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Cast Set for Off-Broadway End of Play: Theater News on TheaterMania.com - 03/30/2009

Cast Set for Off-Broadway End of Play: Theater News on TheaterMania.com - 03/30/2009.

Casting has been announced for the Off-Broadway production of Brandt Reiter's new drama, End of Play, to perform at Center Stage NY, April 17-May 10, with an opening on April 23. Dave McRee will direct.

Theater Review: Notes From Underground - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Notes From Underground - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

"Notes From Underground," world premiering at Yale Rep, is an open wound of a play, oozing self-loathing, throbbing with intensity and stinking with misogyny. Only despair, guilt and hate act as balm for its wretched and abusive antihero. The feel-good play of the season this ain't, but one doesn't pick up Dostoevsky for a beach read. He means to take you to the basement beneath the lower depths of a man's buried soul. Going from page to stage, this largely internal monologue is not always illuminating, engaging or satisfying, but Robert Woodruff's helming is brilliantly cold, and Bill Camp's work is as raw and real as any stage performance in memory.

Theater Review: Finian's Rainbow - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Finian's Rainbow - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

There are no ills, musical-theater-wise, that can't be cured by sending a cornucopia of bounteous melody mixed with irrepressible twinkle-eyed wit cascading across the footlights. That's the message to be heard at City Center this weekend, and those who hasten to the Encores! revival of "Finian's Rainbow" will be rewarded with a pot of golden tunes.

Theater Review - 'Finian’s Rainbow' - Encores! Presents an Irish Immigrant With the Lowdown on High Finance - NYTimes.com

Theater Review - 'Finian’s Rainbow' - Encores! Presents an Irish Immigrant With the Lowdown on High Finance - NYTimes.com.

Finian McLonergan, the crafty Irishman in “Finian’s Rainbow” with a plan to grow money from a magic crock of gold, almost seems an inspirational figure today, suspicious as he is of the money men who would abscond with his wealth and spirit it away to do with it what they will.

Theater Review: Mary Poppins - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Mary Poppins - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

Necessarily but imaginatively reduced in scale for touring purposes, this fully satisfying roadshow version of "Mary Poppins" flies into Chicago with air under its wings (or, rather, its umbrella) and an extra spring in its step. With Broadway originals Ashley Brown as the buoyant nanny and Gavin Lee as chipper chimney sweep Bert leading the way, this production possesses a meticulous sharpness to the central and supporting performances, keeping intact the show's practically perfect blend of edgier, contemporary tone, extra emotional substance and family-friendly familiarity.

Finian's Rainbow: Review on TheaterMania.com - 03/27/2009

Finian's Rainbow: Review on TheaterMania.com - 03/27/2009.

A striking paradox is at the core of director-choreographer Warren Carlyle's simply wonderful concert revival of Finian's Rainbow, which concludes this season's City Center Encores! series. On one hand, the musical -- which deals with racial intolerance in a mythical Missitucky sharecropper's valley -- seems unusually dated now that the Barack Obama era rules. On the other hand, the show feels so up-to-the-minute prescient that lines of dialogue about questionable banking practices and misguided credit policies have the audience breaking into spontaneous applause.

Sandy Duncan to Star in Casa Manana's Driving Miss Daisy: Theater News on TheaterMania.com - 03/27/2009

Sandy Duncan to Star in Casa Manana's Driving Miss Daisy: Theater News on TheaterMania.com - 03/27/2009.

Sandy Duncan, George Merritt, and David Coffee will star in Casa Manana's production of Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Driving Miss Daisy, to run April 21-26. Guy Stroman will direct the production.

Theater Review - 'Exit the King' - Your Highness, You’re So Over - Geoffrey Rush in Ionesco’s Play An Absurdist End, Carrying Greater Resonance - NYTimes.com

Theater Review - 'Exit the King' - Your Highness, You’re So Over - Geoffrey Rush in Ionesco’s Play An Absurdist End, Carrying Greater Resonance - NYTimes.com.

