This Month in Theater: July 2009

VANITIES
Back in the '70s Jack Heifner wrote a hit play about three women; it ran for five years, Kathy Bates was in the original cast, and tons of actresses have performed in it since. Now we have a new musical of the same name, also written by Heifner, with music and lyrics by David Kirshenbaum, directed by the stalwart Judith Ivey, a great actress herself. The three women pals start off as cheerleaders and sorority sisters in the ‘60s, and then move on to later periods in their life, up into the ‘80s. One gets married, one opens an art gallery, one is a writer; and through it all their friendship is tested, and endures. The stars of this musical reincarnation are Laura Kennedy, Sarah Stiles and Anneliese Van Der Pol.
Second Stage Theatre, 307 W. 43rd St., (212) 246-4422. Previews July 2, opens July 16-Aug. 9.

THE HOT! FESTIVAL
HOT! The 18th Annual Festival of LGBT Performance & Culture will fill the grand, new Dixon Place space with queer performance at its most fabulous. Downtown late- night impresario supreme Earl Dax has curated this year’s shows, and the artists scheduled to appear are a heady bunch: Penny Arcade, Justin Bond, Big Art Group, John Kelly, Mike Albo, Dynasty Handbag, to name a few.
Dixon Place, 161 Chrystie St., (212) 219-0736. July 1 – Aug. 4. Visit www.hotfestival.org for more info. Ticket prices range from free to $25.

ICE FACTORY FESTIVAL
Soho Think Tank’s 16th annual presentation of new work delivers six New York premieres in six weeks, from both emerging and established downtown theater companies. Week three features the wondrous David Greenspan as the master toymaker in a more “modern” version of Victor Herbert’s musical, Babes in Toyland (leave the kids at home); Week four has a show by the brash collective, International W.O.W.; and week six brings something new from Brooklyn’s rambunctious Banana Bag & Bodice.
Ohio Theatre, 66 Wooster St., (212) 868-4444. July 8-Aug. 15, Wed. – Sat., 8 p.m. $15.

SPF
The Summer Play Festival (SPF) at the Public Theater offers seven new plays and one musical in less than a month’s time, and all for $10 a pop. Past affects the present in The Chimes; art and life intersect in Reborning; thrills and fear populate Whore; a Carribean cruise goes wrong in The Sacrifices; love with a Manhattan backdrop takes place in The Happy Sad; random violence occurs in Tender; hostages in Moscow show up in We Declare You A Terrorist; and vacation time ends with a testosterone-driven musical in Departure Lounge.
The Public, 425 Lafayette St., (212) 967-7555. July 7-Aug. 2 $10.

IVANOV
This is one of Anton Chekov’s early plays, an 1889 four-act drama by the writer who would become a master at blending the comic and the tragic. This one is about a once-idealistic, now-detached, husband and his perhaps inexpedient wife. Director Tamas Ascher and his Katona Jozsef Theatre from Budapest have changed the Russian setting and time to Hungary in the ‘60s and ‘70s. It will be performed in Hungarian with English supertitles.
Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College, 899 Tenth Ave., (212) 721-6500. July 7-11. www.lincolncenter.org.

Pictured above: Lauren Kennedy, Anneliese van der Pol, Sarah Stiles in Vanities