Pat Cerasaro - Page 216

Today, we continue out InDepth Discussion of the ten-time Tony-nominated revival of August Wilson's FENCES, starring Viola Davis and Denzel Washington, with a focus on the creative team's favorite moments and how they define the lead characters of Troy and Rose for themselves. Additionally, they contribute a thorough discussion of the music and sound design, as well as illuminate all of the attributable effort that went into the set and costume design of this masterful production of the play currently playing on Broadway. Plus, BWW has the exclusive stream of the show's soundtrack, available in the player below...

Today, we are talking to the creative team of the ten-time Tony-nominated revival of FENCES starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis playing to packed houses every night on Broadway. Last night, it won 3 Drama Desk Awards including Best Revival of a Play. In this first part of a three-part series, the team discusses what drew them to FENCES and August Wilson's work in the first place, hat his work means to them and the notion of collaboration. And so much more...

This week, we are taking a look and listen to two of Broadway's brightest beacons currently lighting up television sets with their maternally-themed musical numbers on the hit Fox series GLEE. As if their names even need mentioning: Idina Menzel and Lea Michele, and they perform 'I Dreamed A Dream' and 'Poker Face' from the show‘s soundtrack which was released this week...

Today, with a BWW Exclusive First Listen is a critique of Broadway's most highly-praised and most Tony-nominated new show of the year, the smash-hit Afrobeat musical by Bill T. Jones and Jim Lewis, FELA! So, is it as electrifying and exciting as the critics found the show to be onstage? Let's find out...

Yesterday, BWW interviewer Pat Cerasaro conducted an InDepth InterView with legendary Tony-winning set and costume designer Santo Loquasto which will be featured on BWW in the coming weeks, as well as his input on a feature article detailing the Grand Design of twelve-time Tony-nominated revival of FENCES which is currently playing. The following is his courteous and diplomatic response to being nominated for a Tony for his work on this season's revival of RAGTIME only to subsequently have the nomination removed on the basis that the Tony committee now feels his work is ineligible due to having created the costumes for the original production of the show and any new work done for the revival being largely a recreation.

Today, we are taking a look at multi-Tony-nominated Broadway leading lady Sherie Rene Scott and the original cast recording of her (mostly) one-woman show EVERYDAY RAPTURE, currently on Broadway. In addition to being nominated this season for Best Actress, Ms. Scott is also nominated in the Best Book of A Musical category (along with collaborator Dick Scanlan) for this autobiographical musical tracing her conversion from Mormonism to Mermanism (as in Ethel) and detailing her time spent on Broadway from TOMMY until now. From Sally Simpson to the stage version of herself, Sherie Rene Scott can hold an audience‘s attention like few other performers, evident everywhere on this album. But is that enough?

For this week's FLASHBACK FRIDAY we are bringing together the subjects of my two other columns from this week - SOUND OFF: The Way We Are and InDepth InterView: Maury Yeston - with a perfect performance showcasing the supreme l'actrice/chanteuse Streisand's take on a song from Yeston's 1982 Best Musical and Best Score Tony-winner NINE: the evocative, eerie, sensual "Unusual Way".

Today, in honor of the DVD release of Rob Marshall's film version of the 1982 Tony-winning Best Musical NINE, Maury Yeston was gracious and generous enough to grant me a few hours in which I could ask him intimate questions about his life, career and the future of theatre itself. Not one to mince words, Yeston is a veritable font of knowledge and it became clear during the interview that he may be as gifted and talented in his educational and mentorship skills as he is as a two-time Tony-winning composer and lyricist. His stage musicals include two Tony-winning Best Musicals, NINE and TITANIC, as well as: IN THE BEGINNING, GRAND HOTEL, PHANTOM, and the forthcoming DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY, as well as a full-length ballet of TOM SAWYER premiering later this year. From the handwritten letter sent by Katharine Hepburn to Frederico Fellini after seeing the workshop of NINE thirty years ago to this very day when NINE hits DVD, we will take a look at this magnanimous maestro's starry career in this inaugural InDepth InterView. Enjoy!

This week, we are taking a look and a listen to one of the foremost interpreters of song - whether originating from the stage, film, the Great American songbook, world music, tailor-made-music and virtually everything else - the legendary Barbra Streisand. Nothing can be said that hasn't been said about Ms. Streisand, she is a star unlike any other, but her recent intimate concert before 120 lucky audience members on September 26 of last year - marking her fortieth anniversary in show business - is perhaps her most arresting concert ever preserved on home video, a feat in itself considering her past pitch-perfect television specials. Let's not focus on the way we were, but more how we are today: in the case of Ms. Streisand, simply irresistible.

