Another Hundred People: Lola in Kinky Boots (Black History Month)

Row 1: Alan Mingo Jr./Arun Blair-Mangat/Billy Porter/Blaine Alden Krauss/Callum Francis Row 2: Craig Thomas/Darius Harper/E. Clayton Cornelius/Eric LaJuan Summers/Euan Doidge Row 3: J. Harrison Ghee/Jemal Felix/Jos N. Banks/Joseph Anthony Byrd/Kyle Taylor Parker Row 4: Matt Henry/Momar Diagne/Nick Rashad Burroughs/Simon-Anthony Rhoden Row 5: Stephane Duret/Timothy Ware/Todrick Hall/Wayne Brady

Not Pictured: Kevin Smith Kirkwood/Robert Zeyala/Stewart Adam McKensy

Photos from the end of Killian’s run in Kinky Boots on Broadway and his goodbye, with cast members Taylor Louderman, Shannon O’Boyle, Eric LaJuan Summers, Blair Goldberg, and Associate Director D.B. Bonds.

ericlajuan: #stagedoor at @kinkybootsbway with @brendonurie #wow #rockstar #broadway #love #panicatthedisco

Though Eric LaJuan Summers was not a recipient of the American Theatre Wing’s Tony Award he spent fifteen (15) years as a beloved and well respected member of the Broadway community. Mr. Summers was an Original Broadway Cast Member for two (2) Broadway companies, (The Wedding Singer and Motown The Musical), both of which performed on the 60th and the 67th Years of the American Theatre Wing’s Tony Awards, as well as being a member of four (4) other Broadway companies as a replacement member.

2. While we completely understand that there are specific criterion for which inclusion in this part of the telecast is necessary, the contributions of someone like Eric LaJuan Summer’s as a performer and member of this community has been astronomical. His reach as an inspiration for his fellow actors to continue to improve on their craft and to continue to strive for excellence within themselves. It is our belief that had his life not been cut so tragically short due to his two year battle with cancer, his trajectory would have allowed him to be counted among those who bare the title “Tony Nominee” and “Tony Award Winner.” Furthermore, he would have continued to inspire young men and women of color to achieve what he had.

Is it possible for you to share some Kinky Boots audios with different Lolas? !

