Wendy R. Williams' Theatre Column

August 28, 2011

fringenyc.org

FringeNYC 2011 Announces Overall Excellence Award Winners

Winners of the 2011 FringeNYC Overall Excellence Awards, as selected by an independent panel of nearly 50 theater professionals, are as follows:

Overall Production/Play:

PigPen Presents The Mountain Song

The More Loving One

Overall Production/Musical:

Yeast Nation

Pearl's Gone Blue
 
Performance:

Jennifer Barnhart (The Legend of Julie Taymor,or The Musical That Killed Everybody!)

Ryan Barry (In the Summer Pavilion)

Miles Cooper (Elysian Fields)

Patrick Byas (Sammy Gets Mugged)

Casey McClellan (My Name Is Billy)

Brian Charles Rooney (Winner Takes All)

Lauren Hennessy (Ampersand: A R&J Love Story)

 
Playwriting:

Nicholas Billon (Greenland)

A.D. Penedo (The Three Times She Knocked)

Dennis Flanagan (Bella and the Pool Boy)

Music Composition:

Chris Rael (Araby)

Dusty Brown (The Ballad of  Rusty and Roy)
 
Ensemble:

Jersey Shoresical

The Bardy Bunch: The War of the Families Partridge and Brady Stimulated!

Crawling with Monsters

Costume Design:

Stephanie Alexander (Le Gourmand, or Gluttony!)

Mark Richard Caswell (Parker and Dizzy’s Fabulous Journey to the End of the Rainbow)

Tara DeVincenzo (Technodulia Dot Com)

Directing:

Greg Foro (Hamlet)

Joshua Kahan Brody (Fourteen Flights)

Alaska Reece Vance (The Disorientation of Butterflies)

Solo Performance:

Donna/Madonna

The Day the Sky Turned Black

Be Careful! The Sharks Will Eat You!

Paper Cut

Heroes and Other Strangers

Dance:

Wallstories

When the Sky Breaks 3D

Video Design:

Cinty Ionescu (Nils' Fucked Up Day)

TheaterMania Audience Favorite Award:

COBU - Dance like Drumming, Drum like Dancing.

In 1997, New York City became the seventh US city to host a fringe festival, joining Seattle, Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Houston, Orlando and San Francisco. In its first 15 years FringeNYC has presented over 2500 performing groups from the U.K., Canada, Poland, Ireland, Japan, Singapore, Germany, the Czech Republic and across the U.S., prompting Switzerland’s national daily, The New Zurich Zeitung, to declare, “FringeNYC has become the premiere meeting ground for alternative artists.” The festival has also been the launching pad for numerous Off-Broadway and Broadway transfers, long-running downtown hits, and regional theater productions including Urinetown, Matt & Ben, Never Swim Alone, Debbie Does Dallas, Dog Sees God, 21 Dog Years, Krapp 39, Dixie’s Tupperware Party, Silence! The Musical, The Irish Curse, 666, Tales from the Tunnel and Abraham Lincoln’s Big Gay Dance Party and as well as movies (WTC View) and even a TV show (‘da Kink in My Hair). FringeNYC is a production of The Present Company, under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Elena K. Holy.

The 16th Annual New York International Fringe Festival will run August 10 - 26, 2012 and will once again feature nearly 200 of the worlds best emerging theater and dance artists. Applications for the 2012 festival will be available online in November; completed applications are due February 14, 2012. For more information visit www.FringeNYC.org

June 10, 2011

Arian Moayed, Andrew Rannells, Lily Rabe, Rory O'Malley, Nikki M. James,
Joshua Henry, Patina Miller, Colman Domingo, Judith Light and Forrest McClendon
Photo Credit: Laurence Agron / PR Photos

On June 8, 2011 the 2011 Tony Award Nominees visited the Empire State Building in New York City. The Tony Awards take place on Sunday, June 12th at 8PM. The Award Show will take place at New York's Beacon Theater and will be broadcast on CBS. Click here for more information

March 26, 2011

I was privileged to attend the Martha Graham 85th Anniversary Season Gala Performance on March 15, 2011 at the Frederick P. Rose Hall (home of Jazz at Lincoln Center).

The company, under the artistic direction of Janet Eilber, presented two performance pieces: Robert Wilson's 1995 Snow on the Mesa and the Martha Graham choreographed Maple Leaf Rag.

