Broadway’s big guns fired the first volley this week of what will be a month-long assault — 13 more shows are opening within the next month, ending the 2013-14 Broadway season.
Below are my reviews of Aladdin and Les Miserables, news about the Phantom of the Opera, The Lion King and After Midnight, Ken Ludwig on comedy, Idina Menzel and Zach Braff on their love of theater, a celebration of Sondheim, and interviews with some Off-Off Broadway stars who have turned their public humiliations into public art.
The Week in New York Theater
Monday, March 17, 2014
The Archdiocese of NY will soon open Sheen Center in Soho with two theaters “to showcase Christian humanism”
Eighth annual One Minute Play Festival with plays by Rajiv Joesph, Neil Labute, Greg Kotis, Mike Daisey, April 2 only at Primary Stages. (My Q and A with artistic director Dominic Andrea about previous festival.)
Ended on Broadway in February, now A Night with Janis with Mary Bridget Davies will reopen April 10 at Gramercy Theatre
Happy St. Patrick’s Day
How The Lion King became top-grossing Broadway show of 2013 yet kept top ticket prices at one-half that of their rivals: “Dynamic pricing.”
Difference between the average theatergoer who doesn’t like a show and a critic? The theatergoer blames himself (“I was tired”)
Q and A with Mike Albo about his one-man show “The Junket,” currently at the Lynn Redgrave Theater, about the real-life scandal/personal humiliation that inspired him.
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Tonight through March 30: Toni Braxton returns to Broadway and Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds debuts as guest stars in After Midnight
Hey @sfosternyc— If you rearrange the letters in SUTTON FOSTER you get STRUT OF TONES. Thanks for all the struts & tones. Happy birthday.
— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) March 18, 2014
MT @FeldmanAdam And if you rearrange Lin-Manuel Miranda you get MAILMEN AND URINAL, as you surely know!
— Jonathan Mandell (@NewYorkTheater) March 18, 2014
If your last name is Jones,you can win a pair of tickets to opening night April 6 of Realistic Joneses
Original cast recording of Rocky out May 27 on #UMe label of big-time United Music Group.
Gypsy had her say; now it’s Mama Rose’s turn. Rose Hovick is subject of new bio by Carolyn Quinn and, separately, an HBO film by Adam Shankman.
Diner, a musical based on 1982 film which was to mark Sheryl Crow’s Broadway debut, will open in December at the Signature Theater in Arlington, Virginia.
Actor in A Bad Mood
What happens when an actor is in a bad mood and they have to go on stage and sing merrily — or laugh?
— Jonathan Mandell (@NewYorkTheater) March 19, 2014
@NewYorkTheater We just do it.
— Michael Kras (@KrasMagic) March 19, 2014
@NewYorkTheater I think they pretend.
— Amanda Campbell (@twisitheatre) March 19, 2014
@NewYorkTheater why it’s a craft and not a personality contest. :>)
— Michael Wheeler (@michaelcwheeler) March 19, 2014
@NewYorkTheater that’s the job! If I’m in a happy mood and have to break down every night… I do that too!
— Ralph Bogard (@ralphbogard) March 19, 2014
@NewYorkTheater the young people would say “grind”. You do the work
— Barzin Akhavan (@BarzinAkhavan) March 19, 2014
@NewYorkTheater Last year I lost a dear friend hours before a show. You do the show & then go cry backstage.
— Scott McQ (@Satyr69) March 19, 2014
@NewYorkTheater Musical. Had to sing & dance. And no, nothing would have made it better.
— Scott McQ (@Satyr69) March 19, 2014
Beautiful Cast Recording: Hear Jessie Mueller sing Will You Love Me Tomorrow
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Pulitzer Fest, star-filled readings of Pulitzer-won plays — Ruined, Our Tow, I Am My Own Wife, etc — April 7-13 Labrynth Theater
New works by nine playwrights including John Guare, Neil LaBute, and Caridad Svich in Nuyorican Poets theater festival, April 11 to 13.
Video ad for The Mysteries. 48 playwrights tell stories from the Bible. Starts at The Flea Theater April 3.
Gene Feist, founder of Roundabout Theater Company in the basement of a supermarket, dies at 91. It began in a supermarket basement
How much difference does a play’s title mean?
Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was initially called A Place of Stone, while Williams tried The Moth, The Poker Night, The Primary Colors and Blanche’s Chair in the Moon before settling on A Streetcar Named Desire. Similarly, The Glass Menagerie was at other points intended to go before the public as If It Breathes, It Breaks! or Portrait of a Girl in Glass.Sweet Bird of Youth had no less the four earlier alternatives.”
Original cast recording of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf is unique,astonishing, but not definitive, says Terry Teachout
Desperate Theater With Blondie and Madonna: Q and A with Peter Michael Marino
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Norman Lewis will play the Phantom in the Phantom of the Opera starting May 12th. Sierra Boggess will return as Christine Daae.
Look who I found!!!!! @normlewis777 pic.twitter.com/b0Ygo4lD0S
— Sierra Boggess (@sierraboggess) March 24, 2014
Fantasia returns to After Midnight May 13-June 8.
Winners of the lottery for Newsies will get in FREE from March 23-29, to celebrate its second anniversary on Broadway.
