Two hit Off-Broadway plays on my Top 10 list for 2016 are transferring to Broadway in the Spring, written by two of the most respected women playwrights in America — Pulitzer Prize winners Lynn Nottage and Paula Vogel — both of whom, incredibly, are making their Broadway debuts. (Scroll to “Week in New York Theater News” for details.)
There’s still time: Holiday Gifts for Theater Lovers 2016
How about getting your theater loving loved ones (or yourself) one of the 50 best plays of the past 100 years?
Week in New York Theater Reviews
“Rancho Viejo” is largely a tease of a play that is three long hours full of deliberate banality. The play, with a stellar cast portraying nine characters plus a dog, is subtitled “a suburban sprawl.” It mocks, or perhaps just reproduces, the desultory rhythms, affluent ennui and existential anxiety and loneliness of middle class, middle aged California suburban life.
“Tiny Beautiful Things,” a stage version of Cheryl Strayed’s best-selling collection of advice columns, inspires such strong emotional reactions that the awkward set-up winds up not mattering much.
A Bronx Tale
“A Bronx Tale”…tells a story that its author, Chazz Palminteri, says is true: He really did witness a mob killing as a kid in the Bronx and kept quiet about it, winning over the local mobster….But the musical seems based less on a true story than on other Broadway musicals… Alan Menken’s score, a pleasing if generic mix of doo-wop and Motown and Broadway ballads, manages to make “A Bronx Tale” feel like an old jukebox musical, even though all of the songs are original and none of them likely to become hits.
The members of the creative team behind “The Band’s Visit,” a delightfully low-key musical starring a memorably paired Tony Shalhoub and Katrina Lenk, have taken a 2007 Israeli film that is off-beat, and supplied their own beat…David Yazbek has come up with a terrifically tuneful Middle Eastern-inflected score….(They) keep the deadpan drollery of the film, but also produce through the individual Israelis and Egyptians alike a collective portrait of yearning.
“In Transit” is the first a cappella musical on Broadway, and the rich harmonies and rhythmic beatboxing of a cappella evangelist Deke Sharon’s arrangements reveal the human voice as the most flexible of musical instruments. Unfortunately, the freshness of the voice-only orchestra doesn’t completely compensate for the flat familiarity of much else in the musical…”In Transit” features 11 appealing and accomplished performers portraying some 40 subway-riding New Yorkers….Luckily, “In Transit” has several assets that help us try to put aside its bland stories.
Week in New York Theater News
Lynn Nottage’s Sweat, currently at the Public Theater, is moving to Broadway! It opens March 26 at Studio 54. (My review of Sweat, which I listed as one of my top 10 for the year.) It will be the first play on Broadway for Nottage, the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Ruined,” “Intimate Apparel,” “By The Way Meet Vera Stark,” and a dozen more.
Paula Vogel’s Indecent will open on Broadway April 18 at the Cort. A hit when it was presented at Off-Broadway’s Vineyard Theater (my review), it will mark the first play on Broadway by Vogel, the author of the Pulitzer-winning “How I Learned to Drive,” “The Baltimore Waltz” and more than a dozen more. A renowned teacher of playwriting, her students have included Sarah Ruhl, Quiara Alegría Hudes, Nilo Cruz– and Lynn Nottage.
Much-delayed “Prince of Broadway,” celebrating Hal Prince’s work, will play at MTC’s Broadway theater, the Samuel J. Friedman, in the summer 2017.
Best Musical Theater Album Grammy nominations
Bright Star
The Color Purple
Fiddler on the Roof
Kinky Boots, London
Waitress
Dave Malloy, the talented composer and creator of Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, has composed a new musical. Beardo will run at St. John’s Lutheran Church from February 3-February 26.
Malloy will also appear occasionally in the role of Pierre, which he originated, and which is now performed by Josh Groban. Groban announced this week he has extended his stay in the show until July 2,.
Broadway says goodbye to Edward Albee
Anastasia producers sued, accused of plagiarism
50 best Broadway songs of all time, compiled (argued) by @TimeOutNewYork (mostly @FeldmanAdam)https://t.co/zEDDbjTUrw pic.twitter.com/a5ot0BABwL
— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) December 6, 2016
Tarell Alvin McCraney, whose play inspired @moonlightmov, is new chair of playwriting dept, & playwright-in-residence @yaledrama pic.twitter.com/gqKXyXBMTp
— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) December 6, 2016
Profile of TodayTix founders Merritt Baer and Brian Fenty, two theater geeks who took notice of a fact about Broadway: Up to 19 percent of tickets remain unsold annually “roughly $300 million of unsold inventory.”
Kirk Douglas turned 100 years old on Friday. The movie star is also a veteran of 8 Broadway shows. pic.twitter.com/EhUy5NCBVb
— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) December 11, 2016
Click here for discount tickets to the Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes
