NEW YORK CABARETS, SHOWS AND BROADWAY THEATRE  SEASON

 

Photo: Christina Applegate.

The newly rechristened Hilton Theatre will be the home of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the lavish London hit based on Ian Fleming's children's book and the 1968 movie which starred Dick Van Dyke and Sally Ann Howes. On Broadway, Raul Esparza will be inventor Caractacus Potts and Erin Dilly plays Truly Scrumptious, the ultimate name for a musical-comedy heroine. And, of course, there is that flying car. Expect it to soar over the Hilton on April 28, with preview performances beginning a month earlier. Play revivals will offer some potent star power. Consider two Tennessee Williams classics -- The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire - which arrive about five weeks apart. Menagerie is up first, with Jessica Lange portraying that overbearing matriarch Amanda Wingfield; Dallas Roberts, her rebellious son Tom; Sarah Paulson, her fragile daughter Laura, and Josh Lucas, the Gentleman Caller.

Photo: Amy Ryan.

The director is David Leveaux. Look for it March 15 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Streetcar stars Natasha Richardson as the fading Southern belle Blanche Du Bois. John C. Reilly is her hulking nemesis, the brutish Stanley Kowalski and Amy Ryan portrays his devoted wife, Stella. Edward Hall directs this Roundabout Theatre Company production  at Studio 54. Kathleen Turner plays another formidable woman, Martha in a revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?  Bill Irwin, last seen on Broadway in Albee's The Goat, portrays Martha's husband, George. Shakespeare revivals on Broadway are rare, but the Belasco Theatre will get a production of Julius Caesar, starring Denzel Washington as Brutus, William Sandler as Caesar, Colm Feore as Cassius and Jessica Hecht as Portia. The director is Daniel Sullivan, best known for his work on such plays as Proof and Intimate Apparel. The following day, April 4, brings Marsha Mason, Delta Burke, Christine Ebersole and Frances Sternhagen to the Lyceum Theatre, in a new production of Steel Magnolias. Robert Harling's look at the owner and customers in a beauty parlour in a small Louisiana town was a big hit off-Broadway in 1987 as well as a popular movie.

 

Photo: Denzel Washington.

James Earl Jones and Leslie Uggams will star in a production of On Golden Pond, the Ernest Thompson drama about a retired professor who returns to family's Maine cottage for one last time. Most people know it from the movie version which starred Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn. . A revival of Glengarry Glen Ross, David Mamet's acerbic look at real-estate salesmen, also has an all-star cast that includes Alan Alda, Liev Schreiber, Tom Wopat, Jeffrey Tambor, Frederick Weller, Gordon Clapp and Jordan Lage.

The shenanigans commence May 1 at the Royale. On August 14,  the season's final revival, opens at the American Airlines Theatre. No cast has been announced for the Peter Nichols comedy about marriage and infidelity, but Mark Brokaw will direct the Roundabout Theatre Company production. And, yes, there are a couple of new plays arriving on Broadway, too. Donald Margulies, whose Dinner With Friends won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for drama, returns with Brooklyn Boy, the story of a writer coping with success.

 

Adam Arkin plays the writer. His tribulations can be seen at the Biltmore. Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman was a big hit for London's National Theatre in 2003. Now, with a cast headed by Bill Crudup and Jeff Goldblum, it arrives April 10 at the Booth. This dark comedy concerns a writer (played by Crudup) in a totalitarian state being interviewed about the similarities between his fiction and some strange events which have actually taken place.. And finally, after the five one-person shows of the fall, only a single one is in sight for the rest of the season. It's Freshly Squeezed, starring that Broadway perennial, Jackie Mason.