I can do that :)Billy Porter - http://www.mediafire.com/file/3nm9rnagxh82di0/Kinky+Boots+-+10.26.12+%28Chicago%29.zipKevin Smith Kirkwood - http://www.mediafire.com/file/kbkkncbrbdg8czu/Kinky+Boots+%28Kevin+Smith+Kirkwood%29.zipKyle Taylor Parker - http://www.mediafire.com/download/94femn8mminqmoq/kb63014.zipMatt Henry - http://www.mediafire.com/file/iw36tbglnw9s6vi/Kinky+Boots+-+4.9.15+%28West+End%29.zipWayne Brady - Act 1 - https://mega.nz/#!0MhBlToa!rtn0nPG7eqKtYpCHvq1w0SqPM26WZe9SiTlF5jy5tvYAct 2 - https://mega.nz/#!lNxEgQAa!qXi2Q3ON9dr6qpPDvRNn0HLvT1B7x8x0YvQLzy9MIi4Todrick Hall - https://mega.nz/#F!tuYEWDiA!QD2JnDdJoiVd2hr6dNHkvgInfo for Traders - 1) Kinky Boots - Chicago (Tryout) - October 26, 2012 - ZIP (MP3 Tracked)   cast: Stark Sands (Charlie Price), Billy Porter (Lola), Annaleigh Ashford (Lauren), Celina Carvajal (Nicola), Marcus Neville (George), Daniel Stewart Sherman (Don), Steven Berger (Mr. Price), Andy Kelso (Harry), Tory Ross (Pat) and Jennifer Perry (Trish)2) Kinky Boots - Broadway - December 18, 2013 - ZIP (MP3)   cast: Stark Sands (Charlie), Kevin Smith Kirkwood (u/s Lola), Annaleigh Ashford (Lauren), Lena Hall (Nicola), Daniel Sherman (Don), Marcus Neville (George), Stephen Berger (Mr. Price), Eugene Barry-Hill (Simon Sr.), Tory Ross (Pat), Andy Kelso (Harry), Jennifer Perry (Trish), John Jeffrey Martin (Richard Bailey).3) Kinky Boots - Broadway - June 30, 2014 - ZIP (MP3)   cast: Andy Kelso (Charlie Price), Kyle Taylor Parker (u/s Lola), Haven Burton (t/r Lauren), Cortney Wolfson (Nicola), Daniel Stewart Sherman (Don), Marcus Neville (George)   notes: Nice quality audio. I absolutely adore Haven as Lauren and she makes the role her own. 4) Kinky Boots - West End - April 9, 2015 - ZIP (MP3 Tracked)   cast: ​Killian Donnelly (Charlie), Matt Henry (Lola), Amy Lennox (Lauren), Jamie Baughan (Don), Amy Ross (Nicola), Michael Hobbs (George), Gemma Atkins, Paul Ayers, Jeremy Batt, Arun Blair-Mangat, Marcus Collins, Emma Crossley, Jordan Fox, Callum Francis, Robert Grose, Gillian Hardie, Chloe Hart, Sophie Isaacs, Luke Jackson, Robert Jones, Adam Lake, Catherine Millsom, Sean Needham, Tim Prottey-Jones, Verity Quade, Javier Santos, Dominic Tribuzio, Alan Vicary, Michael Vinsen, Bleu Woodward5) Kinky Boots - Broadway - November 21, 2015 - MP3 (untracked)   cast: Wayne Brady (Lola), Andy Kelso (Charlie Price), Jeanna de Waal (Lauren), Stephen Berger (Mr. Price), Jake Katzman (Young Charlie), Jeremy T. Villas (Young Lola), Eugene Barry-Hill (Simon Sr.), Cortney Wolfson (Nicola), Marcus Neville (George), Daniel Stewart Sherman (Don), Jake Odmark.   notes: Wayne Brady’s 1st performance6) Kinky Boots - Broadway - January 4, 2017 (Evening) - MP3 (Tracked & Untracked) - Today4UTomorrow4Netflix’s Master   cast: Todrick Hall (Lola), Killian Donally (Charlie Price), Ellyn Marie Marsh (u/s Lauren), Shannon O'Boyle (Nicola), Daniel Stewart Sherman (Don), Marcus Neville (George), Ross Lekites (Harry), Stephen Tewksbury (u/s Mr. Price), Jake Katzman (Young Charlie), Jesus Del Orden (Young Lola), Eugene Barry-Hill (Simon Sr.), Natalie Joy Johnson (Pat), Jennifer Perry (Trish), John Jeffrey Martin (Richard Bailey), Adinah Alaxander (Milan Stage Manager), Angels: (Sean Patrick Doyle, Kevin Smith Kirkwood, Fred Odgaard, Kyle Post, Eric LaJuan Summers, Hernando Umana). Ensemble: (Mia Gentile, Blair Goldberg, Eric Leviton, John Jeffrey Martin)   notes: Taken on a new phone: Samsung Galaxy 6 Edge from the Right Box Seat. A teeny bit muffled at times when I’ve changed the phone’s position. I dropped my phone (again) at the very end of the 2nd act (right around the 6 steps in Just Be) but you can still hear the show even though its a bit muffled.

Below are some of the people from the theater community who died in 2019. Click on any photograph to read the caption.

Danny Aiello, 86, an Oscar-nominated actor for Do the Right Thing, and a veteran of seven Broadway productions in 11 years.

Rene Auberjunois, 79, a 13-time Broadway veteran, nominated for four Tony Awards, and winning for Coco in 1970.

Kaye Ballard, 93, Broadway veteran (The Golden Apple, Carnival, The Pirates of Penzance), familiar face on TV, funny lady. She was impersonating Maurice Chevalier at age 5)

Diahann Carroll, 84, best known as the first black woman to star on a TV series in a non-servant role, “Julia” in 1968, but she was a barrier breaker on Broadway too. Making her Broadway debut in 1954, at the age of 19, she became the first black woman to win the Tony Award for Best Actress for a musical, for “No Strings” in 1962.She returned to Broadway in 1982 to portray Doctor Martha Livingstone in “Agnes of God” and even this was reportedly a first — the first black actress to replace a white actress in a play on Broadway

Carol Channing, 97, 12-time Broadway veteran, three-time Tony winner, who became a Broadway legend thanks to two roles — the gold-digging Lorelei Lee in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and the matchmaker Dolly Gallagher Levi in “Hello, Dolly!” a role she originated in 1964 and performed again , in Broadway revivals in 1978 and 1995

Martin Charnin, 84, who began his Broadway career portraying Big Deal in West Side Story, and went on to become a big deal lyricist — especially for the musical Annie.

