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Entries tagged with 'Theater'
Posted Aug. 26, 2008,
Stage Notes: Fela
By Tom Murrin
Fela Anikupalo Kuti, a native Nigerian, was a charismatic musician/composer/performer and an iconic activist in his homeland. His pioneering music, called “Afrobeat,” a blend of jazz, funk and African rhythm and harmonies, made him a worldwide entertainment sensation from the ‘60s to the ‘80s, and his political struggles during that same time only increased his reputation. When he died in 1997, a million people attended his funeral.
Bill T. Jones, a notable New York choreographer for 25 years, and a recent Tony- Award-winner for Spring Awakening, is directing and choreographing a new musical based on Fela’s life and music. Co-credit for the piece’s conception goes to Jones, playwright and dramaturge Jim Lewis and the lead producer, Stephen Hendel, an avid fan of world music and a particular fan of Fela. There is a cast of 18, with Sahr Ngaukah (pictured above) in the role of Fela. Brooklyn based Antibalas will play Fela’s music. I spoke with Jones (who co-wrote the book with Lewis) on a Sunday by phone.
Hi Bill, thanks for talking with me on your day off. Is this a biographical show?
No, it’s not a biopic. That was the first thing we decided. It’s a freely conceived take on a very complex life. I call it a work of imagination, with a lot of dimension.
Fela was known both as a world musician and a social activist.
In the late ‘60s, there were protest singers, like Pete Seeger and others, but I don’t think he (Seeger), and others like him, were ever harassed like Fela was. I can’t think of a major artist who would have had to face being jailed over 200 times, was tortured and vilified, and literally attacked by government soldiers. Fela was that.
Posted Aug. 22, 2008,
Stage Notes: Suspicious Package: An iPod Noir
By Tom Murrin
If you enjoy film noir, a good mystery book and interactive theater, Suspicious Package: An iPod Noirseems to have all three. It had a successful sold-out run in June and July as part of The Brick’s "The Film Festival: a Theater Festival," and is now returning for an open-ended run. I spoke by phone with co-creator Gyda Arber, a charming young woman, who, along with her mother Wendy Coyle (a film noir buff) created the script. A dozen actors created the parts on video for the flashbacks.
How would you explain what’s going to happen?
Basically, it’s an iPod noir. You show up at the theater. There are four audience members per show, and they are also the actors in the show. Each of them gets an iPod, which has a video, a voiceover, maps and dialogue to say.
Who are the characters they play?
There’s the heiress, the showgirl, the producer and the detective.
Does anybody watch?
No, there’s no other audience. Some people call up and say they don’t want to do it because they don’t want other people watching them act. But no one else watches you. You are audience and actor at the same time. You follow the instructions.
OK, so say I’m walking out the front door of the Brick with my iPod…
OK, you’re told to take a right and walk to the end of the street and go to a location. A map pops up to tell you where you’re going. Maybe when you get there you’re instructed to pick up a package from a woman behind the bar, or maybe you see another character and you walk up to that person and you have dialogue, and you say it.
And they have dialogue too, and so you do the scene with them?
Yes.
Posted Aug. 18, 2008,
Stage Notes: China: The Whole Enchilada
By Tom Murrin
Mark Brown is having a good summer. His play, Around the World in 80 Days, a dramatization of the Jules Verne classic, opened to good reviews at the Irish Repertory in July, and it plays till September. Also, cosmic timing finds China: The Whole Enchilada, his comedy about China, opening at the NY Fringe Festival while Beijing is hosting the Olympics. Brown wrote the music and lyrics, Paul Mirkovich contributed additional music and arrangements and Jim Helsinger directed this play, which stars three male actors representing the most populous country in the world and features dance, song, slapstick and Borscht Belt jokes. I spoke with Brown, an experienced Hollywood actor as well as writer, by phone.
How would you pitch your play if you were in Hollywood?
It is the entire history of China in under two hours -- it’s really the whole enchilada.
Can you give me an example of what we are going to see and hear.
Ming the Merciless and Fu Manchu. They have a song together, “Evil is a Yellow Face.”
No, you’re kidding.
Part of that sketch is about The Yellow Peril, and how the Chinese have been treated in the U.S. They’re upset because they were the number one pulp villains in the ‘20s, ‘30s and ‘40s. Then the Nazis became the go-to villains, then the Russians,and now it’s Al-Qaeda, and they’re really falling down on the list. So they want to get back to being number one.
