Fame or Famine

Say it isn’t so, Andrew.
Looks like Ben Elton, Glen Slater (of the Little Mermaid) and Sir Lloydd-Webber will be teaming up to pen a sequel – yes, that’s right, a sequel – to Phantom of the Opera.
While I have great faith in the talents of all three, this is much like Michael Bolton covering When a Man Loves a Woman – no matter how good it is, it isn’t needed. Why can’t they create something new? Why don’t they have the security in their talent to not have to capitalize on the success of past hits?
Perhaps that’s what happened. Maybe …read more

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This post is just for my friend Karl: After a triumphant Broadway run, Jennifer Garner is currently working with Kevin Kline on a TV version of their 10-week smash hit Cyrano de Bergerac.
While sceptics may roll their eyes at the idea of Edmund Rostand’s classic story of swashbuckling hearts being put on the boob tube, there is some hope: the play adaptation was penned by Anthony Burgess, who among other things penned a little thing called A Clockwork Orange.
No word on when it’ll be done, but just the chance to see these people in such classic roles is going to …read more

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Don’t get your hopes up, as I did. It was just a backstage benefit/tribute honoring Disney Studio executive Robert Iger and star Annette Bening. The focus was entirely on them that night at the Geffen Playhouse in Chicago.
Still, there is something very poignant and wonderful about Julie Andrews (who chaired the event) and Dick Van Dyke being in the same theatre. All the moreso when Van Dyke chooses to get up on the stage and reprise Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious with Ashley Brown and Sierra Boggess, stars of the current Disney Broadway shows Mary Poppins and The Little Mermaid.
Apparently he even kept a …read more

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In what has got to be the oddest venue I’ve ever heard of, a group of actors are performing an award-winning play in the Bethesda Terrace bathrooms in Central park.
The appropriately-named Ladies & Gents, by Irish playwright Paul Walker, is actual more topical than it had expected to be. It’s about pious politicians who dally in prostitution on the side – set in Dublin of the 1950’s.
 Why a bathroom? Well, why not? The space is “intimate, unpretentious, and uncomfortable,” which I guess is a good thing…”There’s a reason plays aren’t put on in bathrooms all the time — you have …read more

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When I was waxing rhapsodic about Raul Esparza’s lead in the PBS special of Stephen Sondheim’s Company, I neglected to really focus on the fact that he was also supported by a stellar cast.
Thankfully, BroadwayWorld.com has made up for it, with a fantastic interview with Barbara Walsh. A true gypsy who started in the kind of dinner theatre where “you rehearsed a show in the daytime, did another show at night, and did things like paint and move scenery.”, she went on to a stellar career being in shows such as:

Chess
Some Men
Falsettos
Blood Brothers
Hairspray
Ragtime
Big, the Musical
Ragtime
Company (as captured in Great Performances …read more

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In the realm of “Broadway Cast Albums I’d Like to Own” is the chance to hear crooner Harry Connick Jr. playing the role of Jimmy in the remake of Gershwin’s Oh, Kay! You may not have heard of the musical, but it was the source of perennial torch song favorite Someone to Watch Over Me.
The new musical (which is working under the title “Untitled Gershwin Project” since they change the name of the character Kay) will premiere in Boston in fall of 2008 before a Broadway opening in 2009. Other cast members have not been announced, though the project will …read more

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Dancer, Choreographer, Former U.S. Marine, and founder of the Giordano Dance Company of Chicago died yesterday morning of pneumonia. He was 84. One of the great pioneers of jazz dance in this country, he studied with Hanya Holm, Katherine Dunham and Alwin Nikolais, as well as appearing on Broadway in Wish You Were Here and Paint Your Wagon.
Semper Fi, Gus, and thank you.

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or, : From Broadway to Virginia to Melbourne to Hometown, USA in search of a Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
I had expected to write, today, about the revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, featuring Tony-award winning actors such as Phylicia Rashad, James Earl Jones, and Anika Noni Rose (all of whom are also TV and movie stars, but it does my luddite heart good to only list them as being paragons of the theatre). It’s a production that has sparked some controversy due to the cast being entirely African American. However, living in the midwest, I can’t …read more

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The guy just keeps on bein’ an inspiration.
While people always talk about Dirty Dancing and Ghost, I remember first seeing Patrick Swayze in Red Dawn. Later I saw him in Steel Dawn, and to my teen eyes that kind of tough grace really imprinted deeply (ok, him and Gene Kelly).
Later I learned that he had worked his way through knee problems to continue dancing, and with my own cartilage deterioration I found again that watching his elegant movement kept me feeling like it was possible to continue to pursue my own dance dreams – and I ended up with …read more

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It’s the end of an era: RENT is scheduled to end its Broadway run on June 1 of this year (though at least one extension of the run is almost inevitable.
However, happily, you can get just a taste of what my kids call the “OBC” – Original Broadway Cast – because Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp, who played Mark and Roger in both the play and the movie, are back on board for the 2009 tour.
Says producer Jeffrey Sellers: “Adam and Anthony are to Rent what Joel Grey was to Cabaret and Zero Mostel was to Fiddler on the Roof. …read more

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