James Corden, Tony Host. #GreaseLive Scores. #Ham4Ham Digital Returns. Week in New York Theater

 

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Late Late Show host and Tony winner James Corden will be the host of the 70th Tony Awards June 12th.
He won his Tony for One Man, Two Guvnors.

Aaron Tveit as Danny and Juianne Hough as Sandy
Aaron Tveit as Danny and Juianne Hough as Sandy

Grease Live, the fourth live television broadcast of a musical since NBC began this renewed trend in 2013 with The Sound of Music, was watched by more than 12 million people, more than both Peter Pan Live and The Wiz Live.

My review of Grease Live.

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Grease Live photographs and lyrics

 

Noah Robbins as Eugene

Q and A with Noah Robbins, one of the standouts of Grease Live, who played the nerd Eugene.

 

The Week in Hamilton

The digital #Ham4Ham lottery  tries again, starting today. (You’ll recall that the website crashed when they first introduced the digital lottery in early January.)

But the #Ham4Ham digital performances have been going on without interruption.
e.g., with Audra McDonald

Hamilton is going national

Sept, 2016: PrivateBank, Chicago, for an open run.

Then a national tour in 2017. First stops:

March 2017: Shnsf Broadway,San Francisco

August 2017: Pantages, LA

 

Other shows that have launched digital lotteries this week

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An American in Paris

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Phantom of the Opera (on its 28th year, for $28)

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January 2016 New York theater quiz

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February Theater Openings

The Week in New York Theater Reviews

 Chinasa Ogbuagu as Abasiama; Hubert Point-Du Jour as Ukpong in Sojourners
Chinasa Ogbuagu as Abasiama; Hubert Point-Du Jour as Ukpong in Sojourners

Sojourners

In “Sojourners,” a curious kind of love story among oddly carved characters, a man visits the hospital room of a woman he just recently met who’s given birth to the child of her absent husband. The visitor, named Disciple, offers the woman, Abasiama, flowers and a teddy bear. “…Stuffed animals. They are American symbols of comfort,” Disciple explains in heavily accented English to the new mother. “I should have brought good food or fine cloth. Doll? What for?”

The man and the woman are both Nigerian immigrants in Houston, Texas, in 1978, in a play by first generation Nigerian-American Mfoniso Udofia that is strongest when it offers us such glimpses into the characters’ two cultures, and their effort to juggle the two – adjusting here, resisting there.

Kayla Ferguson and Reggie D. White
Kayla Ferguson and Reggie D. White

I and You

I and You, Lauren Gunderson’s two-character play, has been produced in some 20 theaters around the country, receiving awards and much publicity, yet nobody has revealed the twist at the end. The twist is not just shocking; it makes the play.

The acting and directing in the New York production are competent, the design team does wonders in the relatively small stage of 59E59 Theatre A, and the playwright has something profound she wants us to take out of the theater. But just knowing there is a surprise ending, yet not knowing what it is, provides a narrative suspense that propels us through the seemingly aimless patches of an encounter that begins when high school student Anthony (Reggie D. White) enters the bedroom of Caroline (Kayla Ferguson), much to her surprise and annoyance.

The Week in New York Theater News

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Cate Blanchett to make her Broadway debut in The Present by Andrew Upton, based on Chekhov’s Platonov, December 2016

 

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Thirty-six years after starring as Peter Pan, Sandy Duncan returns to Broadway to play Madame du Maurier, the snobbish grandmother in Finding Neverland.

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An all-female Taming of the Shrew starring Cush Jumbo as Kate and Janet McTeer as Petruchio launches the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park season this summer.

Bad news/good news from Atlantic Theater: Hal Prince no longer directing The Band’s Visit in the Spring. David Cromer will in Fall

AbeVigoda

RIP Abe Vigoda, 5-time Broadway veteran but best known for ‘The Godfather’ film & ‘Barney Miller’ TV, 94.

Ten finalists for this year’s Susan Smith Blackburn Prize given annually to recognize women who have written works of outstanding quality for the English-speaking theatre.

Sarah Burgess (U.S.)- Dry Powder
Rachel Cusk (U.K.)- Medea
Sarah DeLappe (U.S.)- The Wolves
Sam Holcroft (U.K.)- Rules for Living
Anna Jordan (U.K.)- Yen
Dominique Morisseau (U.S.)- Skeleton Crew
Lynn Nottage (U.S.)- Sweat
Suzan-Lori Parks (U.S.)- Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1,2 & 3)
Bea Roberts (U.K)- And Then Come The Nightjars
Noni Stapleton (Ireland)- Charolais

Congratulations to the 10 emerging writers Class of 2016-17

 

 

 

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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