The season is upon us, with more shows in the Fall alone on Broadway (19!), Off-Broadway (more than 30) and Off-Off Broadway (??) than any reasonable person can see.
New York theatergoers are not known for being reasonable, however, and so New York Theater will offer a look not just at the past week — which included news of the Broadway debut of Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong as a performer and Jerry Seinfeld as a director — but the week ahead:
Opening the week of September 27: The New York Musical Theater Festival (Monday, Sept 27) “Brief Encounter” by Noel Coward (Tuesday, Sept 28). “The Pitmen Painters” by Lee Hall; Office Hours by A.R. Gurney (Thursday, Sept 30). “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” by George Bernard Shaw (Sunday, October 3)
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Monday, September 20, 2010
“Catch Me If You Can,” a musical based on the 2002 Leonardo diCaprio movie about a young con artist in the 1960′s, is set to open on Broadway April 10, 2011; the theater is not yet chosen. Previews begin March 7. The book is by Terrence McNally, music by Marc Shaiman (Hairspray), choreography by Jerry Mitchell; it will be directed by Jack O’Brien.
Since both Mitchell and O’Brien are also supposed to be working on “Love Never Dies”, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sequel to “Phantom of the Opera”, the subtext of the “Catch Me If You Can” announcement is that it’s not going to be happening on Broadway this season.
UK wags gave nickname to “Love Never Dies” of “Paint Never Dries.” There’s a Twitter feed with 500 followers called @LoveShouldDie. But it sounds like more apt to call it “Love Never Does.”
Hilary Sutton (@Hilarysutton, singer, actor, writer): The @loveshoulddie people are weirdos. i saw it and it was good! They should find a new passion.
Will Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia return to Broadway in February starring Billy Crudup? That’s what Entertainment Weekly is saying
Playbill’s Broadway rush ticket, lottery and standing room policies for each show has been updated to include the latest Broadway shows, such as “Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson.”
Lynn Nottage, author of “Ruined,” has been named the recipient of the 2010 Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award – the Mimi. Cash prize: $200,000! The award, which is by far the nation’s richest theater prize, began in 2008 and is presented every other year. The first winner was Tony Kushner.
Nottage, 45, is working on a screenplay of “Ruined,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about the effects of the war in the Congo on a group of prostitutes. Her latest play, “By the Way, Meet Vera Stark” described as the 70-year journey of “a headstrong African-American maid and budding actress” is slated for Second Stage Theater in the spring.
The New York Innovative Theater Awards
The winners were chosen from a list of nominees that included 50 Off-Off Broadway companies, 55 productions and 118 individuals.
Special awards were given to Dixon Place, the New York Neofuturists, and to playwright Lanford Wilson.
“The first moment I heard the audience laugh at a line I wrote, I was ruined for life,” he said in accepting his award.
Wilson, 73, got his start in downtown theater, and then wrote or produced 13 plays on Broadway, including “Fifth of July” and the much-heralded “Tally’s Folly,” which is planned for a revival in Spring 2011, although one of its two stars, Robin Wright, recently withdrew from the production.
David J. Loehr (@dloehr, playwright): Book of Days is a really good script that hasn’t been on Broadway yet
James Earl Jones, who will star this season in “Driving Miss Daisy” opposite Vanessa Redgrave, answered questions at the Times Center:
On Denzel Washington in the role in “Fences” that Jones originated: “We fell in love with the same character. It’s like what happens when you fall in love with the same girl.”
On his stutter: “It’s very common for stutterers to sing beautifully, act well. I worked through it.”
On turning 80 next January: “It’s fun to be in the business so long, and I plan to stay longer.”
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Colin Quinn’s solo show about the history of the world directed by Jerry Seinfeld, “Long Story Short,” is moving to Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theater October 22 to January 8.
This brings the number of Broadway shows in the fall to 19.
Casting for “The Merchant of Venice” has been completed. Much is the same: Lily Rabe (Portia), Byron Jennings (Antonio), Jesse L. Martin (Gratiano), Al Pacino (Shylock) reprising their roles. Christopher Fitzgerald, terrific in Finian’s Rainbow, replaces Jesse Tyler Ferguson as clown.
The Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music begins tonight and runs all Fall.
Off Broadway Preview, 2010-2011
Much of the most intriguing theater happening this season (as every season) is Off-Broadway. Here is a guide, offering highlights, links to the season schedule of 10 of the best Off-Broadway theaters, and a calendar describing 68 shows.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Alex Timbers is making his Broadway debut this season directing BOTH “Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson” and “The Pee-wee Herman Show”
About Jackson musical, he says: “The stranger and weirder we’ve made it, the more it seems to have expanded the audience.”
Very successful shows push the form, he says. The Lion King, Next to Normal, Spring Awakening, Cabaret: they’re doing something new.
David Mamet’s “A Life In The Theatre”, starring Patrick Stewart and TR Knight, began performances tonight at Gerald Schoenfeld Theater. It opens October 12
Stephen R. Buntrock, Grease’s former Teen Angel, becomes Bernadette Peters’ amour in A Little Night Music September 28, replacing Alexander Hanson
How does Sports Illustrated preview the play Lombardi? By reprinting an entire “pivotal” scene from the play.
