Broadway | The New York Observer

Life's a Beach? Not on Broadway

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:06:42 -0400

If the Bloomberg administration wanted media attention and buzz, they got it when the mayor and Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan decided to close several blocks of Broadway near Times Square and Herald Square and turn the space into public plazas, complete with a bunch of chairs, tables and benches strewn around for tired tourists looking for a place to smoke or New Yorkers looking for a place to sun-tan. What the “experiment” may have...

Two Broadway Blondes Light Up This Cabaret Season

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:59:00 -0400

Kelli O’Hara
CafÉ Carlyle

Talk about irony. Kelli O’Hara and KT Sullivan are two sparkling blondes who are lighting up the cabaret season in the same week—both Irish colleens, and both of them from Oklahoma! This may be something of a first. I know one thing. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a diva on a supper club stage who is six months pregnant. Ms. O’Hara is supposed to be on...

Events Roundup: Friday, February 27, 2009

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:37:40 -0500

6 p.m. The New York Wine Expo. offers more than 170 producers and more than 600 sample wines. At the Jacob K. Javits Center, 655 West 34 Street. Admission ranges from $75-$95.

7 p.m. "Brother, Can You Spare Some Rent?: A Modern-Day Depression-Era Fundraiser" will be held to help preserve Williamsburg’s City Reliquary Museum, which showcases N.Y.C.–centric oddities and artifacts. Event will feature "aside from a warm, fuzzy feeling for helping the...

Five Card Studs: Harvey Fierstein's Poker Game

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:11:19 -0500

At 4:40 p.m. last Saturday, after the matinee of Hairspray at the Neil Simon Theatre, Harvey Fierstein was in his dressing room, shedding his role as Edna, the beloved overweight Baltimore mother he plays eight times a week.

He swiveled his chair toward the door. “Oh, there you are,” he purred in his gravel-and-molasses voice. “Now get naked.”

I had come to...

Jan From The Office To Play Roxie Hart

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:41:58 -0500

Melora Hardin, best known as Steve Carell's boss-cum-love interest Jan on NBC's The Office, will soon hang up her business attire for Roxie Hart's fishnets when she joins the cast of Chicago for a seven-week run beginning December 29. Hardin's musical turn is takes her back to her roots: the actress has recorded two albums and previously played Fantine in the Hollywood Bowl's Les Miserables in Concert last summer. Hardin, who also has a...

Wicked Turns Five, Celebrates With Green Playbills

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:24:07 -0400

Wicked, Broadway’s longtime top-grosser, celebrates the fifth anniversary of its opening tonight with a colorful commemoration: departing from their signature yellow, the mastheads of the show’s Playbills will be printed in green, according to Broadwayworld.com. A tribute to the famously verdant skin of Elphaba, Wicked’s witchy heroine, the revamped programs will be the first in history that Playbill has specially tailored for a particular performance.

Tonight’s show caps off a week of high-profile...

Once Comes to Broadway

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:25:18 -0400

The fact that Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová managed to perform Once’s winning tune “Falling Slowly” at the Oscars earlier this year was a total coup—akin to seeing Elliott Smith finger-pick his way through “Miss Misery” at the same event ten years ago. Still, we've never thought the pair’s music worked quite as well outside the frame of John Carney’s camera. Somehow, all that folksy sap seemed appropriate coming from the Guinness-soaked streets of...

Beige Book Blues: Apartment Sales Off, Retail Sales Slow

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:28:51 -0400

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday released their seventh and second-to-last Beige Book report of 2008 (PDF), finding depressing economic trends in virtually all of the Fed's 12 districts nationwide. But what about the Second District, which includes all of New York, northern New Jersey and southwestern Connecticut?

Some highlights:

Same-store sales in preexisting shops are down 1 to 5 percent in October from a year earlier, although New York continued to outperform the rest of the...

Broadway to Honor Newman

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:02:17 -0400

Tonight, in honor of Paul Newman, Broadway will dim its lights for one minute at 8 p.m. While best known for his many Hollywood star turns, Newman was also an accomplished stage actor. He made his Broadway debut in 1953 in the original New York production of William Inge's Picnic, in which he met and fell in love with his future wife, Joanne Woodward, the Broadway League tells Reuters. In 2003 he was nominated...

Oh No, Tony! Broadway Attendance, Revenues Drop

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:01:11 -0400

Broadway theaters report that both attendance and reveneus dropped more than 10 percent from April 2007 to April 2008, according to the Federal Reserve's latest Beige Book. Attendance and revenues were down 3 percent annually in May, too.

