Joanna Gleason and Chris Sarandon sign on for NICK AND NORA reunion...

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 12/15/16 at 12:56pm

At 54 Below.... 

https://54below.com/events/nick-nora-reunion-concert/

 

[Ado Annie D'Ysquith]

Posted: 12/15/16 at 1:05pm

What a fine showmance, they are! You can play a fun 6 Degrees of Separation considering he's Jack Skellington and she is a poster daughter for Into the Woods!

[Harriet Craig]

Posted: 12/15/16 at 2:51pm

Anyone else think the announcement is a little misleading, in that it implies that Chris Sarandon played Nick in the Broadway production? For all I know, he may be playing Nick in the performance at 54 Below, but in the Broadway production, he played a character named "Victor Moisa", while Barry Bostwick played Nick. I know the announcement doesn't actually say that Chris Sarandon played Nick, but anyone who doesn't know better could sure get that impression.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 12/15/16 at 2:56pm

No, because additional casting will be announced. What a weird thing to get your knickers in a twist about. 

[newintown]

Posted: 12/15/16 at 3:25pm

What an interesting array of shows these guys have chosen to present: Onward Victoria, Charlie and Algernon, Eating Raoul, and Nick & Nora.

I'd love to know what else is on their wish list - Metro? Senator Joe? I'm Solomon? Rachael Lily Rosenbloom and Don't You Ever Forget It?

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 12/15/16 at 4:08pm

Ha! I had forgotten Chris Sarandon and Bostwick did "Nick & Nora" together considering that ex-wife Susan was carrying on with Bostwick while filming RHPS. 

Maybe Bostwick can participate in the reunion and they can invite Susan to attend. Now THAT'S what I would call an interesting reunion.  

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 12/15/16 at 5:37pm

Rachael Lily Rosenbloom is coming up soon, but produced by Jenn Tepper. https://54below.com/events/rachael-lily-rosenbloom-dont-ever-forget/ It is sure to be a great night!

I'm Steven of Steven and Jimmy. We've also got Mademoiselle Colombe coming up in April, and another gem by Kander and Ebb being announced soon. 

As for casting, it's quite a ways away, so more participants will be coming up in the next few months. This does not mean Chris is playing Nick.  

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/15/16 at 5:46pm

 

"An almost instantly forgettable mediocrity...The liveliest thing in 'Nick and Nora' is a corpse.."

--The New York Times

 

===

 

December 9, 1991

 

THEATER REVIEW

Bostwick and Gleason in 'Nick and Nora'

By FRANK RICH

Leaving the Marquis Theater after "Nick and Nora," I kept hearing the same jaded comment from other members of the audience beside me on the escalator: "Well, it's not nearly as bad as they said it would be." True, this comment is hard to evaluate if you have no way of knowing which "they" these people are referring to. After all, nearly 100,000 customers paid full price to see "Nick and Nora" during its nine weeks of previews before its official "opening" last night, and that's a lot of suspects, each, no doubt, bad-mouthing the show to a different degree. Even so, I bet the theatergoers I overheard on the Marquis escalator are right. "Nick and Nora," in its finished form, is not as bad as they said, whoever the "they" might be. Which is not to say that it is good.

Like the less-than-gifted celebrity who is famous for being famous, this musical will no doubt always be remembered, and not without fondness, for its troubled preview period, its much-postponed opening, its hassles with snooping journalists and its conflict with the city's Consumer Affairs Commissioner. Indeed, the story of "Nick and Nora" in previews, should it ever be fully known, might in itself make for a riotous, 1930's-style screwball-comedy musical. But the plodding show that has emerged from all this tumult is, a few bright spots notwithstanding, an almost instantly forgettable mediocrity. As no one will confuse it with the hit musicals its authors have worked on in happier times -- "Gypsy," "West Side Story," "Bye Bye Birdie," "Annie" and "Miss Saigon," among many others -- neither is "Nick and Nora" remotely in the calamitous league of such recent, excessively previewed fiascos as, say, "Carrie" and "Legs Diamond."

The distinguished authors -- Arthur Laurents (book), Charles Strouse (music), Richard Maltby Jr. (lyrics) -- began with a highly promising idea, a musical murder mystery prompted by the glamorous husband-and-wife detective team created by Dashiell Hammett in the Depression and immortalized on screen by William Powell, Myrna Loy and Asta, their canine sidekick. The setting is Hollywoodland, the atmosphere is meant to be that of a glittering black-and-white Art Deco movie musical, and the whodunit plot aspires to be adult and ingenious. Yet one need not indulge in invidious comparisons with the old "Thin Man" movies (which were not all that wonderful to begin with) or legitimate comparisons with Broadway's current, similar and far superior "City of Angels" to see that "Nick and Nora" was probably doomed before it played its first preview.