Posted Aug. 7, 2008,
Stage Notes: Harry in Love: A Manic Vaudeville
By Tom Murrin
Harry in Love: A Manic Vaudeville is a Richard Foreman play, completely unlike any of his you may have seen. Back in 1966, it almost made it to Broadway, but a disagreement between Foreman and the producer caused it to be scrapped. Foreman went on to create a huge body of abstract theater works. In 1999, enter Ian W. Hill, downtown’s Orson Welles, who has as much theater savvy and creative energy as anyone on the scene. He was staging a festival of Foreman plays at Nada on Ludlow Street at the time; Foreman saw him act and gave him this never-done traditional script to do. Now Hill is re-doing it at The Brick Theater, a venue where he is also staging two other shows this August.
Hi Ian, how do you do it? Three shows in one month!
It’s completely nuts, but as long as I have a month to do what I want, I might as well fill it.
So tell me about Harry in Love.
This is a real straight play, with characters, in a realistic setting. Richard [Foreman] calls it “a boulevard comedy." It’s really a farce. The play was funny for the ‘60s, but it’s funny today too. It’s like “the neurotic Jewish man running around and sweating a lot.”
Posted Jul. 18, 2008,
Blood, Sweat and Tears at [title of show] on Broadway
By Whitney Spaner
OK, I'm lying about the blood part but you can't say sweat and tears without it and there was definitely both of those the other night when I saw a preview of [title of show] which opened on Broadway last night to a rave review in the Times. The show, by two likable theater buffs Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell is about the making of their show -- which they wrote in three weeks to meet a musical theater festival deadline. The show documents everything that happened as they wrote the musical, down to what they ordered for takeout, and includes many witty Broadway insider jokes -- there's a mention of actress Mary Stout's run-in with a hot dog cart and Jeff's cell-phone has a Cats ringtone. The show, which naturally stars Jeff and Hunter along with their friends Susan Blackwell and Heidi Blickenstaff, now also covers their experience off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theater and their move to Broadway. Maybe it was their journey from temping to starring on Broadway, or maybe it's just that I'm a big sap, but I couldn't help but cry when near the end I noticed that Heidi was trying very hard to control some serious sobs on stage! Hunter, Jeff and Susan seemed a little choked up as well and I leapt to my feet when they said their last line -- which happens to be "This is the last line of our show." This is why I love live theater -- you can't find that raw spontaneous emotion on film!
Posted Jul. 14, 2008,
Stage Notes: Life in a Marital Institution (20 Years of Monogamy in One Terrifying Hour)
By Tom Murrin
Life in a Marital Institution (20 Years of Monogamy in One Terrifying Hour) is a 65-minute monologue performed by James Braly and directed by the wonderful Hal Brooks (No Child, Thom Pain). Braly is a two-time Moth Grand Slam winner, so you know he has to be a helluva story-teller, and this particular show was a big hit at the 2007 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and most recently at the 59E59th Street Theater. Braly is a very congenial and aware guy, who, when I spoke to him by phone, said, “I have to re-group, I just got off the phone with my wife.” So we know he is still in contact with his wife -- although he wouldn’t reveal the actual state of affairs to me in our conversation, as all is revealed in the show.
I see you have a punning title, and a hinting subtitle to your show, but how would you describe it?
It is a story that happened to happen to me. I try to create a distinction, so that there is room for the audience, and myself, to look at it together. So it’s separate from myself. You don’t want to make the audience cringe because they’re going to be dragged into someone’s personal life. I’m using my performance as a lens, to show issues that come up in a lot of marriages.
Well, is there a basic theme?
Yes. Whatever “love” is to you, the chances are that you learned that at home.
Posted Jul. 11, 2008,
Playwrights Horizons' Spectacular New Season
By Whitney Spaner
I was just browsing one of my favorite theater news-related sites Theatermania.com and saw that the upcoming season of Playwrights Horizons sounds fabulous! Not to say that most of their seasons don't -- they really know what's up when it comes to quality stage productions such as Grey Gardens which was transferred to Broadway after opening at Horizons two years ago. Opening in November the legendary Victoria Clark (Light in the Piazza, Encores! production of Follies), Jonathan Groff and Skip Sudduth will star in Craig Lucas's new play Prayer for My Enemy which will be directed by the recent Tony-winner for the direction of South Pacific Bartlett Sher. Will be interesting to see these musical theater pros speaking instead of singing.