Wilson's Snow on the Mesa evokes the mood of a live surrealist painting. Wilson's staging is slow and ethereal, the black clad dancers barely moving across the floor. Wilson's choreograph is all about what is not there - the open spaces and the stillness.

Snow on the Mesa has two parts and by the second part the dancers were had ceased slow movement and were dancing, their movements increasing the visual splendor of the piece as whole. One testament to the power of the earlier parts of Mesa is the fact that in the second half of the piece, the dancers, both men and women, were topless. But by then the audience was so thoroughly enthralled that this costuming choice did not even engender a whisper.

Wilson's work needs to be seen not described, so I am going to defer to the power of the photographs below (supplied by the Martha Graham Dance Company).

For more New York Cool coverage of Robert Wilson, click on these links:

http://www.newyorkcool.com/archives/2006/November/interview-robert-wilson.html

http://www.newyorkcool.com/archives/2007/February/arts-robertwilson.htm

Martha Graham Company in Robert Wilson's Snow on the Mesa
Photo Courtesy of Martha Graham Dance Company

Martha Graham Company in Robert Wilson's Snow on the Mesa
Photo Courtesy of Martha Graham Dance Company

Martha Graham Company in Robert Wilson's Snow on the Mesa
Photo Courtesy of Martha Graham Dance Company

Martha Graham Company in Robert Wilson's Snow on the Mesa
Photo Courtesy of Martha Graham Dance Company

Martha Graham Company in Robert Wilson's Snow on the Mesa
Photo Courtesy of Martha Graham Dance Company

Martha Graham Company in Robert Wilson's Snow on the Mesa
Photo Courtesy of Martha Graham Dance Company

Martha Graham Company in Robert Wilson's Snow on the Mesa
Photo Courtesy of Martha Graham Dance Company

Martha Graham Company in Robert Wilson's Snow on the Mesa
Photo Courtesy of Martha Graham Dance Company

Martha Graham Company in Robert Wilson's Snow on the Mesa
Photo Courtesy of Martha Graham Dance Company

Martha Graham Company in Robert Wilson's Snow on the Mesa
Photo Courtesy of Martha Graham Dance Company

Next, the Maple Leaf Rag: The Graham choreographed Maple Leaf Rag was a fun follow to the surreal Wilson piece. Graham's choreography was a witty, upbeat, free-spited homage to Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag. The mood was more in the spirit of Graham's Appalachian Spring then the edgier politically motivated performances of American Document and Dance Is a Weapon of June 2010.

The dancers were obviously having a blast performing this lighthearted piece and the audience echoed their enjoyment.

Marth Graham Company in Maple Leaf Rag
Photo Courtesy of Martha Graham Dance Company

Marth Graham Company in Maple Leaf Rag
Photo Courtesy of Martha Graham Dance Company

March 11, 2011

Jim Gaffigan, Chris Noth, Brian Cox, Jason Patric, Kiefer Sutherland
That Championship Season Broadway Opening Night Afterparty
Gotham Hall / New York City
March 6, 2011
Photo Credit: Janet Mayer/PR Photos

Here is some information about the show:

That Championionship Season
Tuesday 7:00pm
Wednesday 2:00pm & 8:00pm
Thursday 8:00pm
Friday 8:00pm
Saturday 2:00pm & 8:00pm
Sunday 3:00pm
Previews Start February 9, 2011
Show Opens March 6, 2011
Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre

On the anniversary of their victory in the Pennsylvania state championship game, four members of the starting lineup of a small-town Catholic high school basketball team gather with their coach to re-live their youthful glory. As the night progresses, the long buried grudges and secrets of the once-confident players surface, threatening not just their solidarity, but the meaning of their victory. With savage humor, That Championship Season probes the darkest aspects of the American dream of success at all costs. In his original review of the play in the New York Times, Clive Barnes wrote, "Wow! This is precisely the kind of relevant and hard-hitting play that Broadway should be doing if it has any chance of survival. That Championship Season is Broadway theatre at its finest."

Ticket Price: $61.50 - $129.00 Tickets by Phone: 212-239-6200
800-432-7250 telecharge.com
thatchampionshipseason.com

Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre | 242 West 45th Street
New York, NY 10036

February 3, 2011

Steven Pasquale, Laura Benanti,
Bebe Neuwirth and Cheyenne Jackson
2011 Manhattan Theatre Club
"An Intimate Night" Winter Benefit
The Plaza Hotel, Fifth Avenue and Central Park South
January 24, 2011
Photo Credit: Charles Norfleet / PR Photos

For more informatino about the Manhattan Theatre Club Winter Benefit, log on here.

