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The Obamas escaped Washington on Saturday in search of a quintessential New York evening — dinner and a Broadway show.
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Owls hoot, ravens caw and flap ominously past the moon over the thicket. The witty animations above the dark, curved walkway surmounting Rae Smith's gothic black and silver set cross Lemony Snicket with the opening credits to "Bewitched." But instead of constraining the text to fit a conceit, Smith and director Marianne Elliott's daring fairy-tale vision of "All's Well That Ends Well" actually releases this notoriously problematic play into deliciously vivid life.
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Hard to believe it took the Pearl, the very model of a responsible classical repertory company, 25 years to do a Tennessee Williams play. Tardy though it may be, this staging of "Vieux Carre" -- produced in 1977 and rarely seen since -- is a well-chosen example of how an enterprising rep house can serve a bit of nouvelle cuisine to faithful subscribers nourished on Shakespeare and Shaw. By salting the resident company with guest thesps from other venues, visiting director Austin Pendleton also provides a piquant taste of the interactive dynamic in this most theatrical of theater towns.
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Dennis Boutsikaris, Josh Grisetti and Santino Fontana are among the thesps joining Laurie Metcalf in the cast of the Neil Simon revivals coming to Broadway in the fall. Billed as "The Neil Simon Plays," the repertory stagings of Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs" and "Broadway Bound" follow the life of a Brooklyn family. Newcomer Noah Robbins will play the central role of Eugene in "Brighton Beach," while Grisetti ("Enter Laughing") portrays the older Eugene in "Broadway." Boutsikaris ("Amadeus") plays the family patriarch opposite Metcalf as the mother of the family. Fontana ("Billy Elliot") is cast as Eugene's brother. Jessica Hecht ("Julius Caesar"), Allan Miller ("Brooklyn Boy") and Alexandra Socha ("Spring Awakening") also join the ensemble. One more role remains to be cast in the shows, to be helmed by David Cromer. "Brighton Beach" opens Oct. 25, with "Broadway Bound" opening Dec. 10, both at a theater to be announced. Emanuel Azenberg and Ira Pittelman produce.
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The Tony Awards telecast will showcase all the Broadway tuners nominated for musical or musical revival, along with segs from three shows on tour, "Jersey Boys," "Legally Blonde" and "Mamma Mia!" Performance slots are considered valuable opportunities to market legit offerings during the theater world's highest-profile kudofest. Similarly, the inclusion of performances from well-known offerings such as "Mamma Mia!" can help drum up viewer interest in the usually ratings-challenged broadcast. "Billy Elliot," "Next to Normal," "Shrek the Musical" and "Rock of Ages," all in the running for the new tuner trophy, will be featured, as will musical revival contenders "West Side Story," "Hair," "Guys and Dolls" and "Pal Joey" (which ended its limited run earlier this season). News looks like a snub of the tuner version of "9 to 5," which, although not nommed for new musical, seemed a shoo-in for inclusion given the broad fanbase of Dolly Parton, the show's composer-lyricist. But it's said that Parton and the tuner's three lead actress will sing the title tune of "9 to 5" as part of the ceremony's opening number -- although that remains unconfirmed. Telecast exec producers Ricky Kirshner and Glenn Weiss have previously said they will try to include bits from as many Broadway productions in the ceremony as possible. Neil Patrick Harris hosts the 63rd Tony Awards, set for June 7 at Radio City Musical Hall and broadcast on CBS. This year the kudos, along with the initial hour of creative arts awards not shown on CBS, will be simulcast on a large screen in the newly pedestrian-friendly Times Square.
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Jonathan Groff (“Spring Awakening”) will topline the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park staging of “The Bacchae.” Groff plays the god Dionysus in the Greek tragedy, which also will star Andre De Shields, Karen Kandel, George Bartenieff, Joan MacIntosh, Steven Rishard and Rocco Sisto. JoAnne Akalaitis helms the production, which will have original music by Philip Glass. Show runs Aug. 11-Aug. 30 at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.