This has to be the liveliest death on record. Never mind those scary figures of legend who kept on fighting with bullets, poisons and knives in their guts: Rasputin, Blackbeard, that psychopath from the “Halloween” movies. When it comes to refusing to shuffle off the old mortal coil, these men are all small time compared to his moribund majesty King Berenger, whose last hours on earth have been brought to life like a fire-trailing comet by Geoffrey Rush.

Spring Awakening | The Official London Theatre Guide

Spring Awakening | The Official London Theatre Guide.

Already a hit stateside, Spring Awakening is both a new musical and a new kind of musical, a rallying call for teen angst where microphones symbolically give power back to the confused, hormonal, experimental adolescents of a 19th century village rife with parental and religious oppression. This is not a musical where conversations burst into song, but where songs which have been pent up and burning inside burst from characters who can no longer hold them in. The musical juxtaposes times and styles. The 19th century story is mixed with a distinctly 21st century score which owes a debt to the American teen rock that grew out of the melange of pop, punk, grunge and indie. The plot, taken from Frank Wedekind’s play, is an ensemble piece with a trio of characters at its centre: the talented, idealistic Melchior (a Lee Mead-like Aneurin Barnard); the troubled, struggling Moritz (Iwan Rheon) who is haunted by his strange new feelings; and the pure, inquisitive Wendla (Charlotte Wakefield), who simply wants to understand and experience life. If it didn’t have such popularity among a similar audience demographic, Spring Awakening could almost be seen as the antidote to High School Musical. Where the Disney musical is all cheesy grins, schoolyard troubles and pop, Spring Awakening touches on abuse, sex, abortion, suicide and the darker side of adolescence through rock that is sometimes guitar-thrashing and sometimes contemplative.

Theater Review: Jailbait - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Jailbait - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

They're cruel, they're reckless, and they're dangerous as hell. They're teenage girls, and Deirdre O'Connor has their number in "Jailbait," a terrific little play that finds something funny, shocking and sad about two 15-year-old girls who grow up fast when they con their way into a Boston club to meet a couple of horny guys who think these babies are college students. Dynamite production, developed under the Cherry Lane Theater's laudable Mentor Project, makes an auspicious opener for the Cherry Pit, the company's new Off Broadway space in the West Village.

Theater Review: Priscilla, Queen of the Desert - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Priscilla, Queen of the Desert - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

Subtle it ain't. Running the gamut from salmon to puce, the governing aesthetic of this DayGlo camp revamp is back to the fuchsia. But flaunting a situation rather than a plot, those behind "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" never bothered with seriously developed drama in the first place. Simon Phillips' enjoyably shameless tuner restyling of this tale of self-affirmation on heels and wheels doesn't so much teeter toward as topple into self-indulgence. But audiences happily whipped up into having, in every sense, a gay old time are likely to overlook its curious flaws.

Mamet to direct his own 'Race' - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety

Mamet to direct his own 'Race' - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety.

David Mamet will make his Broadway directing debut next season with the world preem of his new play "Race."

In Gotham, Mamet has previously helmed productions of his plays "Oleanna" and "The Cryptogram" as well as magician Ricky Jay's outings "Ricky Jay and his 52 Assistants" and "Ricky Jay: On the Stem," all of which ran Off Broadway.

"Race" will be the second new Mamet play to bow on Broadway in two years, following the early 2008 opening of "November." Plot details remain sketchy, with producers saying only that the subject matter of the show is self-evident in the title.

Harvey Fierstein to Host 2009 Drama Desk Awards: Theater News on TheaterMania.com - 03/25/2009

Harvey Fierstein to Host 2009 Drama Desk Awards: Theater News on TheaterMania.com - 03/25/2009.

Four-time Tony Award-winner Harvey Fierstein will host the 54th annual Drama Desk Awards, to be held at the F.H. LaGuardia Concert Hall at Lincoln Center, on Sunday, May 17, at 9 pm, directed by Jeff Kalpak. This will mark the fourth time Fierstein has hosted the awards, having previously emceed them in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Fierstein's Torch Song Trilogy, which opened on Broadway in 1982, won him two Tony Awards, two Drama Desk Awards, and the Dramatist Guild Award. He won his other two Tonys for his work on La Cage aux Folles and Hairspray.

