Around the TheatreScene: August/September 2024

Over the course of each month, we'll collect pictures and newsy tidbits from the "TheatreScene." We'll be scouring Twitter, Instagram and other social media for interesting items. And we'd love to share your love of theater, too! Send us your pics from your theater scene - local stuff, school shows, fan art, stage door encounters! Send them to: jkstheatrescene@yahoo.com (careful of the spelling!).

Around the TheatreScene

August/September 2024

Back to School with The Outsiders

These guys have some of the greatest fans - and their fan art is so timely!

Opened: The Roommate

Dueling divas took to the stage of the Booth! Welcome back, Mia and Patti!

Closed: The Wiz

The super successful revival ended on a high note in the box office, and no less than acting icon Wendell Pierce went to the final performance!

FANTASTIC! Closing Night of THE WIZ on Broadway!! The National Tour begins! Coming to a city near you! “CAN YOU FEEL A BRAND NEW DAY?”🎶 Don’t Miss It! pic.twitter.com/V6dqZYki7U

— Wendell Pierce (@WendellPierce) August 18, 2024

Something's Coming!

Broadway newbies and folk rock stars The Avett Brothers are on the scene of their soon-to-preview new musical, Swept Away. This show is on our must-see list! 

Something's Coming! - Update!

Just when it looked like Maybe Happy Ending was maybe not happening, they've gone full court press on, well, press to herald its soon-to-preview show! These co-stars sure look excited!

 

🤖🤖 pic.twitter.com/Vkor9YQp3p

— Maybe Happy Ending Musical (@mhemusical) August 21, 2024

Broadway in the Comics
Whether it's a political cartoon captures a current show's importance, or a fun Fosse-themed meme (I want this on a t-shirt!)...

Broadway Beefcake

Here's some vintage beefcake... 

Before Jeremy Jordan became Jay Gatsby, he posed for the Rock of Ages pin-up calendar!

Before Darren Criss became a Helperbot named Oliver, he took his Opening Night bows as Hedwig!

Farewell

How fortunate we were to watch master actor James Earl Jones share his craft in the 2012 revival of The Best Man. Thank you for the privilege, sir. Rest in Peace.

Broadway Games: What's in a Name?

With this week's announcement that the Cort Theatre will be re-named the James Earl Jones Theatre - and well-deserved, of course - we got to thinking about the names of all the other Broadway theaters and what or who they are named for. For example, the Cort Theatre itself is named for theater impresario John Cort.

John Cort and James Earl Jones

Can you name these 20 (out of 41) Broadway houses based on who or what each is named for?

Broadway Games:
What's in a Name? Part 1

Can you name...

... 5 theaters named for actors? (not including the James Earl Jones)

... 3 theaters named for playwrights?

... 2 theaters named for critics?

... 3 theaters named for composers/lyricists?

... 4 theaters with names that just sounded theatrical? (they aren't named for anything special)

... 2 theaters named for their location?

... 1 theater named for a caricaturist?

Answers to Last Week's

BROADWAY GAMES:

Come and Meet Those Dancin' Feet

Six

The Music Man

Hadestown

Wicked

Xanadu

REVIEW: Driving Miss Daisy (Film)

Review of the filmed Australian production of Driving Miss Daisy as presented nationwide, June 4 - 10. Starring Angela Lansbury, James Earl Jones and Boyd Gaines. A play by Alfred Uhry. Directed by David Esbjornson.  90 minutes.

Grade: A+


What an absolute treat seeing Driving Miss Daisy last night at the movies!  The play by Alfred Uhry has always been charming, but with this version's stars and direction, the charm factor goes way up.  And it is as affecting as ever, too, even after all the years (and productions and the Oscar-winning film) since its off-Broadway debut.

Director David Esbjornson has crafted a tightly executed staging that is virtually fat-free, but goes down as smoothly as a glass of sweet tea.  The original production was spare - a few platforms and a couple of chairs, with the audience relying totally on the actors to bring a Southern home and a variety of cars to life through pantomime.  This production features a more literal physical production, with furniture, props and a variety of projections to fill in the gaps.  The cars are still spare, with a bench and chairs, plus a steering wheel contraption.  These additions don't take away anything, however, and the projections actually add to play.  Between scenes, the projections give us a glimpse at the social changes that occur during the years of the story.  Particularly effective are the horrifying images of racist signage and stirring footage of Martin Luther King singing "We Shall Overcome."

