The last straight play closed on Broadway during this week in New York theater, leaving only musicals. This promises to change quickly in the new Broadway season, with eight plays scheduled to open by the end of October, 
starring such distinguished and crowd-pleasing performers as Patrick Stewart, Cherry Jones, James Earl Jones, Vanessa Redgrave, Laura Linney, Jeffrey Wright and the artist formerly known as Mos Def.
One of the three new musicals opening during that same month on Broadway launched what could be called a backward-looking marketing campaign this week.
Meanwhile, there are stories to tell.
Tell one about Stephen Sondheim, Bernadette Peters or Elaine Stritch by Wednesday at noon, and enter a contest to win a free pair of tickets to “A Little Night Music”. Complete details about entering the contest here. To read the stories already put up, click to the New York Theater Facebook page
Monday, August 16, 2010
Playbill’s schedule of 2010-11 Off-Broadway shows, far from comprehensive, because it’s Off-Broadway, so how can you be?
Unlucky Broadway actor Santino Fontana‘s first role was a Thanksgiving turkey,’the character that died. Very dramatic.’
Kelli O’Hara on leaving South Pacific: If it was a role I could play pregnant, I probably would have stayed for eight and a half months.
The production is being broadcast nationally on Wednesday, and closing at Lincoln Center Sunday.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Jeffrey Wright and Mos Def will reunite on stage in John Guare’s Free Man of Color beginning October 21 and opening November 18 at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont. For this role, the actor is going only by the name Mos.
Also in the cast will be Paul Dano, 26, who has been in some two dozen movies. A Free Man of Color will be his third Broadway show. He debuted at age 10, as an understudy.
Moisés Kaufman, best known as a playwright (“Gross Indecency,” “The Laramie Project”) directed “33 Variations” on Broadway. He is now set to direct “Puss in Boots”, and opera with puppets, October 2-10 at the New Victory Theater.
Bernadette Peters would not do Send in the Clowns in concert “It’s more like a monologue” She talks about her role
Wonder what Teller (of Penn and Teller) sounds like? We’ll find out with Play Dead, which he’s co-written and directing at Players Theater in October
Bloomberg News theater critic Jeremy Gerard rails against The Public Theater first for banning a review of Capeman, and then for Capeman itself in Central Park, an “unsavory failure” with “something to offend everyone.”
Ben Brantley writes what sure reads like a review of The Capeman in Central Park:part of NY tradition of tale-telling.
(At least they were invited. The Public Theater told me that, since The Capeman was not open for review, they were not inviting critics.)
Speaking of critics:
1. Chicago Tribune’s Michael Phillips in Right to an Opinion,or Wrong? writes about a critic who was demoted for his opinions and who then sued. A critic must write as if he has everything and nothing to lose, Phillips concludes, but way too many have become fearful, cautious.
2. Chris Caggiano (@ccaggiano, blogger and teacher at Boston Conservatory) offers A Critic’s Manifesto gleaned from two weeks of study at the Eugene O’Neill Center’s National Critics Institute.
3. Are theater critics critical (crucial, too negative, dying out?), a reprise of my essay.
Broadway will dim its lights tonight at 8 p.m. for actress Patricia Neal, who died at age 84. The Tony and Oscar winner was on Broadway four times.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Nokia Theater in Times Square, most recently the site of Adam Lambert concerts, will be renamed Best Buy Theater.
Sarah-Jane Stratford (@stratfordsj, novelist, playwright): Opening itself to no end of jokes when it hosts crap shows.
Jonathan Mandell (@newyorktheater, me): It could be worse, New York! Sentence from the article: “In June the Ford Amphitheater in Tampa, Fla., was renamed the 1-800-Ask-Gary Amphitheater, after a local medical and legal referral service.”
Priscilla Queen of the Desert, opening on Broadway in 2011, completes its cast
Howl the movie with James Franco about Allen Ginsberg is coming out September 24. Howl FESTIVAL 2010 in the East Village will be the entire month of September
“Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing.” ~ Ralph Richardson.
Jerry Lee Lewis himself, now 74 and the only surviving member of the “Million Dollar Quartet” will join the musical on September 10, after Levi Kreiss, who plays Lewis, sings Great Balls of Fire and Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.
Patti LuPone on her rejection (Sunset Boulevard,Little Night Music) It’s not water off a duck’s back.It just sits there
South Pacific LIVE on Channel 13 in NYC, PBS stations nationally. Starring Kelli O’Hara and Tony-winner Paulo Szot
“I wish I could tell you about the endless jungle, the full moon rising behind the volcanoes, and the waiting.”-on the scrim during Overture’
Emile: Who is not running away from something? There are fugitives everywhere.