Theater Review - 'Impressionism' - In Jack O’Brien Play, Past Comes Alive, Frozen in a Frame - NYTimes.com

Theater Review - 'Impressionism' - In Jack O’Brien Play, Past Comes Alive, Frozen in a Frame - NYTimes.com.

Pithy little life lessons keep coming at you in Michael Jacobs’s “Impressionism,” as if off a conveyor belt in a greeting card factory. But the one most immediately relevant to this undernourished play, which stars an ill-used Jeremy Irons and Joan Allen, has to do with looking at life as if it were an Impressionist painting.

Geoffrey Rush’s Title Role in ‘Enter the King’ Resonates From Childhood - NYTimes.com

Geoffrey Rush’s Title Role in ‘Enter the King’ Resonates From Childhood - NYTimes.com.

When the actor Geoffrey Rush was 11 and growing up in Brisbane, Australia, some children on a playground told him one morning that the world was going to end by lunchtime. It was 1962, and they were referring to the Cuban missile crisis’s possibly setting off a nuclear war. The geopolitical particulars did not interest Mr. Rush, though

Theater Review: Photograph 51 - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Photograph 51 - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

Anna Ziegler's "Photograph 51," a play in which characters are regularly peering through microscopes, has the ironic problem of being out of focus. As a piece of history, it spends an inordinate amount of time on broadly comedic scenes of rebuffed male attention and less on the specifics of the main character's remarkable scientific achievement. The protagonist remains a cipher, and the one possibly important relationship in her life is unexamined and feels merely like a plot device. The Fountain Theater's West Coast premiere production, however, is polished and entertaining, and it benefits greatly from Aria Alpert's sharp lead performance.

Theater Review: Inked Baby - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Inked Baby - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

In her quiet but deeply moving drama "Inked Baby," Christina Anderson applies a feather-light touch to the tender topic of surrogate child-bearing. Anything heavier than a feather and her fragile characters -- a good man, his unhappy wife and the selfless young woman who agrees to bear a child for her barren sister -- would surely shatter. Play's difficult subject and mercurial moods are mostly respected by Kate Whoriskey ("Ruined"), who helms a tight ship in this Playwrights Horizons premiere, and by a sterling cast that seems to have taken these decent characters right into their hearts.

Priscilla Queen Of The Desert The Musical | The Official London Theatre Guide

Priscilla Queen Of The Desert The Musical | The Official London Theatre Guide.

Much has been said about the abundance of ‘jukebox’ musicals in the West End: shows that are fashioned around a soundtrack of songs by an artist or genre. Some manage it more successfully than others. In Priscilla Queen Of The Desert The Musical, the stage version of the cult 1994 Australian film, which opened last night at the Palace theatre, the chosen selection of songs fits like a pair of made-to-measure Jimmy Choos. Its characters would demand nothing less. Drag performers Tick (Jason Donovan), Bernadette (Tony Sheldon) and Adam (Oliver Thornton) may be travelling the expanse of the dusty outback in a battered old bus, but they won’t ever look anything less than fabulous. As their story unravels – each is crossing the desert from Sydney to Alice Springs on a personal mission of discovery – the lyrics of the show’s soundtrack of classic disco tunes mirror the action and add an appropriately thick layer of camp. So angst-ridden drag queen Tick sings Say A Little Prayer to a photo of the son he is hoping to meet, aging transsexual Bernadette serenades her departed lover with the funeral lament Don’t Leave Me This Way, and the ensemble tells the trio to Go West. In its choice of songs – bar a couple of recent additions, including Kylie’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head – and in the storyline, the musical is faithful to the film that saw Hugo Weaving, Terence Stamp and Guy Pearce play the central trio. But even more so than the celluloid version, the musical does not take itself seriously. Though there are moments of seriousness – Adam’s encounter with a bunch of angry rednecks, Tick’s reunion with his son – these are short-lived, the mood quickly broken by a dose of Aussie humour, a costume change and a song. Sheldon, making his West End debut after originating the role of Bernadette in Sydney, imbues his character with an endearing warmth. The matriarch of the three, she has seen it all before but isn’t quite ready to leave it all behind, as her sharp sense of humour suggests. Thornton revels in being outrageous as the showiest of the trio, Adam, whose drag persona Felicia is just an excuse to unleash himself, in all his glory. Donovan, who breathed a huge sigh – of relief or tension perhaps – at the curtain call, may still loosen up into a role which bridges the gap between his travelling companions.

