How will the “crisis in theater” be addressed? That’s the first of my 5 Major Questions for The Theater in 2024 and Beyond. I also Ring IN The Old in 2024: 16 Broadway veterans in their 90s. I offer a Broadway Spring 2024 Preview Guide. And recommend some reading: Theater Books of 2023 to Read in 2024
During this crossroads moment for theater after the ball has dropped at the crossroads of the world, let’s also review the year just passed:
Year End Theater Quiz: A Look Back at 2023
Top 10 Lists of Top 10 NY Theater in 2023: Merrily, Sweeney, Purlie
Memorable Moments on Stage in 2023
20 Favorite New York Stage Performances in 2023, + 6 puppets, 4 ensembles.
In Memoriam: Theater Community Members Who Died in 2023
The Week in New York Theater News
Entering Public Domain…and Unauthorized Stage Versions?
On January 1, Bertolt Brecht’s “The Threepenny Opera,” Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s “The Front Page,” J.M. Barrie’s stage version of “Peter Pan; or the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up,” entered the public domain, as did the the original version of Mickey Mouse and Minnie from Steamboat Willie and Plane Crazy , the D.H. Lawrence novel “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” Radclyffe Hall’s landmark lesbian fiction “The Well of Loneliness,” Virginia Woolf’s “Orlando: A Biography,” and the Cole Porter song “Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love” and the rest of the 1928 Broadway musical “Paris” in which the song was introduced.
(Here’s an incomplete list from Duke University’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain.)
The always clever Sopan Deb in the New York Times “reached out to some writers, producers and directors to give you a taste of what might be unleashed .”
Peter Marks, longtime theater critic, in the Washington Post: “As I say goodbye to my post at The Post, I feel like a character in an existential play by Tom Stoppard: relinquishing an endangered job in a struggling business that covers a gasping industry…”
Behind the ‘Maestro’ drama is a raft of theater stars supporting the story of Leonard Bernstein (AP)
Twenty-nine of the 38 principal cast members have a background in the theater, including Gideon Glick, Michael Urie, Greg Hildreth, Nick Blaemire, Ryan Steele, Zachary Booth and Gaby Diaz.
(Both Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan, who play the two lead characters Leonard Bernstein and his wife, are Broadway veterans, above pictured with Gideon Glick, who portrays Bernstein’s lover)
Look closely and you’ll find actor-turned-director Scott Ellis playing Bernstein’s manager, Harry Kraut, and rising stage star Jordan Dobson — whose credits include “Bad Cinderella,” “Hadestown” and, significantly, “West Side Story” — playing a young conductor.
Theater critics weigh in (snarky in completely different ways):
“Appropriate” playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins on what his Broadway debut means for the future (Broadway.com):
“ I’m under no delusions that this means I’m suddenly a Broadway playwright. I always bring up Bruce Norris as an example: Clybourne Park won every award you could possibly win and Bruce has not been back on Broadway since. This is really fun, and I’m super honored. But I feel like I’m under no delusions that my life is different. I’m still going to probably do my next play in a little basement downtown. And that’s OK because that’s what I signed up to do.”
In Memoriam
Vinie Burrows, 99, six-time Broadway veteran, an actress whom critic Clive Barnes proclaimed “the queen of black theater”
Maurice Hines, 80, actor, dancer, choreographer, six-time Broadway veteran
Mbongeni Ngema, 68, South African composer, playwright, director, choreographer, and producer, who was Tony-nominated for his two Broadway shows, Asinamali! And Sarafina!
Robert Nolan, 69, six-time Broadway veteran as company manager, former president of the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers
Tommy Smothers, 86, guitar-playing comic half of the Smother Brothers, who had a cutting-edge TV variety show in the late 60s. Later, he had one Broadway credit, starring with his brother Dick in the Cy Coleman musical I Love My Wife,” which also went on tour
The Week’s Theater Videos
Cleaning house at “I Need This.” Although the show is now closed, it seems an apt video for the new year. ( Be sure to click on the navigation circle on the upper left hand side to see the whole scene.)
