Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Tom Hanks and Kelli O’Hara charm in THIS WORLD OF TOMORROW, a decidedly old fashioned time traveling romance

• By drediman
• November 19, 2025
• No Comments

Last night, Tom Hanks and James Glossman’s new play This World of Tomorrow opened at The Shed in Hudson Yards. Starring Hanks and Tony-winner Kelli O’Hara, the play tells the speculative story of Bert (Hanks), a time traveler from the future who goes back to the 1939 New York World’s Fair, where he meets and falls in love with Carmen (O’Hara), a bookkeeper from the Bronx. Over the course of the play, Bert repeatedly travels back to the same time and place to pursue a weird romance with Carmen, eventually orchestrating a perfect day for the three of them (the third wheel being Virginia, Carmen’s talkative, precocious niece, who plays hooky from school to explore the World’s Fair with her aunt).

Despite its science fiction premise, the show’s DNA is firmly rooted in the kind of old fashioned romantic comedy films on which Hanks cut his teeth. In fact, the play feels more at home in 1939 New York than in the scenes set in the future, which are often frustratingly vague or unintentionally satiric. Although his performance lends the production supercharged star power, Hanks’ undeniably amiable and charming qualities as an actor imbue the play with an affable American wholesomeness and relatively uncomplicated moral texture that is likely to appeal to many fair weather theatergoers with deep pockets. It’s refreshing to see O’Hara onstage without the expectation of hearing her sing (which she does gloriously). In musicals, it’s sometimes easy to forget just how lovely and generous of an actress she really is, with her luminous old school glamour that radiates off the stage. It’s no wonder why Hanks’ Bert was immediately smitten by her. Suffice to say, she and Hanks have sturdy chemistry, and it’s not difficult to see that a show has been built around the yearning romantic spark that they create with each other.

As Virginia, Kayli Carter gives a spunky performance that ably stands on its own opposite her starry counterparts. Also in the cast are stage veterans Jay O. Sanders and Ruben Santiago-Hudson — as Carmen’s protective butcher brother and Bert’s colleague and confidant, respectively — both of whom give affectingly grounded performances that contribute to the show’s warm and fuzzy glow. The production has been slickly staged by Kenny Leon (Fences, A Raisin in the Sun), another Tony-winner adept at telling human stories onstage. Indeed, although much of the writing and scene structuring of This World of Tomorrow calls to mind a screenplay, Leon skillfully plants the play in theatrical tradition.

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THIS WORLD OF TOMORROW
Off-Broadway, Play
The Shed
2 hours, 15 minutes (with one intermission)
Through December 21