Jean Cinader, 96, star of the 1940s Broadway comedy Dream Girl

Betty Corwin, 98, creator of the Theater on Film and Tape Archive, at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center

Ann Crumb, 69, four-time Broadway veteran included in “Aspects of Love,” the first American actress chosen by Andrew Lloyd Webber to originate a starring role.

Doris Day, 97, singer, actress, leading star of romantic comedies and Hollywood musicals, including the screen adaptation of Broadway’s “The Pajama Game”

Stanley Donen, 94, film director and choreographer who specialized in movie musicals, including The Pajama Game (see Doris Day), as well as Singin’ in the Rain and On the Town, both of which he co-directed with actor and dancer Gene Kelly. “I wanted to do anything but what Busby Berkeley did.”

Richard Easton, 86, 24-time veteran of Broadway, Tony winning actor for Tom Stoppard’s ” Invention of Love”

Georgia Engel, 70, in the original cast of Hello, Dolly!, best known for the Mary Tyler Moore Show

Alvin Epstein, 93, actor, master of Beckett

Albert Finney, 82, Tony and Oscar nominee, star of Tom Jones, Murder on the Orient Express, and Annie, Dies at 82

“Henry Fonda’s son: That’s how everybody identified me until Easy Rider came along.” Peter Fonda, 79, who was also a Broadway veteran, appearing in the 1961 “Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole”

Laurel Griggs, 13, Broadway veteran of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Once.

Andile Gumbi , 36, longtime Simba in The Lion King on both Broadway and internationally

Valerie Harper, 80, beloved for her character Rhoda Morgenstern, yes, but also eight-time veteran of Broadway – most recently in 2010 in a Tony-nominated role as Tallulah Bankhead in “Looped.” Whatever she played, you felt like you knew her.

Katherine Helmond, 89, best known for her performance as Jessica Tate on the ABC series Soap, a four-time Broadway veteran Tony-nominated for The Great God Brown.

E. Katherine Kerr,82, a stage and screen actress and playwright who won strong reviews for her Off Broadway work and an Obie Award in 1982 for her performance in Caryl Churchill’s “Cloud 9.”

Ron Leibman, 82, a familiar face on TV (Friends) and the movies (Norma Rae) he was also a ten-time Broadway veteran who won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1993 for originating the role of Roy Cohn in Angels in America: Millennium Approaches

Jo Sullivan Loesser, 91, nine-time Broadway veteran who received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for creating the role of Rosabella in the original Broadway production of The Most Happy Fella, written by her husband, composer Frank Loesser.

William Luce, 88, playwright of Belle of Amherst and Barrymore

Marion McClinton, 65, playwright, actor, and director; premier interpreter of the work of August Wilson

Mark Medoff, 79, Tony-winning playwright of Children of a Lesser God, screenwriter, director and a long-time arts educator. “I can’t teach students to write, to direct, to act, but I can create an atmosphere in which they can teach themselves.”

Jonathan Miller, 85, director and humorist.

“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” Toni Morrison, 88, Nobel Prize winning novelist (Beloved, Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye, etc) Toni Morrison wasn’t just a literary giant–her work has also inspired memorable stage adaptations, including Lydia Diamond’s The Bluest Eye and Nambi Kelley’s Jazz

Phyllis Newman, 86, an entertainer from the age of 4; veteran of 11 Broadway shows (Tony winner for Subways Are For Sleeping); daughter of a fortune teller and a hypnotist; widow of legendary lyricist Adolph Green; mother of Broadway songwriter Amanda Green and theater critic Adam Green. She was a prodigious fund-raiser on behalf of women in entertainment dealing with illness

Playwright Peter Nichols , 92, best-known for A Day in the Death of Joe Egg.

