Platinum Broadway

Henry Miller's Theater takes centerstage - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety

Henry Miller's Theater takes centerstage - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety.

There’s one key factor that gives the Great White Way its sense of permanence: those quirky 40 stages in a narrow patch of Midtown Manhattan. When one of them turns into a movie theater or becomes a dance club, it’s cause for sadness. When one is demolished, Broadway mourns, as if for a favorite uncle. So it should be cause for celebration next month when Broadway welcomes back a theater, as the Roundabout’s "Bye Bye Birdie" takes the stage at the new Henry Miller’s Theater.

Zipper Factory closes suddenly - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety

Zipper Factory closes suddenly - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety.

Off Broadway performance space The Zipper Factory has suddenly shuttered, yanking all its upcoming programming effective immediately. Closing, attributed to a disagreement over real estate, was announced by Zipper owner and proprietor Lee Z. Davis.

'39 Steps' to step into Helen Hayes - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety

Link: '39 Steps' to step into Helen Hayes - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety.

Hitchcock-inspired comedy "The 39 Steps" will step into its third Broadway venue next year, wrapping up perfs at the Cort Theater Jan. 11 before picking up again at the Helen Hayes Jan. 20.

'Mary Stuart' to rule at Broadhurst - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety

Link: 'Mary Stuart' to rule at Broadhurst - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety.

The Broadway transfer of London hit "Mary Stuart" has set dates and a venue, opening at the Broadhurst Theater in April.

Helmed by Phyllida Lloyd ("Mamma Mia!"), the production is set to star Brit thesps Janet McTeer and Harriet Walter, reprising their roles from the 2005 Donmar Warehouse staging and subsequent West End run.

A new version by Peter Oswald of the 1800 Friedrich Schiller play, "Mary Stuart" chronicles the 16th century royal rivalry of Elizabeth I (Walter) and Mary Queen of Scots (McTeer). Play has not been seen on the Rialto since a 1971 revival.

Production begins perfs March 30 ahead of an April 19 opening. The Broadhurst's current tenant is the limited run of "Equus," on sale through Feb. 4.

'Plow' speeds to Barrymore Theater - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety

Link: 'Plow' speeds to Barrymore Theater - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety.

The upcoming Broadway revival of David Mamet's "Speed-the-Plow" has pounced on the newly available Ethel Barrymore Theater, with producers skedding a run that begins there in October. The Barrymore was previously set to be home to the scuttled production of "Godspell," officially postponed in an announcement sent out Tuesday. "Plow," starring Jeremy Piven, Raul Esparza and Elisabeth Moss ("Mad Men"), was originally skedded to the play the Belasco, one of the theaters on the east side of Broadway that are traditionally considered less desirable than those (like the Barrymore) located to the west of the Main Stem. Helmed by Neil Pepe, "Plow" now begins previews Oct. 3 ahead of an Oct. 23 opening

Jujamcyn ups aisle ticket prices - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety

Link: Jujamcyn ups aisle ticket prices - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety.

Jujamcyn Theaters has launched a ticket initiative that puts a higher pricetag on some aisle seats at three Broadway shows.

Five to 12 pairs on the aisle at each perf of "Gypsy," "Spring Awakening" and the upcoming revival of "The Seagull" cost $17-$25 more than a full-price ducat. All three shows are housed in venues owned by Jujamcyn; "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Jersey Boys," also in Jujamcyn houses, may soon follow suit.

Move is the latest in a general shift toward variable pricing that has occurred on Broadway in recent years, following a model often likened to the strategy for airlines and hotels. Rialto producers take advantage of high-demand shows, seats and dates through premium pricing that is often $100-$200 higher than full price, while at the same time working to encourage biz on the other end of the spectrum with an increasing array of discount offers.

"This initiative is really about pricing to value and demand, which is also what drives the success of the premium program," said Jordan Roth, veep of Jujamcyn. "Two on the aisle is what so many theatergoers want."

