B'WAY'S MEAL TICKETS
THAT munching sound you hear on stage? It's not actors chewing the scenery, but rather eating their props. Never has the phrase "dinner theater" seemed as apt as it has this season. Not only do sandwiches loom large in "The 39 Steps" and "Macbeth,"...
Source : www.nypost.com | 05-mai-2008 11:44
'BOEING-BOEING' GOING-GOING NOWHERE FAST
TWO words can virtually sum up the best reason for seeing the revival of Marc Camoletti's vintage French farce "Boeing-Boeing." Unfortunately, neither of those two words is Boeing - they are Mark Rylance, one of Britain's leading classic actors...
Source : www.nypost.com | 05-mai-2008 11:44
'Love's Labor's Lost's' vision, edge a perfect fit
What a shame that Muhlenberg College's production of ''Love's Labor's Lost'' ran for only one weekend.
'Cranford' is another class act from PBS
Sister act: Lisa Dillon , Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench and Imelda Staunton play siblings in "Crawford." For at least three weeks, "Masterpiece Theater" fans who grumble about seeing fewer of those lushly filmed ...
Fantasy has fun with reincarnation
Miss Witherspoon in the bardo realm. Fantasy in theater is a double-edged sword: Swing it in one direction, and you've cut through the boundaries of plodding realism; swing it in another, and you're simply ...
4 premieres coming up next at Next Theater
Oct. 12): The American premiere of British director-writer David Farr's adaptation of the Gogol classic "The Government Inspector," with the tale of graft and corruption and panic that Farr envisioned as ...
SUMMER STAGES
THOUGH it's still weeks before Memorial Day, your Sutton and Hunter Foster wannabes have no summer plans - even though your neighbor signed up her kids for camp last October. (She also filed her taxes on Jan. 2.)Will your kids be watching...
Source : www.nypost.com | 03-mai-2008 09:44
WINNING 'ENDGAME'
'NOTHING is funnier than unhappiness," famously declares one of the characters in "Endgame." That one line perfectly encapsulates the comically mordant tone of Beckett's absurdist classic, now receiving a first-rate revival at the Brooklyn Academy...
Source : www.nypost.com | 02-mai-2008 07:30
HOOKING UP WITH 'LIAISONS' A SAFE BET
VICE and depravity wrapped up like a box of bonbons, costumes to die for, a dashing swordfight - and while virtue isn't rewarded, at least the wages of sin are ironically paid. What is there not to like in "Les Liaisons Dangereuses"? As revived...
Source : www.nypost.com | 02-mai-2008 07:30
WISH HUGH WERE HERE
HOLD on to your panties, middle-age ladies from the suburbs: Your boyfriend, Hugh Jackman, is making his way back to Broadway. Jackman, who single-handedly turned the feeble "The Boy From Oz" into a theatrical sensation, is in talks to star in a...
Source : www.nypost.com | 02-mai-2008 07:30
NOT ALL ROCKIN' ROBBINS
NEW York City Ballet's gala Tues day - black-tie and class chow - not only launched its spring sea son, but the Jerome Robbins Celebration, as well. During its nine-week season, City Ballet is unleashing its unparalleled collection of 33 Robbins...
Source : www.nypost.com | 02-mai-2008 07:30
HE'LL SEDUCE THE GIRL, BUT IT'S ALL AN ACT
IN the "Liaisons Dangereuses" revival opening tonight, Ben Daniels is every inch the French voluptuary, Valmont - unabashedly decadent, lusciously lewd and, for a few tantalizing seconds, utterly nude. Get a grip, girls - he's batting for the other...
Source : www.nypost.com | 01-mai-2008 09:40
'THURGOOD' - NOT THURGREAT
WE owe a debt to Laurence Fishburne and playwright George Stevens Jr. for bringing a great man to life in "Thurgood," and putting him vividly, if too exhaustively, on the stage of the Booth Theatre. History is really little more than a series of...
Source : www.nypost.com | 01-mai-2008 09:40
St. Louis Storytelling Festival
One of humanity's oldest forms of entertainment, oral storytelling, has benefited from the computer age.
UNSOUND SHOULDN'T BE SEEN
FIRST, an admission: I've never gotten all the way through William Faulkner's classic "The Sound and the Fury," with its difficult, stream-of-consciousness style. And after sitting through "The Sound and the Fury" (subtitled "April Seventh, 1928),"...