Today, in honor of the DVD release of Rob Marshall's film version of the 1982 Tony-winning Best Musical NINE, Maury Yeston was gracious and generous enough to grant me a few hours in which I could ask him intimate questions about his life, career and the future of theatre itself. Not one to mince words, Yeston is a veritable font of knowledge and it became clear during the interview that he may be as gifted and talented in his educational and mentorship skills as he is as a two-time Tony-winning composer and lyricist. His stage musicals include two Tony-winning Best Musicals, NINE and TITANIC, as well as: IN THE BEGINNING, GRAND HOTEL, PHANTOM, and the forthcoming DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY, as well as a full-length ballet of TOM SAWYER premiering later this year. From the handwritten letter sent by Katharine Hepburn to Frederico Fellini after seeing the workshop of NINE thirty years ago to this very day when NINE hits DVD, we will take a look at this magnanimous maestro's starry career in this inaugural InDepth InterView. Enjoy!

This week, we are continuing our month-long look at the career of Stephen Sondheim with these informative and fun clips from a British interview show and a special salute from the cast of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES...

Today, we are continuing where we left off last week in our complete overview of Stephen Sondheim's career in honor of his 80th birthday, as well as the opening of his new musical SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM, by taking a listen to all the Sondheim-related soundtracks available on CD and MP3...

This week, in honor of legendary composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim, we are taking a look at one of his most thoughtful and thought-provoking musicals, the Sondheim/John Weidman collaboration directed by Hal Prince, 1976's PACIFIC OVERTURES...

Today, we present the final section of the Sondheim Palooza for this week with a discussion of Sondheim's work in the last two decades. The shows themselves stand as solid proof that this is a composer/lyricist still at the absolute height of his abilities and at the top of his game, as we can very clearly hear in the scores for ASSASSINS, PASSION, THE FROGS and ROAD SHOW...

Today we are taking a listen to Stephen Sondheim's musicals of the 1980s, each a striking artistic achievement attempting to do something never done before in Broadway history and improving the very genre of musical theatre itself with his work on these three very different shows. MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE and INTO THE WOODS...

Today we are taking a look at the extended streak of genius exhibited by Stephen Sondheim, along with director/producer Hal Prince, following the resounding success of COMPANY in 1970. Throughout the rest of the 70s they would continue to change the form of theatre itself with four momentous musicals tackling every topic from aging showgirls singing one last tune to Ingmar Bergman sunsets and a topic for a concept musical no less epic than the westernization of Japan in the wake of Commodore Perry - plus, who could forget the remorseful Barber and his knife (or should that be “wife“?). Without question, these are four richly-encrusted crowning achievements of a legendary career and these musical jewels are still sparkling and shining, as glistening and beautiful as ever dazzling us and enticing us to inspect them closer...

Today, we are taking a listen to ANYONE CAN WHISTLE and COMPANY, two of the most genre-bending and revolutionary musicals of the latter twentieth century, both boasting Sondheim's strongest songs of the sixties. These recordings contain some of the most legendary and illustrious Broadway casts of all time and include the names Angela Lansbury, Lee Remick, Bernadette Peters, Elaine Stritch, Raul Esparza, Dean Jones, Larry Kert and Jane Krakowski, just to name a few...

Today we continue our critical appraisal of the entire English-language recorded canon of Stephen Sondheim - at the very least, all the major productions which were recorded - beginning where we have left off with the round-ups of GYPSY and WEST SIDE STORY, as well as the 2009 Revival Recording of A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, from the last few weeks. The last show for which Sondheim wrote lyrics-only, before he was quite able to get his own musical scores produced, was his collaboration with Richard Rodgers, DO I HEAR A WALTZ? Next, we continue with the first show for which he wrote music and lyrics, SATURDAY NIGHT, as well as the first show he wrote music and lyrics for that actually made it to Broadway, A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM.

This week, in honor of the first Broadway revival of the Neil Simon/Hal David/Burt Bacharach musical PROMISES, PROMISES starring Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenoweth, it seems to be a particularly apropos time to go all the way back to an early Spring day of nearly fifty years ago: April 21, 1968, and that year's Tony Award telecast...

This week we are taking a look at some of the biggest flops of the last decade or so in honor of the new feature on the website of the legendary theatre insider haunt, Joe Allen's Restaurant in the Theatre District in NYC.