Theater Review: Rambo Solo - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Rambo Solo - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

Nature Theater of Oklahoma, which has forged a sharp, witty and utterly distinctive performance style from elements charitably called garbage, has hit the mother lode in "Rambo Solo." Conceived and made flesh by company founders Pavol Liska and Kelly Copper, the idiosyncratic one-man piece is performed with hilarious conviction by Zachary Oberzan, whose maniacally funny (and quite touching) obsession with the story of "Rambo: First Blood" inspired the show. A snug fit at SoHo Rep, which collects all kinds of artistic oddities, the lunatic creation is enhanced by a meticulously filmed chronicle of Oberzan's Odyssean efforts to explain himself.

Theater Review - At Soho Rep, Obsessed by ‘First Blood’ - No War Can Stop Him - NYTimes.com

Theater Review - At Soho Rep, Obsessed by ‘First Blood’ - No War Can Stop Him - NYTimes.com.

One man’s pulp is another man’s perfection. If you follow Zachary Oberzan down the rabbit hole of his character’s lapel-grabbing enthusiasm in “Rambo Solo,” you may emerge starry-eyed and wondering at the achievement of the relatively obscure novelist David Morrell. The highly impressionable might even be ready to rank his book “First Blood,” on which the series-spawning Sylvester Stallone action movie was based, among the supreme works of narrative fiction. Step aside, little Marcel. Move over, Jay Gatsby and Leo Bloom and Mrs. Dalloway. There’s a new star in the fictional pantheon, and he’s got an automatic weapon.

Toxic Avenger Blog: PREVIEW DAY #4: SATURDAY IN THE DARK

Toxic Avenger Blog: PREVIEW DAY #4: SATURDAY IN THE DARK.

The Toxic Avenger is set in the mythical town of Tromaville, Exit 13B, off the New Jersey Turnpike. An aspiring earth scientist, Melvin Ferd the Third, is determined to clean up the town's burgeoning toxic waste, until he is tossed into a vat of radioactive goo and emerges as a seven-foot mutant freak and New Jersey's first superhero. Armed with superhuman strength and a heart as big as Newark, he's out to save New Jersey, end global warming and woo Sarah, the prettiest, blindest librarian

It's Today

DSC_4968, originally uploaded by Matthew Brandt.

Theater Review: Madame de Sade - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Madame de Sade - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

Why are you so obstinate?" demands Judi Dench's enraged mother of her daughter, whose wifely devotion to her imprisoned marquis remains inviolate. Obstinacy is the defining characteristic of Yukio Mishima's defiantly static "Madame de Sade," which is less a play than a narrative poem. A crowd-pleaser it most certainly is not, but if you are going to stage this bold, ornate debate, Michael Grandage's faultlessly acted, austerely beautiful production is the first and last word in how to do so.

Theater Review: The Secret Agenda of Trees - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: The Secret Agenda of Trees - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

Sadly, there's no better time for "The Secret Agenda of Trees," Colin McKenna's tense drama of modern rural poverty and American discontent. With a script that gently lays out the bleak lives of its full characters -- who have everything from MS-13 to crank to worry them -- the Gotham-based playwright's soph production is a promising one. The piece has only a vague sense of place (its setting is "a rural community in the U.S.") and its structure could use some vigorous polishing, but McKenna's enthusiasm for life-and-death conflict over politicking or preening pays off in spades.