The season opens on Aug. 22nd with a play called Three Changes starring small screen stars Dylan McDermott and Maura Tierney. On Sept. 25th Adam Rapp will be directing his new play Kindness starring Sam Waterston's daughter Katherine Waterston. In February stage and film character actress extraordinaire Dana Ivey will star in The Savannah Disputation directed by Tony winner (for his direction of the revival of Chicago) and all-around Broadway success story Walter Bobbie.
Visit www.playwrightshorizons.org for more info.
Pictured above is Jonathan Groff at this year's Obie Awards. Photo courtesy of theatermania.com
Posted Jul. 10, 2008,
About Last Night... Theory Presents a Preview of Hair
By Rebecca Suhrawardi Austin
There are more photos in this gallery. View them all.
It was a good old fashioned love-in last night in the Meatpacking District, as Theory teamed up with the Public Theater to present a smashing preview of their upcoming Central Park production of Hair. The front porch of the Theory store, on the corner of Gansevoort and Greenwich, was transformed into a veritable Age-of-Aquarius-style love fest as guests (the crowd was fashion and theater heavy -- think Vogue editors and Broadway stars) sat on the ground on colorful carpet "dots" and swayed their arms to classics like "Aquarius," "Black Boys," "White Boys," and of course, "Hair." And it all seemed very relevant considering the current state of political and global affairs; indeed, after the emcee declared our current war "illegal," the crowd responding by roaring with applause.
Posted Jun. 12, 2008,
MM Hard-Ons... Ummm Hearts Cheyenne Jackson!
By Mickey Boardman
MM knows everyone excited for the Tony Awards this Sunday and MM will naturally be parked in front of the TV with his Theater Queen friends from Movie Club. Sadly the hottest man on B'way isn't nominated: Cheyenne Jackson from Xanadu!! Take a peek at this photo and then tell MM that Cheyenne is a churnin hunk of burnin funk! Luckily his costar Kerry Butler is nominated as is the show. MM loves Broadway!!!
Posted Jun. 9, 2008,
Stage Notes: Single Black Female
By Tom Murrin
Single Black Female, a very entertaining comedy about the perils and pleasures of being a single, middle class black woman in today’s society, directed by Colman Domingo (star of Passing Strange), was well-received in its first off-Broadway run in 2006. One African American female reviewer praised the show because it “manages to be simultaneously self-deprecating and proud.” Playwright Lisa B. Thompson is an English professor at SUNY Albany where she teaches courses on African American literature and culture. She was a delightful interviewee and very excited that her play is being remounted.
Tom Murrin: I thought this play was a monologue, but I see I am wrong.
Lisa B. Thompson: There are two women actors, both in their late 20s: Soara-Joye Ross, who plays both SBF 1 and 2, and Riddick Marie, who plays her best girlfriend and SBF 2. They both play 20 characters. They morph into doctors, colleagues, people on the street, different boyfriends. It’s very surreal. In one scene they take us back to their childhood sweethearts and themselves.
TM: What happens in some of the other scenes?
LBT: They experience going to a OB-GYN; there’s the idea that single black women are more loose in their sexuality, and how something like that affects them. In another scene they go to a club and find that no one wants to approach them. There are not too many other black women there, and they are competing with white women for a black man.
Posted Jun. 4, 2008,
Stage Notes: Frequency Hopping
By Tom Murrin
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Frequency Hopping is a play about a maybe romance and a successful scientific collaboration between two well-known artists. Hedy Lamarr was a glamorous movie star, known for her beauty and her turn as the femme fatale in Demille’s Samson and Delilah and Bob Hope’s foil in the comedy My Favorite Spy. Avant-garde composer George Antheil gained fame in the ‘20s for his radical Ballet Mecanique. However, their individual accomplishments and personal relationship were forever overshadowed by the fact that in 1940 they invented a key anti-jamming device to control torpedo guidance, thereby helping Allied submarines vs. German destroyers, and becoming the basis of a system integral to today’s cellular phone technology.
I recently spoke with Frequency Hopping writer/director Elyse Singer, who brilliantly produced a revival of Mae West’s first play, Sex, and has also done plays about Courtney Love and Eva Tanguay.
Tom Murrin: How did you come up with the concept for this play?
