In the Land of Make Believe

A Declaration

2009-05-09T21:10:00.004-04:00

I once worked with a director who told me that 1776 was his favorite musical, which puzzled me. He was very into new, edgy works, and I couldn't wrap my mind around how a show about the signing of the Declaration of Independence could hold his interest. His answer? "There's a moment when you actually believe they're NOT going to sign it."

OK. Granted, it's always interesting to see a behind-the-scenes take on an infamous event--for example, even though I knew very well what the end result would be, I was still captivated by "Recount"--but the signing of the Declaration of Independence? Seriously?

But I must say that when I finally saw a production of 1776 (at the Paper Mill Playhouse), I could see what he meant. Who would have thought that watching gussied-up gentlemen sweating in a tiny room could be so entertaining?

Show Business Weekly review: 1776

Daisy Chain

2009-05-08T12:17:00.003-04:00

I was in Atlanta recently for an archaeology conference, and I reviewed yet another fabulous production at Theatrical Outfit. Last fall, while in Atlanta for a music conference, I reviewed their exquisite revival of the musical Big River; this time, they've remounted a hometown favorite, Driving Miss Daisy, featuring an evocative original score by Robert Waldman.

In November I'll head to Atlanta again for a women's studies conference, and I'm looking forward to seeing what will be playing next time ...

Talkin' Broadway review: Driving Miss Daisy

A New Normal

2009-04-29T23:58:00.006-04:00

I have never had such an about-face with a show as I have had with Next to Normal.

When I saw last year's Off-Broadway production (at Second Stage), I walked away from the theater feeling not only disappointed, but downright angry. And the people who know me well would tell you that I don't typically get all riled up about theater; even when I'm writing a less-than-glowing review, I'm the optimist looking for the silver, quasi-artistic lining peeking through the murky clouds.

But the Next to Normal that sprang up in New York last year--with its cloying, flip depictions of grief and mental illness--made me furious. Especially in the new voices of contemporary musical theater, we need stories that address tough issues and parse tricky human behavior. But not with jazz hands.

So even though I had heard that the recent out-of-town revision (at Arena Stage, in Washington, D.C.) had snagged some excellent reviews, I literally groaned when I heard that the show was planning to transfer back to New York (and on Broadway!?!?). But I have friends who have been disciples of this show from the beginning (and have seen it 6 or more times), so I decided to give it another chance.

And BAM! POW! KAZAM! am I ever glad I did. (Although that music will likely NEVER get out of my head ...)

Show Business Weekly Review: Next to Normal

Lonesome as a moon at dawn ...

2009-04-29T00:43:00.003-04:00

Yet another ambitious production from the Prospect Theater Company, this time with a snappy bluegrass soundtrack:

CurtainUp Review: Golden Boy of the Blue Ridge

Durang-Durang ...

2009-04-14T23:36:00.006-04:00

If you loved The Marriage of Bette and Boo but wondered how (and why) anyone sat through The Coast of Utopia, you'll love Christopher Durang's latest invention, a surprisingly moving new play that uses the surreal, absurd machinations of theater to explore the very real, absurd musings of our minds. As conceived on David Korins's fantastic turntable set, the play is (literally) a wild ride from start to finish, but somehow, startlingly, ends up at a very familiar place with some very familiar questions. How do we construct and conceive our own (theatrical) worlds? And if Christopher Durang could pilot my life for a while, would it all start to make more (surreal) sense?

Show Business Weekly Review: Why Torture Is Wrong, And The People Who Love Them

Something toxic this way comes ...

2009-04-13T16:34:00.008-04:00

How many Toxic Avenger musicals does the world need? Apparently, at least three ... The Toxic Avenger Musical, which recently opened Off Broadway at New World Stages, marks the third effort at turning the campy '80s flick into a singing-and-dancing stage fest.

CurtainUp Review: The Toxic Avenger Musical

This was my first Toxic musical outing, but I brought along my friend Nora to get a veteran's take on the material. (She played the blind girlfriend, Sarah, in a production that debuted at Omaha's Blue Barn Theatre several years ago.) She seemed to enjoy the new take on "Toxie", but declared that the productions were like "apples and oranges" -- all too different to truly be compared.

So why The Toxic Avenger? It seems that audiences have had a fondness for the green-tinged sci-fi genre in recent years. Throughout the show, I kept a running list of other shows that are similar in theme/music/atmosphere: Urinetown, Reefer Madness, Little Shop of Horrors, Bat-Boy, etc. ... and green creatures are already well-represented on New York stages with Shrek, Wicked, and the now-closed Young Frankenstein.

Geek + Green = Superhero? Sounds like wishful thinking on the part of computer nerds everywhere. (Or, if green = $$, we've unearthed the dreams of many a producer on this small island.)

Green goo aside, I highly recommend the show based on the phenomenal fortitude of three fabulous performers: wise-cracking chameleons Matthew Saldivar and Demond Green, and, especially, the formidable force of nature that is Nancy Opel. It appears that one of her secrets is her shoes, but if the right pair of shoes could make everyone sing like that, Broadway would be a happier place indeed (and Carrie Bradshaw would be crooning ballads in her Blahniks).

Lottery Winners!

2009-04-12T20:45:00.006-04:00

Props to my inadvertently artsy brother Jeff for my new favorite New York photo! This is his girlfriend Mara and I moments after winning the lottery to see In the Heights. We didn't win $96,000, but getting to experience the show's euphoric energy from the front row was well worth the $26.50. Sometimes in New York, dreams do come true ...

When you see a guy reach for stars in the sky ...

2009-03-27T00:20:00.003-04:00

You can bet that it's Des McAnuff stunt-casting Guys and Dolls ...

Show Business Weekly review: Guys and Dolls

I love contemporary musicals, but Guys and Dolls will always be one of my favorites, thanks to its gorgeous, jazzy, perfect score; its snappy, vivid dialogue; and its alluring mix of sweeping romance and brash comedy. It also features two of the musical theater's juiciest female roles -- two women who, at the onset, are at quite opposite ends of the female continuum, but who discover, by the end, that they have quite a bit in common. (And that's the truth, ladies -- sharing stories of woeful relationships and bemoaning misbehaving men are still two of the quickest paths to fierce female friendship. We dolls always have much to discuss -- thanks, guys.)

It's interesting now to remember the appeal of Sarah and Adelaide at two very different points in my own life. Guys and Dolls was my very first high school musical, and I was desperate to play Sarah, insert myself into a seamless musical-theater plot, and fall in love with my costar (of course, right?). I put my swoony heart and soul into "I'll Know" at the audition -- and ended up playing the second Hot Box Girl from the left. But I remember prancing off the stage one night after "Take Back Your Mink" and jumping up and down for about fifteen minutes. The audience was a drug, and I was one addicted 15-year-old.

It seems only fitting then, that by the time I got to graduate school, I had turned into a scenery-chewing, audience-hungry performer and could slink comfortably into Adelaide's mink stole and shiny dressing gowns. Faith Prince has been something of an idol/role model for me in my performing career, and her Tony Award-winning performance as Adelaide in the 1992 revival of Guys and Dolls is legendary (and still preserved on CD, thank goodness). Sweet, saucy, lovable, and adorable, she is the very definition of the brassy bombshell -- a quirky heroine with enough personality, pluck, and moxie to knock your average, paper-thin ingenue to the floor.

So while I give Lauren Graham kudos for trying a more remote, deadpan take on the role, it's hard to imagine a Guys and Dolls that could support such a lifeless Adelaide at its center. And then there's the problem of stunt casting. Before the show began, the older woman seated next to me turned to her friend and stage-whispered: "Is she really going to sing and dance -- Lorelai?" Lorelai was Graham's character on the WB series "The Gilmore Girls," for which Graham is best known (but doesn't, for the record, have much to do with Guys and Dolls). So in a sense, maybe Graham felt that she had to do something new to differentiate herself even further from the character people "know" her as playing in a different medium ... ?

Now I've confused myself, but I do know that something doesn't add up in a Guys and Dolls where the bookish Sarah becomes the quirkier, more lovable character (hooray for Kate Jennings Grant!) and Adelaide simmers quietly in the background.

For those of us who live and love theater, different characters speak to us at different moments in our lives. I'm all for reinventing female archetypes, but juicy characters need juice.

Want some church with your theater?

2009-02-27T00:14:00.008-05:00

I love The Civilians. I love this show.

Show Business Weekly review: This Beautiful City

Florida in February (or why traveling for work sometimes really isn't all that bad)

2009-02-27T00:06:00.012-05:00

This past week my work travel took me to Gainesville (University of Florida), Tampa (University of South Florida), and Orlando (University of Central Florida).

Besides the sunshine and delicious 70-degree weather, here are a few other reasons why my glass was more than half full (or palm tree was more than half grown?) in Florida:

1. Spanish moss dripping from the treetops:

2. A cool-cat jazz professor/saxophonist who gave us free CDs: I especially recommend the "Singin' in the Rain" track from "Ridge Lines".

3. Sensational sushi. If you're ever in Tampa, run, don't walk, to Samurai Blue Sushi in Centro Ybor for the Blue Moon roll.

4. This view from my ($50!) hotel room:

5. Random campus oddities, like this:

6. The well-intentioned efforts of the anthropology department to keep us out; but not to worry, we so got in.

7. Not being in the office = getting to traipse through settings like this one (at UF):

Next up: Missouri, where I will do my very best not to shoot eye darts at the football stadium ...

Keeping Austin Weird (and Running)

2009-02-16T23:32:00.009-05:00

I'm rather embarrassed to admit that my main experience of the New York Marathon has been minor irritation at the roadblock I encountered when trying to have brunch at one of my favorite restaurants. But now I'm redeemed: I have a new reverence for marathoners after watching two people I love compete in one.

[Full disclosure: Personally, I only run when chased. Or when trying to catch the subway. I much prefer a pool (as do my knees).]

I just got back from a long weekend in Austin, Texas, where I got to watch my brother Jeff and his girlfriend Mara sail through the Austin Marathon! I am so enormously proud of them and all of the training they did to get to this point. My parents flew down from Nebraska, and we all got to meet Mara's parents, brother, and grandparents. (Her sweet grandfather even gave yellow roses to my mom and me to commemorate the "Yellow Rose of Texas" for Valentine's Day. I was almost more excited to learn that he attended the opening night of Sweeney Todd on Broadway!)

Fittingly, because Austin is one of the music meccas of the world, there were eclectic bands playing at many of the checkpoints. As we waited to watch them complete the home stretch, we heard a girl-guitar band play such marathon-friendly covers as "I Will Survive" and "500 Miles".

We found two great spots from which we could see them -- at the 6-mile mark and then at 200 meters from the finish line (in between we rather guiltily grabbed brunch and kept remembering how they were still running ... and running ...). Jeff finished at 4 hours, 7 minutes, and Mara finished about an hour later.

I love to find the theater in everyday life, and there was no shortage of entertainment from the runners and spectators. At the 6-mile mark, we saw runners dressed up as such random things as a bumble bee and superheroes (pictured). I even saw a 60-ish man wearing nothing but a large garbage bag (or so it appeared). One of the highlights was the man who stopped and did a cartwheel before continuing on (somehow, I doubt that he was cartwheeling by mile 25).

Jeff and Mara were still hobbling a bit today, but I think they're both glad that they did it. If nothing else, in addition to the running festivities, we ate scads of good food. If you're in Austin, I would recommend:

Austin Java: especially the chai latte (home brew), spinach omelette, oatmeal, and muffins (per my parents, who thought the blueberry and morning glory varieties were the best they'd ever tasted)

La Traviata: excellent pistachio-crusted salmon. Even more excellent orange-ricotta cheesecake.

Trudy's: Tex-Mex the way it should be. Chips & salsa galore, delicious fish tacos, expert service. Will someone please bring some decent Tex-Mex to New York?

Lambert's Downtown BBQ: scallops grilled with grapefruit, goat cheese, and radishes? Yes, please!

Pho: excellent bubble tea & friendly waitstaff with cheeky "Go Pho It!" T-shirts.

I'll leave you with parting shots featuring two of my favorite things about Austin: 1) My phenomenally talented, mothering-and-lawyering-and-multi-tasking friend Simi; and 2) The horizon at sunset (even when marred by a Hitchcock-looking tree of birds).

Ragtime, in Your Time

2009-02-16T23:20:00.002-05:00

Presidents’ Day seems like the perfect occasion to exhort you, implore you, and beg you to do yourself a favor and go see Ragtime at the Astoria Performing Arts Center this weekend. And please hurry – it closes on Sunday! In the age of Barack Obama, Ragtime has truly become a profound, riveting, immensely resonant experience.

CurtainUp review: Ragtime

Ragtime was the first Broadway show I ever saw (spring break '98), and the show is such an enduring masterpiece. In a way, I’m actually surprised we haven’t seen more of it around the city since then, but it took director Tom Wojtunik (newly anointed Artistic Director of APAC) to give the show a dazzling new treatment for our own historical era.

For one thing, this Ragtime is not designed to be a box-office blockbuster; it’s intimate, in-your-face, and visceral. You’ll likely make eye contact with a performer at least once, and you might get nervous at times that you might be whisked from your seat and into the show. (But not to fear: this isn't a physically interactive show, just an immensely emotionally and intellectually interactive one.)

And then there’s the cast—my highest praise and respect goes to D. William Hughes and Janine Ayn Romano, who tell the show’s central love story as Coalhouse Walker, Jr., and Sarah. The roles were played on Broadway by the inimitable Brian Stokes Mitchell and Audra McDonald. (And although the show ran only a few years, thanks to the power of cast recordings, their powerhouse duet “Wheels of a Dream” has been listened to/sung along with by theater geeks for more than a decade.) We know those songs. With those voices.

In fact, I actually got to hear them reprise their big duet in October, when Mitchell was the special guest star during Audra McDonald and Barbara Cook’s “Broadway Voices for Change” benefit concert. The left-leaning crowd was abuzz with the upcoming election, and McDonald actually brought a Barack Obama action figure on stage at one point. We all knew there would be a "special guest", and when Mitchell strolled on stage, McDonald quickly interjected: “Brian Stokes Mitchell, everyone!” She was sure that a few people in the back of the theater might mistake him for Obama, and Mitchell gamely pushed out his ears to further play up the resemblance. And then they broke into a glorious, unrehearsed (that’s what they told us, anyway) performance of “Wheels of a Dream,” a song which seemed magnificently appropriate for this moment in history.

But as you’ll see when you visit Ragtime (and maybe I’ll see you there again this weekend), Hughes and Romano inject their performances with a youth and vitality that feels fresh, true, and totally their own. And that’s just the beginning … For a mere $18, you’ll get a history lesson that will make you incredibly aware of the history you’re living. Right now.

Broadway in Brooklyn

2009-02-16T23:11:00.003-05:00

Review #2 of 2009 found me at one of my favorite theaters--The Gallery Players in Park Slope, Brooklyn--where I reviewed their latest musical revival, a snazzy production of Thoroughly Modern Millie. It didn’t move mountains with its perky dance numbers, but it was a faithful incarnation of the sweet, jazzy story – complete with some wink-wink little-theater flourishes and a phenomenal turn by newcomer Alison Luff in the title role. (Not to mention the scene-stealing Miss Flannery, pictured here.)

offoffonline review: "One in a Million": Thoroughly Modern Millie

Curtain Up on CurtainUp!

