There were five theater award ceremonies in this past week of New York Theater and the biggest surprise was how many shared awards were handed out, a good indication of how little stood out this season. However, clear consensus winners on Broadway include the play “Red”, the musical revival “La Cage Aux Folles,” and the play revival “Fences,” especially Viola Davis’ performance in it. (The play itself has been sharing the spotlight with “A View From The Bridge.”) There’s been a surprisingly strong showing by “Memphis,” probably because it is one of the few musicals this season with new music and any kind of real book. The big enchilada for Broadway, the Tony Awards, is not until June 13th, but the choices this past week may give some clues as to which will receive the attention next month.
Off-Broadway favorites include Horton Foote’s nine-play epic, “The Orphans’ Home Cycle,” “Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson” and 29-year-old playwright Annie Baker and her two plays, “Circle Mirror Transformation” and “The Aliens.”
For all the look back at the season this week, there was plenty of looking forward, with news about the imminent Broadway debuts of Pee-wee Herman and Absolutely Fabulous star Joanna Lumley.
Camp comes to Broadway. But glamor hasn’t left. John Gallagher Jr. of American Idiot dreamed of Scarlett Johansson of View From The Bridge — and then his dream came true. Kelsey Grammar and I had a private Twitter exchange about gay marriage, which is to say, it wasn’t private at all.
The Week in New York Theater Tweets is posted every Monday. Help keep it going: Join the New York Theater Club
Monday, May 17, 2010
Outer Critics Circle Awards
Broadway Play: Red
Broadway Musical: Memphis
Off-Broadway Play: The Orphans’ Home Cycle
Off-Broadway Musical (a tie): Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and
The Scottsboro Boys
Play Revival: Fences
Musical Revival: La Cage Aux Folles
Full list of 2010 Outer Critics Circle Award Winners (all 23 categories) including wins for Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Carrie Fisher, and the two other ties.
Will Swenson (Hair) cast in “Priscilla Queen of the Desert” Broadway musical version of film about 3 drag queens in Australian outback.
International Cringefest 2010, Bad Plays, Bad Musicals, Bad Films, July 19 to August 8.
Obie Awards
The Obies gush over 29-year-old playwright Annie Baker & her shows, Circle Mirror Transformation & The Aliens
Complete list of 2010 Obie Award Winners including Laurie Metcalf and Taylor Mac.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Kander and Ebb’s Scottsboro Boys, which was Off-Broadway, is now scheduled to transfer to the Lyceum Theater on Broadway in October.
A Little Night Music will end June 20th when its stars Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury depart, a change of the previous plan to extend the musical with a new cast.
God of Carnage, winner of the 2009 Tony Award for Best Play, will close June 6, three weeks sooner than what was announced earlier.
Two NYC police precincts will be awarded a 2010 Tony Award during the ceremonies on June 13th, in part for their handling of the attempted car bombing on May 1st in Times Square.
La Bete, starring Mark Rylance, David Hyde Pierce and Joanna Lumley of Absolutely Fabulous, is scheduled to open on Broadway October 14, 2010
Simon Callow on how to keep going as an actor: Character & endurance mean as much as talent, more than luck
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
What career would Harvard seniors choose if money didn’t matter? Number one choice: the arts. (16 percent)
Three shows are opening tonight: Adam Rapp’s Metal Children (Vineyard) Cirque de Soleil’s Banana Shpeel (Beacon) Claudia Shear’s Restoration at the New York Theater Workshop.
Shakespeare as a sentence: Over the last 10 years, about 100 juvenile offenders in Massachusetts have been sentenced to perform the Bard.
Ben Walker of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is also the host of a free Sunday night comedy show called Find the Funny. Says one of his growing number of fans (this one the daughter of the Public Theater artistic director): “Onstage, you can’t help but love him”
From Utah, but it could be anywhere in US: “Survey shows interest in arts builds even as resources erode”
Thursday, May 20, 2010
“The Pee-wee Herman Show” starring Paul Reubens is scheduled to begin performances on October 26th as the first show in the newly-christened Stephen Sondheim Theater, for a six-week run. The Pee-Wee Herman Show on Broadway already has a website.
