AmericanTheaterWeb Blog

2009-02-23T16:13:00.001-05:00

AmericanTheaterWeb Update for Tuesday, July 22, 2008

2008-07-22T04:56:00.002-04:00

Well, took the site pretty much live yesterday. Had some notes about changes you'd like to see - will work on trying to implement some over the next week or so.

Just in case you're seeing this and wondering 'where are the clips' - you can just use the old URL www.americantheaterweb.com to get to the new pages. The news is in process - ATWTopNews should be done by about 7:30AM EST. Until then, you can scroll through the ATWClips.

Best,

Andy

AmericanTheaterWeb Update for Monday, July 21, 2008

2008-07-21T04:57:00.003-04:00

Well, it's 4:57AM here on the East Coast - and I'm at it. London newsclips just went up at www.americantheaterweb.info I'm going to continue just doing one set of links this week - email me if you find that difficult. I'm hoping that today or tomorrow, we might all start being directed there, so, with fingers crossed...

Andy

p.s. Remember that until the full newsclips are done, you can find each portion of the clipping at http://www.americantheaterweb.info/index.php/atwclips/

AmericanTheaterWeb Update for Sunday, July 20, 2008

2008-07-20T05:41:00.001-04:00

Well, it's just about 5:40 here on the East Coast - the first posts are going up on www.americantheaterweb.info I should have the ATWTopNews done by 7:30AM or so. Until then, if you drop by and want to see the news 'in process' - click on ATWClips at the top right of the page, or click through to here: http://www.americantheaterweb.info/index.php/atwclips/

Hope you're having a good weekend!

Andy

AmericanTheaterWeb Update for Saturday July 19, 2008

2008-07-19T05:49:00.000-04:00

Want to try something this weekend. Am only going to do the news over at the beta - www.americantheaterweb.info

Hope you like what you find there!

Andy Propst

aTW NewsClips - London

2008-07-19T05:36:00.000-04:00

Daily Telegraph

ATW NewsClips - Late Day Links

2008-07-18T16:10:00.002-04:00

Associated Press

Singer and radio star Jo Stafford dies at 90
Jo Stafford, the honey-voiced band singer who starred in radio and television and sold more than 25 million records with her ballads and folks songs, has died. She was 90.

New York Times ArtsBeat Blog

London Theater Journal: Back to New York, Onstage at Least
In anticipation of my return to sweltering New York City on Sunday, I went to sweltering New York City on Thursday night. I found it a most invigorating place – probably quite a bit more than I will the real thing. It helps when hot-weather discomfort and hostility – […]

amNY New York City Blog

Interview with Nancy Lemenager on Playing Velma

New York Magazine Vulture Blog

‘[title of show]’ Makes Everyone Feel [name of emotion]

Chad Jones' Theater Dogs Blog

Review: `Ishi: The Last of the Yahi”
Fisher’s `Ishi’ horrifies, fascinates

Back Stage

Craig Pomranz reviewed by David Finkle
What's instantly lovable about Craig Pomranz isn't his easy way on a stage, the unforced smile, the loose body language — although all of that is certainly appealing.

Can I Help You? reviewed by Christopher Murray
"Alphonse, you are going to feel a big needle." Nine words blandly spoken but likely to strike terror in the heart of poor Alphonse — and a typical moment in the experimental collaborative Exploding Moment's new work.

Back Stage MITF Reviews

Zen and the Art of Doing Nothing
Zen and the Art of Doing Nothing, written and directed by Michael Wallach, has flashes of originality, even brilliance, crammed into a creaky backstage story of a nervous actor pressured by a domineering father (Brad Russell).

Back Stage West Reviews

The Drowsy Chaperone
Yes, there are curmudgeonly naysayers to this loving spoof of 1920s musical theatre, but what could they be thinking?

Henry V
Rarely have Shakespeare's other historical dramas reached the grandeur of this one, the Bard's portrayal of "good King Harry," the Lancastrian monarch who won the Battle of Agincourt.

Spring's Awakening
musical. Frank Wedekind (1864-1918) was ahead of his time with this powerful 1891 tragedy of adolescence and sexual repression in rural Germany.

The Wizard of Oz
It feels like Christmas in July as Musical Theatre West offers an enchanting and visually spectacular revisit to this stage adaptation of the beloved 1939 MGM movie

An Evening of Music and Comedy Starring Debbie Reynolds
It must be nice to be Debbie Reynolds. Now, I mean. Because despite the unfortunate marriages and the not wholly grateful children, she seems remarkably comfortable where she is.

Dupe
The word dupe can refer to a person who is deceived by others, or it can be a copy of a negative from which additional copies can be made, thus saving the original.

Playbill

* McCarthy, Lumbard, Patterson, Page, Fleming and More Cast in Muny's My One and Only
* PLAYBILL ON OPENING NIGHT: [title of show] — Did You Ever See a Dream Walking?
* Controversial Stitching Extends Off-Broadway to Aug. 2; Ventimiglia Joins Cast
* PLAYBILL.COM'S THEATRE WEEK IN REVIEW, July 12-18: The Helen Hayes Gets a Second Act

TheaterMania

* Dacal, de Jesus, Gomez, et al. Set for Reading of Hudes' Yemaya's Belly
* Donna McKechnie to Star in Reagle Players' No, No, Nanette

nytheatre.com

Reviews: Fresh Fruit Festival: Bed and Breakfast and Theater Boys

The Playgoer Blog

Inside the RNT
Nice little 2-minute interview with the National's Nick Hytner embedded into Michael Riedel's column today.

nytheatre Mike 2.0 Blog

There’s No Clock in the Forest
It’s been a light week for posting here on the ol’ blog. That’s because I’ve been knee-deep in “tech” rehearsals for my latest show,...

ATW NewsClips - Mid-Afternoon Links

2008-07-18T13:07:00.002-04:00

Orlando Sentinel Attention Must Be Paid Blog

Puppet events for July

Fort Worth Star-Telegram Pop Cultural District Blog

High School Musical(s) move into the bigtime
Not talking about Disney's juggernaut, but actual musicals performed by students at real high schools

Chicago Tribune Theater Loop Blog

Want to see the hottest British show of last year? Road trip to Complicite..
One show has utterly dominated the British theater awards in the last year or so. And it wasn't by David Hare or Tom Stoppard or Harold Pinter. It was Complicite's production of "A Disappearing Number." Simon McBurney's company-devised show won...

New York Magazine Vulture Blog

Vulture Crush Dominic Cooper on ‘Mamma Mia!’ and Why He’s No Heartthrob

Playbill

* Warren, Graham, Ewoldt, Kromer, Hurst and Thomas Set for Free DCT Readings
* Spin Will Feature Short Plays by Rapp, Gionfriddo, Thompson and More
* DeLaria Will Sing Arlen, Porter, LaChiusa and More on New CD, "The Live Smoke Sessions"
* Little Fish Recording, with Ripley, Jbara and Kimball, Due in September
* Barnaba Will Be Truman in Give Em Hell Harry! Beginning July 20 Off-Broadway
* Camp Broadway to Perform in Macy's Parade; Auditions Held July 19

TheaterMania

[title] characters
Betty Buckley, Barrett Foa, Megan Hilty, Derek Keeling, Aaron Lazar, S. Epatha Merkerson, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Anthony Rapp and a host of stars attend the opening of Broadway's [title of show].

* American Idol's Davis, Guarini, Hernandez, Locke, to Play Rrazz Room This Summer
* High School Musical: Get in the Picture Begins ABC Run on July 20
* Wilton, West Join Anderson, Branagh, Jacobi in Donmar Warehouse Season

The Producer's Perspective Blog

The sequel to sequels.
So Les Miserables II: One Show More is out of the question.
Ditto to the sibling sequel Thoroughly Modern Molly.

The Guardian - Performing Arts Blog

Matt Wolf: West Side Story in Spanish? You're talking my language now

London Theatre Guide

Gate announces season of premieres and Sadler’s transfer
A new adaptation of Hedda Gabler, the world premiere of a new dance theatre piece and the UK premiere of German playwright Falk Richter’s State Of Emergency comprise the Gate’s new season.

ATW NewsClips - Mid-Morning Links

2008-07-18T10:27:00.002-04:00

amNY New York City Theater Blog

Morning News: Friday, July 18, 2008

UPI

Suit: Woman humiliated by flight attendant
Carolyn "Lynne" Meadow, the artistic director of the prestigious Manhattan Theatre Club, claims in her suit against Continental Airlines...

Playbill

* Sondheim's Saturday Night to Play London's Jermyn Street Theatre in 2009
* Casting Announced for What to Do When You Hate All Your Friends
* Gurney, Tale of Two Cities and Finn Tribute Featured on Playbill Radio July 22-29
* Mormon Boy's London Run Canceled
* Wilton and West to Star in Donmar's Family Reunion
* Actors Fund Launches Online Store
[for eash of use: http://www.actorsfund.org/]

TheaterMania

* Aubrey O'Day to Join Broadway's Hairspray on July 18

The Guardian Performing Arts Blog

Lyn Gardner: What to see this week

Whatsonstage.com

Lee Mead Removes West End Dreamcoat on 10 Jan

Whatsonstage.com - Off-West End & Fringe

Mad London Fundraising Festival This August
TheatreMAD, the theatre charity who fundraise for those affected by HIV, AIDS and other critical illness, are to stage a London Fringe festival as part of their...

London Theatre Guide

Warehouse welcomes West and Wilton
Samuel West and Penelope Wilton return to the Donmar Warehouse to star in T S Eliot’s The Family Reunion, which opens on 25 November, after previews from 20 November.

Atkins sympathises with Greer
Eileen Atkins, star of new comedy The Female Of The Species, spoke of her sympathy for Germaine Greer following the show’s press night.

ATW Review - After Years of Development, [title of show] Reaches Broadway, Delightfully

2008-07-18T08:42:00.001-04:00

Something interesting and thoroughly unique happens in the telling the history of Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell's joyful musical [title of show]; as the piece's four-year development process is related, the plot description of the show also unfolds.

Bowen and Bell wrote this intimate show about writing a musical for the New York Musical Theater Festival (NYMF) and the piece debuted in that Festival in 2004. Subsequently, 'show' was developed at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut and, then, it ran off-Broadway in an extended, and ultimately commercial, run at the Vineyard Theatre in 2006. Last night, nearly a full four years since Bowen and Bell developed the piece for NYMF, [title of show] opened on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre. It's not for nothing that there's a reason why there PLAYBILL cover for 'show' is a picture of the production's PLAYBILL; this is a delightful New York theater industry hall of mirrors.

Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen in [title of show]
Photo: Carol Rosegg

At this juncture, most New Yorkers have heard something about the piece with book by Bell and music and lyrics by Bowen (they also play themselves in "show"). It's been profiled extensively during its many incarnations, reviewed repeatedly, and in the time since its off-Broadway run, been the subject of an online video project "the [title of show] show" – also created by and featuring Bowen and Bell.

Theatergoers' familiarity with the piece and its history, though, does not dampen the joy that comes with experiencing the musical. There's a freshness and irreverence that's inherent to the material that captures one on both a first visit and return trips. Given that the last third or so of the show has been redeveloped to reflect what's taken place in both the lives of the creators and their co-stars (Susan Blackwell and Heidi Blickenstaff) and the development of the show itself, event those people who caught "show" two years ago, will be in for a few surprises. Blickenstaff's need to juggle "show" and her work in Broadway's The Little Mermaid, for instance, has been added in to the musical for its Broadway engagement.

But it's not just the story of writing the musical that is found here. Bell's book contains almost Pirandellian layering (which has been perfectly calibrated by director and choreographer Michael Berresse). Bowen's infectious score contains an equal number of Escher-like twists and turns. Many of his songs pull one in and out of the action of writing the piece and performing it (which very quickly blurs into one sort of gleeful haze).

Within this haze there are a multitude of showbiz jokes and insider quips, ranging from a strain of the ill-fated musical Henry, Sweet Henry to random lines from Into the Woods. There's a running joke in the show about the actresses whom Bell and Bowen invite to participate in the project. Periodically between scenes, an answering machine beep signals a message that they've received from a Broadway diva. These voiceovers can be hysterical.

Heidi Blickenstaff, Susan Blackwell, Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen in ['title of show]
Photo: Carol Rosegg

"show" also has enormous heart – Bell and Bowen have written what might be one of the ultimate valentines to not only musical theater, but also to the people who love them, and in instances like this, create them. Bowen's ode to the dreams that young people have about becoming part of the city's theatrical community – "A Way Back to Then" – truly encapsulates the soft and truly endearing emotional center that's the heart of "show."

As the piece unfolds within the confines of a rehearsal room with four mismatched chairs (from scenic designer Neil Patel), Bell, Blackwell, Blickenstaff and Bowen – along with accompanist Larry Pressgrove – prove both amusing and touching, and in the case of Bell and Bowen, who rarely leave the stage, indefatigable. Perhaps most important, the quartet manges to navigate the hairpin turns of the piece's various realities, even as they deliver Bell's quips with aplomb and Bowen's songs with gusto.

Susan Blackwell, Jeff Bowwn, Heidi Blickenstaff and Hunter Bell ['title of show]
Photo: Carol Rosegg
When combined, the performers' verve and the production's ability to navigate the script's quicksilver tone changes make [title of show] a truly refreshing and winning night at the theater. It's great to finally have this piece on Broadway.

---- Andy Propst

---------------------------

[title of show plays at the Lyceum Theatre (149 West 45th Street). Performances are Monday, Tuesday and Friday at 8pm; Saturday at 3 and 8pm; and Sunday at 3 and 7:30pm. Tickets are $26.50 - $101.50 and can be purchased by calling 212-239-6200 or by visiting http://www.telecharge.com/. Further information is available online at http://www.titleofshow.com/.

ATW NewsClips - California, Pacific Northwest Print

2008-07-18T08:13:00.002-04:00

Los Angeles Times

'Sweet Charity'
The fast-paced Madrid Theatre production is full of spunk and pizazz.

A lynching yields a musical love story

'Henry IV' in Barnsdall Park
In its fifth season of free Shakespeare in Barnsdall Park, the Independent Shakespeare Company presents...

Peters writes a new role for herself
She has earned seven Tony nominations and a rapt fan base. Rebounding from...

King Henry is outnumbered
David Denman marches to Agincourt as Shakespeare's brave king, but the cast's...

Los Angeles Daily News

'Of Equal Measure' comes up short
One-sided direction, story don't deliver

Orange County Register

Shakespeare Orange County's 'Henry V' roars with British pride
The Garden Grove-based troupe's staging is a grand retelling of one of England's greatest military victories.

Dr. Seuss debuts this weekend at renovated Gem Theater
The Garden Grove theater reopens after extensive remodel with Seussical the Musical

Orange County Weekly

Getting Wet With Monica Palacios Before Her 'Greetings From a Queer Señorita' Runs at Breath

San Francisco Chronicle

Still Current
During the Lorca Summer Festival, the Pangs Theater ensemble is staging the three plays that made Federico Garcia Lorca's theatrical reputation: "The Blood Wedding," "Yerma" and "The House of Bernarda Alba."

San Francisco Examiner

Kudos: Ruth Felt
Occupation Founder and president of SF Performances

Chad Jones' Theater Dogs Blog

Eugenie Chan spins into Avant GardARAMA!

Contra Costa Times

Hit musical 'Drowsy Chaperone' got its start at a stag party
Fortunately, the betrothed were good comedy writers

Seattle Times

Three reviews of Shakespeare shows outdoors

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

The union of Shakespeare groups is far from a marriage of star-crossed lovers
Merger of Seattle Shakespeare Company and Wooden O was a marriage that just made sense.

See all of 'Angels in America' -- but with two casts, in two theaters
For the next few weeks, avid Tony Kushner fans can shuttle between two fringe productions to see both parts of "Angel in America," "Millennium Approaches" and "Perestroika," with two different casts.

The Oregonian

Take a ticket for classic fare
Tobias Andersen is a prominent actor on Portland-area stages, playing key roles in such high-profile productions as Artists Rep's adaptation of "Uncle Vanya" (the one that starred William Hurt)....

Five Live: Performance
2. "Man to Man" Inspired by the performance methods of late Portlander Scott Kelman, the U.K.-based Kelman Group presents a one-woman show about gender switching and ...
3. "21A" Vancouver company Arts Equity crosses the river this year while looking for a new permanent home. First up: Joey LeBard stars in the multi-character solo show, ...

ATW NewsClips - Mid-West, Southwest and Mountain Print

2008-07-18T07:39:00.002-04:00

Chicago Tribune

Unvoiced thoughts come through loud and clear
The five solo performers in "A Dreadful Day" are among the best the in city, their monologues like short stories you want to clutch to your chest. If that sounds dorky, you have yet to encounter the pleasures herein.

Stage ticker
[theater notes]

Chicago Tribune Theater Loop Blog

'Hizzoner' cancelled for summer, Giuntoli in hospital
The July and August performances of the Prop Thtr Group's long-running hit "Hizzoner" at the Beverly Arts Center have been cancelled, due to the hospitalization of star Neil Giuntoli. According to a spokesman for the show, Giuntoli has a staph...

Robert Sella to play Salieri at Chicago Shakespeare
The high-profile New York actor Robert Sella is to play Salieri in Gary Griffin's upcoming production of Peter Shaffer's "Amadeus" at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. The show begins performances Sept. 6 on Navy Pier in the mainstage Courtyard Theatre. If you've...

Chicago Sun-Times

'Mamma Mia' leaves its actors a bit stranded
I saw the stage version of "Mamma Mia!" in London, where for all I know, it is now entering the second century of its run, and I was underwhelmed. The film version has the advantage of possessing Meryl Streep, ...

Writers get 'First Look' at their new plays
...that opportunity is the main objective of First Look Repertory of New Work, Steppenwolf Theater's summertime showcase of plays staged in rotating rep at the Merle Reskin Garage Theater.

Stage notes

Daily Herald

Merry 'Much Ado'
Just as pride can't frustrate the budding romance of loquacious lovers Beatrice and Benedick and a bit of slander can't divide

Noble Fool hosts two crowd pleasers

Flawed 'Mamma Mia' still fun
As a movie musical, "Mamma Mia!" is a mess. But a most amusing mess. It features

Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Give her an inch ...
Ann Michels returns to the role that launched her on a rocket ride in Twin Cities musical theater.

Putting some razzle-dazzle on Hennepin
Hennepin Avenue stars: Minnesota to get its own Walk of Fame

OnStage: 'Annie Get Your Gun'
Opening: Last year we were writing stories about Laura Osnes going from Minnesota community theater to Broadway

St. Paul Pioneer Press

Minneapolis / Theater copes with director's ouster
About 50 members of the area's dance and theater community gathered late Wednesday night in support of Jeff Bartlett, the longtime artistic director of the Southern Theater, whose ouster was made public earlier this week.

Give her an 'Inch,' and she'll take a smile
Actress/singer Ann Michels was drawn to "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" because of its messy, meaningful story.

Detroit Free Press

'Ladies of Harmony' opens at Broadway Onstage
The first show of the 15th season for Broadway Onstage opens at 8 p.m. This comedy by Ohio playwright Ron Hill is about a Harmony Church committee, reluctantly planning a funeral dinner for a man they all despise.

Louisville Courier-Journal

Cast shines in Bunbury's 'Moon'
What makes Bunbury Theatre's production of Ken Ludwig's ""Moon Over Buffalo" worth hearing and seeing is a cast committed to the wacky physicality and boundless energy needed to make the show funny

Cleveland Plain Dealer OnStage Blog

Newest photo tour of Great Lakes Theater Festival's $14.7 million renovation of Playhouse Square's historic Hanna Theatre

Sneak peek: 'Mamma Mia!' promotional video from PlayhouseSquare

Cleveland Scene

Bummer Summer
A time-share gets bloodied in Bang and Clatter's Betty's Summer Vacation

Capsule reviews of current area theater presentations

Cincinnati Enquirer

Meet 'West Side Story' gang
Jersey Productions moves to the Aronoff Center's Jarson-Kaplan Theater for a trio of shows, starting with a revival of "West Side Story."

'Edges' smoothes path to adulthood
The song cycle "Edges," a revue about the struggles of becoming an adult, gets its regional premiere at Contemporary Arts Center.

'Park' perfect for a stroll
"Barefoot in the Park," the Neil Simon comedy about newlyweds trying to start a new life together, opens this week at the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company.

CinStages.com

Remembering Jim Campbell
Essential member of the Playhouse family for more than ten years.

Dallas Morning News

Festival of Independent Theatres kicks off with weirdly wonderful double bill
The Festival of Independent Theatres celebrated the opening of its 10th season on Thursday with perhaps the weirdest double bill in a decade. Not that there's anything wrong with weird in the world of independent theaters.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

10th annual Festival of Independent Theatres
It's time for the 10th annual Festival of Independent Theatres, and if doesn't look like FIT has grown all that much in a decade, consider how important it has been to Dallas' fringe-theater scene, which is arguably bigger than ever.

TV, stage actor replaces Phillips in Casa production
Casa Mañana has announced a replacement [Richard Kind] for Lou Diamond Phillips in its upcoming production of the classic Richard Adler/Jerry Ross musical Damn Yankees.

Upcoming: Jersey Boys, Fort Worth Guitar Guild Festival, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
The national tour of the Tony-winning musical "Jersey Boys," about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, comes to Dallas for three weeks.

Houston Chronicle

Broadway class of 2008
Classic revivals, new voices share the New York stage in a strong year for the musical.

Austin American-Statesman

Review: "The Clean House"

Denver Post

"Hot L" comes back to life at Barth

"End Days" is a promising start

Rocky Mountain News

BORNSTEIN: 'End' finds a lost family feeling its way through dark days

Music takes center stage in Buddy Holly story

Daily Camera

Disney's 'High School Musical 'hits local stages
Jeff Calhoun didn't know what he was getting into when he took the job as director of the national tour of Disney's "High School Musical."

Review: 'How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying'

ATW NewsClips - Mid-Atlantic, New England, and Southern Print

2008-07-18T07:22:00.003-04:00

Washington Post

Signature Series Channels New York's Sizzle
Signature Theatre is bringing a New York nightclub vibe to Shirlington. For a series of cabaret performances running through Aug. 1, the theater has transformed its smaller performance space into an intimate club, complete with small tables, candlelight, wine and food, sultry singers and a grand...

A 'La Mancha' Without the Musical Majesty
A serving of brawling and blarney is one thing, but a Broadway musical is altogether something else. Can Keegan Theatre, the scrappy local specialist in Irish drama, really hold its own doing "Man of La Mancha"?

With Olney's Young Actors, 'Big River' Washes Over the Top
Watch 'em float in silhouette -- it's Huck and Jim, gliding down the Mississippi in Olney Theatre Center's romantically lighted production of "Big River."

Fringe Festival at a Glance

Mini Reviews

'Mamma Mia!': Gotta Love It, Like It or Not

Philadelphia Inquirer

Making a show about making a show
So {title of show} is a new musical about four people trying mightily to create a new musical. But don't stop there. The actors playing the roles are ...

'Mamma Mia,' here we go again - this time on screen

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

PICT celebrates Synge by staging complete cycle of plays
"It is Ireland's sacred duty," joked English critic Kenneth Tynan in 1956, "to send over, every few years, a playwright to save the English theater from inarticulate glumness." ...
* Synge cycle information

Movie Review: 'Mamma Mia!'
We might admire the breathless audacity, if not the morning-after wisdom, of the casting: In trying to think of a worse choice than Pierce Brosnan as the male star of a pop musical, the only name ...

