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Joy Behar’s stage comedy My First Ex-Husband will play its final Off Broadway performance May 18, producers announced today, with a national tour set to begin this summer.

The play, which features a rotating cast that has included Behar, Susie Essman, Tovah Feldshuh, Adrienne C. Moore, Susan Lucci and others, opened in January at the new Mmac Theater on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Behar recently announced that she will return to the comedy for three upcoming performances including an April 30 matinee that will costar her View fellow panelist Whoopi Goldberg.

The current cast, performing through April 20, features Veanne Cox, Jackie Hoffman, Carolyn McCormick, and Andrea Navedo. Beginning April 23, the final New York cast will be Marilu Henner, Marsha Mason, Julia Sweeney and Fat Ham‘s Benja K. Thomas.

Casting, dates and venues have not been announced for the national tour.

The View costars Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar will soon share a stage of an entirely different sort: Goldberg will appear for one performance only with Behar in the latter’s Off Broadway comedic play My First Ex-Husband.

Behar announced the team-up on her Instagram account, captioning a photo of the two, “The reunion we’ve been waiting for!”

The matinee performance is set for Wednesday, April 30, at 2 p.m./Et. The play, which features a rotating cast of actresses as directed by Randal Myler, is staged at the newly renovated Mmac Theater on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

The play’s official synopsis: “If half of all marriages end in divorce, then in My First Ex-Husband, women live to laugh about it….In the world of the play, you’ll meet women married to the mob, to their jobs, to their faith, to money and ultimately to the wrong man.

The critically acclaimed play Fat Ham won over audiences on Broadway last year and now the show is making its L.A. debut at the Geffen Playhouse.

Nearly the entire original cast has reunited to perform the play for Los Angeles audiences.

Here’s the synopsis: “Meet Juicy, a young, queer Black man with a Shakespearean-sized dilemma. When the ghost of his dead father shows up at his family’s BBQ wedding reception demanding his murder be avenged, does the poetic and sensitive Juicy have it in him to do the deed, or will he ‘to thine own self be true?’”

Fat Ham stars Marcel Spears as Juicy, Nikki Crawford as Tedra, Chris Herbie Holland as Tio, Billy Eugene Jones as Rev/Pap, Adrianna Mitchell as Opal, Benja Kay Thomas as Rabby, and Matthew Elijah Webb as Larry.

The play was written by James Ijames and directed by Sideeq Heard...

Like that relative who picks through the chicken parts at a family picnic to find the leg or the breast or the thigh with just the right amount of crisp, playwright James Ijames has no reluctance to rummage through the bones of Shakespeare’s Hamlet to cook up the irresistible Fat Ham.

Audacious at points, quietly amenable at others, the Pulitzer Prize winning comedy carries the burden of our expectations more lightly than some other prize recipients who’ve made their way to Broadway recently, including Between Riverside and Crazy, Cost of Living and even A Strange Loop, the stage work that Fat Ham shares its concerns over masculinity (mostly of the toxic variety ), queerness, and the search for – or insistence upon – love and acceptance within the family and, very specifically, the Black faith community.

Inspired by, and borrowing its groundwork from, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Fat Ham and its author swipe plot points,...

The Broadway-bound comedy Fat Ham and Shakespeare in the Park’s Merry Wives are among this year’s recipients of the 66th Obie Awards honoring Off and Off-Off Broadway productions.

Presented by the American Theatre Wing, the Obies will be handed out Monday evening in a ceremony at Manhattan’s Terminal 5 venue. Sustained and Lifetime Achievement winners will accept their awards during the ceremony, while remarks of all other winners will premiere on the the American Theatre Wing’s YouTube channel.

The most recent Obies ceremony was virtual and premiered on the Wing’s YouTube channel on July 14, 2020.

“For this Obies, the judges reviewed over 400 productions over the last three seasons including digital and audio works made during the pandemic,” said Heather Hitchens, President & CEO, in a statement. “We look forward to finally gathering in person to celebrate the artistic excellence and resilience of the amazing artists and theatre companies...

Playwright James Ijames’ Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy Fat Ham, a take-off of Hamlet set at a Southern Black family’s cook-out, will make its Broadway debut this spring, beginning previews on Tuesday, March 21, 2023, at the American Airlines Theatre ahead of an official opening on Wednesday, April 12. The strictly limited 14-week engagement runs through Sunday, August 6.

The production will feature the director – Saheem Ali – and cast from the Public Theater’s acclaimed 2022 Off Broadway staging, with performers Nikki Crawford, Chris Herbie Holland, Billy Eugene Jones, Adrianna Mitchell, Calvin Leon Smith, Marcel Spears and Benja Kay Thomas reprising their roles.

Fat Ham on Broadway will be produced by Rashad V. Chambers, No Guarantees and Public Theater Productions. Andy Jones and Dylan Pager will serve as Executive Producers.

“Every once in a while, we experience a play that is embraced by the audience with an almost shocking joy,” the producers said in a joint statement.

"Howdy, you know me?" Bleecker Street Films has revealed an official trailer for the beloved romance A Love Song, an indie super sweet dramedy marking the feature directorial debut of Max Walker-Silverman. This was one of the most talked about films from the 2022 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, with raves from many critics across the board. It's a quirky, sweet little parable about love and loneliness, with Wes Anderson touches. Two widowed friends, Faye & Lito, spend a night together by a lake in the Colorado Mountains. It was filmed on location out near Telluride in Colorado. Starring Dale Dickey in one of her best roles and Wes Studi, with Michelle Wilson, Benja K. Thomas, John Way, and Marty Grace Dennis. If this trailer doesn't get you, nothing will. It shares the warm-hearted vibe of this lovely little film. Here's the official trailer (+ poster) for Max Walker-Silverman's A Love Song,...

A Love Song Review — A Love Song (2022) Film Review from the 44th Annual Sundance Film Festival, a movie directed by Max Walker Silverman, starring Dale Dickey, Wes Studi, Michelle Wilson, Benja K. Thomas, John Way, Marty Grace Dennis. Quiet, simplistic grandeur prevails in this film about two friends who reconnect after several decades. For [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: A Love Song: One-day Affair Ends in Bittersweet Nostalgia [Sundance 2022]...

A Love Song Sundance Film Festival Next Section Reviewed for Shockya.com by Abe Friedtanzer Director: Max Walker-Silverman Writer: Max Walker-Silverman Cast: Dale Dickey, Wes Studi, Michelle Wilson, Benja K. Thomas, John Way, Marty Grace Dennis Screened at: Sundance Film Festival Online, LA, 1/20/22 Opens: January 20th, 2022 Love and romance don’t look the same for […]

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