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Forbes
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
PBS' ‘Broadway's Best' Lineup To Feature Four Full Productions
Next month PBS' Great Performances will offer four star-studded productions, one comedy and three musicals. Scene from Roundabout Theatre Company's production of "Yellow Face" The lineup begins with the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Next to Normal, recorded during its West End transfer from London's Donmar Warehouse. Next up is Tony-winning playwright David Henry Hwang's Broadway comedy Yellow Face from Roundabout Theater Company, starring Daniel Dae Kim. The second musical is the Tony Award-winning Girl from the North Country, featuring 20 reimagined songs by Bob Dylan, while the last musical is Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate, starring Tony Award winner Stephanie J. Block. 'Broadway's Best' from Great Performances will air Fridays at 9 p.m. ET from May 9 to 30 on PBS, on and the PBS App. The productions are part of the WNET Group's special Broadway and Beyond festival, celebrating theater productions and the people who bring them to life. PBS calls Next to Normal an 'intimate portrait of a modern family (exploring) illness, loss, grief and family, as a suburban wife and mother lives with bipolar disorder and is haunted by her past. This premieres May 9 at 9 p.m. ET. According to PBS, Tony-winning playwright David Henry Hwang's comedy, Yellow Face, from Roundabout Theatre Company, 'stars Daniel Dae Kim as an Asian American playwright who protests yellowface casting in the blockbuster musical 'Miss Saigon,' only to mistakenly cast a white actor as the Asian lead in his own play. The repercussions resonate in this farce about the complexities of race.' This premieres May 16 at 9 p.m. ET. PBS said Girl from the North Country takes place in 1934 in Duluth, Minnesota, where 'a group of wayward travelers' lives intersect in a guesthouse filled with music, life and hope. . (It) features 20 reimagined, legendary Bob Dylan songs, including 'Forever Young,' 'All Along the Watchtower,' 'Hurricane' and 'Like A Rolling Stone.'' This premieres May 23 at 9 p.m. ET. Kiss Me, Kate stars Tony Award winner Stephanie J. Block in her West End debut as Lilli Vanessi in Cole Porter's legendary musical comedy. Filmed at the Barbican in summer 2024, it also features Adrian Dunbar as Fred Graham. This premieres May 30 at 9 p.m. ET. Playwright Hwang recently told that earlier versions of Yellow Face ran at New York's Public Theater and on Audible, before the latest version was offered by Roundabout Theater late last year. He said it is the first Broadway play 'centered on East Asian characters as Americans, rather than portraying us as foreigners. So I think it's really important now because of the spike in anti-Asian hate that happened during the pandemic. . .Asians do suffer from racial profiling.' For over 50 years PBS' Great Performances has showcased the best in all genres of the performing arts, featuring a diverse range of artists from around the world. It has won 67 Emmy Awards and six Peabody Awards. Produced by the WNET Group. it is available for streaming concurrent with broadcast on and the PBS App, available on iOS, Android, Roku streaming devices, Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast and VIZIO.
New York Times
26-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
PBS rejects Marjorie Taylor Greene's assertions about drag queen programming.
In her opening remarks at Wednesday's hearing on public media, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene accused PBS of using 'taxpayer funds to push some of the most radical left positions like featuring a drag queen on the show.' The Republican from Georgia pointed at a photo of Lil Miss Hot Mess, a drag queen, calling her a 'monster.' It was a line of attack that was somewhat expected by the chief executives of the biggest media networks in the United States. Ms. Greene had shared a video on social media before the hearing that included a clip from a 'PBS NewsHour' segment about drag queens. But Lil Miss Hot Mess was never featured on PBS's children programming, according to Paula Kerger, the chief executive of PBS who testified on Wednesday. Instead, she was featured in a project from the WNET Group, the parent company of New York's public television stations, in conjunction with the New York City Department of Education. 'The drag queen was actually not on any of our kids shows,' Ms. Kerger responded when Representative William Timmons, Republican of South Carolina, asked her if she thought it was 'inappropriate to put the drag queen on the kids show.' The image the chairwoman showed, Ms. Kerger said, was from a digital segment. The segment, which is part of a YouTube video series called 'Let's Learn,' now opens with a statement, dated May 24, 2021, that notes the partnership between the WNET group and the New York City Department of Education. The statement also says that the series was not funded or distributed by PBS. 'It was not for PBS,' Ms. Kerger said in response to Mr. Timmons. The video was mistakenly put on our website by our New York City station, she said, but it was not intended for a national distribution, nor was it ever aired on PBS. In her closing statement, Ms. Greene showed a video of Lil Miss Hot Mess reading her book, 'The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish.' 'That's repulsive, that's not what children ages 3 to 8 should ever be watching,' she said.
