I'm amazed at how many things I keep learning from doing this show every day. Yesterday, during the matinee, as we were performing the sons' section of 'Tradition', I discovered that I was holding my breath during certain pieces of choreography, which obviously inhibited my singing. I mean, you're reading that thinking, 'well duh, Ben'. You're right. Absolutely 'duh', but it took me six whole months to realize that. That's the odd phenomenon of this almost zen practice of eight shows a week in a long run.
The Drama Book Shop will welcome back playwright and actress Halley Feiffer for an intimate discussion about her craft and her new play, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Gynecologic Oncology Unit At Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Of New York City. The play is currently receiving its world premiere at MCC's Lucille Lortel Theatre. Feiffer and Playwright and Drama Book Shop employee Steven Carl McCasland will discuss her work on Friday, May 27th at 5:00pm. The event is free to the public. The
Today's big news: SHUFFLE ALONG and THE HUMANS will be honored this evening at the 2016 New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards, and Andrew Keenan-Bolger hosts this year's Broadway Junior Student Finale today!
'God, Ben. We get it, we get it. Arts in school blah blah blah.' I know, I know, but I have to piggyback on last week and tell you about what I got to witness this week.
Broadway at the National announces its 2016-17 season, with a total of 17 Tony® Awards - including three Best Musicals - among the productions being presented. The season features the Washington premiere of the five-time Tony®-winning Best Musical Fun Home, based on Alison Bechdel's best-selling graphic memoir; the 20th anniversary return of RENT, the Tony® Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning re-imagining of Puccini's La Boheme; the eight-time Tony®-winning Once; and the Washington premiere of the holiday classic Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical.
As theatre critics for the New York Times, Ben Brantley and Charles Isherwood are perhaps the most influential voices when it comes to Broadway. Every awards season the pair comes up with a list of Tony nominees who they think will win and should win the coveted prize in June. Click here to check out their predictions for this year.
But the real question is... how have they done in predicting Tony winners in years past? Check out how they fared last year.
Producers Fox Theatricals and Barbara Whitman announced today that Fun Home, the groundbreaking, Tony Award-winning Best Musical, has partnered with PFLAG, the nation's largest organization of families, friends and allies to the LGBTQ community, with multiple initiatives both in and out of the Circle in the Square Theatre (235 West 50th St).
Host Estelle Parsons, honorees, presenters, and the League of Professional Theatre Women had a blast at this year's LPTW Awards & Big Mingle at the Pershing Square Signature Theatre Center on Monday, May 2nd, 2016. Scroll down for photos from the event!
New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) presents HADESTOWN, written by celebrated singer-songwriter Anais Mitchell and developed with and directed by the inventive two-time OBIE award-winning director Rachel Chavkin (Three Pianos; Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812).
New York Theatre Workshop has announced the playwrights and directors selected for the 2016/17 Season 2050 Fellowship. The playwrights are Beto O'Byrne, Ming Peiffer, and Francis Weiss Rabkin and the directors are Danny Sharron, Stevie Walker-Webb, and Mo Zhou.
'Twas the night before the Tony nominations, when all through midtown
pretty much everyone was stirring. Especially that mouse (at least in pre-war buildings above restaurants).
The iphones were charging on bedside tables with care
in hopes that when the nomination list came out at 8:30, your name would be there.
Earlier this week, the Broadway company of FUN HOME was joined by the plaintiffs who paved the way for marriage equality in the historic Proposition 8 case. The group went backstage to meet and chat with the cast following the show's final curtain - check out what they had to say below!
Drama Desk, Tony®, and Emmy® Award nominee and Theater World Award and NAACP Image Award winner Vanessa Williams (Into The Woods, The Trip to Bountiful, 'Ugly Betty') and Drama Desk, Tony®, Emmy, Golden Globe, and Drama League Award Nominee and SAG & TV Land Award winner Matthew Morrison (Finding Neverland, Hairspray, The Light in the Piazza, 'Glee') just announced the nominations for the 61st Annual Drama Desk Awards.
The orchestra starts the waltz into 'Sunrise, Sunset'. Everyone is in place, Tevye sings, 'Is this the little girl I carried?' Nothing out of the ordinary, here. Then, four male ensemble members and the Rabbi slowly come up the upstage stairs from the trap, moving downstage center, where they slowly get into position with the chuppah (Jewish wedding canopy). One little problem, tonight. There's no chuppah (we later found out it had been broken). I look around the stage at my fellow cast members, who are all slowly registering this and getting that glint in the eye you get when you're about to crack up. Then, it hit me. Samantha Massell and I have a solo coming up in a second where we have to sing the lyric, 'Is there a canopy in store for me?' The irony of this is just too much for me and, no matter how hard I try, I sing this line with the stupidest grin on my face. I mean, you can't ignore it! I absolutely LIVE for moments like this. Happy accidents that keep things fresh, can breathe new life into the show, and remind us all that it's called a 'play' for a reason. It's supposed to be fun!
FUN HOME, the groundbreaking, Tony Award-winning Best Musical, celebrated its first anniversary on Broadway earlier this week, having played 415 performances (and counting) at the Circle in the Square Theatre (235 West 50th St). And that wasn't the end of the festivities this week. Just yesterday, the creative team (Tony Award-winners Jeanine Tesori, Lisa Kron, and Sam Gold) gathered at Sardi's to receive their very own portraits.
New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) (Artistic Director James C. Nicola and Managing Director Jeremy Blocker) has just announced its complete 2016/17 Season. The season will kick-off in Fall 2016 with NAT TURNER IN JERUSALEM by NYTW 2050 Fellow Nathan Alan Davis(Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea), directed by Megan Sandberg-Zakian (The Convert). It is followed by the previously announced production of William Shakespeare's OTHELLO, directed by NYTW Usual Suspect and Tony Award winner Sam Gold (Fun Home) and featuring David Oyelowo (Royal Shakespeare Company's The Histories, Selma) in the title role and Daniel Craig (Betrayal, Spectre) as 'Iago', in Winter 2016. Spring 2017 will bring THE OBJECT LESSON, by Geoff Sobelle (all wear bowlers), directed by NYTW Usual Suspect David Neumann (Restless Eye), with scenic installation by Steven Dufala. The season will conclude with NYTW Usual Suspect Mfoniso Udofia's SOJOURNERS and HER PORTMANTEAU, presented in repertory, directed by NYTW Usual Suspect and former 2050 Fellow Ed Sylvanus Iskandar (The Mysteries). Performance schedules, casting and full creative teams will be announced at a later date.
Berkeley Repertory Theatre today announced that award-winning film director Mira Nair will bring her exuberant and sumptuous MONSOON WEDDING to the stage in this highly anticipated world premiere musical based on the 2001 Bollywood hit.
I must have been an incredibly naive 12 year old. As my family and I were leaving the Marriott Marquis Theatre after a performance of the revival of Annie Get Your Gun, we passed by the stage door. A hoard of people were crowded behind the barricades, eagerly clutching their playbills, sharpies, and cameras in hopes to snag an autograph or photo with Bernadette Peters and Tom Wopat. We were watching from across the street. A security person was guarding the door, and would escort Bernadette and Tom as they made their way through the crowd, greeting their fans. Once they were done, they each got into the back seats of their respective black Lincoln town cars and rode off into the night. What I couldn't wrap my head around, at the time, was....where do they go?
FUN HOME, the groundbreaking, Tony Award-winning Best Musical, celebrated its first anniversary on Broadway yesterday, April 19, where it has played 415 performances (and counting) at the Circle in the Square Theatre (235 West 50th St). BroadwayWorld brings you a look inside the celebration with the show's stars below!