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Award winners to get Broadway opportunity
The 2009 winners of the Gene Kelly Awards for best actress and actor will have a chance to perform at Broadway's Palace Theatre.

Boston Globe

Stages: Gold pumps, leopard prints are back again

Orlando Sentinel

'The Wind in the Willows' performed by IceHouse

Miami Herald Drama Queen Blog

Women undercover
Most theater companies save their world premieres for "the season," roughly October through May when both year-round residents and snowbirds make for a deeper ticket-buying pool. But Fort Lauderdale's Women's Theatre Project is taking a different approach, aiming to cure the summertime arts blues with a brand-new work about the girls in blue...

Sun-Sentinel

The Hate U Gave: The Tupac Shakur Story, a review
The Hate U Gave: The Tupac Shakur Story may be the most thought-provoking and lacerating evening in South Florida theater this season.

Sarasota Herald-Tribune 24/7 Blog

Theater plays prominent role in Emmy nominations

St. Petersburg Times

American Stage, Ruth Eckerd add administrators

Show Palace unveils 2009-10 season

The Fabulous ’50s and ’60s Revue will return in mid 2009. The 2006 version set an attendance record. The 2009 version will have new dances and songs and even a segment for requests from the audience.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution ATLArts Blog

NBAF THEATER: 'The Amen Corner'

NBAF theater: 'Hallelujah Street Blues'

Atlanta Creative Loafing Fresh Loaf Blog

The Color Purple glows at the Fox

Charlotte News & Observer

Abba dabblers do too little
Theater fans who love a good yarn could only be disappointed by the skeletal tale at the heart of the Broadway musical "Mamma Mia!" The characters are sketchy.

ATW NewsClips - Tri-State Print

2008-07-18T07:01:00.003-04:00

New York Times

Puttin’ on the Put-On, With Tunes
“[title of show]” is genial, unpretentious and far funnier than many of the more expensively manufactured musicals that make it to Broadway these days
* Audio Slide Show

In the Berkshires, Some Heavy Hitters, Some Smaller Sluggers
Marquee-name playwrights, directors and actors lend an air of glamour, fill the houses and help keep the bills paid at the main stages at these Massachusetts festivals.

Does Your Mother Know You Sing Abba Tunes?
You can have a perfectly nice time watching this spirited adaptation of the popular stage musical and, once the hangover wears off, acknowledge just how bad it is.

New York Times ArtsBeat Blog

London Theater Journal: Hitting Bottom
I was very sad when the armed intruder put a gag in Eileen Atkins’s mouth on Wednesday night. Ms. Atkins, an actress of incomparably incisive style, had seemed to be the only hope that “The Female of the Species,” Joanna Murray-Smith’s sitcom about feminism under siege, might be worth listening...

New York Daily News

ABBA musical slips on some Greece
You want it to be great, don't you? The soundtrack, the cast, the history: Everything about "Mamma Mia!" makes it the ideal summer fling. Except, alas, the experience itself.

'[title of show]': Little musical that could
People often wonder how a show gets to Broadway. One way is to come up with a quirky idea: Make a musical about making a musical and enter it into a theater festival, where you get noticed.

'Forbidden' revue takes cue from reality TV
Summer is grilling season. That sizzling sound and roasted aroma coming from the 47th Street Theatre are stage stars getting the hibachi treatment (i.e., scorched) in "Forbidden Broadway Dances With the Stars!"

Hot Seats: Theater and comedy picks
Seasoned comedy king Sinbad is back on stage at Caroline's, sure to leave you rolling in the aisles. For some drama, catch performances of iconic writer Samuel Beckett's one-man dramas at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater.

amNY

[title of show]: Love it or hate it
When Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen announced last year on the "[title of show] show," their internet television series, that they intended to take their hit Off-Broadway musical "[title of show]" to Broadway, no one took them seriously.

amNY New York City Theater Blog

Spiderman Musical Holds Open Casting Call

Newsday

Theater review: '1968: Rock the World'
"Rock the World" is a must-see for those who were alive in 1968, and even more so for those who weren't.

Review: [Title of Show]

Theater review: 'Beauty and the Beast'

New York Post

Riedel: Irons ever so good
Top job in Brit pol drama

Haunting Liam's dead on
Less than a year after Mikhail Baryshnikov performed it as part of a Samuel Beckett evening, "Eh Joe" is back, this time via

This Broadway musical really [expletive]
Originality isn't what it used to be. Take "[title of show]," a Broadway musical - 95 minutes long, top ticket price $111...

Abba Dabba Do
Streep belts out songs, wears overalls and does a split in "Mamma Mia!," an exuberant if not always brilliantly crafted adaptation...

New York Sun

The Mega-Meta-Micro-Musical
If you see only one mega-meta-micro-musical this year, make it "[title of show]."...

New York Journal-News

[title] fills in the blanks
A little musical about writing a little musical makes it to Broadway — and its finale is about making it to Broadway. It's fresh, smart and funny.

Shakespeare, bloody Shakespeare
Bravely and confidently, the Rockland Shakespeare Company has picked "Titus Andronicus" for its 10th anniversary production at Rockland Community College. A Shakespearean punster would call it a hack's work, because hacking of limbs, heads and the odd tongue are part of the action.

ny1

"{title of show}"
"{title of show}" is the ironic-generic meta-musical that popped up four years ago in the Off-Off New York Musical Theatre Festival.

New York Observer Culture Blog

9 To 5: The Musical Coming to Broadway

New York Magazine Vulture Blog

The ‘Mamma Mia!’ Cast Disagrees on Just How Comfy Colin Firth Was in Those Outfits

Hartford Courant

"[title of show]" A Feast For Stage Insiders

Star-Ledger

A musical with songs and words you'll remember
A smart musical about "two nobodies in New York" feverishly writing a musical about themselves writing a musical, "[title of show]" is a lovely and surprisingly resonant creation by composer Jeff Bowen and writer Hunter Bell.

Role is a feather in actor's (Yankee) cap
As he prepares to open "The Odd Couple" on Friday night, there's one thing Lou Liberatore is flatly refusing to do.

Mamma Mia! How dreadful!

Trenton Times

Opera NJ raises curtain on 'The Merry Widow'
Opera New Jersey will continue its repertory of three productions this week at McCarter's Berlind Theatre in Princeton, including the first two of four performances of Franz Lehar's "The Merry Widow" 8 p.m. today and 2 p.m. Sunday.

Off-key 'Mamma' for indulgent ABBA fans only

Bergen Record

Review: [title of show]

ATW NewsClips - National, Industry Print

2008-07-18T06:46:00.003-04:00

Associated Press

Two musical obsessives follow their dream to B'way
When we last saw Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen on stage, the two theater-obsessed lads were basking in the glow of a successful off-Broadway run in ''title of show,'' their delightful tale of writing and putting on a musical.

Variety

Sondheim re-ups with Warner
Icon's catalog spans more than 50 years

High School Theater to be feted
First round of trophies will be presented June 1

Cape Cod attracts big names
Summer program's current offering is 'Reality!

Marshall-Green, Pine join 'Beast'
Duo will play maimed Iraqi War vets

O'Neill Theater lines up cabaret
Event runs July 30-Aug. 9

Corddrys to play stage brothers
Crispin Whittell directing 'True West'

Review: [title of show]
...stripped of satirical edge for its heavy Broadway date, the backstage show by Hunter Bell (book) and Jeff Bowen (score) is revealed in all its narcissism, flaunting its shallow aesthetic values and taking unseemly pride in its inflated ambitions

Review: There Reigns Love
Ever since an afternoon in 1979 when he performed all 154 of Shakespeare's sonnets from the stage of the Olivier Theater in London, Simon Callow has taken an almost obsessive interest in these poetical works from the Bard of Avon. Now, in "There Reigns Love," he has rethought them in a more theatrical light. The final result, although still in need of some polishing, makes for high drama indeed.

Review; Eh Joe
It is an incontrovertible fact that Liam Neeson has the most beautiful -- and beautifully expressive -- upper back in the entire English-speaking theater. And that's a very good thing, since that broad, muscular back is pretty much all we get to see in the flesh of Neeson, who has the title role but not a single line of dialogue in Beckett's bleak 30-minute piece "Eh Joe," ...

Review: Zorro
Replete with arch putdowns and audience-nudging one-liners, tuner "Zorro" tries to put the camp in "gypsy encampment." Unfortunately, it also bangs on about honor, identity and dignity and takes itself so seriously it kills off its most winning personality -- a tragedy for both the remaining characters and the audience's enjoyment. Although tremendous flamenco stomping ...

USA Today

Streep is the dancing and singing queen in 'Mamma Mia!'

Bloomberg.com

Bossy-Boots Lover, Bad Flamenco, Wild Gypsies Harass Sexy Zorro in London
The London musical ``Zorro'' should have the qualities to make a night of passionate theater: dashing hero and flamenco from the best-selling Gipsy Kings.

Streep Dances, Brosnan Sings in Hummable, Syrupy `Mamma Mia': Rick Warner
Pierce Brosnan sings! Meryl Streep dances! Colin Firth plays guitar!

`[title of show]' Sinks; Durang Says `Boo' to Catholic Church: John Simon A familiar problem at birthdays is what to give the celebrant who has everything. The problem with reviewing ``[title of show],'' a vest-pocket and sweaty-collar musical, is what to say about a show that has nothing.

Wall Street Journal

Songs of Themselves
"[title of show]" comes across as a flyweight exercise in narcissism interspersed with fleeting moments of genuineness.

Q&A: Bill T. Jones on His New Musical "Fela!"

Christian Science Monitor

All the world on stage
New International theater festival in California offers audiences a window on foreign cultures – and shared stories.

Back Stage

The Desk Set
Most actors would undoubtedly love to find a supplemental job that's closer to their field — where they could learn things that might prove valuable in their craft.

Continuing Education
You've decided to find an acting teacher. That's a big enough decision in itself. So what else is there to think about in getting yourself back to class?

Undiscovered
Many actors arrive in Los Angeles with a fantasy about landing representation. In reality, nabbing an agent and/or manager is a process, and there's no one way to go about it.
[more Welcome to L.A. Coverage can be found at http://www.backstage.com/]

[title of show] reviewed by David Sheward
Can an intimate little musical with no stars and virtually no plot — but lots of charm and laughs — survive on big, spectacle-loving Broadway?

Gate/Beckett: Eh Joe reviewed by Leonard Jacobs
Who is this hermitic, tormented man on stage? It's Liam Neeson, of course, wearing a forlorn yet mysteriously blank-faced look.

Theater Boys reviewed by Jerry Portwood
Bare skin is the name of the game when it comes to gay-themed plays.

Traces/Fades reviewed by Andy Propst
Lenora Champagne crams Traces/fades with enough material to fill two or three plays.

Back Stage MITF Reviews

Kidnapping Laura Linney
Philip Mutz's Kidnapping Laura Linney is exactly the type of fluffy fun one always hopes to find in festivals but so rarely does.

The Red Paintball
Just ask Ted Haggard — this country loves to catch religious hypocrites with their pants down, especially the gay ones.

ATW NewsClips - Online Sources

2008-07-18T06:36:00.002-04:00

Playbill

* Alabama Shakespeare's West Side Story Begins to Rumble July 18
* Aubrey O'Day Is Hairspray's New Amber Beginning July 18
* DIVA TALK: Chatting with In the Heights' Karen Olivo Plus News of Akers, Colella and Callaway
* Runolfsson, Noll, Buntrock and More Join Julie Andrews at the Hollywood Bowl July 18-19
* Free As You Like It, with Ireland, Weller and Davenport, Begins Boston Run
* Fellner, Marshall, Morris and Renfroe Read notes to MariAnne July 18-20 at the Powerhouse
* "Mamma Mia!," It's Arrived: New Movie Musical Opens in U.S. July 18
* Tickets for 2008 NY International Fringe Festival Go On Sale July 18

TheaterMania

Life Is All Right in America
I’m all for this new bi-lingual West Side Story that plans to open next spring.

Review: [title of show]
This Broadway musical about the making of a musical has plenty of heart, passion, wit -- and a terrific cast of four.

Talkin' Broadway

Review: [title of show]
Cults of personality form when the messenger becomes, or in many cases makes himself, more important than his message. But even in the arena of unbounded hero worship that is too often the Broadway musical, writers and stars rarely trade on the premise that you should think less about what's being said than who's doing the talking (and singing) - while simultaneously proclaiming the opposite. . . .

nytheatre.com

Review: [title of show]

CurtainUp

Review: [title of show]
What started off as a cutsey little self-referential festival entry became a sassy, cult-like Off Broadway musical that has plopped down, with no added flash and trash, onto the Great White Way.

Review: The Marriage of Bette and Boo
Like the best absurdist playwrights, Durang fills his socio-political themes with jokes and levity. It’s best if you let him explain it all for you. . . .

ATW NewsClips - Select Blogs

2008-07-18T06:31:00.003-04:00

The Clyde Fitch Report Blog

Pondering the Clay Tablet
For about a week or so -- well, ok, maybe a little bit longer -- I've been carrying around the New York magazine tribute to Clay Felker, the legendary creator and editor of the magazine.

Arts Advocacy Update L
This, my friends, is the 50th Arts Advocacy Update. Hooray!!

Welcome to Mark Blankenship's The Critical Condition

About Last Night Blog

TT: Hating the new

ATW NewsClips - London

2008-07-18T06:24:00.002-04:00

The Independent

Regards to Broadway from West End directors
The last few years have seen a veritable flock of Seagulls land on the stage with varying degrees of success.

Review: The Female of the species, Vaudeville Theatre, London

The Guardian

Street Scene, Young Vic, London
A dazzlingly diverse score of ordinary yearning makes for a great evening, writes Michael Billington

Beauty and the Beast, Williamson Park, Lancaster
Alfred Hickling finds this larger than life promenade performance makes for a warm heart and sore legs

Daily Telegraph

Review: The Female of the Species
Charles Spencer reviews The Female of the Species at the Vaudeville Theatre

Whatsonstage.com

West & Wilton Have Family Reunion in TS Eliot Fest

Latest Gossip: Fiennes & Griffiths in Double Dose of Classics???

Whatsonstage.com - Off-West End & Fringe

Review: Street Scene
There are only a few performances (until next Tuesday) of Kurt Weill’s great 1947musical melodrama at the Young Vic, but you simply must catch one of them. A sort of white Porgy and Bess set in a New York tenement over a sweltering hot twenty-four hours, the score is one of Weill’s American masterpieces, set to a 1929 play of Elmer Rice with beautiful lyrics by the Harlem poet Langston Hughes.

Why You Should See … I, Lear
I, Lear, an “anarchic character comedy” from theatre company The Black Sheep, opens at the Trafalgar Studios next week (21 July - 16 August). It features two of England’s finest actors, who attempt to condense a lifetime’s worth of roles into a single evening. And it’ll all end in tragedy. Here, one of those “twin collossuses of the stage”, Chester Blenheim, explains the inspiration behind the show…

ATW NewsClips - Late Day LInks

2008-07-17T18:44:00.003-04:00

Playbill

* Noll, Scott, Skinner, Paice, Stanek, Lacey Will Star in Signature's Ace, a Musical With Wings
* Andrea McArdle Will Prove You Don't Know Me at the Metropolitan Room
* PHOTO CALL: Thurgood Star Fishburne Gets Sardi's Caricature
* PHOTO CALL: August: Osage County's New Residents
* "Moonlighting" Star Beasley Joins Cast of Grecian Formula
* PHOTO CALL: Vermont Light in the Piazza with McCarthy, Worsham and Worley
* Superstar Parton Jumps Onto Broadway Bandwagon for 9 to 5: The Musical
* Sondheim Extends Worldwide Publishing Agreement with Warner/Chappell Music
* Lacey, Grodner, Drummond and D'Amico Will Take Italian Sojourn to the O'Neill Center
* Aranas, Bobb, Joyce, Marshall-Green, Pine and More to Star in NYTW's Beast
* Lavin and Najimy to Star in Reading of Nora and Delia Ephron's Love, Loss, and What I Wore
* Shaiman Penning Score for Touchstone's "Bob: The Musical"
* New Music: NAMT Announces Selections for 2008 Festival of New Musicals
* Rock Musical bare Will Make Its San Francisco Debut in 2009; Arima to Direct
* "Theater Talk" Will Head to the Guthrie in August
* National High School Musical Awards Named for James M. Nederlander
* "Mamma Mia!" Soundtrack Lands in Top Ten on Billboard Chart

TheaterMania

* Noll, Paice, Skinner, et al. Set for Signature's Ace
* John Ventimiglia to Join Cast of Stitching, Which Extends Through August 2
* Anthony Rapp's Without You Set for Special Engagement at City Theatre
* Kristin Chenoweth, Neil Patrick Harris, Chandra Wilson React to Emmy Award Nominations
* Kenn Duncan's Photographs to Be Displayed at New York Public Library
* Marshall-Green, Pine, Stoll, et al. Set for NYTW's Beast
* Full Cast Set for BTF's A Man For All Seasons and Noel Coward in Two Keys
* Robert Sella, Robbie Collier Sublett to Headline CST's Amadeus
* NAMT Announces 2008 Selections

Broadway.com

FRESH FACE: Carrie Manolakos

* Logan Marshall-Green, Larry Pine & More Set for Beast at NYTW
* NAMT's 2008 Festival Lineup to Include Pamela's First Musical
* Stoppard's Heroes to Be Part of Keen Company Season
* Linney, Chenoweth, McDonald, Nixon & More Among 2008 Emmy Nominees

nytheatre.com

Review: TRACES/fades

MITF Reviews (updated)
[Flagboy, Daguerreotypes, Natalie, Eighty-1, The Wendy Complex and Flies in the Snuffbox]

The Playgoer Blog

The Nonprofit Takeover of Broadway, cont.
Looks like second best won't do for the so-called Second Stage any longer. They want to play with the big boys on Broadway.

The Wicked Stage Blog

"Rafta Rafta" Headed for Main Stem

The Producer's Perspective

Sequels suck. But just for us.
Squeezing successful products for every penny of profit may sound like a greedy, grubbin' producer sort-of-thing to do, but the exploitation of products that have penetrated the market successfully is what allow producers to reinvest in more new product.

The Times UK

Jonny Woo
Charismatic and confident, Woo resists cosiness or anything personal as he runs a gamut from Shakespeare to Barbra Streisand

Kids Week tickets go on sale
Theatreland in London’s West End is opening itself up to children to see what goes on behind the scenes

ATW NewsClips - Mid-Morning Links

2008-07-17T10:34:00.002-04:00

Chicago Tribune Head Candy Blog

Jersey Boys Joke of the Day - Monday

Jersey Boys Joke of the Day - Tuesday

>Jersey Boys Joke of the Day - Wednesday

Jersey Boys Joke of the Day - Thursday

Associated Press

Eric Idle adds an orchestra to Monty Python comedy
In Eric Idle's world, a leaf blower is part of the orchestra.

amNY New York City Theater Blog

Morning News: Thursday, July 17, 2008

Playbill

* New Victory Announces 2008-2009 Season of Family Programming
* Akers, Cavenaugh, Callaway, Reichard, Haran and More Set for Fall Cabaret Convention
* Curtains' Paice to Star in Signature Theatre Company's New Musical Ace
* Fourposter, Heroes and Beasley's Christmas Party Comprise Keen Company Season
* Chenoweth, Dench, Linney, McDonald, Rashad Nominated for Emmy Awards
* Grease's Keeling to Perform at New York City Triathlon July 20

TheaterMania

My, Oh Mia!
Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Christine Baranski, Dominic Cooper, Amanda Seyfried, Rita Wilson, Jane Seymour, Kathie Lee Gifford, and Louise Pitre come out for the New York premiere of the film Mamma Mia!

* 60th Annual Primetime Emmy Nominations Are Announced
* Keen Company Announces 2008-2009 Season

Broadway.com

Second Stage to Purchase Broadway's Helen Hayes Theatre

About Last Night Blog

TT: Jo Stafford, R.I.P.
Jo Stafford, who died yesterday, is mostly forgotten now, save by those who were young a half-century ago, but back then she was one of the most popular singers in America,

The Guardian

Men in black
In pictures: As Zorro: The Musical hits the West End, relive the masked hero's many lives on stage and screen

Alan Bleasdale reunited with BBC after 22-year absence
Writer to return with a drama based on the sinking of RMS Laconia during the second world war

The Guardian Performing Arts Blog

Chris Wilkinson: Noises Off: Getting down to the nitty-gritty
David Pollock: Wlll booking chaos bring order to the Edinburgh Fringe?

Whatsonstage.com

* Gate Adapts Hedda, Dances to Sadler’s Wells Deal
* 1st Night Photos: Keanu Leaves Females in Private

London Theatre Guide

First Night Feature: The Female Of The Species
In a week where Germaine Greer has loomed over the production like the angry clouds of a British summer sky, The Female Of The Species faced critics who would actually watch the play last night.

ATW NewsClips - California, Pacific Northwest Print

2008-07-17T07:35:00.002-04:00

Los Angeles Times

REDCAT's New Original Works Festival
REDCAT's innovators show that . . .

King Henry is outnumbered

Orange County Register

'The Marvelous Wonderettes' in Laguna brings back marvelous memories
Laguna Playhouse's nostalgic show examines the innocence of the '50s and the dynamism of the '60s through the prism of a female vocal quartet.

Orange County Register Paul Hodgins' Blog

A “West Side Story” for our times — bilingual and more menacing — is coming to Broadway

L.A. City Beat

Life Begins at 8:30, So Leave the House at Six
Don Shirley takes a bus!

NOW PLAYING July 17
(Capsule Reviews from Don Shirley)

Contra Costa Times

Disney to Shakespeare and Alan Thicke -- quite a week
One Hand clapping is about the week's Bay Area theater highlights

Classy cast, sets spark 'Thoroughly Modern Millie"

Doing theater in harmony

San Francisco Weekly

Oscar Wilde's view of women in politics not ideal
It's an election year, in case you hadn't noticed. From Josh Kornbluth's Citizen Josh to Nikolai Gogol's The Government Inspector, Bay Area...

Killing My Lobster new show doesn't kill
San Francisco's flagship comedy troupe is back with a new show, new actors, and a different performance space. This edition's theme is "time,"...

American Joe pits liberal sister against army brother
Despite being given life by the same DNA donors and being raised in the same household, siblings often grow into people who bear little...

Also Playing
(capsule reviews)

Campaign pain?
SF Mime Troupe takes no election-year guff in Red State

Sacramento Bee

Review: Vicki Lewis nails the role of Rose in Music Circus' excellent telling of 'Gypsy'

Seattle Weekly

Twist in the Gut
In the annals of American dramaturgy, A Streetcar Named Desire isn't just an 800-pound gorilla—it's the whole monkey house. Family,...

Bard Beats Bond
Stage acting is where TV stars go to demonstrate that they've got chops. And when stage actors want to assay the test of great acting, they go to...

Opening Nights: Bare
When I think of Catholic boarding school, I think of two things—parents who don't really want to be parents and bored, forgotten children...