Jessye Norman, 74, opera singer, major recording artist, and an adventurous performer, collaborating with the dancer, choreographer and director Bill T. Jones in 1999 on a piece called “How! Do! We! Do!” – a mosaic of song, dance, spoken word, and the poems of Frank O’Hara

John O’Neal, 78, playwright, actor, and activist — co-founder of Free Souther Theater, a groundbreaking troupe that brought theater to black audiences in the South during the civil rights era

Michael J. Pollard, 80, best known for TV roles (“The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis”) and his Oscar-nominated part in the movie “Bonnie and Clyde”, was also a 5-time veteran of Broadway, such as the original Hugo Peabody in “Bye, Bye Birdie.”

Luke Perry, 52, after a stroke. Best-known as an actor on “Beverly Hills 90210” and “Riverdale,” he was also a Broadway veteran, performing in the Rocky Horror Show in 2001.

André Previn, 89, celebrated conductor, jazz pianist and Oscar-winning film composer. Mia Farrow was one of his five ex-wives. He was also a Tony nominated composer for the 1969 Broadway musical “Coco”

Harold Prince, 91, inventive and influential producer and director with an astonishing 70-year career, who received 21 Tony Awards — more than twice as many as anybody else in history.

Anna Quayle, 86, who won a Tony for playing four women in “Stop the World — I Want to Get Off,” and bantered with John Lennon in “A Hard Day’s Night.”

Antonia Rey, 92, eight-time Broadway veteran, “with scores of small parts on the stage (including in “A Streetcar Named Desire”), in movies (“Klute”) and on television (“Who’s the Boss?”). But with few leading roles available for Hispanic actresses in the New York theater world of her era, she would not regain the stature she had achieved in Havana. Still, she did not regret leaving.”

John Simon, 94, theater critic

Joseph Sirola, 89, actor and Tony-winning producer.

JoJo Smith, 80, Broadway veteran, dancer and choreographer. Debbie Allen’s teacher, John Travolta’s dance consultant on Saturday Night Fever

Eric LaJuan Summers, 36, master dancer

Valerie Taylor-Barnes, 88, dancer and founder of the Clive Barnes Awards

Rip Torn, 88, ten-time Broadway veteran starting with Sweet Bird of Youth, familiar face on TV and the movies. His secret as a performer? “Play drama as comedy and comedy as drama”

Gloria Vanderbilt, 95, heiress, model, socialite, designer, entrepreneur, mother of @AndersonCooper….and Broadway veteran: She performed in William Saroyan’s “The Time of Your Life” in 1955.

Rest in Peace: Theater Community Members Who Died in 2019 Below are some of the people from the theater community who died in 2019. Click on any photograph to read the caption.

03-28 NEW YORK, NY - MARCH 27: (L-R) Lucien Neal, Trinity Neal performer Eric LaJuan Summers and Trans Advocate DeShanna Neal attend the ninth annual PFLAG National Straight for Equality Awards ... http://dlvr.it/NlJ8jz

André Bishop, head of Lincoln Center Theater: $1 million Todd Haimes, Roundabout: $922,000. Oskar Eustis the Public Theater: $659,000 Lynne Meadows, MTC: $565,000 Carole Rothman, Second Stage $191,000 James Nicola, New York Theatre Workshop: $178,000

These are the latest known annual compensation for the artistic heads of NYC non-profit theaters, compiled by Philip Boroff in Broadway Journal, who judiciously explains the artistic and financial accomplishments of each, and points out their sacrifices: Rothman’s salary represents a 50 percent paycut from her previous annual compensation while fundraising for the Hayes.

“Not-for-profit leaders forego the potential windfall that commercial producers earn from a blockbuster, in favor of a job with steady income. Yet some company trustees and foundation leaders privately call the biggest nonprofit packages excessive, the appearance of which can deter donors.”

  November Theater Openings

Alia Shawkat in “The Second Woman”

October Quiz

  The Week in New York Theater Reviews

Aran Murphyas Hamnet, in person and projected onto the screen, along with Bush Moukarzel as his father Shakespeare

Hamnet and the absent (projected) Shakespeare, his father

Hamnet

William Shakespeare’s only son, named Hamnet, died when he was 11 years old; a few years later, the playwright wrote “Hamlet.”  The Irish theater troupe Dead Centre conjures up the Bard’s boy in the hour-long “Hamnet,” a whimsical, tender, technically innovative avant-garde play that features an extraordinary performance by a 12-year-old named Aran Murphy.