Also, another tourist-dependent industry seems to have taken a mild hit recently. The Fed reports that Manhattan hotel room rates were up 7.5 percent in April from the same month last year and total revenues for hotels...

Shrek Comes to Broadway

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 13:42:40 -0500

Shrek is ditching the magic kingdom and coming to Broadway. Although, don't expect Cameron Diaz and Mike Myers to come out of their recording booths to prance around on stage any time soon. Shrek The Musical will premiere in Seattle in August this summer and then transfer to New York (at a theater to be announced) in early November. Spamalot helmer Tim Hatley will direct.

Read on for full press release.

SHREK

Rent Closing on June 1

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:00:37 -0500

After a year of dismal ticket sales, Rent is due to close on June 1. (We'll have to settle for Spring Awakening.) The show has been staged for 12 years at the Nederlander theater, the seventh-longest running show in Rialto history.

Variety reports:

Directed by Michael Greif, Jonathan Larson's loose adaptation of "La Boheme" garnered enthusiastic critical and commercial attention as soon as it opened at the New York Theater Workshop in February, 1996....

Will Ferrell Coming to Broadway for One-Man Show?

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:24:58 -0500

Will Ferrell might come to Broadway with a one-man show. According to Michael Riedel of the New York Post, he was inspired by... Billy Crystal? "The show's bouncing around at this point," a source told Mr. Riedel. "He hasn't figured out what it's supposed to be yet."

Details are sketchy, but sources say Ferrell was captivated by "700 Sundays," Billy Crystal's hugely successful autobiographical one-man show that ran on Broadway.

"700 Sundays" made...

Cry-Baby Coming to Broadway

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:20:19 -0500

Hey, remember Johnny Depp in the '90s, sporting a leather jacket and a greasy pompadour for his first musical, John Waters' Cry-Baby? Well a stage adaptation based on the 1990 cult classic is coming to Broadway starting March 15. The musical has been playing at the La Jolla Playhouse in California since November, but now James Snyder, who plays a blonde version of Mr. Depp, and Tony award-winner Harriet Harris, will reprise their roles...

Chaka Khan Joins Color Purple Cast

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:34:18 -0500

Chaka Khan is, indeed, every woman, including Sofia in the Broadway Theatre's production of The Color Purple. Gospel singer Bebe Winans, who had a small role in The Manchurian Candidate, will also join the cast tonight. Check here for tickets.

Playbill reports:

Jan. 9 also marks the first performance of newcomer Zonya Love as the beleaguered Celie who learns to love herself and others. Love is also making her Broadway debut, assuming...

Suit Alleges Unpublished Biography Helped Inspire Jersey Boys

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:39:34 -0500

Donna Corbello, the widow of biographer Rex Conrad Woodard, filed a suit alleging that an unpublished biography of The Four Seasons singer-guitarist Tommy DeVito written by her late husband aided in the creation of Jersey Boys. She claims that Mr. Woodward's estate is entitled to some cash from the hit Broadway musical. She is suing Mr. DeVito for a piece of the royalty he makes off the smash musical — although he is not...

Alan Cumming to Play Dianne Wiest's Lover in Seagull

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 17:25:17 -0500

Tony Award winner Alan Cumming will play Trigorin, the lover to Dianne Wiest's magnetic actress, Arkadina, in Anton Chekhov's 1896 play, The Seagull, at Classic Stage Company (136 East 13th Street). It is to be directed by Viacheslav Dolgachev, artistic director of the Moscow New Drama Theatre. Previews begin on Feb. 20, with opening night set for March 13.

Broadway.com reports:

Written in 1896, The Seagull is widely regarded as Chekhov's first masterpiece, subtly...

Cyrano to End Record-Breaking Run Jan. 6

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 11:45:39 -0500

On Dec. 8, 2007, a single performance of Cyrano de Bergerac at the Richard Rogers Theater smashed the record for the highest gross of a play or musical in one night, totalling $153,880. Just a month later, on Jan. 6, Edmond Rostand's 1897 timeless romance will close its curtains. The star-studded production, including Kevin Kline, as the big-schnozed Cyrano, and Jennifer Garner, as hard-to-get Roxane, began previews on Oct. 11 and opened on...

Hairspray Director Set to Helm Lloyd Webber's Phantom 2

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 12:57:01 -0500

Jack O'Brien, the acclaimed director of the stage production of Hairspray and Coast of Utopia, is working with Andrew Lloyd Webber on his sequel to Phantom of the Opera in London. He has met with the composer a few times last week and both are struggling to finish the storyline that was originally penned by novelist Frederick Forsyth and then Lloyd Webber's close collaborator Ben Elton. According to London's Daily Mail, "his version didn't...