Shakespeare in the Park: The Winter’s Tale will be in repertory with The Merchant of Venice starring Al Pacino in Central Park June 9-August 1, free as always.
Al Pacino seems really into Shakespeare these days: He just announced he will be performing King Lear on film.
From ‘Fela!’ to ‘American Idiot,’ Video Projections Give Broadway a New Image (my first article for DNAinfo!)
When Peter Nigrini attends the Tony Awards next month, he’ll be rooting for “Fela!” the musical to win as many of the 11 categories as possible for which it was nominated. But despite his work as an integral part of the musical’s acclaimed visual experience… Nigrini isn’t eligible for an award, because there is no Tony category for what he does. Nigrini creates projections for the stage…one of what he estimates to be around two dozen professional projection designers for the theater…
Full story
Michael Feingold in the Village Voice: We are living in a Golden Age of acting, and nobody knows it. e.g. cast of Happy Now? Circle Mirror Transformation.
Independent Theater Bloggers Association Awards
New Broadway Play: Red
Broadway Play Revival: A View From The Bridge
New Broadway Musical: American Idiot
Broadway Musical Revival: La Cage Aux Folles
New Off-Broadway Play: Circle Mirror Transformation
Off-Broadway Play Revival: Glass Menagerie
New Off-Broadway Musical: Yank!
Off-Off Broadway Show: Viral
Full list of winners for the 2010 ITBA Awards
New award for women in the theater called the Lilly (after Lillian Hellman) to be given to 17 women including Mary Rodgers and Kristin Chenoweth
London-based theater critic Mark Shenton writes on theater critic’s occupational illness: narcolepsy .Anecdote ends:Young man, sleep IS an opinion
The Good Wife TV show, a new day job for NYC stage actors, now that Law and Order is being canceled.
My review of The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity: Professional Wrestling As Art and Politics
“The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity” is indeed elaborate. There is a wrestling ring on the stage, klieg lights, and long moments of real – which is to say, fake – wrestling, heavily muscled characters in cartoon costumes executing body slams and the Powerbomb…It is a deft if not fully realized comedy…a savvy/cynical look at the backstage machinations of this sports-like entertainment in order to make any number of points about American culture and politics….Professional wrestling has arrived back on the New York stage with a smack and a crack and a thud that could not be more eloquent. Full review
Friday, May 21, 2010
Lend Me A Tenor will close on Broadway August 15th.
The Drama League Awards
Distinguished Performance: Alfred Molina (Red)
Production of a Musical: Sondheim on Sondheim
Production of a Play: Red
Revival of a Musical: La Cage Aux Folles
Revival of a Play: A View From The Bridge.
Nathan Lane, winner of a special award:”It’s not a secret that the Addams Family wasn’t received well in certain circles… Like earth.”
Kenny Leon (director of Fences), winner of a special award: “Film is art, theater is life, and television is furniture.”
Bries Vannon (@TheNineChicago ) Argh. Quotes like that don’t help. Art is not a battle between mediums.
John Gallagher Jr. (@JohnGallagherJr, American Idiot): I literally had a dream last night that I met Scarlett Johansson. Who do I get sat next to at the Drama League Awards today? I’m a prophet!
Jonathan Mandell: What I like most about the Drama League is that there is no British spelling of “drama” — like “drame” or “draam”
Lee Blessing’s “When We Go Upon The Sea” imagines George Bush on trial for war crimes at The Hague, 59E59 Theater, June 10-July 3
Original cast recording Fela! in stores and online June 8th, and at the Eugene O’Neill Theater where it’s playing starting today! Preview of the music on the Fela! website .
