And it was precisely on this score that she entered into lively debates with the Indian Left: that the actual details of the geography that they were concerned with ought to be heeded before any large theoretical claim could be made, about class attitudes or about exploitation (See her review essay, Marxism and the Analysis of South Asia, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 4:4, 1974).

This was evident not only in her essays on Maharashtras agrarian worlds but also in other terrains where Left intellectuals held on to broad conceptual arguments, without quite heeding the specificity of developments on the ground. Omvedt took critical measure of such an oversight, when she took on Amalendu Guhas views on the Assam agitation (Economic and Political Weekly, March 28, 1981).

And by the same token, she sought to underscore the limits of Left reasoning in the Sri Lankan context, in a short but densely argued essay on the Tamil problem. The right to self-determination, she noted, cannot be reduced to class politics merely, but had to be adduced in its relation to the totality that it sought to criticise and hold accountable (Economic and Political Weekly, October 23, 1982).

Her writings on peasant movements have been criticised and lauded: and in view of the current farmers agitations, her exchanges with Balagopal in Economic and Political Weekly acquire significance: Balagopal did not take kindly to her view of the peasant movement as capable of speaking for, and representing all those who made up the agrarian community.

Agricultural labourers, he held, could not be spoken for thus. And neither did he think that the caste divisions with agrarian society could be subsumed easily with the putative notion of a Bharat that was yet different from India. He did not also imagine that the peasantry might be viewed as such, and pointed to how it was stratified along class and caste lines (Economic and Political Weekly, September 10, 1988). Omvedts reasoning drew on arguments that partially, at least, have been made in the context of other peasant struggles, particularly by Swami Sahajanand and others in the 1940s.

But she also sought to make a case for the peasant producer in himself, as a deserving agency and right to mediate his world without interference from a domineering and elitist state and enter into a social market on his own terms. And this proved a difficult argument to sustain, given the nature of the market as Jairus Banaji (Journal of Peasant Studies, Volume 17) and Paresh Chattopadhyay (Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, Volume 27) pointed out.

Yet the questions she raised, of the elitist state, its casteist biases, and the parasitic plundering of agrarian resources, have remained with us. In addition, her clear-eyed sense of what land means to women, and the value of their labour are matters that have not been sufficiently addressed by the Left (See Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 29).

Also, it must be said that her view of the peasant universe was nuanced: her reviews of the published literature on agrarian issues in Tamil Nadu and Bihar are testimony to how closely she followed developments in these regions.

In this context, we need to acknowledge how her work features aspects of feminist political-economic thought, and here she shared common ground with others of her time, particularly Maria Mies and Bina Agarwal.

Feminist political economy in the Indian context needs to be valued for its unique insights, and this is something that we have been made aware of, this last decade, in and through Ranjana Padhis work on the widowed farmers of the Punjab, Those Who did not Die and Dolly Kikons Living with Oil.

Gail Omvedts journey in politics and thought was undertaken in and through several historical conjunctures, but she retained aspects of all her stopovers: in her view, these various sites of sojourn, whether feminist, Marxist, Phule-Ambedkarism, were united in their vision of utopia: a world that ought to be rendered real, in times to come, but for which one needs to labour in the present.

While reason and analysis were central to divining the nature of this world-to-be, it yet had to be desired, longed for and in this passionate wanting, lay the potential for political comradeship. And this is where the struggle against caste and patriarchy came together: for it was in the remaking of caste and gendered selves that the promise of utopia stood to be redeemed.

This article first appeared on RAIOT.

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Land, caste, class and gender Gail Omvedts writings were united in their vision of utopia - Scroll.in

The federal government of today would disturb our founding fathers. The federal government has grown uncontrollably over the last several decades at the expense of both the states and the people. Our nation has almost $30 trillion in debt but President Joe Bidens administration wants to add trillions of dollars in new spending.

The new social programs and government money in your pockets is a great enticement. The words of the socialists are alluring, even utopian. But this is not what has made us the envy of the world. There will be no upward mobility for the masses in socialism, as there is in our current capitalist system. America provides an opportunity to each individual to find their own utopia within themselves.