Opening Nights: Big River
Taproot Theatre gets a number of things right in its staging of Big River, the 1985 musical that follows Huckleberry Finn and his runaway slave...

Opening Nights: The Mikado
Just like the pair themselves—W.S. Gilbert, bourgeois family man/cutting satirist, and A.S. Sullivan, shameless hymn-monger/bon-vivant...

Opening Nights: The Wind in the Willows
With little more than a tricked-out bicycle, Theater Schmeater transports the young and the young at heart to a magical realm of animals in their...

The Stranger

White Girls
Leni Riefenstahl, Blanche DuBois, and a Bulimic Black Man

ATW NewsClips - Mid-West, Southwest and Mountain Print

2008-07-17T07:10:00.002-04:00

Chicago Sun-Times

Why are ABBA songs so infectious? Science has answers
It only takes a single exposure, and in an instant, your whole day can change. The infection is rapid and feels potentially unending. One minute you’re minding your own business ...

Time Out Chicago

Deborah Clapp
The new leader of the League of Chicago Theatres talks shop.

Smoke alarm
In the wake of the Jersey Boys smoking bust, we check in with Ald. Brendan Reilly on what it means for other cig-wielding stage characters like August: Osage County's Violet Weston.

Review: A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A Queer Tale @ MidTangent Productions
Review: Unsex Me Here @ The Living Canvas
Review: Rag and Bone @ Rubicon Theatre Project
Review: Saints in Strange Places @ Appetite Theatre

Spotlight on...Milly's Orchid Show
Mily May Smithy, maven of miscellany, pops up at Park West Saturday 19.

Daily Herald

July 17 openings and closings

Minneapolis City Pages

Guthrie's Government Inspector a first-rate farce
As someone who once logged a certain amount of deeply satisfying and restorative R.E.M. sleep in the back seat of a state-owned car (yes, on the...

Theater Spotlight: Autobahn
Seeing as how we, as a species, appear to be furiously evolving toward a life of sitting on padded seats and hurling ourselves through space in...

Detroit Free Press

The Bard comes home to the park
"Barefoot in the Park" was nice, but Shakespeare in the park is what Water Works Theatre Company does best at Royal Oak's Starr Jaycee Park.

More Shakespeare
Can't wait a week for a summer Shakespeare fix? You could cross the Canadian border for Stratford or just go to Jackson and Grand Rapids. Both are hosting performances of the Michigan Shakespeare Festival.

Encore Michigan

Panhandle Slim extended through September

St. Louis Riverfront Times

Mo' Muny!: What happens when the Muny looks back on its 90 years? (Hint: It ain't "magic.")
Doubtless, 90 Years of Muny Magic, this week's birthday celebration of St. Louis' longest-lasting — and, in recent decades,...

Dennis Brown offers up his ten most memorable Muny moments

St. Louis Stage Capsules

CiN Weekly

What's the Point?!
Know Theatre opens season with regional premiere

Houston Press

Capsule Stage Reviews: Ain't Misbehavin', Snoopy, The Tamarie Cooper Show, War of the Roses

Austin American-Statesman

A coffee with ...
'Nanny' co-star now nurtures a 'Clean House' in Austin.

Denver Post

History as chess yields a weighty "Henry VIII"

Rocky Mountain News

Actresses revisit the 'Hot L'
Reprising roles gives actresses second chance to bring experiences to lobby stage

ATW NewsClips - Mid-Atlantic, New England, and Southern Print

2008-07-17T06:41:00.002-04:00

Washington Post

A Man Walked Into a Bard One Day . . .
Suspect in Folio Theft Is Something of a Character

'Miss Lizzie,' A Greek Chorus That Rocks
The spirit of fringe is rock-and-roll, so it's fitting that one of the most sizzling acts thus far in the third Capital Fringe Festival is an hour-long ramble through Greek tragedy set to amplified music.

How to Choose at the Fringe Festival?
Just try searching for that perfect play among the 100-plus Capital Fringe Festival offerings -- the one that for a mere 15 bucks will entertain, warm the heart, remind of you of your humanity.

Washington City Paper

Fringe & Purge
Highlights from Washington City Paper's Capital Fringe Festival Blog

Philadephia Inquirer

In spite of yourself, a fABBAlous time
Let's just be frank here - Mamma Mia! is about as critic-proof a musical as you'll ever find. Some people just love ABBA, and others love any creative endeavor to which the prefix "chick"...

Philadephia Weekly

Stage
PlayPenn at the Playground at the Adrienne, and the Spark Festival at Plays and Players Theater.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Finger-snappin' 'Smokey Joe's Cafe' is a departure for CLO
All musicals are time machines. ...

Gene Kelly Awards going national

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Civic Light Opera brings Wild West to Benedum
Tuesday, Jack Devereaux will open a two-week run as Frank Butler in the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera production of "Annie Get Your Gun."

'Smokey Joe's' shines spotlight on songwriters
Songwriters -- for the most part -- get little attention. That's one big reason you might want to see the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera's production of "Smokey Joe's Cafe."

Apple Hill adds twist to traditional 'Cinderella'
This summer, Apple Hill Playhouse offers a traditional retelling of "Cinderella," complete with a pumpkin coach and a beautiful princess -- and no male siblings. But there's a twist. Cinderella and the prince meet while they're doing laundry.

Theatre Factory presentation pays tribute to Cole Porter's life, music
"Red Hot & Cole" showcases many of American songwriter Cole Porter's biggest hits from Broadway and Hollywood, from "Anything Goes" and "Kiss Me Kate" to "High Society" and "Can-Can."

Hoping 'Stonewall's Bust' will leave audience breathless with laughter
When playwright John Morogiello's comedy "Stonewall's Bust" takes stage for the first time, he has some high hopes for the outcome.

Irish & Classical celebrates works of John Synge
For theater lovers, the Synge Cycle can become a vehicle to explore the world of Irish playwright John Millington Synge.

Baltimore Sun

Strong cast weaves fine 'Plaid'

Drawing on the soul of the 'Machine'

Richmond Times-Dispatch

Cheap Dating at Lulu's, Fringe Theater at Gallery 5, Shockoe Chef Showdown

Boston Globe

In 'Assassins,' they sing, dance, and aim to shoot a president
Why does Company One ask us to spend 90 minutes in a dark room with these obsessive killers? For Sondheim fanatics, the answer is obvious: It's the music, stupid.

Making a mockery out of situation
"The Book Club Play" is a play about a film mockumentary about people who love books.

Boston Phoenix

Killing grounds
The Seagull flies at the Publick; Company One knocks off Assassins

Providence Journal

As You Like It in Westerly; Evita in Matunuck
You can catch actor David Birney playing Shakespeare in Westerly’s Wilcox Park this weekend, or you can head over to Matunuck for Evita at Theatre by the Sea.

Providence Phoenix

Mamma Mia!
Passable, frothy fun

Berkshire Eagle

Director digs into Chekov
Among the plays Michael Greif has directed at Williamstown Theatre Festival since his first production there in 1993 is John Guare's "Landscape of the Body."

Orlando Sentinel Attention Must Be Paid Blog

Not quite theater, but fun all the same

Miami Herald

Smart treatment for comedy of buffoons
Just over a century ago, Jacinto Benavente surprised audiences in Madrid with the premiere of Los intereses creados (The Bonds of Interest), a ''comedy of buffoons'' that pays homage to Italian Commedia dell'Arte and playwrights such as Carlo Goldoni, as a mocking satire of society at the time. ...

Miami Herald Drama Queen Blog

Exiting too soon
If you've been following the state of the newspaper business over the past few years, you realize that (as with the economy) the picture isn't a rosy one. From the country's largest dailies to its smallest ones

St. Petersburg Times

Dialogue causes 'Forever Plaid' to founder

Atlanta Creative Loafing

All that glitters: Valhalla and The Merchant of Venice
Can't buy me love, or can you?

Speakeasy with...Randy Havens
Moving FWD: at Dad's Garage

Charlotte News & Observer

'Wicked' star enjoys new spotlight

Charlotte Creative Loafing

DREAM Act deferred
Plus, firm convictions with Shakespeare Carolina's Richard III

ATW NewsClips - Tri-State Print

2008-07-17T06:18:00.002-04:00

New York Times

Jets? Yes! Sharks? ¡Sí! In Bilingual ‘West Side’
More than 50 years after the musical “West Side Story” had its original Broadway premiere, it is set to return in February in a darker, grittier, bilingual revival.
* Original Review: 'West Side Story' (Sept. 27, 1957) [pdf]
* 'Tonight,' from 'West Side Story' (Original Broadway Cast Recording) (mp3)

Second Stage Will Set Up a Broadway Shop at Helen Hayes
Second Stage Theater, a nonprofit Off Broadway company, plans to announce that it has acquired the right to purchase the historic Helen Hayes Theater on West 44th Street.

Two Candidates Debate, but No One Seems to Think
“The Strangerer” is a a curious hybrid of existential philosophy and political satire.

New York Post

Great depth of characters
The rags-to-riches theme of "Expatriate," Lenelle Moise's new play with music that opened last night at the Culture Project, is familiar stuff. Two black women seeking musical fame in Paris find plenty of heartache along the way - drug addiction, the testing of friendships and the high price of stardom. Yet as standard as those...

'East' goes south
Don Reed's autobiographical monologue is subtitled "True Tales of a Reluctant Player," but his performance is anything but...

Liz Smith: Urban Angel Covert
Talk a comeback! On Aug. 7, lots of people get the chance to see Liza Minnelli at the 30-year-old Seaside Summer Concert Series outside Asser Levy/Seaside Park in Coney Island/Brighton Beach! ..."Charlie Chang and the Mysterious Salami," a musical spoofing the old movie serial, pokes fun at racial stereotypes. That starts Monday at the Grand Theatre, 358 W. 44th. This is part of the NY Artists Unlimited's Bad Musicals Festival. We don't do enough to encourage struggling talents in this big city. ...Christine Baranski, who scores big in the film, introduced the evening, saying, "The 'Mamma Mia!' experience may be the precursor of 'global heart-warming.'

New York Sun

Second Stage Buys a Broadway Theater
The nonprofit Second Stage Theatre plans to buy and renovate the 499-seat Helen Hayes Theater on West 44th Street, the New York Times reported Wednesday. The company's artistic director, Carole Rothman, told the Times that Second Stage will raise $35…

Time Out NY

Retro active
Jonathan Groff, 23, is carving out a specialty in playing angels...

[quirky downtown theater actor]
Susan Blackwell makes a name for herself in [title of

Review: Kicking a Dead Horse
Cowboy playwright Sam Shepard contemplates death in the desert, with a little help from Stephen Rea.

Review: Damn Yankees
Is it a home run or foul ball in City Center at the revival of this beloved 1955 chestnut? Here comes the umpire.

Review: The Marriage of Bette and Boo
Christopher Durang eviscerates several sacred cows in his classic satire. The Roundabout does right by it.

Review: Potomac Theatre Project: Scenes from an Execution
Here's a welcome shot of tough British dramatist Howard Barker—plus the sterling Jan Maxwell.

Review: The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac
Once you fall for splendiferous drag artist Taylor Mac, you’ll go anywhere with him.

Review: Potomac Theatre Project: Crave and Somewhere in the Pacific
Potomac presents a twofer that meditates on death. There's some liveliness there, mostly Sarah Kane.

Review: Life in a Marital Institution
James Braly airs his dirty laundry (and his wife's) in this warm and witty new solo about spousal relations.

nypress

Theater: ‘Bette’ Noir
A revival of Christopher Durang’s savage comedy, ‘The Marriage of Bette and Boo,’ still stings

Hartford Courant

Rizzo: 'Story Of My Life' At Goodspeed; 'Ella Run Extended

Fairfield County Weekly

Two households, both alike in dignity
Stratford's Putney Players and Stamford's Curtain Call both put on enticing outdoor Romeo and Juliet productions

Star-Ledger

Arts notes

Bergen Record

A Revolutionary version of classic play/ '1776' features young cast

Shakespeare New Jersey Theatre’s Next Stage Ensemble presents “The Learned Ladies”
Comedy tonight - 'Esther Demsack'

Albany Times-Union

WTF tackles family strife in 'Three Sisters'
Michael Greif is making a cottage industry out of directing Anton Chekhov at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. His production of "The Three Sisters" opens tonight at the festival, following earlier takes of "The Seagull" (in 1994, starring a young Gwyneth Paltrow alongside her mother, Blythe Danner) and "The Cherry Orchard" (2004).

'Altar Boyz' inspired at Adirondack Theatre
However improbable it may seem, an off-Broadway musical called "Altar Boyz," about a Christian boy band, became a hit and continues to run in Manhattan more than three years after opening. The show's upstate premiere, which closes the Adirondack Theatre Festival season, demonstrates why "Altar Boyz" is such a success.

Charms of 'Kiss Me, Kate'
With its new production of "Kiss Me, Kate," Glimmerglass is a late comer to the trend of opera companies producing musical comedies. Where other troupes usually pick weighty pieces of nearly operatic scale...

Italian troupe sets child play into motion
Presenting dances in which children from the audience spontaneously create much of the movement represents a bit of an artistic risk. But it's a risk Davide Venturini and Francesco Gandi, directors of the Italian visual dance-theater company T.P.O. (Teatro di Piazza o d'Occasione), are willing to take....

ATW NewsClips - National Print Pubs

2008-07-17T05:59:00.002-04:00

Associated Press

Second Stage set to acquire a Broadway home
Second Stage Theatre, a major showcase for contemporary American playwrights, is expanding to Broadway.

Variety

Review: Expatriate
Things change in "Expatriate," but they don't resolve. That's true of the plot in this two-person play with music, about the rise and fall of an American singing duo in France, and it's true of the songs, whose infectious jazz-pop hooks rarely reach tidy conclusions. By refusing to land somewhere safe, the show makes fresh statements on common themes like celebrity, excess and art.

Review: Scramble!
...Previously presented as "Hatchetman" at Florida Stage, play gets another go-round at the Westport Country Playhouse where house scribe Wiltse preemed his deft "A Marriage Minuet" two years ago. But in trying his hand at this in extremis comedy, Wiltse's craft fails him, and the production brings more cringes than chuckles.

Review: Parade
...the L.A. professional premiere from the South Bay's Neighborhood Playhouse demonstrates the material's suitability for a chamber ensemble approach, bringing out two potent narratives about prejudice: that between the community and the outsider, and that between spouses.

Review: The Strangerer
...Chicago's director-free Theater Oobleck warps Bush's malapropisms and mispronunciations into an absurdist, frequently hilarious tone poem, aided by a sleepy John Kerry and a troubled Jim Lehrer. Neither simple mockery nor earnest existentialism, the oddball play is a uniquely weird and enthralling cross-pollination of the two.

D.C. tryout for 'West Side'
Revival set for Broadway in February

Second Stage to buy Helen Hayes
Nonprofit theater aims to raise $35 million

NAMT taps musicals for fall festival
Shows include 'First Musical,' 'Beatsville'

Tech tune up for 'Phantom'
Musical closes for sound system update

Bloomberg.com

Shakespeare Alfresco Triumphs in Wisconsin Hills Where Dairy Cows Graze
You know you've had an enchanting outdoor Shakespeare experience when, after the final blackout, everyone looks up at the stars and collectively sighs.

Back Stage

Expatriate reviewed by Gwen Orel
Lenelle Moïse's music, created by a JamMan loop machine and a powerful voice singing evocative lyrics, has a beat that gets under your skin, fascinating rhythm, and real theatrical power. It's new.

'9 to 5' to Open on Broadway in 2009
A musical based on 1980 film "Nine to Five" will open on Broadway in 2009 with music and lyrics by country star Dolly Parton.

Back Stage - MITF Reviews

Cherry Hill
Cherry Hill by Matt Okin is full of the wisdom and humor you might find in a particularly scuzzy bar, but outside that context, it doesn't seem so profound.

Daguerreotypes
At almost two hours, Daguerreotypes is a punishingly long time to sit in the Where Eagles Dare Theatre's wicker seats and unfortunately not quite worth the red lines your skin will accrue.

Eighty-1
Six strong singers and some worthy songs by Clive Chang are the plus factors in this world premiere of an 81-minute musical (no coincidence, that).

Flies in the Snuffbox
Three outstanding performances — one in each of the three one-act Chekhov plays that make up this bill — almost but not quite redeem the enterprise.

ATW NewsClips - Online Sources

2008-07-17T05:51:00.002-04:00

Playbill

* "Part of It All": [title of show] Opens on Broadway July 17
* Chenoweth and Harris Will Announce Primetime Emmy Nominees July
* Flamingo Court, with Farr and Gillette, Begins Off-Broadway Run July 17
* It's The Violet Hour at Barrington Stage Company Beginning July 17
* Adding Machine Signs and Performs at Barnes and Noble July 17
* Sella Will Be Salieri in Chicago Shakespeare's Amadeus This Fall
* Second Stage Plans to Purchase Broadway's Helen Hayes Theatre
* Sheik and Pritchard to Perform at Town Hall Nov. 13
* Broadway's Phantom to Shut Down Aug. 24-27 for Installation of New Sound System
* Dunn, Laird, Overett, Sanders, Stevens and Summerford Cast in York's In Transit
* Gwen Stewart to Return to Broadway's Rent
* Four New Musicals Will Be Heard at Stages 2008 in Chicago Aug. 15-17
* Smith, Patton, Weaver, Williams and Alexander to Star in Bay Street's Ain't Misbehavin'

TheaterMania

Review: Mamma Mia!
The film version of the long-running stage musical is the perfect summer movie!

Review: Expatriate
Despite some fine writing and music, Lenelle Moise's two-hander about a lifelong friendship lacks dramatic momentum.

* Second Stage to Buy Broadway's Helen Hayes Theater
* Broadway Phantom to Temporarily Close to Install New Sound System
* Full Cast Announced for York Theatre's In Transit

Broadway.com

* The Phantom of the Opera Plans a Four-Day Shutdown
* Original Cast Member Gwen Stewart Headed Back to Rent

Talkin' Broadway

MITF Reviews: Eighty-1 and Cherry Hill Reviews

nytheatre.com

Review: Expatriate

MITF Reviews
(Natalie, Eighty-1, The Wendy Complex and Flies in the Snuffbox)

ATW NewsClips - Select Blogs

2008-07-17T05:46:00.002-04:00

Clyde Fitch Report

Sprecher, Forlenza Birth Global Broadway

Queens College, The Actors Company Theatre Birth New MFA Program

About Last Night Blog

TT: So you want to see a show?

the nytheatre i Blog

2 Book Events Worth Checking Out
Here's info about a couple of upcoming indie theater-related bookstore events that are worth your time.

theatre notes Blog

Joss Whedon goes blog
Behold the future of the internet... TV execs are no doubt waking up at 4.48 am screaming at what Joss Whedon (he of Buffy fame) is doing this week.

ATW NewsClips - London

2008-07-17T05:36:00.002-04:00

The Independent

Lessons in love: David Eldridge is back with a play about the tangled sex lives of teachers

Kinks' song inspiration for new Ray Davies musical

The Times UK

The Female of the Species at the Vaudeville Theatre, WC2
I must admit laughed at some genuinely amusing lines, while acknowledging that the debate isn’t all that trenchant

The Guardian

The Female of the Species, Vaudeville Theatre, London
Michael Billington longs for the cut-and-thrust of real debate in Roger Michell's satire on feminism

Brilliant, Polka, London
This exquisite little show is a giant step forward for the Polka, writes Lyn Gardner

Chu Chin Chow, Finborough, London
The whole show is a load of oriental cobblers, writes Michael Billington

Whatsonstage.com

Review: The Female of the Species

ATW NewsClips - Late Day Links

2008-07-16T15:47:00.002-04:00

Atlanta Journal-Constitution ATLArts Blog

'After Ashley' - Essential Theatre

Creative Loafing Atlanta Fresh Loaf Blog

Atlanta is so gay
[off topic, but it amuses me]

Chad Jones' Theater Dogs Blog

Rock musical `bare’ to make Bay Area bow

Chicago Tribune Theater Loop Blog

Happy birthday, Milly, from your famous friends
Milly knew the Blue Men back when they were just obscure performance artists with weirdly painted heads. She knew...

Village Voice Blog

Michael Musto: When Judy Garland Met Barbra Streisand

Camille Dodero: The Tank Loses Its Home at the End of July; Supporters Eat Pizza and Mull Over the Possibilities

amNY New York City Theater Blog

Interview with Emily Skinner on Broadway's Rising Stars

Back Stage

Rees Is the Word
Even if you've never seen Welsh-born actor Roger Rees on stage in London or New York or on tour in his solo show What You Will, you know him.

Something to Chew On
Eating Their Words, founded by director-choreographer Marlo Hunter, presents one-night-only, meal-specific theatrical events at high-profile New York City restaurants.

The Strangerer reviewed by A.J. Mell
Fresh from an ecstatically received run in Chicago, Theater Oobleck's The Strangerer fuses political and literary satire, mock philosophy, and a touch of metatheatricality into something truly new under the sun.

Bed and Breakfast reviewed by Marc Miller
Sam Sommer's Bed and Breakfast craves to be nothing more than a friendly boulevard comedy, an assemblage of pleasant gay personalities rather like, say, The Last Sunday in June of a few seasons back.

Playbill

* Harris, Dizzia, Corddry, Eaves, Rogers and Steele Are Not Waving at Williamstown
* New Plays by McNally, Hunter, Gurira and More Developed at Ojai Conference
* Goslow and Birk to Star in Old Wicked Songs at the Guthrie
* PHOTO CALL: Off-Broadway, Some Americans Abroad Party
* Ella Will Sing On at Hartford Stage Through July 31
* PHOTO CALL: Sam Robards Ascends The 39 Steps
* "Dr. Horrible," With Neil Patrick Harris, Hits #1 on iTunes
* West Side Story, This Time With Bilingual Approach, Will Return to Broadway in February 2009

TheaterMania

Photo File
Dolly Parton, Allison Janney, Stephanie J. Block, Marc Kudisch, Olivia Newton-John, Rue McLanahan, Leslie Jordan, Bobbie Eakes, Steven Pasquale, Logan Marshall-Green, and Sebastian Arcelus are among the stars captured by our cameras.

* Dan Zanes, Noche Flamenca, et al. to Be Part of New Victory Theater 2008-2009 Season
* Corddry, Eaves, Harris, Steele, et al. Set for Williamstown's Not Waving
* West Side Story Revival to Open on Broadway in March, Following DC Run

Broadway.com

John Simon, etcetera: Mamma Mia! - Universal Pictures, Opening July 18

* Kennedy Center to Present Abridged Girl Crazy, Bye Bye Birdie & Side Show
* West Side Story, Directed by Arthur Laurents, Confirms Broadway Dates

Talkin' Broadway

NJ Reviews: Flaming Guns of the PUrple Sage, The Little Hours

The Playgoer Blog

Ripoff of the Year?
Lincoln Center (summer) Festival is certainly not known for bargains. Offering practically no discounts outside of 10% occasionally for students (10%!), their excuse is they import expensive arts events from Europe and so the ticketbuyer shares the burden.

