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Prequels to Upcoming Theater Events and Sequels to Reviews & Features
by Elyse Sommer
Short Term Events |
Lincoln Center Festival, which runs from July 7 through July 25, 2010, will unfold in seven venues on and off the Lincoln Center campus, including two major theater events on Governors Island: The North American premiere of Peter Stein’s 12-hour marathon production of Dostoyevsky’s The Demons (also known as The Possessed) and the North American premiere of Toneelgroep Amsterdam’s production of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s searing Teorema, adapted and staged by Ivo van Hove. The Festival also boasts the U.S. premiere of Yukio Ninagawa’s lavish production, Musashi (which opens the Festival on July 7), based on a legendary samurai story, and the New York premiere of Complicite’s Olivier Award-winning A Disappearing Number, conceived and directed by Simon McBurney, in the David H. Koch Theater. In all there will be 45 performances by artists and ensembles from 12 countries.
Aspen’s acclaimed Theater Masters will present its fourth annual Take 10 on April 6th – 9th at Walkerspace (46 Walker Street).
The 10-minute plays are: Hero’s Luck by Alex Maggio from UCLA (What happens when a “simple rescue fantasy actually comes true? Find out as an adult Dave finds himself stranded with his Middle School crush, Rosie, on a perilous desert island. Will Dave raise to the occasion, or is Rosie out of luck?); A Wake of Vultures by Carolyn Kras from Carnegie Mellon (A vulture decides she's tired of being an undertaker and tries to shake up the food chain by attacking a human); The Withdrawal by Erin Phillips from University of Texas at Austin (No good deed goes unpunished in the story of an accidental bank robbery); The Tragic Life of Emily Brown by Mohamamd Yousuf from NYU (While reading the morning paper Emily Brown comes across her own obituary. But when she calls the paper’s editor to sort the matter out she finds it far harder to prove she is alive than she thought); The Oldest Living Resident by Lauren Yee from UCSD (A trio of spinster sisters anticipate their aging father's crowning as ?their prefecture's oldest living resident. The only problem is, he's already dead) Helen Niederhauser Tales the Greyhound by Janet Schlapkohl from Iowa University (Helen Niederhauser has been replaced as the sole director of the Turkey Valley United Methodist Church Cherub Choir. Believing she has lost God's ear, she commits an act of criminal mischief and escapes her Wisconsin dairy farm to attend a choir conference; hoping to find music God will listen to) Rally Monkey by Andrew Miara from Northwestern University (A young man confronts his grief over the passing of a friend in a supernatural encounter); The Centaur Play by James Ryan Caldwell from Columbia University (“Debbie and Jenna moved to New York for one year with the sole purpose of finding husbands) ; Madam Librarian by Kim Rosenstock from Yale University (It’s Sunday and the library is closed. But despite this fact, a dreamy librarian sits behind the circulation desk, waiting for a very special patron to walk through the double doors); In Writing This I Contradict Myself by Ian McDonald from Brown University (“a celebrity tries to bring “unwanted” relief to third world country.)
The evening will be directed by Michael Goldfried, Margarett Perry and Andrew Volkoff, and feature sets designed by Tom Ward. PerformancesTuesday, April 6th at 8PM, Wednesday, April 7th at 7:30PM, Thursday, April 8th at 7:30PM, Friday, April 9th at 8PM. All tickets are $18. (212) 868-4444
Cherry Lane Theatre's 12th annual Mentor Project:
3 World-Premiere plays by 3 emerging playwrights mentored by 3 award-winning playwrights:
STRAY By Ruth McKee. Directed by Giovanna Sardelli. Mentored by Tony Award-winner David Henry Hwang.
March 16 - March 27, 2010THE BELLE OF BELFAST By Nate Rufus Edelman. Directed by Eric Tucker. Mentored by Pulitzer Prize-winner Charles Fuller. April 27 - May 8, 2010
PATERNITY By Winter Miller. Mentored and Directed by Tony Award-nominee Craig Lucas. May 18 - May 29, 2010
A ll at the Cherry Lane Theatre 38 Commerce Street. Tickets are $18 ($11 with valid student ID), at 212-239-6200www.cherrylanetheatre.org
Join the Tennessee Williams Celebration -- it's FREE. LAByrinth Theater Company celebrates the legendary playwright Tennessee Williams with TENN 99, a one-of-a-kind, three-day weekend event, a nonstop, 24/7 marathon celebration of the works of Tennessee Williams. The event will run day and night, all weekend long at The Cherry Lane Theater's 'Cherry Pit' beginning Friday afternoon, March 26th and concluding Sunday evening, March 28th. All are welcome; admission is free.