Theater Review: West Side Story - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: West Side Story - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

The consummate craftsmanship of "West Side Story," with its matchless ability to weave a solemn narrative through music and dance, still dazzles after more than 50 years. Leonard Bernstein's majestic score, in particular, is undiminished, shifting fluidly between blasts of syncopated brass fueled by testosterone and rage, and some of the most achingly beautiful expressions of love ever sung. So it's rewarding to report that after nearly three decades' absence from Broadway, this masterwork has been given the revival it deserves. Under the knowing direction of Arthur Laurents, the 1957 show remains both a brilliant evocation of its period and a timeless tragedy of disharmony and hate

Theater Review - 'She Said, She Said' - At the WorkShop Theater, Truth, Lies and Relationships - NYTimes.com

Theater Review - 'She Said, She Said' - At the WorkShop Theater, Truth, Lies and Relationships - NYTimes.com.

For the three 40-something women at the center of Kathryn Chetkovich’s “She Said, She Said,” a taut, quick-moving play about truth, lies and relationships, the personal remains fiercely political. It’s just that the personal — like the truth — proves to be slippery

Theater Review - 'West Side Story' - Our Gangs - Bernstein’s 1957 Musical Revived at the Palace - NYTimes.com

Theater Review - 'West Side Story' - Our Gangs - Bernstein’s 1957 Musical Revived at the Palace - NYTimes.com.

Even when they’re flashing switchblades and kicking people in the ribs, the teenage hoodlums who maraud through Arthur Laurents’s startlingly sweet new revival of “West Side Story” seem like really nice kids. When a pure-voiced boy soprano (Nicholas Barasch) shows up to perform the musical’s banner anthem, the aching “Somewhere,” it feels like the manifestation of some inner angel who always lurks beneath the surface of the angry adolescents onstage.

Theater Review: Greek Holiday - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Greek Holiday - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

Student dramaturgs could really learn their trade by practicing on "Greek Holiday," Mayo Simon's overwritten but under-realized comedic drama about a young couple's attempt to rescue their rocky marriage by taking a romantic holiday on a Greek island. Situation has comic potential, and scribe knows his characters, captures their idiomatic quirks and is unafraid to play around with a stylistic effect or two. But he indulges himself with one utterly unnecessary scene and three false endings, strangling the piece's fragile appeal with countless repetitive tropes. Sharpen those pencils...

LCT scehdules Fall '09 line up - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety

LCT scehdules Fall '09 line up - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety.

The Broadway debut of scribe Sarah Ruhl and a new play helmed by "In the Heights" director Thomas Kail are on the fall 2009 sked for Lincoln Center Theater. Ruhl's "In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play" will begin previews on Broadway Oct. 22 ahead of a Nov. 19 opening. Production will be helmed by Les Waters, who directed the show's preem earlier this year at Berkeley Rep (where Waters is associate a.d.). Plot centers on the invention of the vibrator. Ruhl's play "The Clean House" played LCT's Off Broadway space, the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, in 2006. "In the Next Room" will bow at a Shubert theater on Broadway to be determined, since Lincoln Center's Rialto stage is currently occupied by the continuing hit run of "South Pacific." At the Newhouse, Kail will helm "Broke-ology," a new play by Nathan Louis Jackson about two brothers who must return home to care for their father. The show preemed last summer at the Williamstown Theater Fest, in a production also directed by Kail. "Broke-ology" begins Off Broadway perfs Sept. 10 before opening Oct. 5.

In D.C., tuners are recession's tonic - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety

In D.C., tuners are recession's tonic - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety.

