More Theater Monday - My Lord, What a Night

We received complimentary tickets to My Lord, What a Night for review purposes. Any and all opinions expressed here are our own.

What: My Lord, What a Night

Where: George Street Playhouse

             NBPAC

             11 Livingston Ave.

             New Brunswick, NJ

Who: Recommended for Ages 12 and up due to themes and content, including racism & prejudice 

When: Through May 17, 2026

My Lord, What a Night is a dramatization of a historic night in 1937 when opera singer, Marian Anderson, was turned away from a hotel in Princeton because of her race and taken in by Albert Einstein. As a result, a lifelong friendship developed. 

The show humanizes Einstein, who is remembered more for his genius than his humanity. It also emphasizes how strongly embedded racism was that even a beloved singer, who at that time was playing to a mostly white audience, couldn't escape from it. She was good enough to sing for them, but not good enough to take a chance on interacting with them in daily life. 

The first-rate cast is jointly led by Rashidra Scott as Marian and Anthony Cochrane as Albert.  Scott is quite poignant as a woman forced to come to a painful reckoning between serving her art and her community. Cochrane's Albert is more than just a brilliant man; he is a fully dimensional human being who cares about more than just science. They are joined by Mitch Greenberg as Abraham Flexner, the Founding Director of the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton, a Jew forced to come to his own reckoning, and Gayle Samuels as Mary Church Terrell, more concerned with advancing the cause of the fight against racism than in Marian as an individual. 

Unfortunately, the show's themes of racism and prejudice are not the dusty memory that they should be. You may not be able to throw a person out of a hotel because of the color of their skin, but that doesn't mean that racism or prejudice has gone away. It's just not always as overt, which in some ways may be even worse. This extremely timely, relevant show doesn't so much remind us of how far we've come; it reminds us how far we still have to go to make the world a fairer, more equitable place and truly eradicate racism and prejudice.

And that's our view. For more about My Lord, What a Night or to purchase tickets, visit www.georgestreetplayhouse.org/events/detail/my-lord-what-a-night

Tune in tomorrow for Tips for Tuesday.

Photo credits: 

All My Lord, What a Night production photos by T. Charles Erickson

Images used in this post were sent by publicists, artists, and/or  PR firms and are used by permission.  Any Concerns regarding image usage can be addressed here.