2009-02-16T22:33:00.003-05:00

In January, I contributed my first review to the wonderful, oh-so-comprehensive website CurtainUp, which was founded by (and continues to be edited by) the terrific and tireless Elyse Sommer. Elyse and I have been bumping into each other during intermissions for years now, and I’m so happy to be contributing to her site and getting out to see even more shows.

CurtainUp review: Looking for the Pony

My first assignment was the play Looking for the Pony, a heartbreaking, but often hilarious, play about the relationship between two sisters when one of them is diagnosed with cancer. I feel like there is never enough material out there that dares to really confront the issues surrounding death and illness, and I found this play to be an excellent addition to other productions of its ilk (including the oft-produced Wit and Lisa Kron’s genre-bending Well). As I frequently remark to friends, death is one of the few things in life that we all share (it’s a given, no matter how assiduously you might fight it with regular treatments of Botox or heavy doses of denial). Isn’t it time we could dialogue more about it – and not only about death itself, but about all of the living that continues to be done around it?

It seemed appropriate that a play like this would get wildly mixed reviews, as you can see in these two. (The Times liked it, TheaterMania loathed it.)

NYTimes review
Theatermania review

But then again, perhaps much of how we experience the subject is colored by our own experiences. My younger sister died of cancer almost six years ago, and I find myself extremely sensitive to anything approaching the hackneyed/maudlin/syrupy sentimental. Far from therapy, to me this play bravely mixed the fear of “going there” with the relief of hearing someone articulate (with wit and empathy) a few very real aspects of these (literally) life-or-death experiences.

On the Road and Glued to My Seat

2009-01-14T20:51:00.017-05:00

What a difference a year makes! A year ago this week I was promoted from copywriter to product manager at Oxford University Press; perhaps not uncoincidentally, I also managed to stop blogging from that moment on. And then there was that other big news (see left) ...

I blame my absence in part on the travel demands of my new job: in 2008, I flew more than I ever have in my life -- 15 trips total, and most of them for work. I attended academic conferences and went on campus to promote the textbooks in the disciplines I focus on, including anthropology, criminal justice, music, and sociology.

I visited Ohio, North Carolina, Iowa, Ohio, Kansas, Nebraska, Ohio, California (a fabulous 30th birthday/anthropology conference in gorgeous San Francisco), Massachusetts, Ohio, Maine, and Georgia. And did I mention Ohio? I somehow managed to get there FOUR times within a year; once to Columbus for a friend's wedding, but the other three times (Columbus, Cincinnati, and Cincinnati) for conferences. Happily, not only did I have ample opportunity to patronize my beloved Dairy Queen (symbol of all things homespun), but I also discovered the wonders of Graeter's ice cream.

And don't think there wasn't drama on the road -- professors often have histrionics to spare, and it's been exciting to jump onto various college campuses and talk up our books.

One particularly fun aspect of traveling has been getting to visit regional theaters along the way. I started contributing some regional reviews to Talkin' Broadway this year, and I loved getting to see local theater on some of my trips.

In Ohio, I visited (and dined at) the wonderfully appointed Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park to see their stirring production of Doubt.

In Atlanta, I was able to review two shows while attending the College Music Society meeting in September. If you're ever in Atlanta, I implore you to visit the Fox Theatre, where I saw a revival of Les Miserables. There's a reason they call it the "fabulous" Fox -- with stars glowing in a blue sky from the ceiling, it's the most divine theater I've ever seen.

I was also fortunate enough to visit the more intimate company Theatrical Outfit, where I saw an absolutely unforgettable production of the musical Big River, which is -- without question -- the best production I've seen this year.

I just LOVE visiting theaters when I can feel such a strong sense of family/community amongst the actors and patrons. Not only did Theatrical Outfit present an impeccable production of the show, the audience was one of the more diverse I've seen anywhere -- a sure sign of a theater's health and potential. I'm already looking forward to a return trip the next time I find myself in Atlanta.

Another regional treat was the San Francisco Playhouse's production of Conor McPherson's Shining City, a play I missed when it was on Broadway and thoroughly enjoyed in this intimate, beautifully acted production.

So despite my prohibitive travel schedule, I did review quite a few shows this year; for this first post of 2009, I've decided to include a listing (with links) of shows I've reviewed over the past year. And I'm resolving to update this thing at least a few times a month; over the past year I've also joined Facebook and had sufficient time to mull over the merits (and misfortunes) of social networking, but when it comes down to it, I do love to write, and this has been a great way of bringing my writing (and head) together on occasion. Thanks for reading along ...

And so ... my year in theater:

JANUARY

The Peach Tartes Peel for Repeal: offoffonline review - bawdy burlesque; tart, jazzy, and sweet

Glimpses of the Moon: offoffonline review - a sophisticated, sparkling musical in the Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel; now playing again on Monday nights

FEBRUARY

The Wild Party: offoffonline review - the Gallery Players' excellent rendition of Andrew Lippa's musical; the composer sat across the aisle from me the night I attended

Grace: offoffonline review - the phenomenal Lynn Redgrave starred in this provocative London import

The Play About the Naked Guy: offoffonline review - the title pretty much says it all; the desperate measures taken by a struggling theater company to bring in patrons

Next to Normal: Show Business Weekly review - Alice Ripley gave a gripping performance in this excruciatingly emotional new musical

MARCH

Dead Man's Cell Phone: Show Business Weekly review - Sarah Ruhl's writing brings out the love/hate in critics, but I'm definitely on the adoration end of the spectrum; Mary-Louise Parker's craftily controlled performance also made this insightful assessment of technology/death one of my favorites of the year

In the Heights: Show Business Weekly review - I reviewed the Off-Broadway version of this irresistible show in 2007, and it only got better--fiercer, bolder, brighter--when it moved uptown

Doubt: Talkin' Broadway review - a fantastic effort by Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park

Juno: Show Business Weekly review - an excellent City Center Encores! revival starring the indomitable Victoria Clark, who proved that she doesn't need a big song to steal the show and emote like a champ

APRIL

Gypsy: Show Business Weekly review - Patti LuPone was (and maybe is?) Mama Rose, and I can't imagine that I'll see such magnificence in that role ever again

Cry-Baby: Show Business Weekly review - wow, did I really review this? It burned bright, Hairspray-style, for a few moments, but then fizzled in a fog of forgettable songs

A Catered Affair: Show Business Weekly review - this one smoldered and faded all too soon; one of the most moving, emotionally transparent shows I've seen, made all the more fabulous by the touching, heartbreaking performance of Faith Prince

Triumph of Love: offoffonline review - an okay production of a rather obnoxious show; the Astoria Performing Arts Center can do better. It has and it will -- look out for their intimate revival of Ragtime, opening in February

MAY

Honor: offoffonline review - this intriguing new musical from the always ambitious Prospect Theater Company transported Shakespeare's As You Like It to feudal Japan with sumptuous costumes and scenery to match

How Theater Failed America: offoffonline review - a raucous Mike Daisey monologue that was a must-see for theater artists in this day and (Disney-fied) age; he scored again at the Public in the fall with the ballsy attack on homeland security If You See Something, Say Something

JUNE

Saved: offoffonline review - oh, the show this might have been with a bit more sass and sparkle; Mary Faber stole the show as a holier-than-thou high-schooler

Little Shop of Horrors: Show Business Weekly review - I always love visiting the Paper Mill Playhouse (see ode to regional theater, above), and this faithful revival of the near-perfect musical was the perfect air-conditioned antidote to a sticky-steamy summer afternoon

JULY

The Little Hours: Show Business Weekly review - another fantastic dose of regional theater, this time from the New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch, NJ, the hometown of the tart-tongued Dorothy Parker, whose writing was the inspiration for this chamber musical

Damn Yankees: Show Business Weekly review - neither the slickest nor spiffiest version of this dogeared classic, but it had lots of "heart"

The Marriage of Bette & Boo: Show Business Weekly review - a slick and saucy revival of Christopher Durang's biting-yet-somehow-moving play (and another score for the sensational Victoria Clark)

Around the World in 80 Days: Show Business Weekly review - a winning, whirlwind adventure from the Irish Repertory Company

AUGUST

Johnny Law: offoffonline review - the one Fringe show I made it to this year; a heroic effort that sometimes hit its one-man legal humor

SEPTEMBER

What's That Smell: The Music of Jacob Sterling: Show Business Weekly review - a witty mockumentary for musical theater types

1965UU: offoffonline review - experimental theater is usually not my cup of tea, and this is why

The Marvelous Wonderettes: Show Business Weekly review - bubblegum fun from start to finish, with four sensational singing performances

A Tale of Two Cities: Show Business Weekly review - Les Miserables redux, minus the haunting melodies

Les Miserables: Talkin' Broadway review - faithful revival at the fabulous Fox Theatre in Atlanta

Big River: Talkin' Broadway review - everything musical theater should be, from Atlanta's Theatrical Outfit

DECEMBER

Slava's Showshow: Show Business Weekly review - you haven't experienced interactive theater until you've had your coat flung into the air

And about this year's Tony Awards ... this year I was lucky enough to attend -- as a seat-filler, which was one of the more interesting experiences of my life. But I'll save the scintillating story of that event for another post later this month ...

Coming soon: reviews of Ragtime (Astoria) and Thoroughly Modern Millie (Brooklyn) -- Broadway moves to the boroughs!

In the meantime, here's to another year of seat-filling at its finest!

The Birth of the Boob Tube

2008-01-03T17:32:00.002-05:00

Aaron Sorkin strikes again with a talky confection of witty repartee ...

Show Business Weekly review: The Farnsworth Invention

Home for the Holidays

2007-12-19T12:55:00.000-05:00

After a Turkey birthday and a blur of bronchitis, it's so nice to be back on the aisle this month. I reviewed five shows in early December--and put together a hefty 2008 theater and film preview--so I'll add links to those as soon as they become available.

I loved the Irish Repertory Theatre's charming retelling of Dylan Thomas's A Child's Christmas in Wales--complete with interpolated Christmas carols. My first mainstage appearance came in a musical adaptation of this piece when I was 12--I played Dylan's "tough and tiny" cousin Glenda; my own father played Uncle Glyn. The Irish Rep's version is a perfect 70-minute shot of holiday cheer.

offoffonline review: A Child's Christmas in Wales

It was also fantastic to see David Henry Hwang's provocative new backstage docudrama (dramedy?) Yellow Face on its feet at the Public Theater. I caught a reading of the play last year and laughed until my stomach hurt. Thankfully, Hwang has managed to retain the unflagging humor; he's also filtered the material with even more poignancy, wit, and controversy.

Show Business Weekly review: Yellow Face

And the award for most promising pre-show that fell flat on its face goes to Charles Mee's ill-conceived new "musical" Queens Boulevard (the musical) (note the parentheses). This was my first outing at the well-appointed Signature Theatre, and the audience was greeted by a raucous wedding reception scene, complimentary Asian candies, and a wise-cracking DJ. Not to mention the eye-candy set and costumes ... Too bad the meandering story and tripped-out scenes didn't match the irresistibly charming opening gimmicks.

Show Business Weekly review: Queens Boulevard (the musical)

But the best thing I've seen this year might very well be the last thing I saw this year: Tracy Letts' so-good-it's-unbelievable new play August: Osage County. In the tradition of Edward Albee's acidic Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and the ascerbic domestic dramas of Eugene O'Neill, Letts explores toxic topics within the shaky confines of an American family. Review to come in 2008 ... and keep your eyes on this one. I attended on a particularly star-studded evening: Julia Roberts, Paul Rudd, John Stamos, Bernadette Peters, Kevin Spacey, and Mike Nichols were gasping at the family horrors alongside everyone else. Could there be a film in the works?

Below: Family dinner party from hell in August: Osage County

Speechifying Students

2007-11-14T11:07:00.000-05:00

A sharp and immensely perceptive look at the lives of three high school students, the Roundabout Underground's inaugural production Speech & Debate threads together the idiosyncratic worlds of these students to create a magnificent appraisal of the politics, possibilities, and limitations of life in an Oregon high school. The tidy plot is deceptively simple: when three students realize they share grievances against the same teacher (a smarmy-sounding male drama teacher), they form a shaky alliance to get revenge.

But look again--playwright Stephen Karam (whose controversial play columbinus--about the Columbine school shootings--was recently produced at the New York Theater Workshop) has created an intricate minefield of secrets for each of these characters, who are brought to life by an extraordinarily gifted young ensemble. Gideon Glick (of Spring Awakening) is gleefully gawky as Howie, the new student who discovers the teacher during an online chat; Jason Fuchs is delightfully motor-mouthed as the passionate journalist-with-a-secret, Solomon; and as the theater-struck, pod-casting Diwata, Sarah Steele is a wise-cracking, insecure revelation. Susan Blackwell ([title of show]) is underused in the dual roles of a teacher and a journalist, but she delivers a precise performance in her trademark deadpan style.

The students' revenge revolves around creating a speech & debate team and using the various forms (group interpretation, cross-examination) to "perform" their points. The play follows suit, and each scene is introduced by a projected title of a different form of speech (poetry reading et al.)--giving us a clue as to the communication patterns that will follow.

Karam is adept at channeling the rhythms of teenage conversation; under Jason Moore's precise direction, Speech & Debate is a riveting, witty, and thought-provoking exercise. Some scenes could be trimmed, but when the material is this good, you really don't mind the excess.

Moore also directed the artfully ribald Avenue Q, and his clever winks are perfect for this material. Before the play begins, writing magically streams across the blackboard at the center of the set, in the manner of a student writing out a punishment: "I will turn of my cell phone," "I will turn off my cell phone" ...

Proof Positive

2007-11-07T09:55:00.001-05:00

The Astoria Performing Arts Center has scored again with its excellent production of David Auburn's riveting math-play, Proof. I love having an honest-to-goodness theater just down the block from my apartment. While this production wasn't quite as superb as the other shows I've seen there (A New Brain and Picasso at the Lapin Agile), it has excellent production values (check out the glorious set in the photos) and a lot of obvious (if somewhat misplaced) heart.

offoffonline review: "Doing the Math": Proof

The main problem for me was the melodramatic style implied by the direction and, most gratingly, the lead actress. Auburn's drama is a taut, tense, piece of realism, and our heroine was rolling her eyes and mugging to the audience like a character actress in a 1950s musical. Although I had never before seen the play produced, I read it (and loved it) several years ago and saw the good, not great, film adaptation starring Gwyneth Paltrow. But there was an urgency missing from the APAC production--most likely lost in the over-emoting--that made me wonder, Would I have liked the play itself if this had been my first exposure to it? One of the difficult things about reviewing brand, shiny-new productions is that it's often hard to determine which element--writing or directing--is most clearly contributing to the show's success or demise. The quality of the acting, of course, is always easier to evaluate, since it's more exposed. Writing and directing dance a precarious sort of tango, however; when they're not completely in sync, someone's bound to end up flat on the floor.