When a recession makes live theater a tougher sell, give them musicals. That's the philosophy of Arena Stage and the Signature Theater, two D.C.-area orgs whose 2009-10 skeds will feature mostly familiar tuners on their main stages. Signature Theater's MAX space will host "Show Boat," "Sweeney Todd," a world premiere tuner by Ricky Ian Gordon called "Sycamore Trees" and a musical season opener TBA, said a.d. Eric Schaeffer. Slated for the 100-seat ARK Theater is the Claudia Shear tuner "Dirty Blonde" and the D.C. preem of "[title of show]." The only straight play on Signature's sked is Doug Wright's "I Am My Own Wife," which is booked for the ARK next January. At Arena Stage, which is performing in two borrowed spaces for another season during a major renovation, "The Fantasticks" is slated for the 2,000-seat Lincoln Theater for a six-week Christmas holiday run, followed later by Duke Ellington's "Sophisticated Ladies." At its Arlington Theater, Arena will stage Craig Lucas-Adam Guettel tuner "The Light in the Piazza" next spring. Arena opens its season in September in Arlington with the drama "The Quality of Life," by Jane Anderson. It will stage Lydia R. Diamond's new play "Stick Fly" in January and end the season with "R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe."

Theater District, New York, NY

Theater District, New York, NY, originally uploaded by Kevin Labianco.

Theater Review - 'Twelfth Night' - Love and Its Shenanigans Are in Bloom at the McCarter Theater Center - NYTimes.com

Theater Review - 'Twelfth Night' - Love and Its Shenanigans Are in Bloom at the McCarter Theater Center - NYTimes.com.

Putting on a happy face is like putting on a hair shirt for Malvolio in the new production of “Twelfth Night” at the McCarter Theater Center here. When he is duped into believing that his superior, the Countess Olivia, would prefer to see his sour puss transformed into a cheery one, the Malvolio of Ted van Griethuysen resorts to extreme tactics to effect the change. He can’t manage to make those corners curl by themselves and must manually make the adjustment, planting a finger at each end of his frowning mouth and grimly pushing upward.

Theater Review: Rooms: A Rock Romance - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Rooms: A Rock Romance - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

Off Broadway has a potential hit in "Rooms," Paul Scott Goodman's "rock romance." Goodman's varied and impressive score combines with Scott Schwartz's canny staging and strong performances from Leslie Kritzer and Doug Kreeger to offset a certain inevitability in the plot. The talents of all involved result in an entertaining and enjoyable affair.

Theater Review: Deep Cut - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Deep Cut - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

While most drama relies on the forward motion of events, the verbatim play "Deep Cut" is largely about inaction; it examines the failure of U.K. institutions to address concerns raised by the suspicious deaths by gunshot of four soldiers at the Deepcut barracks in England between 1995 and 2002. First staged in Wales last July, the play was a big hit at the 2008 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and has been optioned by Brit filmmaker Michael Winterbottom. While the presentation of this somber tale sometimes wavers uncertainly between entertainment and heavy-handed politicizing, the production succeeds in raising lingering, difficult questions.

Theater Review: The Letters - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: The Letters - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

I would love to play a game of bluffs with you, says one character to another at the beginning of John W. Lowell's "The Letters," and thus revealed is the playwright's intention -- to create a verbal game of cat and mouse where the roles of hunter and hunted can shift without warning. Despite this intriguing setup, however, the piece is somewhat ponderous and predictable and, even at an hour and 20 minutes, would benefit from tightening and trimming. Nevertheless, the world premiere production by the Andak Stage Company features two terrific performances that demonstrate the play's potential.

Theater Review: Working - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Working - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

In these hard times, it seems oddly fitting for a tuner titled "Working" to have been downsized (from 17 thesps in its 1978 debut to the current six) and its score partly outsourced (to "In the Heights" creator Lin-Manuel Miranda). Happily, the Old Globe's stimulus package transforms a heavily self-conscious pageant into 100 uninterrupted minutes of buoyant pleasure. Economic indicators have been cloudy for intimate entertainments eyeing the Main Stem, but if sheer entertainment is any criterion, luck may be with these laboring folk should their jobs be transferred to Gotham.

Second Stage sets schedule - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety

Second Stage sets schedule - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety.