Drowsy Chaperone to Take the Long Nap

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 11:31:15 -0500

After five Tony Awards, 674 performances and 32 previews, the musical comedy The Drowsy Chaperone will close Dec. 30 at the Marquis Theatre. The show played to capacity audiences for a long time and moved into the profit column, but for the past six months the crowds had stopped coming. According to the Toronto Star, gimmick casting like placing Full House dad Bob Saget in the pivotal role of “Man In Chair” failed to...

Behind the Scenes of Sweeney Todd

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 15:02:00 -0500

Broadway World's online TV show Broadway Beat is making a three-part series of interviews and historical retrospectives, counting down to the opening of Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street on Dec. 21. If you can get past BWW.com's Richard Ridge performing a nerdy introduction (and dressed so appropriately in fake-blood-red and black!), the first episode is almost entertaining.

It includes an interview with Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the music and...

Usher Back on Broadway?

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 16:58:30 -0500

Usher might return to Broadway! Um, as his rapper sidekick Lil Jon would say on their hit single, "Yeah! Okay?" Usher is in talks to star in a revival the 1964 musical Golden Boy, based on the Clifford Odets play about Joe Wellington, a pianist who becomes a star boxer. The late Sammy Davis Jr. originated the role.

The New York Post reports:

"I can't tell you the contracts have been signed yet, but...

Remains of the Day: August: Osage County, Google, Silver Jews

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:55:06 -0500

Charles Isherwood wrote that August: Osage County is “the most exciting new American play Broadway has seen in years.”

Yessss! VH1’s Pop-Up Video TV series, featuring fun facts to know and tell about the artist or the making of the video, will be available online!

Can’t afford Sothebys prices? L Magazine has a handy guide for shopping for wall art without breaking your bank.

...

Potter Boy Radcliffe Gets Feisty With Studio Over Equus

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 13:14:03 -0500

So Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe officially signed the contract to bring Equus (and the 10-minute sex scene that goes along with it) to Broadway next year. The New York Post tells us that he had to wrangle with studios over scheduling obligations to the Potter movies to make it happen.

To sign on for the New York production, Radcliffe had to stand up to Warner Brothers, the producer of the "Harry Potter"...

Garner, Kline Get Cyrano Extension

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:03:00 -0500

After losing three weeks of performances due to the stagehands strike, stage actors Jennifer Garner and Kevin Kline (and his giant schnoz) will get a two-week extension of their play Cyrano de Bergerac at the Richard Rogers Theatre, according to Playbill.

Originally scheduled to conclude performances at the Rodgers Dec. 23, Cyrano has now announced that Kline, Daniel Sunjata, Jennifer Garner and the remainder of the cast will play performances through Jan. 6, 2008....

After the Strike, Broadway Ticket Prices Rise

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 09:20:06 -0500

The price of a Broadway ticket will rise in the wake of the stagehands strike - but not necessarily because of the walkout, according to New York Daily News. After the 19-day strike, theaters lured back audiences with discount tickets and even a free show.

But it's only a matter of time before the freebies stop and prices rise, experts said.

"It's advertising and marketing and the cost of production. It's everything," said "Chicago"...

Strike is Over! Broadway Lights Up Tonight

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 07:42:18 -0500

Broadway is back! On the 19th day of the the strike a tenative agreement was reached between the League of American Theatres and Producers and the Local One stagehands union. Details of the final agreement have yet to be made public. Producers and the union have been hashing out issues including work assignments, setting of a production's run crew, load-in costs and labor minimums. Increase in wages was the subject of the final...

Inside the Latenight Broadway Strike Talks

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 10:46:45 -0500

Slate's Michelle Tsai explains why the Broadway stagehands and producers are pulling all-nighters during negotiation talks. Why are they being so nocturnal? And what is taking so damn long? It can't be all coffee and donut breaks...

It can be hard for the negotiations to get going, though, since the two sides may not immediately agree on basic ground rules. The bargaining teams have to decide whether to impose a gag rule with respect to...

Broadway Strike Talks Break Down Again

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 09:00:03 -0500

Broadway will remain dark tonight as talks between stagehands and producers have broken off early this morning after a second straight all-night negotiation session. No new talks are planned and the strike is now in its third week.

NY1 reports:

Union spokesman Bruce Cohen emerged from the talks just before 5 a.m., and spoke with NY1’s Stephanie Simon about the progress that's being made behind closed doors.

"Right now it's the 9th...

Late-Night Broadway Talks Take 12-Hour Break

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 07:28:22 -0500

Negotiators working on a settlement of the Broadway strike overnight last night left theMidtown law firm of Proskauer, Rose early this morning without an agreement, but will reconvene this evening to continue negotiations, NY1 reports.