Program extends only to a relatively small number of aisle pairs per perf and does not affect seating for theatergoers with disabilities that require them to sit on an aisle.

The Longacre Theater Completes Renovation - New York Times

Link: The Longacre Theater Completes Renovation - New York Times.

As Christine Baranski, Mark Rylance, Bradley Whitford and the other cast members of the 1960s farce “Boeing-Boeing” face a house full of first-nighters on Sunday, one concern may be whether the play will be upstaged by the theater’s new ceilings, new seats, new carpets and — not inconsequentially — new restrooms.

Algonquin Theater Productions Takes Over Blue Heron Space

Link: Algonquin Theater Productions Takes Over Blue Heron Space

Algonquin Theater Productions, a not-for-profit company, has taken over the lease of the Blue Heron Theatre at 123 East 24th Street, and renamed the venue The Algonquin Theater. Algonquin will invest $100,000 to renovate the space to create a more elegant, stylized lobby and theater. This theater contains two performing venues. The Kaufman, with 99 seats, will house Algonquin productions and co-productions on a professional level; the second, The Parker, with 45 seats, will be offered mainly for rental, as will The Algonquin's rehearsal spaces. In addition, Algonquin plans to initiate a program for children's theater. The company, which was founded in 2004, is made up of some 50 actors, playwrights, directors and other theatrical professionals. It is led by artistic director Tony Sportiello.

Manhattan: Theater to Close - New York Times

Link: Manhattan: Theater to Close - New York Times.

The Actors’ Playhouse, a 62-year-old Off Broadway theater that has been home to such productions as “Funhouse,” “Torch Song Trilogy” and “Naked Boys Singing!” and actors including Robert De Niro and Lily Tomlin, is closing. The theater’s rent, which had doubled in the last six years, was getting too expensive, said Peter Breger, who has operated the playhouse since 1995. “Basically, we just couldn’t make it,” Mr. Breger said yesterday. The Playhouse is the latest in a string of Off Broadway theaters to close in the last few years; others include the Promenade, the Perry Street Theater and the Variety Arts theater. The owner of the property, Duell Management, did not respond to a message seeking comment; Mr. Breger said his understanding was that Duell was “in negotiations with people to turn it into something other than a theater.”

Scott Morfee - Gone Missing - Theater - New York Times

Link: Scott Morfee - Gone Missing - Theater - New York Times.

MOST of Scott Morfee’s life takes place on a couple of blocks in Greenwich Village. When he’s not at the Barrow Street Theater — the 199-seat house he manages and where he has presented almost every show of his 10-year career as a producer — he’s at AOC, a regular hangout on Bleecker Street. There is an apartment somewhere in Park Slope, Brooklyn, but it’s more of a crash pad than a center of operations. And while he occasionally takes in a Broadway show, he says he feels more comfortable in the cramped black-box theaters south of 14th Street. Skip to next paragraph Enlarge This Image Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Scott Morfee had a lot of jobs before finding his calling as a theater producer. He says he has no designs on Broadway, calling it “another land.” Related Theater Review | 'Gone Missing': Checking the Lost and Found of Life (June 27, 2007) Theater Review | 'TJ & Dave': A One-Hour Play, Written and Acted on the Spot (November 14, 2006) Theater Review: 'No Child . . .": Back to School, Script in Hand (May 11, 2006) Theater Review | 'Orson's Shadow': Two Titans of Drama Assemble for a Battle of Wills and Wits (March 14, 2005) Theater Review %

Variety.com - Off Broadway theater goes green

Link: Variety.com - Off Broadway theater goes green.

Off Broadway is going green: The recently remodeled Wild Project (formerly the Bottle Factory Theater) on the Lower East Side will include low-flush toilets, rooftop solar panels and organic concessions in its new incarnation. The theater will also use an eco-friendly ZAP car in its advertising. The renamed space will debut with “33 to Nothing,” a return engagement of Grant James Vargas’ play chronicling the breakup of a downtown garage band, which begins previews July 19 for a July 25 opening. Randal Myer directs the production, which is not billed as a musical but will feature live music performed by the actors.