Elyse Singer: The play is inspired by the idea inherent in the invention patented by Lamarr and Antheil. The problem back then [during World War II] was how to evade German jamming devices, and they devised the idea of “shifting frequency,” or frequency hopping, thereby preventing the jamming of radio controls to divert the torpedoes.
Posted Jun. 3, 2008,
Neil LaBute's New Muse: Alison Pill, Star of Reasons to Be Pretty
By Whitney Spaner
Neil LaBute’s new off-Broadway play Reasons to Be Pretty opened last night at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in the West Village to a rave review from Ben Brantley in the New York Times. He says of LaBute, whose other works include Fat Pig and The Shape of Things, “the authorial force that drives [the characters] is one I have never encountered in a work from this writer: Neil LaBute, the harsh and unforgiving chronicler of men’s darkest impulses, is making nice.” Last week right before critics weekend I met with actress Alison Pill, who plays the pivotal character in the four-person cast, which also includes Pablo Schreiber, Piper Perabo (of Coyote Ugly fame) and Thomas Sadoski. We had coffee, (which we both got with soy and Splenda!) at MUD in the East Village where she lives.
Here’s a few things she had to say about playing the not so cute girl, her introduction to film with Lindsay Lohan and her Tony-nominated Broadway debut.
Posted Apr. 14, 2008,
Stage Notes: American Girls
By Tom Murrin
American Girls, written by Hilary Bettis and directed by Jeff Cohen, is the story of two 14-year-old Midwestern girls, played by Bettis and Kira Sternbach. In Bettis' first play, she draws upon her experiences growing up alongside Bible-toting classmates and as a strip club masseuse to fantasize what might happen to two innocent teenagers, raised on a steady diet of a Christian love for Jesus, who desire the easy fame that today's pop culture seems to promise. One of the play's lines is, "Jesus would not have made us as hot as we are if he didn't have a plan for us."
Playwright and actor Bettis feels she has no problem looking 14 for the performance, explaining that "I've been accused of having a fake I.D. before." As an elementary school student in Colorado Springs, Bettis hung out with classmates who took their Bibles to class and proclaimed daily their love for Jesus, but, she says, "the very next year we all wanted to become famous, and have sex with boys, even though we were still testifying." After graduating, she moved to Los Angeles to become an actor and then to New York, where she did some off-off-Broadway shows, but felt that she had a better chance at getting parts she wanted if she wrote them herself. And after working as a "massage and back-rub girl" at a local strip club for five months, she said, "I got a lot of dialogue, a lifetime of dialogue.”
Posted Apr. 3, 2008,
Moby Is Mystery Guest as NYC Embraces J. Keith van Straaten's What's My Line?
By Ann Magnuson
This past Monday night, Moby left the taping of Conan O'Brien just in time to make a surprise appearance as the Mystery Guest on "What's My Line? - Live On Stage" (now appearing at the 199-seat Barrow Street Theatre). As Fiona Apple looked on from the audience, her boyfriend (author Jonathan Ames) led the panel in guessing Moby's identity. J. Keith van Straaten, host of the stage adaptation of the classic TV show, could barely get Moby to say a word about his new CD, Last Night, which dropped the next day. The shiny-headed musician preferred telling cautionary tales of mixing business with ex-girlfriends!
Posted Mar. 28, 2008,
Stage Notes: Silver Bullet Trailer
By Tom Murrin
Silver Bullet Trailer is a new play with dance, live music, animation and video by Julie Shavers, directed by Dan O'Brien, with a cast of 12, and two main protagonists: an expectant mother and her unborn son. The mother-to-be (pregnant for two years!) lives in an Airstream motor home (referred to in the title), and the reluctant-to-come-out child (played by an adult in diapers) runs away to a dreamland in the old Wild West. "The idea of the play is that one can wake up in a dream world that's as real as this one," says Shavers.
The playwright got a lot of background for her script via three means: (1) She and her husband celebrated their marriage by taking a three-month road trip through the American Southwest; (2) when she was pregnant with her first child (not for 22 months!) she says she had "the craziest, wild dreams”; and (3) her sister is a single mother, who lives in a trailer in Tennessee, where Shavers is originally from. "A dreamscape is a good way to describe the play's action," she says, "you know how dreams are: one moment you're naked in the supermarket and in the next you're running down the highway." The play moves back and forth, from difficulties of the mother's world to the enchantments of the child's world, where he meets many icons: cowboys, Native Americans, clowns, magicians, "people who have lost their way and wind up living in dreams."
