An Open Letter to the Stratford Festival

Congratulations on the Stratford Shakespeare Festival's naming Antoni Cimolino its next Artistic Director. This absolutely justified move strikes me as inevitable and a cause for rejoicing in the theater world.

A Banner Year for Gypsy of the Year (2011)

Two SRO performances of the 23rd Annual “Gypsy of the Year” competition held recently at the glorious New Amsterdam raised an all-time high of $4,895,253 – over a million more than 2010 – for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS thanks to the tireless efforts of 53 Broadway, Off-Broadway and tour companies during the six-week Fall drive.

Since 1989, the competitions have raised more than $49 million to benefit BC/EFA and Actors Fund programs here and around the country.

The Return of Liberty

The long-shuttered, decaying auditorium of the historic 1904 Liberty Theater, whose entrance was on West 42nd Street, but whose auditorium was on West 41st Street, has risen from the ash heap of bird droppings, infestation and a putrid basement lake to become the showpiece of Times Square Hospitality Group's Famous Dave's restaurant.

Bonnie & Clyde and Lyricist Don Black

At the opening of Bonnie & Clyde, Frank Wildhorn, knowing how his shows are received critically, was smiling, joking and laughing. The persistent Wildhorn must have thick skin. He keeps coming back when others might have taken the money and be living the high life. Many are of the opinion that he got a raw deal, that Bonnie & Clydeis far better than 99 percent of the critics thought.

The Keenan-Bolgers Back on Broadway

Fred and Adele Astaire set the gold standard for brother-sister showbiz teams -- but she retired very early, leaving him to become a star on his own. Today, we have two super-talented pairs of male/female theatrical siblings in our midst, although neither works as a team. Incredibly enough, both pairs hail from Detroit, Michigan. (Really, what are the chances?) They are Sutton and Hunter Foster, and Celia and Andrew Keenan-Bolger.

Petula Clark: After Decades, Miss "Downtown" Hits Midtown In Cabaret

The facts of Petula Clark's career are impressive: Huge popularity as a child performer in England; more than 70 million records sold, including "Downtown," "I Know a Place," and other smash hits of the 1960s. She's had starring roles in musicals on film (“Finian's Rainbow,” “Goodbye, Mr. Chips”) and stage (The Sound of Music, Sunset Boulevard, Blood Brothers). Now, at age 79, the lady still performs all over the world.

The Best (and Worst) of Theater 2011

Content dictates form, which is why this year-end look back at New York theater in 2011 is somewhat different from my previous surveys. Usually I provide a fairly lengthy list of what I consider to be the highlights of the year and completely avoid the negative. But while there certainly were highlights in 2011, it was not a good calendar year for theater overall. The fall season on Broadway was especially disappointing, and the most deplorable of this year's shows -- both on and off Broadway -- were so shockingly awful that I think they really need to be singled out for censure.

The Greatest Gift: Bernadette Peters Goes Deeper and Deeper into Sondheim's Characters

"The greatest gift" Peters goes deeper and deeper into Sondheim's characters Interview by Michael Portantiere "Broadway Baby" is one of the many songs by Stephen Sondheim that Bernadette Peters has sung in her career. The phrase "Broadway Baby" is also a sweet sobriquet for the lady herself.

Warren Carlyle: It's Been a Very Busy and Good Year

To say director/choreographer Warren Carlyle’s been busy is an understatement. He worked as choreographer on Eric Schaeffer’s Kennedy Center Follies revival, now on Broadway; was creative producer of An Evening with Hugh Jackman in San Francisco and Toronto; and is director/choreographer of Hugh Jackman, Back on Broadway and Cotton Club Parade (which plays six performances at City Center, November 18–22, 2011).

The Hugh Jackman Experience - From the Audience

At Hugh Jackman: Back on Broadway audiences are rapturously in love with the titled star. They are not alone. The revue doesn't open until November 10, 2011, and it's already breaking house records at the Broadhurst: the latest, in excess of $1.2-million -- no doubt due to the jacked up ticket pricing; regular seats go from $67-$350.

When the Music Stopped

The recent revival of Pal Joey in Philadelphia reminds us of one of the strangest episodes in the history of popular music in America. Strange, and fascinating. I'm speaking of the early-1940s dispute between broadcasters and the music establishment -- specifically, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.

