“What we do deeply, deeply matters,” George C. Wolfe, director and book writer of Shuffle Along, told a group of out-of-town theater owners and presenters in another week focused on the season just passed — even as we learned some exciting news about the season to come.
Week in New York Theater Awards
Astaire Awards – Hamilton, On Your Feet and Shuffle Along in three-way tie for choreographer!
Our bodies are instruments and we are able to change lives through dance~Judith Jamison
Who ARE these 846 Tony voters anyway?@PiaCatton explains.https://t.co/5IHDwAOvLg pic.twitter.com/msK4sc4wGW
— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) May 17, 2016
Week in New York Theater Reviews
While Broadway is reacquainting audiences with Shuffle Along, Off-Broadway is opening our eyes to another landmark Broadway show from the 1920s – this one an all-Jewish, lesbian-themed drama that led to a criminal prosecution.Indecent is both a fascinating history lesson written by Pulitzer-winning Paul Vogel, and a cleverly staged entertainment directed by Rebecca Taichman.
One leaves this 90-minute play about comedian and activist Dick Gregory thinking of it as a stand-up comedy routine more than a biographical drama. This is in part because the play doesn’t emphasize the biography, going into few details. But it’s mostly because of Joe Morton, an accomplished stage and film actor best known now as Olivia Pope’s father in the TV series Scandal, who turns out to have terrific comic delivery.
The beginning of “Half Moon Bay”…. does not promise a great romance. But it winds up delivering something almost as sweet – a charmingly-acted, quirky, subtly comic, touching look at the tentative, fumbling effort by two characters to make a connection.
Week in New York Theater News
“Jitney,” the only one of the ten plays that make up August Wilson’s American Century Cycle that has never been presented on Broadway, will finally get there in December (opening January 19, 2017), at MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman Theater, directed by long-time Wilson interpreter Ruben Santiago-Hudson.
Here are Santiago-Hudson, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Clarke Peters and others explaining the continuing appeal of August Wilson at the opening three years ago of the stage readings of all ten plays.
2016 NYC Summer Theater Festivals
2016-17 Public Theater season features
Sweat by Lynn Nottage
Latin History for Morons by John Leguizamo
Saint Joan by David Byrne
Harvey Fierstein in a new play by Martin Sherman (Bent)
Full details of another exciting @PublicTheaterNY seasonhttps://t.co/klbjeFZTeB pic.twitter.com/y0LYUf8wDx
— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) May 19, 2016
.@HelloDollyBway w/ @BetteMidler & #DavidHydePierce to open 4/20/2017 at Shubert Theater.#henceposter pic.twitter.com/iwQw75Gt6c
— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) May 17, 2016
Sutton Foster will star in 1966 Fosse/Gwen Verdon musical Sweet Charity with new choreography by Josh Bergasse, November 2016 The New Group
Full New Group season
Jaime Camil (of Jane The Virgin) is the next Billy Flynn in Chicago, May 31-July 3
Director Evan Cabnet (Do I Hear A Waltz, Gloria, Therese Raquin) named artistic director of Lincoln Center’s LCT3, which focuses on experimental works at the Claire Tow Theater.
Neil LaBute’s new play Reasons to Be Pretty Happy (third in trilogy), one-night-only benefit reading, June 20
Returning as Wicked’s Elphaba August 1: Jenny DiNoia, Elphaba veteran on Broadway, in Chicago, Korea, and Australia.
Grand Paradise has been extended to September 4.
Week in New York Theater Quotes
“I start writing from a place of outrage. Hope and love are found along the way.” –
Danai Gurira, Eclipsed
“I aspire to be the role model that I was looking for at 7 years old.” – Ali Stroker, cast member of Spring Awakening
“It’s our job as theater-makers and theater-producers to say we all belong.” –
LIesl Tommy, director of Eclipsed
“What we do deeply, deeply matters.” -George C. Wolfe, director, book writer of Shuffle Along
“When you make a path, you have to bring a sister behind you.”– Jeanine Tesori, composer of Fun Home.
.@mcctheater managed to fit full title of @HalleyFeiffer‘s play on the marquee pic.twitter.com/VPGuqRQykW
— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) May 19, 2016
