After more than 14 months at the Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater, Mark St. Germain's clever and engrossing two-hander, Freud's Last Session, which depicts a visit between the aging atheist Sigmund Freud and the young, newly-Christian C.S. Lewis, who had satirized the famed psychiatrist in The Pilgrim's Regress, is the latest in the trend of hit shows moving to New World Stages.
Back in 2009, The Public Theatre presented Tracy Scott Wilson's ambitious and very capable drama, The Good Negro, a work of fiction with one character obviously meant as a stand-in for DR. Martin Luther King, Jr., which depicted the leaders of the 1960s civil rights movement as everyday human beings with normal flaws, making what they accomplished a greater achievement than if it were done by the demi-gods some would make them out to be. To that end, the playwright showed the fictional King and his colleagues orchestrating a fight for racial equality by pushing only the most media-friendly images of black people before the press.
When Jerry Herman was pegged by producer Gerard Oestreicher to write the score for a Broadway musical set in the fledgling State of Israel, he was a 28-year-old composer/lyricist mostly known for writing clever lyrics and snazzy tunes for Greenwich Village topical reviews like Nightcap and Parade. But now, instead of writing for hip, downtown performers like Charles Nelson Reilly and Dody Goodman, he'd be penning a romantic score for opera stars Mimi Benzell and Robert Weede, with special comic relief material for Yiddish Theatre legend Molly Picon.
While Broadway fans know full well of Peter Filichia's prowess as a theatre columnist and critic, some may not be aware that he is one of those cliché-defying gents who can define both the infield fly rule and an 11 o'clock number. So in his terrific new book, Broadway Musical MVPs, he borrows a page from the sports section and picks a Most Valuable Player for the past 50 Broadway seasons.
When we first meet Rita Lyons, she's sitting in a hospital room casually thumbing through a furniture catalogue, asking her husband, Ben, who lies in bed, dying of cancer, to help her come up with ideas for redecorating the living room after he's gone.
When considering the genre of 'girls night out' offerings currently playing Off-Broadway, the selection ranges from initially unintentional (Naked Boys Singing) to 'best when inebriated' (Miss Abigail's Guide...) to 'men really don't get this' (Love, Loss and What I Wore). But Motherhood Out Loud, though it will absolutely attract a plethora of mother/daughter theatre dates (particularly when the daughter is also a mother), is the kind of sweet, warm - just edgy enough - little ninety-minute theatre collage that can draw a delighted smile from anyone who has been happily on either end of maternal parenthood. It will also be extremely popular among actresses searching for good monologue material.
Though he did have a brief - very brief - stint on Broadway before Lemon Sky premiered in 1970 at midtown's Off-Broadway Playhouse Theatre, Lanford Wilson was still at that point regarded as a downtown playwright. One of the leading scribes of the crew consisting predominantly of gay men who created Off-Off Broadway at Caffe Cino, his career would seriously take off shortly after Lemon Sky's run with The Hot l Baltimore, Fifth of July, Talley's Folly (Pulitzer winner) and Burn This.
Hottest Articles on BroadwayWorld.com from this weekend Sunday, October 2, 2011 - Sunday, October 2, 2011.
One of the great stage actors of our time once gave a chilling performance on the small screen that lured tourists to Broadway.
Whether you view first-time playwright Jeff Talbot's The Submission as satire, a cautionary tale, a commentary on American race relations, an offensively naïve creation of some crazy white guy or a reaction to the recent controversy regarding Porgy and Bess might depend on how willing you are to accept its basic premise:
If the squeals and cheers of Paper Mill's opening night audience is any indication, the brand new stage version of the 1992 Disney musical film Newsies (a financial flop that has gained a cult following through the years) should prove to be a popular hit among playgoers who enjoy hearing attractive young men belting pop anthems and watching them leap across the stage performing athletic spins and flips. But underneath the flashy performances of its title ensemble, Newsies is a slow-moving, workmanlike musical that takes an interesting, historic episode in the American labor movement and presents it as the kind of spunky entertainment that takes formulaic aim at the heart without earning any emotional payback through well-crafted storytelling.
Tabloid theatre might be the best way of describing Dan Klores' The Wood, a drama that attempts hard-hitting, journalistic toughness in painting a somewhat nonobjective portrait of New York newspaper columnist Mike McAlary. The author delivers a lot of ink-stained passion in his tale of a local kid who grew up worshipping the likes of Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill before becoming one of Gotham's most prized newshounds - jumping between Newsday, The Post and The Daily News whenever one offered more money - but weak storytelling leaves too many holes in the narrative and broad-stroke writing gives most of the actors little more than clichés to portray.
This week I had my first experience with the joyful adult visual fantasia known as Arias With A Twist; a madcap collaboration between puppeteer/designer/director Basil Twist and cross-dressing chanteuse Joey Arias that first hit town three years ago. It's an eye-popping blast.
While the 182 previews, numerous postponements and drastic changes in the creative team experienced by the current tenant of the Foxwoods Theatre might serve as some indication that musical theatre ain't easy, the real proof of the art form's difficulty can now be observed in its rapturously imperfect glory at the Marquis.
Ten years ago, when New Yorkers were still adjusting to the shock of so many lives lost and a way of life gone forever, Mamma Mia!, just by being the right musical at the right time, had something to do with Broadway's own healing process.
Last season, playwright Richard Nelson invited us to spend election night 2010 at the Rhinebeck home of schoolteacher Barbara Apple and her aging uncle, Benjamin as her left-leaning sisters and brother gathered for dinner and conversation about family matters and the country's political climate. Titled That Hopey Changey Thing after a sarcastic post-election quip Sarah Palin once directed at Obama voters, Nelson referred to it as a 'disposable' play, written quickly and heavily steeped in the national conversation of its time.
I've heard of some directors who, as soon as they've taken on a new play, grab a black marker and scratch out every stage direction the playwright wrote into the script, as though the author's only business was to write dialogue and allow each individual stager to create the rest.
Last year around this time, Elevator Repair Service had Gotham playgoers abuzz with their cover-to-cover, word-for-word staging of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, re-titled Gatz. Director John Collins' off-beat adaptation, which had Computer Age office workers assuming the roles of Fitzgerald's Jazz Agers, intrigued many, but also terrified quite a few with its six hour and twenty minute length. (Intermissions and a dinner break stretched the production to over eight hours.)
Hottest Articles on BroadwayWorld.com from this weekend Sunday, September 4, 2011 - Sunday, September 4, 2011.
Brooke Shields was looking for something a little out of the ordinary when she wanted to treat her cast-mates from The Addams Family to a fun time out this past Wednesday night, so she turned to one of Gotham's favorite burlesque queens, Calamity Chang.
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