At Lunt-Fontanne, an Impasse Nears a Finale - New York Times

Link: At Lunt-Fontanne, an Impasse Nears a Finale - New York Times.

In the theater district, Broadway playhouses are getting pressure from all sides. All around them, developers are knocking down walls and blasting bedrock to lay foundations for office towers, stores and high-rise condominiums. If the newcomers are not careful, they could lop off part of a historic theater, like the Lunt-Fontanne on 46th Street. Indeed, one nearly did. That is why, in the midst of a tourism and real estate boom, a prime corner of Times Square has stood boarded up and partly demolished for more than a year. For decades, the northwest corner of 46th Street and Broadway was home to the last Howard Johnson’s restaurant in the city, a vinyl-covered time capsule redolent of fried clams. But since last May, it has been obscured by scaffolding and a blue plywood barrier. Yellow fliers posted there warn passers-by that rat poison has been employed inside. “It just looks run down,” said Tim Tompkins, the president of the Times Square Alliance. “It would be great to have either some movement or the removal of the sidewalk scaffolding because of the need for uncluttered sidewalks.”

Summer Theater in New York

Link: Summer Theater in New York - City Center - Symphony Space - Algonquin Theater Productions - Potomac Theater Project - New York Times.

THEY’RE big, they’re sleek, they come from La Crosse, Wis., and they’re the reason New York City Center will have its first summer season since Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia designated the former space of the Ancient Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine a performing arts center in 1943. At 350 tons of cooling capacity, the two Trane electric centrifugal chillers newly installed in the basement are part of a $10 million, four-year overhaul that means Patti LuPone and Boyd Gaines can star in “Gypsy” in the previously stifling theater from July 9 through 29.

Variety.com - Orbach honored by N.Y. theater

Link: Variety.com - Orbach honored by N.Y. theater.

The Snapple Theater Center in midtown Gotham will rename one of its two stages after late thesp Jerry Orbach. The newly rechristened Jerry Orbach Theater is currently home to the revival of "The Fantasticks," the musical in which Orbach ("Law & Order"), who died in 2004, launched his career in 1960. The theater adjacent to the Orbach, which houses the long-running play "Perfect Crime," will be named after Elaine Cancilla-Orbach, Orbach's widow. Theaters will be rechristened in a ceremony today that features Sam Waterston ("Law & Order") and Karen Ziemba ("Curtains").

Variety.com - Broadway grosses still dropping

Link: Variety.com - Broadway grosses still dropping.

Broadway grosses slid over the week ending May 6, but a handful of shows still managed to gain momentum in the countdown to the Tony noms May 15. "Legally Blonde" ($755,967) may have garnered mixed reviews, but sales were still up by nearly $150,000 after its opening week, even taking into account comps for second-night press perfs. Tally was enough to land the tuner, which played to auds at 97% of capacity, in the top 10 just behind another recently opened musical, "Curtains" ($767,349). In the wake of strong press, particularly for the acting, "Frost/Nixon" ($417,471) racked up its best total so far, although its crowds of about 64% capacity could benefit from the boost that might come with lead thesp Frank Langella's likely Tony nom. Also among the productions climbing this week were "The Phantom of the Opera" ($752,027), "The Year of Magical Thinking" ($424,452) and the struggling "Company" ($222,411), as was "The Coast of Utopia" ($564,505) in its second-to-last week on the boards. Total grosses for the Rialto, however, were down about $850,000 to around $19.5 million.

Ground Zero Arts Center Loses Theater Company - New York Times

Link: Ground Zero Arts Center Loses Theater Company - New York Times.

