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”
Joan Marcus
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 pbs.org/gperf 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 Forbes.com that earlier versions of Yellow Face ran at New York’s Public Theater and on Audible, before the latest version was offered by Roundabout Theatre 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 PBS.org and the PBS App, available on iOS, Android, Roku streaming devices, Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast and VIZIO.