When the two sides met last night it had been the first meeting since talks broke down on Nov. 18, and both sides appeared hopeful a resolution was coming.

At 8:30 p.m., union spokesman Bruce Cohen emerged and told reporters it...

Local One Raised $5 Million to Prepare for Strike

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 09:05:35 -0500

Juan Gonzalez of the The New York Daily News takes an inside look at the Broadway strike:

James Claffey, Local One's burly young president, carefully prepared for a showdown. Claffey convinced his members the time had come for the union to stand up to the owners. He even convinced a reluctant Thomas Short, president of the local's parent union, that strong action was needed.

And this time, the Broadway owners and producers adopted a hard-line...

Broadway Talks Collapse, Theaters Dark Another Week

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 08:12:10 -0500

Negotiations between Local 1 and the League of American Theatres and Producers broke down Sunday after a weekend of meetings and discussions. 27 plays and musicals will remain dark during what is typically a high-grossing week for Broadway, according to the Associated Press.

"We are profoundly disappointed to have to tell you that talks broke off tonight, and that no further negotiations are scheduled," Charlotte St. Martin, the league's executive director, said in a...

Julie Andrews to Direct Broadway Mousical

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 14:25:03 -0500

Julie Andrews is returning to Broadway—as a director, according to Variety (blogger?) Army Archerd.

Her most charming book, The Great American Mousical, which she wrote with daughter Emma Walton Hamilton, is being musicked by Anthony Drewe and George Stiles, the team who tuned the musical Mary Poppins. The ultra charming, humorous and yes, exciting Mousical also takes on some of the recognizable Broadway stars who appear on stage above the cellar-dwellng mice. The book...

Why Broadway Shows Still Putting on The Ritz During Strike

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 12:04:46 -0500

Playbill explains:

This dispute is over the contract between Local One (the stagehands union), and the League of American Theatres and Producers (the organization that represents most of the Broadway theatres and producers). That contract sets out rules for how much the stagehands get paid, how many stagehands the theatres are required to hire, and other issues.

But some Broadway theatres are members of the League (and use that League-negotiated contract) and some are...

Regional Theater Company 101

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 11:22:39 -0500

Terry Teachout of About Last Night gives theater-goers, and arts reviewers, a few guidelines on what to see off Broadway and in the regional theaters now that the Local One strike is still on.

The time has come for American playgoers--and, no less important, arts editors--to start treating regional theater not as a minor-league branch of Broadway but as an artistically significant entity in and of itself. Take it from a critic who now...

Seafarer, Farnsworth May Reschedule Openings

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 15:44:14 -0500

With the stagehands strike now in its third day and the opening nights of Conor McPherson's spooky romp The Seafarer and Aaron Sorkin's buzzed-about The Farnsworth Invention quickly approaching, producers of those shows are contemplating rescheduling the official opening nights, according to Playbill.

"If the strike continues," a spokesperson for both shows told Playbill.com, "the openings will be changed." If those dates are revised, the producers are asking critics to hold their reviews until...

27 Broadway Shows Remain Dark Due to Stagehands Strike

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 07:37:04 -0500

It's the third day in the Theatrical Stage Employees Union/Local One strike, and nearly all of Broadway is shut down. A total of 35 shows are currently running on Broadway, with the majority of them affected by the strike. The non-profit houses and a handful of others operate under separate contracts and will remain open. They include: The New Amsterdam (Mary Poppins), Helen Hayes Theatre (Xanadu), Hilton Theatre (Young Frankenstein), Circle in the Square...

Maggie the Cat is Alive--On Broadway!

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 12:34:19 -0500

After 12 years of negotiations and organization, the all-African-American revival of Tennessee Williams' “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" will finally be staged on the Broadhurst Theater, starting in mid-February with an opening night set for March 6. Tony-nominated actor, choreographer and TV director Debbie Allen will direct.

Full release after the jump.

CAT FINDS A HOME…

The all African-American ...

Broadway Stangehands Close to Strike

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 08:05:25 -0500

Thomas C. Short, the president of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, the Broadway stangehands' parent union, granted strike authorization to Local One last night. Mr. Short will advise James J. Claffey, the president of Local One, “as to the time and date when the strike will begin.”

The New York Times reports:

If the stagehands do walk out, it will be the second time in less than five years that much of Broadway...