Financial Times

Zorro, Garrick Theatre, London
The chief delights are Nick Cavaliere as the cowardly sergeant Garcia and Lesli Margherita as the gypsies’ leader Inez; their scenes together bubble gloriously, writes Ian Shuttleworth

West Side Story Sets February 23, 2009 Preview Date; Schedules D.C. Tryout Dates

2008-07-16T13:09:00.003-04:00

West Side Story, the landmark American musical, will return to Broadway in a new production directed by two-time Tony Award winning librettist Arthur Laurents. The production is scheduled to open on a date to be announced in March 2009 with preview performances beginning on Monday, February 23, 2009 at a Nederlander Theatre to be announced. West Side Story will play an out of town engagement December 16, 2008 through January 17, 2009 at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., where the musical made its world premiere in 1957. The original Jerome Robbins choreography will be restaged by Tony Award nominee Joey McKneely (The Boy from Oz, The Life).

“This show will be radically different from any other production of West SIde Story ever done. The musical theatre and cultural conventions of 1957 made it next to impossible for the characters to have authenticity. Every member of both gangs was always a potential killer even then. Now they actually will be. Only Tony and Maria try to live in a different world” said Arthur Laurents, who was recently nominated for a 2008 Tony Award for his direction of Gypsy, also one of his librettos.

This production, with an onstage cast of 37 and 30 musicians in the orchestra pit, will introduce the unprecedented element of selectively weaving Spanish throughout both the book and songs.

The original production of West Side Story premiered at the Winter Garden Theatre on September 26, 1957.

Casting information and onsale date for tickets will be announced at a later date.

While not the new production's site, the official West Side Story site is www.westsidestory.com

ATW NewsClips - Mid-Day Links

2008-07-16T12:56:00.002-04:00

New York Times ArtsBeat Blog

London Theater Journal: Up in Flames
Matt Rawle, left, and Adam Levy in the musical “Zorro,” at the Garrick Theater. (Photo: Joel Ryan/Associated Press)Is flaming the new flying? Time was you couldn’t go to a big West End musical without coming across some flashy flying object: a jaunty motor car, a witch, a self-satisfied nanny. But...

Atlanta Journal-Constitution ATLArts Blog

'Purple' majesty

amNY New York City Theater Blog

Morning News: Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Chad Jones' Theater Dogs Blog

Kimberly King casts a shadow in `Doubt’

Orlando Sentinel Attention Must Be Paid Blog

Does anyone need cheering up today?
Thanks to Doug McLennan at ArtsJournal.org, here's a nifty snippet of "Sue Me," from the 1992 revival of Guys and Dolls, with Nathan Lane and Faith Prince:

Playbill

* The Fantasticks Invites Off-Broadway Audience to Dinner July 17
* PHOTO CALL: Cast and Creators of 9 to 5: The Musical Meet the Press
* Casting Announced for Kennedy Center's Girl Crazy, Bye Bye Birdie and Side Show
* Corddry Brothers Will Read True West at Williamstown July 20
* Jeff Daniels' Comic Stage "Western" Gets Four Extra Weeks in MI
* PHOTO CALL: Gypsy, with Vicki Lewis, at Sacramento Music Circus
* Bogart Will Be Part of Arena World Premiere of Legacy of Light in 2009
* Lansbury, Peters, Benanti, Pasquale and Esparza to Be Part of Westport's Footlights and Film Gala
* Jue, Dionisio, Kunze, Tower, Lee and Voytko Cast in Muny's Miss Saigon
* Lloyd Webber Premieres Phantom Sequel at Sydmonton
* Hairspray's Mason to Celebrate New CD at Birdland

TheaterMania

* Ashmanskas, Colella, Graff, et al. Cast in Kennedy Center's Broadway: Three Generations
* Grease's Derek Keeling to Sing National Anthem at NYC Triathalon
* Benanti, Esparza, Lansbury, Pasquale, Peters, Roberts Set for Westport Gala
* Bahorek, Gertner, Horowitz, Toronto to Star in Pennsylvania Centre Stage's Ordinary Days

The Wicked Stage Blog

A Dreamer Examines His Facebook Page
Are Facebook updates a form of writing? When they're done by a published playwright, they can be. For the past I-don't-know-how-long, the estimable Pulitzer winner John Patrick Shanley...

lies like truth Blog

Site Specificity At SF Fringe
The 17th annual San Francisco Fringe Festival kicks off on September 3. Judging by what I've read about the lineup so far, a notable difference between this year's Festival and its previous incarnations seems to be the plethora of site-specific work. ...

The Producer's Perspective Blog

When I think about you I test myself.

The Guardian

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Open Air Theatre, London
Lyn Gardner finds this Shakespeare for kids patronising and melodramatic

London Theatre Guide

Kinks-y musical at Stratford East
Ray Davies, former front-man of sixties band The Kinks, has turned his tuneful hand to theatre, creating new musical Come Dancing, which will premiere at the Theatre Royal Stratford East this autumn.

Interview: Joanna Murray Smith
Before it has even opened, new comedy The Female Of The Species has hit the headlines care of an outburst from Germaine Greer. Matthew Amer talks to playwright Joanna Murray Smith and finds there is more to her than feminist baiting.

ATW Review - Bush Faces Big Questions, Camus in Cutting, Comical The Strangerer

2008-07-16T12:51:00.001-04:00

A name and phrase that seem mutually exclusive are: "George W. Bush" and "existential crisis." Yet, in The Strangerer, the incisive and hilarious play from Chicago's Theater Oobleck that's currently running at the Barrow Street Theatre in Greenwich Village, playwright Mickle Maher imagines President Bush spiraling through questions of moral accountability and existence at a 2004 presidential debate with John Kerry.

Guy Massey and Colm O'Reilly in The Strangerer
Photo: Kristin Basta

Mickle uses the historical record as the springboard for the play. In 2006, President Bush's summer reading list included Albert Camus' "The Stranger," and in Maher's world, a senseless act of violence, similar to the one committed in Camus' classic is on the agenda. Elements of the book – such as the protagonist's dead mother who holds incredible sway over him – spring up in "Strangerer." And, it's impossible not to laugh as Bush describes how his mother, dead for a day, or perhaps months, lying in a coffin back at the hotel nearly prevented him from going to the theater the night before the debate.

It was at the previous evening's performance (or "theatricalization" as Bush calls it in one of the many adroit malapropisms Maher gives this Bush) that the plan to commit murder at the debate first occurred to him. Comically, it would seem that Kerry, who in Maher's world suffers from bizarrely funny narcolepsy, agreed to help the president in his plans, but has forgotten. Thus, it's up to Bush to carry out the plan – which in its senseless certainly leads theatergoers to think of other events from the past eight years – even as he ponders, often at wearying length, larger philosophical questions. During the middle of "Strangerer," his ramblings take their toll on the audience, but the play and production eventually right themselves – after Bush has revealed the play that has inspired him.

Working without a director (as in all Oobleck productions), the three-person ensemble delivers some fine performances on a recreation of a utilitarian college stage. Playwright Maher provides the scenic design, and he also plays the dimly distant Kerry, who's sucked into the unexpected debate about life, death, murder and art. Colm O'Reilly provides a droll and apt impersonation of moderator (or "modulator" as Bush would have it) Jim Lehrer. Guy Massey's indefatigable performance, and often scarily on-target impersonation, as Bush, generates the most sparks. It's a zestful and intelligent comic turn that sticks with theatergoers well after The Strangerer has ended.

---- Andy Propst

----------------------------------------

The Strangerer continues through August 17 at Barrow Street Theatre (27 Barrow Street). Performances are Tuesday through Saturday at 7:30 and Sunday at 2:30 and 7:30. Tickets are $25.00 and can be purchased by calling 212-239-6200 or by visiting www.telecharge.com Further information is available online at www.theateroobleck.com

Photos: Sam Robards Joins Broadway's The 39 Steps

2008-07-16T12:15:00.002-04:00

Sam Robards has stepped into the stylish Harris Tweed of leading man Richard Hannay in the critically acclaimed hit Broadway production of Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps. The show, which has been nominated for six 2008 Tony Awards including Best Play, is playing at the Cort Theatre (138 West 48th Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues).

Here are some pictures of the show's new leading man:

Sam Robards in The 39 Steps
Photo: Joan Marcus

Sam Robards and Jennifer Ferrin in The 39 Steps
Photo: Joan Marcus

Sam Robards, Arnie Burton, Cliff Saunders, Jennifer Ferrin in The 39 Steps
Photo: Joan Marcus

The 39 Steps is adapted by Patrick Barlow and directed by Maria Aitken. The production is based on an original concept by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon and on the book by John Buchan. For more information and ticketing, visit: www.39StepsOnBroadway.com

ATW NewsClips - Mid-Morning Links

2008-07-16T10:23:00.002-04:00

Playbill

* Anderman, Biggs, Gianino and Kellerman Set for Noël Coward in Two Keys at Berkshire Fest
* Carlin to Receive Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor
* Female of the Species, with Eileen Atkins, Opens in the West End July 16
* Talk Show Watch: Meryl Streep on "Conan" and "The View," Nathan Lane on "Letterman"
* Bahorek, Gertner and Horowitz Cast in New Musical Ordinary Days
* First Preview of Blue Sky Canceled in London; Previews Expected to Begin July 16
* PHOTO CALL: A Night at the Operetta II at Town Hall

TheaterMania

Review: August: Osage County
New cast members -- including Estelle Parsons and Frank Wood -- contribute to the continuing excellence of Tracy Letts' multiple award-winning drama.

Talkin' Broadway

Review: True West in St. Louis

nytheatre.com

Review: No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs

Review: Neal Medlyn's Unpronounceable Symbol

The Guardian Performing Arts Blog

Lyn Gardner: Bristol Old Vic: Complex plans affect the future

Chris Wilkinson: Whatever happened to the actor-manager?

Whatsonstage.com

Ray Davies Pens Come Dancing Musical at Stratford

1st Night Photos: Olé! Forsyth Flamencos at Zorro

London Theatre Guide

First Night Feature: Zorro
There seemed to be a mass holding of breath at the beginning of last night’s performance at the Garrick theatre as the audience waited to see if all three sides of a giant z would catch fire as intended, writes Caroline Bishop.

AmericanTheaterWeb Wednesday, July 16, 2008 Update

2008-07-16T08:24:00.003-04:00

It's really hard to believe that I'm almost approaching the two-month anniversary of the site being hacked even as the 10th anniversary of AmericanTheaterWeb rolls around (for those keeping track I started AmericanTheaterWeb back in August 1998).

I guess on some levels a fundamental re-evaluation of the site is a good thing at this juncture, and I'm really beginning to get psyched about what can be done at I move forward with everything. You'll see the forward motion at http://www.americantheaterweb.info/

Some of the cool things over there today include a digest of the reviews of the new cast that's in August: Osage County and a digest of the new production of Sunset Boulevard and the Zorro musical that have opened in the U.K. I'm aiming to have my review of The Strangerer posted mid-day.

Probably most exciting is the fact that it looks as if some new critics will be joining the ATW team come the fall.

So, bookmark http://www.americantheaterweb.info/ until the changeover back to come happens.

Thanks for being so patient with me and the site.

Best,

Andy

ATW NewsClips - California, Pacific Northwest Print

2008-07-16T07:22:00.002-04:00

Los Angeles Times

'The Marvelous Wonderettes' at Laguna

'Oil City Symphony' is hip with its squares in Fullerton
The humorous revival, with two original cast members, enlivens Plummer...

Orange County Register Paul Hodgins' Theater Blog

Dolly Parton's '9 to 5' will go straight from L.A. debut to Broadway
The stage musical version of the film opens in September at L.A.'s Ahmanson Theatre

“Wicked” will someday come to a movie theater near you

San Francisco Chronicle

Theater review: 'The Listener,' sci-fi tale

Chad Jones' Theater Dogs Blog

Idina Menzel wants your video

Review: `The Listener’
`Listener’ spins junk into a sci-fi jumble

San Jose Mercury News

'Gal pals' plan to flock to opening of movie musical 'Mamma Mia!'
Remember the women - in groups and of all ages - who flocked to "Sex and the City" when it opened in late May and made the film a surprise $150 million box office hit?

Seattle Times

Sparse set carries loads of talent in Twain's classic tale
Review: 'Big River'

ATW NewsClips - Mid-West, Southwest Print

2008-07-16T06:58:00.003-04:00

Chicago Tribune

Review Strong First Folio cast delivers this summer's straight-up 'Ado'

Chicago Tribune Theater Loop Blog

Chicago actor scores major Broadway role in 'Billy Elliot'
The longtime Chicago actor Joel Hatch (left in rehearsal for "Adding Machine") is to originate the role of George in this fall's Broadway production of the hit London musical, "Billy Elliot: The Musical," it was announced Tuesday. Hatch most recently...

Minneapolis Star-Tribne

Southern Theater director's role comes to an abrupt end
Jeff Bartlett, who has been with the organization for more than 30 years, was asked to leave, and no explanation was given, he says. The popular artistic director will leave the organization after 33 years

Encore Michigan

Michigan's Official Shakespeare Festival opens July 15

Sigourney Weaver and Jeff Daniels share Love Letters July 26

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Show celebrates Muny's 90 years of musical theater

Dallas Morning News

Theatre Three's 'Garden' is a 'gloriously batty' outdoors romp
If you want to know all the secrets in Alan Ayckbourn's neighborhood, go see Garden .

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Two plays in one at Theatre Three
The plays share a cast and tell the stories of five relationships.

Houston Chronicle

Monty Python's Idle skewers the Messiah (w/video)
Despite the international success of Monty Python's Spamalot, Eric Idle and composer John Du Prez haven't been, well, idle.

ATW NewsClips - Mid-Atlantic, New England, and Southern Print

2008-07-16T06:42:00.002-04:00

Washington Post

CATF Looks Through The Outsider's Eyes
The image of the outsider haunts this year's Contemporary American Theater Festival. The festival's five productions -- artful and engrossing, for the most part -- deal with topics as different as African history, the U.S. social hierarchy and pig farming. But in each of the...

Pursuing a 'Dream' That Lingers Longer Than One Night
When Rorschach Theatre co-artistic directors Jenny McConnell Frederick and Randy Baker were programming this season -- the intrepid troupe's eighth -- they decided to earmark one slot for a rare dramatic format: a play performed in installments, like a television show.

Rorschach Is Comfortable In This 'Skin'
Seasoned theatergoers can be forgiven for flinching when they hear the title "The Skin of Our Teeth." Start with actors as prehistoric beasts in a weirdly timeless Ice Age and a key character rebelling against the script, then switch to moral failings in Atlantic City and thunderous plunderings from...

Backstage: Lauding an 'Anti-Glitz' Icon
Actors Remember Stage Guild's MacDonald

Philadelphia Inquirer

Young theater talents create a Revolution
Before they decided to produce Kenneth Lonergan's This Is Our Youth, Alexander Diaz and Ed Renninger wanted to harness their University of the Arts classmates' talents and give them a reason to stick around for a while.

Baltimore Sun

Tim Smith: 'Gondoliers' sets sail
Light entertainment and a heavy heat/humidity quotient somehow go together perfectly. In one of Baltimore's more charming summer traditions, the Young Victorian Theatre Company ...

Berkshire Eagle

Tanglewood Some enchanted evening
When we look back on the summer of 2008, one event will remain indelibly in our memory: the evening we spent with Barbara Cook.

Orlando Sentinel

Theater review: 'Die, Mommie, Die!' at Theatre Downtown

'High School Musical': Joy offsets play's growing pains

Miami Herald

Not quite something 2 die 4 yet, but . . .
Tupac Shakur's 25 short years of life were a study in extremes. On the one hand, as a prodigiously talented teenager of modest means, he attended a performing arts high school and appeared in everything from Shakespeare to The Nutcracker. Though he dropped out of school, he was a voracious reader, a young man with wide-ranging intellectual curiosity and a poet.

Monday night live
Most theaters are dark on Monday evening, but on July 21, drama fans have not one but two choices of provocative entertainment.

St. Petersburg Times

'True West' a brotherly story

'Souvenir' a screech in time

Atlanta Journal Constitution ATLArts Blog

'You sure is ugly'
This morning, a colleague brought me a picture of her in her red Shug Avery dress. In another lifetime, she says she was probably singing jazz at a backwoods juke joint, and chasing men. Just like Alice Walker’s sexually adventurous character in “The Color Purple.’’...

Atlanta Creative Loating Fresh Loaf Blog

Hedwig run extended

Charlotte News & Observer

Hospital in 'Cuckoo's Nest' to be torn down
Oregon State Hospital, the mental institution where the 1975 movie "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was filmed, is making way for a new complex.

ATW NewsClips - Tri-State Print

2008-07-16T06:13:00.002-04:00

New York Times

London Drama That Inspires a National Dialogue
Productions in London this summer include hot-button topical works, historical dramas that turn the past into a judgment on the present and even the occasional musical.

A Fiery New Incarnation of a Monster of a Mother
Estelle Parsons is giving a superb performance in the demanding role of Violet Weston in the play “August: Osage County.”

Between Sureness and Self-Pity Stands a Vulnerable Vanya
Peter Dinklage stars in this uneven but always interesting production of “Uncle Vanya” at Bard.

Arts, Briefly: ‘Nine to Five’ to Broadway
A musical based on the 1980 film “Nine to Five” will open in September in Los Angeles before moving to Broadway in April.

New York Daily News

A whinny-ing way with death in 3 plays
Recent trips to the theater came with an unusually high body count - dead babies, dead horses, dead fathers. So many casualties. So why is Daily News theater critic Joe Dziemianowicz smiling?

Dolly Parton brings '9 to 5' to Broadway
"9 to 5: The Musical" hits the Marriott Marquis theater on April 23, 2009. Though Dolly Parton won't be reviving her iconic role as Doralee Rhodes, she churned out over 20 original songs for the show.

amNY New York City Theater Blog

Full Casts of Billy Elliot and 9 to 5 Announced

New York Post

Riedel: A really wine time
'Phantom' sequel is unmasked at UK bash

'County' still talk of the town
They say you can't go home again - but surely it depends on the family and place to which you're going home. In the theater, at...

Curtain's partin' for Dolly
Dolly Parton met Broadway yesterday in a rhinestone-studded blazer and 3-inch heels - and Broadway was duly dazzled. In fact, as the...

New York Sun

'The Strangerer': An Existential Crisis in Coral Gables
Amid the various tabloid flash points in the summer of 2006 — Mel Gibson's drunken tirade, Pluto's demotion to "dwarf planet" status, Zinedine Zidane's World Cup head butt — came news that Albert Camus was the subject of discussions in Crawford, Texas…

ny1

"The Marriage Of Bette And Boo"
Anyone who thinks they've seen a dysfunctional marriage has seen anything like Christopher Durang's wickedly funny "The Marriage of Bette and Boo."

Village Voice

Damn Yankees and The Bacchae: Devil Dogged by Michael Feingold

Their Dark Materials: Scenes from an Execution, Crave, and Somewhere in the Pacific by Alexis Soloski

New York Observer

Camp Dionysus Plays Euripides for Laughs

New York Magazine Culture Blog

Jim Sturgess and Evan Rachel Wood Not Playing Spidey and MJ on Broadway; Could YOU?

Jim True-Frost on ‘August: Osage County,’ Life As Prez, and the Perils of Eating Onstage

Star-Ledger

Hearing the music in Parker's wit
Was it Dorothy Parker who wrote "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation"? No, it was Thoreau. On the basis of "The Little Hours" at New Jersey Repertory Company, Parker could have written "Most men and women lead lives of quiet desperation."

Countdown to take-offs
For the next couple of weeks, a viewer won't need Lesley Stahl or Steve Kroft to have an engrossing 60 minutes. Two River Theater Company in Red Bank offers a solid hour's worth of entertainment in "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind."

Princeton Packet

Review: ‘An Inspector Calls’
It has been more than 60 years since J.B. Priestley wrote An Inspector Calls. And in those years people have forgotten that the British playwright once was ranked with Shaw, both in popularity and style. And so it is not without risk that the Princeton Summer Theater brings its audience this particular work as the third show of its season.

Albany Times-Union

A bit of theatrical beach reading
Read any good books lately? That's just one of many questions prompted by "The Book Club Play," which is making its regional premiere at the Berkshire Theatre Festival.

ATW NewsClips - National, Industry Pubs

2008-07-16T06:02:00.003-04:00

Associated Press

'Billy Elliot' announces its New York cast
Billy Elliot's dance teacher is coming to New York.

Bloomberg.com

No-Frills, $2 Million `[title of show]' Kicks Broadway's Big Money Habit
Broadway's wry, insidery ``[title of show]'' opens tomorrow night with a cast of four, a simple set and an onstage orchestra consisting in its entirety of a guy named Larry playing a Roland digital keyboard.

Entertainment Weekly

Review: August: Osage County (new cast)

Variety

'Billy' gears up for Broadway
Cast comes together for new production

Review: American Tales
...skillful and unusually thoughtful, bolstered by Jan Powell's understated and effective score. The world premiere production by the Antaeus Company, to borrow the last word from the show, is extraordinary.

Review: King Lear
Dark, mighty and poetic, Shakespeare's "King Lear" remains the definitive savage family drama -- a monumental tale of a betrayed monarch's descent into madness and grief. The mournful howl of the king can currently...

Review: The Light in the Piazza
While some musicals demand sweep and choruses, tuners rooted in the intimate and the internal may adapt well to a reduction in scope. A new chamber version of "The Light in the Piazza" not only makes this transition with grace, it positively thrives. ...

Back Stage

His Next Big Thing
Chicago-bred freelance entertainment journalist Jeff Favre is viewing the L.A. theatre scene from a new perspective these days, as his first full-length play, The Next Big Thing, premieres July 19 at the Art/Works Theatre in Hollywood.

Compose Yourself reviewed by David Finkle
Take the curious case of Larry Grossman, which the York Theatre Company just kinda did in an in-development revue called Compose Yourself.

ATW NewsClips - Online Sources, Select Blogs

2008-07-16T05:55:00.002-04:00

Playbill

* Rocking On! Toronto Hit We Will Rock You Re-Opens at Panasonic Theatre
* Expatriate Opens Off-Broadway at the Culture Project July 16
* It's a Dog Day Afternoon Beginning July 16 at Off-Broadway's Studio Theatre
* Iconis Musical, Plant That Ate Dirty Socks, Begins Off-Broadway Run July 16
* Cash, DeWitt and Hecht are Three Sisters at Williamstown Beginning July 16
* Lincoln Center Festival Presents GateBeckett Beginning July 16
* Goodspeed Confirms Musical Story for Fall; Design Team Announced
* Performances Added to Sold-Out Dennehy Double Bill at Stratford
* Oscar-Nominated Belgian Film, "Daens," Is Now a Musical

TheaterMania

Peter Filichia's Diary: Penthouse Suite and Sour
Peter Napolitano doesn’t live in a penthouse. But after his musical The Lady in Penthouse B gets an airing at the New2NY Series at the York Theatre Company ...

* Full Cast, Creative Team Set for Bay Street's Ain't Misbehavin'
* Will Chase and Malcolm Gets to Star in Goodspeed's The Story of My Life
* Casting Announced for L.A. Opera's The Fly
* Anderman, Biggs, Gianino, Kellerman Set for BTF's Noel Coward in Two Keys
* Harden, Hurt, Olyphant to Join Glenn Close on FX's Damages

Broadway.com

PHOTO OP: Dolly Parton's 9 to 5 Gets Ready for Broadway

theatre notes Blog

MIAF 2008
ASK Kristy Edmunds what is most exciting about the 2008 Melbourne Festival program - her fourth and, sadly for many of us, her last - and she pauses....