January 17, 2011

Jim Gaffigan, Chris Noth, Brian Cox, Kiefer Sutherland and Jason Patric
Photo Credit: Sylvain Gaboury / PR Photos

The Cast of That Championship Season had a press photo call on January 13, 2011 at Sardi's, 234 West 44th Street. The play begins previews on February 9th and Opens March 6th.

Here is some information about the show:

That Championionship Season
Tuesday 7:00pm
Wednesday 2:00pm & 8:00pm
Thursday 8:00pm
Friday 8:00pm
Saturday 2:00pm & 8:00pm
Sunday 3:00pm
Previews Start February 9, 2011
Show Opens March 6, 2011
Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre

On the anniversary of their victory in the Pennsylvania state championship game, four members of the starting lineup of a small-town Catholic high school basketball team gather with their coach to re-live their youthful glory. As the night progresses, the long buried grudges and secrets of the once-confident players surface, threatening not just their solidarity, but the meaning of their victory. With savage humor, That Championship Season probes the darkest aspects of the American dream of success at all costs. In his original review of the play in the New York Times, Clive Barnes wrote, "Wow! This is precisely the kind of relevant and hard-hitting play that Broadway should be doing if it has any chance of survival. That Championship Season is Broadway theatre at its finest."

Ticket Price: $61.50 - $129.00 Tickets by Phone: 212-239-6200
800-432-7250 telecharge.com
thatchampionshipseason.com

Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre | 242 West 45th Street
New York, NY 10036

December 6, 2010

There have been some quick opening/closings in New York City's theater world.

Andy Halliday and Everett Quinton in Devil Boys From Beyond

Buddy Thomas and Kenneth Elliott's comedy Devil Boys From Beyond concluded its Off-Broadway run at New World Stages on Saturday, December 4, 2010. The play opened November 13th and was supposed to run until December 30th. Devil Boys was a breakout hit at the 2009 New York International Fringe Festival. I saw the play on the last weekend and it was a campy fun piece of drag queen shtick about some New York journalists who try to scoop each other with a story about space aliens in 1957 Florida. I know, I know, what's so amazing about space aliens in Florida? But the show was a hoot anyway.

Richard Easton, Denis O'Hare, Brendan Fraser,
Jennifer Coolidge and Jeremy Shamos
Elling" Broadway Opening Night - Curtain Call
The Ethel Barrymore Theater
November 21, 2010
Photo Credit: Christopher Smith / PR Photos

Elling opened on Broadway on November 21, 2010 and quickly closed on November 28, 2010 having run for only nine performances and twenty-two previews. It had been scheduled to run until March 20, 2010. It certainly is hard to launch a non-musical play, even one with the luck to have Denis O'Hare and Brenden Fraser onboard.

If you are in a theater-going mood, move quickly to see these shows which are closing in January:

Closing January 2, 2011:

Brief Encounter
Elf
The Pee-wee Herman Show
Promises, Promises
West Side Story
Fela!
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson - January 2, 2010

Closing January 9, 2011:

Free Man of Color
The Merchant of Venice
In the Heights
A Little Night Music
La Bete
Rain - A Tribute to The Beatles

Closing January 16, 2011:

Next to Normal

Closing January 23, 2011:

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

Closing January 29, 2011:

Driving Miss Daisy

August 9, 2010

I saw a really fun play last weekend, The Flying Karamazov Brothers in 4PLAY at the Minetta Lane Theatre. 4PLAY has a multi-talented cast: Paul Magid, Mark Ettinger, Rod Kimball and Stephen Bent. These master vaudevillians juggle, mime, mug, sing, dance (ballet) and juggle till the cows come home. The performers have great chemistry and play off each other with the joy and skill that comes when a cast has spent years together.

The play officially opens for an open run on Tuesday, August 20, 2010.