Even with all of the visual extras, the focus remains on the actors, and in this case, they are an embarrassment of riches.  Boyd Gaines plays the son who must look after his aging widowed mother with skill, emphasizing the delicate balance between lording over his charge and allowing her to participate fully in her remaining years.  Best of all, as the play progresses, you can see that he has made sure to let us see that his character is the product of his upbringing - the son has the same pluck and stubborn streak as his mother, and the fortitude of his father.  Gaines' biggest moment, when he has to explain why he won't be attending a charity dinner in honor of King is powerful, indeed.  But for me, his shining moment is a quiet one.  It is the final scene where he is packing up his childhood home and going to visit his mother at a home.  The sadness and regret in his eyes tells so much about the man and the most important woman in his life.

James Earl Jones, as Hoke, the chauffeur hired to drive Miss Daisy, delivers a quiet performance of strength and emotion.  There are times when he is downright cuddly, he is so sweet.  But it is especially powerful to watch this survivor be respectful and compliant, but with a grace and dignity that makes this servant an equal to his boss.  Jones, a physically powerful presence in reality, carefully portrays the aging of the man, slowly hunching over more and more, and slowing his walk down to a shuffle.  His acting, of course, is superlative, with great attention to detail.  His best scenes include the awful moment - and major turning point - when Hoke must override Daisy's bidding and must insist on being allowed to "make water," and the final scene, when he visits his lifelong friend at the home.  As he silently feeds her pumpkin pie, and the lights fade to black, you realize just how amazing he is.

Similarly, Angela Lansbury gives a thrilling performance as Miss Daisy, oozing with Southern charm, loud dignity, and a quiet, almost hidden humbleness.  As with Mr. Jones, it is amazing to watch her physicality as she slowly degenerates from spry senior to a feeble lady in her last days.  Smart and sassy, she expertly navigates the tricky dichotomy of an infuriating semi-bigot and a loving, humorous woman set in her ways.  Uhry provides his title character with many great moments, and Ms. Lansbury plays each one expertly.  Particularly affecting are scenes where she finds out Hoke is illiterate, and she treats him with such dignity and respect, and when she is all ready to fire Hoke for stealing from her, only to find he hasn't.  She is sweet and funny and cantankerous often all at once.  And no one does a look of reproach better than she does.  Again, though, it is the final, silent moments of the play where she is most powerful and pathetic.  I am tearing at the memory of her face - eyes alive with the fire of life, trapped in a body that is slipping away.  The look of love and gratitude that she shares with Jones is beautiful.

While the filmed version of this production wonderfully captures the feel of a live production, I think the ability of the camera to show close-ups adds greatly to this small work of art.  Being able to see the facial expressions of these three masters of the craft makes this a Daisy worth preserving.

Jeff
5.190

Star Power: The Plays

One of the up sides of recent seasons has been the abundance of well-known actors who have graced the Broadway stage.  In many, if not most, cases, this has been a great thing.  Film and television fans have gotten to see such "names" as Julia Roberts, Denzel Washington, Hugh Jackman, Daniel Craig, Robin Williams, Ellen Barkin, Jim Parsons, Justin Bartha, the casts of God of Carnage and many others.  Stage fans have had their pick in recent years, too, including Angela Lansbury, Viola Davis, Cherry Jones, Jan Maxwell, Brian Bedford, James Earl Jones, Vanessa Redgrave,  as well as new comers like Eddie Redmayne, Seth Numrich and Allison Pill.

This season is shaping nicely, too, for star-gazers and theatre fans, alike, not to mention those of us who are both!  Looking at the number of plays and play revivals scheduled for this season, there are a number of performers who should be of interest to everyone.  Here is a list of actors currently attached to projects scheduled to open in the 2011 - 2012 season, divided up by their medium of notoriety.  Most of them overlap, and since every actor in New York has appeared on the Law and Order series or The Good Wife, I only count "TV" actors as those known primarily for that, not the occasional appearance.