Eileen Atkins's Woolfian Journey

The part-jest, part-conjecture that there are those who are, indeed, "Afraid of Virginia Woolf" certainly does not apply to either lauded British stage actress, playwright and adapter/screenwriter Eileen Atkins or to Princeton Rep executive producer Anne Reiss. Neither could have anticipated that their common passion for Woolf, which began and has continued over the years since their backstage meeting at McCarter Theater in 1992, would result eight years later with Atkins appearing at a benefit performance for the Princeton Rep Shakespeare Festival.

Sarah Brightman: Crossing From Theater to Classical Pop

Five years ago, she was all but written off, but Sarah Brightman has made a stunning comeback. She and her stunning lyric soprano voice arrive at Radio City Music Hall on Saturday, on the second leg of a 42-city tour. She's achieved a world-wide success no one could have imagine, with "La Luna," her latest Angel CD, about to hit the Platinum sales mark (one million copies).

The Battle Of Britain

A London Evening Standard reviewer wrote of a play with American actors, "Something must be done about this American refuse being dumped on our shore." That attitude, and British Equity's 1997 decision to disband its North American Artists Committee (citing it as "redundant"), led to bitter disappointment about lack of representation among North American members of the union.

45 Years to Off-Broadway

Not even a can of the most intense Raid can stop Bug, at Greenwich Village's Barrow Street Theater, just off Seventh Avenue in Greenwich House, from becoming the most talked- about play of this season. For good measure, you can throw in its motley crew of trailer park trash characters.

Patti Cohenour Returns To New York For Encores' Adeline

She's certainly no ten-cents-a-dance girl, but Patti Cohenour has returned to New York City. Alas, it's for a limited, five-performance engagement only, in the Encores!, Great American Musicals in Concert [at City Center February 13-16] staging of Sweet Adeline.  Helen Morgan, fresh from her Show Boat, first played the role in Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern's 1929 tuner. Series artistic director Kathleen Marshall was among the many who thought Patti's absence had been much too long.

Suddenly Seymour - The Life of Cy Coleman

Cy Coleman is Broadway royalty, with more hit shows than any living American songwriter. The website of ASCAP calls him "a permanent jewel in Broadway's musical crown." His shows are from the same classic fabric as those of Richard Rodgers and Irving Berlin. But not quite. Would any of those icons ever compose a song titled "Don't Fuck Around With Your Mother-In-Law"? Not likely. Cy Coleman did, demonstrating that he mixes tradition with hip modernity.

Como? Si!

Perry Como never appeared in a musical stage play, but he deserves a special mention in the history of Broadway musicals.

For two decades he was the voice most closely associated with the hit songs from almost all the long-running musicals. His versions of "If I Loved You," "Some Enchanted Evening," "Hello, Young Lovers" and "No Other Love," among many others, were played on all the disc-jockey programs and were the best-selling recordings.

Arthur Kopit's Dangerous World

Arthur Kopit, author of Oh, Dad, Poor Dad, Momma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad (and other plays with shorter titles), would probably like to be in two places at once. His play, BecauseHeCan (a revised version of Y2K, which made its brief Off-Broadway debut at the close of 1999) opens Friday, March 30, 2001 at McCarter Theater, under the direction of Emily Mann. That date also marks the world premiere of Kopit's Chad Curtiss: Lost Again, the umbrella title for three short one-act plays with a

Karen Ziemba & Boyd Gaines: Making "Contact"

They've known each other ten years, since Karen Ziemba's husband introduced Boyd Gaines to her when she was creating magic in Kander and Ebb's And the World Goes 'Round.  Then she saw him in his Tony winning turn in the She Loves Me revival.  "We have mutual friends and were always seeing each other," laughs Karen, "but never worked together until a reading of [K&E's] Steel Pier. It's a small world, and our lives have often interconnected."