Jessica Alba Does a Madonna on Mamet

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 10:46:36 -0500

According to the New York Post's Michael Riedel, Jessica Alba may star in a Broadway revival of David Mamet's 1988 satire of Hollywood "Speed-the-Plow" in the spring. Has she seen Claire Danes reviews? Yikes. But that didn't stop Madonna, as Mr. Riedel points out. Madonna got some fairly harsh reviews in the role of the secretary who's so naive she has no idea how to make coffee. But it didn't hurt her career...

Equus (and Radcliffe!) Arrive on Broadway in 2008

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 12:42:11 -0400

Daniel Radcliffe is gonna get naked in New York! The successful London revivial of Equus is coming to Broadway, along with Mr. Radcliffe. He plays the disturbed adolescent Alan Strang, an English stable boy who blinded six horses with a spike. Richard Griffiths, the Tony-award winning stage actor who played his bumbling, meanie uncle in the Harry Potter movies, takes on the role of psychiatrist Martin Dysart, who attempts to discover the source of...

Laurence Fishburne Returns to Broadway

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:32:18 -0400

Whoah. Laurence Fishburne, a Tony winner best known for his role as leather-cloaked Morpheus in The Matrix, will return to Broadway this spring in Thurgood, a one-man show about the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, according to Variety.

Written by screen producer, director and scribe George Stevens Jr., "Thurgood" offers a biographical account of Marshall, including his Baltimore upbringing and his stint as chief counsel of the...

Cheers' Norm to Star in Hairspray

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 11:38:37 -0400

NORM! George Wendt, the character actor who slugged beers and recited countless "Normisms" on the TV show "Cheers," will trade his sportscoat for Edna Turnblad's housecoat in Broadway's Tony Award-winning Hairspray, starting Oct. 23, according to Playbill. "I'll drink to that!"

Wendt is a six-time Emmy Award nominee for playing grumpy but popular Norm Peterson on "Cheers." He recently played Juror #1 in the national tour of Twelve Angry Men....

Streep's Daughter Coming to Broadway?

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 16:21:13 -0400

Like mother, like daughter, according to Page Six.

Meryl Streep's daughter Mamie Gummer, is headed to The Great White Way. She was overheard at The Plumm telling a pal that her play "The Autumn Garden," which she starred in over the summer in Williamstown, is coming to Broadway and she'll be in it. Gummer was at the club with her boyfriend of three months, Eric Murdoch, who was also in the play and will join...

Stagehands Authorize Broadway Strike

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 07:03:50 -0400

Via Playbill:

Members of Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees assembled Oct. 21 to vote on whether they would authorize their union's leaders to call a strike against the League of American Theatres and Producers should that be necessary.

According to a press statement released by Local One, the 1,000 members of the stagehands union unanimously agreed to allow the leaders of...

'Strange' to Open on Broadway

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 07:51:41 -0400

Via Playbill:

Passing Strange, which played an extended, acclaimed engagement at the Public Theater this past summer, will arrive at Broadway's Belasco Theatre Feb. 8, 2008, with an official opening scheduled for Feb. 28.

The new musical — which features book and lyrics by singer-songwriter Stew and music by Stew and Heidi Rodewald — played the Public's Anspacher Theater May 14-July 1....

Clay Aiken to Make Broadway Debut in Spamalot

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 13:27:25 -0400

Clay Aiken, the biggest superstar to come out of American Idol who didn't actually win the contest, will join Monty Python's Spamalot production as Sir Robin, starting Jan. 18.

Via Playbill:

"Clay Aiken is amazing beyond that glorious voice. Turns out he is an excellent comic actor and a master of character," said director Mike Nichols in a release. "People will be surprised by his wide ranging talent, since the first impression is...

Screen Version of Broadway's Nine Could Get Zeta-Jones, Cruz, Loren

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 09:05:27 -0400

The Weinstein Bros. are in talks with a slate of Hollywood song-and-dance types to star in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical, Nine.

According to Variety, The Weinstein Company is negotiating with Penelope Cruz, Catherine Zeta Jones, Sophia Loren, Javier Bardem and newcomer Marion Cotillard (who recently played Edith Piaf in the highly-praised biopic, La Vie En Rose) to appear in the adaptation.

Bardem follows Raul Julia in the role--Julia played director Guido Contini,...

Tony Award Nominations: The Chenoweth Files

Tue, 15 May 2007 12:23:26 -0400

Spring Awakenings was this morning's big winner when the nominees for 2007 Tony Awards were announced.

Here's a handy round-up of early observations:

Kristin Chenoweth was robbed!

Nominations for the 2007 American Theatre Wing’s Tony Awards®

Presented by the League of American Theatres and Producers and the American Theatre Wing

Best Play

The Coast of Utopia

Author: Tom Stoppard

Producers: Lincoln Center Theater, André Bishop,...