* Stage   @ TV    # Film

• Master Class: Tyne Daly@* (Cagney and Lacey, Gypsy), Sierra Boggess (The Little Mermaid, love Never Dies)
• Man and Boy: Frank Langella*# (Dracula, Frost/Nixon), Michael Siberry* (Spamalot, Death Takes a Holiday)
• Relatively Speaking: Mark Linn-Baker *@ (Perfect Strangers, Doonesbury: The Musical), Lisa Emery* (Rumors, The Smell of the Kill), Ari Graynor* (The Little Dog Laughed), Steve Guttenberg# (Three Men and a Baby, Police Academy) , Julie Kavner@ (Rhoda, The Simpsons), Grant Shaud@ (Murphy Brown), Marlo Thomas@ (That Girl)
• The Mountaintop: Samuel L. Jackson# (Star Wars), Angela Bassett (What's Love Got to Do with It)
• Other Desert Cities: Stockard Channing*# (Six Degrees of Separation, Grease), Rachel Griffiths@ (Six Feet Under, Brothers and Sisters), Judith Light @* (Who's the Boss?, One Life to Live, Lombardi), Stacy Keach*@# (NYSF, numerous films), Thomas Sadoski* (Reasons to Be Pretty, The House of Blue Leaves)

 

Master Class, Relatively Speaking, The Mountaintop

Stockard Channing, Other Desert Cities, Rachel Griffiths

• Venus in Fur: Nina Arianda* (Born Yesterday), Hugh Dancy*# (Black Hawk Down, Journey's End)
• Private Lives: Kim Catrall@# (Sex and the City)
• Seminar: Alan Rickman*# (Les Liaisons Dangerueses, Harry Potter...)
• The Road to Mecca: Rosemary Harris*# (The Royal Family, A Delicate Balance, An Inspector Calls, Spider-Man), Jim Dale* (Joe Egg, Barnum), Carla Gugino#* (Spy Kids, After the Fall, Desire Under the Elms)
• W;t: Cynthia Nixon@#* (Sex and the City, Rabbit Hole)

Brian Murray, Philip Seymour Hoffman,

Andrew Garfield,

John Lithgow,

James Earl Jones, Jonathan Groff,

Rutina Wesley

• The Old Masters: Brian Murray* (The Crucible, Mary Stuart, The Importance of Being Earnest), Sam Waterston@* (Law and Order, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, A Walk in the Woods)
• Death of a Salesman: Philip Seymour Hoffman*@ (True West, Twister, Capote), Andrew Garfield# (Spider-Man), Linda Emond* (Life x 3, 1776)
• The Columnist: John Lithgow*@# (Sweet Smell of Success, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Third Rock from the Sun, Dexter, The World According to Garp, Footloose)
• Streetcar Named Desire: Blair Underwood@# (Sex and the City, L.A. Law, The Event, The New Adventures of Old Christine, Deep Impact)
• The Best Man: James Earl Jones*# (Driving Miss Daisy, Star Wars, Field of Dreams)
• The Submission (Off-Broadway): Jonathan Groff *@ (Spring Awakening, Deathtrap, Glee), Rutina Wesley@ (True Blood), Eddie Kaye Thomas #* (American Pie, Dog Sees God)

RUMOR: A 5-time Tony winner is rumored to be joining James Earl Jones in The Best Man.

I'm sure this list is only the tip of the iceberg. And, of course, it is subject to change.

Who are you excited to see onstage this season?

Rate this blog below and leave your comments here, by email at jkstheatrescene@yahoo.com, or Tweet me!
Jeff
2.355

Trends of the Decade: Hollywood vs Broadway

This trend has been going on as long as there has been a "Broadway" and a "Hollywood."  But in recent years, it has really become pronounced.  That is high-profile movie stars are making big, splashy Broadway debuts, do the run in a limited engagement (12 - 16 weeks on average), make the money for the producers, talk about the prestige and not the money for doing Broadway, and then leave town feeling validated as an actor.  Things really came to a head just this past season when several of the major Tony nominations and eventual wins went to actors who are known primarily for being screen stars in shows that would be closing very shortly after the awards were handed out.  Some in the community have even rallied to have some sort of rule put into place to prevent "movie stars" from taking awards from "Broadway actors."  That debate is really for another blog entirely.

