November 20, 2025: Theatre Yesterday and Today, by Ron Fassler
It’s been a year since Maybe Happy Ending snuck into town and got the best reviews of any of the fourteen musicals that opened last season, but as of tonight with the opening of Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) at the Longacre Theatre, we finally have something else that is fresh and creative to sing about. This tuneful and uplifting show, with a delicious score sung by a charming cast (even if it’s only two people), comes off a hit London production that feels bound to replicate its success. This is an essential addition to a season with only four new musicals officially announced (Queen of Versailles, which has already opened to mixed to negative reviews and Schmigadoon! and Lost Boys are it, folks). Time will tell, but it might be the thinnest year for musicals in a very long time.
Throughout Two Strangers, I couldn’t help being reminded of the first Broadway show I ever saw, Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt’s I Do! I Do! which, nearly sixty years ago, marked the birth of the two-character musical (I’m not ancient, I was a small boy at the time). Starring irreplaceable theatre icons Robert Preston and Mary Martin, it relied almost solely on their charisma since theatre technology couldn’t afford the bells and whistles Two Strangers can boast (a clever and inventive set by Soutra Gilmour which is made up of a revolving pile of suitcases, and a dazzling lighting design by Jack Knowles, who picked up a Tony this year for Sunset Blvd). The biggest difference though is that the two leads here, Sam Tutty and Christiani Pitts, are young and relative unknowns (though not for long). With voices of vivant, velvety vibratos, this pair of extraordinarily charismatic singers will knock you out of your seat. Under the stylish direction of Tim Jackson as director and choreographer, this wonderful new musical will clearly be around for a while with excellent prospects of picking up more than a few Tony Awards next spring.
A musical rom-com (and what’s wrong with that?), Two Strangers offers plot complications familiar to any fans of mismatched people who inexplicably find themselves attracted to one another. It is to be applauded that it is not based on any previous property and gone are the usual plot holes or inconsistencies that often mar otherwise well-intended stories. It also has diligently created characters who are three-dimensional with emotional complexities. In an interview with authors Jim Barne and Kit Buchin, it is mentioned that Two Strangers was in development for ten years (in its first incarnation it was titled The Season) and the careful work that has gone into it has paid dividends, like ones Buchin describes here:
“What we set out to do when we were writing this musical is to capture some of that immense cultural energy that vibrates out from this city and that we consumed all our lives through music and in particular through movies. But that appreciation of New York happens through Robin and Dougal — an extension of their perspectives. Because at the end of the day, Two Strangers is about its two strangers.”
We meet Dougal (Sam Tutty) when he gets off a plane at JFK and is met by Robin (Christiani Pitts), who is holding a sign with his name on it. In New York for the first time in his life, to say Dougal is enthused is an understatement. With their birthdates around the year 2000, Robin is a born and bred New Yorker who’s already seen it all in her young life, while Dougal doesn’t know the meaning of the word jaded. An eternal optimist with a piercing vulnerability, he is bouncing with energy because this 48-hour visit is going to give him the chance to finally meet the father who abandoned his mother when she got pregnant. Dougal’s dad, now a 58-year-old financial success, is being wedded to a much younger woman, who happens to be Robin’s sister. Unexpectedly invited, the task of picking up the only-too-thrilled Dougal at the airport falls to Robin, the first sign of many that an odd sister dynamic is at play and that something is awry. Robin’s second task is to pick up the wedding cake, which is not only how the show gets its title, but how Dougal and Robin find themselves spending the kind of time together that neither of them could have imagined based on their first meeting. This is the stuff that drives many a rom-com, but in the capable hands of its creators, what follows is funny, surprising, and ultimately touching (the heights to which every great rom-com aspires).
The score by Barne and Buchin has some nicely nuanced tunes and crafty lyric writing, such as this one where Dougal dreams about what it will be like to finally spend some time with his father:
“Grilling burgers till they’re burnt together
Sharing everything we’ve learnt together
Think of all the time we’ve earnt together
After all the time we weren’t together.”
You know you’re experiencing something exciting when you begin to crave hearing the CD while you’re still in the theater (something I find exceedingly rare as time marches on). Currently available in its London cast recording, that version only features half its cast, as the American Christiani Pitts replaced the British Dujonna Gift. I imagine one will be made of this Broadway production since it’s been beautifully reorchestrated for more instruments by Lux Pyramid, who also does a superb job conducting the onstage orchestra.
Tim Jackson’s direction and choreography appear effortless. He has a real feel for stage imagery, paced the production to perfection, and drawn special performances from Pitts and Tutty. Pitts, whose last leading man on Broadway was an animatronic King Kong, finally has a role worthy of her talents. She can time a comedy line like a Borscht Belt veteran and sings like an angel. As for Tutty, who won an Olivier Award for playing the title role in the London Dear Evan Hansen, makes a Broadway debut of thrilling proportions. His energy is so truthful that you never feel that he’s pushing, which is remarkable considering he plays a very pushy character. His voice is sublime, and he radiates star power. You get the inescapable sensation while watching him that this is the beginning of what promises to be a mighty career.
Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) may be a mouthful of a title, but two words succinctly express my response: Best Musical.
Ron Fassler is the author of Up in the Cheap Seats: An Historical Memoir of Broadway and the forthcoming The Show Goes On: Broadway Hirings, Firings and Replacements. For news and "Theatre Yesterday and Today" columns when they break, please hit the FOLLOW button.
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