More Season Previews
New York Magazine theater critic Scott Brown lists what he calls the ten “most anticipated” theater of the season: Gatz, Angels in America, Elling, La Bete, A Life in The Theatre, Women on The Verge of A Nervous Breakdown, Play Dead, Anything Goes, The Pee-Wee Herman Show, The Little Foxes. Most of these are shows that have stars in them.
USA Today’s theater critic Elysa Gardner looks at it differently in her preview, Musicals are poised to score big: Musicals are poised to score “Six musicals are set to open by year’s end, none revivals; five boast original scores”
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Performances begin tonight for three shows on Broadway: La Bete, Lombari and Time Stands Still. That means eight new shows currently playing on Broadway, although none have yet opened.
REO Speedwagon to perform “Can’t Fight This Feeling” and then Q&A with ticket-holders after “Rock of Ages” show this coming Monday, September 27
Theater is about keeping people surprised and in awe about life- Kevin McCollum,producer (Rent, Ave Q, In the Heights)
The first billboard of the new season has gone up at Times Square – Women On The Verge.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Baz Luhrman hopes to turn his film Strictly Ballroom into a Broadway-bound musical. It’ll be his second show on Broadway; the first was 2002-2003 Boheme
The Flea Theater is the one NYC theater out of 10 ‘inspiring and innovative’ companies nationwide that will receive $10,000 grants from the American Theatre Wing.
“To cite the leading man’s pectorals as the root cause of one’s enjoyment of a show is not level-headed.” The Flaws of Attraction in Theatre
“The Memorandum” by Václav Havel will be presented by TACT at Theater Row October 25 to November 27. The satire of a bureaucracy gone made was an early play by the man who became the first president of the Czech Republic.
World-class Theater Cities?
New York is clearly a world-class theater city, as is London. Chicago is surely one now. Any others?
David Wilson (@david2587, UK grad student in New Jersey): What about Edinburgh and it’s Fringe festival? So much talent in one place!
Andrei Strizek (@AndreiStrizek, Illinois pianist): Saw Hedwig one year at the Fringe Fest-and many other great plays/musicals. Cheap, inventive, entertaining; it gets my vote.
Celeste Kamiya(@SomedayWendla, Broadway hopeful): San Francisco!
Jason Capili (@TheNYGalavant
Toronto, Tokyo (for Noh), Paris, Venice..
Jonathan Mandell (@NewYorkTheater, me): Venice. I never heard that.
Jason Capili: l’d put Rome over Venice on second thought.
Jonathan Mandell: How’s Prague? The president of the country was a famous playwright!
Michelle McManus (@mnconcierge, resident of Twin Cities, Minneapolis) Twin Cities: almost 100 theater companies, over 30 venues, and more theater seats per capita than anywhere outside NYC!
Kelly Cameron (@broadwaybabyto, Toronto theater journalist): Toronto! But you knew that
@jyesca: Milan and Verona, Italy
Caroline Cole (@TheCarolineCole, resident of Denver): I nominate Denver!
Adam J. Thompson (@ajacobthompson, theater director, resident of Brooklyn): Berlin.
Wendy Rosenfield (@WendyRosenfield, theater critic, Philadelphia Inquirer): You KNOW Philly belongs on that list!
Saturday, September 25, 2010
At the annual Broadway Open House (part of the Broadway League’s Back2Broadway celebration), Willa Burke, one of a half dozen or so theater managers of the August Wilson Theater, explains the history of the theater that currently houses “Jersey Boys”
It began as the Guild Theater in 1925, built by a non-profit repertory company, the Theater Guild; President Calvin Coolidge officially opoened the theater by pushing an electric button in Washington D.C. The first production was Caesar and Cleopatra starring Helen Hayes.
It was converted into a radio studio in 1943, changed back into a Broadway theater in 1950. It got its fourth name, August Wilson, in October, 2005, 14 days after the death of the playwright, seven of whose plays had premiered in this theater.
Sebastian Arcelus, who will play Buddy in “Elf the Musical,” officiated over the official opening of the box office. He picked the lottery winner, a child who is getting walk-on role in the show, which begins performances in November.
The much-touted Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Elf float that sat atop the marquee of the Al Hirschfeld Theater was taken down minutes after the ribbon-cutting, goodies-giving, songfest promotional activities.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Billie Joe Armstrong will be playing St. Jimmy in “American Idiot” Tuesday through Sunday of this coming week.
Reeve Carney, taking a break from rehearsals of “Spider-man Turn Off the Dark”, part of the theater district in pictures
The 24th Annual Broadway Cares/ Equity Fights AIDS Flea Market and Grand Auction on Shubert Alley
This poster of Gavin Creel in “Hair” sold for $1,150. For theater being an evanescent experience and all, it sure generates a lot of….stuff.
The Week in New York Theater is posted every week, usually on Mondays, culled and edited from Jonathan Mandell’s Twitter feed.
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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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