Vibrant and (Vain)glorious

2007-11-04T15:17:00.001-05:00

I recently became a huge Francine Prose fan after reading her gripping novel Blue Angel and her latest nonfiction work How to Read Like a Writer, so I was excited, and a bit surprised, to learn that the new Ahrens and Flaherty musical is based on her novel The Glorious Ones, a semi-fictional account of a commedia dell'arte troupe in the late sixteenth century.

Show Business Weekly review: The Glorious Ones

It's a fascinating, if uneven, production, but--as I've come to expect from Lincoln Center Theater--it's an extremely well-produced, intelligent, and important work. I encourage you to meet The Glorious Ones for yourself. Get a behind-the-scenes look here.

It's Alive, Sort Of

2007-11-02T11:07:00.001-04:00

Apart from my recent fascination with Heroes, I've never been the biggest sci-fi fan, so I truly dreaded reading Frankenstein when I was in graduate school. Dutifully, I bought a copy of Mary Shelley's classic piece of gothic horror, expecting reams of unadulterated green monsters and high-flying melodrama. Instead, I was truly riveted by her lovely writing, her incredible imagination, and the harrowing plot. Frankenstein blurs the line between humans and monsters, and it was a fascinating tool for class discussion and considering the dangers of contemporary scientific research. Cloning, anyone?

I approached the new Off-Broadway musical Frankenstein with hope, since its creators have repeatedly said that they aimed to bring the focus back to the story itself. So I couldn't have been more disappointed when I was greeted by lightning flashes, strobe lights, vapid characters, and a throroughly chilly, and rather brainless, staging of this classic novel.

Show Business Weekly Review: Frankenstein

As any theater person will tell you, Mel Brook's Young Frankenstein promises to be the theatrical event of the season, and so Frankenstein certainly has moxie to go head-to-head with its fellow monster. But if this is supposed to the more "serious" Frankenstein, we're in trouble, because director Bill Fennelly's staging draws involuntary laughter when it tries to take itself seriously (the many cheesy lines and semi-rhyming lyrics don't help much). To me, the first half of the show could have been an anthropological study representing the worst of what producers think that audiences want from theater right now: gratuitous spectacle, over-processed pop music, a bare-chested man, and a lightning-quickness that panders to the short attention spans of veteran TV watchers.

As the doctor's love interest, the extraordinary Christiane Noll brought heart and intelligence to the story, but she also brought an unfortunate reminder of the mega musical Jekyll & Hyde, in which she played a similar supporting role. (Full disclosure: J&H is a guily pleasure of mine, but not one that I want to see replicated and brought back from the dead ad infinitum). Frankenstein clearly wants to seduce those "Jekkies" (the rabid fans who saw the show tens and hundreds of times), and it just might succeed. I wanted to like Frankenstein, but I'm afraid that this monster of a musical might just find its audience--and lure producers away from more intelligent musicals and back into spawning more and more of the same old schlock. For once, can't we just let these decrepit shows rest in peace?

The Great(est) Pumpkin

2007-10-31T09:20:00.001-04:00

Happy Halloween! This monstrosity is a 1,051-pound pumpkin we spotted at a farmer's market in western Pennsylvania two weeks ago. Just think of the pumpkin pie possibilities ...

Girl Gumshoe

2007-10-29T09:39:00.001-04:00

The Ateh Theater Group has revived its production of The Girl Detective for the Crown Point Festival on the Lower East Side. An adaptation of a surreal short story by Kelly Link, the production follows the Girl Detective as she does a bit of sleuthing--but this time, instead of tracking down criminals, she's on the hunt for her own mother, who disappeared years before.

offoffonline review: "Glamour in a Gumshoe": The Girl Detective

I found the story confusing at times; Bridgette Dunlap (the talented adapter and director) doesn't always clearly denote time or setting, and the Girl Detective's journeys often feel like the elliptical, nonsensical pathways of a murky dream. Still, Dunlap has a gift for throwing splashy style onto the stage, from tap-dancing bank robbers to saucy flashlight sequences. She paints in wild, bright colors, but--as in her equally impressionistic adaptation of Aimee Bender's The Girl in the Flammable Skirt--the flimsy substance of the story is tinted in faint pastel shades.

Leaving a more potent impression was the short film that preceded the production: Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho's aptly named Eletrodomestica, in which the everyday domestic tasks of a Brazilian housewife ultimately give way (and abet) a thrilling climax. Filho uses banal household appliances (microwave, TV, vacuum cleaner, washer & dryer) to anchor the story, then uses them in surprising--and scintillating--ways.

Jumping into Fall

2007-10-17T16:34:00.000-04:00

The Korean-born martial arts/theater/acrobatic extravaganza Jump recently smashed onto the stage of the Union Square Theatre. With its distinctive, irresistible mix of farce, low-brow comedy, slapstick physical drama, and phenomenal athleticism, this production is a sheer delight. By the performance's conclusion, my mouth hurt from smiling and my stomach hurt from laughing.

Show Business Weekly review: Jump

If anything, Jump suffers from a lack of pacing--the actor/athletes leap through a veritable mountain range of climaxes, so by the show's curtain call, when I expected thunderous applause, the cheering was noticeably lackluster. In fact, the audience seemed almost exhausted by its own responsive performance throughout the show. I wonder if the same thing happened with the MTV performance of Legally Blonde (see blog below)? Maybe, in certain cases (and in certain shows), you can really have too much of a good thing.

TV or not TV

2007-10-16T11:33:00.000-04:00

In a bold and enterprising move, the Broadway musical Legally Blonde was recently taped for broadcast on MTV. The producers are obviously aiming to capture the Wicked teenybopper crowd, and tickets to the taping were given out for free with the following stipulations: You must be young (in your teens or early 20s) and dressed in pink. I saw the show live this summer (I loved it for its zest and spirit, despite its unevenness elsewhere), and I caught the first half of the televised performance, which pulled in millions of viewers (yet to be seen: whether they actually pay to see the show live after TiVo-ing it, playing it, and replaying it to excess).

Watching Blonde prepackaged for TV made me ponder the virtues of live performance. Every so often, I despair over the state of theater--the lack of artistic integrity, risk, or profound statement--but I sometimes forget the interpretive freedom fairly heaped on a theater viewer that is unwittingly snatched from a TV watcher.

1. ADHD viewing. LB features some snazzy camera work, but it also takes away your ability to choose where to look at any given moment. Sure, in a theater a good director will guide your viewing experience, but you always have the choice to look elsewhere--as I often do--at a particularly striking member of the ensemble, at a flash of lighting, or at the detail on a prop or piece of scenery. Watching LB, I felt manipulated--visual angles and perspectives changed without my consent, and often at the expense of the performers (were the dramatic up-the-nose camera shots supposed to replicate the experience of sitting in the front row?).

2. Snooty commentary. Watching a new Broadway show, we often hear voices in our heads--critics' reviews, friends' opinions, our own preconceptions--but any of these are less intrusive than the uninterested, too-cool-for-you, apathetic, more-bored-than-thou commentary provided by the adolescent veejays that narrated LB. Before and after each commercial break (another distinctly un-theater-ish oddity) these stone-faced stick girls stared blandly into the camera to sum up the plot and, ostensibly, stir up interest in its evolution. Is this the new hip MTV female prototype? I certainly hope not--these girls exhibited about as much enthusiasm as a crumpled-up Playbill.

3. Studio audience effect. Each cast member's entrance (even minor characters) was greeted with unbridled squeals, screams, and applause. Notable performers (and especially legendary actors and celebrities) often receive entrance applause, but this was more like a boy band concert. I'm guessing that the audience was prompted to erupt into an avalanche of sound, and it was enormously distracting (and, ironically, now that I think of it, diametrically opposed to the VJs' parched commentary). Sitting in a theater, it's easy to get caught up in a cascade of laughter or applause, but sitting at home, the hawhaws of a studio audience sounds not only canned, but forced and fake.

So thank you, Legally Blonde and MTV, for reminding me, even during my most banal viewing moments, of the superior virtues of live performance. And yes, I will finish watching the taped performance--the curtain call response promises to be unlike (and mightier than) anything I've ever seen (or heard) on stage.

Musicalizing Jane

2007-10-10T12:56:00.001-04:00

I've seen plenty of film adaptations of Jane Austen novels (Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility, etc.)--and, yes, I've watched many of them more than once--but I had never seen Austen animated on stage. As part of the New York Musical Theater Festival, Joel Alden (book, music, lyrics) has cleverly adapted Emma for the stage. Unlike Austen, it gets a bit exhausting and long-winded, especially when untangling plot elements in the second act, but, happily, like Austen, it often deals in wit, spirit, smarts, and the pure pleasure of watching intelligent characters define and refine themselves anew.

"Poise and Prejudice": offoffonline review: Emma

The film incarnations of Austen's material often skew toward the gauzy and hyper-romanticized; on stage, I found something much more cutting in the social dimensions of Austen's ideas and, particularly, in the budding friendship between Emma (the excellent Leah Horowitz) and the lower-class, underprivileged, rough-around-the-edges Harriet (the fantastic scene-stealing Kara Boyer). There's something truly unsettling about watching Emma attempting to refine and transform Harriet into a "gentleman's lady"--it's truly proprietary, controlling behavior, and a dismal look at the possible roots of Emma's celebrated benevolence. In this setting, it appears that Emma's "helping" of others only helps her to feel more superior.

The hackneyed plot of the avuncular male transforming the ugly duckling into a swan has found its way from nineteenth century novels to contemporary reality TV. For a woman to chisel another woman in her own image feels fresh and a bit daring, but also dangerous--and not altogether removed from contemporary feminist debates on the ways in which women can often become each other's worst, and most limiting, enemies. Food for thought.

And on a side note, I love this fantastic promotional photo of Emma standing juxtaposed with the New York City skyline. This anachronism finds its way into the costumes as well--the women wear white dresses cut from white material that looks to be the same cotton as that used in T-shirts. The men, more unfortunately, wear jeans with their long, period jackets and boots. For some, their tight black jeans are hardly noticeable; for others, the obvious denim origins of their duds are distracting, making them look more like lumberjacks than lords of luxury.

Photo 1: Harriet (Kara Boyer), Mr. Knightley (John Patrick Moore), and Emma (Leah Horowitz) [Photo by Ken Howard]

Photo 2: Promotional photo by Steven Rosen

Performance: The Good, Bad, and Ugly

2007-09-30T19:58:00.000-04:00

Performance: It's the seductive lure of the warm spotlight and the heady rush of thunderous applause, but it's also the thrilling experience of stepping outside of yourself to become something or someone you're not. At its best, performance is communication that imparts truth and humanity; but when people are swept up in its irresistible and threatening momentum, the results can be devastating.

Performance rears its ugly head in filmmaker Tony Kaye's riveting new documentary Lake of Fire, his epic quest to shine honest, balanced, and unapologetic light on the fraught issue of abortion.

Show Business Weekly review: Lake of Fire

As he proved in the raw American History X, Kaye isn't afraid to expose the ugly underbelly of the American experience, and this seminal work features interviews with the many of the main players in the abortion battle. Most frightening to me was witnessing the indomitable powers of mob mentality, particularly when animated through the proselytizing and chanting of members of the Far Right.

A documentary, of course, is a performance of its own, and Kaye splices together clips in subtle (and not-so-subtle) patterns, but the most horrifying performances come from the Pro-Life protestors who unblinkingly pronounce that those who don't believe what they do (in many cases, conservative Christian tenets) will land in the Biblical anti-promised land, the eponymous "lake of fire." Mugging for the camera and swaggering with pseudo-authoritative bravado, these (mostly) men seem keen to perform their roles to the very tips of their fingertips.

As terrific as the film is, Kaye gets a bit swept up in the act of performing himself, and I agreed with Entertainment Weekly critic Lisa Schwarzbaum that many of his overly dramatic and artsy cinematic flourishes threaten to take the film from dedicatedly intelligent to blatantly kitsch.

Performance also permeates the subject of Max Sparber's fantastic play Minstrel Show, or the Lynching of William Brown, currently playing at the New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch, NJ. In this brief, two-character study, he sets the story of two fictional black minstrel performers against the very nonfictional story of William Brown, a black man who was lynched for the alleged rape of a white woman. The murder took place on the steps of the Douglas County courthouse in Omaha, Nebraska in 1919. (Eerily, it just so happened that the night we attended the show, September 28, marked the 88th anniversary of the unspeakable tragedy.) Peter Filichia provides an insighful review in the NJ Star-Ledger.

Under the deft direction of Rob Urbinati (who also directed a recent production of the show at Omaha's Blue Barn Theatre), Spencer Scott Barros and Kelcey Watson give lively, focused performances that brim with intensity and grace. Called back to the courthouse one week after the lynching, the men tell the story about the fateful evening, when they were also being held at the jail. Of course, they (literally) dance around the story, frequently lurching into their vaudeville routines--these performances, set to jovial music with racist undertones, provide them with an escape from reality. Eventually, they stop singing, wipe off the coal-hued makeup that covers their faces (African American performers during the period performed exclusively in blackface), and quietly tell the harrowing story.

The power of performance is an obvious theme, from the song-and-dance routines behind which the men initially retreat, to the crazed lynching mob that they witness. Controversy had erupted earlier in Long Branch in protest of minstrel-themed posters that advertised the show. Despite the NAACP's threats to boycott the production, the sold-out crowd was completely attentive.

A talkback followed the performance, and one audience member commented that he was swept up in the actors' powerful telling of the story and now had a much better understanding of the terrifying momentum of mob violence. Another man commented that, in its use of blackface, the play "appropriates an image to show its ugly face."

I grew up in Nebraska but had never heard of William Brown. Clearly, given the recent spate of deplorable race-related crimes across the country, it's important to keep telling--and retelling--these stories so that these performances no longer repeat themselves.

Frost Bite

2007-09-26T12:30:00.000-04:00

The Yellow Wood has a lot going for it: A story that centers loosely on Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken"; a mostly superb cast, including the very likable Jason Tam (Broadway's A Chorus Line) as Adam, a high school student obsessing about memorizing the Frost poem (not to mention the flights of fancy brought on by his decision not to take his Ritalin), the uproarious Randy Blair (as his best friend Casserole), the savvy comic stylings of Jill Abramovitz (as the snappish English teacher), and Yuka Takara (as Adam's smartypants younger sister Gwen); and the direction of journeyman actor B.D. Wong, who also produces.

So what went wrong?

Like many NYMF shows, writers Michelle Elliott (book and lyrics) and Danny Larsen (music and lyrics) have tried to cram too many themes into their story. The adolescent fairy tale begins with the hyperactive Adam sitting at the breakfast table with his parents and sister: we learn that his parents are not getting along, his sister is transferring to his school because of unexplained problems at her old school, and that he denies his Korean heritage to his classmates (i.e., nobody thinks that he is Asian--and he'd like to keep it that way).

Interesting problems and conflicts, all, but they are never untangled or explored to any satisfying ends. Instead, Adam goes to school, where his overactive, Ritalin-free senses conjure up scene after fantastical scene. There's even an overextended video game sequence, in which the actors--in thrall to the erratic jerks of Adam's brain--stiffen their limbs and lurch around the stage to illustrate a story problem.

