#Ham4Ham, the name for the five-minute performances during the lottery drawings for the Broadway musical Hamilton, began last month with Lin-Manuel Miranda rapping, and roping in other cast members. Now, cast members from other Broadway shows are guest starring – Les Miz, Spring Awakening, Fun Home. Is this the birth of a new theatrical…genre?
In the Heights Reunion
Les Miserables
Spring Awakening
Fun Home
(#Ham4Ham is hip shorthand for the lottery because the winners pay only ten dollars — Hamilton is the face on the ten dollar bill — to see the musical Hamilton.)
Week in New York Theater Reviews
At a time when it seems that every other new TV series (Extant, Humans, Mr. Robot, Fear the Walking Dead) can be read as a cautionary tale about the dangers of science and technology, “Informed Consent” offers a more sophisticated look at a whole host of issues raised by its specific scientific focus. The play makes an impressive attempt to present each side of the dispute with respect. It also gives us a glimpse into the implications of the extraordinary advances in genome research — what our DNA can tell us about our history and, increasingly, our future….But for all the fascination inherent in the subject, playwright Deborah Zoe Laufer and director Liesl Tommy’s approach undermines the story in two major ways.
Full review of Informed Consent
The horrific future conjured in “Mercury Fur” – a world piled high with atrocities ranging from the killing of zoo animals to random decapitations to child torture – is clearly meant to shock. But what is unexpected in the New Group’s revival of Philip Ridley’s 2005 dystopian fantasy is how tedious it is.
Week in New York Theater News
Hedwig and the Angry Inch is closing September 13, after 22 previews,506 regular performances, and six Hedwigs
The Painted Ladies of Times Square
Although there is more nudity on Broadway stages than on Broadway, the mayor and the police commissioner, goaded by several days of front-page headlines in the Daily News, are determined to do something about the dozen or so women who call themselves #Desnudas and parade around in the Times Square plazas wearing little more than body paint.
“I’d prefer to dig the whole damn thing up and put it back the way it was”-NYPD Commissioner Bratton on Times Square pedestrian plazas
New York Theatre Workshop will offer tickets for $25 for the first two performances of every show, starting September 11 with Elevator Repair Service’s Fondly Collette Richland.
It’s conquered Vegas and the world, now Cirque de Soleil plans to take over Broadway’s Lyric (where On The Town is running until September 6), with a new show called “Paramour,” which opens in June. Cirque’s description of its show, in true carnival barker tradition:
Hold On To Me Darling, a new Kenneth Lonergan play about a country-western star who tries to give up his fame, will be at the Atlantic Theater in February.
Six playwrights, including John Guare and Beth Henley, dramatize Tennessee Williams short stories in Desire, the first play of the 59E59 season. It opens September 10.
Joining the cast of A View from the Bridge on Broadway: Looking’s Russell Tovey as Rodolpho. It opens Nov 12.
New MTC Season Provokes Protest
Fool For Love by Sam Shepard, October 8 to December 6
Sam Rockwell and Nina Arianda
Two lovers holed up in a seedy motel on the edge of the Mojave Desert (
Ripcord by David Lindsay-Abaire, opens October 20
Holland Taylor, Marylouise Burke, and Rachel Dratch. David Hyde Pierce directs
Two rivals vie for a choice room in an assisted living facility
Important Hats of the 20th Century by Nick Jones, opens November 25
Directed by Moritz Von Stuelpnagel (Hand to God)
a cutthroat rivalry between milliners in 1930s New York.
Our Mother’s Brief Affair by Richard Greenberg, opens January 20
Linda Lavin. Directed by MTC artistic director Lynne Meadow
A woman makes a startling confession on her deathbed.
Prodigal Son by John Patrick Shanley, opens February 9
Robert Sean Leonard. Shanley directs
A brilliant, troubled young man from the Bronx at a New Hampshire private school.
The Father by Florian Zeller, opens Apr. 12
Frank Langella. Directed by Doug Hughes
A trip through the mind of a man who may be a retired dancer or an engineer, and who may be visited by family or by strangers
Incognito by Nick Payne, Opens May 24
The stories of a pathologist, a seizure patient, and a neuropsychologist intertwine mysteriously.
When this season was announced, there was much criticism on social media about its lack of diversity
Lynne M/MTC w/respect: for a woman in theatre who attended Bryn Mawr, where is your sisterhood? playwrightsofcolormatter&women’s plays now
— Paula Vogel (@VogelPaula) August 18, 2015
Diversity includes class, age, veterans, elderly. Diversify boards&staff so we work for democracy rather than a class oligarchy on stage.
— Paula Vogel (@VogelPaula) August 22, 2015
– which was picked up by the New York Times.
“These are really respected artists,”Zakiyyah Alexander, a member of the Kilroys, was quoted as saying. “It’s not their fault that they have been put in the position to only be surrounded by white male playwrights.”
MTC added an eighth show to their season:
The Ruins of Civilization by Penelope Skinner, with Lila Neugebauer slated to direct.
Would so much rather have my plays produced than discuss #parityraid & diversity. but, one thing leads to the next: http://t.co/ExNdVznmXg
— zakiyyah alexander (@model_minority) August 22, 2015
…
I’d like to end on a personal note
omg: ‘worst art restoration ever’ inspires an opera http://t.co/3ofdaQnzJg (h/tp @RebeccaCaine) pic.twitter.com/uwOik5ZEFG
— Jonathan Mandell (@NewYorkTheater) August 20, 2015
