#LoveTheatreDay. Bruce Willis, Arthur Miller, The Wiz, Casting Conflicts Week in New York Theater

LoveTheatreDaygraphicToday is the second annual #LoveTheatreDay, originating in the United Kingdom but spread throughout the world.

This afternoon, Spring Awakening will perform at the White House, and simultaneously live-streamed at the White House website
as part of the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disability Act. This is a good time to point out:

Week in New York Theater Reviews

Misery2

Misery

Misery on Broadway is the latest adaptation of Stephen King’s story about a writer who’s imprisoned by a berserk fan. It’s not as good as either King’s novel nor the movie, but it’s likely to appeal to those who don’t know either, and to the number one fans of Bruce Willis.

Richard Thomas as an Austrian Prince in Arthur Miller's Incident at Vichy
Richard Thomas as an Austrian Prince in Arthur Miller’s Incident at Vichy

Incident at Vichy

Incident at Vichy, presented by the Signature Theater in the first major New York production since its short Broadway run in 1964, is intelligent, well acted, and occasionally so relevant that it’s chilling. The action takes place in Vichy, France in 1942, when some dozen men have been rounded up, waiting in an old warehouse that is being used as a detention center as they are brought in one by one for interrogation by both French police and a Nazi professor from the “Race Institute.”…It’s stagey..But there are gasp-worthy moments that make Miller feel like a prophet

A View from the Bridge 14

A View from the Bridge

A View From The Bridge, one of Arthur Miller’s most popular plays, has been on Broadway four times before, most recently just five years ago, starring Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johansson in an impressive Broadway debut. But it’s safe to say that the new View, at the Lyceum, is unlike any staged before, mostly for better, but also a bit for worse. The intense performance by Mark Strong, making hisBroadway debut, supported by the rest of the outstanding cast, makes this View worth viewing, but the powerful acting is not what makes this production distinct from previous versions. It’s the direction by Ivo van Hove….The director has staged this story with brutal abstraction, shorn of period details, props and backdrops, and even of shoes: All the actors are barefoot.

Connor Johnston
Connor Johnston

Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom

It sounded like a good match: Batman and Lost Boy movie director Joel Schumacher, versatile master of action and suspense, in his New York stage debut directing a play by Jennifer Haley, a writer I’ve called the first major playwright of the digital age, whose The Nether, a play that depicts a near future in which people lose themselves in a virtual world, won awards and entranced critics in New York and London earlier this year.
But “Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom” at the Flea Theater, for all its promise, doesn’t have the requisite dread and is doomed to disappoint.

Week in New York Theater Views

Dead 10

Five Lessons The Grateful Dead Can Teach Live Theater

 

Adam Driver, from trooper to trouper
Adam Driver, from trooper to trouper

Veterans and the Arts

PeaceforParis

How Can Theater Help in a Time of Crisis?

At the American Theatre Critics Association annual New York meeting:

 

 

 

 

 

Week in New York Theater News

Sondheim,Spielberg,Streisand, Emilio and Gloria Estefan, Itzhak Perlman,James Taylor et al win Presidential Medal of Freedom

Jesse Tyler Ferguson to play 40 characters in revival of Fully Committed ,a comedy about trendy restaurant.Starts April 2 Lyceum

Phylicia Rashad to star in Head of Passes, new play by Tarell Alvin McCraney, directed by Tina Landau opening at the Public Theater March 28, 2016

At The Tony Awards committee meeting, both Lin-Manuel Miranda and Leslie Odom Jr of Hamilton were ruled eligible as Best Actor

Report: NYC schools are closer to the legal requirements in arts education,thanks to more money and #ArtsMonday training

Tennessee Williams John-Lahr-Book-Cover

Movie studio Broad Green is planning a movie of the life of Tennessee Williams, based on John Lahr’s bio

Fall,2016 Roundabout will present:  A new adaptation of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard by Stephen Karam (author of The Humans), 2. Love,Love,Love by Mike Bartlett (author of King Charles III)

 

Casting Conflicts

NYC playwright Lloyd Suh objects to white actors playing Indian characters in his Jesus in India, so Pennnsylvania college production canceled.

Dramatists Guild President Doug Wright blasts directors who cast against playwrights’ wishes.

The Wiz Live on NBC, December 3

Author: New York Theater

Jonathan Mandell is a 3rd generation NYC journalist, who sees shows, reads plays, writes reviews and sometimes talks with people.

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