Peter Filichia, James Marino, and Michael Portantiere talk about Well, I’ll Let You Go @ The Space at Irondale, Rolling Thunder @ New World Stages, The Brothers Size @ The Shed, Play On @ Signature Theatre (DC), This is Government @ 59e59, Galas @ Little Island, and 2006 Hollywood Bowl production of THE SOUND OF MUSIC
Well, I’ll Let You Go: Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Will Dagger Production photos by Emilio Madrid
“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.
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 – is available at finer retailers! Peter also has columns at Masterworks Broadway, Broadway Select, and many other places.
Showtune for Today: Sept 7 “Welcome, Christmas” from How The Grinch Stole Christmas
Carmen (in the rain) @ Bryant Park
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.
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.
On Patreon: Jan Simpson’s All the Drama: “Street Scene”, 1929 Winner, Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Well, I’ll Let You Go: Emily Davis, Quincy Tyler Bernstine Production photos by Emilio Madrid
PF: Well, I’ll Let You Go @ The Space at Irondale (Brooklyn), through September 12, 2025
Fresh from winning a Drama Desk Award for Ken Urban’s Danger and Opportunity, Obie winner Jack Serio is set to direct Bubba Weiler’s Well, I’ll Let You Go at The Space at Irondale (85 S Oxford St, Brooklyn). This new American play, which marks Weiler’s professional playwriting debut
Tony nominee Quincy Tyler Bernstine and Obie winner Michael Chernus (Apple TV’s Severance, Peacock’s Devil In Disguise: John Wayne Gacy) lead an ensemble cast that includes Cricket Brown (Judgment Day, Park Avenue Armory), Will Dagger (Good Night, and Good Luck), Lortel and Obie winner Emily Davis (Is This A Room), Danny McCarthy (The Minutes, To Kill a Mockingbird), Drama Desk nominee Constance Shulman (The Rose Tattoo, Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black), and Amelia Workman (American Son, The Antiquities).
Set in a small Midwestern town, Well, I’ll Let You Go is a portrait of a woman and a community in crisis. Alternately vast and personal in scope, shifting backwards and forwards in time, this expansive, yet incredibly intimate, debut play sifts through the rubble of a town, a marriage, and a life built on an American Dream that’s crumbled.
Jan Simpson’s interview — Stagecraft: Bubba Weiler on “Well, I’ll Let You Go”
MP: Rolling Thunder @ New World Stages, through September 7, 2025
Malcolm Mays & Alani ilongwe. Rehearsals for The Shed’s production of The Brothers Size at Geffen Playhouse, Los Angeles, August 9, 2025. Photo © Erik Carter. Courtesy The Shed.
PF: The Brothers Size @ The Shed, through September 28, 2025
MP: Follow-up — Play On @ Signature Theatre (DC), through October 5, 2025
March 21, 1997, The New York Times Review: Swinging Shakespeare Gets Aboard the A Train By Ben Brantley
PF: This is Government @ 59e59, through September 28, 2025
By Nina Kissinger
Directed by Sarah Norris
with Vann Dukes, Charles Hsu, Susan Lynskey, and Kleo Mitrokostas
It’s summer in Washington, DC and three congressional interns are fielding constituent calls before yet another workplace lockdown begins. While everyone outside investigates a suspicious red Camry, they find themselves stuck in the one place no one has ever wanted to work overtime: the US government.
As their patience and snack supply runs out, they follow clues and evidence to get to the bottom of how this situation unfolded and why. A comedy with heart, This is Government grapples with the real-time consequences of political disarray.
MP: Galas @ Little Island, September 6 – 28
By: Charles Ludlam
Directed by: Eric Ting
Additional Music Selections by: Anthony Roth Costanzo
When playwright Charles Ludlam invented the iconic opera singer at the center of his ridiculous comedy Galas, he likely never imagined a real prima donna in the role. With Anthony Roth Costanzo taking the stage in Eric Ting’s new production, the dream Ludlam never dreamed comes true. As the titular Maria Magdalena Galas (rhymes with Callas), Costanzo embodies extravagance, camp, and diva, but – with his famous countertenor shimmering between the moments of absurdity – opens his heart and lays bare to us both the beauty and the pain pumping through the veins of any great artist.
Cast: Anthony Roth Costanzo, Carmelita Tropicana, Mary Testa, Caleb Eberhardt, Erin Markey, Patricia Black, Samora la Perdida, Austin Durant, Jeremy Rafal
The New York Times
He’s Stepping Into the Heels of Maria Callas By Joshua Barone
At Little Island, the countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo is starring, and singing, in Charles Ludlam’s “Galas,” a love letter to Callas.
2006 Hollywood Bowl production of THE SOUND OF MUSIC (Full Show) Starring Melissa Errico, John Schneider with Ben Platt, Marni Nixon
https://youtu.be/UIDvM3HPJQM?si=n3z6k8-WIUDEJXaQ
I told Joshua Rosenblem that so many brainteaser-players, when guessing CLOSER THAN EVER as an answer to a previous week’s question, also mentioned in their email how much they loved his biography of Maltby and Shire.
Perhaps to be nice, he said he’s now reading my book THE GREAT PARADE – a look at the extraordinary 1963-64 season. And that led me to this week’s question:
Name both the song and the musical from that season that mentioned the number 51 in a most unconventional way.
Michael’s Musical Moments
Music Opener: Steve Lawrence Sings Small World
Music Closer: Bobby Darin Sings “All I Need is the Girl”
Support BroadwayRadio on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/broadwayradio
Patreon listeners get “This Week on Broadway” on Sunday afternoon before it is released to the general public on Sunday evening.
Email addresses: See above in bios
BroadwayRadio Phone / Voicemail: +1-888-285-4666
BroadwayRadio: Facebook | Instagram
Patreon | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeart Radio | TuneIn | Pandora | YouTube Music
…and anywhere that you can listen to finer podcasts.