What is comedy and why isn’t it more of it produced?
Playwright Ken Ludwig ( Lend Me A Tenor, Moon over Buffalo, etc.) was the host for the weekly Twitter chat ( Complete transcript)
Excerpts:
@NewYorkTheater Not harder to get plays produced. Just need to pick venues carefully. #newplay @MrSamuelFrench
— Ken Ludwig (@ken_ludwig) March 20, 2014
I think comedy is defined by”happy endings.” Even the heaviest tragedies can have loads of laughMartin McDonagh (whose play The Cripple of Inishmaan is opening on Broadway this season) is a perfect example. They are not comedies in any traditional sense. They have hearts of darkness. Laughter and comedy as a form are not the same thing. I think you write comedy naturally if you have a kind of personal comic spirit. I also think the whole idea of comedy changes from century to century. Comedy is serious business. It simply has a different spirit.
In Aladdin, the new Disney musical on Broadway, the genie grants theatergoers the first of their wishes – to be entertained. The genie is James Monroe Iglehart, and he is the one who provides the bulk of the entertainment… Every number over which he presides – nearly every moment he is on stage – answers the question that fans of the 1992 film Aladdin might have wondered about: How would Disney be able to translate to the stage the protean cartoon character of genie voiced by Robin Williams at his peak? The answer is James Monroe Iglehart, and the answer satisfies.
An hour elapses, however, between Iglehart’s opening number and his next appearance in this two-hour show. If there is much that dazzles in his absence – though perhaps not quite as brightly – not all happening on the stage of the New Amsterdam Theater is everything that every theatergoer might wish for.
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It was supposed to begin March 27, but the Rockettes tribute to NYC, Heart And Lights at Radio City Music Hall, has suddenly been put off until 2015! Madison Square Garden Company CEO James Dolan love the Rockettes and the sets, but not the plot nor the songs.
Everything about that last-minute nix is fascinating: the sports guy as drama critic, 100,000 ticket holders left in lurch etc
Debuting on Broadway in Bullets Over Broadway, Zach Braff writes of how as a “melancholic child” he discovered theater A Broadway musical like the one he’s in is “a ballet of moving parts as intricate as a pocket watch.”
A (too long) article about “short-burst offerings” and then a list of currently playing brief plays etc.
One can decry “fast art” trend as one does fast food, but aren’t you relieved when a show turns out to be shorter than expected?
Robin Riegelhaupt @reviewingdrama Only if it’s terrible. If it’s a great show, I want it to keep going. Ex: I could have watched three more hrs of Jerusalem.
Daniel John Kelley @funwithiago Better: Why do we even need a show at all? Why we don’t just put up a sign for a show and then people can come in and leave.
Rocky Conversation
Jennifer Mudge @JenniferMudge I said “fishiebrains & birdies” last night instead of “fishes & birdbrains” #ActorProblems
An improvement!
@NewYorkTheater @RockyBroadway you know, she’s eccentric…. Right?
— Jennifer Mudge (@JenniferMudge) March 21, 2014
@JenniferMudge @RockyBroadway Exactly. (By the way, who takes care of the fish? Are they Equity?)
— Jonathan Mandell (@NewYorkTheater) March 21, 2014
@NewYorkTheater @RockyBroadway They are Local 1. Electrics ; ) #SpoilerAlert
— Jennifer Mudge (@JenniferMudge) March 21, 2014
@JenniferMudge @RockyBroadway Are you saying they aren’t real fish? (That IS a spoiler)
— Jonathan Mandell (@NewYorkTheater) March 21, 2014
@NewYorkTheater @RockyBroadway blrg. I don’t know if I can say more…. But we do nothing that PETA would not like ; )
— Jennifer Mudge (@JenniferMudge) March 21, 2014
@JenniferMudge @NewYorkTheater Pet Shop trade secret.
— ROCKY (@RockyBroadway) March 21, 2014
Idina Menzel on the cover of Billboard
“Broadway is where I’ve always felt most at home”
Meg Haas @meggh11
I have never been happier to be an Idina Menzel fan, or as the cool kids have said for years now “Fanzel
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“Two of the hardest words in the language to rhyme are life and love.”
Happy 84th birthday, Stephen Sondheim. Here’s to your life!
Poll: Your favorite Broadway show with which Sondheim was involved? (There are MANY)
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RIP James Rebhorn, character actor on stage (7-time Broadway veteran) and screen (Claire Danes pop on Homeland), age 65
John Bentz @JBentz Rebhorn was also great in “The Talented Mr. Ripley” as Jude Law’s father.
William J Kenton @w_jameskenton Rebhorn seemed to always play riveting, “Authority characters” – bosses, administrators, suits. The establishment’s gray wall
When the grim-faced actors in the revival of “Les Miserables” man the barricades and wave the red flag at the Imperial, to my surprise, I didn’t just see red.
For this third production on Broadway, the producers and directors have made choices that have won me over…mostly. It’s hard to call this Les Miz low-key exactly, but it is less of an assault on the senses…. Above all, what makes this “Les Miserables” appealing even to those of us who retain reservations about the show’s conception, are the performances. This is a cast full of familiar faces shown in a new light, and talent new to Broadway that will bowl you over.
Complete review (and 19 photographs) of Les Miserables