In service to the community, LAByrinth Theater Company will endeavor to do as many readings of Tennessee Williams' work as possible – back to back, from start to finish – on the occasion of his 99th birthday; including plays, screenplays, adaptations, essays, personal letters and interviews. Audience participation is strongly encouraged: show up at any time during the event and sign up to read, or just find a seat and listen to doctors, cab drivers and busboys read alongside LAB Company Members, LAB friends, theater luminaries, students and celebrities.Attendees will listen to theater legends recount their glorious experiences working with Tennessee Williams during the Sunday Brunch Event, be able to compete in the STELLA! scream-off on the shore of the Hudson River, or just enjoy food, drink, raffles, contests, souvenirs and giveaways. TENN 99 will inspire all as LAB celebrates the greatness of Tennessee Williams.
When asked why a company committed to original theater would stage a celebration of Tennessee Williams, co-Artistic Director Stephen Adly Guirgis said,""Well, for one thing: next year he would have been 100, so why not get the party started early? And, speaking strictly for myself, if it hadn’t been for Tennessee Williams, I’d probably still be a bike messenger."
A partial list of participants includes: Leslie Bibb, Ellen Burstyn, Bobby Cannavale, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jesse L. Martin, Ana Ortiz, Sam Rockwell, John Patrick Shanley, Michael Shannon, Michael Stuhlbarg, Daphne Rubin-Vega and Yul Vázquez (all subject to continuing availability). More celebrity guests and Company Members TBA
and in case you don't know much about LAByrinth Theater Company — it was founded in 1992 by a group of actors who wanted to push their artistic limits, hone their craft, and create new plays that truly reflected their heritage and experience and today is comprised of more than 110 established and emerging theater artists from a wide array of cultural perspectives. The 300 new plays and staged 51 productions they've staged include The Little Flower of East Orange and UNCONDITIONAL (2008), A View from 151st Street and Jack Goes Boating (2007), A Small, Melodramatic Story and School of The Americas (2006), The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (2005), Sailor’s Song and Guinea Pig Solo (2004), Dutch Heart of Man and Dirty Story (2003), Our Lady of 121st Street (2002), Where’s My Money? (2001), Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train (2000), and In Arabia, We’d All Be Kings (1999).
The Public Theater's FREE Spotlight Series will kick off on Thursday, February 25 at 7 p.m. with an “Evening of Excerpts,” featuring scenes from plays written by all nine of the 2009 Emerging Writers. Beginning on March 1 and continuing through April 26, the Spotlight Series will continue with weekly readings of a full-length play from each Emerging Writer, directed and performed by experienced artists from the theatrical community. The weekly readings will take place on Mondays at 7 p.m. and tickets can be reserved by calling 212-967-7555. For a full schedule of the series, check out the www.publictheater.org.
When the Irish Rep company recently revived the musical version of The Importance of Being Earnest (review) most critics, yours truly included, felt it was upstaged by the play that inspired it. Next winter, New York audiences will have a chance to see Wilde's version — no singing, but a superb thespian, Brian Bedford, to not only direct it but to play that memorable dragon,Lady Bracknell. A reprise of Bedford's direction and performance > at the 2009 Stratford Shakespeare Festival, this Earnest will be mounted by the revival loving Roundabout Theatre Company at its American Airlines Theatre. Additional cast members and the creative team TBA.
More often than not, when a show is a hit in London, it's a case of wait and see for New Yorkers hoping to see it on their side of the pond. It's wait and see as to IF it will transfer and if it does, whether the London actors will come along. Not so the new production of New York City born and Yale and Oxford educated David Hirson's 1991 play La Bête which will play at the Comedy Theatre in the West End from June 26 to August 28, and then immediately transfer to Broadway's Shumbert Theater. Both productions will be directed by Matthew Warchus and star Mark Rylance, David Hyde Pierce and Joanna Lumley. The play is a comic tour de force about Elomire (Pierce), a high-minded classical dramatist who loves only the theatre, and Valere (Rylance), a low-brow street clown who loves only himself. When the fickle princess (Lumley) decides she’s grown weary of Elomire’s royal theatre troupe, he and Valere are left fighting for survival as art squares off with ego in a literary showdown for the ages.