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Hartford Stage, under the leadership of Michael Wilson, artistic director, and Michael Stotts, managing director, announced today that the Broadway hit comedy Dividing The Estate, by Horton Foote, directed by Wilson, will transfer to Hartford Stage in May 2009 to close the Tony Award-winning theatre's 45th season. The gospel musical drama Gee's Bend, which was to have been the sixth and final MainStage offering this year, has been postponed until next season. Dividing The Estate, a human comedy about a family that must confront its past as it prepares for its future, opened to critical acclaim Off-Broadway in the fall of 2007 at Primary Stages. It began its limited engagement Broadway run in October 2008 at the Booth Theatre, produced by Lincoln Center Theatre in association with Primary Stages. Almost the entire company of the Broadway production are returning, including Drama Desk winner Hallie Foote, Obie Award winner Arthur French, Tony Award nominee Penny Fuller, and Gerald McRaney. Other returning cast members include Devon Abner, Pat Bowie, James DeMarse, Virginia Kull, Maggie Lacey, Nicole Lowrance, Jenny Dare Paulin, and Keiana Richard.
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The Mixed Blood Theatre Company's January 2009 production of Carlyle Brown's Pure Confidence, directed by Tony-nominee Marion McClinton, will reopen Off-Broadway at the 59E59 Theaters in Manhattan on May 27. The all-Minnesota cast and creative team is continuing with the show, featuring Gavin Lawrence in his seventh production as Simon Cato. Mixed Blood Theatre is thrilled to have its critically acclaimed production of Pure Confidence move from the Mini-Apple to the Big Apple. Said Artistic Director Jack Reuler, "For 33 years Mixed Blood has modeled a multiplicity of peoples coming together and being better off for having convened. Pure Confidence, with its Twin Cities playwright, director, cast, and design team, embodies that theatrical aspiration."
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There was considerable anticipatory buzz at the Guthrie about Tony Kushner's "The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures," with much of the buzz questioning the play's scope and ambitions. Opening night was postponed a week, with Kushner reportedly rewriting down to the wire, and early previews had pushed past the four-hour mark -- none of which necessarily presaged disaster but certainly fueled curiosity. The resulting three-act drama is a success -- sprawling, yearning, at times emotionally violent, it is also packed with a level of complexity, sophistication and understanding that distinguishes it as a potentially important new American work.
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The elections last year might have seemed unusually rife with issues and substance, what with the economy, the war and the general historic significance of several candidacies. But to feel truly on the brink of something momentous, try a trip back to 1858, when Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln debated both the survival of the nation and the very nature of humankind as they battled for a United States Senate seat.
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New York's Times Square is to undergo major surgery as work begins to transform the area, known for its heavy traffic jams, into a pedestrianised zone. The idea is relatively simple, with vehicles being barred on Broadway between 42nd and 47th streets. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has pushed for the plan as a way of handing part of the so-called "crossroads of the world" over to pedestrians. But the idea, similar to projects in other major cities, including in London's Trafalgar Square, is something of a revolution for New York, where the car is king. "It is a radical change for American culture," said Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance business group. Times Square has always been hectic. Even the name is a misnomer: there is no real square -- certainly nothing remotely resembling a European-style plaza, place or piazza. Instead there are cars and endless numbers of taxis, major media and corporate offices, the Broadway theaters, and the famously garish electric advertising boards. Into the middle of this maelstrom flock huge numbers of visitors. Forbes Traveller magazine lists Times Square as the top US tourist attraction. A good, if extreme example of what can go wrong when you put all that together is an incident earlier this month. A stunt driver in an upcoming Nicholas Cage movie lost control of his Ferrari on Times Square and ran into two pedestrians and a lamppost. Luckily, no one was hurt. Tompkins said Times Square is a victim of its popularity, which has soared since police managed to drive out the drug dealers and prostitutes who until a few years ago made the area a byword for sleaze. "The number one complaint we used to get 15 years ago was crime. Now the number one complaint is how crowded the sidewalks are," Tompkins said. Bloomberg has pushed hard, although in small increments, for a greener city, by building more bicycle lanes and promoting clean energy projects. His transport commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, sought inspiration in Copenhagen, where she hired urban planner Jan Gehl as a consultant. "It will make the street work like it should," Sadik-Khan said this week. "It's good for traffic, it's good for businesses and we think it is going be a great deal of fun." In a first stage, traffic will be shut off, and pedestrians allowed in. The plan is for traffic to bypass along 7th Avenue or to disperse in other streets. Special events will be held there such as broadcast of the Tony award ceremony from Radio City on June 7 onto giant screens and a mass yoga session at dawn on June 21, the summer solstice.