Other critics have found much to love in this unique story, and there is plenty of creativity on display. With a bit more focus, The Yellow Wood could be not only a story worth telling, but an incisive, dimensional look at an exceptional life.

offoffonline review: The Yellow Wood

Pictured: Randy Blair, Jason Tam, and Caissie Levy (photo credit: Lia Chang)

Mighty IT

2007-09-24T23:19:00.001-04:00

The third annual New York Innovative Theatre (IT) Awards were held Monday, September 24 in the Haft Auditorium at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Chelsea. Created by enterprising theater artists Jason Bowcutt, Shay Gines, and Nick Micozzi, the awards are designed to honor the best of Off-Off-Broadway theater--the people, as one presenter quoted the legendary OOB patriarch Joe Cino as saying, "who make magic out of nothing."

I attended and covered last year's ceremony, and I'm happy to report that this year's festivities were just as exuberant and celebratory. If anything, the awards seemed to be distributed more evenly between the competing companies, and first-time host Julie Halston was predictably nutty, sarcastic, and hilarious.

There was some high-brow talent on hand to present the awards, including Speaker Christine Quinn, Tony Award winner (and Dream Girls star) Anika Noni Rose, lighting designer Natasha Katz (who described lighting as "a whisper you see"), costume queen Susan Hilferty, legendary actress Kathleen Chalfant, director Leigh Silverman, and composer Robert Lopez (Avenue Q).

If New York has "community theater" (which is to mean "theater of a community," not "amateurish") it's on the Off-Off-Broadway stages, where artists work for peanuts (or less: maybe peanut shells?) to put their vision on stage. Looking around the auditorium, I could see little "communities"--tight-knit groups of actors/directors/technicians who muscle through this city and support each other to get their shows up and running.

It was especially moving to see how seriously people have come to take these awards--there were the usual jokes and shout-outs to friends and God from behind the podium, but there were also genuinely honest tears, thanks to relatives who had traveled long distances to attend the ceremony, and tributes to departed parents and mentors.

Once again, I looked through the program and was mystified by the number of theater companies that I have a) never witnessed in action, and/or b) never even heard of. I made a list of companies to watch, and I'm looking forward to discovering what new creations they'll bring forth over the next year. I'm particularly curious to track Rising Phoenix Repertory, recipient of this year's Caffe Cino Fellowship Award. They took home the award for Outstanding Production of a Play for Daniel Reitz's Rules of the Universe, and Elizabeth West performed a dazzling and disarming monologue from the show, which took place on a series of toilet seats in a venue in the East Village.

I was particularly thrilled to see the Gallery Players' production of Urinetown take home the award for Outstanding Production of a Musical. I've reviewed many shows put on by this fantastic Park Slope-based company, and this one is easily the best I've seen.

Playwright Doric Wilson, a pioneer in gay theater and the first resident playwright of the infamous Caffe Cino, won the 2007 Artistic Achievement Award. As he reminisced about his eventful career, he scanned the crowd and pronounced: "You are the people who make the theater I believe in happen."

The IT Awards put a stamp of importance and pride on the Off-Off-Broadway world; I only hope that next year's ceremony will celebrate even more innovative companies and distinctive artists.

Pictured above: Tauren (member of the Urinetown cast) and I strike a pose before the show. Below: Host Julie Halston in action

Going the Way of the Dodo?

2007-09-21T09:45:00.000-04:00

A friend passed along this intriguing bit of metajournalism: a blog about blogging. And, more specifically, about theater blogging.

Lyn Gardner, a critic for the Guardian, writes that, as newspapers have continued to squish arts reviews, she felt like she was on the verge of extinction. But blogging, she says, is "opening up criticism and giving us newspaper critics a necessary kick up the bum."

I agree with many of her pro-blogging arguments: blogs give critics a place to elaborate further on subjects they might not be able to squeeze into a print review, and also faciliates and encourages conversation:

"Unlike the newspaper letters page, these dialogues can be returned to again and again and can gradually evolve. Bloggers also have none of the restraints of space that occur on a newspaper reviews page. This creation of more voices can only be a good thing, bringing a wider range of background, experience and interest to the rough and tumble of critical debate. Whether or not you trust these new voices will take time to discover--just as readers of any newspaper have to decide whether their own tastes and opinions concur with those of its professional critics."

The lasting effects of the critical blogosphere have yet to be seen, but I certainly hope that they will enliven and enrich the scope and depth of arts writing. Although I do find the limitless word count a bit intimidating at times ...

Rock(ae) & Roll!

2007-09-21T08:03:00.000-04:00

From the perennially popular Rent to the surprise success of Spring Awakening, it seems that the rock musical is not only in vogue, but is also here to stay. Prospect Theater Company's The Rockae mixes a punchy, metallic rock score with one of theater's most provocative protagonists: the powerfully petulant god Dionysus in Euripides' timeless tragedy The Bacchae.

Show Business Weekly review: The Rockae

Rock music is just as much about cultivating an aesthetic as telling a story, and director Cara Reichel has turned the stage of the Hudson Guild Theater into an emotional labyrinth. Certain songs come together better than others, and the sound system sometimes distorts the lyrics (it'd be wise to check out a synopsis before you attend), but at its best, the searing vocalizations of the gifted cast make The Rockae a screaming rock tour-de-force. And don't you love the rockin' artwork? It reminds me of my parents' old rock LPs stored away in the basement--blazing colors heralding a powerhouse feast for the ears.

A Chamber(s) Musical

2007-09-20T19:45:00.001-04:00

Who ever said politics isn't theatrical? This week, Nebraska Senator Ernie Chambers announced that he is suing God--yes, that's right, he's suing GOD.

When I was in high school in Nebraska, I thought Ernie Chambers was divine inspiration itself--always controversial, and dedicatedly provocative, he would endlessly filibuster bills he didn't agree with, and give lengthy orations to stir up heated discussions. When he arrived to speak at our Close-Up Club's town hall event, I was mesmerized by his articulate arguments--and the fact that irreverently wore a T-shirt with tuxedo shirt screenprinted across it.

In the fire of adolescence, I was all for risky debate, and I had recently published an article that sharply criticized Rush Limbaugh in our local newspaper. In response, I was thrilled to receive my first "hate mail"--letters scrawled in the shaky hands of elderly Limbaugh supporters who warned me that I had severly misstepped my bounds. Far from discouraging me, the disapproving correspondence only enlivened my determination to speak my mind.

But although Chambers inspired me then, I'm not sure how I feel about his tactics now. He is suing God, he claims, in order to make a point about frivolous lawsuits and archaic legalities. I'm unconvinced--doesn't this just waste even more time? And this is the same man who, not too long ago, recommended the racial segregation of Omaha school districts. Isn't there a better way to put Nebraska on the map? In any case, I'm keeping an eye on my home state. Whither the faux tuxedo?

In Memory of a Blizzard

2007-09-17T10:45:00.001-04:00

Last week we received word that Dr. Bill Logan, a former Norfolk dentist and a good friend of my parents', had passed away in Florida. We lived just down the street from the Logans in my first chilhood home (we moved across town when I was 14), and I have such fond memories of Bill, who loved to tinker with vintage automobiles (1937 Packards) and make everyone laugh.

I also remember Bill rescuing me during one fateful Nebraska blizzard, with an artic wind chill and terrifying drifts, that left me stranded at the grade school when I was 7 years old. My mom was home with my three younger siblings, and Bill offered to pick me up at school after classes were dismissed early. He had a son who was several years older than me, so after dropping him off at their house, he literally carried me down the street--through waist-deep drifts--to deposit me at my mother's feet.

I don't remember many details from that time, but I have a vivid memory of clinging to Bill, my face buried in his cool winter coat as he trudged through the blinding snow. People come into contact with us at many different times and for many different reasons throughout our lives; there are so many microscopic instants that are fleeting but meaningful. I will always be thankful that--for that moment, at least--there was someone there to carry me safely home again.

Back to School and Back on Stage!

2007-09-12T09:55:00.001-04:00

Looking for a place to hone your acting skills or amp up your theater/film career? My latest feature is out in this week's Show Business Weekly, and it's a primer on some of the best acting programs in New York and beyond. I had the opportunity to speak with administrators, teachers, and professionals from both conservatories (Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, the Atlantic Acting School, the Ted Bardy Studio) and universities (Carnegie Mellon, DePaul, Five Towns College, the American Film Institute). And many more ...

I always enjoy chatting with people who teach the business of "the business," and I'm constantly astonished by the sheer number of options and opportunities available to performers of all ages. For example, ACTeen is the country's premier provider of on-camera training for teenagers; founder Rita Litton is one of the most positive and energetic people I've spoken to, and I'm sure the school's courses must be similarly encouraging for aspiring young performers.

I was also particularly intrigued by the course offerings at Weist-Barron, which provide training for performance opportunities that are not always so obvious: hosting home-shopping programs (QVC!), web-hosting, trade shows, and industrials. You can even take a course on how to skillfully read a teleprompter! (Academy Award presenters, take note ...) And while these are certainly not "glamorous" acting gigs, why not use your stage presence and charm to make some extra money?

And speaking of the long, hard slog to fame, my review of the film Great World of Sound is also out this week. In our "American Idol"-obsessed age, everyone is cashing in on "reality ______ (fill in the blank)," but writer/director Craig Zobel manages to find something fresh in this darkly comic picture. Rather than capitalize on the "rags-to-riches" stories of those seeking a quick trip to celebrity, he flips the camera around to tell the story of the talent scouts who hunt for untapped "talent."

Martin and Clarence are two troubled agents looking for amateur singers for a company called "Great World of Sound," but as they weed through the hungry throngs in small, dingy towns, they slowly uncover both the deceit of their employer and the searing desperation that rips everyone apart in its wake. Because, of course, they're not really trying to help people, they are (surprise!) fishing for cash.

As Martin and Clarence, Pat Healy and Kene Holliday deliver outstanding performances, texturing their unsteady friendship with deft comic flourishes. Healy is particularly excellent as the conflicted Martin; as Clarence barrels through each "sell," Martin gives us uncomfortable and powerful glimpses of his reservations.

The quest for fame seems endemic in our time, and I'm always curious to watch what it does to those who surround it. Zobel makes his film even more poignant by integrating authentic "auditions" into the agents' journey. Yep, they actually took out fake ads in local newspapers encouraging aspiring recording stars to show up for a chance at the big time. People came in droves, and--with their permission, of course--many of their auditions made it into the film. There's something both mesmerizing and terrifying in seeing just how far people will go to capture their dream. Fame, or celebrity, has become the great equalizer, and Zobel gives us a telling look at just how far people can fall before they even make it to the "the top."

Show Business Weekly review: Great World of Sound

And last but not least (well, maybe least) on the topic of corporate, air-brushed greed: my review of Walmartopia is also out this week. I blogged about it earlier, but now you can also read the review.

Pat Healy and Kene Holliday on the hunt for hot stuff in Great World of Sound.

Filling a Need

2007-09-09T18:56:00.000-04:00

This scene may look like something out of your worst nightmare.

It doesn't faze me, but then again, I grew up with a dentist that I could trust: my father. He always teased me mercilessly, but I also knew he would take good care of me. I never hesitated to yelp, "Dad, that hurts!"; he never hesitated to spray me and my siblings in the face with water.

Over the weekend my dad participated in Nebraska's third annual Mission of Mercy, a gathering of hundreds of people to provide free dental care for anyone in need of it. The event took place over two days; on Friday, over 700 people received treatment, including everything from basic check-ups to fillings to denture work. During the first two hours alone, the dentists performed over $40,000 worth of work. People actually camped out overnight to be first in line.

This year's event was held in Norfolk, my hometown, and my hard-working, generous, and always witty dad got to help with much of the planning and set-up. Previous locations have included North Platte and Grand Island, and next year the Mission of Mercy heads out west to Scottsbluff. It's amazing what a group of dedicated individuals can accomplish; I'm sure a lot of Nebraskans are now feeling much more comfortable--if a bit numb--in the jaw.

More photos from the event:

Dr. K. with Jan, one of his excellent dental assistants, and Cheryl, his fearless office manager (and no, I don't think she injured her arm yanking any teeth):

Hard at work:

Sunday in the Park

2007-09-04T21:12:00.000-04:00

I spent the long holiday weekend in Columbus, Ohio, where I attended the wedding of my friends Ilana (a long-time friend, co-theater-creator, and conspirator from Rice) and Mike (her lovely new husband and a brilliant lawyer). Ilana and I have always been crazy about Sondheim musicals, and appropriately, I made a pre-ceremony visit to see Columbus' extraordinary Topiary Garden with a small group of friends.

And what, you may wonder, could be so extraordinary about a topiary garden? (And where does Sondheim come in?)

Well, the shrubbery in this particular garden has been sculpted and coaxed to resemble Georges Seurat's famous painting, "A Sunday On The Island Of La Grande Jatte," and it is, to quote the website, "a landscape of a painting of a landscape." The results are both beautiful and a bit strange. It's not a place I'd want to wander around in alone at night, lest the figures start moving. But it's certainly a novelty, and something to see (for free) if you should ever find yourself wandering around Columbus. And for musical theater aficionados, it will instantly strike up the gorgeous chords of Sondheim's masterful musical, Sunday in the Park with George, which tells the persuasive fictional tale of the painting's creation.

Diatribes, at a Discount

2007-08-30T17:43:00.001-04:00

Ah, the curse of finding success at the Fringe Festival. A reputed hit at last year's Fringe, the cheeky corporate-bashing musical Walmartopia has just commenced an open-ended run, and the results are not promising.

The critics have not been kind, and I can't say that I entirely disagree. Their main complaint is the cornucopia of styles and mixed messages that plague the stage. I was also irritated by the gratuitous shifts in emotional tempo and dramatic thrust, but I was more disappointed that the show didn't teach me anything new. With its "Wal-Mart is evil" message, the writers settle for preaching to the choir (assuming that choir is a liberal, educated bunch who are keen to sniff out social injustice). In catapulting its heroines thirty years into the future to simplistically and predictably solve the problems of the Wal-Mart-worshiping neo-universe, this production safely skirts around addressing the problems of the present.

I felt a bit of that chronological dissonance when I watched the classic film 9 to 5 for the first time recently. As Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton, and Lily Tomlin fantasized about killing their boss and then cleverly spun corporate life for the better, I felt like I had opened a time capsule, a bit of nostalgia in a DVD. But as any smart woman (or man) knows, sexism still runs rampant in the workplace, even if it doesn't stare blatantly at your chest and ask you to fetch it coffee.

The point is, entertainment can be a tonic and a panacea for bigger, and always more complex, issues. Walmartopia wants us to unseat the world-dominating corporation, but does it really? Where's the action plan, and where are the specifics? When the solution is the homogenized maxim "think outside the big box," it's hard to take the show very seriously. This production might have an agenda, but it's definitely more "let me entertain you" than "do you hear the people sing."