ATW NewsClips - London

2008-07-16T05:41:00.002-04:00

The Independent

'50 Ways to Leave Your Lover'
When the Bush Theatre asked people to share their worst break-up experiences, it was inundated with replies. Alice Jones finds out what became of the broken-hearted

Preview: Animal Farm, Oxford Castle, Oxford

First Night: Zorro, Garrick Theatre, London

The Times UK

Zorro the Musical at the Garrick, WC2
Stephen Clark’s book and Christopher Renshaw’s production have the merit of not taking themselves too seriously

The Guardian

'I'm a do-it-myself kind of broad'
Two decades of sobriety have been good to Elaine Stritch. The stage legend talks to Emma Brockes about booze, Brando and Broadway

Russell T Davies goes for a song
News: Fans of Doctor Who writer and producer Russell T Davies pay £500 to see him at Edinburgh

Zorro, Garrick Theatre, London
A good deal of Gypsy camp and dazzling choreography combine in a fun, refreshing show, writes Michael Billington

Daily Telegraph

A dark, twisted masterpiece
Charles Spencer reviews Sunset Boulevard at the Watermill Theatre, Newbury.

Whatsonstage.com

* Catherine Tate Injury Forces Blue Sky Cancellation
* Blue’s Lee Ryan Debuts in Pretender at New Players

Review: Zorro

ATW NewsClips - Late Day Links

2008-07-15T15:25:00.002-04:00

Playbill

* Alda and Weaver to Read Rosenblatt One-Acts July 19
* White Plains Season to Feature Camelot, Oliver!, Night Music and Dolly!
* Under the Blue Sky Begins London Run July 15
* Gwynne, Jbara, Shelley and Fontana Will Be Part of Broadway's Billy Elliot Cast

TheaterMania

* Ivey, Kennedy, Randolph-Wright, Rebeck, Uggams, et al. Set for Pasadena Playhouse's 2008-2009 Season
* WPPAC Announces 2008-2009 Season
* Full Cast Announced for Broadway's Billy Elliot

Broadway.com

Haydn Gwynne, Gregory Jbara, Carole Shelley & More Join Billy Elliot

lies like truth Blog

The Man-Fly Meld
Yesterday, I had interesting phone conversations with the dramatist David Henry Hwang and the movie director David Cronenberg. We were talking about the new opera version of The Fly, ...

The Wicked Stage Blog

Spidey Scents
I guess this means it's actually happening. Just got this in my inbox:...

Financial Times

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park, London
It may not be the perfect ‘Dream’, but every child will have left convinced that Shakespeare wrote comedy that can still enchant and inspire today, writes Sarah Hemming

Arias with a Twist, Here Arts Center, New York
Arias has the good sense never to get too bitchy – never to become the sad clown who’s cleaved to Joan Crawford while the rest of the world has spun forward to Britney, writes Brendan Lemon

Hangover Square, Finborough Theatre, London
Director Gemma Fairlie makes skilful use of the tiny Finborough space to bring out the claustrophobia of the existence of protagonist George Harvey Bone and his circle, writes Ian Shuttleworth

The Times UK

Sunset Boulevard at the Watermill Theatre
It has a car chase, a swimming pool and a crazy silver screen legend as its lead character

ATW NewsClips - Mid-Day Links

2008-07-15T12:35:00.002-04:00

Atlanta Journal-Constitution ATLArts Blog

'All's Well' @ Georgia Shakes

New York Magazine Vulture Blog

This Weekend, ‘Mamma Mia!’ and ‘The Dark Knight’ Battle for the Very Soul of America

In ‘Xanadu’ Did Whoopi Goldberg a Stately Pleasure-Dome Decree

New York Observer Culture Blog

Mamet's Speed-The-Plow Starts on Oct. 3

Time Out NY Blog

Tangled web, woven
Just got this casting notice for the Broadway-bound Spider-Man. Music by Bono. Directed by Lion Queen Julie Taymor.

amNY New York City Theater Blog

A Night at the Operetta on Monday Night

Morning News: Tuesday, July 15, 2008

New York Times ArtsBeat Blog

London Theater Journal: A Subversive Road to a Public Tragedy
James Alexandrou, left, and Kevin Watt in “In My Name.” (Photo: Wayne Parker)It was hard to figure out exactly what was going on at Trafalgar Studios 2 on Monday night. It was clear that there were four men in a cluttered, garbage-strewn room. And that each of them was to some degree in ...

Variety

Marquis books time with '9 to 5'
New tuner "9 to 5: The Musical'' will punch in at Broadway's Marquis Theater this spring, with the upcoming legit adaptation of the 1980 Fox pic beginning previews there in March.

Reuters

Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" to open on Broadway in '09
A musical based on 1980 film "Nine to Five" will open on Broadway in 2009 with music and lyrics by country star Dolly Parton, producers said on Tuesday.

Playbill

* Rent Company to Sing at Bloomingdale's July 17
* Carroll's "Basketball Diaries" Bounces Into 59E59 Theaters July 15
* Marvelous Wonderettes Delays First Preview
* Spider-Man Musical Searching for Its Peter Parker and Mary Jane
* Shanahan and Maulella Will Be Caught in Tryst, a Romantic Thriller, in Westport, CT
* Joe's Pub 10th Anniversary Season to Feature Bernhard, Lemper, Hoffman and Sh-K-Boom Series
* Jackson, De Haas, Burgess and Dacal Will Sing Songs of Gainza at Birdland
* Radnor, Westfeldt, Eisenberg, Rothman and More to Star in Finks at the Powerhouse
* PHOTO CALL: 9 to 5: The Musical Aims for Broadway

TheaterMania

* Global Broadway Productions Inc. to Produce Broadway-bound Little House, Rebecca, and Havana
* Spider-Man Musical to Hold Open Auditions July 28
* 9 to 5 to Open on Broadway at the Marquis on April 23; Full Cast Announced
* Bernhard, Daisey, Lemper, Mitchell, Stew, et al. Set for Joe's Pub 10th Anniversary Season

Broadway.com

FIRST PERSON: Christopher Durang: The Family Feeling of Bette and Boo

* Aspiring Broadway Stars Invited to Open Casting Call for Spider-Man
* 9 to 5 Headed for Broadway's Marquis Theatre; Complete Cast Announced

Talkin' Broadway

Review: Midlife The Musical! in Florida

The Playgoer Blog

Screen Boosts Stage?
Who says movies and tv take a bite out of theatre sales?

The Producer's Perspective Blog

Me and the geeks chattin' about investing in Broadway.
I was asked to be a guest on "The Wall Street Geeks" BlogTalkRadio segment on Sunday night.

Whatsonstage.com

Barbican Celebrates Ten Years of International Bite

ATW NewsClips - Mid-Morning Links

2008-07-15T10:26:00.002-04:00

Playbill

* Hello, Dolly! 9 to 5 Books Broadway's Marquis; Full Casting Announced
* New York City's New Voices Collective Makes London Debut in Fall
* Wicked Film and "Jesus Christ Superstar" Remake on Platt's Plate
* Calvert, Mitchell and More to Star in Free Readings of Hampton's Jungle Fun Room
* [title of show] Cast Will Make a Splash July 28
* Sprecher and Forlenza's Global Company Will Produce Little House, Rebecca and Havana

TheaterMania

* Daniel Radcliffe to Participate in "TimesTalks" August 19
* Bernhard, Portman, Shields to Appear on Project Runway
* Franklin, O'Hara to Join Bell, Cavanaugh, Meyers, et al. at Ross School

nytheatre.com

Review: The Strangerer

The Guardian Performing Arts Blog

Agnès Poirier: Vive l'Angleterre!
Following in Voltaire and Rimbaud's footsteps, which French émigré to Britain has contributed most to culture this year?

Owen Adams: Want to see a play? Then don't go to the theatre...

Whatsonstage.com

New York New Voices Launches UK Concert Series

Latest Gossip: Chocolate Factory Gets Revenge With White Devil???

Whatsonstage.com - Off-West End & Fringe

Attenborough Helps Chickenshed Celebrate Sea Change
Chickenshed, the London-based company specialising in community and inclusive theatre, is celebrating the run of its latest show Sea Change with a multicultural...

Review: Chu Chin Chow
Here is yet another treat for fans and historians of musical theatre - a rehearsed reading of Chu chin Chow, a great hit when it was first presented in 1916, running for an unprecedented five years. It starred the author Oscar Asche as the villainous Abu Hassan and his wife Lily Brayton as the intrepid slave girl Zahrat-al-Kulub. The tuneful and familiar score is by Frederick Norton and was probably responsible for much of the show’s original success. Unlike many musicals today, there is much variation in style and colour and lots of the songs still remain in our musical memory.

London Theatre Guide

Kids Week booking now open
Due to unprecedented high demand, the Kids Week website is running a bit slower than usual. However, you can book this same amazing offer directly with our ticketing partners, Ticketmaster at 0844 248 5151 or the Ticketmaster Kids Week site.

AmericanTheaterWeb Tuesday, July 15, 2008 Update

2008-07-15T08:37:00.002-04:00

I"m hoping to have everything moved over to dot.com by August 1. Until then, I'll dually maintain www.americantheaterweb.info, but a lot of the new and original stuff will be there only.

So, to give you a tease, and incentive to move over there, here are some of the things you'll find:

Scary Summer for Journalists
(links up to a number of very disturbing articles about cutbacks and resignations at three of the country's largest papers)

ATW News Digest - Sam Shepard's Kicking a Dead Horse opens at the Public - read the reviews
(the full round-up of reviews of the show that opened last night at the Public)

And...there are updates to the Damn Yankees and Marriage of Bette and Boo digests plus a couple more.

ATW NewsClips - California, Pacific Northwest Print

2008-07-15T07:12:00.002-04:00

Los Angeles Times

A 'Shrew' made for the L.A. lifestyle

Comic royalty with a common touch
Ricky Gervais jokingly takes the stage in a crown before romping through a...

Orange Couty Register Paul Hodgins' Theater Blog

Shakespeare Orange County offers “pay what you will” performances

Neutra building is spared from the wrecker’s ball — for now

L.A. Weekly

Theater Reviews: Assassins, The Comedy of Errors
Also, Looped, Of Equal Measure, and more

San Francisco Chronicle

Theater review: So-so 'Person of Szechuan'

Chad Jones' Theater Dogs Blog

Blinded by the `Blonde’

San Diego Union-Tribune

'Streetcar' Stanley not a heart's desire
There's an oppressive weight that hangs over Tennessee Williams' “A Streetcar Named Desire” – the heat of a New Orleans summer, the cramped tenement quarters, Stanley Kowalski's brutish nature, and the sexual tension between Stanley and his sister-in-law, Blanche DuBois.

Seattle Times

G&S Society's "Mikado" does its authors proud
Gilbert & Sullivan's "The Mikado" has a new staging at the Seattle Gilbert & Sullivan Society, playing through July 26 at Seattle Repertory Theatre.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

On Stage: On Stage: 'Big River' flows with energy
Taproot's "Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is powerful, full of energy and presence.

ATW NewsClips - Mid-West, Southwest Print

2008-07-15T06:44:00.003-04:00

Chicago Tribune Theater Loop Blog

'Kid From Brooklyn' Done in Chicago
The Danny Kaye musical, "The Kid from Brooklyn," has posted its closing notice. This production from Florida didn't do so well. Final performance at the Mercury Theatre in Chicago is on Sunday. If you have tickets past that date, contact...

'Co-Ed Prison Sluts' are back, filthy as ever
The Annoyance Theatre's "Co-Ed Prison Sluts" is a filthy little show. It wallows in the seedier side of life behind bars. Its characters are a happy crew of perverts. And its signature musical number, offered as a singalong, is basically...

Chicago Sun-Times

Like 'Jersey Boys,' some plays need to smoke
Playwright Tennessee Williams had his vices. He smoked, he drank and he downed no small number of pharmaceuticals. He also wrote plays capable of burning a hole in your heart...

A tea party well worth attending
It is only fitting that a theater company named Lookingglass should enjoy one of its greatest successes with a show that does, indeed, catapult its audience straight down the rabbit hole of ...

Minneapolis Star-Tribune

This Marple's daffy, but not condescending
Theatre in the Round takes on Agatha Christie's finest Miss Marple mystery.

A funny 'Government Inspector'
Hysterical might actually be the best way to describe the Guthrie's rollicking production of Gogol's satire.

Encore Michigan

Love, sex and everything in between at the Windsor Fringe
When does lust end and love begin? Can love and sex co-exist? And is it possible to have a nice breakfast in bed? ...

Cleveland Plain Dealer

CSU Summer Stages heats up campus
There is drama at Cleveland State University. But in this instance, at our city's headstrong but too-often discounted commuter college, it's only in the best sense of the word.

Cleveland Plain Dealer OnStage Blog

Where in the world is Cleveland actress Ring? In Pittsburgh's "Playboy of the Western World"

PlayhouseSquare's "Jersey Boys" sets a new Cleveland one-week Broadway show record

Cincinnati Enquirer

Five hits added to Broadway tour lineup
The addition of five favorites almost doubles the schedule of Fifth Third Bank Broadway Across America for 2008-09, with 11 titles now booked into the Aronoff Center.

Forever Plaid
The quartet of geeky-but-not-too-geeky crooners who form the boy group have charm by the bucketload, which more than carried the opening night. -Jackie Demaline

Six reasons to see 'Dozen'
This month you'll find nostalgic laughter aboard Showboat Majestic, with Cheaper by the Dozen, a family comedy about a large and boisterous family with an efficiency expert for a father.

Fine Arts Fund distributes more than $11 million

Dallas Morning News

'House & Garden' great at precision, pratfalls
Theatre Three presents Alan Ayckbourn's intricately constructed double bill: the separate House and Garden, in difference spaces.

Dallas Morning News Over the Top Blog

Playwright to vist at Rover Dramawerks

ATW NewsClips - Mid-Atlantic, New England, and Southern Print

2008-07-15T06:25:00.002-04:00

Washington Post

Modest at Best, but No Less Operatic
What is the difference between opera and musical theater? Some composers will tell you that it's an opera house. That's not the view of Opera Alterna, a small new company with a mission to bring opera to different kinds of spaces around the Washington area. Example: the Capital Fringe Festival,...

Philadelphia Inquirer

A young actress’ happy homecoming
It's a budding actress' dream - coming home with a leading role in a big musical and "everyone I've ever known" in the Academy of Music audience.

Shepard's 'Horse' has a certain sameness
Sam Shepard's new lament for America, Kicking a Dead Horse, is far more despairing and far less funny but just as autobiographical as his great play, True West, written 28 years ago.

Mafia-like 'King Lear' has hits - and misses
The Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival produced King Lear not on its main stage but in its smaller black box theater, which means one thing: a new take on the old man.

Richmond Times-Dispatch

One-woman show carried by 'Shirley' portrayer

Boston Globe

'Triumph of Love' is buoyed by youthful energy
The young Shakespeare on the Cape company's production has verve, smarts, and its own sense of style. And that's plenty.

Boston Herald

‘The Real Inspector Hound,’ ‘Hidden in This Picture’ offer fun in the park
There’s a dead body on the Chelsea waterfront and no one knows how long it’s been there. We sit on...

Berkshire Eagle

Christie returns in solid form
Agatha Christie's "The Mousterap" has been around since 1952 when it opened on London's West End and where, more than 23,000 performances later, it holds the record for the longest running play of any in the world.

Berkshire Stages
A digest of what's playing on regional stages based upon reviews by Berkshire Eagle theater critic Jeffrey Borak.

St. Petersburg Times

Stageworks' 'Private Lives' a mirror into the playwright — and ourselves

'Souvenir': The crow in the ...

Creative Loafing Atlanta PopSmart Blog

See & Do: Theater: The Color Purple

Charlotte News & Observer

'Pan' leads a joyous trip to Neverland
Sprinkle on a little fairy dust, and prepare to think happy thoughts when you see N.C. Theatre's production of "Peter Pan."

ATW NewsClips - Tri-State Print

2008-07-15T06:09:00.002-04:00

New York Times

Horse Can’t Head Into the Sunset in Sam Shepard’s New West
Sam Shepard’s new play is a disappointingly arid lament for America’s lost ideals and despoiled frontiers.

In a Life Without Role Models, an Actor Finds a Lot of Roles
It’s hard not to love 1970s funk and soul, and Don Reed effectively conjures the music and the era in this autobiographical one-man comedy.

Arts, Briefly: Whoopi to Join ‘Xanadu’
Whoopi Goldberg has signed on for the role of Calliope in the Broadway musical “Xanadu.”

Arts, Briefly: ‘Waiting for Godot,’ but Not for Long
A revival of Samuel Beckett’s classic play “Waiting for Godot” will arrive on Broadway in 2009, Playbill.com reported.

Arts, Briefly: Lincoln Center Theater Announces New Season
A new play by Noah Haidle will open the 2008-9 season of Lincoln Center Theater.

Arts, Briefly: Footnotes
"Buffalo Gal” by A. R. Gurney

New York Daily News

Whoopi's returning to Broadway
Oh my goddess - Whoopi Goldberg is going back to Broadway. "The View" co-host announced Monday on the all-girl gabfest that she's joining the cast of "Xanadu" at the Helen Hayes Theatre.

amNY

'Bette and Boo' shines
"I don't think God punishes people for specific things," Christopher Durang existentially muses in "The Marriage of Bette and Boo." "I think he punishes people in general, for no reason."

New York Post

Not just horseplay
There are moments during Sam Shepard's new play when the title feels all too apt. A slight one-act, virtually a monologue, about a New York art dealer stuck in the middle of the desert when his ride keels over...

New York Sun

Sam Shepard's Horseplay

New York Sun

And the horse he rode in on
Sam Shepard's "Kicking a Dead Horse," which opened last night at the Public Theatre, proves to be an all-too-literal reflection of its title.

Hartford Courant

Durang's Comedy 'The Marriage Of Bette And Boo' Ends With Sadness

Good Ride, But A Bit Repetitious
'Kicking a Dead Horse'

Star-Ledger

How the West was fun
Theater Project slings guns and satire in 'Purple Sage'

'Dead Horse' takes a beaten path
A sad, unsatisfy ing new play by Sam Shepard, "Kicking a Dead Horse" reflects the futility of its title all too well.

ATW NewsClips - National, Industry Pubs

2008-07-15T05:51:00.002-04:00

Associated Press

Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots, battle again
England's Queen Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots, will square off on Broadway next spring in the critically acclaimed London production of ''Mary Stuart,'' starring Janet McTeer and Harriet Walter.

Sam Shepard treads familiar ground in 'Dead Horse'

A mixture of hilarity and horror thrive in 'The Marriage of Bette and Boo'

Variety

Big, small screens boost Broadway
'Mamma' benefits from movie, 'Blonde' from TV

'Mary Stuart' to grace Broadway
Schiller's hit London play to bow in spring

Neil Pepe to direct 'Speed-the-Plow'
Performances begin at Belasco on Oct. 3

Sprecher, Forlenza go Global
Duo partner on producing org

LCT finds 'Happiness'
'Contact' team reunite for new musical

Review: Kicking a Dead Horse
...Even with Stephen Rea re-creating his starring role in the original Abbey Theater production -- not to mention the huge horse carcass taking up much of the stage -- the piece is all metaphor and no drama.

Review: The Book Club Play
Clearly, Zacarias is a writer of comedic skill but her much-in-development play lacks focus and a clear tone as it veers from social satire to sitcom snap and sentiment to Durang-like derangement -- and back again. Sitcomland is where this play feels most at home.

Review: The Little Hours
The worldly humor and cynical observations that marked the trademark pen of Dorothy Parker were harnessed into a chamber musical, "The Little Hours," by the late David Bucknam. Coincidentally, the tuner is having its world premiere by the New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch, where the scribe was born when her Manhattan family was vacationing there in summer 1893.

Review: Willy Wonka
While its frequent use of puppetry provides moments of pure imagination, this Chicago Shakespeare production of "Willy Wonka" -- a family-targeted musical version of Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" -- otherwise feels mostly like a practical affair, making it a decent entertainment but not a treat worth craving.

Bloomberg.com

Frolicking Nazis in `The Producers' Draw Laughs From Viennese Theatergoers
Seventy years after Austrians enthusiastically voted to become part of Nazi Germany, Vienna theater audiences are flocking to see ``The Producers'' and ``Mein Kampf'' to get a chance to poke fun at Hitler.

Stephen Rea Seeks `True' West in Shepard's Horsey Monologue: John Simon
With ``Kicking a Dead Horse,'' Sam Shepard returns as playwright and director in a co-production of Dublin's Abbey Theatre and New York's Public Theater, where it is now having its U.S. debut. Its one act is overlong (80 minutes), even if its one speaking character is played by the fine Irish actor Stephen Rea, who does everything performance can do for a play.

Wall Street Journal

A Second Chapter From the Second City
Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre swarmed this year's Tony Awards, though it wasn't always so. Between the company's explosive early success and now, there were years after John Malkovich, Gary Sinise and the other founders left for Hollywood and Broadway when Steppenwolf merely sputtered.

Back Stage

Kicking a Dead Horse reviewed by Adam R. Perlman
Yesterday David Mamet's most recent play closed, and tonight Sam Shepard's opens. Both works, penned by arguably America's greatest living playwrights, bear the marks of the Bush presidency.

Neal Medlyn's Unpronounceable Symbol reviewed by Jerry Portwood
Performer Neal Medlyn has a reputation for exposing himself. He once performed a syrupy sweet pop song while dressed in nothing but a puppy-dog sweater — his lower half completely nude.

No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs reviewed by Irene Backalenick
The temptation is to label No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs a play in process and to hope that the playwright will tighten this repetitious work.

The Wedding Play reviewed by Mark Peikert
Any two-hour farce had better keep the plot and characters in constant motion, and the greatest failing of The Wedding Play is that it doesn't.

ATW NewsClips - Online Sources

2008-07-15T05:28:00.002-04:00

Playbill

* "It's Today" for Esther Demsack at Summer Play Festival, July 15
* North Shore's Bye Bye Birdie, with Marroquin, Patterson, Ulloa, Butler, Begins July 15
* Babatundé and Chamberlin Return to Broadway's Chicago July 15
* Smokey Joe's Café Rocks Pittsburgh CLO July 15
* Passing Strange Cast Recording Makes In-Store Debut July 15
* Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Short Play Festival Begins July 15
* Mekka Reveals My Mother's Italian, My Father's Jewish & I'm in Therapy! Off-Broadway July 15
* Tony Winner Beth Leavel is New Frau in Town, Joining Young Frankenstein
* PLAYBILL.COM'S CUE & A: Jeff Bowen
* Belasco Gets Green Light for Speed-the-Plow
* Saturn Returns and Musical Happiness Set for Lincoln Center Theater
* London's Mary Stuart, With Walter and Tony Winner McTeer, Heading to Broadway in 2009
* "Mamma Mia!" Film Climbs UK Chart; Box Office Nearly Doubles
* The Seduction of Edgar Degas to Begin Off-Broadway Aug. 14
* Scenes From an Execution, Starring Maxwell, Adds Performances
* PHOTO CALL: The Female of the Species with Atkins Play London's West End
* ONSTAGE & BACKSTAGE: Brava, Betty Buckley

TheaterMania

Capital Interests
Chocolate Jesus and Ethan Now are among the highlights at the third annual Capital Fringe Festival in Washington D.C.