He Did What?

a ten-minute animated opera that was projected for free onto the wall of BAM’s Peter Jay Sharp building nightly from 7 to 10 p.m

Raul Esparza as a temperamental chef in “Seared”

W. Tre Davis

Raul Esparza and Krysta Rodriguez

Seared

Theresa Rebeck’s slight but savory comedy  about  running a restaurant stars Raúl Esparza as Harry, a hilariously mercurial chef-owner of a hole-in-the-wall eatery  that’s become the latest foodie destination. A blurb in New York Magazine has praised Harry’s ginger lemongrass scallops dish, so now the customers are flocking to the place and clamoring for the dish.

But Harry refuses to make it anymore.

“I’m not feeling the scallops,” he says.

Freestyle Love Supreme

Freestyle Love Supreme, the hip-hop improv group,is not so much Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway follow-up to “Hamilton” as it is a subsidiary of Lin-Manuel Inc. …It is designed to feel good-natured and informal, like friends sitting around a dorm room at Wesleyan, even though there are 766 of us and we’re at the Booth Theater…That goodwill goes a long way.

Fear

Two adults are standing over a teenager named Jamie who is tied to a chair. Phil, a plumber, has kidnapped Jamie, and dragged him into this abandoned tool shed in the woods outside Princeton, New Jersey. Ethan, a professor, is trying to rescue Jamie…An eight-year-old girl from the neighborhood is missing, and Phil (Enrico Colantoni, who plays the genial father in Veronica Mars), has reason to suspect that Jamie (Alexander Garfin) has something to do with it.  Or does he?…A play that requires a vigorous suspension of disbelief. Yet, if you can get over that hurdle, it offers three good actors constantly playing with our perspective – not only about who did what but such issues as moral relativism, class tensions, and…fear

  The Sound Inside

“The Sound Inside” is a dark drama by Adam Rapp that keeps us in the dark, literally and figuratively, which works better while watching it on stage than thinking about it afterwards. Mary-Louise Parker portrays a middle-aged Yale professor named Bella Lee Baird, who prefers literature to life, and expects to die soon; she tells us she’s been diagnosed with cancer. Bella slowly develops a friendship with 18-year-old Christopher Dunn (Will Hochman), one of the students in her course…They turn out to share a taste in books, especially dark tales like Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment,” which is one of so many book titles name-dropped during the course of the play that the script could serve as a reading list (which I include in the review.)

Monsoon Season

Lizzie Vieh’s black comedy about a divorced couple permanently underwater in Phoenix Arizona, is clever and merciless, but it is also oddly compassionate….Danny and his ex-wife Julia may be losers who constantly make laughably wrong choices, but they are trying to do right, to be better.

The Week in New York Theater News

“The Minutes,” Tracy Letts’ most political play to date, will have its first preview on February 25, as this cryptic e-mail revealed. No theater or cast have been announced. The play, which premiered at the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago in 2017, is about a City Council meeting in the fictional town called Big Cherry that turns ominous. Letts began work on it before the 2016 election,

“The play is not about Trump or Trumpism — I don’t find him a particularly complicated figure — but it is about this contentious moment we’re having in American politics in the last few years,”

Andrew Garfield will star in the Netflix adaptation of Rent playwright Jonathan Larson’s autobiographical musical tick…tick…BOOM, directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

    Lear deBessonet will lead Encores!  starting officially in the 2021 season, succeeding Jack Viertel

Samira Wiley and Dominic Fumusa will star In Molière in the Park‘s “The School for Wives” in Prospect Park, November 13 and 14 FREE.

  Thomas Finkelpearl is leaving his job as cultural affairs commissioner after five years. “The timing of it is suspect,” councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, chair of the city council’s cultural affairs committee, told NY1. Some speculate he’s unfairly taking the fall for the various controversies and glitches over the city’s plan to build more statues honoring women and people of color. Finkelpearl helped spearhead the city’s efforts to tie its funding to the diversity of arts institutions’ employees and board members under the cultural plan, unveiled in 2017.

Billy Porter, performer, now playwright

Idina Menzel, Lea Michele and Billy Porter will be among those performing at the 93rd annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

Remember when Billy Porter performed at the parade in 2013, as Lola in Kinky Boots?  and conservatives were outraged? Have times changed?