The American people must fight the expansion of the federal government and Marxism. If we give up on our founding principles, we will give up our liberty. If we give up our self-reliance to the government, we will lose our individualism. If we do not hold our government accountable, we will lose our republic. Benjamin Franklin once said, When people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.

Washington has a bad track record of spending our tax money. Why do we think that will change? The federal government must be reformed by reducing the administrative state. The consequences of not defeating government expansion and this Marxist insurrection are too high. Our liberty, our individualism and our republic are at risk.

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Gov't expansion through spending threatens our republic - The Daily Advance

After an 18-month-long shutdown, the longest in theatres history, Broadway is returning in full swing this fall. New shows and classic favorites alike will open and reopen this month, ushering in a new era for Broadway. Beyond the Theatre District, numerous Off-Broadway theatres are celebrating the return to live performances with new in-person productions, and comedy shows, concerts, and more special events are also opening throughout the city. You can become part of the great return, too check out our top picks for New York theatre in September 2021.

Many of your favorite shows are back and brighter than ever. Long-running blockbusters, Disney classics, and recent hits are all returning to Broadway and are ready to welcome new and returning audiences alike.

Broadways never ever getting rid of Waitress! After a Tony-nominated four-year run at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, Waitress is opening up once more at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Through October 17, Sara Bareilles will return as the savvy pie chef Jenna who bakes her way through a rocky pregnancy and an even rockier marriage.

Ethel Barrymore Theatre, from September 2.

Waitress tickets are on sale now.

Hadestown was livin it up on top in 2019 when it won 8 Tony Awards out of 14 nominations and became the most talked-about musical of the year. Anas Mitchells adaptation of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, set in an industrial underworld with folk and jazz music, is ready to take audiences way down to Hadestown again. Original Broadway cast members Reeve Carney, Eva Noblezada, Patrick Page, Amber Gray, and Andr De Shields will all return to their fabled roles.

Walter Kerr Theatre, from September 2.

Retake your place in the circle of life at The Lion King. Its story of a young cub who aspires to lead his fathers animal kingdom one day has become a staple of the Disney canon. The musical adaptation features all the films most beloved songs including Hakuna Matata, Circle of Life, and I Just Cant Wait to Be King and is bound to delight audiences of all ages.

Minskoff Theatre, from September 14.

The Lion King tickets are on sale now.

Lin-Manuel Mirandas groundbreaking hip-hop history lesson Hamilton will return to Broadway September 14. Fans worldwide got to experience the modern retelling of the Founding Fathers story on Disney+ last summer and can now once again see it live. Still one of Broadways hottest tickets more than six years after its opening, Hamilton has cemented its own place in the history books.

Richard Rodgers Theatre, from September 14.

Get ready to defy gravity, as the ever-popular Wicked is back on Broadway. Dance through life, or at least through two and a half hours, with Elphaba and Glinda in this blockbuster prequel to The Wizard of Oz. Before they were known as the Good and Wicked Witches, The Tin Man, The Scarecrow and more, the citizens of Oz were friends and schoolmates, and their story has put a spell on audiences for nearly 20 years.

Gershwin Theatre, from September 14.

Wicked tickets are on sale now.

Broadways longest-running American musical is back with all that jazz. The reopening cast of Chicago includes Tony winner Lillias White as Matron Mama Morton, Ana Villafae as Roxie Hart, and Bianca Marroqun, a longtime Roxie, now debuting as Velma Kelly.

Ambassador Theatre, from September 14.

Chicago tickets are on sale now.

Talking Heads frontman David Byrne debuted his theatrical concert, American Utopia, on Broadway in 2019 for a limited run, and the production was filmed for streaming in 2020. Byrne and his 11-person ensemble now return to the New York stage for one more limited engagement through March 5, 2022. The group performs songs from Byrnes album of the same name along with hits from throughout his career.

St. James Theatre, from September 17.

David Byrnes American Utopia tickets are on sale now.

Come From Away is finally returning to Broadway, telling a story of personal connection that is just what the world needs after months of isolation. The musical tells the true account of a Newfoundland town that welcomed hundreds of people displaced by 9/11. The show has welcomed audiences from all over the world since 2017, and it is ready to welcome you back to the rock, too.

Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, from September 21.