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HOLLYWOOD has always been a man’s world, but as Pink might sing, so what? On Broadway at least, women can still be rock stars. Among the big-name talents from film and television who have appeared behind Broadway marquees this season are Joan Allen, Jane Fonda, Allison Janney, Susan Sarandon and Kristin Scott Thomas. Along with more than a dozen other equally renowned actresses on New York stages, they have been playing rulers, heroes, scholars and terrorists. As lovers they have been pursued rather than pursuers; as angry combatants they have been the first to resort to violence. Once in a while they even get to sing. And they are all over 40.
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Once upon a time, there was a writer named Neil Gaiman who really wanted to see his children's book "Coraline" become a musical. Then along came Gaiman's indie rocker friend Stephin Merritt and writer-performer David Greenspan to grant his wish. Staged in a nest of pianos with Jayne Houdyshell as the eponymous 9-year-old protag and Greenspan in drag as the otherworldly villain who turns Coraline's family life into a waking nightmare, the unconventional new Off Broadway musical is already selling out the Lucille Lortel theater prior to its June 1 opening. For that bit of magic, producer MCC Theater has Gaiman and Magnetic Fields frontman Merritt's sizable fan bases to thank. That's not to mention those of Greenspan and Houdyshell, the fiftysomething thesp who has emerged in a string of raved-about New York perfs during recent years in offbeat shows such as "Well," "The Receptionist," "The Pain and the Itch" and "The New Century." "I'm a little worried that the same people who will see absolutely anything Jayne does are the same people who will see anything David is in," frets Merritt. "But they may not be the same who will see anything I do."
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West Virginia Public Theatre's Founder and Executive Director Ron Iannone has announced the lineup for the 2009 summer season, which runs June 23 through August 9, 2009. WVPT will be celebrating its 25th anniversary season and has, once again, lined up another summer filled with Broadway's best productions. Broadway favorite My Fair Lady begins the summer season and runs June 23rd through June 28th. This Lerner and Loewe musical tells the story of Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from professor Henry Higgins so that she can pass as a lady. Higgins then takes credit for Eliza's success, but she realizes that she can now be independent and does not need him. Debuting on Broadway in 1956, My Fair Lady has spurred a major motion picture starring, numerous revivals, and features such memorable musical numbers as 'I Could Have Danced All Night,' 'Wouldn't It Be Loverly,' and 'On the Street Where You Live.' Audrey II, the man-eating plant, returns to WVPT after a fifteen year absence in the Broadway comedy/thriller Little Shop of Horrors, which runs June 30th through July 5th. This musical favorite written by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken - the team behind such Disney favorites as Aladdin and The Little Mermaid tells the story of a nerdy florist shop worker who raises a plant that feeds on human blood. The musical was based on the low-budget 1960 black comedy The Little Shop of Horrors, directed by Roger Corman. The music, composed by Menken in the style of 1960s rock and roll, doo-wop and early Motown, includes several show-stoppers including "Skid Row (Downtown)", "Somewhere That's Green", and "Suddenly, Seymour", as well as the title song.
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English novelist Rose Tremain once suggested research should be done far enough in advance so that by the time of writing, most of it has been forgotten. Judging by the amount of research patiently spelled out throughout "The Observer," that's not a view held by playwright Matt Charman. Helmer Richard Eyre marries the play's urgent authenticity to elegant staging, but Charman's study of the conflict between political involvement and necessary detachment only fitfully lifts off into drama.
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While "Angels in America" scribe Tony Kushner isn't generally perceived as a writer who prefers to work in miniature, his experimental bent in crafting discrete moments and his lavish conceptual energy make the prospect of staging his short works intriguing. Part of the Guthrie Theater's season dedicated to the playwright, "Tiny Kushner" is a slam-bang series of five plays providing kaleidoscopic windows into the recesses of the artist's fertile mind.
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Looks like Broadway-bound tuner “Memphis” has nailed down the Shubert Theater for its fall run, with a group sales announcement indicating the show will begin previews in September. Tuner -- with music by Bon Jovi’s David Bryan, book by Joe DiPietro and lyrics by Bryan and DiPietro -- played Seattle earlier this year. Storyline follows a 1950s Memphis DJ who is one of the first to play music by African-Americans. The show now occupying the Shubert, the revival of “Blithe Spirit,” is currently selling tickets through July 19. “Memphis” aims to begin previews Sept. 23 ahead of an Oct. 18 opening.