Ohio Theater, 66 Wooster St., (212) 868-4444. Mar. 28-Apr. 19. Wed.-Sat., 8 p.m.; also Sun., Mar. 30 & Mon., Mar. 31 at 8 p.m. $18.
Posted Mar. 20, 2008,
Stage Notes: Ladies & Gents Is "Devilishly Chilling."
By Tom Murrin
My opening was going to be: “Here’s a show Larry Craig might like; it’s set in a public restroom,” followed by, “Ripped from today’s headlines: prostitute takes politician down.” But then I thought, this play is far superior to the sordid sex lives of a pair of horn-dog politicos, and I should just come out with it: Ladies & Gents, a devilishly chilling, voyeuristic thriller from Ireland, written and directed by Paul Walker, and excellently acted by a cast of six, is one of the best site-specific theater pieces I’ve seen. The dialogue is crisp and revealing, the play’s bifurcated construction is genius, and the lighting is wickedly effective. It’s billed as “live noir,” and yes, there’s creepy sex, scary characters and nasty payback, but I don’t want to reveal too much of what happens in the compact two, 20-minute parts of the play, because a great deal of the fun and enjoyment is not knowing what’s going to happen next….
Posted Oct. 31, 2007,
My Barbarian Does Krautrock Agitprop at the Silverlake Lounge TONITE!
By Ann Magnuson
The L.A.-based performance collective My Barbarian perform a special Halloween show tonight at the Silverlake Lounge. It don't get more esoteric than this folks (I recommend seeing Dusan Makavejev's cult classic "Sweet Movie" beforehand). Don't forget your Krautrock kostume!
From My Barbarian's email blast:
Posted Oct. 2, 2007,
Mamie Gummer Sluts it up in Desdemona
By Whitney Spaner
Last night the Red Bull Theater kicked off their the well-renowned, OBIE-winning series Revelation Readings, with a reading of Paula Vogel's play Desdemona: A Play About a Hankerchief at Playwrights Horizons. The retelling of Othello from a woman's point of view starred Mamie Gummer as Desdemona, the sexed-up aristocrat, Jessica Hecht as Emelia her faithful servant and Jennifer Ikeda as Bianca, the town whore.
The play written in 1979 when Vogel was only 28 was last performed in New York at the Circle Repertory back in 1993 with Tony-winner Cherry Jones playing the cockney-accented Bianca.
Posted Aug. 16, 2007,
On the Fringe: Checking in With The New York International Fringe Festival
By Whitney Spaner
The New York Fringe Festival is in full-swing at over 20 downtown venues this week and next. I recently went to a press preview and saw a sampling of the following shows:
BASH'd: A "gay rap opera" written and performed by Chris Craddock and Nathan Cuckow that tells the story of a young man who comes out to his parents and promptly moves from his po-dunk hometown to the big city where he is struck with tragedy. Think Eminem meets Cazwell. Last chance to see it at the Village Theater Friday the 24th at 2:45 p.m.
Joan of Arppo: I love anything to do with the circus so I was excited to see this clown show created and performed by Swiss native Gardi Hutter in the preview. Hutter dons a fat suit, and of course a red nose to play a cartoonish laundrywoman who dreams of being Jeanne d'Arc. Joan of Arppo plays at the Cherry Lane Theatre tonight at 9:30 p.m., Thursday the 23rd at 2:30 p.m. and Saturday the 25th at noon.
Posted May. 16, 2007,
Spring Awakening Tops Tony Nominations!
By Whitney Spaner
Hooray for Spring Awakening, my favorite show that opened on Broadway this year. The edgy musical, written by Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater, based on the 18th century German play by Frank Wedekind about angst ridden-adolescent sexual discovery, has been nominated for 11 Tony Awards including the biggie, Best Musical. This means they will perform on the nationally televised awards show on June 10th which can help boost ticket sales The show also received nominations for Best Leading Actor in a Musical (cutie Jonathan Groff, featured in PAPER's Dec./Jan. issue) and Best Featured Actor in a Musical (John Gallagher Jr.).
Spring Awakening's competition in the Best Musical category is:
Curtains: Written by the famous songwriting team of John Kander and Fred Ebb, it’s a comedy/murder mystery show-within-a-show. Funny and entertaining, but nothing revolutionary about it at all. However, I would be OK with David Hyde Pierce winning the Best Leading Actor in a Musical category.
