Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
#1Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 9:14am
Maybe. I wonder who will play Blanche?
Also, Patti LaBelle will fill in for Lillias White in Fela! in September.
http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/theater/will_to_make_it_on_way_Shgkn0W5A4N4bQnywb6LWK
Tom1071
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/1/04
#2Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 9:26amThat's a pretty amusing story about Lauren Bacall and Vanessa Redgrave.
#2Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 9:29am
What an awful night of theatre that would be! The smith's would find a way to add that horrible child in as well.
Woild rather see the Sydney Theatre Company production open.
Well I didn't want to get into it, but he's a Satanist.
Every full moon he sacrifices 4 puppies to the Dark Lord and smears their blood on his paino.
This should help you understand the score for Wicked a little bit more.
Tazber's: Reply to
Is Stephen Schwartz a Practicing Christian
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#3Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 9:40amThe Vanessa Redgrave story reeks of bullsh*t.
WOSQ
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/18/03
#4Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 9:50amShe is too butch, and he is not butch enough.
"If my life weren't funny, it would just be true. And that would be unacceptable."
--Carrie Fisher
WiCkEDrOcKS
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/13/04
#5Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 10:02am
This STREETCAR will probably come to fruition but the brilliant, nearly flawless Blanchett production will probably never come to Broadway. I'm pissed. Here's hoping this production is good but I highly doubt it'll come anywhere near the Blanchett production.
The LaBelle news is exciting though.
Updated On: 7/16/10 at 10:02 AM
#6Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 10:17am
I really wish Streetcar along with Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, Guys & Dolls, and Gypsy would go on a shortlist of shows NOT to revive again for a quarter century.
Enough already.
Find another play.
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
#7Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 10:24amI'm with you on that at least, best 12.
#8Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 10:31am
Following this subtly disturbing trend of African-American productions of old white plays:
Bill Cosby and Cicely Tyson in Death of a Salesman
Ice T and Beyonce in Pygmalion
Bernie Mac and Janet Jackson in Night of the Iguana
Lola Falana and David Allan Grier in Gone With the Wind (the Harold Rome musical, of course)
#9Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 11:00amThey'll have to hire a necromancer to direct one of those!
iluvtheatertrash
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/9/04
#10Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 11:02amnewintown, Bernie Mac passed away last year.
"I know now that theatre saved my life." - Susan Stroman
#11Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 11:03am
Oh. Right. Sorry.
How about re-casting with Cedric the Entertainer? (He's still with us, isn't he?)
#13Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 11:14amI remember reading about it, but I can't remember: Why didn't the other Streetcar come to Broadway? I'm racking my brain, and it's just coming to me.
Yankeefan007
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/20/04
#14Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 11:40amBut how brilliant would Morgan Freeman and Cicely Tyson as James and Mary with Forest Whitaker and Don Cheadle as James, Jr. and Edmund be in LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT?
#15Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 12:41pm
WOSQ - Those were my thoughts exactly!
I don't know what it is about her, but there has always been something about Jada Pinkett Smith that has rubbed me the wrong way (her Tony gown included).
That being said, it will be a cash cow if it comes to fruition.
#16Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 12:47pmThe scientologist crowd will show up.
Faced with these Loreleis, what man can moralize!
Q
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/3/05
#17Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 12:53pm
I didn't see CAT, but two different friends (independently of each other) referred to it as a "minstrel show".
I didn't question them, but also didn't really understand the comment - anyone who did see it have any insight?
#18Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 12:55pm
What a gimmick, I have no problem with an all-black production of this play, I recently saw a production where Stella was played by an African-American actress and Blanche played by a white actress and though this particular production was atrocious, I could see how that would work. An interracial STREETCAR might be more interesting than an all-black STREETCAR, but still. I just can't imagine Pinkett-Smith being any good, and Will Smith is too vanilla for Stanley, Denzel would be far more interesting in the role and still not the perfect choice. I'd love to see Anika Noni Rose play Stella, it sucks that they picked Halle Berry over her to star in THE MOUNTAINTOP, Berry is a terrible actress and I can just imagine her getting lost on stage.
Who will play Blanche though?
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
#19Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 12:56pmMy comment is your friends sound like racists. I saw it in London and liked it a lot. James Earl Jones was wonderful.
Faced with these Loreleis, what man can moralize!
Q
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/3/05
#20Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 12:58pm
Mallardo - in one instance, I'm sure they are - the other would surprise me.
And, for the record, 'friend' is used generically to indicate someone I interact with on a regular basis - but neither have ever been invited to our home!
#21Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 1:01pmQ, I have non-racist friends who had the same reaction - one of them thought they re-wrote parts of the play (although I don't believe that happened).
Brick
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/21/06
#22Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 1:01pm
It makes me sad the Williams' estate isn't more picky. While the former estate holder was extremely protective of his material, the current ones show no discrimination. If it's a big production, then sure, go ahead!
And, in theory, this could be something wonderful: the estate could be licensing productions to truly innovative and daring productions the former estate never would have approved of. But instead there's miscasting like this...
At least it's Emily Mann directing and not Debbie Allen.
WOSQ
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/18/03
#23Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 1:22pm
I believe James Earl Jones headed an all-black cast of The Cherry Orchard for Joe Papp back in the 70s. The reviews for the production were good.
I see no reason why an all-black cast would not work for any number of plays with no script changes. I do wonder about the plays of Tennessee Williams which are often Southern-specific and time period specific.
Big Daddy in Cat is a wealthy landowner in Mississippi in the 1950s. How did he get this land and more importantly givern the time and place, how was he allowed to keep it?
Streetcar works a bit better, but still someone had to get the land that Blanche has lost. In postwar 1940s (and really post WWI) Louisiana that really wouldn't have happened. The family, even if they owned the land in the first place, would have lost it by force if necessary, a long time ago.
However my biggest problem here is these two stars. I don't think the Smiths have the chops for Stanley and Blanche. He has no danger and she has no vulnerability.
Long Day's Journey would sort of work, but bear in mind that the time period would make James Tyrone, Sr. a star on the chitlin circuit, not the main theatres in North America. I think James Earl Jones did play James Tyrone somewhere, but I wouldn't bet on it.
All of these plays are about the family dynamic and not about being Black in America.
"If my life weren't funny, it would just be true. And that would be unacceptable."
--Carrie Fisher
kidbroadway2
Leading Actor Joined: 3/26/10
#24Will and Jada Pinkett Smith to star in STREETCAR??
Posted: 7/16/10 at 2:05pmI'm sorry but as a massive Will Smith fan, this show would be an utter failure. Jada would be fine, because the role suits her but Will cannot play this type of character. He imo did not deliver when playing the masculine force of nature they call ALI and is much better suited for the goofy stuff we know, or the rags to riches story. Will Smith could not play Stanley. I'm sorry this is just ridiculous.