  Times Square is presenting its first annual Show Globes, displaying giant snow globe-like sculptures of   Dear Evan Hansen, Wicked, Ain’t Too Proud, and The Lion King. On Broadway Plaza in Times Square between 44th and 45th streets through December 26.

2020 Seasons

  2020 Under the Radar Festival celebrates its 16th season with a line-up of groundbreaking artists across the U.S. and around the world, including Australia, Chile, China, Japan, Mexico, Palestine, Taiwan, and the UK.

92nd Street Y’s Lyrics and Lyricists

Yip Harburg Jan 25-27 Jerry Herman Feb 22-24 George Gershwin March 21-23 Stephen Schwartz and Broadway’s Next Generation (featuring Schwartz and Ns Marcy Heisler & Zina Goldrich, John Bucchino, Khiyon Hursey) April 18-20 George Abbott and the Making of the American Musical May 30-June 1

  Lincoln Center’s American Songbook Series

  Andre De Shields January 29 Joe Iconis Feb 1 Ali Stroker Feb 28

   Theatre Row, a six-theatre complex located on 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, has announced the Off-Off-Broadway companies that will be making work at its spaces, as part of the complex’s new Kitchen Sink Residency. The two-year program will give the companies space to develop new work, culminating in a three-week production run. The companies are the Assembly, Broken Box Mime Theater, LubDub Theatre Company, Noor Theatre, and Superhero Clubhouse.

The Critic Unmellowed

From Wall Street Journal interview  with John Simon, 94:

“His penchant for criticizing actors’ and actresses’ physical traits —he once wrote unkindly about Liza Minnelli’s face, and another time about Barbra Streisand’s nose— has also helped to make him repugnant to the city’s cultural elite. He contended at the time, and again to me, that such criticism is entirely legitimate if a performer fails to transcend his or her defects of appearance by force of talent.” (How does one “transcend” one’s appearance?)

On how theater has not declined:

“Things were never very good,” he says.“I don’t really see a decline. Looking back into the past always makes the past look better than it actually was,and the present worse, perhaps, than it actually is. . . Out of, I don’t know how many plays open in a season —a lot of them anyway—there may be two or three even worth bothering with. It has always been so.”

  Rest in Peace

Bernard Slade, 89, creator of the TV series “The Flying Nun” and “The Partridge Family,” but we know him as the Broadway playwright of “Same Time, Next Year,” a long-running and widely-produced stage comedy.

Andile Gumbi , 36, former Simba of Broadway’s The Lion King. He died of cardiac arrest while in Israel , Gumbi was portraying the lead role of King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel The Musical at the Jerusalem Theater.

A memorial for Eric LaJuan Summers will be held on Nov 4th, 2019 at 9:30pm at The Green Room 42 on W42nd Street & 10th Ave. Members of the Broadway community will be performing.

    Non-Profit Pays! Letts’ Turn to Politics. #Stageworthy News of the Week André Bishop, head of Lincoln Center Theater: $1 million Todd Haimes, Roundabout: $922,000. Oskar Eustis the Public Theater: $659,000…

What is a play – and what is its purpose? These questions come to mind after reading the 15 plays commissioned by T the New York Times Style Magazine in America 2024, a multimedia anthology of scripts an videotaped performances in answer to the question: What will the U.S. be like in five years?  The plays come from some of the leading playwrights of the nation, including Jackie Sibblies Drury, who yesterday won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play, “Fairview.”

Her play for T is entitled “Various Pre-Apocalyptic Post-Coital Scenes”  The script is accompanied by a video of a staged reading of the play by Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Roslyn Ruff and Hannah Cabell.

Her T play, and those by Adam Rapp and Celine Song will be read at the Brooklyn Academy of Music next Monday, April 22nd, followed by a discussion with the three playwrights. This thus avoids one of the questions that T inspired: Is something a play that’s intended only to be read?

  Terrence McNally contributed “Muses of Fire,” his conversation in the clouds during the 2024 Presidential inauguration with six dead great American playwrights (“Life is wasted on the living,” the imagined Thornton Wilder says.) They are portrayed in a video accompanying the script by six well-regarded actors —  Eugene O’Neill (Nathan Lane), Thornton Wilder (David Hyde Pierce), Lorraine Hansberry (Kerry Washington), Tennessee Williams (Richard Thomas), Arthur Miller (John Lithgow) and Edward Albee (Frederick Weller.) (McNally portrayed himself.)

