Broadway- News on Broadway

Mike Bartlett?s ?Cockfight Play,? directed by James Macdonald, centers on a sexual triangle.

I would like to make the case, officially and urgently, for the return of the sitting ovation. Because we really have reached the point where a standing ovation doesn't mean a thing.

This comedy at St. Luke?s Theater features, from left, Rusty Ross, Peggy Cosgrave and Liz Zazzi.The comedy ?Miracle on South Division Street? at St. Luke?s Theater finds a family holding on tight to its secrets.

Steve Kazee, whose Broadway role in ?Once? is that of a man who is coming off a breakup and whose mother has died, is coming off breakup and lost his mother last month.

A seriocomedy about life under occupation, ?Food and Fadwa? is the inaugural production of Noor Theater, the Middle Eastern American company in residence at New York Theater Workshop.

Many of us in the theatre community are excited about the new Obama administration and what it could mean for future support and funding of the arts. Playgoer has a really great post on the subject: I'd rather put...

An incredible video interview with Dominique Serrand of Theatre de la Jeune Lune.

Next up, The Internationalist opens in Columbus, after about 3 rehearsals.

Foolin' Around With Infinity by Steven Dietz - Granville, Ohio - December 20

Poet Missie Peters on the upcoming Tongues of Fire Fundraiser: Poetry in the Raw Poetry in the Raw: Poetry in Motion Poets baring their soul?and a whole lot more It?s spoken with emotion. It?s spoken in motion. It?s spoken naked. It?s the fourth annual Poetry in the Raw, Victoria?s award-winning nude poetry show featuring ten [...]

Jeremy Banks tells us why we should see his Fringe show ARBUTUS PRODUCTIONS ? NANAIMO, BC By Ron Fromstein Comedic Monologue ? 65 minutes PG 14+ ? Adult Themes Door: $11 regular /$9 student & senior ? Advance $13/11 Official Fringe Page The Big Smoke tells the tale of Tommy, as he moves from his [...]

The Ginger Ninjas want you to see their show SNAFU DANCE THEATRE & BLACK BELT PROD ? CANADA Created & Performed by Elliott Loran & Ingrid Hansen, Directed by Britt Small Physical Theatre ? 60 minutes Tween and Up All Seats/Door $11 ? Advance $13 Official Fringe Page SNAFU ???? 1/2 Pick-of-The-Fringe ?Most Innovative Show?, [...]

Dave Morris tells us why we shouldn’t go see his show in the Victoria Fringe DAVE MORRIS ? VICTORIA, BC By Dave Morris Improv Storytelling Spoken-Word ? 60 minutes PG 14+ All Seats/Door $11 ? Advance $13 Official Fringe Page Dave Morris is a storyteller, poet, improviser, and sometimes? an asshole. In this one-man improvised [...]

A friend of mine - an actress - once told me "Working in commercials can be your waitressing job." I was sort of taken aback when she said this. What??? She booked one or two commercials a year, and it...

I can't even write about this subject without seeing red. Predators in the entertainment industry have devised so many ways to bilk money out of the poorest people in the business - new and struggling actors. Everywhere I turn, there...

After a vacation, it can be so difficult to get back into the groove of ?real life,? even though my real life doesn?t always feel that real, between auditions, rehearsals, memorizing of monologues, and the taking on and off of...

Living in NYC has taught me to that no one is going to motivate you except for yourself. Moving to New York was pretty overwhelming. Instead of being a big fish in a small pond, I was thrown into an...

Every now and then when the cameras are rolling, I find I lose track of my character, disconnect from the scene, and start "acting." It happened last weekend on a short film when the director had us hopping and skipping...

I’ve probably talked about “Audition” by Michael Shurtleff on this blog once or twice before. If you’ve worked on a production with me, you’ve heard me bark about “humor” and “opposites” more then once. The powerful thing about Shurtleff’s guideposts is they are easy to understand and execute in the moment, whether it be an [...]

A Delicate Balance by Edward Albee is the story of those of us who settle. When life becomes so routine, you don’t live it anymore. Very depressing… very thought provoking… very… Albee.  This play is a fun read.  It seems to have this feeling the entire time that there is going to be something more [...]

Just finished Act I. What an amazing Act. Totally have me hooked into what’s next. Nothing has really happened yet I am completely ready for more. This is an example of where character development has kept me engaged. I actually care about these people and I don’t know why. Can’t wait for Act II. Probably be [...]

Well. I am either getting dumber, not politically charged enough, or both, but Romance lost me. Don’t get me wrong, the play was once again genius, real dialogue, but the farce didn’t connect for me. I didn’t care enough about the goal. I thought it was funny to end an absolutely absurd scene with the [...]

I bought this play a while ago because it sounded funny and thought provoking. Anti-semitism, homosexuality, antihistamines, lawyers, and the Middle East. Now that spells humor. Reading Mamet is almost as fun as reading Labute. While you don’t get as many “\” (for those of you who have read Labute, you know what I mean), [...]

They're out there.

Random thoughts:

First I recklessly tweet that Once would not even make it to opening night on Broadway, now it leads the pack with 11 Tony nominations. Go figure. (And have I seen it? Of course not.)  And given the competition, I now (equally recklessly) say it's the odd on favorite to win Best Musical.

