Monday, April 30, 2018

Jeff and Mike's "If I Was a Tony Nominator" Lists!

Before I start today, I want to take a moment to thank the many of you that have have come back to my blog after my time away.  I really appreciate it! (Tell your friends!)  And thank you to to those of you who have taken time to write with comments and questions, too.

Lately, one question I've gotten a lot is whether or not Mike and I will do our annual Tony nominations guesses/picks.  Well, this year, he and I have only gotten around to seeing 6 of the eligible productions prior to tomorrow's announcement: Three Tall Women, Prince of Broadway, The Band's Visit, My Fair Lady, Once On This Island, and Carousel. (We are seeing Angels in America, Mean Girls and Frozen this weekend!) So, we decided to just talk about those six shows and list those shows, performers and creatives that we'd nominate if we were on the Tony committee.  We did these lists separately, and it's interesting how similar our picks are.  Be sure to mail (jkstheatrescene@yahoo.com), Tweet (@jkstheatrescene) or leave a comment below telling us how you think we did!

So, how'd we do?

  • Mike was the big winner: 87.8% of his guesses were correct. And he got all 11 of The Band's Visit's nominatons exactly right!
  • Jeff didn't do too badly: 80.4% of his guesses were correct.




MIKE’S “IF I WERE A TONY NOMINATOR” LIST
Three
Tall Women (8)
Prince of Broadway (0)
The
Band’s Visit (11)
Play Revival

Musical
Director 
Joe Mantello

Director 
David Cromer
Scenic Design 
Miriam Buether

Score 
David Yazbek
Lighting Design 
Paul Gallo

Book 
Itamar Moses
Sound Design 
Fitz Patton

Scenic Design 
Scott Pask
Actress  
Glenda Jackson

Lighting Design 
Tyler Micoleau
Feat. Actress 
Laurie Metcalf

Sound Design 
Kai Harada
Feat. Actress 
Alison Pill

Orchestrations 
Jamshied Sharifi


Actor 
Tony Shalhoub


Actress 
Katrina Lenk


Feat. Actor 
Ari’el Stachel
MORE BELOW

JEFF’S “IF I WERE A TONY NOMINATOR” LIST
Three
Tall Women (6)
Prince of Broadway (1)
The
Band’s Visit (11)
Play Revival
Feat. Actress Emily Skinner
Musical
Director 
Joe Mantello

Director 
David Cromer
Scenic Design 
Miriam Buether

Score 
David Yazbek
Lighting Design 
Paul Gallo

Book 
Itamar Moses
Actress 
Glenda Jackson

Scenic Design 
Scott Pask
Feat. Actress 
Laurie Metcalf

Lighting Design 
Tyler Micoleau


Orchestrations 
Jamshied Sharifi


Actor 
Tony Shalhoub


Actress 
Katrina Lenk


Feat. Actor 
Ari’el Stachel


Feat. Actor 
John Cariani
MORE BELOW


MIKE’S “IF I WERE A TONY NOMINATOR” LIST
My
Fair Lady (5)
Once On
This Island (9)
Carousel
(8)
Musical Revival
Musical Revival
Musical Revival
Scenic Design 
Michael Yeargan
Director 
Michael Arden
Choreography 
Justin Peck
Costume Design
Catherine Zuber
Scenic Design 
Dane Laffrey
Costume Design
Ann Roth
Actress 
Lauren Ambrose
Costume Design
Clint Ramos
Lighting Design 
Brian MacDevitt
Feat. Actress Diana Rigg
Lighting Design 
Jules Fisher + Peggy Eisenhauer
Orchestrations 
Jonathan Tunick

Sound Design 
Peter Hylenski
Actress 
Jessie Mueller

Actress 
Hailey Kilgore
Actor 
Joshua Henry

Feat. Actor 
Alex Newell
Feat. Actress 
Lindsay Mendez

Feat. Actress 
Lea Salonga

MORE BELOW

JEFF’S “IF I WERE A TONY NOMINATOR” LIST
My
Fair Lady (7)
Once On
This Island (12)
Carousel
(9)
Musical Revival
Musical Revival
Musical Revival
Director 
Bartlett Sher
Director 
Michael Arden
Choreography 
Justin Peck
Scenic Design 
Michael Yeargan
Choreography 
Camille A.Brown
Costume Design
Ann Roth
Costume Design
Catherine Zuber
Scenic Design 
Dane Laffrey
Lighting Design 
Brian MacDevitt
Sound Design 
Marc Salzberg
Costume Design
Clint Ramos
Sound Design 
Scott Lehrer
Actress 
Lauren Ambrose
Lighting Design 
Jules Fisher + Peggy Eisenhauer
Orchestrations 
Jonathan Tunick
Feat. Actress 
Diana Rigg
Sound Design 
Peter Hylenski
Actor 
Joshua Henry

Orchestrations 
Annmarie Milazzo and Michael Starobin
Actress 
Jessie Mueller

Actress 
Hailey Kilgore
Feat. Actress 
Lindsay Mendez


Feat. Actor 
Alex Newell


Feat. Actor 
Philip Boykin


Feat. Actress 
Kenita R. Miller


Friday, April 27, 2018

The Friday 5: 5 Breakout Female Musical Performances

If you follow theatre at all, you don't even have to have seen the shows to know when there's a breakout performance.  This week I'm looking at the 5 female musical performances (plus an honorable mention!) that have been the talk of the town this season.  As it turns out, I have already seen 4 of them, and will be seeing the other 2 next weekend!  What do you think of my picks? Did I leave out one of your favorites?  Tweet me @jkstheatrescene and let me know!