Here is a quote from their press release: "The audience is invited to bring objects to the theater for the Karamazovs to keep airborne in a real challenge that ends either with a pie in the face or a standing ovation, making each show a unique experience and sometimes a messy one. This exuberant and hilarious off-Broadway event is full of charming, fast-paced virtuosity and fun as the four brothers, master practitioners of cheap theatrics, juggle ‘til they drop. Their method combines skills of considerable breadth and depth in a work that is kaleidoscopic, passionate and not one bit silly (ok, maybe a little). The objects, the musical instruments (traditional and invented), and their own bodies combine to make a fresh and compelling evening. This show is made for everyone—kids, adults, students, tourists, theatre goers, the theatre wary, pseudo-intellectuals, dopes, geeks, the upper and lower crust, and even politicians."

Tickets are $20.00 - $65.00 - 800-982-2787 and http://www.fkb.com. The Menetta Lane Theatre is located at 18 Minetta Lane, between Sixth Avenue and MacDougal Street.

July 24, 2010

I saw one play this month, Montserrat Mendez's Billy Carver and the Children in Mind.

Here is a quote from the press release for the play: Billy Carver is about a woman who has written a series of successful books about a teenage werewolf named Billy Carver. A la JK Rowling and Harry Potter. After she receives a terrible review for the latest installment of the series, she debates killing off the character. This sends the people she loves, who are also sort of on her payroll, into crisis. Comedy, gunshots and a pile of cars in her backyard pool ensue."

Aimee Whelan, Armistead Johnson, Monroe Robertson, Jenny D Green, Nathan Willis,
Stuart Williams, Lauren Roth in Billy Carver and the Children in Mind

The play has an interesting background. Mendez had been slated to direct Alan Ayckbourn's A Woman in Mind, but at the last minute, the rights were taken away by Ayckbourn's agent. Mendez had a weekend to write the play and write the play he did. The play was developed during rehearsal with the help of his talented cast: Aimee Whelan, Armistead Johnson, Monroe Robertson, Jenny D Green, Nathan Willis, Stuart Williams and Lauren Roth. Necessity was the mother of an amazing creative invention.

The cast did a great job, both helping to develop and performing in the play. Armistead Johnson plays Christopher Barrett, a dim-witted star soccer player, who has taken up the playwright Joanie (played by Jenny D. Green). Armistead did a great job playing a jock's jock stirred-but-not-shaken with a twist of deviousness.

Jenny D. Green grounds the play with her performance as Joanie. She has two admirable foils in her character's naive sister Aimee (played by Aimee Nolan) and her boozy-friend-ex-sorta-lesbian-lover PMS (played by Lauren Roth), who does a great Liza-Minelli-in-Arthur interpretation of her character.

Maurice Robertson is memorable as Rick, a hapless fan. Nathan Willis play William Harris, Joanie' unfaithful and cuckolded husband. Rounding out the cast is Stuart Williams's boozy but sharp performance as Tristan, the personal assistant.

The play's first review was extremely positive. Martin Denton called it the "the most lavish and beautifully realized" production he had ever seen at Manhattan Theatre Source.

Mendez's play script is a witty ditty, filled with double entendres about British theater (the writer in the play is British): Virginia Wolf, Alan Ayckbourn, and J. K. Rowling are all taken out for a run. There are myriad plays on the word diaphanous. Also, and again according to the press release, the play has "one scene where one of the characters says, "Stop the presses", "You'll never work in this town again" and "follow that car" all in one monologue."

The writer/director and actors were obviously having a blast "birthing" this creation. Bravo to all marathoners!

Jenny D Green and Armistead Johnson in
Billy Carver and the Children in Mind

Mendez is currently working on the pilot for a sitcom, Polltakers. Early this summer, Polltakers had a backers audition and received an extremely positive response.

Lauren Rot and Aimee Whelan in
Billy Carver and the Children in Mind

June 14, 2010

Scarlett Johansson Photo Credit: Sylvain Gaboury / PR Photos	Catherine Zeta Jones Photo Credit: Sylvain Gaboury / PR Photos

Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Douglas Hodge
Photo Credit: Sylvain Gaboury / PR Photos

The Tony Awards were held on June 13, 2010 at Radio City Music Hall. Scarlett Johansson won Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play for her performance in A View from the Bridge. Catherine Zeta Jones won Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical for her performance in A Little Night Music. Denzel Washington and Viola Davis won Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play and Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play respectively for their performances in Fences. Douglas Hodge won Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical for his work in La Cage aux Folles.

Red won the Tony for Best Play. Memphis won for Best Musical. Fences won for Best Revivial of a Play and La Cage aux Folles won for Best Revival of a Musical.