Source : www.nypost.com | 30-avr.-2008 10:21
WEAK IN THE NOMINEES
BROADWAY'S in the grip of Awards Anxiety, which, for an industry rife with back stabbers, gossip mongers and guttersnipes (I'm looking in the mirror), means things can get downright nasty. Here's a sampling of the reaction to this year's Drama Desk...
Source : www.nypost.com | 30-avr.-2008 10:21
DOUBLE DOSE OF LAUGHTER BEST RX
COMEDY - the laugh-out-loud kind - is nearly as rare in opera as in Greek tragedy. But there's scarcely been more mirth at any opera house than there was Saturday, when the Met offered a double-header of cheer: Donizetti's "La Fille du Régiment" in...
Source : www.nypost.com | 29-avr.-2008 10:16
JET-SET FARCE A ONE-WAY TICKET TO NOSTALGIA
CAREFULLY plotted plane trips, a bevy of babes - has the Eliot Spitzer story come to town? No, but "Boeing, Boeing" has. The 1962 farce about a playboy, three flight-attendant fiancées and one very exasperated maid opens Sunday on Broadway with...
Source : www.nypost.com | 28-avr.-2008 10:41
A SLICE OF 'COUNTRY' LIFE
MANY years ago, writing in a different newspaper about a different production, Icalled Clifford Odets' "The Country Girl" a "good-bad play." It's bad because while craftsmanlike and efficient, it's also shamelessly manipulative, melodramatic...
Source : www.nypost.com | 28-avr.-2008 10:41
For an art form once accused of elitism, the world of opera has many mansions. And one of the most democratic, youthful and thrilling of these is Chicago Opera Theater, preparing to launch its 2008 spring ...
EVERYBODY MIGHT LOVE BILLY
'BILLY Elliot" looks set to lift Broadway out of its slump. While there's still plenty of money to be made in Times Square ("Wicked" and "Hairspray" are chugging along nicely), the Great White Way hasn't had a headline-grabbing, box...
Source : www.nypost.com | 25-avr.-2008 08:42
DOESN'T HOLD UP LIKE 'HAIRSPRAY'
EVER since "Grease" set the scene, we've had '50s nostalgia pastiche musicals (call them "nostiche") on Broadway, some good, some not so good - "Hairspray" and "All Shook Up" among them. The latest came last night with "Cry-Baby," which, like...
Source : www.nypost.com | 25-avr.-2008 08:42
DUTCH TREAT IN NEW STEPS
THE Joyce Theater is going Dutch - at least through the weekend - via Scapino Ballet Rotterdam, which just opened its season there. Generally ranked No. 3 in the international pecking order of Dutch dance companies (after the big guns of the...
Source : www.nypost.com | 25-avr.-2008 08:42
Horizons finds new general manager
Carol Fishman will step into the role of general manager at Off Broadway nonprofit Playwrights Horizons as of May 12.
'FARCE' TOO SPARSE
GENERALLY speaking, there are plays that are about something and there are plays that are about themselves. The latter is true of Enda Walsh's "The Walworth Farce," the production by Ireland's Druid Theater Company of Galway now playing a limited...
Source : www.nypost.com | 24-avr.-2008 10:24
Continue reading Happy B'day, Will Shakespeare! Ah, but does B'way care?
Happy B'day, Will Shakespeare! Ah, but does B'way care? Today is William Shakespeare' s 444th birthday! And since it is Tony Awards season and "Macbeth" is on Broadway, it's a good time to look back at how good ...
Theater review: Players' 'Anne Frank' powerful
Had she lived, Anne Frank would celebrate her 79th birthday in June of this year.
'EMANCIPATION' SERVES ITS PURPOSE
THE unusual venue in which it is being performed adds a chilling emotional resonance to "Emancipation," Ty Jones' new play about the 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner being presented by the Classical Theatre of Harlem. It is the Audubon...
Source : www.nypost.com | 23-avr.-2008 09:43
COBRAS AND 'COUNTRY'
LET'S see: Your word of mouth is dreadful. Your star can't re member his lines. Your director and his blogging sidekick have been hammered for cutting a famous dead author's script as if it were sausage. And your company's fretting that they're...
Source : www.nypost.com | 23-avr.-2008 09:43
Elton John introduces Broadway's Billy Elliots
Broadway has its Billy Elliot - all three of them. The three young men who will alternate as the stars of "Billy Elliot the Musical" were introduced Tuesday by the show's composer, Elton John, in the ...