THE FRIDAY 5: JEFF'S FAVORITE 2017 - 2018
BREAKOUT FEMALE MUSICAL PERFORMANCES

5. BARRETT WILBERT WEED
Janis Sarkisian - Mean Girls

Ever since they announced Mean Girls, I have been looking forward to it. I mean, c'mon! Tina Fey??? But especially since I heard Barrett Wilbert Weed sing "I'd Rather Be Me," I am super excited to see her live!

4. LINDSAY MENDEZ
Carrie Pipperidge - Carousel

I've had a crush on Lindsay Mendez for ages.  I loved her energy in Godspell and was overwhelmed by her amazing turn in Dogfight. But nothing prepared me for her delightful (and gorgeously sung) performance in Carousel. I'm still kicking myself for not seeing her in Wicked!

3. PATTI MURIN
Anna - Disney's Frozen

OK... so I adored her in Lysistrata  Jones (a seriously underrated musical).  And her Twitter feed always makes me laugh and is really inspiring (I suffer from anxiety myself, Patti - thank you for sharing your pain.). I can't wait to see her as Anna in Disney's Frozen! I bet I'll laugh and be inspired, too!

2. LAUREN AMBROSE
Eliza Doolittle - My Fair Lady

OH. MY. GOODNESS. What a performance! What an actress! What a singer! I'm sure I missed several minutes of the main action just watching Lauren Ambrose off to the side being Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. I am amazed and honored to have seen her first-hand.

1. KATRINA LENK
Dina - The Band's Visit

Sometimes, there's a performance where you just sense the magic, and can feel that the actor owns the role in a way that no other will ever be able to replicate.  Such is the work that the mesmerizing Katrina Lenk does in The Band's Visit.  She makes me never want to leave the desert!

HONORABLE MENTION: HAILEY KILGORE
Ti Moune - Once on This Island

If you have seen Once On This Island, you know how amazing the show is.  And I'm sure you've heard about Hailey Kilgore making her Broadway debut as Ti Moune. Her performance is rich and powerfully sung. But she also exudes love.  It fills the theater.  I can't wait to see what she does next - she has a long, great career ahead of her.

Thursday, April 26, 2018

2017 - 2018: The Broadway Season That Was...


With today's opening of The Iceman Cometh, the eligibility of the 2017 - 2018 Broadway season comes to a close.  By most accounts, this has been a lackluster season.  There have been critical darlings, critical drubbings, fan favorites, and polarizing shows.  But there were no Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen or Hello, Dolly! sized breakout hits this year.

According to the Tony Awards website, there were 30 eligible productions:

  • Best Musical: Prince of Broadway, The Band's Visit, SpongeBob SquarePants, Escape to Margaritaville, Frozen, Mean Girls, Summer
  • Best Revival of a Musical: Once On This Island, Carousel, My Fair Lady
  • Best Play: 1984, The Terms of My Surrender, Junk, Latin History for Morons, Meteor Shower, The Children, Farinelli and the King, John Lithgow: Stories By Heart, Lobby Hero, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
  • Best Revival of a Play: Marvin's Room, Time and the Conways, M. Butterfly, Angels in America: Millennium Approches, Angels in America: Perestroika, Three Tall Women, Children of a Lesser God, Travesties, Saint Joan, The Iceman Cometh
And there were 3 ineligible productions: Home For the Holidays, Rocktopia, Springsteen on Broadway

There were also some trends:

  • Long Plays, Long Musicals: Angels in America (both parts separately are long), Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (both parts separately are long), The Iceman Cometh (a marathon all by itself), Saint Joan, Carousel, My Fair Lady (those classics are lengthy!)
  • Short Plays, Short Musicals: Meteor Shower, The Children, Latin History for Morons, Three Tall Women, The Band's Visit, Once on This Island, Summer
  • Tony Winners in Supporting Roles: Chuck Cooper, Prince of Broadway; Laura Benanti, Meteor Shower; Lea Salonga, Once on This Island; Laurie Metcalf, Three Tall Women; Norbert Leo Butz, My Fair Lady; John Glover, Saint Joan; Bill Irwin, The Iceman Cometh
  • 2.5 Song Catalogues, 3 Flops: Jimmy Buffet: Escape to Margartaville; Donna Summer: Summer; Songs from shows in the Hal Prince catalogue  (that's the .5!) Prince of Broadway
  • Most Unlikely Trend: Threatening Volcanoes: SpongeBob SquarePants, Escape to Margaritaville

Multiple openings per theater:

  • 4 - American Airlines: Marvin's Room, Time and the Conways, John Lithgow:Stories By Heart, Travesties
  • 3 - Samuel J. Friedman: Prince of Broadway, The Children, Saint Joan
  • 2 - Belasco: Terms of My Surrender, Farinelli and the King
  • 2 - Vivian Beaumont: Junk, My Fair Lady
  • 2 - August Wilson: Home For the Holidays, Mean Girls
  • 2 - Hudson: 1984, The Parisian Woman

Wonder what next season will bring...?
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