ZORBA at City Center Encores!

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Mr. Nowack
#1ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/23/15 at 1:32am

It's still over a month away but I thought it would be cool to start the official thread!

Any word on casting? Apparently Chobani Greek yogurt is one of the main sponsors.


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Charley Kringas Inc Profile Photo
Charley Kringas Inc
#2ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/23/15 at 1:44am

Oh, great, load up on yogurt in the lobby and then poop yourself when the mine explodes in act two.

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EricMontreal22
#2ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/23/15 at 1:48am

LOL!

I know of course that these are semi staged, and usually edit down the script--but I hope they go back to the original 1968 concept (the cafe setting--telling stories framework,) and original script/lyrics and not the watered down revival.

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Mr. Nowack
#3ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/23/15 at 2:37am

I've also been wondering if they're using the original version or the revival.

LITTLE ME used the original version last year so maybe that's an indication?


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NoName3 Profile Photo
NoName3
#4ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/23/15 at 2:51am

Several people either here or at ATC said that Encores had gone back to the original Broadway version of Paint Your Wagon, and not the heavily revised version Lerner made for the national tour, which is what is currently licensed (although a few of the revisions were used).

Updated On: 3/23/15 at 02:51 AM

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EricMontreal22
#5ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/23/15 at 3:54am

I hope that's a good sign. I believe even the tour of Zorba's Hal Prince production made some minor revisions--but it seems to partly negate the Encores point if they do use revisions. (Still, they did with Follies didn't they? But of course we have the Widow Goldman issue there :P )

After Eight
#6ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/23/15 at 5:22am

"but it seems to partly negate the Encores point if they do use revisions."

They do their own revisions all the time.

Auggie27 Profile Photo
Auggie27
#7ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/23/15 at 5:37am

I think Michael Nouri would be an extraordinary Zorba (see "Slap, The" thread).


"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling

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Mr. Nowack
#8ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/23/15 at 10:45am

I was quite shocked when they used the revival version of NO NO NANETTE.


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goldenboy Profile Photo
goldenboy
#9ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/23/15 at 10:46am

Has the cast been announced yet?
Zorba? Hortense? the Leader?

Paint your Wagon was terrific.

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broadwaydanwi
#10ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/23/15 at 7:05pm

"Oh, great, load up on yogurt in the lobby and then poop yourself when the mine explodes in act two."

That is the funniest thing I've read on this message board in years!

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Mr Roxy
#11ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/23/15 at 7:16pm

Nouri wood be a good choice

I remember seeing the original with Herschel Bernardi which was quite good

A little aside is that I got a flyer today for Encores. Problem was it was for Paint Your Wagon.


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Mr. Nowack
#13ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/23/15 at 7:54pm

^^^^^^
The currently circulating version of CHICAGO originated in this very same concert series. Though nowadays the Encores concerts are far from "semi-staged" concert readings as they were then. And any script cuts (were there even any for the Encores version?) I imagine were restored to CHICAGO.


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EricMontreal22 Profile Photo
EricMontreal22
#14ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/23/15 at 8:29pm

The poker game scene is still cut in Chicago isn't it? (and prob a few briefer lines.)

Leadingplayer
#15ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/23/15 at 11:08pm

On line someone is saying the role of Zorba is cast. They won't say who but the hints are it is someone known as an actor, writer, and director but necessarily a singer. His last NYC stage appearance was in a Chekov play. Any guess?

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somethingwicked
#16ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/23/15 at 11:49pm

Lesli Margherita would be killer as the Leader. She played The Widow in a production in LA a few years ago with Marc Kudisch as Zorba but would be much better suited to the Leader.


Tonya Pinkins: Then we had a "Lot's Wife" last June that was my personal favorite. I'm still trying to get them to let me sing it at some performance where we get to sing an excerpt that's gone.
Tony Kushner: You can sing it at my funeral.
Updated On: 3/23/15 at 11:49 PM

Kimbo
#17ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/24/15 at 12:16am

"On line someone is saying the role of Zorba is cast. They won't say who but the hints are it is someone known as an actor, writer, and director but necessarily a singer. His last NYC stage appearance was in a Chekov play. Any guess?"

Well, the person who clearly fits that criteria all to a T is John Turturro, who directs, writes and acts but has never been in a musical (that I know of), even though he directed one on screen, which means he has an affection for the form. His last NYC stage appearance was as Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard at Classic Stage Company in 2011-2012, and he's certainly the right age for the part (5ZORBA at City Center Encores!. It's a wild card, all right - could backfire enormously - but if in fact it is him, it does seem like a canny, inspired choice.

Mr. Nowack Profile Photo
Mr. Nowack
#18ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/24/15 at 12:17am

Lesli Margherita's "Life Is" needs to be in my life.


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LizzieCurry
#19ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/24/15 at 11:22am

On line someone is saying the role of Zorba is cast. They won't say who but the hints are it is someone known as an actor, writer, and director but necessarily a singer. His last NYC stage appearance was in a Chekov play. Any guess?


(Theatre gossip thread #161 if anyone wants to google.)


"This thread reads like a series of White House memos." — Mister Matt

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Borstalboy
#20ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/24/15 at 11:39am

Austin Pendleton!!!


"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” ~ Muhammad Ali

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cardamon
#21ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/24/15 at 11:52am

Wasn't John Turturro's last NYC stage appearance "The Master Builder" at BAM (in 2013)? Or were they referring to last Manhattan stage appearance?

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henrikegerman
#22ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/24/15 at 11:54am

Turturro definitely sounds like the guy.

If so, interesting to think who might ideally suit him as Mme. Hortense.

Vicky Clark might seem the obvious choice but since she's not available:

Marin Mazzie?
Linda Emond?
Helen Schneider?
Sonia Braga?
Karen Allen?






Updated On: 3/24/15 at 11:54 AM

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AC126748
#23ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/24/15 at 12:02pm

Turturro makes sense. Ethan Hawke is also an "actor, writer, director" who recently appeared in a Chekhov play (Ivanov), but he seems less suited to the role. Not that it's stopped him in the past...

Donna Murphy would make an ideal Mme. Hortense.


"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe." -John Guare, Landscape of the Body

Tony2600
#24ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/24/15 at 12:05pm

Anita Gillette, Bebe or Rita

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henrikegerman
#25ZORBA at City Center Encores!
Posted: 3/24/15 at 12:06pm

Thought about Hawke also, but he's done Macbeth more recently than Chekhov.