IT'S 'UP' IN SMOKE
THE family members in Liz Flahive's "From Up Here" are certainly quirky. Daniel is a Mr. Mom who makes his own potpourri, while his older wife, Grace (Julie White) - this is her second marriage - is deeply anxious over his passionate desire for her...
Source : www.nypost.com | 22-avr.-2008 10:29
TALES FROM THE TOT SEAT
THOSE seeking stories about the wonders of childbirth and the joys of parenting might want to skip "Afterbirth," a "Vagina Monologues" for the stroller set. Performing it are actors and writers reading true (and truly hilarious) pieces: about fussy...
Source : www.nypost.com | 21-avr.-2008 11:37
Man of few words opens up on stage
Ethan Coen, the quiet man, has lots to say. It just takes awhile before he spits it out.
Guthrie's "Midsummer Night's Dream" a pop-culture spectacle that still respects the Bard
That guffawing that you hear emanating from the downtown Minneapolis riverfront is because of a grotesque love scene onstage at the Guthrie Theater.
Theater review: Globe's 'Menagerie' is harmoniously triumphant
By James Hebert UNION-TRIBUNE THEATER CRITIC A phonograph needle reaches the end of a pitiful little song, and for a long moment it skips rhythmically against the end of the record, like a knell sounding out in ...
'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' review: Chick flick for guys
Jason Segel is such a girl. In the best way. In fact, he may just be the gender bridge we've been looking for.
Drama Desk Responds To Michael Riedel Column On Phillips
Friday, April 18, 2008; Posted: 1:39 PM - by BWW News Desk This morning, April 18th, 2008 Michael Riedel reported on the resignation of Tony Phillips from the Drama Desk Committee .
AN 'AFFAIR' TO REMEMBER, A MUSICAL OF NOTE
HUMOR, yes, but humanity? That's rare in a Broadway musical. When it does come along - as it did last night, when "A Catered Affair" opened at the Walter Kerr - hug it to your heart. Under John Doyle's expert, discreet direction, it emerges less...
Source : www.nypost.com | 18-avr.-2008 08:42
DRAMATIC CONCLUSION
A member of the Drama Desk nominating committee has left his post, charging in a stinging resignation letter that the committee chair woman, theater critic Barbara Siegel, is "an imminent danger to the integrity of the organization." Tony Phillips...
Source : www.nypost.com | 18-avr.-2008 08:42
IT'S SMOOTH SAILING FOR POP SINGER
TODAY'S pop is tomorrow's nostalgia. Look no farther than Christopher Cross' debut at the Café Carlyle. This singer/songwriter was a sensation in 1979, when his self-titled album nabbed five Grammys, including Best Album, Best Record, Best Song...
Source : www.nypost.com | 18-avr.-2008 08:42
FORESIGHT FROM FORSYTHE
TEN years ago, the idea of the Kirov presenting an entire evening of works by ballet's bad boy, William Forsythe, as it did at City Center Tuesday night, would have been tantamount to painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa. Now it's simply a question...
Source : www.nypost.com | 18-avr.-2008 08:42
Theater Review:Southern spirit takes over in - Steel Magnolias'
There are "women's plays" by the score, but few offer such delicious acting moments for all of their cast members than Robert Harling's "Steel Magnolias." Perhaps that's why the show has been done, redone and ...
CROWDS GOING 'SOUTH'
WHILE nearly all of the new Broadway musicals this season are barely scraping by, one show - which turns 60 years old this month - is a box-office dynamo. Advance ticket sales for the revival of "South Pacific" at Lincoln Center have hit $9...
Source : www.nypost.com | 16-avr.-2008 09:56
UP TO HIS BOLD TRICKS, FELD SPURNS BASICS
SINCE Jerome Robbins' death, Eliot Feld has worn the unof ficial mantle of outstanding American-born classic choreographer. Or, as the critic Jack Anderson once put it: "Who else?" Last year, New York City Ballet made Feld only the third...
Source : www.nypost.com | 16-avr.-2008 09:56
SHORTS LONG ON LAUGHS
WHEN reviewing a comedy, I tend to jot down a few of the funnier lines, to indicate its general level of wit. It wasn't easy with Paul Rudnick's "The New Century," which opened last night - not that there were no funny lines to choose from, but...
Source : www.nypost.com | 15-avr.-2008 10:23
Broadway sales inched back up last week, following a frame that saw grosses drop as the spring break season ended.