The Mountaintop by American actress/playwright Katori Hall which recently won the 2010 Olivier Award Best New Play nomination will get a Broadway production in the upcoming 2010-11 Broadway Season. The producers are in negotiations with Kenny Leon (Fences, A Raisin in the Sun) to direct this American premiere. The play reimagines events the night before the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., as he retires to Room 306 in the now famous Lorraine Motel in Memphis, after delivering his legendary ‘From the mountaintop’ speech to a massive church congregation. When room-service is delivered by a young woman, whose identity we puzzle over, King is forced to confront his past, as well as his legacy to his people. For more details you can check out our London critic's review
The Broadway production of HAIR: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical has been a participatory experience since it opened-- with audience members invited on stage for a communal dance party. But now the party doesn't end when you leave the theater. The show's onstage party will now be digitally recorded at each performance. The video footage will then be posted on HAIR’s official website (www.HairBroadway.com) so that the audience party goers can find and tag themselves and share the video with friends and family via e-mail, Facebook orTwitter. New Olivier award. The prestigious Laurence Olivier Awards- have created a new category :Favourite long-running show to be voted for by the general public. The is for shows which opened before January 1, 2009 and ran throughout 2009. All other categories are limited to shows that opened during 2009. Productions in the running for the new award: Blood Brothers, Hairspray, Jersey Boys, Mamma Mia, La Cage Aux Folles, War Horse, Les Misérables, The 39 Steps, Dirty Dancing - The Classic Story On Stage, The Woman in Black, The Mousetrap, Avenue Q, Grease, Stomp, Billy Elliot - The Musical, The Phantom of the Opera, Wicked, The Lion King, Chicago and We Will Rock You. Voters have until 12 noon on 1st of February to clock in with their choices at this web site: www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk/olivier_awards/vote.
Golden Globes a great chance to play Catch That Actor You've Seen LIVE On Stage. One of the most fun things for a theater critic about watching shows on the big and little screen is to play Catch That Actor You've Seen LIVE On Stage. While some actors and playwrights, have focused their careers on following the money-- which means Movies and TV, it's shows like the ever-present Law & Order franchise that have enabled many an actor to screen-moonlight as judges, lawyers, and crime perpetrators or victims, to still spend time doing live theater.
This season's surprise hit with strong Live theater connections is of course Glee (that's, in case you haven't seen it, the title stands for high school glee club) which nabbed the 68th Globe award as Best TV Show Comedy/Musical. Stars with strong stage pedigrees include Lea Michele and Matthew Morrison are best known to theater audiences as the romantic leads in the Tony Award winning musicals Spring Awakening (Michele) and The Light in the Piazza (Matthew). The show's stage connection and popularity with theater pros and fans also stems from gues stars like Kristin Chenoweth and Jonathan Groff who also navigate between stage and screen work.
My own very favorite show for its excellence as well as it's heavily stage-connected cast and list of guests is The Good Wife. Its title character is played by Julianna Margulies who deservedly won in the category of Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Drama (And wins my hands down award for Best Dressed at the awards ceremonies). But there are her lawyer bosses, Josh Charles and Christine Baransky; husband Chris Noth, son Graham Phillips (he made an auspicious Broadway debut in the musical 13), mother-in-law Mary Beth Peil (she was the mother in the much better stage than screen version of Nine). And the gues appearances also include Denis O'Hare as a judge, Craig Bierko and Jessico Hecht (currently in the revival of Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge), Zach Grenier, Patricia Kalember, Francis Jue, Christina Kirk
You'll be able to take a turn at playing Catch That Actor You've Seen LIVE On Stage by checking out the Golden Globes website: www.goldenglobes.org
Good Deals for handicapped theater lovers:
The mission of the Theater Development Fund (TDF0 is to increase access to theatER for all audiences. That's why their TAP program is a boon for anyone who's hard of hearing or deaf, l has ow or no vision ore requires special seating according to need. There is no annual fe to obtain an a 50% discount for special need orchestra tickets but you must be a TAP member and provide evidence of eligibility. To check out details and other TDF services, see the website: www.tdf.org/tap. To obtain an application for TAP membership: 212/729-4537 or email tap@tdf.org.The Broadway League announced that the 14th annual Kids' Night on Broadway (KidsNightonBroadway.com) when kids ages 6 to 18 can see Broadway shows for free when accompanied by a full-paying adult. A Kids' Night on Broadway ticket includes pre-theatre parties, restaurant discounts, parking discounts, special edition Kids' Playbill provided by Theatre Development Fund, educational programs and more. Tickets are currently on sale for Tuesday February 2, Wednesday, February 3, and Sunday, February 7, 2010. Participating Shows include: Billy Elliot The Musical, Chicago, Fela! , Hair, In The Heights, The Lion King , Mary Poppins, Mamma Mia!, Memphis, Next To Normal, The Phantom Of The Opera, Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific, West Side Story, Wicked along with the Off Broadway shows Avenue Q and Stomp.
Summer 2010 festival announcements begin with a popular festival that's taking a hiatus though a 2011 season will be hosted at the Public Theater. Some facts revealed by the Broadway League's 12th annual demographics report, based on extensive survey data gleaned from audience questionnaires distributed throughout the 2008-2009 Broadway season in New York City:
International visitors accounted for 21% of the 12.15 million Broadway admissions, the highest portion in recorded history. The use of the Internet for the purchase of tickets has grown by 471% since the 1999-2000 season (from 7% to 40%). Online purchase was the most popular method of ticket buying for a fifth year in row.
