The Tony Awards will take place this coming Sunday, and, if nothing else, they are the best way to sum up the Broadway season.
How else to do it? In facts and figures?
Broadway 2012-13 season saw the debut of 46 shows (26 plays, 15 musicals, five “specials”), according to the Broadway League. All shows on Broadway grossed $1.1 billion; there were 11.57 million people who attended a show. Both figures show a decline from the previous season.
How about Best Abs – Sebastian Stan in Picnic won the Best Abs Award in a season full of shirtless actors
Given the alternatives, a theater awards ceremony seems preferable, which is why there are so many of them — two on the Monday night before the Tonys: the 31st Annual Fred & Adele Astaire Awards and the 69th Annual Theatre World Awards. But let’s face it, it’s the 67th Annual Tony Awards that gets the most attention, because it’s television, even if they never seem to do justice to the straight plays.
Below are links to the new cast recordings of several of the Tony-nominated musicals this year.
Here again are my Tony Picks — which is to say, my preferences — who SHOULD win — not my predictions.
Week in New York Theater
May 28, 2013
Kinky Boots: Want to listen to the new KINKY BOOTS cast recording on @Spotify now? We thought so.
First listen to cast albums for
Clark Gable made his Bway debut in Machinal in 1928.Now the UK’s Rebecca Hall, best known at the moment for her role in Iron Man 3, will make HER debut in the Roundabout’s production of Machinal, which is set to open January 16
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Check out the revamped website http://OffBroadway.com
Our Town opens tonight – in Sing Sing Correctional Facility, where the inmate-actors start seeing the beautiful in the mundane, making prison less miserable. My interview with director Kate Powers.
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Les Miserables will be back on Broadway, opening March 23, 2014 at the Imperial Theater, where it ran for 5244 performances (~13 years)
The 4th annual Lilly Awards (named after Lillian Hellman) honors a dozen women in the theater, including actresses Lois Smith and Jessica Hecht, and playwright Paul Vogel
Cast album of Kathie Lee Gifford’s Scandalous with Carolee Carmello is available now for digital download; CD released on June 15.
I’ll Eat You Last with Bette Midler recoups its $2.4 million capitalization after just 8 weeks
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“To have great poets, there must be great audiences.” ~ Walt Whitman, born on this date in 1819.
My review of the Giacomo Variations
“I want a woman,” John Malkovich as the dying lover Casanova shouts elegantly from the stage of City Center, while in the audience – in the row right in front of me – a young man has two: He kisses one on the lips, one on the cheek; he squeezes both during Act I. They leave at Intermission.
I envy them.
June 1, 2013
Opening in Broadway’s Circle in the Square August 15: Soul Doctor, a show about soulful 60’s songwriter Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach
Smash dead. Slings & Arrows revived? No, BUT….The three creators of “Slings & Arrows” discuss the future.
Gatz at Gatsby: Members of the Elevator Repair Service who had performed in Gatz, gathered together in a Times Square movie theater to see the new Great Gatsby film – and got stuck in the elevator.
Jean Stapleton, known best for her role as Edith Bunker in All in the Family but respected Broadway vet (Damn Yankees,Rhinoceros,Funny Girl) has died at age 90
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May Quiz — how well were you paying attention? Answer these 10 questions and find out.
To enjoy “Far From Heaven” without reservation, it might help to stay away from Netflix.
The new musical about two forbidden loves (gay and interracial) in 1950s suburban Connecticut has opened at Playwrights Horizons with a first-rate cast of 18 led by the awe-inspiring Kelli O’Hara (South Pacific, The Light in the Piazza.)….The problem is that the original 2002 film achieves both an original artistic vision and a form of political commentary…
Full review of Far From Heaven
