Tom Hanks makes his Broadway debut in LUCKY GUY by Nora Ephron.
Nora Ephron's LUCKY GUY marks a return to her journalistic roots in a new play about the scandal- and graffiti-ridden New York of the 1980s, as told through the story of the charismatic and controversial tabloid columnist Mike McAlary.
From his sensational reporting of New York's major police corruption to the libel suit that nearly ended his career, the play dramatizes the story of McAlary's meteoric rise, fall and rise again, ending with his coverage of the Abner Louima case for which he won the Pulitzer Prize, shortly before his untimely death on Christmas Day, 1998.
Wolfe stages the play-propelled by direct-address narration from McAlary's fellow journos (forming a kind of f-bomb-dropping Greek chorus)-at a furious clip. Split scenes, video projection and rapid cuts bridge the stylistic gap between the movie this material started as and the scrappy, vibrant urban drama it became. The hero of this latter-day Front Pagedied at the cusp of a new age, one of news aggregators, blogs and camera phones-not to mention plummeting ad dollars and circulation numbers. He and his fellow media dinosaurs didn't live to see what a bloodless hash the Internet would make of city news. Maybe they are the lucky ones.
Lucky Guy boasts a posthumous script by the beloved late writer and director Nora Ephron; the Broadway debut of super-duper movie star Tom Hanks; and the real-life story of Mike McAlary, a swaggering New York tabloid columnist...That's a lot of juicy back story - none of which saves Lucky Guy from its fate as a dull, stalled play about a not-particularly-noteworthy mug with a flair for self-promotion. Two hours of Lucky Guy and a theater-goer with no previous knowledge of McAlary and his tabloid cronies will still have no idea why Ephron was so enamored of this blowhard, no sense of McAlary himself, and no explanation for why a Broadway production, directed by the inventive George C. Wolfe with so much energetic set-changing and stage business, nevertheless feels so inconsequential and dramatically inert. C+
2013 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2013 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Actor in a Play | Tom Hanks |
2013 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Tom Hanks |
2013 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Courtney B. Vance |
2013 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Production of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Play | 0 |
2013 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Actor in a Play | Tom Hanks |
2013 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding New Broadway Play | 0 |
2013 | Theatre World Awards | Theatre World Award | Tom Hanks |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Direction of a Play | George C. Wolfe |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Lighting Design of a Play | Peggy Eisenhauer |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Lighting Design of a Play | Jules Fisher |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play | Courtney B. Vance |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play | Tom Hanks |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Play | William Berlind |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Nora Ephron |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Play | The Shubert Organization |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Sonia Friedman Productions |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Scott and Brian Zeilinger |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Play | James D. Stern/Douglas L. Meyer |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Play | The Shubert Organization |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Sonia Friedman Productions |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Scott and Brian Zeilinger |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Play | James D. Stern/Douglas L. Meyer |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Frederick Zollo |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Daryl Roth |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Play | David Mirvish |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Robert Cole |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Stacey Mindich |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Roger Berlind |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Arielle Tepper Madover |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Roy Furman |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Colin Callender |
2013 | Tony Awards | Best Scenic Design of a Play | David Rockwell |
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