Critics' reviews were the most influential factors for playgoers. However, forty-seven percent of theatergoers at musicals said that personal recommendation was the single strongest reported factor in deciding which show to see.
Playgoers tended to be more frequent theatregoers than musical attendees. The typical playgoer saw eight shows in the past year, compared with four for the musical attendee. Those who saw fifteen or more shows comprised 5% of the audience, but represented 31% of all tickets sold.
The average age of the Broadway theatregoer was 42.2 years old, slightly older than last season, while those aged from 25-34 accounted for 16% of all tickets sold, higher than it has been since the 1999-2000 season.
Broadway theatregoers were a very well educated and affluent group. In addition to an annual reported income of $195,700, 73% of theatregoers over the age of 25 had completed college and 36% had earned a graduate degree.
With the weather wintry the Public Theater brings warm weather thoughts with early casting announcements for the 2010 Shakespeare in the Park summer season. Daniel Sullivan will direct The Merchant of Venice in rotating rep with The Winter's Tale directed by Michael Greif. The repertory company will feature Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Solanio/Young Shepherd); Jesse L. Martin (Gratiano/Polixenes); Al Pacino (Shylock); Lily Rabe (Portia/First Gentlewoman); Ruben Santiago-Hudson as (Prince of Morocco/Leontes); and Max Wright (Old Gobbo/Old Shepherd). Complete casting for both plays being performed in repertory with the same core company of actors will be announced at a later date. Due to a scheduling conflict with rehearsals, Pacino will only appear in The Merchant of Venice.
The New York FRIGID Festival is an open and uncensored theater festival presented by Horse Trade Theater Group in association with San Francisco's Exit Theatre. Riding the fringe of winter, the hit celebration of independent theater will run February 24-March 7, 2010 at The Kraine Theater, The Red Room, and UNDER St. Marks. Boasting over 150 performances and 30 shows over 12 days. For full details see www.FRIGIDnewyork.info or www.horseTRADE.info
Primary Stages' upcoming productions at its 59E. 59th Street Theaters.
The New York premiere of Secrets of the Trade by Jonathan Tolins with direction by Matt Shakman. Andy Lipman, a smart, ambitious kid from Long Island, dreams of a career on Broadway and hopes that his idol, theater legend Martin Kerner, can give it to him. Will Kerner open Andy's door to success, or will their complicated relationship force him to question a life in the theater? From July 27, 2010 f through September 4, 2010. The world premiere of In Transit with book, music and lyrics by Kristen Anderson-Lopez, James-Allen Ford, Russ Kaplan and Sara Wordsworth under the direction of Joe Calarco. Inspired by the rhythms and sounds of life on the subway the musical follows an aspiring actress, a fledgling financier, a street-savvy beatboxer, a cab driver, and others as they find their way in New York City. From September 21, 2010 through October 30, 2010.
The world premiere of Black Tie, a comedy by A.R. Gurney directed by Mark Lamos. Father of the groom, Curtis, simply wants to make a memorable toast. But before he is able to raise his glass, he must defend the time-honored ways of his past, including his attire. Cultures clash when a surprise guest is announced, threatening to throw convention out the window. From January 25, 2011 through March 5, 2011.
According to Tappan Wilder, there have been "tens of thousands" of productions/licenses of his uncle Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize winning Our Town performed in more than 26 countries and translated into 22 languages. But it took Chicago director David Cromer's intimate, freshly conceived production at the Barrow Street Theatre (27 Barrow Street), in downtown Manhattan to make theater history. The production is about to mark its 337th performance which makes this staging the longest-running Our Town in its long, worldwide history. Before this the longest-running productions was the original Broadway version which opened on February 4, 1938, and ran for 336 performances at Henry Miller's Theatre. It subsequently moved to the Morosco Theatre and closed on November 19, 1938. Our Town received the 1938 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. We reviewed the Barrow Street production when it first opened and again recently when it gained a new stage manger. review
Joe Calarco has joined the creative team of Playwrights Horizons and /Vineyard Theater's joing production of The Burnt Part Boys by Mariana Elder (book), Nathan Tysen (lyrics) and Chris Miller (music). Calarco succeeds Erica Schmidt, who is not continuing with the production by mutual agreement. He is not new to the musical, having been at the helm when we saw the lab production at Barrington Stage (review). This innovative musical's 2010 debut marks the first co-producing venture for Playwrights Horizons and Vineyard Theatre/ TDF launches off-Off @ $9-- a new online service building off-Off Broadway audiences by providing $9 advance eTix to TDF members. This allows TDF members to explore the smaller stages, beyond Broadway and Off Broadway, where innovative artists are creating new and adventurous works. There will be no handling fee. The program begins at an opportune time as we are in the midst of the many play festivals around the city. (most listed in Curtainup's Off-Broadway Listings
To learn more information: www.tdf.org.
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