Roundabout Theatre Company - Page 8

Assistant Director of Education, Mitch Mattson, sat down with actorJames Earl Jones to discuss Jones's upcoming role as 'Grandpa' inYou Can't Take It With You.

We are thrilled to announce celebrated film star & Golden Globe nominee Emma Stone will join the cast of the Tony Award-winning Cabaret and make her Broadway debut starring as 'Sally Bowles' from November 11, 2014 through February 1, 2015. Current 'Sally Bowles' Michelle Williams will play her final performance on November 9, 2014.

In the first installment of weekly updates from the Indian Ink rehearsal room, Director Carey Perloff lets us in on working with Playwright Tom Stoppard and experimenting with the staging of the final scenes.

David Rockwell - Set Design Central to the comic plot of You Can't Take It with You are the eccentricities of the Sycamore family. The entire three-act play takes place in the house where this extended family lives in upper Manhattan. We wanted the audience to get the sense that this family doesn't quite conform to their surroundings from the moment they enter the theater, so, rather than a standard show curtain, they see the front porch of a fully three dimensional, faintly Victorian, turn-of-the-century house, flanked on each side by renderings of two relatively modern apartment buildings from the 1930s. Inspired by architectural 'holdouts' that are sprinkled throughout New York City, this image creates a stark contrast between the Sycamore house and the prevailing aesthetic of the rest of the neighborhood -- playfully hinting at the quirky family that the audience is about to meet.

The Old Globe is currently presenting Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Tony Award-winning musical Into the Woods, which made its World Premiere at The Old Globe in 1986. The production is an inventive reimagining by Fiasco Theater, directed by Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld, in a production that originated at McCarter Theatre Center.

Following the opening night performance of Cabaret, actor Alan Cumming (Emcee) surprised and awed the guests of the opening night bash. Inspired by German artist Otto Dix, Cumming emerged from his dressing room as the subject of one of Dix's most famous paintings, Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden (1926). Brandishing a red-checkered jumpsuit, a monocle fixed over his right eye, a cigarette holder and slicked-back hair, the Cabaret star looked almost identical to the 1926 painting. In an interview with NPR, Alan explained, ' I decided that I would do my own thing and have a modern interpretation of an image that is very much an inspiration for the production. We have those images of Otto Dix all over the walls, and [George] Grosz and all those painters. ... I'm going to go as that painting.' The portrait, a mixed media work on wood, is currently housed at the Musee National d'Art Moderne in Paris. At the time of its creation, Dix had just been discharged from service in World War I and was working in Dresden during the Weimar Republicof Germany.

We are pleased to announce that 3-time Academy Award nominee & Golden Globe winner, Michelle Williams has extended her acclaimed run as 'Sally Bowles' in Cabaret on Broadway through November 9, 2014.

Cabaret is set in 1930s Berlin, just around the time the Nazi Party began rising to power in Germany. The Emcee, Sally Bowles and a raucous ensemble take the stage at the Kit Kat Klub nightly to tantalize the crowd, and to leave their troubles outside. But as life in pre-WWII Germany grows more and more uncertain, the club, a metaphor for the threatening state of the late Weimar Germany begins to fall apart.

Jim Dale got his big break at an audition after getting a big laugh from a big fall. From that moment on, he would use his physicality for laughs, making him part of a long line of artists unafraid of falling down on the job.

We are pleased to announce that Josh Hamilton will play 'Max' opposite Ewan McGregor ('Henry'), Maggie Gyllenhaal('Annie') and Cynthia Nixon ('Charlotte') inTom Stoppard's Tony® Award-winning playThe Real Thing, directed by Sam Gold.

Immerse yourself in the world of Cabaret with our recommended reading, watching and listening lists! WHAT TO READ

Veteran actor Jim Dale has a long history with Roundabout Theatre Company. Starting with one of Roundabout's earliest successes, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, Jim Dale has performed in five Roundabout productions over the last 30 years. In his brand new solo show, Just Jim Daleunder the direction of Tony winner Richard Maltby, Jr. (Fosse, Ain't Misbehavin'), Dale shares his passion for the stage as he recounts a lifetime of irresistible showbiz tales. We look back at some of his great roles at Roundabout below.

Studio 54 was known for two things before Roundabout purchased this historic theatre: being a famous club and being a cursed theatre, with shows sometimes opening and closing in the same night. However, Roundabout turned Studio 54's luck around with successful productions likeSunday in the Park with George, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and, of course, Cabaret.

The end of World War I in 1918 brought radical change to a defeated, disillusioned Germany. The entire population had experienced hunger, death, and violence. In October of that year, as the Americans brought renewed vigor to the fighting on the Western front, a largely communist revolt against the Kaiser and the war spread across Germany. Top military leaders showed no confidence in the monarchy. In early November, the Kaiser abdicated, and a leading socialist party declared a republic, thus bringing the Weimar Republic to power. The November 11 armistice was signed soon after. The war with the world had ended, but Germany's internal war was just beginning.

Jim Dale's career as an actor grew out of his success as a music hall performer and musician. He put those music hall skills as a wit, singer, musician, and physical comedian to work in performances of William Shakespeare's many clowns and fools.

In Just Jim Dale, the British Music Hall is featured as both a family business (Jim Dale's grandmother ran a theatrical boarding house adjoining a local music hall) and as a major influence on Dale's career. Music hall entertainment evolved out of musical performances given at local taverns. These 'taproom concerts' were initially a background diversion, secondary to the eating, drinking, and debauchery common to early 19th century pubs. As the concerts gained popularity, pub owners took note, and by the mid-1830s, taverns often had entire 'song and supper rooms' devoted to the entertainment. In 1843, the Theatre Regulations Act differentiated music halls from the 'theatre proper' (theatres that housed ballet and opera performances). While smoking and drinking were banned in the theatre proper, they were allowed to continue in music hall entertainment, thus cementing the music hall's popularity as a hangout for working class audiences.

Roundabout mourns the loss of our dear friend, Eli Wallach, who passed away on June 24th at the age of 98. Eli was known to many for his huge breadth of film work, taking on character roles of all kinds over the course of his 60-year career. He was deservedly awarded an honorary Oscar for those performances in 2010. But Eli's first love was the theatre, and he returned to it over and over again in the midst of his success on screen. He was an early favorite of playwright Tennessee Williams, appearing in the original productions of both The Rose Tattoo and Camino Real. Eli was frequently paired on stage with his wife, Anne Jackson. They would play together in everything from Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros to Jean Ahouilh's Waltz of the Toreadors, becoming a leading couple of the American theatre. We were lucky to have Eli join the Roundabout in 1992 with his performance in Arthur Miller's The Price at the Criterion Center on Broadway.

On April 9, more than 625 students from seven high schools and five middle schools across all five boroughs of New York City attended the all-student matinee of Violet. For many students,Violet was their first Broadway show. In the two weeks before the student matinee, Roundabout Teaching Artists visited classrooms to lead pre-show workshops that prepared students for the historical context of the musical and the production's artistic conventions. On the morning of the show, 50 freshman from FDR High School engaged in a workshop at the American Airlines Theatre, fulfilling the roles of actors, designers and marketing staff. The students researched, designed and performed two excerpts from Violet in just two hours.

Cabaret has made an indelible impact on musical theatre and inspired some of the greatest theatrical artists of the last century to imprint the work with their unique style. The undeniable power of this musical lies in the universal question it poses: why do we again and again allow destructive powers to take control of society?