Off Broadway's Second Stage Theater has skedded plays by Zakiyyah Alexander and Lila Rose Kaplan for the 2009 summer season of its annual Uptown Series. Alexander's "Ten Things to Do Before I Die" centers on two sisters, a Gotham high school teacher and a writer, who receive a shipment of boxes from their recently deceased father. Play was commissioned by Time Warner Commissioning Program at Second Stage, the program that also yielded last summer's uptown outing "Animals Out of Paper." "Ten Things," which runs May 12-June 14, is helmed by Jackson Gay, director of last's season's uptown play "Len, Asleep in Vinyl." Kaplan's "Wildflower" follows a woman and her son who move to a small town to get away from their past. Giovanna Sardelli, who also directed "Animals Out of Paper" last year, helms the play, which runs July 13-Aug. 8. The uptown series, which bowed in 2002, showcases new work by up-and-coming scribes. Offerings play the McGinn/Cazale Theater on Gotham's Upper West Side.

Canadian premiere for 'Love' - Entertainment News, International News, Media - Variety

Canadian premiere for 'Love' - Entertainment News, International News, Media - Variety.

The rumor for several months now has been that "Love Never Dies," the long-awaited stage sequel to musical blockbuster "The Phantom of the Opera," would open simultaneously in New York, London and Shanghai. But industry reports confirmed Monday that the show's North American premiere will take place in October at Toronto's Canon Theater, where the original "Phantom" launched its Canadian run in September 1989. That engagement played for 10 years, making it the longest run in the country's theater history. Neither Mirvish Prods., the Canadian presenters, nor composer Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group would officially confirm or deny the reports, but insiders insist it's a done deal.

Theater Review - 'The Good Negro' - Tracey Scott Wilson’s Drama Shows King’s Human Side - NYTimes.com

Theater Review - 'The Good Negro' - Tracey Scott Wilson’s Drama Shows King’s Human Side - NYTimes.com.

Is the Devil himself knocking at the door? You might think so, observing the agonized reaction of the man receiving the summons. His body writhes in discomfort, as if his soul were seized by an unscratchable itch. The eyes search the skies for escape, the hands are clasped in a tortured grip. He turns to the friend at his side, and pleads piteously for help. They fall to their knees and begin praying.

Colman Domingo to Direct Lisa Ramirez's Exit Cuckoo Off-Broadway: Theater News on TheaterMania.com - 03/17/2009

Colman Domingo to Direct Lisa Ramirez's Exit Cuckoo Off-Broadway: Theater News on TheaterMania.com - 03/17/2009.

Colman Domingo, who was featured in the cast of the recent Broadway musical Passing Strange, will direct writer/performer Lisa Ramirez's Exit Cuckoo Off-Broadway at the Clurman Theatre on Theatre Row, April 17-May 17, with an opening set for April 23. The piece, presented by Working Theatre, looks at the culture of nannies in New York and the people who employ them, and is based on Ramirez's own experiences as a nanny. The production will feature set design by Rachel Hauck, lighting design by Russel Phillip Drapkin, sound design by Matt O'Hare, and costume design by Raul Aktanov. For more information, visit www.theworkingtheater.org.

Will Ferrell Marquee

Will Ferrell Marquee, originally uploaded by DoubleBen.

Theater Review: Frost/Nixon - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Frost/Nixon - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

Is it worth ponying up at the Ahmanson for the national tour of Peter Morgan's "Frost/Nixon," in the wake of 2008's pic version? You bet -- first and foremost for absorption in the themes only rattling around within the movie but brought front and center here. Los Angeles playgoers will further enjoy two superb stage actors with very different takes on the titular celeb interviewer and disgraced chief exec, as well as an exciting introduction to one of Britain's most ingenious helmers, Michael Grandage.

Blithe Spirit Movie Review - Read Variety's Analysis Of The Film Blithe Spirit

Blithe Spirit Movie Review - Read Variety's Analysis Of The Film Blithe Spirit.

While the dry martinis flow freely among hosts and guests alike in "Blithe Spirit," those libations do little to loosen up Michael Blakemore's classy but stiff Broadway revival. There are sparkling moments, thanks mostly to the light touch of the sublime Jayne Atkinson and the comedic life-force of Angela Lansbury because she's, well, Angela Lansbury. But overall this is a wispy ectoplasm of the 1941 Noel Coward ghost comedy rather than a full-bodied materialization.