Ironically, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the show's best moments are its show-within-a-show production numbers, such as "These Bullets are Freedom" (pictured above), the resolutely earnest call-to-arms in the Wal-Mart dystopia of 2037. A piece of straightforward propaganda, the skit trades in both ideology and commerce, inciting political loyalty while trying to sell a new gun model. Here, it's easy--and chilling--to see how the media attempts to brainwash us. It's unfortunate that the rest of the show isn't this in-your-face; instead, the creators fall victim to the very advice they give us: don't settle for a cheap and phony product.

Show Business Weekly review: Walmartopia

Moon Swimmer

2007-08-29T21:42:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite things about New York City in the summertime is lap swimming at the fabulous Astoria Pool. Every summer, from the 4th of July through Labor Day, the City opens its pools and beaches to the public for free (!), and it also sponsors a lap swimming program, which is broken down into two sections: the Early Bird (7:00-8:30am) and the Night Owl (7:00-8:30pm).

After swimming competitively for nearly ten years (and lifeguarding for almost as many), the chlorine is thick in my blood. Nothing beats beginning the day with a refreshing workout in the icy water--especially in the dog days of summer. And the Astoria Pool is especially magnificent--where else can you swim between the Triborough and Hellgate Bridges, with glimpses of boats drifting by on the East River? The pool actually hosted the Olympic trials in 1936 (which also marked its grand opening) and in 1964.

Sadly, there are only two more (outdoor) swimming days this year, and this morning I glimpsed this beautiful view out my window before I walked over to the park. One morning as I swam, I watched both the morning moon hanging above the Triborough Bridge and the sun rising directly opposite.

Tonight I got to see another of the City's pools: Hamilton Fish, on the Lower East Side. The occasion? The end-of-summer party and celebration for the swimmers. This year's party was particularly festive, because it marked the 25th anniversary of the adult lap swimming program. Some 6,000 New Yorkers participated this summer, and I'm proud to report that the "Early Bird" women of Astoria Pool accumulated the most distance among the women citywide: 697.34 miles!

The evening began with a relay race (Astoria placed second), and awards were presented to anyone who swam 25 miles or more this summer (including myself, just barely). This is actually equivalent to swimming around the island of Manhattan--minus weeding through the debris of old Coke cans, beer bottles, and assorted garbage in the river.

There was a free buffet dinner sponsored by Katz Deli (platters of sausage, coleslaw, potato salad, pasta, and watermelon), but the highlight for me was Jackie Rowe-Adams, who sang two a cappella songs: "Moon River" and "The Wind Beneath My Wings." In her husky, emotive voice, she cleverly squeezed "swim" verbs into the lyrics when at all possible. For example:

We're after the same rainbow's end
Swimming 'round the bend
I'm swimming with my friends
Moon river and me.

You get the picture. It was quite endearing, as was the entire evening--a pocket of small-town camaraderie in the churning metropolis. I can't wait to jump back in tomorrow morning.

Play It Again, Fringe

2007-08-27T15:54:00.000-04:00

This just in: Beginning August 30, you can catch some of the can't-miss-it Fringe Festival shows that you, well, missed at the Second Annual FringeNYC Encore Series!

The two-week engagement (the action winds up September 16) will feature two heaping handfuls of Fringe favorites, including two of the gems I reviewed, A Beautiful Child and Piaf: Love Conquers All (pictured below). The shows have been divvied up between the Bleecker Street Theater and the Soho Playhouse.

Click here for the complete schedule and more information. Showtimes for my faves:

A Beautiful Child: Sept. 4 at 9:30 PM; Sept. 5 at 7 PM; Sept. 7 at 7 PM; Sept. 8 at 9:30 PM; Sept. 11 at 7 PM; Sept. 14 at 9:30 PM; Sept. 15 at 3 PM; and Sept. 16 at 9:30 PM.

Piaf: Love Conquers All: Aug. 30 at 9:30 PM; Aug. 31 at 7 PM; Sept. 1 at 8 PM; Sept. 2 at 4:30 PM; Sept. 3 at 9:30 PM; Sept. 5 at 7 PM; and Sept. 8 at 5 PM.

Bucking the System

2007-08-26T17:11:00.000-04:00

I'm doing a bit of freelance copyediting work for a fantastic, hip legal publishing company I used to work for in Houston, and I never cease to be amused by some of the mischief people get up to these days. Even funnier is the stern legal jargon conjured up to describe it.

I just finished editing a chapter on "Animal Actions," and as you can imagine, there were the requisite cases on dog bites, bee stings, and rabid hogs (this is Texas, after all). But most hilarious to me was this summation of one particular case:

"Owner claimed he had no knowledge horse named 'Buck' had propensity to buck."

I don't know the specific circumstances surrounding the case, but apparently the owner made a good one: it was deemed that he wasn't liable for Buck's bucking his rider. Hmmm. Good thing I didn't name my cat "Hiss." Or "Scratch." Thankfully, the sophisticated Bardot would much rather sit and look at the Empire State Building.

Voulez Vous?

2007-08-20T10:12:00.001-04:00

I’m a sucker for a dark and stormy French chanson, whether it’s sung by an interpreter of Edith Piaf (I caught Maria Bill’s tour-de-force solo show when I was a student in Salzburg, Austria) or interspersed in a full-length production (as in last year’s gorgeously sung Off Broadway revival of Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris). There's something so wonderfully unsettling about a tempestuous tale of love sung by a wine-soaked voice as a cheerful accordion works in counterpoint to lift a layer of the gloom. This paradoxical mixture (happy & sad) creates a truly visceral experience for its listeners. Pain morphs into something both beautiful and painful: performance.

Lured by the pathos, I jumped at the chance to review a Fringe Festival show that celebrated the life and music of Edith Piaf: Naomi Emmerson’s strong and wistful une-femme triumph, Piaf: Love Conquers All.

Show Business Weekly Review: Piaf: Love Conquers All

It’s no easy task to collapse the infamous French singer’s tragic life: it’s really as eccentric and riddled with romantic woes as they come. But Emmerson (who also directs) and Roger Peace (who wrote the book) have created an evocative and entertaining look at Piaf’s life and love(s), primarily by hinging her story firmly around what ultimately mattered to her most: the music. Emmerson sings 13 of Piaf’s most beloved melodies; interspersed with vignettes (which are charming but not always perfectly natural), the music moves into a new dimension, textured and shaped by Piaf’s real life experiences. Angst often seems to be a requisite tool for singers who brood about love, but here it is all the more riveting (and believable) because we can, for the most part, see directly to the root of her complaints.

From the opening seen, in which Piaf enters in a cascade of joy, extolling the virtues of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” (apparently, he’s a composer she’s just recently discovered), we are presented with a girlish woman (or a womanish girl?) who always feels as if she’s the last one to arrive at the party--and is determined to make up for it. Now.

If Emmerson is a bit more convincing in the first act (Piaf's youth and rise to fame) than the second (her painful decline), it's likely the fault of the script, which pinches the final events of Piaf's life together a bit haphazardly and hurriedly. Stephanie Layton is terrific in a series of supporting roles, and she is a deft and dazzling musician; she flits between the accordion and the piano without missing a beat. John Doyle would do well to scoop her up for his revival of Sweeney Todd.

Unfortunately, the show has already concluded its brief run, but keep your eyes peeled for Emmerson: she’s been playing Piaf for nearly 15 years now, and after a successful run at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 2005 (and, by all accounts, a successful one here as well), it’s likely this raucous pixie will pop up again in a neighborhood near you.

A Moving Moo-sical

2007-08-16T12:48:00.000-04:00

Monday I reviewed the enormously charming and occasionally frustrating Farmer Song: The Musical.

offoffonline review: "Heartland Song": Farmer Song: The Musical

As a Nebraska native, I wanted to see the show immediately when I heard that it was set in Iowa, but at the time I didn't realize that the production had actually been brought in from Iowa. Yep--there were a truck and trailer with Iowa license plates parked in front of the New School for Drama--right in the middle of the West Village.

The show explores the "farm crisis" (low interest rates=poor farmers) through the love story of Carl and Becky, who decide--against her parents' advice and all good sense--to take up farming.

I brought my friend Amy along, who moved to the city with me from Nebraska nearly three years ago (and yes, we drove our Penske truck through Iowa on the way). We both felt like we were visiting home as we watched the show. The cast and production loudly telegraphs its "community theater" roots, and not necessarily in a bad way. With a cast made up of farmers, engineers, and other people with "day jobs," their earnestness and excitement to be on stage is immediately tangible (if often slightly ill-focused). And after living, working, and reviewing shows in New York for almost three years, this sort of down-home goodness was as refreshing as the cow manure I always smell in the little towns we pass on the two-hour drive to my hometown from the airport in Omaha. Don't laugh--any scent that heralds home is welcome to me (and it's an ephemeral stretch of road miles away from the house where I grew up).

According to its website, this little show has already made a big splash in Iowa (sold out shows and ample press) and will likely continue to entertain and move hometown audiences who will not only understand its message, but fully empathize with it.

At first I was frustrated with the show. I wanted more sophisticated direction and sharper tempos--in short, the slick production values I've come to expect in New York. But after a while I became fully absorbed by this tender, touching story, and it was delightful to watch people who are happy to do theater for theater's sake and not (as many critics of the Fringe have complained this year) in order to take their show to Broadway or become tomorrow's TV sensation.

If at various moments I've become worn out and bitter about theater and its place in the universe, Farmer Song did something to restore my faith in the community, collaboration, and charm of live performance. Just for the fun of it.

A few of the melodies are still in my head, days later. A bale-ful of thanks to this hardy group of Iowans for taking me back "home" for a few hours--not only geographically, but in wholesome spirit (the sweet woman passing out programs complimented me on my skirt with genuine kindness).

But how would the show be received by other (often exacting, crabby, and sassy) critics? Honestly, I felt a bit protective of my fellow Midwesterners. But I shouldn't have worried. One reviewer so far, at least, has gotten it just right.

All images courtesy of Farmer Song: The Musical.

Musicals! Are! Exciting!

2007-08-14T17:11:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure when the craze for exclamatory musical titles began, but there are certainly a lot of them in this year's Fringe Festival. Whether it's Williamsburg!, Show Choir!, BASH'd!, or Bukowsical!, these musicals' creators have named their projects with all the subtlety of a sonic boom.

It would be interesting to poll audiences to see if there is a difference in excitement level and anticipation due to the use of punctuation. In my experience, it actually puts me off a bit, like those overeager people who stop you to take surveys on the streets who are, essentially, walking exclamation points themselves.

But I digress ... Day Two of the Fringe found me at two !!!! musicals.

The first, Williamsburg! The Musical, is a spoof of the hipster-infiltrated Brooklyn neighborhood. Good fun, with some exciting performances and interesting choreography, but waaaaay loud (I actually plugged my ears a few times). It's forgivable, given the Fringe's limited rehearsal time, but wow ... a lot of noise and grit for noon on a Sunday. The people sitting next to me and my friend Tauren had actually brought their two sons (under 10 years old) to the show, which was rather shocking, both because their attention started to fade towards the end and also because the musical featured a healthy heaping of profanity. The finale, for example, kept screaming "It's the F*$%ing Finale!", just to make sure we had gotten the message. It was interesting to note, though, that the boys started getting restless just as my own attention span was maxing out. Even when you're young, you have a sense of when they need to wrap it up. It's good that mature audiences have, for the most part, grown out of the outward signs of boredom, such as dropping toys, murmuring incoherently, and trying to stand up on one's chair to see better.

Anyway. One of my favorite performers I've discovered this year is the fabulous Allison Guinn (I reviewed her earlier this year in The Gallery Players' productions of Urinetown and Victor/Victoria), and she gets to sink her teeth into the leading role in this 'burg. And good heavens--she is a force to behold. Singing down to the gutters and back up to the sky, firmly planting each comic moment, stealing every scene, this girl is going places. I can't wait to see her next show. Even if it's another! exciting! musical!

A few hours later we visited the equally excitable Show Choir! The Musical and had a marvelous time. The audience was electric (and quite sweaty from the heat), and the show is a clever spoof of a genre (or "art form," they argue) that so many of us theater people love to hate--or, let's be honest, hate to love. Face it, there's really no better outlet for teenagers who want to get on stage and express themselves in myriad ways. The creators do a fantastic job capturing the essence of "music in motion," especially in the sparkly, gleaming production numbers ... hooray for jazz squares! The second act gets a bit drippy when the writers veer precariously towards Lifetime movies and their attendant syrup. I'd love to see the show cut down to 90 minutes and tucked into a nifty commercial run. I'd be first in line to see it again. Check out my review and the show's MySpace page.

Still to come: A review of the more sedately monikered Farm Song: The Musical.

Pictured: Shlomo (Evan Shyer) talks Piper (Allison Guinn) down off the (Williamsburg!) Bridge.

Tru-ly Marilyn

2007-08-13T10:49:00.000-04:00

The Fringe is flying in New York, which for me means my yearly gorge on theater: I've reviewed five shows in three days, with another coming later this week.

My hands-down favorite thus far is A Beautiful Child, a sleek and delicate adaptation of an essay by Truman Capote. It chronicles an afternoon Capote spent trolling around the city with a certain insecure actress named Marilyn Monroe. Exceptional performances ground this simple, frothy, and ultimately moving theatrical treat. My review has been posted, and you can read more about the show at its official website.

I also caught The Jazz Messenger, a drama about an American jazz trumpeter imprisoned by a German officer in France during World War II. It's not the most stirring theatrical experience, but there is an excellent jazz quartet on hand to provide underscoring and accompaniment.

Look here soon for reviews of Williamsburg! The Musical, Show Choir! The Musical, Farmer Song: The Musical, and Piaf: Love Conquers All.

Pictured are Truman Capote and Marilyn Monroe and the actors who play them: Joel Van Liew and Maura Lisabeth Malloy.

Masterpiece Theater

2007-08-06T15:00:00.000-04:00

Blame the heat, blame the humidity, blame Harry Potter (I'm almost finished with the final book), but no matter who you blame, I've been neglecting this blog. I haven't fallen off the radar completely, however, and I'll be posting reviews of several new shows in the next few days. And with The New York International Fringe Festival looming, you can bet I'll be a theatergoing freak for a couple of days, at least.

But the show that brought me back to the blog is a small jewel of a play called Opus that I reviewed at 59E59 Theaters Friday night. A production of Primary Stages, Michael Hollinger's tense and tantalizing riff on the histrionics of a string quartet is one of the best productions I've seen this year, if not since I moved to the city nearly three years ago. PLEASE go see this show!

Show Business Weekly review: Opus

I had never been to 59E59, and I was immensely impressed with the facility, to begin with. Designer James Kronzer has outfitted it to look like a sleek and spare concert hall (even more than it usually does), and Jorge Cousineau's sound design is absolutely impeccable. Although the actors mime (I hate to use that word, but it's true) their playing, they're so perfectly timed with the gorgeous music that you almost forget that it's not really a live performance.

The story, in brief: When the quartet's violist, a stormy soul named Dorian, goes missing, the other three musicians quickly recruit Grace, a brilliant viola player fresh out of grad school and thunderstruck with her good fortune. They decide to play Beethoven's difficult Opus 131 at their next gig (at The White House), and they begin to practice--and get to know each other.

