On a wet Monday afternoon, as New York’s theatermakers braced for the attention of their very own season’s storm, a choose few discovered refuge at Manhattan’s Tusk Bar, the place CAA hosted its annual Ladies on Broadway celebration. The occasion—organized by a powerhouse group that included ATG Leisure’s Bee Carrozzini and Kristin Caskey, producers Lia Vollack and Sue Wagner, and agent Joe Machota (whose flip in Gypsy alongside Betty Buckley and Laura Bell Bundy earns him honorary membership within the membership)—honored girls’s current and upcoming contributions to the stage.
In late 2025, that toast belonged primarily to Whitney White, who this yr directed the Broadway premiere of The Final 5 Years, helmed the Sia- and Honey Dijon–scored Saturday Church at New York Theatre Workshop, developed and carried out in Macbeth in Stride at BAM, and is at present getting ready Liberation for its Fundamental Stem switch after a profitable off-Broadway run. A lot of White’s collaborators have been there to have a good time: playwrights Jocelyn Bioh and Bess Wohl (in tinted aviators, a becoming nod to her ’70s-set Liberation), actor Joaquina Kalukango, and producers Rachel Sussman, Eva Worth, and Danielle Perelman.
It being a Monday afternoon, with many friends nonetheless in previews or workshop mode, most opted for a smart glass or two of wine. The extra adventurous sampled the bar’s featured cocktails: the Smoke Present (a Gray Goose martini with smoked olive oil) and the Ruby Slipper (a gin highball with yogurt-washed Hendrick’s, Amante, and pink grapefruit). All glasses have been raised when CAA’s Kennedy Woodard delivered a speech celebrating the work of ladies previous and current—and the hard-won developments which have led to a second wherein girls now function inventive administrators of main firms on either side of the Atlantic. Toasts went out to Patricia McGregor of New York Theatre Workshop and Jenny Gersten of New York Metropolis Heart, with nods to Lear deBessonet at Lincoln Heart and Indhu Rubasingham at London’s Nationwide Theatre.
The visitor checklist spanned generations and types—from Steppenwolf legend Laurie Metcalf to Ego Nwodim, whose first put up–Saturday Evening Stay position shall be her off-Broadway debut in Lincoln Heart’s The Comedy Sequence subsequent month. Solo-show performers took well-earned breaths from their lauded runs, together with Julia McDermott (Climate Lady) and Jen Tullock (Nothing Can Take You From the Hand of God), who welcomed Dylan Mulvaney into their ranks. The reception, which additionally drew Micaela Diamond, administrators Leigh Silverman and Miranda Haymon, and sufficient CAA brokers to ebook each final cocktail serviette within the room, carried on previous its scheduled 6 p.m. shut—however not too late. In any case, there’s nonetheless work to be accomplished.