For starters, this production might have spent a little less time searching for the perfect Asta and a lot more time trying to find the right Nick and Nora. Barry Bostwick is a handsome leading man with an agreeable manner and sturdy voice, and Joanna Gleason, better still, is an astringent comic actress with impeccable timing and her own strong voice. But if either of these talents, together or separately, has the larger-than-life personality or all-around musical-comedy pizazz it takes to ignite a star-centric Broadway musical, that incandescence is kept under a shroud in "Nick and Nora." The heart sinks from their opening number, a low-key, charmingly written piece titled "Is There Anything Better Than Dancing?" Instead of setting the tone implied by its title, the song, as performed, reveals that Mr. Bostwick and Ms. Gleason have limited warmth and cannot really dance, and that their would-be Astaire-and-Rogers routines, wanly choreographed by Tina Paul, will have to be fudged all night. (As in fact they are, right through a finale that, if better executed, might have echoed "Rosie," the beguiling equivalent duet at the end of Mr. Strouse's "Bye Bye Birdie."

The other fatal drawback for a musical aspiring to the style of "Nick and Nora" is tipped off in the second number, in which the evening's second banana, Christine Baranski in the role of an egomaniacal movie queen, sings of how "Everybody Wants to Do a Musical." The song is set in a film studio and is redolent of the Busby Berkeley era, yet the campy fantasy of its lyric is never illustrated with chorus performers or even scenery. To put it another way, the sparsely appointed and underpopulated "Nick and Nora" looks from the start as if it were produced on the cheap -- or as if its budget, however large, was not smartly spent -- and that impression never dissipates. The final production number of Act II, typically, is a Carmen Miranda send-up in which the singer (Yvette Lawrence) is backed up by two -- count 'em, two -- dancers.

All the other failures in "Nick and Nora" are secondary to its inability to deliver the glamorous stars and atmosphere promised by its title. (Such scenery as there is, by Douglas W. Schmidt, is bland and Theoni V. Aldredge, in a rare lapse, has costumed all the women unbecomingly.) As director, Mr. Laurents must shoulder some of the blame for those central shortfalls, as well as for the sluggish, stop-and-go gait of the entire, nearly three-hour evening. His talky book is also not his sharpest, offering a murder puzzle that is ambitious and convoluted without being pleasurable and Hollywood repartee that for all its knowing allusions to Max Ophuls, Joseph Kennedy and Louella Parsons is not especially funny. A subplot about Nick and Nora's marital travails seems to have been shredded into confusion during revision, so much so that the other man who briefly sours the couple's relationship (Chris Sarandon) is never coherently identified.

Though Mr. Strouse has written some rousing scores for frail shows ("It's Superman," "All American," "Rags", that of "Nick and Nora" is not one of them. Yet there are some pretty tunes along the way, and one is always struck by how enthusiastically and professionally he and Mr. Maltby embrace and sometimes conquer the tough technical challenges of musical-theater writing. At their cleverest here, in one song in each act, they use witty music and lyrics to bring together all the suspects and motives in Nick and Nora's murder case so that the detectives and audience alike might weigh every conceivable scenario. At their worse, they give two of the most gifted comic actresses in town -- Ms. Baranski and Debra Monk -- flat would-be showstoppers that make the performers seem both unfunny and vocally uncomfortable.

A third supporting actress, Faith Prince, fares far better in the role of the evening's ubiquitous murder victim, Lorraine, a platinum-wigged film-industry bookkeeper who, among other attacks on her dubious character, is accused of trying to "play Barbara Stanwyck with Jean Harlow hair." Though Lorraine is already dead when the show begins, she keeps popping up again and again as her murder is re-enacted in repeated flashbacks to the scene and night of the crime. The dizzy Ms. Prince not only takes a mean pratfall each time the gunshots ring out but also brings a brash, belting delivery to "Men," a musical diatribe that almost does to its satirical target what Miss Hannigan did to "Little Girls" in Mr. Strouse's "Annie."

We can look forward to hearing a lot more from Ms. Prince. In the meantime, there is no escaping the unfortunate fact that the liveliest thing in "Nick and Nora" is a corpse.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/15/16 at 5:48pm

This was probably the worst thing Arthur Laurents ever did.

From that Frank Rich review:

 

As director, Mr. Laurents must shoulder some of the blame for those central shortfalls, as well as for the sluggish, stop-and-go gait of the entire, nearly three-hour evening. His talky book is also not his sharpest, offering a murder puzzle that is ambitious and convoluted without being pleasurable and Hollywood repartee that for all its knowing allusions to Max Ophuls, Joseph Kennedy and Louella Parsons is not especially funny. A subplot about Nick and Nora's marital travails seems to have been shredded into confusion during revision, so much so that the other man who briefly sours the couple's relationship (Chris Sarandon) is never coherently identified.

 

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 12/15/16 at 6:13pm

There's some lovely songs in the score, I think. Even Laurents told Strouse so... many, many years later. 

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/15/16 at 7:59pm

 

The only thing wrong with that show was Arthur Laurents.

 

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 12/20/16 at 4:51pm

Barry Bostwick has officially joined the cast. https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Barry-Bostwick-to-Reunite-with-Joanna-Gleason-for-NICK-AND-NORA-at-Feinsteins54-Below-20161220