Click here for a complete list of winners.

June 1, 2010

Last month I saw three really excellent plays: Behanding in Spokane, Chicago and Hair. All of these plays have been open for a while, some for quite a while, but all are definitely worth seeing.

Christopher Walken in Behanding in Spokane

First Behanding: I have loved all of Martin McDonough's plays. His The Pillowman (see review) and The Lieutenant of Inishmore (see review) were both extraordinary. Behanding, directed by John Crowley, is McDonough's first American based play and unfortunately this production falls a little flat. McDonough's insanely bizarre sense of humor is still in place - a man is looking for his missing hand - but the flavors in this production's stew don't quite blend.

Christopher Walken, playing Captain Ahab with a missing hand, is extraordinary; his sense of comic timing is superb. Sam Rockwall does a good job of playing the nosy hotel clerk, but Anthony Mackie and Zoe Kazan's portrayals of the two hapless con artists are so irritating, I found it hard to sympathize with their plight (they most definitely picked the wrong "mark").

Having said that, the play is worth seeing simply to watch Walken take his acting chops out for a spin (sit close to the stage). And if you want to see it, move quickly. The show closes on June 6th.

Tickets $61.50-$116.50 212-239-6200 & 800-432-7250
www.telecharge.com

abehandinginspokane.com

Schoenfeld Theatre |236 West 45th Street

Second Chicago: Chicago has been playing on Broadway since 1996 when it opened as a revival (the original show opened in 1975). The shows still sparkles and the dancing is as "on the mark" as ever. The original 1975 show was choreographed by Bob Fosse and his influence is still evident in the choreography today. The dancing is the star of this show and the dancers were physically gorgeous and a joy to watch.

So how has Chicago aged? Very well indeed with one caveat. The roles of Roxie Hart (played by Ruthie Henshall) and Velma Kelly (played by Terra C. MacLeod) were played with skill and sass. Both of these women have great pipes and are incredible dancers. They are also veteran Broadway actresses and both have had years of experience playing roles in Chicago and it definitely show.

But Broadway shows live and die by group sales and group sales can be pumped up by adding a star name to the cast. Chicago has cast TV stars like Ashley Simpson to play Roxie Hart in past performances (yes, you read that right - Ashley Simpson!). And that must have been the reason they cast Matthew Settle as Billy Flynn. I had never heard of Matthew Settle before I saw the show, but according to his program bio, he has played roles in TV shows like Gossip Girl, Into the West and Band of Brothers. This is a fairly impressive resume (especially the last two Steven Spielberg projects), but Gossip Girl fame or not, Settle is a man who has no business starring in a Broadway musical. Henshall and MacLeod simply blew him off the stage. Settle came off as an actor who was "phoning it in" or "walking through his light cues." Settle also did not fare well when mentally compared to the excellent performance of Richard Gere in the film version of Chicago. But did he make the play unwatchable? Absolutely not. The charm is still there, baby.

Also of note was the excellent performance of Raymond Bokhour as Amos Hart. His execution of the song "Invisible Man" was both heart breaking and funny.

Tickets$58.75- $111.25 212-239-6200 or 800-432-7250 telecharge.com

http://www.chicagothemusical.com/

Ambassador Theatre | 219 West 49th Street

Third Hair: I saw the original version of Hair and also the 1977 Broadway revival. Hair is now advertised as Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical.

So how has Hair aged? Very well with a few caveats. The score is still wonderful and Diane Paulus' direction is spot on. The cast is very enthusiastic and in the performance I saw, they gave it all.

So what has changed? The world. In 1967 and still in 1977, Hair was a radical indictment of a closed society and the Vietnam war. With its themes of free love, drugs and interracial coupling, it was truly "out there." Well, not so much now. "Free love" is now called dating. Drugs get you thrown in rehab and no right thinking person considers race when choosing their friends or partners or if they do, they know better than to talk about it in public.

So the show is a bit of a museum piece, but a museum piece that is beloved by the audience who leapt to their feet with a standing ovation and then flooded the stage to sing and dance with the cast in a rousing edition of "Let The Sunshine In." The shock value may have faded, but the love is still alive.

Tickets $37.00 - $122.00; $252.00 Premium 212-239-6200 800-432-7250 telecharge.com
hairbroadway.com

Al Hirschfeld Theatre|302 West 45th Street