Joel Grey In Chicago

Joel Grey is back. Wilkommen! He's starring in Kander and Ebb's Chicago, one of Broadway's biggest hits in decades and one of its most acclaimed revivals, and "Mr. Cellophane" is his song. But Grey's presence -- in the role of Amos, Roxie Hart's wronged husband -- isn't meant to be a dominant force. He's supposed to be there without being there, do this showy number, and not be there again. Amos is at the other end of the spectrum from Grey's most famous role, the amoral emcee in Cabaret, for which he won a Tony Award, plus an Oscar for the movie adaptation.

Six Degrees of Nine and Chicago

The family that plays together -- or, at least, the family where the wife plays across the street from her husband -- stays together.
That was Melanie Griffith's thinking after hubby Antonio Banderas' Broadway debut as ladies' man Guido Contini in Nine at the O'Neill Theater on 49th Street. Instead of enduring a bi-coastal marriage, Griffith made her Broadway debut, too, as man-killer Roxie Hart in Chicago, literally across the street at the Ambassador.

From Floyd To Florence, With Saturn In Between

Adam Guettel stands on the brink of a great career. Maybe two. He's certain to be an important composer for the American musical theater. And possibly he could be a star performer, attracting audiences with his voice and his stage presence. He's slender and handsome, sings gorgeously and plays at least four instruments.

Jim Dale: Kidding Aside

Jim Dale is jumping for joy. Literally.  He rushes from the single digit temperatures and arctic winds of the New 42nd Street into the warmth of West Bank Cafe and shakes himself down. It may be downright frigid outside, but Dale is filled with the warmth of the accolades he and his cast in Trevor Griffiths' Comedians are receiving. The New Group's revival, directed by Scott Elliott, has many critics touting the ensemble as the best so far this season.

Flatt Raised High

Robyn Baker Flatt, founding artistic director of Dallas Children's Theater in 1984, was inducted into the prestigious College of Fellows of the American Theater on April 22, 2007 in a ceremony at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

This was an honor also bestowed in 1996 upon her father, Paul Baker, founding artistic Director in 1959 of Dallas Theater Center. Ms. Flatt's award marks only the second time in the 42-year history of the organization that members of two generations of the same family have received this honor.

Grand Banner Season for Granville-Barker

Can you imagine that there was a playwright George Bernard Shaw envied? Better still, that he would admit there was a playwright he envied?

Shaw was so impressed with the talent -- and success -- of post-Victorian era leading light Harley Granville-Barker that he actually wrote Misalliance as an answer play to Barker's then hit, The Madras House, about family, courtship, marriage, marital separation, commerce, greed, sexual politics and harassment.

Hamburger Helper

To understand Richard Hamburger's role as artistic director of Dallas Theater Center, one needs to follow the path of how he got there. He is only the fourth permanent artistic director in DTCs 42+ year history (its first production was in December 1959).  Hamburger stepped into some formidable shoes and a powerful legacy when he assumed the post in 1992.

Sing, Sang, Sung

Two eras came to an end over the Labor Day weekend, and, by coincidence, they were related to each other. Firstly, when Lionel Hampton died at age 94, it marked a finality to the swing-era generation. Benny Goodman was the King of Swing, and Hampton was the last surviving member of the landmark Goodman quartet that not only set new standards in jazz but also integrated the pop music industry.

You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet: Stephen Mo Hanan

You've seen him as Captain Hook in the Peter Pan revival, or as Growltiger/Asparagus in Cats (Tony nomination, Best Featured Actor in a Musical) or the NYSF production of  The Pirates of Penzance.  In fact, Stephen Mo Hanan's credits roll on and on. He's known as a singer/actor's singer/actor. Now you can add writer to his credits. And star turn. His Al Jolson in the York Theater Company's world premiere of Jolson & Co., which he co-wrote with director Jay Berkow) is a showstopper.

Ed Harris Is Taking Sides

Ed Harris' popularity in such movie blockbusters as last summer's "The Rock" and 1995's "Apollo 13" (Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor) has kept him busy in front of and, as producer, behind the camera.  But he yearned to return to the stage, where he had triumphs on and off Broadway.  However, on his first read of Taking Sides by Ronald Harwood (1982 Tony-nomination for The Dresser), Harris felt his character, American army Major Steve Arnold, was too cut and dried.  Arnold is assigned to the American sector of 1946 occupied Berlin to investigate symphony conductor Wi

The Belle Returns To Amherst

Julie Harris, in the midst of a revival tour of her 1976 hit, The Belle of Amherst, says these are her farewell performances of the play.  She's not retiring from the stage - just retiring the role. "I'm 75 years old," she says, "and the character I'm playing [poet Emily Dickinson] is 55. I'm getting too old. When I started the play I was just 50."