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Lee Blessing’s “When We Go Upon The Sea” imagines George Bush on trial for war crimes at The Hague, @59E59 Theater, June 10-July 3
Jonathan Mandell (@NewYorkTheater, me) to Kelsey Grammer (@Kelsey_Grammer, actor in “La Cage Aux Folles”): How did the Drama League Awards go? Were you misquoted about what you said?
Kelsey Grammer: They went well. Had no idea I was quoted by anyone. So, who knows. Can you tell me what they said I said?
Jonathan Mandell: They said you said that La Cage Aux Folles wasn’t about a gay relationship.
Kelsey Grammer: Well, I said it wasn’t about a gay marriage or a straight marriage but about the love shared between two human souls.
To follow up, it is clearly about a gay relationship–the show hopefully illuminates the love that unites all couples.
Jonathan Mandell: A lot more nuanced than you were quoted as sayin
Kelsey Grammer: You know, that is so often the case. Do you cover theater as a hobby or a living? It is great to be a part of this world.
Jonathan Mandell: Both a hobby and a living, although not enough of the latter given the economy right now.
In a reversal of the norm, a show auditioned for an actress: Producers of The Unsinkable Molly Brown put on a staged reading for Reba McEntire, hoping she’ll agree to be cast in it.
Long-time Associated Press theater critic Michael Kuchwara has died at age 63. A 40-year AP veteran, he began reviewing NY plays in 1984. He was listening to show tunes on his iPod when he died tonight at Beth Israel
AP obituary
Tributes in Time Out NY Los Angeles Times Chicago Tribune
Kristin Chenoweth (@KChenoweth, actress): Just heard AP drama critic Michael Kuchwara passed. Sweetheart he was… Xxoo
Sunday, May 23, 2010
“Leaving,” first play in 20 yrs by Vaclav Havel, founding president of Czech Republic, opens May 26 in Philadelphia
The Temperamentals comes to an end. Jonathan Silverstein (@jonnysilver, director) after 220 hours of rehearsal, 50 hours of tech, 187 performances in three theatres (with three separate stagings), and 18 chairs
Jonathan Mandell: Please explain the 18 chairs. Were 18 chairs broken over the course of the run
Jonathan Silverstein: Six different chairs for each production x 3 productions = 18. Wish there was a juicier story there!
For 18 months starting in July, they’re painting the Times Square pedestrian plazas a very weird blue, based on a NASA heat map of Manhattan
Bobby Steggert (@bsteggert, nominee for both Ragtime and Yank): What excitement…Drama Desks tonight, and I get to celebrate with TWO of my favorite casts! And free booze aint bad either.
Drama Desk Awards
Musical: Memphis
Play: Red
Musical Revival: La Cage Aux Folles
Play Revival: A View From The Bridge AND Fences
Actress in a Musical: Montego Glover, Memphis AND Catherine Zeta-Jones A Little Night Music
Actor in a Musical: Douglas Hodge, La Cage Aux Folles
Actress in a Play: Jan Maxwell, The Royal Family
Actor in a Play: Liev Schreiber, A View from the Bridge
Director of a Musical: Michael Mayer, American Idiot
Director of a Play: Michael Grandage, Red
Two surprises:
Featured Actor in a Musical: Christopher Fitzgerald, Finian’s Rainbow
Featured Actor in a Play: Santino Fontana, Brighton Beach Memoirs (which closed a week after it opened)
Two totally unsurprising award winners:
Featured Actor in a Musical: Katie Finneran, Promises, Promises
Featured Actress in a Play: Viola Davis, Fences
The complete list of 2010 Drama Desk Awards
2010 Tony Award Nominees. Click on picture to see it larger.
Angela Lansbury and Viola Davis are clearly visible, sitting down in the first row. See if you can spot Alfred Molina, Denzel Washington, Kelsey Grammer (hint: They are standing next to each other), Christopher Walken, etc.
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Jonathan Mandell
Jonathan Mandell, who tweets as New York Theater, is a native New Yorker and third-generation journalist with diverse experience on newspapers, magazines and websites.He has ...
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