“Some Like It Hot” won best musical theater album at the 66th Grammy Awards, among the 85 trophies handed out online in the afternoon, before the nine major Grammy categories were spotlighted during the prime time television broadcast, an event marked by the first ever Grammys performance from Joni Mitchell at age 80, Billy Joel’s first new recorded song (“Turn the Lights Back On”) in decades, a rare performance by Tracy Chapman duetting her “Fast Car” with Luke Combs, and Taylor Swift’s breaking of a record she had shared with Paul Simon, Frank Sinatra, and Stevie Wonder, by winning the fourth-ever Album of the Year Grammy Award.
Full list of Grammy nominees and winners in the 94 categories
It’s true that Joni Mitchell and Billy Joel have some Broadway credits (The 2002 musical “Movin Out” was based on Joel’s music, for which he won a Tony for Best Orchestrations), and Mitchell’s “additional” songs and lyrics were featured most recently in “Almost Famous”); there was also an arguably Broadway-adjacent performance of “Proud Mary” by Broadway veteran Fantasia Barrino in a tribute to Tina Turner.
But it’s bracing for Broadway lovers to revisit history, when “Best Original Cast Album (Broadway or TV)” was a major category, one of only twenty-eight at the first annual Grammy Awards in 1959, won by Meredith Willson and the cast of “The Music Man.” To give you a sense of the greater weight of Broadway music in popular culture then, Willson was subsequently the host of the second annual Grammy Awards, which was the first to be televised; it featured both Ethel Merman and Shirley Maclaine picking up Grammys in a tie for “Gypsy” and “Redhead” in the category renamed as “Best Broadway Show Album.” The name of the category has been changed eight times since then, called Best Musical Theater Album since 2012.
Broadway has had a greater presence in some of the other awards so far this year, thus my Theater Quiz, Winter Awards Up The Wazoo Edition
February 2024 New York Theater Openings
The Week in Reviews
Jonah
Jonah is sweet, awkward, inquisitive, respectful and clearly smitten – the sort of boy you might want for a first love if you were Ana, a scholarship student at a boarding school. After he walks her to her dorm, she lifts her shirt over her head, flashing him.
The next time they meet, he asks her why she did that.
“Did you have a problem with it?” she replies.
“I—. No. Yes? I don’t know!—I’m just trying to figure it out.”
About a quarter of the way through Rachel Bonds’ play “Jonah,” there is a strange blitz of light, Jonah disappears, and what seemed such a charming coming-of-age comedy turns into a drama that is dark and complicated — one that I spent the rest of its 100-minute running time just trying to figure out. Full Review
What first comes to mind when you think of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
To Philip Gefter, it is not the game-changing play by Edward Albee, but Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the movie, as Gefter makes clear in “Cocktails with George and Martha: Movies, Marriage, and the Making of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? “(Bloomsbury, 359 pages), which devotes ten of its thirteen chapters to the making of the movie, and only the first three to the playwright and the play.
Those three chapters are rich enough in detail, and revelation – or at least speculation — to intrigue most theater lovers. Full Review
The Week in New York Theater News
Roundabout Theater Company officially renamed American Airlines Theatre the Todd Haimes Theatre at a dedication ceremony last week. Haimes, who died last April, served as Roundabout’s artistic director and CEO.
Full casting for The Who’s Tommy, opening March 28: Haley Gustafson, Jeremiah Alsop, Ronnie S. Bowman Jr., Mike Cannon, Tyler James Eisenreich, Sheldon Henry, Afra Hines, Aliah James, David Paul Kidder, Tassy Kirbas, Lily Kren, Quinten Kusheba, Reese Levine, Brett Michael Lockley, Nathan Lucrezio, Alexandra Matteo, Mark Mitrano, Reagan Pender, Cecilia Ann Popp, Daniel Quadrino, Olive Ross-Kline, Jenna Nicole Schoen, Dee Tomasetta, and Andrew Tufano.
They join previously announced Ali Louis Bourzgui as Tommy, Alison Luff as Mrs. Walker, Adam Jacobs as Captain Walker, John Ambrosino as Uncle Ernie, Bobby Conte as Cousin Kevin, and Christina Sajous as The Acid Queen, all reprising their roles from the run at The Goodman Theatre in Chicago this summer.
Full casting for “Mary Jane”opening April 23: Joining Rachel McAdams will be April Matthis (The Piano Lesson), Susan Pourfar (Tribes), Lily Santiago (“La Brea”) and Brenda Wehle (“The Gilded Age”).
More casting for The Great Gatsby, opening April 25: Joining the previously announced Jeremy Jordan (Newsies, “Smash”) as Jay Gatsby and Eva Noblezada (Hadestown, Miss Saigon) as Daisy Buchanan, Noah J. Ricketts (“Fellow Travelers”, Frozen) as Nick Carraway, Samantha Pauly (Six) as Jordan Baker, Sara Chase (“The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”) as Myrtle Wilson, John Zdrojeski (Good Night Oscar) as Tom Buchanan, Paul Whitty (Come From Away, Once) as George Wilson, and Eric Anderson (Moulin Rouge! The Musical, Waitress) as Wolfsheim. Ricketts, Pauly, Chase, Zdrojeski, and Whitty reprise the roles they originated at Paper Mill Playhouse. Complete casting will be announced at a later date.
Black Theater IS Black History
In Memoriam
Hinton Battle, 67, three-time Tony winner, original Scarecrow in The Wiz
Chita Rivera, 91: A Look Back at Her Career