Altovise Gore Davis Dies at 65: Theater News on TheaterMania.com - 03/15/2009

Altovise Gore Davis Dies at 65: Theater News on TheaterMania.com - 03/15/2009.

Altovise Gore Davis, a Broadway performer and the widow of the actor Sammy Davis, Jr., died of complications from a stroke, according to The Los Angeles Times. She was 65 years old. Davis appeared in small roles in four Broadway musicals, Kwamina, High Spirits, Pousse-Café, and Sherry, as well as the 1965 City Center revival of Guys and Dolls. She also appeared in films and televisions, including Can't Stop the Music and Charlie's Angels. She is survived by her son, Manny.

TACT Presents Arthur Miller's INCIDENT AT VICHY, Opens 3/16

TACT Presents Arthur Miller's INCIDENT AT VICHY, Opens 3/16.

The Actors Company Theatre/TACT (Scott Alan Evans, Cynthia Harris and Simon Jones, C0-Artistic Directors), the critically-acclaimed company dedicated to presenting neglected or rarely produced plays of literary merit, will present Arthur Miller's 1964 drama, Incident at Vichy, the playwright's searing examination of the Holocaust. Presented in New York for the very first time since its original production (the play was commissioned for the new Lincoln Center Theatre Company, directed by Harold Clurman and starring Joseph Wiseman, David Wayne and HAl Holbrook), performances of Incident at Vichy begin Sunday, March 8th, 2009. Opening night is Monday, March 16th at 7:30 pm. Performances will continue through Sunday, April 11th.

Theater Review - 'Blithe Spirit' - From Noël Coward, the Medium as Messenger at the Shubert Theater - NYTimes.com

Theater Review - 'Blithe Spirit' - From Noël Coward, the Medium as Messenger at the Shubert Theater - NYTimes.com.

There is no choreographer listed among the credits for the genial but bumpy new revival of Noël Coward’s “Blithe Spirit,” which opened Sunday night at the Shubert Theater. Yet for pure originality and expressiveness, it’s hard to imagine any Broadway chorus line topping the solo dances performed here by an 83-year-old woman with a superfluity of bad jewelry, the gait of a gazelle and a repertory of poses that bring to mind Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Cort Theater stage

Cort Theater stage, originally uploaded by DoubleBen.

Actor Ron Silver dies in NYC at age 62 of cancer

Actor Ron Silver dies in NYC at age 62 of cancer.

Actor Ron Silver, who won a Tony Award as a take-no-prisoners Hollywood producer in David Mamet's "Speed-the-Plow" and did a political about-face from loyal Democrat to Republican activist after the Sept. 11 attacks, died Sunday at the age of 62. "Ron Silver died peacefully in his sleep with his family around him early Sunday morning" in New York City, said Robin Bronk, executive director of the Creative Coalition, which Silver helped found. "He had been fighting esophageal cancer for two years." Silver, an Emmy nominee for a recurring role as a slick strategist for liberal President Jed Bartlet on "The West Wing," had a long history of balancing acting with left-leaning social and political causes.

A Changed ‘West Side Story’ Returns to a Changed New York - NYTimes.com

A Changed ‘West Side Story’ Returns to a Changed New York - NYTimes.com.

WHEN Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Robbins and Arthur Laurents created “West Side Story” in the mid-’50s, they lived within walking distance of the concrete alleys and playgrounds that were the backdrop for their updated version of “Romeo and Juliet,” the crowded tenements where new Puerto Rican immigrants rubbed up against the Irish, Poles and Italians who had preceded them.

Theater Review: Two Men of Florence - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Two Men of Florence - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

here's lots of talk about God, the universe and laws of science in Richard N. Goodwin's "Two Men of Florence," making its American premiere at Boston's Huntington Theater after playing in London in 2003 under the title "The Hinge of the World." Some of the play is ponderous, some of it profound, much of it engaging -- which is pretty much as expected for a work that involves Galileo's faith-shaking findings about the cosmos and matters more earthbound.