This “South Pacific” and “Passing Strange” were the best filmed/taped versions of stage musicals I can remember ever seeing.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
New Associated Press theater critic: Mark Kennedy, 40, current AOL News editor, former AP writer,taking over for Mike Kuchwara
The Pee-wee Herman Show has been extended four weeks. It will now begin October 26 and run through January 2 at the Stephen Sondheim Theater
Sondheim was so furious at use of his life in HBO series “The Miraculous Year” that he demanded and got script changes
American Idol Jordin Sparks (@TheRealJordin) is the new Nina in “In the Heights” starting tonight.
American Idol’s first-ever runner-up Justin Guarini will join the cast of Women on the Verge of A Nervous Breakdown in his Broadway debut.
This is like an SAT question: Which doesn’t fit? A.Patti Lupone B.Brian Stokes Mitchell C. Sherie Rene Scott D.Laura Benanti E .Justin Guarini
Justin Guarini (@Justin_Guarini, “entertainer and lover of life”): An honor & a privilege 2 b a part of “Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown”. An amazing cast & director 2 have my B’way debut with!
A good economist knows the true value of the arts by John Kay in the Financial Times dismisses all those reports commissioned by arts advocates that make argument based on the arts benefit to the economy:
“The economic value of the arts is in the commercial and cultural value of the performance, not the costs of cleaning the theatre…I am sympathetic to the well-intentioned people who commission studies of economic benefit, though not to those who take money for carrying them out. They are responding to a climate in which philistine businessmen assert that the private sector company that manufactures pills is a wealth creator, but the public sector doctor who prescribes them is not. Extolling the virtues of manufacturing, they value the popcorn sold in the interval, but not the performance of the play.”
What the arts can learn from environmental movement, e.g.Show influential people how it improves communities
Eighteen playwrights answer the question: Can playwriting be taught? by my colleague at The Faster Times Davi Napoleon.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Two critics, Adam Feldman of Time Out New York and Elizabeth Vincentelli of the New York Post, debate cast changes in “A Little Night Music” and “Next to Normal”. “It’s very rare that replacement casts will be as good…”
Alec Baldwin, looking to do another play on Broadway, gave a reading of Born Yesterday with Nina Arlanda, who was so good in Venus in Fur
Television as Theater
Question: What TV shows come closest to theater? Justify your choice. (Or explain why the question is impossible/silly/sacrilege)
Samantha Harris (@sammiegharris, singer, dancer, actress) Private Practice! It has Audra McDonald and Taye Diggs! 
Sue Kisenwether (@spaltor, theater ticket seller) Live from Lincoln Center?
Howard Sherman (@HESherman, executive director, American Theatre Wing): TV and theatre are fundamentally different, but finest convergence of the two remains SLINGS & ARROWS
Liz Richards (@misslizrichards, stge manager): Pushing Daisies is the most theatrical TV show I’ve seen.
Hubert Hsu (@tapeworthy, theater and movie fan): Gilmore Girls. Rhythms of the dialogue have a theatricality to it. 30 Rock, zanniness like old farces.
Tyler Martins (@mrtylermartins, theater fan): Erm, the ever-obvious Glee?
Kathryn Jones (@unsaidtv, livestream theater producer): Theater implies intimacy and spontaneity and audience co-existing with actors- Saturday Night Live?
Hubert Hsu: The funny thing is I’m slowly finding the opposite true. In theory, theater should be more intimate, but with some of these huge theater where I can’t even see expressions, TV beats theater.
Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE theater. But I’m tired of theater folks who dismiss TV. And I hate huge theaters.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
My review of Veritas:
Veritas was the only one of this year’s 197 Fringe shows that sold out its entire run before the festival even began. What may have drawn theatergoers was the cast of ten attractive and talented young actors—including several with Broadway credits—and the true story that inspired the play. In 1920, Harvard University set up a secret court to purge the campus of homosexual students, after one of them committed suicide. Despite a few effectively chilling interrogation scenes, however, audiences expecting a gay version of The Crucible are apt to be disappointed
Full review
Sunday, August 22, 2010
The Tony Awards broadcast won an Emmy for Outstanding Special Class Program. How…um…incestuous?
Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson and the Marketing of Ben Walker’s Butt
The Public Theater’s rock musical “Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson,” which was such a hip hit downtown, will have its first preview at the Bernard Jacobs Theater on Broadway September 20th (tickets go on sale at the box office for that first preview on Monday, August 23 for just $20). The musical itself will star Ben Walker. But the marketing campaign seems to star Ben Walker’s butt.
The theater marquee, the website, the Twitter feed, all feature a close-up of the actor’s backside in tight jeans, with an American flag hanging out the back pocket.
Full story
Howard Sherman: The Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson poster may be more (ahem) focused, but it put me in mind of the late, unlamented DUDE
Linda Buchwald (@pataphysicalsci, theater blogger and editor of StageGrade):I hope one day see a production of DUDE
Chris Caggiano: Be careful what you wish for.
The Week in New York Theater Tweets is posted every week, usually on Mondays, selected and edited from Jonathan Mandell’s Twitter feed. For up-to-the-minute theater news, views and reviews follow New York Theater.
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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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