Tonight ceremonies will take place for both the 68th annual Drama Desk Awards and the 78th annual Theatre World Awards, leading up to the endlessly anticipated/promoted climax of theater award season next Sunday, the 77th annual Tony Awards.
But awards shows that celebrate New York theater – and make a pitch for it – offer a different take on this art and industry than the films that have been depicting it this past week — at the Tribeca Festival and online, and forthcoming at Lincoln Center (see below.)
The Week in New York Theater Reviews
Home
Samm-Art Williams was born in Burgaw, North Carolina seventy-eight years ago, and died in that same small rural town last month; he liked to tell people he was “just a country boy.” Actually, though, in between his birth and his death, Williams lived large in the big city – an actor in Hollywood movies, executive producer of the hit TV series “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” and a playwright who was best-known for “Home,”… a story about a son of the South who not-so-briefly loses his way…If the timing of the play’s Broadway revival is unfortunate in one way, it’s eye-opening in another. Real-world events have turned what I might have dismissed as a dated fable into what feels like a prescient reappraisal…Full review
What Became of Us
“What Became of Us” is at heart a modest, moving two-character play about a brother and a sister, the children of immigrant parents, who tell us about each other over the course of their entire lifetimes. It’s an often engaging, sometime poignant look at the evolution of a sibling relationship, colored by the older sister having been born abroad, the brother born after their parents immigrated. But the production is also shot through with several unusual choices, which I found alternately innovative and undermining; sometimes just baffling…the main quirk, or innovation, or gimmick of the production: There are two sets of casts. Rosalind Chao and BD Wong, both of Asian descent, are currently portraying the siblings…In a few days, Shohreh Aghdashloo and Tony Shalhoub, both of Middle Eastern descent, completely take over the roles.Full review
The Week in Film about Theater
Tribeca Festival 2024: 12 films for theater lovers, from Brats to Broadway, Liz to Liza
Tribeca Festival: Griffin in Summer
The movie will inspire some of the same knowing laughs among grown-up theater kids as “Theater Camp,” and some of the same sympathetic sighs and cringes of recognition among grown-up queer kids as “Fun Home” or “Trevor.”
The Great Lillian Hall. Jessica Lange Stars. Marian Seldes Hovers.
it’s not a stretch to detect an argument in the film that there’s not much room in the world for the art of legitimate theater anymore …“The Great Lillian Hall” happens to be streaming at an opportune time to refute such an implication.
Annie Baker Shifts Her Focus to the Big Screen (New Yorker)
Theater critic Helen Shaw interviews playwright Annie Baker about her first film, “Janet Planet,” which she’s both written and directed. In the interview, there is a mention of “Angels and Puppets: The Stage on Screen with Annie Baker,” presenting 16 films about theater that Baker has selected (plus a sneak preview of her new film), which are being presented from June 14-20.
An excerpt from the fascinating “artist’s statement” on the webpage promoting the film series: “Bazin called theatre “film’s evil genius” in his essay “In Defense of Adaptation” and that feels right to me, like somehow theatre is the degenerate puppeteer responsible for the best and worst of 20th century cinema. When it comes to recent theatre history, nothing is more satisfying than Louis Malle’s My Dinner with André, a movie that feels like a play but could only be a movie bout two legendary theatre makers discussing the agonies and ecstasies of living as an artist in New York City, in which 30 minutes of screen time is spent discussing the Polish theatre director Jerzy Grotowski (look closely in my film Janet Planet and you’ll see a postcard of him hanging on the wall). Other filmmakers in this series, from Bergman to Cassavetes to Ozu, show the characters actually putting on a play inside the movie, and the struggle to make something live and the experience of being in an audience is captured with irony and a lot of love for theatre’s rough edges….”
Richard Linklater on his film adaptation of Merrily We Roll Along (in an interview with AV Club mostly on his nearly released film Hit Man)
AVC: What made you feel like it was the perfect time to undertake this 20-year approach for Merrily We Roll Along?
RL: Well, you know the story, so how else? That answers itself. “Right now” is because I haven’t a second to lose. No time like the present! [I used a similar approach for] Boyhood, obviously, but we’re pushing the page a little here. Sondheim was extremely generous. He read the idea and let us begin.
AVC: So you were in conversation with Sondheim about the project before he passed?
RL: Yeah, for several years. I got a couple years there with Steve and got to know him a little bit. I was very grateful
The Week in New York Theater News
Scheduled performances at the 77th annual Tony Awards, airing from the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City on Sunday, June 16 (8:00-11:00 PM, LIVE ET) on CBS and Paramount+
- “Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club” with nominees Gayle Rankin and Eddie Redmayne
- “Hell’s Kitchen” featuring the music of producer Alicia Keys, with nominees Shoshana Bean, Brandon Victor Dixon, Kecia Lewis and Maleah Joi Moon
- “Illinoise,” featuring the music of Sufjan Stevens,directed and choreographed by Justin Peck
- “Merrily We Roll Along,” a Stephen Sondheim classic with nominees Jonathan Groff, Lindsay Mendez and Daniel Radcliffe
- “Suffs,” a new musical whose producers include Hillary Clinton,with nominees Nikki M. James and Shaina Taub
- “The Outsiders,” based on the book and the film, whose producers include Angelina Jolie, with nominees Joshua Boone, Brody Grant and Sky Lakota-Lynch
- “The Who’s Tommy” featuring music of Pete Townsend and The Who
- “Water for Elephants,” based on the bestselling book and film, featuring Grant Gustin and the astonishing acrobatic cast
“The Hills of California” will open on Broadway September 29, the 21st show with an opening date and venue announced for the 2024-2025 Broadway season. In the sweltering heat of a 1970s summer, the Webb sisters return to their childhood home in Blackpool, an English seaside town where back in the 1950s they rehearsed their singing act and had a shot of fame, which cost them all dearly. The new play by Jez Butterworth (Jerusalem, The Ferryman) comes to Broadway following an acclaimed run in London’s West End.
Dolly Parton announced that “Hello, I’m Dolly,” a new musical inspired by her life and career, will open on Broadway in 2026, the year Parton turns 80. The musical will feature songs from Parton’s catalog as well as new songs she has written specifically for the stage. Parton’s songs have been on Broadway twice before, in the 1993 Christmas special Candles, Snow & Mistletoe and the 2009 musical based on the movie “9 to 5”
Archiving a Life in Theatre: The Legacy of Michael Feingold
The Week’s Theater Video
Gavin Creel narrates the story of Broadway and his own journey there