Review: Uncle Vanya
Peter Dinklage and Ritchie Coster give standout performances in Erica Schmidt's visually inventive, often bracing production of Chekhov's play.

Review: Kicking a Dead Horse
Stephen Rea fails to find sufficient humor in Sam Shepard's brilliant and macabre play about death.

* Benton, Eli, McMartin, Rebhorn Set for Haidle's Saturn Returns at LCT; Stroman to Direct Happiness
* Donmar's Mary Stuart with Janet McTeer and Harriet Walter to Bow on Broadway in 2009
* Akers, Cavenaugh, Mason, McKechnie, Reichard, Tune, et al. Set for Cabaret Convention
* Josh Radnor and Jennifer Westfeldt to Star in Powerhouse's Finks

Broadway.com

* LCT's Mitzi Newhouse Season to Include Saturn Returns & Happiness
* Janet McTeer and Harriet Walter Headed to Broadway in Mary Stuart

Talkin' Broadway

Review: Kicking a Dead Horse
Before you ask, the title of Sam Shepard's new play, Kicking a Dead Horse, is both literal and metaphorical. Hobart Struther, "dealer in American Fine Art," spends no shortage of time assailing his equine mount after it dies shortly after beginning what for him was a vital emotional pilgrimage. ...

Review: The Book Club Play

CurtainUp

Review: Kicking a Dead Horse
Shepard wrote this play for Stephen Rea, and the Irish actor delivers a remarkable performance in return.

Review: Damn Yankees
Thanks to John Rando’s inspired direction, Encores! has brought out the show’s best while resisting the temptation to make meaningless improvements

Reivew: The Stranger
...not only an absurdist look at politics. It is also an examination of the theater, particularly politics as a theatrical enterprise...

Review: Perfect Harmony
Takes a high school a cappella championship and turns it into winning comedy and drama.

ATW NewsClips - Select Blogs

2008-07-15T05:19:00.002-04:00

The Playgoer Blog

The Regional Actor's Lot
Teresa Eyring, the Executive Director of the Theatre Communications Group (TCG) actually takes on Mike Daisey in the current issue of American Theatre. Or at least goes after one of the gripes Daisey gave voice to in his recent ...

The Clyde Fitch Report Blog

Arts Advocacy Update XLIX
The content below is from Americans for the Arts' Cultural Policy Listserv, email blast of July 9, 2008:...

Sweatin' to Sondheim II
Oh my God, it's a trend. This is Sweatin' to Sondheim Act II Cardio Edition.

A Moratorium on Shakespeare?
Well, that's what they're talking about (and talking about and talking about) over at Theatre Is Territory.

Kudos to American Theatre Web

Theatreforte Blog

Featured Post: Writers need actors
Taking a break from the Great Debate, this post from screenwriter / director John August caught my attention. It's relevant because it adds another dimension to our discussion about making a living as an actor...

lies like truth Blog

Meaning Schmeaning
As I read over Tom Lubbock's interesting piece in today's UK Independent newspaper about society's obsession with explaining works of art, I couldn't help but be reminded of my own recent attempts to impose meaning on an approach to a theatre production which I don't fully understand.

ATW NewsClips - London

2008-07-15T05:05:00.002-04:00

The Guardian

Not puppets, but thinking actors
Lyn Gardner looks at drama education. Do some students do too much study and not enough treading the boards?

Portrait of the artist: Katie Mitchell
Interview: 'I was called the "princess of darkness". I didn't mind, but it upset my granny'

The Times UK

Why? Money, Money, Money, of course
Meryl Streep leads the sing-alongs, but Mamma Mia is a bland cash-in says critic Cosmo Landesman, in his two-star review

ATW NewsClips - Late DAy Links - All

2008-07-14T16:19:00.002-04:00

Miami Herald

The lucky and not-so-lucky
Prolific novelist and Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen has seen two of his books, Strip Tease and Hoot, turned into movies. Soon, theater audiences at the Edinburgh Festival,

Orlando Sentinel Attention Must Be Paid Blog

'China' returns to Orlando
[Editor's Note: This show is also on its way to FringeNYC]

Fort Worth Star-Telegram Pop Cultural District Blog

Basil needs some 'Water'
As if there was ever any doubt, Hip Pocket Theatre is officially the hippest theater in North Texas. Renowned puppeteer Basil Twist is in town this weekend checking out Bass Hall (to prepare for his company's performance of Petrushka with the Fort Worth Symphony in October),...

Star-Ledger

Unhappy marriage dissolves in laughter
Review of 'The Marriage of Bette and Boo'

amNY New York City Theater Blog

Call the Umpire, Are Critics Being Unfair to Damn Yankees?

Whoopi to Join Broadway's Xanadu

Associated Press

Whoopi Goldberg to appear in `Xanadu' on Broadway

Variety

Whoopi laces up for 'Xanadu'
Whoopi Goldberg will roll into a stint in Broadway's "Xanadu" this summer, playing scheming muse Caliope in the musical spoof of the infamous 1980 roller-disco flop.

'Daens' to become stage musical
Production could be Belgian 'Les Miserables'

Review: Uncle Vanya
A Chekhov production demands a balancing act: Despair and levity have to coexist, just like symbolism and psychological realism, or else part of the play's richness will be lost.

Playbill

* The Two and Only Closes Early in London; Jay Johnson Blogs the Blues
* Filling Out the Form: BMI Lehman Engel Workshop Deadline Is Aug. 1
* Amy Freed's Raucous Roman Comedy You, Nero Added to Berkeley Rep Season
* Broadway Grosses: July 7-13
* Colella, Ashford, Chase, Blum, Boll and Wise Complete Annie Get Your Gun for Pittsburgh CLO
* Equus Star Daniel Radcliffe to Chat at TimesTalks
* PHOTO CALL: "Broadway Barks" in Shubert Alley
* Betrayal, Musketeers, Godot and Seafarer Comprise 2008-2009 Seattle Rep Season
* PHOTO CALL: The Marriage of Bette and Boo Opens Off-Broadway
* In the Heights and Pure Country Stars Play "Broadway in Bryant Park"
* Overbey, Ambudkar and Shamos Make Animals Out of Paper for Second Stage Uptown

TheaterMania

* Bix Barnaba to Star in Give Em Hell Harry! at St. Luke's
* Cudia, Kennedy, Merediz et al. Set for July 17 Broadway in Bryant Park
* Finley, Gelber, Mauzey, Selya, Tam, et al. Set for NYMF Guitar Hero Tournament
* Speed-the-Plow Revival to Play the Belasco Beginning October 3
* Whoopi Goldberg to Temporarily Join Xanadu on July 29

Broadway.com

* Broadway Grosses: Numbers Steady; November Departs
* Speed-the-Plow Revival Finds a Broadway Home
* Whoopi Goldberg Joins Xanadu for Six-Week Summer Run
* Baker, Camargo, Gelber & Ferland Join Broadway Revival of All My Sons

Talkin' Broadway

Review: Jerry Springer:The Opera

Financial Times

The Frontline, Shakespeare’s Globe, London
What matters here is the big picture, the diversity of activities – love, sex, drugs, fast food, race issues – and yet the similarity of drives as all characters search for meaning, writes Ian Shuttleworth

The Times UK

Francesca Annis: the great unknown
'I've never wanted to be a great big star,' Annis says. She's more bothered, post-Ralph Fiennes, about living on her own

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Open Air, London
Shakespeare is reduced to child's play in a production that delights the kids but leaves the critics underwhelmed

Peeping at Bosch, Tramway, Glasgow
The Mischief La-Bas theatre company takes its audience on a journey through the Hieronymus Bosch's most famous painting

The Guardian

Missing Shakespeare: stolen First Folio surfaces in US
Long wait is over for £15m British literary treasure last seen in 1998

Actor loses £2.3m estate battle
Hetty Baynes today lost the fight to be considered a dependant of her mother's lesbian lover, the sculptor Mary Spencer Watson

The Winter's Tale, Leeds Castle, Maidstone
Lyn Gardner finds the Globe's touring production lively, if lacking in subtlety

ATW NewsClips - Mid-Day Links - All

2008-07-14T11:37:00.002-04:00

Chicago Tribune Theater Loop Blog

'Jersey Boys': They sing, they act, they're funny
Today's Joke of the Day on the Tribune's HeadCandy blog is by Jarrod Spector, who plays Frankie Valli in Chicago's production of "Jersey Boys" at the Bank of America Theatre. The "Jersey Boys," in fact, are doing the jokes all...

Village Voice Blog

Clip Job: What Really Happens at the Obies
Clip Job: an excerpt every day from the Voice archives
June 3, 1959, Vol. IV, No. 32

amNY New York City Theater Blog

Morning News: Monday, July 14, 2008

New York Times ArtsBeat Blog

London Theater Journal: A Double-Header at the Globe
Six hours of Shakespeare al fresco on a cool, damp day sounds like a recipe for arthritis – of the mind if not of the body. But I experienced a positively toasty contentment during my double header of plays at the Globe Theater in Southwark on Saturday. Watching “The Merry Wives of […]

Back Stage (last Friday's CA reviews)

Review: A Company of Wayward Saints
Playwright George Herman's venerable chestnut teaches the importance of unity and greater good over that of individual selfishness.

Review: My Antonia
Fine work has gone into this Scott Schwartz adaptation of Willa Cather's 1918 novel about immigrant families in rural Nebraska.

Review: They're Just Like Us
In playwright Boo Killebrew's sardonic yet oddly unsatisfying comedy, the snake biting its own tail which we know as "fame" is a dark-eyed goddess that a coterie of self-absorbed acquaintances are willing to do almost everything to worship.

Review: Unbeatable Harold
When a show clocks in at 45 minutes, one is tempted to write a haiku review.

Review: Capsized Flotsam
Donaco Smyth's play, advertised as "a gay Edwardian comedy," is set in 1904 London.

Review: Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck's script, adapted from his novel, captures the specific world of the migrant farm worker in California circa 1937.

Playbill

* Baker, Camargo, Gelber and Ferland Join Broadway's All My Sons
* Whoopi Goldberg to Join Broadway's Xanadu July 29
* New Arthur Laurents Play Will Debut at George Street in 2009
* Broadway's Next Elle Woods Will Get a Single of "So Much Better" July 22
* Block, Morrison, Boggess, Arcelus and More Go Green July 14 at Birdland

TheaterMania

A Pet Cause
Bernadette Peters, Mary Tyler Moore, Mario Lopez, Glenn Close, Cheyenne Jackson, Matthew Morrison, Nathan Lane, Christine Baranski, and a slew of celebrities lend a hand at Broadway Barks 10.

* Additional Casting Announced for Broadway's All My Sons
* D'Abruzzo, Faber, Hanlon et al. Set to Join the Cape Cod Theatre Project Season
* Kate Hudson Joins Nine Film
* Laura Bell Bundy to Leave Legally Blonde on July 20; New Elle to Be Named July 21 and Release Single on July 22
* George Street Announces 2008-2009 Season
* Callaghan, Hunter, Oscar, Wintersteller, et al. Set for Samuel French Short Play Festival

Broadway.com

Mamma Mia! Film Opens Strongly in Europe, Australia

Q & A: Stephen Collins

Superfluities Blog

Review: Scenes From an Execution

The Wicked Stage Blog

Iggy, Dinah, Soupy's Boys, and the Cyborg
Indulge me yet another non-theatre-related diversion, if you will: Another stunning YouTube from the days when punk met daytime TV...

The Producer's Perspective Blog

Some things are the same, not matter what coast you are on.

The Independent

Greer furious at play based on her life by 'insane reactionary'

The Guardian

Big Love, Peacock, Dublin
A contemporary remix of Aeschylus's sexual politics is exuberant and ironic, finds Helen Meany

Whatsonstage.com

Germaine Greer Attacks Female of the Species Play

Anna Maxwell Martin On ... A Female Reunion

Whatsonstage.com - Off-West End & Fringe

Opening: Chu Chin Chow, Street Scene, Nocturne
In a week when many Off-West End & Fringe venues are presenting Edinburgh preview shows, there are only a limited number of major openings: OPENING TONIGHT,...

London Theatre Guide

On The Rocks extends
Hampstead theatre’s comedy, On The Rocks, which stars Ed Stoppard and Tracy-Ann Oberman as DH Lawrence and his wife Freida, has extended its limited run by one week.

AmericanTheaterWeb Monday, July 14, 2008 Update

2008-07-14T08:44:00.002-04:00

Well, back from the O'Neill. As promised, I got the news up last night - hope you weren't too inconvenienced by the delay. The time in Connecticut was refreshing, revitalizing. Good theater and good conversation - much of which was about the future of criticism.

If you delve into the weekend's news, you'll find a couple of articles about this timely and important subject. Over at the beta site, I distilled them into a small piece. You'll also find the digest of reviews for The Marriage of Bette & Boo, and later today, updated digests for Damn Yankees, the Potomac Theatre Project's season at Atlantic Stage 2, and much, much more.

So, drop by www.americantheaterweb.info - which I soon hope will be what you find over here at AmericanTheaterWeb.com. Hey - why not even consider bookmarking .info or making it your homepage (unless you want to take advantage of the RSS/Atom feeds or email subscription option).

Best and Happy Bastille Day!

Andy Propst

ATW NewsClips - California, Pacific Northwest Print

2008-07-14T07:28:00.002-04:00

Los Angeles Times

'Of Equal Measure' at the Kirk Douglas

'Julie Andrews: The Gift of Music' comes to the Hollywood Bowl on Fri. and Sat.

L.A. City Beat

Currently Playing on Stage, July 10-16

The Many Loves of Antonia the Scrivener
Don Shirley looks at the many loves of Antonia the Scrivener

San Francisco Chronicle

'Ishi,' gripping drama at Theatre Rhino

Chad Jones' Theater Dogs Blog

Knights Who Say Ni: `Spamalot’ coming to SF at last

San Diego Union-Tribune

Romantic 'Phantom' keeps them coming back for more

Big cast and a big sound underscore 'Yank!'
You have to be a little mad to stage a musical: all those moving parts, all those dancing feet, all those actors breaking into sudden song and trying to sell such antics as rational human behavior.

The Oregonian

Previw: Pippin & Annie Warbucks
Sometimes the desire to put on a show sees no obstacle. Take, for example, Stevie Boothe and David Ruben, who have just launched Tin Pan Alley Theatre Company in Portland to do musicals in summer repertory, despite the fact that neither of them lives here.

ATW NewsClips - Mid-West, Southwest and Mountain Print

2008-07-14T07:13:00.002-04:00

Chicago Tribune

Bard takes the stage in Stratford, Ontario

A sampling of shows in Stratford

Chicago Tribune Theater Loop Blog

Sweet on Navy Pier, the Candy Man deserves a spot on Broadway. If you stretch the taffy.
A year or two ago, a major Broadway producer told me, sotto voce, that he thought he had the Broadway rights to â€œWilly Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.â€ Well, I thought, Oompa, Loompa, Doompa-Dee-Do. Itâ€™s hard to imagine better source...

Chicago Sun-Times

'Wonka' a world of pure illumination
In a program note for his production of "Willy Wonka," the 65-minute family musical by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley that opened over the weekend at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater...

Medieval and modern collide high above the Pier

St. Paul Pioneer

'Murder' is upfront with its intentions
With Agatha Christie, it's not so much whodunit as whodidn'tdoit? Christie became the world's best-selling novelist by creating mysteries in which practically every character in the story is a suspect — as in "A Murder is Announced," playing at Theatre in the Round...

Detroit Free Press

Parody of 'Facts of Life' on stage in Ferndale

Encore Michigan

Detroit Repertory Theatre awarded Knight Foundation Fund grant

A 'fact' at The Ringwald: Camp until it hurts

Jewsical! The Musical lacks chutzpah

Houston Chronicle

Agatha Christie play features genuine surprises
...The Alley Theatre's annual Summer Chills outing has rolled around again, which usually means one of Dame Agatha Christie's enormously popular whodunits. This year's production of The Unexpected Guest rates ...

Arizona Republic

Preview: 'Wizard of Oz' in Peoria

Denver Post

"Labour'" loses something in makeover

ATW NewsClips - Mid-Atlantic, New England

2008-07-14T06:55:00.002-04:00

Washington Post

At Fringe Festival, A Finely Tuned Fury
The art of the one-person show is in disguising a self-centered act as something generous: The performer must convince us utterly that he's in it more for our pleasure than his own. The beguiling monologuist Mike Daisey achieves this in grand style with his new solo piece about the withering of A...

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Stage Preview: Actress ready to put her stamp on 'Joe's'
A veteran African-American actress and singer with more than a half-dozen Broadway credits, Terry Burrell has played many ethnicities. ...

Richmond Times-Dispatch

On the Aisle - theater notes

Boston Globe

'Broke-ology' looks at complex family life

ATW NewsClips - Tri-State Print

2008-07-14T06:41:00.002-04:00

New York Times

Do You, Bette, Take Boo for a Life of Misery That We’ll Laugh At?
This uneven revival succeeds better at milking the play’s broad laughs than acknowledging the rich seams of anguish that feed them.
* Audio Slide Show: Scenes From a Marriage

ARTS, BRIEFLY; Footnotes
...The New York Foundation for the Arts has announced that 33 theater companies based in New York City will receive grants totaling $2 million...

Newsday

Reviews: Durang's 'Beyond Therapy,' 'Bette and Boo'

New York Post

It's 'Boo'-tifully Done
Few plays are as darkly funny, or fun nily dark, as "The Marriage of Bette and Boo," Christopher Durang's 1985 autobiographical play that was either the result of too much or too little therapy....

Weirdness a fringe benefit at Midtown Fest

New York Sun

Baby Doom: Durang's 'The Marriage of Bette and Boo'
The little bundles emerge from stage right, usually (but not always) in the arms of an obstetrician. Four are wrapped in blue blankets, one in pink. One is tossed in from offstage. All five land on the ground with an amplified thud. All but one is a…

Giving a Boost to off-off-Broadway - Midtown Fest

Standing Up From the Ghetto: Don Reed's 'East 14th'

New York Journal-News

'Marriage' is a bitter fate
Bitterness is at the core of Christopher Durang's "The Marriage of Bette and Boo," a play that opened 23 years ago at the Public Theatre and has been revived by the Roundabout Theatre.

New York Magazine

Jeremy McCarter on Damn Yankees

Star-Ledger

Premieres on George Street
In announcing the George Street Playhouse's 2008-09 season, artistic director David Saint included a nice birthday present for Arthur Laurents

Albany Times-Union

Glimmerglass charms with 'Kiss Me, Kate'

ATW NewsClips - National, Industry Pubs

2008-07-14T06:28:00.002-04:00

Associated Press

NYC sets formal rules for filming on city streets
Filmmakers and photographers who shoot on New York City's streets and sidewalks now have a clear set of rules dictating when they must obtain permits, after years of relying on loose guidelines that civil liberties advocates said were too vague.

Hollywood Reporter / Reuters

"Damn Yankees" revival a costly disappointment
It's not likely that the limited-run revival of "Damn Yankees," which officially debuted Thursday at the City Center for three weeks (following five days of previews), will inspire demands for a open-ended Broadway run as three former "Encores!" presentations so famously have done.

Bloomberg.com

Ophelia Confronts Loser Boyfriend Hamlet in Brooklyn's McCarren Park Pool
In the new play ``Twelve Ophelias,'' Hamlet is a slacker, his mother Gertrude runs a brothel and the setting is a squalid shantytown instead of Denmark's royal court.

Variety

Reviw: The Marriage of Bette and Boo
...themes like marital misery, family dysfunction, alcoholism, emotional instability, religion and death into standard fodder for comedy. So it's all the more surprising that, whether in giddy or melancholy mode, the play remains sharp, funny and affecting more than 20 years later.

Review: Of Equal Measure
...leading her into stilted dialogue and preposterous plotting for which helmer Leigh Silverman never settles upon an appropriately persuasive style. Result is as crudely manipulative as the World War I-era propaganda Barfield vilifies.

Review: Ricky Gervais
...the belly laughs shifting around the Kodak Theater as nerves are struck. On his opening night in the States, Gervais' no-nonsense approach hit every bull's eye.

Review: Neal Medlyn's Unpronounceable Symbol
...check out a piece by performance artist Neal Medlyn. He's made a career out of exaggerating pop's dark side, and in his latest show, "Neal Medlyn's Unpronounceable Symbol," he takes a charming jab at Prince.

Review: Debbie Reynolds: An Evening of Music and Comedy
The only thing missing from "Debbie Reynolds: An Evening of Music and Comedy," the star's engaging "little visit with friends" at the El Portal, is any hint of the emotional toll of her well-documented personal and professional disappointments. In this 90 minutes of music, comedy and reminiscence, Debbie has no interest in wallowing in her woes, and she's betting the audience doesn't either.

Review: Broke-ology
...The issues of family responsibility, survival and sacrifice are not new , being the source for great dramas and not-so-great melodramas. But what draws the aud into Jackson's loving play -- receiving its preem at Williamstown Theater Festival -- is the attention to the detail of the caring, struggling family ...

Back Stage

The Marriage of Bette and Boo reviewed by David Sheward
Dysfunctional families have long provided fodder for American drama, but no play has approached the family dynamic with the heartbreak and hilarity as The Marriage of Bette and Boo.

ATW NewsClips - Online Sources

2008-07-14T06:20:00.002-04:00

Playbill

* Block, Morrison, Boggess, Arcelus and More Go Green July 14 at Birdland
* Klausner, McCarthy, Steggert and Stram Join Pen for Polly's Night Out July 14
* Summer Broadway Festival Kicks Off July 14 with A Night at the Operetta II
* Free Diverse City Theater Readings, with Seldes and Cumpsty, Presented July 14
* Davie, Jue, Lockyer, Page, Reams, Rowat and More Celebrate 90 Years of Muny Magic July 14
* Shepard's Kicking a Dead Horse Opens at the Public July 14
* Woodward and Keefe Offer Arsenic and Old Lace at Westport July 14
* Ninth Annual Midtown International Theatre Festival Begins July 14
* Mauzey, Finley and Tam Battle in NYMF's "Guitar Hero" Tournament July 14

TheaterMania

Peter Filichia's Diary: A Lotta Brains, A Lotta Talent
Sean Hayes in a delight as the devilish Mr. Applegate, Jane Krakowski utterly delicious as his favorite homewrecker Lola, and Cheyenne Jackson is appealing as new baseball great Joe Hardy. Add in a tender-hearted Randy Graff as Meg,...

Lou Liberatore and Bill Timoney to Star in Shadow Lawn's The Odd Couple

Review: The Marriage of Bette and Boo
The Roundabout serves up a well-crafted revival of Christopher Durang's often hilarious play about two dysfunctional families.

Review: The Strangerer
Theater Oobleck presents a dizzyingly funny political work about George W. Bush and John Kerry.

Talkin' Broadway

Review: The Marriage of Bette and Boo
Dysfunction, like so much else in life, is relative. Take Christopher Durang’s piercing comic tearjerker, The Marriage of Bette and Boo, which Roundabout is now presenting in its Off-Broadway Laura Pels Theatre. When the play premiered 23 years ago, its torrential centerpieces of divorce, alcoholism, and stillbirths (four in all) were ideal for vivisection by jokes that made relieving light of things that at first seemed impossibly dark. How better to survive the depths of emotional degradation than by facing them on their own surreal terms? . . .