Bohemians, lovers, dreamers, muses, and artists welcome back to the Moulin Rouge! The glamorous musical adaptation of Baz Luhrmanns iconic film will take theatergoers into the glitzy and raucous Parisian club where the writer Christian becomes enchanted with the star performer, Satine. The shows score features more than 70 classic and contemporary pop songs to bring the 1900s to today.

Al Hirschfeld Theatre, from September 24.

Moulin Rouge! The Musical tickets are on sale now.

Take a magic carpet ride at the New Amsterdam Theatre with Aladdin on Broadway. The poor street-dweller Aladdin discovers a genie in a magic lamp, and Aladdin is given three wishes to get himself the noble life and the princess he desires. Audiences will recognize all the films hit songs like Friend Like Me and Prince Ali, but the live Broadway experience of the Disney tale is A Whole New World.

New Amsterdam Theatre, from September 28.

Aladdin tickets are on sale now.

A new theatre season is beginning, and many new shows are ready to make their premieres. From highly-anticipated West End transfers to original musicals to a special concert celebration, theres plenty of new Broadway and Off-Broadway theatre to discover for the first time.

Known for his work co-creating Chappelles Show and his own solo stand-up special 3 Mics, comedian Neal Brennan returns to the stage with a new theatrical comedy show, Neal Brennan: Unacceptable. With true stories from Brennans childhood through the present, he honestly yet humorously discusses feelings of loneliness in an attempt to understand them.

Cherry Lane Theatre, from August 25.

Neal Brennan: Unacceptable tickets are on sale now. Rush tickets are available on TodayTix.

Daniel J. Watts stars alongside the show's playwright, Ngozi Anyanwu, in a story about two people deciding whether to stay in a relationship or let go of the thing they love most, as painful as the goodbye may be.

Linda Gross Theater, from August 26.

The Last of the Love Letterstickets are on sale now.

Award-winning actor, playwright, and director Ruben Santiago-Hudson returns to Broadway with a new solo show. He plays more than 20 characters in the autobiographical story of Nanny, the woman who welcomed a young Santiago-Hudson into her upstate New York home and raised him. This tribute to Nannys compassion and Santiago-Hudsons youth also features original blues music by Bill Sims., Jr.

Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, from September 14.

Thirteen years after Second Stage Theater premiered Rajiv Josephs play Animals Out of Paper, the company is presenting its companion play, Letters of Suresh. Told through a series of letters between family members, friends, and strangers, the play is a story of people seeking connection and hope as a city they love is consumed by war.

Tony Kiser Theater, from September 14.

Letters of Suresh tickets are on sale now.

Curtain Up! is a three-day celebration of Broadways reopening that will include live concerts and performances, panels, and interactive experiences. The free outdoor festival will take place in Times Square from Friday, September 17 to Sunday, September 19 with a host of theatre talent.

Times Square, from September 17.

After enjoying a hit West End run, multiple tours across the globe, and multiple productions in America, the fast-rising phenomenon Six is finally opening on Broadway, 18 months after its original opening night was canceled by the shutdown only hours before curtain. Now, audiences can get down with the Queens, Henry VIIIs six wives, in their 80-minute pop song competition to determine who had it the worst as the kings bride.

Brooks Atkinson Theatre, from September 17.

The first new musical to premiere in New York since the Broadway shutdown is making a celestial debut off Broadway. Two commercial jingle writers dream of their big break, which comes when pop star Regina Comet taps them to write a jingle for her new perfume line. Ben Fankhauser and Alex Wyse wrote the musical and star as the hopeful songwriters alongside Bryonha Marie Parham as Regina Comet.

DR2 Theatre, from September 17.

A Commercial Jingle for Regina Comet tickets are on sale now.

This three-part saga, told as one theatrical piece, follows the rise and fall of the Lehman Brothers financial institution. Told over 164 years spanning multiple generations of a single immigrant family, the story highlights the businesss greatest successes and its eventual bankruptcy that inflamed the 2008 financial crisis. The production had an acclaimed run on the West End, and two actors from the production Simon Russell Beale and Adam Godley will reprise their roles, joining Adrian Lester in his Broadway debut.

Nederlander Theatre, from September 25.

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New York theatre to see in September | NewYorkTheaterGuide.com - New York Theatre Guide