Posted May. 8, 2007,
Opening Night: Coram Boy
By Whitney Spaner
Coram Boy, which had a successful run last year on London’s West End, opened on Broadway last Wednesday. The play -- about a boy who defies his rich landowning family to become an apprentice to the composer Handel -- was the Broadway debut for many of the cast members. A few of the first-timers told me at their after-party at Tavern on the Green that Coram Boy, which includes a full choir singing parts from the Messiah throughout, was the perfect combination of theatrical elements for their debut.
The beautiful, auburn-haired Ivy Vahanian, who plays the heroine Melissa, said of her role, “Not only am I on Broadway, but I get to fly, I get to give birth, I go through great suffering and then I have great redemption and I get to sing the Hallelujah chorus! And that’s why I love it. I love that it’s so sensational. Everything is tickled.” And I have to add, that she gets to wear the most amazing long wavy wig! Ironically, it just so happens that the expansive plot and sensational elements were part of the critics’ complaints in the mediocre to horrible reviews the play -- which, with a budget of $6 million, was the most expensive non-musical to ever hit the Great White Way -- received last week.
Posted May. 4, 2007,
To See: An Octopus Love Story
By Whitney Spaner
The other night I went to see the world premiere of An Octopus Love Story, produced by the relatively new theater company Kids with Guns, and written by Delaney Britt Brewer, a member of the Youngblood playwrighting collective. It's playing at the cutest off-off Broadway theater space called Center Stage Theater on 21st Street. The lobby looks like a cozy coffee house with wood floors and plush couches to chill on before they open up the house, and bar serving up drinks to enjoy during the show and at intermission.
There didn’t seem to be an empty seat in the house for the energetic and well-acted show about a lesbian (Kelli Holsopple) and a gay man (Josh Tyson) who are coerced by their ambitious peers to marry for the sake of legalizing gay marriage. All the cast members were great, but Holsopple and Tyson were especially charismatic and had great chemistry. Michael Cyril Creighton, who played a more stereotypical gay man to Tyson’s less flamboyant one, was hysterical. The sets by Brian Sidney Bembridge were perfect; colorful and warm, with a modern vibe. It was just the type of production you would expect from the artistic director of Kids with Guns, Ben Cikanek, who also happens to be the COO of one of our favorite art-toy companies Kid Robot. It was a fun experience and seems like a group to watch, so check out the world premiere of An Octopus Love Story running through May 20th at Center Stage.
Photos (from left to right) of Kelli Holsopple and Josh Tyson; Michael Cyril Creighton and Josh Tyson.
Photos by Ryan Robinson.
Posted May. 4, 2007,
Tickets for LUCHA VA VOOM go on Sale Saturday!
By Ann Magnuson
Lucha Va Voom, L.A.'s hottest Mexican Masked Wrestling & Saucey Striptrease revue, is back with what may prove to be the wildest, sexiest and sickest theme yet -- QUINCEANERA! After witnessing what the Va Voomers have done to Halloween and Valentine's Day, I can only blush when imagining what might happen when those raspberry, ruffled hoop-skirts get into the wrestling ring! Tickets for this mad and insanely popular event (that willl occur at the trippy Mayan Theater on June 26, 27 & 28) go on sale this Saturday. Get 'em here while they're hot (and still available -- this show ALWAYS sells out - with good reason!)
Posted May. 1, 2007,
Opening Night: Legally Blonde
By Whitney Spaner
Sunday night was the opening of the new Broadway musical Legally Blonde, based on the movie and the novel (news to me) of the same name. The buzz at the after-party (held at Cipriani 42nd Street) was that it was very entertaining, and for the most part, the reviews that came out yesterday echoed the same sentiment. Ben Brantley of The New York Times said: "But unlike such deadweight musicals as “Footloose,” “Saturday Night Fever” and “Lestat,” “Legally Blonde” never threatens to put you to sleep. On the contrary, its cast members emanate a wired, attention-fixing tirelessness that suggests they have all been subsisting on Red Bull (Elle’s favorite drink, given a jokey product-placement moment in the show)."
Posted Apr. 30, 2007,
Curtain Cuties: Wayne Wilcox
By Whitney Spaner
The other night I went to see the new Broadway play Coram Boy, which is still in previews, and I loved it! It opened last year to rave reviews on the West End and will open on Broadway May 2nd with an all new American cast.
