The Tony Award-winning revival of HAIR: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical returned to Broadway on July 5 at the St. James Theatre and officially opened last night. The 10-week only ‘Summer of Love' run will conclude on September 10, 2011.
They look a little like Blue Man Group, they sound a little like Toxic Audio and they talk a lot like Andy Kaufman and Carol Kane playing Latka and Simka onTaxi, but while Voca People might give the appearance of being a bit too tourist trappy for we jaded New York theatre types, it's the kind of family friendly, good clean fun that's legitimately clever, catchly and often downright adorable.
For the first time in its 11 year history, Manhattan Theatre Source - called 'one of the top Off-Off Broadway theatres in New York' by New York Magazine - presents an open-end run of a work developed through the company's development process - the musical revue THE GREENWICH VILLAGE FOLLIES, which opened officially on June 28th, 2011.
Former 90s club kids nostalgic for theme nights at Limelight should get a kick out of director David Esbjornson's frequently flashy and enjoyable mounting of Shakespeare's Measure For Measure; a production where, under a simple, but austere cathedral-like setting, the antics straddle the line between the play's original early 1600s Viennese setting and a more contemporary techno-fetish club.
See enough Cirque du Soleil productions and the formula becomes clear very quickly. It's a given that you'll be treated to a collection of world-class jugglers, balancers, acrobats and daredevils displaying skills that would make all but the most jaded widen their eyes and let out the occasional gasp. But it's the packaging that always varies, though you can always expect a threadbare plot (more concerned with mood than story), forgettable songs and a troupe of clowns whose antics are, on occasion, genuinely amusing.
From Jerry Herman's Parade to Martin Charnin's No Frills Revue to nights with Betty Comden, Adolph Green and The Revuers, the original song and sketch revue has been a favorite of downtown audiences for nearly a century. With The Greenwich Village Follies, a new show that takes its name from a legendary production from the 1920s, composer/lyricist Doug Silver and bookwriter/lyricist Andrew Frank not only capture the smart, freestyle irreverence that made downtown revues so popular, but they use the format to offer an eighty-minute lesson on the history of America's first haven for artists, free-thinkers and non-conformists.
While Shakespeare's canon includes many couples whose relationships are of questionable health - Kate and Petruchio, Beatrice and Benedick, Mr. and Mrs. Scottish - few are as discomfortingly mismatched as the lead pair of All's Well That Ends Well.
The fact that Jonathan Larson won two posthumous Tony Award for writing and composing Rent is certainly bittersweet, but the fact that for one of those awards he bested the also posthumously nominated Rodgers and Hammerstein is just plain weird. But the last-minute addition of Rent to the 1995-96 Broadway season seemed to be the catalyst for one the oddest Tony nights ever.
On a weekend when New Yorkers who favor marriage rights for gay couples are celebrating an important victory, Classic Stage Company's Unnatural Acts is a sobering dramatization of a shameful episode involving a Joseph McCarthy-type gay witch hunt from nearly a century ago that was only recently uncovered.
The funny thing about 70 million dollar musicals is that the paper used to write them costs no more than the paper used to write church basement showcases budgeted on the limit of someone's maxed-out credit card. And twenty thousand years from now, when intergalactic societies consider our generation's artistic ambitions based on which words and music written on that paper we chose to support with extravagantly-financed productions viewed by over ten thousand purchasers of high-priced tickets every week, let's hope we don't have to sheepishly shield our faces in our afterlife abodes as they flabbergastedly wonder, 'What the hell were they thinking?'
There's much to be admired in director/adaptor Moises Kaufman's staging of Tennessee Williams' unproduced screenplay based on his 1942 short story, One Arm. If not exactly completely satisfying theatre, it is certainly a nobly-intended and well-executed curiosity.
Although there have been previous productions of The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World since the musical premiered in Los Angeles eight years ago, thanks to a 13-year-old girl's fondness for Friday, the show has never been more relevant.
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We're just hours away from the 2011 Tony Awards on CBS this Sunday night, June 12 at 8pm and, as usual, BroadwayWorld.com will be your one-stop shop for all things Tonys on Tony Day, Night and Beyond!
When Aristophanes premiered the knockabout comedy, Lysistrata, in 411 B.C., his tale of women denying sex to their husbands until they ended the Peloponnesian War was an irreverent protest against then-contemporary politics. In their giddily fun and sexy musical update, Lysistrata Jones, bookwriter Douglas Carter Beane and composer/lyricist Lewis Flinn ditch the anti-war hoopla in favor of college basketball hoops. At first it seems a lot sillier - the girlfriends of an apathetic team stop putting out until they win a game - but then evolves into neat little explorations of self-esteem, self-discovery and the importance of non-sexual connections in romantic relationships. I'm not saying they delve into Sondheimish depths here, but this twist to the story adds a refreshingly original and unexpected angle to an already immensely enjoyable show.
Though playwright Rachel Crothers was regarded as the toast of the town for many a Broadway season - she had 29 plays debut there in the years between 1906 and 1940 - she's scarcely know by 21st Century playgoers. Fortunately, the Mint Theater Company has been doing its part to return her name to the limelight; first with their mounting of her clever take on religious fads, Susan and God, and now with a sweeter, more uplifting comedy/melodrama - one that was a finalist for the first Pulitzer Prize for Drama - A Little Journey.
We're just hours away from the 2011 Tony Awards on CBS this Sunday night, June 12 at 8pm and, as usual, BroadwayWorld.com will be your one-stop shop for all things Tonys on Tony Day, Night and Beyond!
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Under Artistic Director Cara Reichel, the Prospect Theater Company has earned a reputation for presenting unconventional musicals that explore interesting topics and their newest entry, I Married Wyatt Earp, co-produced with New York Theatre Barn as part of 59E59 Theater's 'Americas Off Broadway' series, is no exception.
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