One of my dear friends, Christine, happens to be a violist who recently played with a string quartet, and her tales of their squabbles echoed through my head as I watched the play. Being a member of a string quartet is like being married to three people at once, she told me, and that truth bore out on stage as well. Hollinger has concocted a spirited verbal shorthand between the characters, and their relationships are at once both extremely intimate and dangerously volatile.

The action flits between the newly formed group's preparations and flashbacks to the scenes that foreshadowed Dorian's departure. Terrence J. Nolen's precise direction brings everything together brilliantly in the end: When all of the threads converge, the results are nothing short of electrifying. Honestly, I can't remember the last time (if ever) I literally gasped in a theater; in this case, my mouth dropped open and stayed that way for at least a couple minutes, so surprised was I by the outcome.

The actors are all outstanding, and they deliver such natural, human performances that you'd expect to be able to walk up to them after the show and ask them more about their instruments. David Beach is particularly splendid as the stuffy, snarky first violinist Elliot--he was, we come to find out, romantically involved with the elusive Dorian, and Michael Laurence turns in an equally fine and complex portrayal of the MIA musician.

Working within a genre that is often drenched with heavy-handed metaphors and forced jokes, Hollinger has created a play that deftly and easily conveys the strife, solidarity, and sauce of musicians in search of the Holy Grail: the perfect performance.

A Film of One's Own

2007-07-17T16:55:00.000-04:00

Who knew that submitting a film to a New York festival could be as tricky as auditioning for a Broadway musical? My latest feature, a guide to what (and what not) to do to make the cut at area film festivals, appears in this week's edition of Show Business Weekly, available on newsstands this week. (If you missed it, contact me and I'll send you a copy.)

I had a great time interviewing some of the people behind New York's most esteemed film events, from the eclectic and edgy Tribeca Film Festival to Lincoln Center's selective and streamlined New York Film Festival.

As a person steeped in theater, I love learning more about the fascinating world of film, and there are so many basic elements that translate across the genres. It's a given that you should focus on the truth of your story in any successful artistic endeavor, but I was surprised to note the many parallels between low-budget/big-budget movies and Off Off Broadway/Broadway productions. One administrator essentially told me that "image certainly isn't everything" when he reviews films, and he often wishes that filmmakers would spend less time trying to make their film look "professional" and polished and more time on the nuts and bolts of what makes a good story: a captivating script, gripping plot, and honest, compelling acting.

That would be good advice to many theatermakers as well. In tiny Off Off Broadway venues, the play very often becomes the (only) thing. Stripped of pyrotechnics and devoid of dollars, these shows can focus on the very heart of their stories. Too often, valiant efforts are made to mimic the luxurious gadgetry of commercial productions to an often depressing and disastrous effect. Show me what you know and what truth you can create with what you have, I want to exhort them. Otherwise, it's like stuffing a helicopter through a storefront window--explosive, violent, and just plain wrong. Your room may be tiny, but the impact can be huge.

Water World

2007-07-09T14:50:00.001-04:00

Rumor has it that Coney Island will soon be Disney-fied (read: made into a more glossy, homogenized, and expensive destination), so on Saturday we rode to the end of the N train to visit the historic beach and boardwalk. It's incredible to step off the subway and stand in such close proximity to warm sand and glittering water--both looked to be rather on the dirty side, but no matter. Don lives at the very opposite end of the line, so we actually took the subway from one end to the other.

It's all very seedy, silly, and sweaty, and I'm so glad I got to see it in its present form. We first walked along the water, delicately stepping between bronzed bodies coated in sand and sunscreen. It's such a raucous scene: tattoos, piercings, and flesh in abundance. We walked to the end of the pier and looked back at the coastline dotted with hundreds of bodies. Then we headed over to the amusement park area, where Don and our friend Debbie (in visiting from Nebraska) braved the famous Cyclone rollercoaster; Nora and I cheered them on from below.

Wooden rollercoasters kick up big appetites, so we grabbed fried food from one of the many vendors lining the boardwalk. I am newly smitten with corndogs; I don't think I've tasted one since I was 10! There's something so perfectly nuanced about the combination of sweet corn-like taste with salty-meaty hot dog ... I went back for seconds after everyone else had finished. In fact, my mouth is watering again now.

After wiping the grease from our fingers, we headed back into the city to try to win the Wicked lottery for Debbie (by the end of the weekend, we were 0/4 attempts, but miraculously she scored a cancellation seat for the Sunday matinee!). It was so bizarre to step off the subway back into Times Square after the cool water breezes of Coney Island. The longer I live here, the more I'm taken with the diversity of the NYC landscape. I have yet to find a swamp, but I'm sure there's probably one lurking somewhere in the shadows of Central Park ...

And speaking of water, my review of the splashy new play eurydice is in this week's issue of Show Business Weekly. As I mentioned in a previous entry, Sarah Ruhl's delicate work is a refreshing, lustrous summer event (and in this sticky heat, it also offers free air conditioning!).

Exploding Cynicism

2007-07-05T14:44:00.001-04:00

Fireworks have always made me cringe. As a five-year-old growing up in Nebraska, I had three fears: bees, junebugs, and firecrackers. Bees, for obvious reasons; junebugs, for the way they would smother our neighbor’s screen door like something out of a horror movie; and fireworks, for their startling, deafening, belly-shaking explosions, which would send my younger siblings screaming back into the house.

Neatly ticking them off on my fingers, I felt safe in their precise containment in my small hand. By carefully categorizing my fears, I reasoned, I could keep them at bay.

Years later, fireworks no longer trigger alarm, but they’re troubling in new ways. Slickly commercialized to promote extravagant sales of flags and red-white-and-blue everything, the Fourth of July is yet another holiday packaged for purchase from the shelves of drugstores. To honor my yearly obligation to stand beneath symbolic “bombs bursting in air,” last Friday I reluctantly joined the crowds in Astoria Park to watch the annual fireworks display over the East River.

It was a typical scene. The lights vaulted across the sky in time to the requisite patriotic soundtrack: Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” and Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.” Each electric blossom was more elaborate than the last—dazzling pyrotechnic choreography designed to inspire solemn patriotic ruminations.

As a child, I felt unqualified pride in my country; as an educated adult, allegiance is often more difficult to pledge. Botched elections, executive lies, and governmental scandal plague our contemporary political landscape—not to mention a war that many of us would rather not be fighting. The word “American,” if not exactly a pejorative term, has become something of a liability, thanks to our troubled global reputation.

But standing alongside the richly diverse throngs of Americans in Astoria Park, surrounded by intergenerational immigrant families, the calibrated explosives began to blast away a chunk of my cynicism. At once, I felt helplessly proud of this place we call home.

Transplanted from Albania, Mexico, Greece, the Sudan, and elsewhere across the world, many of my neighbors arrived here to seek, if not huge wealth, a safer and more comfortable existence than the life they knew before. A home where, for instance, the sound of explosives is not a commonplace event.

How lucky we are to live in a place where these piercing blasts are an occasion for celebration, not panic. The young Hispanic girl beside me released blood-curdling screams inspired by sheer joy and amazement, not primal terror.

Maybe, for one day at least, it’s better to let go of the complications and focus on the basics. “I’m proud to be an American,” Greenwood vows, “where at least I know I’m free.”

I once worried that the fireworks’ bright embers would strike me; later, I recognized their triumphant streaks as patriotism slyly manipulated for public consumption. Watching this year’s display, I looked away from the spectacle and directly into the illuminated faces surrounding my own. We were united not only by the glowing necklaces we had purchased from an enterprising vendor, but also in a collective hope of what America can be. And for that moment, our country was displaying its powers safely, and beautifully, high above our heads.

From River to Shining River ...

2007-07-05T14:40:00.000-04:00

Another shot from the glorious fireworks!

A Home at the End of the World (on Coney Island)

2007-07-05T14:39:00.000-04:00

Monday night I saw Ethan Lipton's new play "Goodbye April, Hello May" at the HERE Arts Center in Soho. My review is the offoffonline Pick of the Week.

In this taut, evocative character study of five roommates living in an apartment on Coney Island circa 2107, Lipton imagines cultural shifts that may or may not surprise you--developers putting luxury condos on Ellis Island, 50 as the new 40, a constant normalized threat of violence. Most chilling, however, is how he captures the impending shredding away of relationships and interconnection.

New Yorkers have certainly always been a strange and unique breed, but neurotic narcissism peaks precariously in many of these relationships, and the tragedy evolves from watching the characters attempt to salvage slippery fragments of warmth and love.

All in all, it's pretty bleak, but worth watching for the cast's splendid performances and the graceful direction of Patrick McNulty.

Lipton is particularly adept at capturing the love/hate relationships many New Yorkers maintain with their city. Gibson Frazier is a standout as the sardonic Frank, and when he moves to the country, he has this to say:

"When I got to New York, I'll never forget, I said, I'm going to give it a try. I am New York's to lose. If it wants me, I'll stay. If it doesn't, I'll go. I told New York my position. And New York said: There aren't enough words to describe how little I care about you."

It's nice to know that, at least according to Lipton's crystal ball, some things will never change.

Pictured: Kelly Mares, Bill Coelius, Albert Aeed, and Gibson Frazier [Photo Credit: Heather Phelps-Lipton]

I Can See for Miles and Miles

2007-07-03T14:32:00.001-04:00

You might recognize Mare Winningham from her iconic role in "St. Elmo's Fire" or, more recently, her poignant turn as Meredith's stepmother on "Grey's Anatomy," but you haven't seen Mare Winningham at her best until you've seen her current tour-de-force in the new musical "10 Million Miles." As a supporting player (her program credit lists her as, simply, "The Women"), Winningham creates a handful of the most believable, genuine, and authentic women you'll ever see on a stage, often for only a couple minutes at a time. Each woman is a fully-realized study that deserves her own musical (writers, take note!), and let's hope we see their conduit back on stage again soon. Very soon!

In the meantime, head to the Atlantic Theater (home last summer to that little-show-that-could, "Spring Awakening") and catch a glimpse of some undeniably honest theatrical artistry. And check out my review here.

Pictured: Mare Winningham, Irene Molloy, and Matthew Morrison

Lost and Found

2007-06-29T09:58:00.000-04:00

At the beginning of Gone Missing, the masterful music/comedy/sketch piece by the wired and wacky troupe The Civilians, a voice announces that the material was culled from “interviews with people in New York City and in the United States of America.” That subtle use of “and” is so telling—snidely inferring that NYC is, indeed, not quite the same as (or even part of) the rest of the USA.

The pithy intro was the perfect tongue-in-cheek opening to this fascinating, sardonic show, in which the six actors take on a batch of personas of people who have lost various things in NYC and elsewhere (I had to laugh at a woman recounting the loss of a doll in Iowa’s Amana Colonies, where I also vacationed as a child).

The piece begins with its sizzling title number—the suit-clad, androgynous performers move through slick and punchy choreography with such presence and precision that it gave me goosebumps.

Emily Ackerman quickly followed this up with the lush and torchy “The Only Thing Missing Is You”—a striking and impassioned lament for a lost romance that effortlessly calls up old Hollywood films of the 1940s. Purring with her sexy-scratchy voice, Ackerman struts with an irresistible combination of fire and reserve.

But although the show opens with such promise, the rest of the material never moves out of its teaser-phase. To be sure, the character studies are each strong and convincing, but I wished that the writing could become more meaty and juicy. And if those adjectives seem to indicate that I was hungry, that’s because I was. The saucy, irreverent opening scenes whet my appetite for substance, but the writing, while often sharp and witty, remains on the safer surface of many topics touched on by these evocative characters.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that—many a show gets by on consistently excellent fluffy material. But these actors (and their confident director Steve Cosson, who also wrote much of the show) are so superb that you can’t help longing for them to plunge into material that would show them off to their fullest potential. And “Gone Missing,” while entertaining and mildly provocative, eventually feels like an expanse of wasted resources.

Michael Friedman’s music and lyrics are especially fine and provide the show’s many high points. In “The Only Thing Missing Is You,” Ackerman despairs, “If Barbie has Ken/why do I have rien?” In these simple tunes and potent lyrics, Friedman conveys both humor and pathos. In “Hide & Seek,” a young girl’s memory of hiding amid her mother’s pretty blouses in a closet, Colleen Werthman wonders, “Why is no one seeking me?”

So what have people lost? Everything from rings to pets to gold teeth. One recurring character, an amiable cop played by the excellent Stephen Plunkett, describes what is lost or missing from the dead bodies he recovers. He describes the gruesome details with a “Can you believe it?” grin and a half-hearted shrug, which belie the seriousness of these disturbing scenes (which have clearly disturbed him a bit as well). But “You gotta laugh, right?” he reflexively asks after each description. “Or else …” (He mimes drinking alcohol.) One imagines it could get much worse than that.

The Civilians avoid making any overt political or mock-serious statements, and the poignancy of these lost things eventually comes into focus over the course of the show. Things are merely “shadows” or “echoes”—and, late in the show, the cast lightly references the ways in which we try to possess each other in relationships. But whether a relationship, an earring, or a rag doll, our possessions can both rule and possess us. Gone Missing hints at what these things can come to mean. “It was a small thing,” an elderly woman sighs, “But it was big because I loved it.”

Photo Credit: Sara Krulwich, The New York Times

The Word Made Flesh

2007-06-28T10:11:00.000-04:00

Over breakfast this morning, I read John Lanchester’s intriguing review of The Diana Chronicles, Tina Brown’s new book about Princess Diana. The New Yorker’s reviews are singular, I feel, for their expansion on their subject—rather than simply parsing the pros and cons of a new cultural artifact, the reviewers typically push beyond the project at hand to haul in a trove of evocative supporting details.

In Lanchester’s opinion, Brown’s book is the best of the lot, as far as coverage of Diana goes. He referred to several other substandard missives, including one written by the late princess’s butler, Paul Burrell, entitled The Way We Were—“emetic book, emetic title,” pronounces Lanchester.

Although I work at the Oxford University Press, I’m not a human dictionary, so when I arrived at work I promptly looked up “emetic,” which means, in short, to induce nausea and vomiting. This made me smile when I remembered, in a perfect dose of New York synchronicity (and serendipity), the well-dressed businessman I saw on the subway platform this morning. At first he just seemed to be leaning against the wall, but upon closer examination, something had clearly had its emetic way with him.

The expunging of bodily fluid in its various forms is certainly not an uncommon sight in New York, but I now have a new way to describe it. And sometimes the right word makes all the difference.

But to my point: Lanchester’s review made me curious to take a look at Brown’s work; I’ve never been particularly fascinated by British royalty (although I did have the requisite Princess Diana paper doll set as a child, a gift from my more tiara-enamored Grandma Kay), but Lanchester uses Brown’s book to suggest that, in her legacy, Princess Diana might eventually make British royalty redundant and somewhat beside-the-point. It was certainly clear in last year’s excellent film “The Queen” that certain subjects are fairly exhausted by the attention paid to royalty, but Lanchester posits that the heirs themselves may one day tire of a position that has become something of a career of enforced, inescapable celebrity.

