Fans can add another reason to be disappointed with Game of Thrones. NBC executives are now claiming they killed Hair Live, which they had planned to broadcast yesterday, when HBO announced GOT’s finale would be aired on the same day. Rather then reschedule Hair, they used this as an excuse to drop it. “The bigger, broader, four quadrant, family-friendly musicals are the ones that work,” NBC Entertainment chairman George Cheeks told Ad Week. “Four quadrant” is TV exec-speak for the four major audience niches: both male and female, and over- and under-25.
The Week in New York Theater Awards
2019 Drama League Awards:Bryan Cranston, Hadestown, The Ferryman…
2019 Chita Rivera Awards: Hadestown, Alice by Heart, Ephraim Sykes….
The Lilly Awards
The 10th annual Lilly Awards, which honor the work of women in the American theater, gave awards to: Jayne Houdyshell (presented by Laurie Metcalf), LaTanya Richardson, Dawn Landes for her work on the new musical Row, Masi Asare, Gretchen Cryer and Nancy Ford, Eliana Pipes for her play Dreamhouse, Julia Cho and Oliver Butler. The evening ended with Shaina Taub’s tribute to Liz Swados, and plays by women artists given out as party favors. Marsha Norman announced that the Lillys will start to publish theater writing from multiple points of view to reduce the “tyranny” of the current limited critical voices
The Roger Rees Awards for Excellence in Student Performance: Best Actress – Ekele Ukegbu, Elmont Memorial High School (Nassau Country), for the role of Aida in Aida.
Best Actor – Jeremy Fuentes, Archbishop Stepinac High School (Westchester County) for the role of Calogera in A Bronx Tale.
Up Next: The Obies (tonight!), Drama Desk Awards, the Tonys
(2019 New York Theater Awards Calendar and Guide)
The Week in New York Theater Reviews
The story that Tony winner Alice Ripley tells in this one-woman show – of an unsophisticated mother named Trisha Lee in the small Texas town of Sparktown who becomes woke after her child Jolene comes out to her as genderqueer – is inspired by playwright Elise Forier Edie’s own experience with her child’s similar announcement at the age of 12. Edie wrote “The Pink Unicorn” in 2011, and has performed it herself to some acclaim since 2013 around the country.
But Trisha Lee differs significantly from Edie herself….
From the moment Susan Sarandon makes her entrance in Jesse Eisenberg’s latest play, it is clear her character Lorraine is extravagantly self-absorbed to the point of delusion….It would be easy to find humor in Lorraine’s vanity and even in her contempt, and to assume that the play will be a comedy…But Happy Talkis an ironic title for a play that winds up far closer to horror than comedy. Whatever pleasures come from the fine acting by a starry cast in this New Group production directed by Scott Elliott, Happy Talkis ultimately a sour and off-putting play
Comedian Carl Reiner called his comic novel Enter Laughing, because that is the first stage direction that his 17-year-old main character is given, at his first ever-audition, and he makes a hilarious hash of it.
Reiner wrote his semi-autobiographical novel at the peak of his popularity in the 1950s, recalling his frustrating and sidesplitting effort to break into show business as a teenager from the Bronx in the 1930s.
Reiner is now 97 – even his son Rob Reiner is now a name for nostalgists — so it shouldn’t be too surprising that there is an old-fashioned feel to the musical comedy adapted from Reiner’s novel
Original Sound Review: When Is It Musical Inspiration, and When Theft?
Did George Harrison steal from The Chiffons?…he “My Sweet Lord” vs. “He’s So Fine” case is just the most famous of a whole slew of accusations of musical plagiarism… that can serve as background to “Original Sound,” an original play by Adam Seidel..In its own low-key entertaining way, “Original Sound” forces you to think not just about the music business, but about the nature of the creative process.
Mac Beth: 7 Schoolgirls Put On Shakespeare’s Tragedy
At the end of “Mac Beth,” Macduff severs Macbeth’s head and then she takes a selfie of it, posing with two of her fellow murderous teenage girls, all dressed in parochial school uniforms.
This is one of the cleverest moments in Erica Schmidt’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy, produced by Red Bull Theater at the Lucille Lortel, in which seven actresses portray schoolgirls who are putting on “Macbeth” in the middle of an empty lot.
The Best Immersive Theater Companies in New York
The Week in New York Theater News
Stephen Sondheim and Jason Robert Brown will perform together with Katrina Lenk in an evening of songs and stories with two pianos and an orchestra at Town Hall June 24, to mark Brown’s 50th SubCulture performance
Lincoln Center’s revival of My Fair Lady
will close at the Vivian Beaumont Theater July 7, having played a total of 548 performances (39 previews and 509 performances It will launch a national tour in December.
Its national tour was postponed last year. Now, as promised, @BATtheMusicalNY, inspired by Meat Loaf’s hit album, is coming to NYC after all — to @NYCityCenter Aug 1 – Sept 8 pic.twitter.com/U648z1spk2
— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) May 15, 2019
David Byrne’s @americanutopia coming to Bway’s @hudsonbway Oct 4,2019 – Jan 19, 2020. Opens Oct 20. The theatrical concert features songs from @DBtodomundo‘s 2018 American Utopia album + songs from #TalkingHeads & his solo career.
Pre-Bway run in Boston’s @EmColonial Sept 11-28 pic.twitter.com/d6nXP4qt5B— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) May 17, 2019
Fleet Week Follies, Waterwell, the theater company that presented “Blueprint Specials” on board the battleship, is offering a FREE day of music, food and family activities on May 26th, with hosts Andrew Rannells and Celia Keenan-Bolger inspired by the legacy of the Stage Door Canteen, at National Sawdust in Brooklyn.
Noon to 1 p.m., free!
Chicago production of Hamilton will close Jan. 5, 2020, having played 1,365 performances to some 2.8 million people & grossing hundreds of millions of $. Why is it closing? Strategy, as @ChrisJonesTrib explains. (e.g. don’t want to sell discount tix)https://t.co/dHxnppTU1Y
— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) May 16, 2019
Glenda Jackson
Why To Kill A Mockingbird didn’t get a Tony nomination for best play maybe.
Solving the 6 Biggest Mysteries of This Broadway Season
An abbreviated version of the answers Michael Paulson got..
Is the sidewalk scene in “Network” performed live?
Yes
Where does Aunt Maggie of The Ferryman go when she’s far away?
I think about death a lot
How tall is that guy in “Hadestown”?
Timothy Hughes is 6’7″
What’s it like to dance in a wheelchair?
“It’s a little like being on ice,” says Ali Stroker, in the cast of Oklahoma!, “because the movement is more fluid than when people are walking and running.”
How does the male star of “Tootsie” sing like a woman?
Lots of practice.
Is the debate in “What the Constitution Means to Me” scripted or improvised?
A little bit of both.