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A perversely theatrical chapter of the Holocaust is hauntingly re-enacted in Juan Mayorga’s play “Way to Heaven,” about the sham Jewish settlement at Theresienstadt, or Terezin, in what is now the Czech Republic, set up by the Nazis to persuade observers that Jews were held in humane conditions. A make-believe utopia, Theresienstadt (the German name) was an effective propaganda tool. In reality, it was a concentration camp, and a way station leading to Auschwitz and other death camps.
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The final approach of the Enola Gay to its target lasted four minutes. The bomb, named Little Boy, was released at 8:15 a.m. on Aug. 6, 1945. The only entry in the co-pilot’s diary was, “My God.” Nearly 100,000 people were killed instantly in Hiroshima, and the world changed forever. Although a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki three days later, it was that first attack on Hiroshima that has come to symbolize the horrors of nuclear warfare.
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The lives of three disappointed men intersect with volatile consequences in “Groundswell,” an engrossing South African play by Ian Bruce that opened on Monday night at the Acorn Theater in a crisply acted production from the New Group.
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From the time of the ancient Greeks, family reunions have always been an efficient playwriting device for setting up a nice, big, messy meltdown. Curiously, Lloyd Suh pulls back from that payoff scene (by keeping a key character otherwise occupied) in "American Hwangap." Thus he withholds a definitive emotional release for his otherwise touching family drama about the return of a prodigal Korean dad to the family he left behind in Texas. Smart ensemble assembled by helmer Trip Cullman delivers the carefully detailed character work that goes into knowing how to make 'em cry after you make 'em laugh.
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Adriane Lenox (“Doubt”), Barbara Walsh (“Company”) and Karen Ziemba (“Contact”) will topline the Broadway-bound tuner version of “The First Wives Club,” set to begin its out-of-town tryout at San Diego’s Old Globe in July. Lenox appeared in a reading of the musical earlier this year. John Dossett, Brad Oscar, Sam Harris and Sara Chase also are among the vets of that reading to join the cast. Francesca Zambello (“The Little Mermaid”) directs “First Wives,” with book by Rupert Holmes (“Curtains”) and music by pop hitmakers Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland. Musical is based on the 1996 pic of the same name, and the 1992 novel on which it is based. Design team includes Peter J. Davison (sets), Paul Tazewell (costumes), Mark McCullough (lights) and Jon Weston (sound). Lisa Stevens choreographs. “First Wives” begins San Diego previews July 15 ahead of a July 31 opening. Paul Lambert and Jonas Neilson will produce the Broadway run, with dates and theater to be determined.
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Populism. Now there’s a word that makes you want to shout and strut and do something funky with your hips. Or that’s the effect this Latinate noun has on the young and restless residents of the young and restless country portrayed with zeal in “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson: The Concert Version,” the raw but tasty new musical that opened Sunday night at the Public Theater.
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Broadway offerings "Billy Elliot," "God of Carnage," "Hair" and "Blithe Spirit" won the competitive production categories at the Drama League's annual awards luncheon. Geoffrey Rush, selected from a field of about 70 performers, nabbed the actor prize. New tuner "Billy," new play "Carnage" and tuner revival "Hair" are all Tony contenders in their respective categories, and the Drama League wins rep another upshift in awards momentum for the offerings. Play revival "Blithe Spirit," however, was left out of the Tony race in a season packed with notable non-tuner revivals. A dozen play revivals were nommed for a kudo from the Drama League, whose traditionally wide-ranging list of Broadway and Off Broadway nominations included 10 new tuners and 11 new plays. Rush, who scored the thesping award for his turn in "Exit the King," was selected from a pool of nominated performers that included Sutton Foster ("Shrek"), Daniel Radcliffe ("Equus"), David Hyde Pierce ("Accent on Youth"), Kristin Scott Thomas ("The Seagull"), James Gandolfini and Marcia Gay Harden (both of "God of Carnage") and Rush's co-star Susan Sarandon. Previously announced honors were handed out to Elton John, composer of "Billy Elliot," for musical theater achievement; Angela Lansbury ("Blithe Spirit"), for unique contribution to the theater; and to producer Herb Blodgett, who received the League's 75th anniversary leadership laurel. Arthur Laurents, book writer and helmer of the current revival of "West Side Story," could not attend the ceremony due to illness, so his award for directing excellence was accepted on his behalf by "West Side" associate director David Saint. The 75th Anniversary Drama League awards ceremony and luncheon was held May 15 at Gotham's Marriott Marquis. Jeremy Irons and Cynthia Nixon hosted.
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