I’m not a religious girl but I’m a sucker for Handel’s Messiah, which is sung throughout the play by a full choir in the rafters of the stage. I recently caught up with one of the stars of the show, cutie Wayne Wilcox, during tech week. He plays the grown-up Alexander Ashbrook, who runs away from his family responsibilities at the age of 15 to study music under Handel, leaving a mess behind at his family’s estate. He was terribly charming and after seeing the performance I'm convinced he's terribly talented as well. He starred earlier this year in the Roundabout’s production of Suddenly Last Summer and he’s also well known for playing Marty on Gilmore Girls. He's also very generous! And after we spoke, the Tennessee native sent me some of his favorite Vosges chocolates! Here's a window into our love connection. (OK, that's wistful thinking.)
How old are you?
I’m 28.
What’s your theatrical training?
I went to Boston University -- there are actually three of us from BU in the cast.
Posted Apr. 28, 2007,
FOWL: The Best Show in L.A. -- Returns!
By Ann Magnuson
The amazing Robbie D returns as Jer Ber Jones in FOWL, probably the best show I've seen in YEARS! While some people will be sweltering with a crowd of 60,000 in 120 degree heat at Coachella, YOU can be sipping an ice cold margarita in the cool, intimate environs of The Cavern Club Theater (located in the basement of the infamous Silver Lake Mexican restaurant Casita del Campos) having your mind blown by the astounding theatrical strangeness that is FOWL! Really, this show is FANTASTIC and unlike anything you've probaby ever seen before! Plus this latest incarnation features new songs!!!!
Posted Apr. 13, 2007,
Curtain Cuties: Ward Billeisen
By Whitney Spaner
This week's Curtain Cutie is Ward Billeisen who plays Brick Hawvermale, one of the actors in the show within the the new musical Curtains, starring David Hyde Pierce and Debra Monk. I couldn't keep my eyes off him in the big dance numbers -- of which there are plenty. He was so lively and charismatic on stage that you would never know he had just come back from a major foot injury. He's so brave! We became acquainted over email and here's what he had to say...
We'll start off easy. How old are you?
28
What is your theatrical training?
I attended AMDA here in NYC 10 years ago and graduated early from the program to start working professionally. Otherwise I learn as I go. It's amazing how much you can learn from your peers, coworkers and the experience at hand.
Where are you from?
Born in Denver, Colorado. I lived in Longmont, CO until I was about eight, and then Littleton, CO until I moved to Sierra Vist, AZ for the last few years of high school. Been in NY ever since!
Why did you want to become an actor?
My brother used to make me and my sister perform Christmas shows for my mom and dad. I loved making them laugh and feel good. It was always a great time for my family. We were always creating something when we were little and I think it was just meant to be. Everything just fell into place for me. It was my mom that really helped me realize that I could do it if I wanted to. I love to bring people on journeys that they don't expect to go on. If I have made a person laugh or cry or just follow what my character is going through then I have done my job. That is why I am an actor.
Posted Apr. 11, 2007,
Opening Night: A Moon for the Misbegotten
By Whitney Spaner
Monday night was the opening of the Broadway revival of A Moon for the Misbegotten, starring Kevin Spacey, Eve Best and Colm Meaney at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. The play by Eugene O'Neill is about the unrequited love between a farmer (Meaney)'s alcoholic landlord (Spacey) and his ogrish daughter with a ruined reputation (Best).
The opening night party was at 230 Fifth, with the plan to use the rooftop bar. But because of the unseasonable weather they had to move inside. But a few of the stars still came out to help celebrate the cast’s almost three-hour performance including the gorgeous Aaron Eckhart, who was in town promoting his new movie No Reservations with Catherine Zeta Jones and Abigail Breslin. Eckhart hinted that he had been supposed to make his own appearance on Broadway this year but due to a scheduling conflict with a film he’d had to put it off.
Patrick Swayze looked amazing with a thin beard, shyly posing for photographers saying he’d been out on his ranch too long, (maybe doing some on-site research for his turn in the new musical Prairie) and wasn’t used to the attention. The slight Sam Rockwell talked about his role as Charley Ford in the Brad Pitt vehicle The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Haley Joel Osmont, who starred with Spacey in Pay It Forward and is currently attending NYU, said the great performances in the play made him eager to make a stage appearance.
