ATW NewsClips - National, Industry Print

Wall Street Journal

And the Tony Goes to…
Cast your vote on who will walk away with theater's highest honors at the annual Tony Awards this Sunday. [Sort of cool interactive feature]

Variety

'August: Osage' to kick off tour in SF
Curran Theater stages acclaimed Letts drama

Rebeck's 'Understudy' names stars
Kristen Johnston, Bradley Cooper set for play

'Still Alive' ends tour on West End
French & Saunders sets date for debut

Review: Dickens Unplugged
It's not called "The Complete Works of Charles Dickens (Abridged)," but it might as well be. Written, directed by and starring Reduced Shakespeare Company co-founder Adam Long, "Dickens Unplugged" bears all the hallmarks of the Reduced Company's approach ...

Review: The Hired Man
The bare-bones production of Melvin Bragg and Howard Goodall's "The Hired Man," playing for a fortnight at 59E59, can be viewed as a blueprint for what might be a remarkable musical. The advertisements call it "arguably the finest new British musical of the last 30 years." ...

Review: A Doll's House
The Connecticut-based Bated Breath Theater is mounting its first-ever production in New York, and just like the company itself, the results are embryonic. Directing her own translation of Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House," a.d. Helene Kvale delivers interesting ideas that desperately need to grow.

Review: Afterlife
Peter Davison's symmetrical, white stone set, with low, stagewide stairs giving way to arches topped with classical pediments is a grand utterance in keeping with the tone of "Afterlife." But for all the elegance of its intellectual conception, dramatically speaking Michael Frayn's disappointing new play proves to be equally monolithic.

Review: Show Boat in Concert
The dulcet tones of Jerome Kern's overture to "Show Boat" wafted through the halls of Carnegie on Tuesday night, with those golden melodies -- "Old Man River," "Why Do I Love You?" "Make Believe," "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" -- pouring out over an appreciative audience. A streamlined rendition of the Kern-Hammerstein masterpiece followed, clocking in at slightly more than two hours and offering impressive moments from some fine performers in an evening that seemed to evaporate in the second act.

Back Stage

The Hired Man reviewed by Harry Forbes
Flaws notwithstanding, Goodall's unique sound palette, the work's earnest integrity, and the show's place in West End theatre lore make this production worth investigating.

In Search of My Father...Walkin' Talkin' Bill Hawkins reviewed by Harry Forbes
Actor W. Allen Taylor has turned his youthful quest to discover first his father's identity and then what sort of man he was into a compelling and suspenseful one-man vehicle.

Aldridge & Lena reviewed by Robert Windeler
We can't get a whole life story told in 45 minutes, but, as Aldridge proves, you can achieve its essence.

Associated Press

Report: 2 million artists in US, many struggling
Santa Fe, N.M., calls itself ''The City Different,'' a community ''brimming with bright, creative, and energetic residents.'' It is, according to a new report from the National Endowment for the Arts, overflowing with inspiration.