L.A. Times columnist Meghan Daum also recently explored Brown’s tome, and she linked it quite directly to our modern notions of celebrity. Daum compares Diana to the contemporary blonde celebrity of troubled vixens Anna Nicole Smith and Paris Hilton; where, she asks, did we go wrong in our peroxide-washed heroine worship?

Thus, if Diana’s troubled life may one day close the door on modern-day monarchy, might Paris Hilton’s legacy eventually extinguish the torrents of misdirected attention and media-love lavished on flimsy wealthy girls? We won’t know for sure for quite some time, but if the prognostications of Brown (and Lanchester) are any indication, certain incarnations of celebrity live on well beyond the grave. In Lanchester’s study, appropriately entitled “The Naked and the Dead,” the legacy of celebrity will be eternally exhumed and put to use as necessary. Sometimes the right word makes all the difference.

A Dazzling Death

2007-06-23T18:58:00.000-04:00

Last night I visited Second Stage Theater to review eurydice, playwright Sarah Ruhl's rhapsodic modern retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.

I'm still puzzling out the intricacies of this arresting story, one of the finest and most sophisticated meditations on death I've seen on a stage or anywhere else.

Until I find the appropriate words to describe it (my review will come out next week), take a look at Charles Isherwood's lovely description in the New York Times.

And if you're in the vicinity, do yourself a favor and see this show; if the storytelling doesn't agree with you, it will be enough to experience the absolutely stunning design. Fittingly, the Tony Awards committee just announced that in 2008 it will begin to give out Tony Awards for sound design (for both a play and a musical). I'm hoping that this play will move to Broadway so that the amazing Bray Poor could be recognized next year. As Orpheus and Eurydice travel to the underworld and back again, they move through a robust, dynamic cascade of noise--a cloud of sound so nuanced and particular that I didn't fully appreciate it until I exited the theater into Times Square and was met with its signature squawk. It's amazing how a seamless team of designers can take you to another world entirely.

Pictured is Maria Dizzia as Eurydice, arriving in the underworld via fantastical elevator (Photo Credit: Sara Krulwich).

Putting the Fun in Dysfunctional

2007-06-22T09:32:00.001-04:00

Last Sunday I reviewed an excellent production of William Finn's musical Falsettoland produced by the National Asian American Theater Company (NAATCO). NAATCO specializes in revisioning classic plays and musicals with all-Asian casts, and they do it with both superior production values and immensely talented performers. The first NAATCO production I saw was Cowboy vs. Samurai--a very poignant and incisive look at dating across (and within) racial lines.

So I definitely had high expectations for Falsettoland; of course, I have a soft spot for William Finn to begin with (I recently reviewed an excellent production of A New Brain in Astoria). His music can sometimes wander a bit, but there's an innocence and vulnerability to his writing that never gets stale. And I've been consistently impressed with the many fine Asian actors in this city (see my recent review of The Romance of Magno Rubio). I also noticed in the program that Finn himself invested in this production--always a good sign when the composer gives his seal of approval.

Falsettoland (which NAATCO originally produced in 1998) returns as part of the very first National Asian American Theater Festival (which runs through June 24), and I encourage you to get out and see some of this innovative work in action!

Pictured are Jason Ma, Christine Toy Johnson, Francis Jue, Mary Ann Hu, and Ann Sanders (Photo Credit: Bruce Johnson).

Taking It With Me

2007-06-15T09:41:00.001-04:00

Last night I moderated a post-show talkback at a performance of You Can’t Take It With You at T. Schreiber Studio. Peter Jensen has directed a charming and poignant rendition of this chestnut, which opened on Broadway in 1936 (winning a Nobel Prize in 1937) and was made into an Academy Award-winning major motion picture in 1938. It's also the offoffonline Pick of the Week.

Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman’s play is one of the most beloved in the American canon: Alice, the eldest daughter of a rather kooky family, falls in love with her straight-laced boss’s son, Tony. When the families meet, chaos ensues, and we watch the intriguing clash between people who do what they are supposed to do and people who do what they want to do (guess who’s happier?). The idea that “you can’t take it with you” resurfaces again and again in our culture—one of the simplest maxims to ingest, but one of the most difficult to effect.

The cast is remarkable for its size (19) and intergenerational demographic—the actors can range in age from teenaged to 80+, so it’s one of those plays where you might find yourself in many roles over the course of your (acting) lifetime.

It’s amazing to connect the dots across the show’s history: Kaufman and Hart, of course, were legendary men of the theater. Between them, they wrote The Man Who Came to Dinner, directed My Fair Lady and Camelot (both with Julie Andrews), and produced a dazzling array of ventures. (Just look them up on the Internet Broadway Database.) Henry Travers played Grandpa in the original stage version, and although Lionel Barrymore played the role in the film (directed by Frank Capra), Travers went on to work on another iconic Capra project: he played the gentle angel Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life. The play opened at the Booth Theatre on 45th Street; when I passed by on Friday, I noted that it is now home to The Year of Magical Thinking, which stars another legendary actress, Vanessa Redgrave (of the film version of Camelot. And the New York Times theater critic who covered the show in 1936, Brooks Atkinson, now has a Broadway theater in his name.

Enough factoids to convince you of the play’s venerable qualities?

The talk back was warm and lively—the performers were all eager to talk about their experiences working on the show, and the audience members who stayed were very effusive in their appreciation and enjoyment of the material. One gentleman told us that he was in town from Australia, where he was part of a reading of this play by a senior citizen’s group. “Timeless,” was how one contented woman described the play.

It’s obvious that there is something special about this particular ensemble of actors: a shared sense of purpose and an easy, generous camaraderie. They told me that playwright George S. Kaufman’s daughter Anne came to the show last week; rumor has it that she will only meet a cast if she is pleased with the particular production (she also holds final approval on where and when his plays can be revived). Although she skipped out on the actors in a recent notable London production, she insisted on making the acquaintance of the T. Schreiber cast, much to their elation.

It was so refreshing for me to sit down with theater people to talk about theater—as a critic, I so often see a show and go home to write in solitude, and it was wonderful to participate in a conversation about the art form, its potential, and its power. When a show can feel this fresh and pertinent after so many years, it certainly must possess some truths about human nature. It makes me wonder what will be revived in 2077 …

Pictured are Jacqueline van Biene (Alice), Peter Judd (Grandpa), and Andrew Gregor (Ed).

On the Nineteenth Century

2007-06-13T09:40:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I received an e-mail from Bob Rook, the director I worked with on the Midwest premiere of the musical Jekyll & Hyde, in which I played Emma. He wanted me to know that they have added new photos to the company's website, so here's a quick pictorial flashback: an anguished pose with my lovely friend Steven Rich in the tragic, duplicitous title role. You may have seen Steven performing around the country in the national tours of Cats or Miss Saigon. You certainly wouldn't forget his voice!

And speaking of the 19th century, here's a link to my review of Madame Bovary: A Musical, an adaptation of Flaubert's novel about the exploits of the quintessential desperate housewife.

It's Tony Time!

2007-06-12T15:14:00.000-04:00

Nope, not that one. Or that one.

The 61st Tony Awards were given out Sunday evening at Radio City Music Hall. It's one of my favorite occasions of the year. (Okay, full disclosure: I've been known to refer to it as "The Happiest Day of the Year.") I thought I'd single out a few of the more awe-inspiring (and surprising) moments:

1. Electric Esparza. Raul Esparza’s engrossing performance of “Being Alive” from Company. If ever a more convincing case was made for the award for Best Actor in a Musical, I have yet to see it. Esparza’s performance was taut, sensitive, and completely fearless. I’ve always loved the song (and I loved him in the show when I reviewed it), but the intensity of this particular performance transcended into its own emotional sphere. It left me in tears, and I was astonished when the Tony Award later went to Curtains’ David Hyde Pierce (as was the winner himself, judging by his expression). Don't get me wrong, Pierce's turn as a musical-loving detective was a marvel of wit and comic timing, but it simply wasn't as splashy or simmering as Esparza's masterwork. As that rare stage beast, the straight-acting leading man, Esparaza will certainly enjoy a long, rich career, but it was heartbreaking to see him overlooked in this role. Side note: The opportunity to watch an actor become so exposed and vulnerable (on national television) made a case for the theatrical potential of the TV set.

2. Spring Has Sprung. Little more than a year ago, I saw Spring Awakening Off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theater Company. During the first few songs, I realized that I was holding my breath. When something is THAT sensational right off the bat, you begin to worry about whether it can possibly last. The little-rock-musical-that-could certainly has its (miniscule) flaws, but I haven’t been this moved by a show in years. (That lighting! That choreography! Those chairs!) And now, with 8 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, this important show will undoubtedly have the chance to move many other theatergoers for years to come—and, reportedly, across international stages …

3. Repertory Revolution? The Coast of Utopia, Tom Stoppard’s intense(ly) intellectual chronicle of Russian thinkers in the 19th century, won a record number of Tonys for a play, and I’ve been reading everywhere about how the cast created its own sort of utopia over the year they were together: an actors’ paradise. The cast of 44 joined forces in three daunting plays (performed both separately and together in a handful of marathon performances) and truly defined the term ensemble. The cast members who didn't attend the ceremony were, allegedly, watching the Tony Awards from the “cast” bar, where they all planned to meet up afterwards. Making theater is by nature an ephemeral process—typically, you meet and grow close to other performers only to bid them farewell a few months, or even weeks, later—but in her acceptance speech for Best Featured Actress in a Play, Jennifer Ehle (of Utopia) proclaimed a wish to form a repertory company at Lincoln Center (where the trilogy was produced). What an exciting thing that would be, to see what would come of a company of actors united in craft and trust, incubated over time …

4. White Noise. In one of the more ecstatic (and surprising) moments of the evening, Julie White won the award for Best Actress in a Play for her acute, relentless performance as a take-no-prisoners Hollywood agent in Douglas Carter Beane’s modern sex comedy of manners, The Little Dog Laughed. A downtown veteran, White was ebullient—and completely flabbergasted—about her win.

5. Acrobatic Audra. In her bold and brassy performance of “Raunchy” (from 110 in the Shade), Tony nominee Audra McDonald kicked up her heels, for real—she turned her signature cartwheel into a semi aerial, momentarily pausing upside down with all limbs off the ground. This was McDonald’s sixth nomination (she’s already won four), and it seems like there is nothing she can’t do. For more Audra, here's my review of her exceptional work in 110 in the Shade.

Meet Me at the Chocolate Fountain

2007-06-07T21:56:00.000-04:00

Tonight was Volunteer Recognition Night at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center--the hospital where I volunteer on Tuesday nights.

The evening began with an inspiring program, in which three volunteers talked about their unique experiences at the hospital. The first woman started volunteering in 1978; she planned to stay "just for the summer" but couldn't bear to leave when the summer was over. The second speaker was a man who moved to New York to be an actor (familiar ...), but after gigs as, variously, a "singing hippopotamus" and a "dancing rhinosaurus," he decided to go back to med school. He completed his pre-med volunteer requirement, but he decided to stay on because he loves the patient interaction. He was followed by a young girl who talked about growing up (and attending school) a few blocks away from the hospital--she decided to be a nurse, and she hopes to work at MSKCC someday.

Then we headed out to a delicious dinner buffet, and the dessert was especially tantalizing: piles of cheesecake and pastries, which surrounded a Willy Wonka-esque chocolate fountain! We dipped fresh strawberries into the delicious brown stream. Had I known about that, I would have skipped dinner and headed straight to the dessert room.

Pictured is my wonderful friend Mariola (center), who trained me when I started volunteering almost a year ago. She was recognized for completing 150 hours of service, and she also recently trained Christina (right). Everyone I've met who is affiliated with the hospital radiates goodness and good cheer--it's an extraordinary place.

Men, Big and Small

2007-06-06T10:52:00.001-04:00

Check out my review of Ma-Yi Theater Company's arresting production of The Romance of Magno Rubio. It's actually a revival of an earlier award-winning production, and it contains some of the most innovative stagecraft and a few of the most haunting moments of any show I've seen this season. And it's all firmly anchored by Jojo Gonzalez (above left), who brings zest, grace, and gravitas to the title role.

Speaking of phenomenal leading performances, I was absolutely blown away by the emotional dexterity and dramatic strengths of Frank Langella and Michael Sheen, currently ruling the stage in the Broadway play Frost/Nixon. Langella plays Richard Nixon who, a few years after Watergate, underwent an intense series of interviews with British talk show host David Frost (the dynamic Sheen). The results make for completely mind-shattering theater, especially as rendered through Peter Morgan's taut storytelling. Rather than create a mere docudrama, Morgan (who also wrote the screenplay for "The Queen," another creative dip into recent history) takes us deeply, and rather uncomfortably, inside Nixon's insecurities, character, humor, and pathos. Langella's performance is so acute, so unflinching, so devastating ... I've never seen anything like it.

Ben Brantley wrote a captivating feature in the New York Times this week about the five Tony Award nominees for Best Leading Actor in a Play--a category which, in his estimation, hasn't been this competitive and teeming with talent for decades. Brantley makes this astute pronouncement on the skills of a truly accomplished actor: "Getting the bright externals of a character is easy for a good craftsman. It's the shadowy contradictions between outer and inner that distinguish craft from art."

I would add that it's within these "shadowy contradictions" that we find humanity in all its fallible glory--shimmering and often painful to behold. For me personally, it's the type of performance that makes me cry without quite knowing why. As much as Christine Ebersole's phenomenal Grey Gardens performance weirded me out (how, after all, are we to relate to this bizarre woman living in squalor with herds of cats?), the force of her performance's magical realism reeled me in and left me gasping for breath. A few years ago, Tonya Pinkins' triumphant turn in Caroline, or Change (in the stifling intimacy of the Public Theater, before it moved to Broadway) firmly gripped something inside me, and I had to sit for a few minutes in the lobby before I could walk to the subway (or talk coherently).

Which brings me back to Langella. Brought up to despise (and at least mistrust) this man who lied to his citizens, I was suddenly face to face with this desperate, pained, and sorrowful man. Feeling sorry for him. Who cries from watching Richard Nixon? It's a mystical, precious thing when theater can elicit these small miracles--paving the way to such revolutionary human understanding. If only we could all be brought that close to the dubious figures in our own lives ...

Simi in the City

2007-06-03T19:37:00.000-04:00

Andie hoping for her big break!

Khun, Rick, Simi, and Amy (Andie underneath table)

My fabulous friends Simi and Rick were in town today from Austin with their daughter Andie and their foreign exchange student Khun. He's here from Thailand, and they're in the midst of a Northeastern tour, traveling through Philadelphia, Virginia, DC, New Jersey, and NYC, of course. We had brunch at VYNL in Hell's Kitchen before they headed off to see The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Don and I caught a matinee of the outstanding, electrifying play Frost/Nixon--more to come on that.

Because It's June ...

2007-06-01T11:41:00.000-04:00

June is busting out all over, and so were the clouds on my flight from Nebraska back to New York a few days ago. I took these shots from the window of the plane, and I later had a stunning view of nighttime Manhattan as we flew up the Hudson. Dramatic sights, indeed!