Our new Broadway Hero: Benjamin Walker (center)

in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson

And it does not seem to be abating anytime soon.  Just this week, high-profile movie stars Halle Berry, Samuel L. Jackson, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith were announced for imminent projects coming to Broadway.  Of course, there is the ultimate counter to that in young Benjamin Walker, a relative unknown, who might have lost his big movie break by declining a role in the next X-Men movie, so that he could star in the Broadway opening of Blood Bloody Andrew Jackson, a project he has been attached to for years.  Good for him for being loyal and seeing things through, right?  And no one seems to be protesting two film stars, Oscar nominee (and Tony winner) James Earl Jones and Oscar winner (and Tony winner) Vanessa Redgrave, who will be starring in a limited-engagement of Driving Miss Daisy.  Perhaps the difference is that they are perceived as BOTH film and stage stars by their perspective camps.

Oscar winner Halle Berry

may be Broadway bound

So, I looked over the openings of the first decade of the 21st Century, and made a few lists (none of which, I'm sure, are complete) to see just how much this trend is a trend and to see if the Broadway acting commuinty has a legitimate gripe (in terms of jobs versus awards, which I won't get into, except to say this: if you are doing this just to win awards, find another job).  I made a list of Broadway one-timers, a list of actors known to the public at large for their TV/film careers, but do Broadway regularly, and a list of actors who are thought of first as Broadway folk, but have managed a decent career in TV/film.

Stage vet Paul Rudd with Broadway newcomer

Oscar winner Julia Roberts

Broadway "One-timers":  Bradley Cooper, Julia Roberts, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Scarlett Johansson, Abigail Breslin, Susan Sarandon (well, she did do a show that ran a week in 1972), Reba McIntyre, Geoffrey Rush, Lucy Liu, Sean Hayes, Juilanna Marguiles, David Schwimmer, Amanda Peet, Sally Field, Katie Holmes, Daniel Craig, Jason Biggs and Christina Applegate.  (Some of these folks, I'll bet, will be back.)

Movie stars of Broadway's

Exit the King: Rush and Sarandon

Christopher Walken on stage

(with movie actor Sam Rockwell)

And Christopher Walken in a movie based on a Broadway

musical which was based on a movie...

TV/Film Stars who "do Broadway" regularly:  Christopher Walken, Sarah Jessica Parker, Al Pacino, Hugh Jackman, Denzel Washington, Ralph Fiennes, Paul Rudd, Tony Shalhoub, Angela Lansbury, John Lithgow, Kelsey Grammer, Diane Weist, David Hyde Pierce, Vanessa Williams, Tom Wopat, Brooke Shields, Mercedes Ruehl, Matthew Broderick, Bebe Neuwirth, Richard Thomas, Whoopi Goldberg, Kathleen Turner, Delta Burke, Anthony LaPaglia, Alicia Silverstone, Marissa Tomei, Tyne Daly, Megan Mullally, Ana Gastyer, Phylicia Rashad...  (It is interesting to think about how many on this list actually started on Broadway...)

Broadway and TV/Film

 regulars Rashad and Jones

Broadway "Stars" who do TV/Film regularly: Alan Cumming, Christine Baranski, Bernadette Peters, Elaine Stritch, Mary Louise Parker, Cheyenne Jackson, Jane Krakowski, Harvey Fierstein, Donna Murphy, Aaron Tveit, Christopher Sieber, Gregory Jbara, Christine Ebersole, Harriet Harris, Liev Schrieber, Matthew Morrison, Lea Michele, Kristin Chenoweth, Patrick Wilson, Gina Gershon, Norbert Leo Butz, Kate Reinders, Laura Benanti, Patti LuPone, Faith Prince, Nathan Lane, Kerry Butler, Cherry Jones...  (It is interesting to think that even the general public is starting to know some of these people as "Broadway actors on TV shows.")

Christopher Sieber does a lot of Broadway, like Shrek: The Musical...

... and has also starred in two TV series, Two of a Kind and It's All Relative

(along with Broadway's Harriet Harris and John Benjamin Hickey)

Granted, I am sure I missed a few from this decade, but of that top list only 3 have won Tonys, and the bottom two lists are virtually even.  I wonder how much anyone has to complain about.  Still, these high-profile limited engagement things seem to becoming more of a norm, so I can understand where everyone is coming from.  And it is a double edged sword - while it does bring people to Broadway who might otherwise not come, and might make them come back for other shows, it still limits the number of people who can see these stars, and as Fences showed us, it can drive up ticket prices.

In the long run, my money is on the folks who can sustain a respectable career, be it on Broadway alone or on Broadway with TV and film thrown in between Broadway gigs.


Comments?  Leave one here or email me at jkstheatrescene@yahoo.com.
Jeff