Elsa & Anna on Screen, Lansbury & Lavin on Stage Spark Our 5 Must-Do Events for the Week of November 18 to 24

Features

by Kathy Henderson • Nov 17, 2019

It’s another great week for strong female characters, with Frozen 2 arriving on the big screen and stage greats Angela Lansbury and Linda Lavin lighting up benefit staged readings, plus Tony winner Kristine Nielsen in a revival of Horton Foote’s The Young Man From Atlanta. Read on for the scoop on our must-do events for the week of November 18 through 24.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18
WHEN SWEENEY MET HARRY
Aspiring playwrights take heart: After 40 years as a high school French teacher, George Eastman retired and began writing fiction and plays. Now in his 70s, Eastman is getting a grade-A New York stage debut on November 18, with Tony winner Len Cariou and Tony nominee Craig Bierko teaming up in the father/son comedy Harry Townsend’s Last Stand. The men who played Sweeney Todd and Harold Hill on Broadway now go head to head as an irascible widower and his exasperated adult son, facing the tricky task of charting the aging patriarch’s future. Karen Carpenter (Love, Loss and What I Wore) directs a 12-week off-Broadway engagement.
INFO: Limited run through February 9 at Stage II (131 West 55th Street). Tickets start at $61.50.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ANGELA
For its annual fall benefit, Roundabout Theatre Company hit the jackpot (and then some!) when five-time Tony winner Angela Lansbury signed on to play the hilariously imperious dowager Lady Bracknell in a starry reading of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. The 94-year-old stage legend will be joined by an array of expert comic actors, including real-life couple Hamish Linklater and Lily Rabe as John Worthing and Gwendolen Fairfax, Annaleigh Ashford as Cecily Cardew, Jayne Houdyshell as Miss Prism and John Glover as Rev. Chasuble. Entry-level tickets are sold out, but if you’re feeling flush, join Roundabout patrons at this once-in-a-lifetime, one-night-only event.
INFO: 7:30PM at the American Airlines Theatre (227 West 42nd Street). For details, click here.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18
COMEDY TONIGHT
The laughs never stop in The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, Charles Busch’s Tony-nominated turn-of-the-millennium comedy about an Upper West Side matron’s midlife crisis. As the play approaches its 20th anniversary, The Actors Fund has reunited the original cast for a benefit reading. The twist? Busch, an expert drag performer, will play the title role of Marjorie Taub while Linda Lavin, who nabbed a Tony nod for the part, spars with the playwright as Marjorie’s scene-stealing mom, Frieda (originally played by the late Shirl Bernheim). Back in their original funny featured roles: Tony Roberts as husband Ira, Anil Kumar as the doorman and Michele Lee (above, with Busch) as Marjorie’s exciting childhood pal, Lee. Manhattan Theatre Club artistic director Lynne Meadow takes a sentimental journey with one of her company’s biggest hits, for a good cause.
INFO: 7:30PM at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (261 West 47th Street). For details, click here.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22
THE ICE QUEEN COMETH
Disney’s feistiest royals are back on the big screen in Frozen 2, sequel to the 2013 megahit animated adventure. As in the original, Frozen 2 is chock-full of Broadway talent, from returning stars Idina Menzel (Elsa), Kristen Bell (Anna), Jonathan Groff (Kristoff) and Josh Gad (Olaf) to Oscar-winning songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez. This time around, devoted sisters Elsa and Anna and their pals travel from Arendelle to an ancient forest, searching for the origin of the platinum-maned queen’s icy powers as the key to saving their kingdom. Join their quest, then weigh in on whether Idina’s rendition of "Into the Unknown" will have the staying power of "Let It Go."
INFO: In theaters nationwide. For details, click here.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 24
MYSTERIOUS YOUNG MAN
Oscar-winning screenwriter Horton Foote (To Kill a Mockingbird, Tender Mercies) won acclaim as a playwright for gentle comedies about life in small-town Texas. His 1995 drama The Young Man From Atlanta, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, took a darker look at a Houston couple coping with the mysterious death of their adult son. Signature Theater Company is giving this enigmatic play a welcome revival, directed by Foote specialist Michael Wilson and starring Kristine Nielsen and Aidan Quinn as the distraught parents. The title character, by the way, is not the lost son, but his never-seen "roommate," who turns up in Houston to ask for money and tell the grieving mom what she longs to hear.
INFO: Limited run through December 15 at the Signature Center (480 West 42nd Street). Tickets start at $36.50