Of the four Best Musical nominees, three are based on movies and one is a "revisal" of an old Gershwin musical (old songs, new script). I actually am not among those lamenting movies-into-musicals-- before that it was plays-into-musicals, no? (And even books.) But, as movies, Newsies and Once already were musicals, although I gather much new music has been added to both for Broadway? So Leap of Faith has the only fully original score of the bunch.

Note that for the actual "Best Original Score" category they couldn't even find four satisfactory musicals. 1) Newsies, which is only partially original for the stage; 2) Bonnie and Clyde, which... speaks for itself; 3) Peter and the Starcatcher, a play with music; and 4) One Man Two Guvnors, another play, featuring a mock-Beatles band playing 60's rockabilly pastiche between scenes.  So, anyone want to comment on the state of the new musical?

Speaking of 2Guvs (as the kids call it), a shame it apparently was deemed neither fish nor foul by the committee: Although it's actually a loose adaptation of Goldoni's Servant of Two Masters, it was ruled ineligible for the "play revival" category. Yet it appears to have seemed too (deliberately) old fashioned for Best "New" Play--a category which instead includes an adaptation of an old Viennese novel, a Peter Pan "prequel," and a Raisin in the Sun "sequel."

Best Play Revival includes Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and Gore Vidal's The Best Man.  I don't believe that's what they were called when they opened originally. So let's call them new plays! (Ditto for The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, of course.)

Remember Spider-Man? The Tonys didn't.  Sets and costumes is all they get.  But as Erik Piepenburg @nyt just tweeted, the show's producers are probably just relieved, for legal purposes, that Julie Taymor did not get any further validation as "director."

As for performers...

Best Actor/Play looks like a tossup between three formidable fatmen: Philip Seymour Hoffman, James "2Guvs" Corden, and James Earl Jones. Jones would probably win in the "Featured" category--what's he doing here?

When you consider that Venus in Fur is playing to only 57% capacity (up 9 points from last week!), you wonder how Manhattan Theatre Club feels throwing a lot of money away for the sake of Nina Arianda's Best Actress nomination. Girl owes them!  (Oh yeah, got Best Play nod, too. So David Ives owes them!)

Speaking of MTC, blessed year for them.  From what I heard, no one particularly liked their (pointless) Wit and Master Class remounts. Yet both are nominated for Best Play Revival. (And likewise the only faintly praised Cynthia Nixon for Best Actress in Wit.)

Special Award for Hugh Jackman??? Well he did make some folks a ton of money this season.

And finally, shoutout to Shakespeare Theatre DC for the regional award. About time!

My latest for Time Out: Willy Holtzman's The Morini Strad at Primary Stages.

The takeaway: "Tuesdays with Morrie for the WQXR crowd."

By the way, forgot to mention in the review that this is "based on a true story."  But I must say I found myself wondering: where's the "story" here???

Kudos to producer Jordan Roth for simplifying the rush ticket policy for at least one Broadway show:

A limited number of lower-price general rush tickets will be available for every performance of the Broadway run of Bruce Norris' Pulitzer Prize-winning Clybourne Park, the comedy-drama about the personalities behind racial shifts in a neighborhood, producer Jordan Roth announced on March 26, the day of the play's first preview. "We hope to give as many people as possible the opportunity to share this astonishing theatrical experience," Roth said in a statement.

Rush tickets (at $30 each) will be available on the day of the performance at the Walter Kerr Theatre box office beginning at 10 AM. Limit two per customer. Opening night for the limited 16-week engagement is April 19.

Yes. Finally. Increasing the opportunities to see a show instead of constricting them. What a concept.

Let's hope this scores big, since it's about time Broadway in general simplified the whole rush policy mess. Every show has its own policy--which is usually not publicized. Many are for only for the under-30 set (or even younger, requiring student ID). Do they have to make it so obviously begrudging?

When, in fact, I bet when a show is actually good, tons of folks will, er, rush to any opportunity to go for less than $40, or even $50.

And seriously, producers, how do you feel about your churlish rush policies when you're staring at all those empty seats during previews, huh?

Time we had a little humor in the Mike Daisey affair...

A writer named Jason Mick, at the Daily Tech site, criticizes, as I have, the things that Daisey got wrong or made up. Then he adds:

Mr. Daisey is married to Deborah Fallows, a Chinese native who wrote the book Dreaming in Chinese.

It is true that Deborah Fallows . . . wrote the book Dreaming in Chinese. It is true that friends have told her that she might as well have been born a native Chinese person, since her spirit matches that of Chinese women in so many ways. But she is a native of Chicago, not any place in China, and of Czech rather than Chinese ethnic background. And she is most definitely not married to Mike Daisey. At least that is what she told me when she stormed back into the bedroom this morning irate about what she had just seen about herself online.

-Mr. James Fallows

("Jason Mick might want to ratchet back his outrage over Mike Daisey's sloppiness with facts," he adds.)

And for the record, Daisey is married to his director/collaborator Jean-Michele Gregory.

Orson Welles in 1939, when he was still a stage and radio star, pre-Citizen Kane. From a new exhibit of Golden Age Hollywood color photos at the National Portrait Gallery in DC.

Kinda looks like "the tall guy" in any twenty-something theatre company today, doesn't he?