Gone Wilde

2007-05-18T16:39:00.000-04:00

Wednesday night I saw friend Rob Urbinati's cheeky and clever new play West Moon Street, based on Oscar Wilde's "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime." Rob has deftly channeled Wilde's style in this comic mystery, in which young Arthur takes a fortune teller's prognostications much too seriously. The prediction? That Arthur--engaged to be married to Sybil--will commit a murder before he is married. Arthur immediately plans to complete his "duty" ASAP--even if it means postponing the wedding (much to his intended's dismay).

In typical Wilde-an form, this play deals in high-brow literary wit, frothy personalities, and mock-serious catastrophes. Under Davis McCallum's expert direction, the excellent cast turns in precise and crackling performances. I was particularly thrilled to see actor Glenn Peters earn huge and well-deserved laughs as Arthur's snappish aunt, Lady Clem. I reviewed Peters in last year's Murdering Marlowe (in which he played the churlish title role), and it was a treat to see him dressed as a woman and delivering comic barbs with verbal dexterity. Lady Clem is Queen of the Malapropism here, clumsily substituting "circumcise" for "circumspect."

The play (produced by the promising Prospect Theater Company) has received accolades from the press--even the Times, which essentially elevated Rob to uber-Wilde status. It will likely be published in the coming months and will hopefully find a happy, healthy life in regional theater.

Designer Naomi Wolff (not to be confused with the brilliant feminist writer) has created a veritable little girl's dream trunk full of gorgeous costumes. In particular, the dresses for Lady Windemere (played with starched venomous glee by Judith Hawking) are absolutely sensational--saturated with color and oozing with Wild-ean excess. I hope they are able to put them to good use after the play has closed! I'll be keeping an eye out at costume parties come October ...

My favorite line: "The world is a stage, and the play is badly cast."

German Fiesta

2007-05-15T17:05:00.000-04:00

I'm back in the mad city after a trip to Houston to watch my brother Jeff graduate from my alma mater, Rice University.

I watched plenty of high emotions on display in the sultry high temperatures, but I didn't see any actual theater in Texas. I do, however, have two new reviews up at Show Business Weekly this week:

American Fiesta is Austin-based Steven Tomlinson's funny and fact-filled solo show that chronicles his manic love for (read: obsession with) the multi-colored, go-with-everything dishes known as Fiestaware. I grew up eating off Fiestaware (not the overpriced antique originals, but the newer, shiner version), and it's easy to see how Tomlinson comes to fixate on the colorful, saturated hues. I still remember vying for certain colors at Thanksgiving dinner. Tomlinson smartly uses this obsession as a springboard for talking about the country's red- and blue-state divide. I made a side trip to Austin to visit my dear friend Simi (and family) over the weekend, and it is interesting to see, even geographically, how disparate the landscape is between New York City and the Texas countryside. At a Fiestaware convention, Tomlinson notes an overabundance of participants who are either young gay men or elderly Midwestern women. Fiestaware, it seems, could be a uniting force--not that he would allow us to draw any conclusions that easily ... this show is smart, witty, and challenging.

The Tony Award nominations came out this morning, and I was very disappointed that LoveMusik didn't make the list of nominees for Best New Musical. As you can tell by my review, I was enraptured with the unique artistry and dedicated courage of this production. Plenty of critics and audience members have dismissed the show as a bore, but to me, it was as intellectually intriguing and stimulating as theater can get. Slow-moving and deliberately paced? Yes. Razor-sharp and emotionally fulfilling? Yes, but only if you're willing to invest your heart and mind (and a bit of patience that pays off fully in the end).

Thankfully, Michael Cerveris and Donna Murphy were both nominated for their marvelous, unforgettable characterizations of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, and the splendid David Pittu scored a nomination for his dynamic turn as playwright Bertolt Brecht. When I saw LoveMusik, I thought, "If only there were more shows like this."

I was thrilled to see Spring Awakening, another challenging (and German-derived) show (and probably my favorite of the season), rack up a slew of nominations, too. That cast is dynamite, and mark my words, they will rock out on the Tony telecast!

Oui, Oui, Monsieur

2007-05-09T14:54:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I reviewed my first film, a lovely collage of shorts called Paris, je t'aime. It was great fun to analyze film (also a very theatrical medium). Here's a link to my review, which appears in this week's issue of Show Business Weekly.

A handful of reviews from my drama-ful week are now up at offoffonline:

Mother Load: Amy Wilson's fierce solo show on the trials of modern motherhood.

A New Brain: The Astoria Performing Arts Center impassioned revival of William Finn's playful, intimate musical. This is one of my favorite shows, and the production does not disappoint--I may very well head back for another visit!

Victor/Victoria: The latest offering from Brooklyn's Gallery Players--a gender-bending musical comedy set in 1930s Paris.

Brains, Brecht, and Brooklyn

2007-05-04T15:19:00.000-04:00

I'm set to review a handful of musicals this weekend:

Tonight is a revival of William Finn's funny and fantastical musical A New Brain, presented by the Astoria Performing Arts Center. They're producing the show at the Variety Boys & Girls Club in Astoria, and it's definitely a treat to be able to walk from my apartment to a theater! I reviewed APAC's very well-done production of Picasso at the Lapin Agile last fall, and their production of Forever Plaid nabbed some IT Award nominations last year. This is a company to watch, and it's exciting to have a theater group on my home turf.

Tomorrow I have a Broadway double feature, and I feel incredibly spoiled! First up is the Manhattan Theatre Club's LoveMusik, a new musical about the tempestuous romance of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, embodied by Broadway stars Michael Cerveris and Donna Murphy. Click here for a fascinating interview with the show's director, the legendary Harold Prince.

Then I head to Studio 54 for the Roundabout's revival of 110 in the Shade, starring the magnificent Audra McDonald, who took home 4 Tony Awards before she turned 30. It's been a while since she's been on Broadway, and this should be a thrilling (and damp) homecoming. Also featured in the cast is Christopher Innvar, who played Floyd in the original cast of Off-Broadway's Floyd Collins.

Sunday I head out to Brooklyn to review the Gallery Players' revival of Victor/Victoria, a musical about which I know very little, other than the fact that Julie Andrews once played the famously gender-ambiguous title role.

Such a wide range of characters, music, and subject matter!

Mommy Mayhem

2007-05-03T09:52:00.000-04:00

Last night I saw Amy Wilson's excellent one-woman show Mother Load, a tough and touching look at contemporary motherhood. Wilson is an exemplary writer and fierce performer, and she and friend/director Julie Kramer have created a lively and incisive piece of theater.

Last week I had the chance to speak with these warm and witty women; take a look at my preview article to get the inside scoop: "Strollers, Sanctimommies, and Self-Control: Amy Wilson Takes on a Mother Load." My review of the show will appear on offoffonline next week.

Summer Acting Programs to the Rescue!

2007-05-02T16:32:00.000-04:00

My latest feature--on summer acting programs--appears in this week's edition of Show Business Weekly. Featured programs include the Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Atlantic Acting School, the Neighborhood Playhouse, the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, Tisch School of the Arts, and Five Towns College.

To read it online, click here. I especially like the "Baywatch"-esque photo they tucked in there. [Disclaimer: Sometimes the formatting gets a little jumbled in the online version, so try to overlook any textual oddities.]

Cookies and Karenina

2007-05-02T13:07:00.000-04:00

May arrived in the midst of a (typically) theater-heavy week. In a lovely turn of events, I attended the first two shows this week as an observer, not a critic. It’s always nice to watch a production without clutching a pen, although I often find myself taking mental notes.

First off, on Sunday afternoon I saw Neal Zupancic’s new play The Tragedy of John (produced by Theatre of the Expendable, at the Studio Theatre at Theatre Row), featuring my multi-talented pal Nathan Brisby.

As I entered the theater, the actor playing John (the excellent and inert Liam Joynt) was firmly entrenched on one end of a couch—comfortably slouched, gnawing on Cheetos, staring at the TV, and pretty much defining the term “couch potato.”

It was a nice, emblematic touch by director Corinne Neal for indeed, it seems that John’s central downfall is his inability to both physically move or to develop real, meaningful relationships. Although his friend Amy (who has taken refuge in his apartment after a devastating and abusive marriage) attempts to draw him out, he stays mum about the unspoken tragedy (two years earlier) that reduced him to this state.

When his friend Steve (my friend Nathan) arrives for an evening of guy movies (Blood Sport is on tap), he brings along Julia, the new girl he is dating. Julia, he tells John, might very well be “the one,” although it is clear from her arrival that there are more promising sparks between her and John than her and the rather oblivious Steve. Let’s just say that Julia eventually finds her own persuasive method for getting John off the couch.

The Tragedy of John is a living room drama and, at times, rather intriguing in its exploration of contemporary relationships—most of all, the myriad ways that truths are told, secrets are disclosed, and information is meted out between people. Cookies appear in various forms (baked by various people; thrown by—and at—various people) and they are an apt (and edible) metaphor for this often catastrophic series of conversations.

This all sounds a bit sitcom-esque, and the play does get off to a rather patchy and episodic beginning. Many of the opening scenes barely got moving before the lights went to blackout, drenching the stage in darkness and depriving the audience of getting into the rhythm of the material. It wasn’t until much later (in a 90-minute production) that I began to feel connected to the piece.

I always wonder if this tendency to write clipped scenes is a result of our attention-deficit MTV generation; I also began to think about the punctuation of theater. Much depends on how (and when) a playwright chooses to end a scene. True, when I saw the play I was also finishing up Lynne Truss’s witty and educational punctuation book Eats, Shoots & Leaves, so I did have semicolons on the brain more than I usually do. But for whatever reason, during the first five or six rapid blackouts, I cocked my head to the side in confusion. This play—and these performances—deserve a finer-tuned (and punctuated) narrative.

Nathan told me that Zupancic wrote the play after overhearing a comment about a “lazy face.” Apparently, the indolent person in question couldn’t even be bothered to form his face into the appropriate expression. If anything, The Tragedy of John examines the perils of inaction—and betraying your friends, and generally being a lazy sack of a person. Which is not a bad thing to preach against, when you think about. I just wasn’t quite sure what it was rooting for.

As many of you know, it’s always thrilling to watch a friend perform. If you’ve heard Nathan sing, you can testify to his stunning vocal prowess, and I relished the opportunity to watch him in more dramatic (and non-singing) mode. Pay attention to those performers who are both good singers and good actors—there’s a deft musicality that informs their work, even when they don’t sing a note. Nathan turned that on as he channeled explosive anger in a vicious argument—so much so that I couldn’t even giggle when he ran into the wall as he stormed out.

Monday night Don and I went to see Ten, a play reading at the Public Theater produced by Second Generation (2g) in celebration of its tenth anniversary season. The staged reading featured ten (get the theme?) short plays by Asian American playwrights and performed, for the most part, by Asian American actors.

It was a mixed bag of an evening, writing- and acting-wise, but we both enjoyed Carla Ching’s The Further Adventures of the Little Goth Girl, which chronicled the coming-of-age of a young girl taught to fear strangers by her overbearing Chinese mother. Our friend Qui Nguyen (of the ribald Vampire Cowboys Theatre Company) contributed a hilarious exploration of Asian Accents in the Key of Sucky Sucky. In his typically irreverent and entertaining style, he constructed a newscast that reported on the death of “pidgin English” among the younger generations of Asian Americans.

A few reading recommendations:

On Monday I had the opportunity to hear Michael Lindsay (Professor of Sociology at Rice University, my alma mater) talk about his new book, which Oxford University Press will be publishing this fall. Faith in the Halls of Power investigates how evangelicals have moved into high-powered positions in business, politics, and Hollywood. Lindsay interviewed 360 people (from Jimmy Carter to Kathie Lee Gifford) about their faith and how it figures into their careers. It sounds like an intriguing book, and Lindsay was an incredibly engaging and lively speaker. I especially enjoyed his story about a CEO in the Houston oil industry who invited him to lunch at the Four Seasons and then expected Lindsay to pick up the check. When you make millions of dollars, it seems that your sense of entitlement can trap you—faith or no faith—into thinking graduate students make more than their $12,000/year stipend. After paying for the $160 lunch, Lindsay reported months of subsisting on peanut butter and jelly.

On Tuesday nights I volunteer at a local cancer hospital where I visit patients to give them some much-needed distraction. Last night I spoke with a delightful woman who had just begun to reread Anna Karenina. She told me that she was eager to see how she would experience it now, with more maturity in hand. (“As a teenager, I read it as a romance,” she confided.) I replied that we could probably read anything romantically as teenagers. But it is fascinating to consider how our experiences of books change as we change. Food for thought. In any case, I’m putting Anna Karenina on my “to read” list.

Of Mice and Manhattan

2007-04-30T13:03:00.000-04:00

When I told a colleague at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln that I planned to move to New York after finishing my master’s degree, his eyes lit up.

“New York City is like Disneyland!” he pronounced.

Almost three years on, I have discovered that, in many respects, the comparison holds true. There are moments when I sense that my Midwest-raised frame has been superimposed against this dense, dirty, and often glittering urban landscape: I walk past the Empire State Building every morning on my way to work; I spot celebrities walking their dogs over my lunch break; and next week I’m reviewing two Broadway shows. Pinch me, I’m actually here.

Like Disney (and its related amusement parks, animated films, and Broadway shows), New York is committed to heightening our sense of reality to an almost alarming degree: everything must be bigger, quicker, and brighter. Just a glimpse of Times Square is all you need to know that, yes, sometimes there can be a tad too much color and a smidge too much noise.

I’m happy to say that I have been reviewing and writing about New York theater for over two years, and now, at long last, I’m staking a claim on the cyber-expanse of the blogosphere.

I coined “In the Land of Make Believe” in part to reference the Disneyfication of the city (and theater itself, as the Mouse continues to usurp real estate on Broadway), but also to conjure up the immense power of imagination that informs much of the theater that I observe and review (and have performed in, for that matter).

Much of the city’s electricity, I believe, fizzes around 8:00 p.m. when, on most evenings, curtains rise and shows commence in a plethora of theatrical spaces—both large and small. Just imagine it. Stories unfolding, tragedy befalling, laughter exploding, applause thundering … all live and in person.

That theater requires a certain suspension of disbelief from its audience is undeniable, but most of the time we are all too aware that this “reality” has been manufactured for our consumption.

And yet, I continue to believe in the power of theater, the power of this city, and the power of “make believe” to trump its own artifice. I live for the rare, but dazzling, epiphanies of great truth and revelation. We’ve all had them: the “A-ha!” moment when a script twists unexpectedly to create a sharp take on reality; the actor whose unaffected portrayal of a character brings us frighteningly close to humanity (and ourselves); the musical phrase that unveils a sliver of authentic romance; the random gesture of kindness on the subway that can briefly restore your faith in the world.

So to best reflect and examine these moments of truth when and wherein I discover them, I plan to write both about theater and, well, the theater of life.

Perhaps I do live in a sort of Disneyland. But it’s a fantasy world born of immense possibilities, and I continue to return to the theater—and hit the city’s streets each day—eager to separate the Mouse from the myth.