Although Ben Brantley from the New York Times called Spacey’s performance too speedy, he praised Colm Meaney and the British import Eve Best for their interpretations.
I’m resisting the urge to put up a picture of Aaron Eckhart in favor of this cast photo, which I think is only fair seeing as how they were the reason for the party and my conversation with Aaron in the first place. (l-r) Kevin Spacey, Eugene O'Hare, Eve Best, Billy Carter and Colm Meaney.
Posted Apr. 6, 2007,
Time Out New York Reveals Broadway's Dirty Little Secrets
By Whitney Spaner
I love this week’s Time Out with the 20 dirty secrets about New York theater. TONY’s theater editors David Cote and Adam Feldman plus Kirk Miller and Robert Simonson put together the list and there are some very funny tips, great advice and a column of blind items that has been driving me nuts all day! For example; “Which box-office magnet is much closer to his male assistant (now his business partner) than his much publicized wife?” If anyone out there in the blogosphere knows the answer please don’t hesitate to clue me in!
Here are my favorite secrets from the list:
#1: "Actors are obsessed with gossip." This entry namechecks the Post’s theater columnist Michael Riedel as outing most of the gossip on Broadway. Apparently the British and big-headed director, David Leveaux, once knocked Riedel off a barstool for writing something not so nice. I love it!
#10: "Chorus Girls are Gorgeous -- From Afar." This seems especially true for Curtains.
And maybe one of the most useful tips:
#20: "Never see a show after its first year." This is the reason I have not and will never see Hairspray. It’s a shame but by the time I made my way to the Big Apple, Harvey Fierstein was no longer playing Edna Turnblad and I refuse to go to see an endless string of American Idols and failed pop stars play Penny Pingleton and Amber Von Tussle while sitting next to a fanny packed mom and her candy-chewing children.
Here’s Time Out's double cover featuring the stars of Wicked and Phantom of the Opera.
Posted Apr. 6, 2007,
Ted Neeley in Jesus Christ Superstar for Good Friday
By Ann Magnuson
If lieu of going to one of those ultra-depressing Good Friday church services (where everyone silently and sadly files out of the pews in front of that moribund crucifix) spend some time with the original cast of Jesus Christ Superstar! Last year I saw Ted Neeley in one of the first performances of his Jesus Christ Superstar farewell tour, which is still snaking its way around the country! In the L.A production at the Doolittle Theater, Neeley was joined by Yvonne Elliman as Mary, Ben Vereen as Judas and Jack Black as Herod! I blogged about it then and still haven't fully recovered from the sublime experience.
It was one of the most satisfying nights I have EVER had in the theater! And although Neeley & Co. are a bit longer in the tooth, they all brought an intensity and a (dare I say the dreaded word?) gravitas to their roles than no younger actors ever could. The audience (which included Harrison Ford and Danny Bonaduce -- together at last!) went BERSERK! Especially in the balcony where us real JCS maniacs were. Later that night I went on a YouTube/Superstar feeding frenzy and found this clip of Neeley from The Tonight Show (when he could still really nail -- pardon the pun -- the high notes!). And if Jesus IS on the other side, waiting to greet us all, I am sure he has one helluva Tonight Show band backing him up.
Posted Mar. 16, 2007,
Patrick on the Prairie!
By Whitney Spaner
Next month Patrick Swayze will be playing Pa in a workshop of Prairie, a new musical based on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s The Little House on the Prairie books. Melissa Gilbert, who played Laura in the LHOTP TV show, will join him as Ma. The workshop is closed to the public so those of you who need your Plains States fix will have to wait until 2008 when the show goes on a national tour prior to opening in New York. The show is geared toward a family audience so I don’t think Patrick will be pulling out any of his Dirty Dancing moves, or stripping down in the fields, but as you can see in this picture he can rock a pair of overalls and still look like his smooth self!
Posted Mar. 15, 2007,
Trog Lives!
By Dennis Dermody
I was just alerted to the fact that in L.A. they're doing a theatrical version of Trog! at the Cavern Club Theater.The stage show is called: "A Hilarious Parody Of Joan Crawford's Last Film." Crawford's last film, made in 1970, is about the missing link captured by an anthropologist (Crawford) and has a special place in my heart -- and this scene where Crawford teaches the creature to deliniate colors is camp heaven...