In a new twist to the juggling act at ground zero, the city said yesterday that the Signature Theater Company would not be included in a performing arts center to be designed there by Frank Gehry, leaving the Joyce Theater, which presents dance, as the building’s sole resident. Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff said the Signature, an Off Broadway group, was dropped because of the cost and complicated logistics of having the two institutions share a confined space. Instead the city hopes to move the Signature to Fiterman Hall at 30 West Broadway, cater-corner to 7 World Trade Center. Fiterman, part of the Borough of Manhattan Community College, was heavily damaged by falling debris on 9/11. Estimates of the performing arts center’s cost were approaching $700 million

Variety.com - Tuner trumpet their trinkets

Link: Variety.com - Tuner trumpet their trinkets.

Twenty years ago it wasn't uncommon for theaters to stock a skimpy inventory of souvenir T-shirts, posters and programs. But swag has evolved ever since tuners such as "The Phantom of the Opera" learned the marketing value of iconic logos. Now some newer kids on the block -- including "The Color Purple" and "Wicked," which reports 2006 merchandise receipts of a whopping $6.25 million at the show's Broadway outpost alone -- have raised the stakes even higher, turning merchandise into a booming ancillary biz. "Merchandising has gotten more sophisticated," says David Schrader, managing director and chief financial officer of Disney Theatrical Prods., which trades on its own shows (including "Mary Poppins" and "The Lion King") in the U.S. and the U.K. "Sellers are paying more attention and getting a little smarter, and the consumer seems to be more accepting of it." Disney has always done well on the merchandise front, which is no surprise to those who associate Broadway trinkets with kids' stuff such as "The Lion King's" Simba beanbag, one of that production's top-selling items. But even Disney didn't expect a higher-end product for grown-ups, a sturdy parrot-head umbrella that retails for $40, to turn into the strong seller it has become for "Mary Poppins." But it's not just the kid

Best place to pee.

Link: what's good / what blows in new york theatre: VOTE YOUR HEART.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The Public Theater has the worst bathrooms in all of off-broadway theater. Worse than the Port Authority! Its like the Achilles heal of what is otherwise a marvelous institution. So you can imagine my shock and awe, when I walked in there last week to find.....a bathroom attendant!! No joke. He was pumping soap into my hands, handing me towels, and desperately trying to gussy up the place. I was laughing so hard, I couldn't even pee. Who do they think they're kidding??

Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals: It's Curtains for the Hirshfeld

Link: Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals: It's Curtains for the Hirshfeld.

With the semi-lamented demise of The Wedding Singer comes the availability of the very desirable Al Hirshfeld (née Martin Beck) theater. Well nature abhors a vacuum, and the venerable theater has quickly found a new tenant: Kander & Ebb's Curtains, which recently had a successful run in Los Angeles. The show will transfer to Broadway with most of its Los Angeles cast intact: David Hyde Pierce, Debra Monk, Karen Ziemba, Jason Danieley, Jill Paice, and Edward Hibbert will all repeat their roles. Boston Conservatory graduate Noah Racey, star of the short-lived Never Gonna Dance, will also be part of the transfer. The show centers around a murder during the Boston tryout of a fictive Broadway musical. Coincidentally, the show itself also features two creators who have shuffled off this mortal coil: Fred Ebb and Peter Stone, both of whom have passed away since beginning work on the show. Rupert Holmes, a Tony winner for The Mystery of Edwin Drood, will provide a new book and additional lyrics. Curtains is scheduled to start previews in February for a March opening.

Hidden Music Secrets » The Early History Of Broadway Musicals

Link: Hidden Music Secrets » The Early History Of Broadway Musicals.

In 1891, the first electric marquis was lit on Broadway. The theater was on Madison Square at the intersection of Broadway and Fifth Avenue at W. 23rd Street. The Flatiron Building now occupies the site. By midway through the following decade, the street blazed with electric signs as each theater announced its shows and stars in white lights. By the turn of the 20th Century the street had an entirely different look, with as many as sixteen theaters on Broadway itself and many others located on the side streets or other avenues.

Broadway theatre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Link: Broadway theatre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

List of Broadway theaters