Review: The Strangerer
Think the Iraq war is absurd? You must know you’re not alone. But would you ever have expected the likes of Jim Lehrer, Senator John Kerry, and - of all people! - President George W. Bush to openly share that view? It’s the odd magic of Mickle Maher’s disturbingly compelling The Strangerer, which just opened at the Barrow Street Theatre following a highly successful run in Chicago, that makes that and more unlikely propositions feel as certain as the sun’s rising tomorrow morning. . . .

nytheatre.com

Review: undergroundzero Festival

ATW NewsClips - Select Blogs

2008-07-14T06:15:00.003-04:00

The Playgoer Blog

Sweatin' to Sondheim
You know, it had to happen. Eventually.

Back from the O'Neill and What Do I Get?

lies like truth blog

Folk Alley
Following last week's post about two great music radio shows that I've been listening to lately -- London Calling and Thistle and Shamrock -- I received a variety of mail not just from fans of these shows, but also from radio buffs about other interesting musical offerings on the radio.

theatre notes Blog

Germaine lets fly
It was bound to happen. Our Germaine has delivered a couple of fast left hooks at Joanna Murray-Smith, whose play based (or not based) on La Greer, The Female of the Species, opens in the West End...

ATW NewsClips - London

2008-07-14T05:59:00.002-04:00

The Independent

Is it time West Side Story got a 21st-century makeover?

Review: Relatively Speakings, Festival Theatre, Malvern

Review: He's Talking, Cottesloe NT, London

Review: Mixed Up North, MacOwan Theatre, London

Financial Times

A whole new level of unreality
Letting director Rupert Goold and his co-adaptor Ben Power get their hands on the works of Luigi Pirandello is like striking a match in a firework factory, though I would hesitate to say which provided the gunpowder and which the flame, writes Ian Shuttleworth

Free Outgoing, Royal Court (Downstairs), London
Chandrasekhar’s witty play astutely dramatises a changing India, pinpointing the clash between traditional values and enthusiasm for new technology, writes Sarah Hemming

High School Musical – Live on Stage, Hammersmith Apollo, London
The hand-springing, high-jumping choreography really is spectacular and is performed with humbling energy by the 32-strong cast, writes Chris Wilkinson

The Times UK

Patrick Stewart: from captain to Hamlet
At 68, Patrick Stewart is as prolific as ever. He talks about a varied career - and why he has no regrets about his time on the Enterprise

The Tailor and Ansty, Old Red Lion, London
A tailor's stories, with their gentle comedy and mildly irksome sexism, are neither revealing nor funny

Hangover Square, Finborough Theatre, London
Here’s a local work by a local writer: one that was published in 1941and later adapted for the stage by Fidelis Morgan

The Guardian

Follow that stilt-walker!
A first look at what's coming up in the Edinburgh festivals this year. Read critics' previews of comedy, dance and fringe theatre, get advice from the experts and dip into our blogger's guide

City of Angels, Guildhall School, London
Michael Billington on one of the wittiest musicals in the canon

The Guardian Performing Arts Blog

Lyn Gardner: Oily Cart's theatre makes a splash

Daily Telegraph

Why Topol is still on top of the world
The actor is coming to the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park - though not in the role he's been playing for most of his life, Tevye the milkman, but in a new production of 'Gigi'. He talks to Jasper Rees about stepping into Maurice Chevalier's shoes - and a lifetime of luck.

Surprise Yourself: The Railway Children
Dominic Cavendish looks forward to the Theatre Royal York's stage adaptation of The Railway Children, playing at the National Railway Musesum, York, from July 18 to August 23.

Double daring gives a great novel the staging it deserves
Charles Spencer reviews Hangover Square at the Finborough Theatre.

Whatsonstage.com

Opening: Zorro, Species, Street Scene & Nocturne

Whastonstage.com - Off-West End & Fringe

NYT Unveil 2008 Season and Go to China
The National Youth Theatre have unveiled a 2008 season based around the theme of Worlds Apart. This is the 52nd season for the London based company who focus on...

What It Is Like To Be … A Costume Designer
Designs by Saff and Silky are costume designers with a difference. Not only are they Designers, they personally make all the costumes in house in their offices in South West London. They have designed for many shows including Spirit of Christmas at the Kodak theatre, LA and the Genius of Ray Charles at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket.

Review: Hangover Square
Earl’s Court has long been thought of as a place where people of transience can be found, dipping in and out of its many hotels and hostels; a seedy but rather charming area of London. Patrick Hamilton’s Hangover Square cashes in on this sublime mystique, using the borough as a back drop to the unstable and transient thoughts of its protagonist George Harvey Bone. Now, Fidelis Morgan’s accomplished stage adaptation of Hamilton’s 1914 novel returns the action to its original home, being staged in Earl’s Court’s Finborough Theatre.

Review: Moonlight and Magnolias
Was Gone With the Wind the biggest flop ever? No, I’m not talking about Trevor Nunn’s musical, but rather the epic 1939 Hollywood screen adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s novel. It seems an incredible question to pose about the highest-grossing film in Hollywood history, an eight-time Oscar winner, but when producer David O Selznick shut down production three weeks into filming, epic failure seemed all but guaranteed.

Lunatic Familial Dysfunction Reigns in 'Bette and Boo'

2008-07-14T05:32:00.001-04:00

Long before television's "The Simpsons" and "Family Guy," playwright Christopher Durang was mocking the American family life, religion and societal norms in plays like Baby With the Bathwater" and The Marriage of Bette and Boo, which premiered at the Public in 1985 (four years before "Simpsons") and which opened last night in a revival at Roundabout Theatre Company's Laura Pels Theatre. While Durang's work is always a welcome treat, the ubiquity of irreverent and often politically incorrect humor in our world today seems to have blunted the edge of "Marriage," which, though frequently hilarious, cutting and touching (sometimes all at once), never achieves a sustained buoyancy that makes for a truly satisfying night at the theater.

Perhaps it's because Durang tries to achieve so much in this piece that examines the lives of its title characters from their marriage filled with ditzy optimism through to its dissolution. The dizzyingly episodic piece (33 scenes that unfold within a floating crimson stage of equally crimson sliding panels from scenic designer David Korins) is narrated by Matt (a sympathetic Charles Socarides), Bette and Boo's only child. Now an adult, he's trying to make sense of his life with his parents, and in between his attempts to contextualize his upbringing, he also muses on Thomas Hardy's novels and some of his favorite films. There's an erudition to these sequences, but it detracts from the main event here – the comic chaos of life with Bette (Kate Jennings Grant) and Boo (Christopher Evan Welch) and all of Matt's extended family.

Comedy isn't the only aspect of life with Matt's alcoholic dad and desperate to be fertile mother. There's also tragedy. After having Matt, Bette's children are all stillborn. Bette's compulsively apologetic sister Emily (Heather Burns) is institutionalized following a break-down. The other sibling, Joan (whose bitterly acerbic barbs are delivered with panache by Zoe Lister-Jones), endures a marriage to and divorce from an unseen Greek man, whom her family hates. All the while though, Joan remains unbearably – at least to Bette who longs for a bevy of children – fertile.

The three sisters' neuroses and personalities are not all that surprising. They've been raised by the perpetually chipper and platitude-spouting Margaret (Victoria Clark) and the incomprehensible Paul (Adam Lefevre), who speaks only in gibberish and brings to mind doddering and senile Grandpa Simpson.

On his father's side, there's Karl (impeccably rendered by John Glover), also alcoholic with a truly vicious sense of humor, and Soot (played with almost luminescent cheeriness by Julie Hagerty), whose dimwittedness is not only a delight to audiences, it's a constant source of amusement to her husband, who uses every opportunity to pronounce her the "dumbest white woman on Earth." (Imagine a dark well-to-do WASP incarnation of Marge and Homer and you will completely know who these two characters are.)

When these unfortunate souls need assistance, they turn to their local priest (Terry Beaver), who offers little solace. He unenthusiastically doles out church doctrine laced with contempt, and seems much more at ease when, in the middle of a couples' counseling retreat – attended by all of the family – lays on the floor to do his impersonation of a strip of bacon in a frying pan.

Such moments of lunacy abound in "Marriage." At a disastrous Thanksgiving celebration Bette turns growling harridan to hysterical effect. A birthday celebration for Joan proves to be equally hilarious even as sadness creeps into the proceedings. When Bette's alone and wanders – both figuratively and literally – into a dream world in which she dreams of having children that she will name after the characters from A.A. Milne's "Pooh" stories, one can't help but giggle.

Yet, despite a plethora of fine writing and some sterling performances, the play, and director Walter Bobbie's staging, vacillates. At one moment the audience may be roaring with laughter, this is followed by moments in which a semi-pall seems to have fallen over theatergoers. Generally, whenever Jennings and Clark, dressed in chipper 50s era cocktail dresses with matching pumps, of course, from costume designer Susan Hilferty, are onstage, laughter is the rule. Jennings navigates the fine edge of comedy and tragedy to perfection. Clark, who seems to be able to elicit a laugh just by arching an eyebrow or by staring confusedly at a plate of cake, offers up Durang's zingers with laser-like precision.

It's primarily these actresses' work that casts the most lasting thrall in "Marriage," which has many absurd elements that have been co-opted by both live and animated sitcoms since the play's debut. It may be the latter shows' ability to stretch absurdity to even further extremes that has sapped "Marriage" of some of its potency, but there's still much to be cherished in this "Marriage."

---- Andy Propst

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The Marriage of Bette and Boo continues through September 7 at the Laura Pels Theater at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre (111 West 46th Street). Performances are Tuesday through Saturday at 7:30pm, with Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2pm. Tickets are $$63.75-$73.75 and can be purchased by calling 212-719-1300. Ticketing, and further information, is available online at www.roundabouttheatre.org.

ATW NewsClips - California Print

2008-07-13T22:45:00.002-04:00

Los Angeles Times

Louis & Keely, together again
Capturing the volatile chemistry of Prima and Smith was no easy task. Nor was...

Shakespeare works are recovered
A stolen volume of William Shakespeare's collected plays, published in 1623 and worth about $2.5 million,...

Debbie Reynolds sings, jokes, does impressions -- and shows a little leg
Mary Frances Reynolds is back in the old neighborhood. You know her as Debbie

Los Angeles Daily News

Lawrence Pressman on the `Measure' of a man

'Looped' has trouble staying on track
Matthew Lombardo's Tallulah Bankhead bio-drama starring Valerie Harper, has the makings of an interesting play. But it is a house divided against itself
Preview: "Of Equal Measure" at the Kirk Douglas Theatre

Orange County Register

Roy from 'The Office' brings Henry V to Garden Grove
David Denman tackles the role of the young English monarch in Shakespeare Orange County's production of 'Henry V.'

San Francisco Chronicle

Anthologies For People
Roger Rees "What You Will" at ACT is a mix of Shakespeare, anecdotes and Bardic echoes.

'Mamma's' Boy
Dominic Cooper has a short resume in theater and film but it is nonetheless impressive, and with his brooding good looks, he just may be the next British heartthrob to make it big in United States. After all, Cooper was...

Movie Soundtracks have features ABBA music for decades

Still doing it for love
It looked like a lot of teens were in the audience on opening night of “A Chorus Line” in San Francisco, and that’s good news. Now a new generation can enjoy the spirit and power of the 33-year-old Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner, which still holds a Broadway record for longevity.

Chad Jones' Theater Dogs Blog

SF `Spring Awakening’ tix on sale; Riabko video

Review: `Cabaret’
Intimate theater puts new spin on an old musical chum

Contra Costa Times

Review: Willows production of 'Annie Get Your Gun' a charmer

Review: Livermore's 'Shakespeare' spoof a memorable piece of comedy

'Spamalot' to close out Best of Broadway season

Sacramento Bee

Onstage: 'Gypsy' in her soul
Vicki Lewis taps her inner fire to play the formidable Mama Rose

San Diego Union-Tribune

Everything's coming up roses ...
... for Broadway director Bartlett Sher, who spent his 'very, very important formative years' working in San Diego

Actor tests her mettle as Blanche DuBois
When Ion Theatre opens its reconceived version of Tennessee Williams' “A Streetcar Named Desire” tonight, it promises to be a boundary-stretching experience for both audiences and the performer playing the brittle Blanche DuBois.

Old Globe awarded Irvine grant
The Old Globe Theatre has been awarded a $750,000 grant from the James Irvine Foundation to develop arts-related programs in southeastern San Diego, where the Balboa Park-based company opened its new Technical Center earlier this year.

ATW NewsClips - Mid-West, Southwest and Mountain Print

2008-07-13T22:25:00.002-04:00

Chicago Tribune

'Rabbit's Tale' is a sweet, unexpected find in the park
You don't typically stumble across a moving little show such as "A Rabbit's Tale" in a park.

Chicago Tribune Theater Loop Blog

Lighting up the sky at Navy Pier
Missed the spectacular show this weekend at Navy Pier? And, yes, it was quite something. Luckily for you, we have a video.

Bard takes the stage in Stratford, Ontario

Chicago Sun-Times

Stage Notes

Minneapolis Star-Tribune

There's something a bit funny about 'Government Inspector'
Hysterical might actually be the best way to describe the Guthrie's rollicking production of Gogol's satire

Spotlight: PlayLabs Festival

St. Paul Pioneer Press

'Inspector' wraps solid humor in bright covers
Playwright Jeffrey Hatcher has wanted to get his hands on "The Government Inspector" for years, and his adaptation of Nikolai Gogol's mistaken-identity comedy proves that he's not one to squander an opportunity.

Culture in Context: SteppingStone Theatre thriving in a place of its own
SteppingStone Theatre's first year in its new home has been everything artistic director Richard Hitchler hoped it would be.

Ann Arbor News

Marx reincarnated at the wrong Soho
A performance of Howard Zinn's play "Marx in Soho,'' directed by Michael Fox Kennedy and starring Jerry Levy as Karl Marx, will take place Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Inter-Cooperative Council Education Center in Ann Arbor.

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Reviews: 'Henry IV: The Making of a King' and ‘Ah, Wilderness!’
American Players Theatre shows its deep bench

Louisville Courier-Journal

Julie Andrews provides ageless, glorious sounds of music
In the iconography of Anglo-American entertainment over the past 50 years, few celebrities can claim the exalted status held by Julie Andrews. She is simply and unabashedly a star.

Cleveland Plain Dealer OnStage Blog

UPDATE: Sneak a peek at "Into the Woods," one of the Great Lakes Theater Festival shows that will open the renovated Hanna Theatre

Dallas Morning News

Lorca Simons delivers in 'The Water Bearer's Dream' at Fort Worth's Hip Pocket Theatre

Vince McGill and Joanna Schellenberg take on two of the Bard's toughest roles in Shakespeare Dallas productions

A terrifically terrible show within 'Gutenberg! The Musical!'

Dallas Morning News Over the Top Blog

Two more chances to stroll down 'Avenue Q'

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

'Gutenberg! The Musical's!' insider plot is still accessible

Q&A: Terry Dobson, stage manager at Theatre Three

Houston Chronicle

Theater mainstay to be feted at 95
In honor of his 95th birthday, the Houston theater community will honor diehard patron Eddie Cope tonight.

Denver Post

Theater: Only a few make living from stage alone

The Henrys were a blast: Now let's fix them

2008 Henry Awards: The night in photos

ATW NewsClips - Mid-Atlantic, New England, and Southern Print

2008-07-13T22:06:00.002-04:00

Washington Post

In Source's One-Acts, Playwrights Plumb Unconventional Wisdom
"I am out of step, you see," says the lone character in J.T. Rogers's "Murmuring in a Dead Tongue." "I'm askew."

DEPT. OF TIRESOME TITLES: Hey, Here's an Idea: It's Not a Musical!

Philadelphia Inquirer

Enchanted by old 'South Pacific'
People have been stopping me on the street, pointing, calling my name, and ordering me to go to the new Lincoln Center production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific. Productions pop up every few years in any major city, though ...

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Capital idea: Stage is set for D.C. to become a theater mecca
What do theater critics do in conference assembled? ...

With D.C. library's help, stolen Shakespeare folio is retrieved

Boston Globe

The more the merrier
Performer and playwright Mark Setlock says his collaborations with writers Becky Mode and Steve Murray gave him confidence as both a writer and actor.

Role raises actor's spirits, his mother's concern
Nik Walker — son of former news anchor Liz Walker — plays the key role of the narrator in "Assassins" - the dark Stephen Sondheim musical about people who have killed or tried to kill American presidents.

Actor finds 'Birdie' a moving experience
Robert Saoud, who plays Mr. McAfee in the North Shore Music Theatre production of "Bye Bye Birdie," tests his dancing skills during the song "Kids."

Berkshire Eagle

'Broke-ology': Family reaches for a dream
The words of Langston Hughes' poem, "Harlem" — "What happens to a dream deferred?

Orlando Sentinel

Sci-fi rock show features overload of information
Celebrity worship. Voter apathy. Information overload. Playwright Tod Kimbro has nearly as many things to say in My Illustrious Wasteland as he has ways to say it. "Ambitious" seems...

Orlando Sentinel Attention Must Be Paid Blog

Theater review: 'My Illustrious Wasteland'

A little more on 'Miss Daisy'
Here's a little more casting news on the Plaza Theatre/Gramercy Theatre Company production of Driving Miss Daisy, which will be playing Feb. 25-March 8. Along with Michael Learned as Daisy, ....

Miami Herald Attention Must Be Paid Blog

A Mamet is coming back, sans Madonna
David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow, in which the men behaving badly happen to be Hollywood types, is headed back to Broadway in October.

Sun-Sentinel

Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors at Palm Beach festival is an adept and fun production

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Modern awe amid ancient theaters
A spine- tingling sense of history envelops you as you wind your way up the stone pathway to the top of the Acropolis.

St. Petersburg Times Reeling in the Years Blog

'Mamma Mia:' Is there anything Meryl Streep can't do?

Charlotte News & Observer

Two Steps Up, One Step Back
Inspired by M.C. Escher, N.C.-born choreographer Mark Dendy returns to ADF, blending precision with passion.

Best critics keep all of us honest
In case you haven't heard, criticism is under attack. And so far, the body count among film critics is high.

ATW NewsClips - Tri-State Print

2008-07-13T21:45:00.002-04:00

New York Times

Bohemia Takes Its Final Bows
“Rent” is closing at the end of the summer, but its ragtag New York left the stage many years ago, elbowed out by fusion cuisine and designer labels.

Talk About Your Spring Awakening
The International Thespian Festival is part summer camp, part summer school, part arts festival and part recruitment fair.
* Slide Show - A look at the 2008 International Thespian Festival at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

[headline about unlikely broadway musical]
Almost two years after the last performance at the Vineyard Theater, the musical “[title of show]” will present its latest chapters on Broadway.
* Audio Slide Show

NJ Review: A Lear That Can Be Believed (Not to Mention Understood)

New York Daily News

Ricky Gervais' show rolls into N.Y.
Fresh off performing his standup routine in Los Angeles, Ricky Gervais comes to New York Monday for the final leg of what he calls his "cross-country tour."

'Mamma Mia' makes Hollywood sing new tune
"Mamma Mia!," the movie musical, is riding one heck of a revival. Ever since 2002, when "Chicago" grossed more than $170 million and won Best Picture, the celluloid tuner, which had been in a coma for years, has been on a mini-rampage

amNY New York City Theater Blog

Waiting for Godot on Broadway with Bill Irwin

Broadway Stands Up for Freedom

Newsday

Linda Winer: Broadway's 'Passing Strange' season
Ever since "Passing Strange" was virtually overlooked by the Tony Awards last month, I've been nagging friends to see the show -- the sooner the better.

New York Post

Liz Smith: He's Well Dunne
The remarkable "Encores!" summer series hits a three-run homer....

Star-Ledger

Arts Notes
'Strange" movie-makin

Bergen Record

Feldberg: Playing down leading man's notorious past

Albany Times-Union

A bit of theatrical beach reading

ATW NewsClips - National, Industry Pubs

2008-07-13T21:34:00.002-04:00

Associated Press

PBS keeps 'King Lear' nude decision under wraps
Ian McKellen's acclaimed performance in ''King Lear'' is coming to PBS, but a public TV executive was coy Saturday about whether his on-stage nude scene will be exposed on air.

Back Stage

Suite Atlanta reviewed by Gwen Orel
If Suite Atlanta were a final performance from a high school acting workshop, it would demonstrate energy and initiative, but would but still need work. As an Equity showcase, it's embarrassing.

Whisper reviewed by Paul Menard
It only takes a quick ride on the subway to realize how much technology has enabled us to become socially disconnected.

Marie Antoinette: The Color of Flesh reviwed by Karl Levett
The enigma that is Marie Antoinette continues to fascinate. Joel Gross has chosen to tell his sweeping historical tale with an economy of effects.

Variety

'Damn Yankees' steps up to plate
Encores! Series hopes second musical is a hit

Wall Street Journal

Meryl Streep Versus the Superheroes
"Mamma Mia!" will test how frequently female moviegoers are willing to flex their newfound box-office muscle.

ATW NewsClips - Online Sources

2008-07-13T21:22:00.003-04:00

Playbill

* All Aboard!: "Rosie" Cruise, with Ebersole, McArdle, White and Easton, Departs July 13
* November Ends Broadway Run July 13
* Spamalot Ends Las Vegas Run July 13
* Welch, Grant, Glover, Clark, Hagerty Are All in the Family in Bette and Boo, Opening July 13
* Passing Strange Returns to Joe's Pub for CD Release Concert July 13
* THE DVD SHELF: Carmen Miranda Collection and Linney and Hoffman as "Savages"
* Curtain Falls on Premiere of Edward Albee's Occupant July 13
* Broadway Barks for a Good Cause July 12 in Shubert Alley
* Christie's Unexpected Guest Arrives in Houston July 12
* "For Good": Wicked Flies Into Australia July 12
* Patrick Page Is a Playboy in Pleasure at Old Globe July 12-Aug. 17
* PHOTO CALL: Rea in The Public's Kicking a Dead Horse
* PHOTO CALL: Butler and Forbidden Broadway-ers Celebrate New TKTS Booth
* Gets and Chase Expected to Be Pals of Musical Story; Goodspeed Will Host Tryout
* Plimpton, Roche and Lipton Are Stars in the Margin at the Zipper Aug. 11
* PLAYBILL ON OPENING NIGHT: Damn Yankees — Who's on Faust?
* Do You Hear the People Bid?: Les Miz in Concert Auction to Benefit BC/EFA
* TUTS Throws "White Christmas in July" Snow Day July 20
* AmEx Pre-Sale for Broadway's Seagull Revival Begins July 11
* Evan D'Angeles Is Chicago's New Hunchback Starting July 24
* PHOTO CALL: Encores! Summer Stars Damn Yankees Opens at City Center
* Broadway Will Welcome Waiting for Godot Revival in 2009
* PLAYBILL.COM'S THEATRE WEEK IN REVIEW, July 5-11: Gotta Have Heart — and Hope
* Tony Winner White Will Offer a Hot and Sassy August Night
* One-Day San Francisco Theater Festival to Be Presented July 27

TheaterMania

Review: The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac
This unique writer/performer delivers a highly entertaining, charming, and audacious performance.