It's Far From `All Over' for Rosemary Harris

The place is Afghanistan 1934, the northwest frontier territory, what was once a part of India. Upon a makeshift, stage a family-staged theatrical is in progress. The seductive "Dance of the Seven Veils" is reaching its climax (i.e., Princess Salome's seventh veil is about to drop). Standing in the wings, Queen Herodias gets her cue. In high dudgeon, she makes her grand entrance. "I had no words to speak, but I put my nose in the air, kicked my train and made my way slowly across the stage, looking with disgust at the King and Salome, and made my exit.

May the Schwartz Be With Us

Two themes run repeatedly through the songs of Stephen Schwartz. One is magic, the other is family.

Stephen Schwartz has continually, and pointedly, written about parent-child relationships. Think about Pippin and his father, Charlemagne, in Pippin. Geppetto and his puppet-son, Pinocchio, in the TV musical "Geppetto." Judge Frollo, the surrogate father of Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Marian Seldes -- First Lady?

In a note in the program of his play, Dedication or The Stuff of Dreams, Terrence McNally writes that the work was completed in 2002. The other night, following a preview performance, he said he didn't write the role of wealthy matron Annabelle Willard with a particular actress in mind. "But now that I've seen Marian Seldes in the part," he said, "I can't imagine anyone else in the role." He went on to say that he wasn't smart enough to see her in the role until director Scott Ellis suggested the part had her name written all over it.

Danny Burstein on the Wall

I've known Danny Burstein since he was 15 or 16, when he played Og the leprechaun in an amateur production of Finian's Rainbow as I ran the follow spot. I'd be lying if I told you that I jumped up and shouted, "That kid is going to be a star!" But I sure could see that Danny was exceptionally talented -- and I would have probably bet that, with any luck at all, he'd have a fine career as a professional actor.

Selyabration

When you see Movin' Out, Broadway's dance musical built around Billy Joel tunes that enters its third year Tuesday, you might think John Selya is superhuman. He soars through the air faster than a speeding bullet and does dizzying, whirling-dervish spins, suspending audiences in a state of disbelief.

Michele Shay: Lady In Waiting

Fresh from her scene-stealing, Tony-nominated triumph on Broadway in August Wilson's Seven Guitars, Michele Shay is again scene-stealing and triumphant Off Broadway (Vineyard Theater, 108 East 15th Street) in Lisa Loomer's melodrama, The Waiting Room. In this play, about three women -- from different cultures and different centuries -- who come together in their doctor's waiting room, Shay, portraying five characters, provides much of the comic relief.

Michael Siberry: The Captain Is On Course

The Playbill note on the cast page at the Broadway revival of The Sound of Musicreads: "Michael Siberry is appearing with the permission of Actors' Equity Association pursuant to an exchange program between American Equity and British Equity." That statement usually means quite a fuss went on between producers and American Equity to get a leading man from the U.K. because they feel he's best for the job. And it usually means that actor isn't a star or known by Broadway theatergoers. In the case of Siberry, nothing could be further from the truth. But there's a catch.

For Henry Krieger & Bill Russell, Side Show is a Family Business

When it's mentioned to book writer/lyricist Bill Russell and composer Henry Krieger that their Side Show is the most anticipated new musical since Titanic, Russell's dropped jaw spoke volumes. It was hard to know if he was thinking about the pre-Tony nomination buzz or the post-Tony Awards buzz for that show.

Jean Smart Commutes From TV & Film To The Stage

In her TV and stage career, Jean Smart has alternated regularly between comedy and drama, but her star turn in "a role to die for," as flamboyant stage star Lorraine Sheldon in The Man Who Came To Dinner, certainly proves she was born to play comedy. The Roundabout Theatre Company production of the classic 1939 Kaufman and Hart play, headlining Nathan Lane and directed by Jerry Zaks, debuts their new home, the restored Selwyn Theater, now the American Airlines Theater, on New 42nd Street.

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