* Broadway Cares to Auction Special Hollywood Bowl Les Miz Package
* Bill Irwin to Star in Seattle Rep's Broadway-Bound Waiting for Godot
* Lillias White to Play Highline Ballroom on August 9

Broadway.com

PHOTO OP: Antonio Banderas' Seduction of In the Heights and BC/EFA

Talkin' Broadway

Review: Perfect Harmony
The tinny wail of a pitch pipe might not be your idea of an invigorating call to arms. But in the bright and finely tuned Perfect Harmony, now playing at the Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row, it’s a sound that fills you with excited anticipation rather than dread. . . .

nytheatre.com

Review: Perfect Harmony

Review: The Be(A)st of Taylor Mac

Review: Whisper

Review: Life in a Marital Institution

Review: Do Not Do This Ever Again

Review: Crave/Somewhere in the Pacific

CurtainUp

Review: Broke-ology in Williamstown

Review: Of Equal Measure in L.A.

Review: The Book Club Play in the Berkshires

ATW NewsClips - Select Blogs

2008-07-13T21:17:00.001-04:00

The Playgoer Blog

How Not the Steal A Folio
From the Times:

The Brooklyn TKTS Booth

nytheatre i Blog

Indie Theater Convocation: Rochelle Denton's Welcoming Remarks

News about indietheater.org--Martin's Presentation at the 2nd Indie Theater Convocation

2nd Indie Convocation Photos

2nd Indie Theater Convocation First Impressions

ATW NewsClips - London (7/12-13)

2008-07-13T21:04:00.002-04:00

The Independent

Reviews: Six Characters in Search of an Author, Minerva Chichester * Free Outgoing, Royal Court Downstairs, London * The Frontline, Shakespeare's Globe, London

The Times UK

Jemima Rooper's Naked Skin
She was a child star but she looks set to be a serious actress rather than a cutesy ditz, says Stephen Armstrong

Greer foams at ‘insane’ play inspired by her life
Author and feminist driven to anger by a play that uses her life as the inspiration for a comic attack on strident feminism

Siân Brooke in The Wizard of Oz
As Siân Brooke dons the famous ruby slippers, she tells Lucy Powell how she will play Judy Garland’s Dorothy her way

High School Musical - the Sunday Times review
High School Musical is cute, kitsch and full of energy, but doesn’t quite win over our correspondent and friends

The Music Man - the Sunday Times review
Brian Conley brings a George Clooney-esque suavity to the charismatic con man

Free Outgoing - the Sunday Times review
Much of the play plods along, addressing its issue with the dogged dullness of a second-rate soap opera

Moonlight and Magnolias
Sean Holmes's snappy production is effervescent with cherishable one-liners thanks to the work of a crack comic team

The Observer

Is it curtains for critics?
An army of arts bloggers is posting internet reviews on subjects from grand opera to soap opera - instant, global and free. US newspapers have begun to ditch their reviewers as digital alternatives flourish. Could it happen here?

Sweet and savoury with cheerleaders
What would our family of reviewers - reluctant dad and daughters - make of this US teen musical?

My, my, how can I resist it?
That cheesy Abba musical has now become an even cheesier film. By the end, though, you may find yourself bludgeoned into submission...

The Guardian

Definitely? Maybe!
As Mamma Mia! takes to the big screen, Pete Cashmore and Peter Robinson get the skinny on (well, make up) four of the West End's newest musicals ...

The Guardian Performing Arts Blog

Lyn Gardner: What to see this week

Daily Telegraph

West Side Story: the leap of faith that became a classic
As West Side Story returns to the UK, Sarah Crompton talks to the show's director about a musical without frontiers

AmericanTheaterWeb Updates for July 13

2008-07-13T07:00:00.000-04:00

Once again, just a quick reminder that because I'm at the O'Neill National Critics Institute this weekend, I won't be able to do the usual round of newsclippings until my return late tonight or first thing tomorrow morning.

I've left a few news "goodies" for your enjoyment today.

Thanks for understanding!

Best,
Andy Propst

'Walken' On In Hollywood...Acclaimed Comic Tribute Extends

2008-07-13T06:59:00.002-04:00

Team Good Life Productions recently announced that, after a brief hiatus, All About Walken: The Impersonators of Christopher Walken,.Patrick O'Sullivan's "comedic theatrical tribute to an admired performer" would extend its run at Theatre 68 in Hollywood. Performances of the show ended during the week. It will return to the theater July 24 and run through August 21.

The new show stars nine actors, male and female, of diverse ethnicities and ages, who give their takes on Walken through monologues, scenes, improv, music, dance and more. The show evokes moments from many of Walken’s films as well as his appearances on TV and in music video. It also contains some original, novel material beyond the expectations for a show that celebrates impersonation. Building on its success, new sketches and new Walken moments are being added to the show.

Walken’s professional career began 53 years ago, when at age ten he appeared with Jerry Lewis in a skit on “The Colgate Comedy Hour.” Since then, Walken has appeared on Broadway (“The Lion in Winter,” “The Dead” and twelve others), television (a six-time host on “Saturday Night Live,” for which he won an American Comedy Award) and 83 films, including his Oscar® winning turn in “The Deer Hunter.” A trained dancer, praised by Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, Walken insinuates a dance move into each screen performance, a professional trademark.

All About Walken: The Impersonators of Christopher Walken plays Thursdays at 8pm at Theatre 68 (5419 Sunset Blvd., Suite D) in West Hollywood Tickets for "All About" are $15.00 and can be purchased by calling 310-63-4050 or by visiting www.plays411.com. Further information can be found online at www.myspace.com/allaboutwalken.

Playwrights Horizons Casting for 2008-09

2008-07-13T06:58:00.000-04:00

One of the big stories during the week came from Playwrights Horizons, which announced additional casting and dates for its upcoming 2008-2009 season. Particularly notable is the casting of Tony Award winner Victoria Clark (The Light in the Piazza, the current The Marriage of Bette and Boo at Roundabout, Follies and Juno at City Center, How to Succeed..., the film The Happening) in Craig Lucas' Prayer For My Enemy. Clark's appearance in this New York premiere reuinites her with both Lucas (who wrote the book for "Piazza") and Bartlett Sher (director of Piazza and Tony Award-winner for South Pacific at Lincoln Center Theater).

Ms. Clark joins a cast that includes Tony Award nominee Jonathan Groff (Spring Awakening, the upcoming Hair for Shakespeare in the Park), 2008 Theatre World Award winner Cassie Beck (The Drunken City) and Skipp Sudduth (Lincoln Center’s current South Pacific). "Prayer" is scheduled to begin performances November 14

The theater also announced that film, television and stage star Scott Cohen (Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? at The Public, Broadway’s Losing Louie, “Gilmore Girls,” “NYPD Blue,” the recent FOX series “The Return of Jezebel James”) has joined the cast of Three Changes, the World Premiere of a new play by Nicky Silver.

Directed by Tony Award nominee Wilson Milam (The Lieutenant of Inishmore), the production will be the first of the season and begins previews on Friday, August 22. The addition of Mr. Cohen completes the production’s cast, which also includes Golden Globe winner and Emmy Award nominee Dylan McDermott (“The Practice,” Drama League Award nomination for The Culture Project’s production of Eve Ensler’s The Treatment, Broadway debut in Biloxi Blues), Emmy Award nominee Maura Tierney (Dr. Abby Lockhart on “ER,” Some Girl(s) at MCC), Aya Cash (The Pain and the Itch at Playwrights Horizons, From Up Here at MTC) and Brian J. Smith (Good Boys and True at Second Stage, MTC’s Come Back, Little Sheba).

Finally, it was announced Drama Desk Award winner Marylouise Burke (Fuddy Meers, plus Kimberly Akimbo, Broadway’s recent Is He Dead? and the revival of Into the Woods) has joined the cast of The Savannah Disputation, the New York premiere of a new play by Evan Smith (Psych and The Uneasy Chair at Playwrights Horizons, Servicemen at The New Group). Directed by Tony Award winner Walter Bobbie (Chicago, New Jerusalem), the production will begin previews on Friday, February 6, 2009

Ms. Burke joins a cast that features five-time Tony Award nominee and three-time Obie Award winner Dana Ivey (Driving Miss Daisy, Sunday in the Park with George and Mr. Smith’s The Uneasy Chair at Playwrights Horizons, The Rivals, Butley).

Additional casting for all six of the season’s productions will also be announced in the coming weeks. Attached is a complete list of all production details announced so far.

Subscriptions to Playwrights Horizons’ 2008/2009 season are now available, in 6-show (four Mainstage productions and two productions in The Peter Jay Sharp Theater) or 4-show (four Mainstage productions) packages. For further information about the season and ticketing options, visit: www.playwrightshorizons.org

---------------

Among the other publications carrying this announcement during the week:

* Piazza's Clark, Sher and Lucas Will Reunite in Prayer at Playwrights Horizons (Playbill)
* Victoria Clark Joins Cast of Playwrights Horizons' Prayer for My Enemy; Burke and Cohen Added to Season (TheaterMania)
* * Victoria Clark, Scott Cohen & Marylouise Burke Join Playwrights Horizons Season (Broadway.com)

Philadelphia's Historic Walnut Street Theatre Subject of New Book, Signing Party Scheduled for July 16

2008-07-13T06:57:00.001-04:00

When I was down at the Walnut Street Theatre for its production of Les Miserables (see review), I picked up a copy of "Walnut Street Theatre," a terrific pictorial history of the building and the shows that played there.

Walnut Street, which is the oldest continually operating theatre in the English speaking world, is celebrating its bicentenial this year and the book is a way to celebrate the theater's past. In "Walnut Street Theatre," which has been compiled by Bernard Havard, WST’s Producing Artistic Director, and Mark D. Sylvester, WST’s Managing Director, you'll find previously unpublished and unseen vintage photographs from the Walnut Street Theatre archives and other public and private collections.. There are pictures of The Marx Brothers, Katherine Hepburn, Marlon Brando, Will Rogers, Jane Fonda, and Robert Redford, among others, and shots of some of the productions that tried out at the Walnut Street, including A Raisin in the Sun and Mr. Roberts.

The book-signing is scheduled for July 16 at 7pm and will be held at Borders, Avenue of the Arts, 1 South Broad Street, Philadelphia. For further information about Walnut Street Theatre, visit: www.walnutstreettheatre.org.

AmericanTheaterWeb Updates for July 12 & 13

2008-07-12T07:00:00.000-04:00

As I wrote here yesterday, I'm at the O'Neill Theater Center this week, participating in the National Critics Institute. If you're seeing this, it means that my assumption was right - I don't have Internet access this weekend. So, that means no news articles here until late Sunday or first thing Monday morning (I'm scheduled to get in around 10:30 Sunday night).

I did write up a few news stories that should pop up here over the weekend, so that there isn't total desolation on the site, but you'll have to wait a while for the usual assemblage of news coverage from around the country and the U.K.

Thanks for understanding. Hope you have a great weekend!

Andy Propst

Boulder Fringe Fest Runs August 14 - 25; Hefner Among the Participants

2008-07-12T06:59:00.001-04:00

In just over a month, the Boulder International Fringe Festival gets underway, featuring 70 artists performing in some 14 venues over the course of 20 days.

One of the "big" names in this year's Festival - which will run August 14-25, is John Hefner, estranged cousin to a someone described in press materials as "certain international icon." In John Hefner's The Hefner Monologues, he grapples with the question of "how one makes a name for oneself when someone else already has?" In this piece, that debuted at the 2nd Annual Capital Fringe Festival in Washington, D.C., this hefner shares stories about love, loss, public nudity, traffic court, and finding an identity in a world where "Hef" is a household name.

Not all of the other participants have names as easily recognizable, but there are some fascinating choices in the theater lineup at the Boulder Fringe, including God(s), created by The Octopus League, which hails from Naropa University and LISPA’s Lecoq based physical theater program. The group explores a whole body approach to theatrical storytelling, and in God(s), their 6th original work, the company has created an epic tale of ancient and modern Greek myth in Zeus and Hermes walk the earth, bringing tidings of hospitality and destruction.

From the U.K., will come Jimmy Hogg, who scored a success in Boulder in 2006 with Curriculum Vitae, For his 2008 appearance, Hogg offers A Brief History of Petty Crime, in which he exposes his life of petty crime while detouring on plenty of tangents. Hogg's work has been honored with Best of Fringe awards in Toronto (2007), Minnesota (2007, 2006), and San Francisco (2006).

The other theater pieces in the Boulder Fringe this year ranges from shows like In Mocking Disregard: The Burlesque Extravaganza, which promises to be an evening of titillation and delight; to Pedro and the Captain, which is described as "a chilling psychological study of torture and its effects on both detainee and interrogator."

For further information about the Festival, visit www.boulderfringe.com

A.D. Clive Chafer Departs S.F.'s TheatreFIRST

2008-07-12T06:58:00.004-04:00

TheatreFIRST Artistic Director Clive Chafer has announced his resignation after more than 14 years at the helm of one of the East Bay’s most notable small theatre companies. TheatreFIRST’s Board of Directors is now in final discussions with Chafer’s successor and expects to announce their selection soon. “I’m enormously proud of what we’ve achieved in that time,” said Chafer. “The board is deeply indebted to Clive's leadership, energy, and vision over the past fourteen years,” said Christine Dover, President.

Since its debut production 14 years ago of Manuel Puig’s Under a Mantle of Stars, TheatreFIRST has since staged many Bay Area and U.S. premieres, from works by accomplished playwrights like David Hare, to newer playwrights like Stephen Brown, whose Future Me was a huge success for the company this year. Particularly notable premieres directed by Chafer range from Dennis Potter’s adults-as-children fable Blue Remembered Hills to the docudrama of Robin Soans’ The Arab-Israeli Cookbook. Chafer also directed two David Hare works: Via Dolorosa, which chronicles Hare's trip to the Middle East, and A Map of the World, which pits a V.S. Naipaul-like author against UNESCO at a conference of developing nations.

During Chafer's tenure TheatreFIRST received such awards as the GOLDIE (Guardian Outstanding Local Discovery) Award for Theater, and the East Bay Express named TheatreFIRST the Best Small Theatre Company and Place for Actors of Color to Find Work.

“This has been a great ride,” said Chafer. “I feel we have accomplished a huge amount, despite never having a theatre space to call home for more than a year or two at a time. I’m deeply indebted to all the people who have supported us in our work. At the risk of sounding trite, none of it would have been possible without them. I know they will be delighted by what they see TheatreFIRST do in the future, and I’m sure they will be keen to continue supporting the company as it expands and moves up. These are exciting times for all of us.”

In the meantime, the company is planning an October 18th event to celebrate TheatreFIRST’s 15th Anniversary of producing provocative plays on international themes, and to introduce the new leadership to the company’s supporters and friends. The evening will include a staged reading of a play being considered for production next season in a new space in Oakland’s Uptown Arts District that the company is currently in negotiations to lease.

For more information about TheatreFIRST visit: www.theatrefirst.com

A Comedy From Richard Foreman in Rep with New Play at Brick in August

2008-07-12T06:57:00.000-04:00

For early August, the Brick Theatre in Williamsburg will be home both a revival and a new play: Richard Foreman's Harry in Love, a comedy once slated for Broadway by the artist best known for his abstract theater pieces, and The Spell, a new play by Ian W. Hill, which explores, according to press notes, "whether violence can ever be justified, and if so, what limits are there and where does it end?"

Foreman's comedy, once slated for Broadway as a vehicle for Vincent Gardenia, centers on a big, neurotic, unnerved and unnerving man who believes his wife, Hilda, is planning to cheat on him (and he seems to be right). His response: drug her coffee and keep her knocked out until her paramour goes away. The plan works about as well as should be expected and, over several days, a number of people – the paramour, a doctor, Hilda’s brother, and an “innocent” bystander - are sucked into Harry's manic, snowballing energy as it becomes an eventual avalanche of (hysterically funny) psychosis.

In "Spell," an American woman who considers herself a patriot has committed a horrible, murderous, terrorist act on US soil as an act of protest and, she hopes, revolution against the United States Government, which she believes no longer represents the law, people, and Constitution of the USA. She finds herself in a room where she is questioned for days by a man and a woman—who may, in fact be the same person and who could be either a medical doctor or a military general. As she is interrogated, her mind, which may or may not be sane, reinterprets her surroundings into a chorus of voices—witches, revolutionaries, bossmen, old boyfriends, fragments of herself—arguing over the validity of her violent actions while at the same time trying to deny that the monstrous act has ever occurred, or that she could be capable of such a thing, and trying to reveal her beliefs while at the same time keeping her true self a deep secret.

Both plays will be directed by Hill, who has created 56 stage productions since 1997 with his company Gemini CollisionWorks, including works by Richard Foreman, T.S. Eliot, Clive Barker, Mac Wellman, Ronald Tavel, Jeff Goode, Mark Spitz, and Edward D. Wood, Jr., as well a s several original plays. As a designer (light, sound, projections, sets) and technical/artistic consultant he has worked with many other stage artists and theatres for almost 20 years, and he is currently the technical director of The Brick.

Harry in Love and The Spell will run in repertory at the Brick Theater (575 Metropolitan Avenue in Brooklyn) July 31 - August 24. Tickets are $15.00 and can be purchased by calling 212-352-3101. For further information , visit: www.bricktheater.com.

AmericanTheaterWeb Updates for July 11-13

2008-07-11T11:43:00.002-04:00

Well, folks, I'm out of here for the weekend. I'll be in CT at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center, participating in the National Critics Institute. It's unclear what sort of time I'll have and, more important, whether or not I'll have internet access for a long enough period to offer up the usual round of news from around the country.

So, what I've done is to leave a few "goodies" that will automatically post themselves on both Saturday and Sunday morning. Should I find that I do have access, I'll do my best to get as much of the news "done" as possible. If not, expect the site to get a full update either late Sunday (after 10:30pm) or first thing Monday morning.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Best,

Andy Propst

ATW NewsClips - Mid-Day Links - All

2008-07-11T11:29:00.002-04:00

New York Times ArtsBeat Blog

London Theater Journal: “Afterlife” is a Rare Misfire from Michael Frayn
Michael Frayn, master of the historical biography play and the backstage comedy, tried to meld them together in “Afterlife,” but the result turns out to be much less than the sum of the two.

Bloomberg.com

`Will & Grace' Star Hayes Bedevils `Damn Yankees' Revival: Jeremy Gerard
The Devil in ``Damn Yankees,'' who goes by the name Applegate, requires more than red socks to knock your socks off.

Playbill

* Godspell Grammy Winner Cutler Releases "Test of Time" Album
*Graae Will Bring His Anatomy to Caramoor Music Festival
* Wicked's Reiber to Host July 21 New Voices Concert
* Mauzey, Finley and Tam Set for NYMF "Guitar Hero" Tournament
* "The After Party" Welcomes Catered Affair's Leslie Kritzer July 11
* Davis, Laine, Rivera and Marcovicci to Play San Fran's Rrazz Room
* PHOTO CALL: The Drowsy Chaperone Stumbles Along Into Los Angeles
* "I'd Do Anything" Contestant Rachel Tucker Lands Role in West End Musical

TheaterMania

Glove and Marriage
Sean Hayes, Jane Krakowski, Cheyenne Jackson, Tina Fey, Cynthia Nixon, Ben Daniels, Amy Irving, and Antonia Banderas and Melanie Griffith catch up with our cameras.

Broadway.com

* Raúl Esparza to Join Jeremy Piven in Broadway Revival of Speed-the-Plow

The Playgoer Blog

"Passing Strange" Passes On

Superfluities Blog

Interview with Marilyn Nonken

The Producer's Perspective Blog

Like a pea, I'm in a pod.
I was honored to be asked to join the popular Broadway podcast Broadway Bullet as a regular contributor. This week marks my first p-cast, and in it I talk about my definition of a Producer's job.

Whatsonstage.com

Two & Only Posts Early Closing Notices for Sunday

London Theatre Guide

First Night Feature: Moonlight And Magnolias
Gone With The Wind was but a neatly-trimmed whisker away from being a complete flop. Hard to imagine, I know, that the classic film may never have been made, writes Matthew Amer.

Broadway's D'Angeles Seeks Sanctuary in Bailiwick's "Notre Dame"

2008-07-11T11:00:00.004-04:00

Bailiwick Repertory's Jeff Nominated production of Dennis DeYoung's new musical adaptation of Victor Hugo's classic The Hunchback of Notre Dame has been playing to sold-out crowds since it began performances. As the production, staged by Bailiwick Artistic Director David Zakm, continues in its extended run, the theater has announced that Broadway Evan D'Angeles is stepping into the roll of Quasimodo.

D'Angeles has been seen on Broadway in Miss Saigon, Pacific Overtures, and Children & Art: Sondheim's 75th Birthday. He has performed in the national tours of Cats and Rent where he played Angel for six months in Chicago. Off-Broadway/Regional credits include Wall to Wall Sondheim, the West Coast Premiere of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Fame (Jose Vegas), Tommy, The King and I and My Fair Lady among others.

Evan replaces George Andrew Wolff who is now performing at Chicago Shakespeare Theater in Willy Wnka and the Chocolate Factory.

Gregory Franklin, as the tormented priest Frollo, and Doug Storm as Phoebus, also join the cast for the extension period. Original principals Liz Pazik as Mahiette and Dana Tretta as Esmerelda continue their roles.

New ensemble members include Rachel Renee, Mark LeBeau, Jessica Lauren Fisher, Kelli Clevinger, and Kendel Lester. New Musical director is Robert Ollis.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame plays Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30 PM, and Sundays at 3:30 PM through August 31st. Tickets are $25.00 on Thursdays, $35.00 on Fridays and Sundays, and $45.00 on Saturdays through Aug 31. For tickets and reservations call 773-883-1090. Tickets and subscriptions may also be purchased at www.bailiwick.org.

Photos: Othello at Shakespeare & Co. in MA

2008-07-11T10:50:00.002-04:00

Tony Simotes' staging of Shakespeare's Othello for Shakespeare & Co. in Lenox, MA begins performances in just a week. The theater has released some early pictures, two of which are below. For further information about Othello and the other shows in the theater's summer repertory season, visit: http://www.shakespeare.org

Michael Hammond & John Douglas Thompson in Othello
Photo: by Kevin Sprague

John Douglas Thompson & Merritt Jansonin Othello
Photo: by Kevin Sprague

ATW Beta Thursday's Update

2008-07-11T07:43:00.002-04:00

Well, the population of www.americantheaterweb.info continues apace and I think that by the end of the month, I'll have the site moved there (or shift everything over here - not sure which yet).

Now I know a lot of people have asked about the listings - I'm not entirely clear when they'll be returning. I am working with programmers to see if there's a way to make them easier to use, less time-consuming to maintain, etc. etc.

Right now, what i'm most concerned about is expanding the excellence of news coverage that AmericanTheaterWeb has to offer and I hope you'll agree with what I'm feeling - the site is becoming more robust with each passing day. If you've not dropped by, take a look at www.americantheaterweb.info - again - you may want to bookmark that and make it your official "home" - I'm actually doing some things there that aren't happening here - the "Top News" section for instance.

Hope you have a great weekend.

Best regards,

Andy Propst