“Theater stopped telling the truth when it started charging for admission. After the Greeks, it was selling something. Everybody was a salesman,” Edward Albee says in McNally’s play. “You got that part right, Artie.”

Ironically, the photographs of the playwrights and actors are captioned with descriptions of the clothes they’re wearing and how much they cost — one of the two aspects of this otherwise extraordinary project that go beyond odd (to annoying?) The other is the introduction by Hanya Yanagihara offering a definition of literature that leaves out a lot of really good theater. “…there is a crucial difference between journalism and literature: If the former concerns itself with What is, the latter is interested in What if. That instinct — the artistic compulsion to stretch the possibilities of the moment to their most outlandish, terrifying extremes — can often illuminate the current era. Literature, be it in the form of a play or poem or novel, is often at its most captivating when it is at its most exaggerated, when it articulates our collective fears or concerns.”

The Week in New York Theater Reviews

Norma Jeane Baker of Troy

I might go a great distance to watch Ben Whishaw strip off his suit and turn into Helen of Troy and Marilyn Monroe before our eyes. But I only had to travel to 30thStreet and 10thAvenue, in between the High Line and Hudson Yards, to the Griffin Theater on the sixth floor of The Shed, a new $500 million performing arts center .

As it turns out, though, it was the creative team that went far — too far. “Norma Jeane Baker of Troy,”  which is half sung and half spoken by both Whishaw and Renee Fleming, combines the myth of Helen of Troy with the story of Marilyn Monroe (birth name: Norma Jeane.)  This inaugural piece at the Griffin reflects the mission of The Shed, as articulated by its artistic director Alex Poots, to commission original works that “take creative risks and push artistic boundaries.” The show, with a starry cast and impeccable avant-garde credentials, is an intriguing and erudite experiment on multiple levels. On too many of those levels, however, it just didn’t work for me.

Oklahoma

I’m grateful for having first seen Daniel Fish’s dark, hip and homey production of “Oklahoma!” at St. Ann’s Warehouse last year, because I can see how much improved it is now that it has transferred to Broadway. They kept what I liked about it, and got rid of much of what I found most annoying.

The Week in Theater Awards

Playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury –

Fairview by Jackie Sibblies Drury Wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama

Congratulations to @jackiesdrury for winning the #PulitzerPrize for her stunning play Fairview! And thank you to the @PulitzerPrizes for naming me a finalist along with the brilliant Clare Barron, who also grew up in my hometown of Wenatchee, WA (pop. 34,000)!

— Heidi Schreck (@heidibschreck) April 15, 2019

Ann Reinking & Ben Vereen will serve as hosts to the Chita Rivera Awards on May 19 at the NYU Skirball Center

New York Theater Awards 2019 – Guide and Calendar

The Week in New York Theater News

  Terrence McNally

Paula Vogel

Chay Yew

MJ Kaufman

Pride Plays at Rattlestick Theater,  co-produced by actor Michael Urie, will feature staged readings to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, June 20 – June 24. Plays included (so far): Blueprints to Freedom by Michael Benjamin Washington; Last Summer at Bluefish Cove by Jane Chambers; Some Men by Terrence McNally; On this Morning by Caroline Prugh; As Is by William Hoffman; Eat and You Belong to Us by MJ Kaufman; Room Enough by Daaimah Mubashshir; Nora Highland by Ryan Spahn;Le Switch by Philip Dawkins; Mariquitas by Eduardo Machado; Bike Race by Eri Nox; The Last Sunday in June by Jonathan Tolins; The Baltimore Waltz by Paula Vogel; A Language of Their Own by Chay Yew

.@TinaBroadway, starring @AdrienneWarren, will open at Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on November 7, 2019, shortly before the 80th birthday of the dynamo entertainer Tina Turner born Anna Mae Bullock in Nutbush, Tennesseehttps://t.co/sdL09HUqOO

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) April 11, 2019

Laurie Metcalf,

Eddie Izzard

Russell Tovey

Patsy Ferran

Laurie Metcalf and Eddie Izzard will star in the fifth Broadway production of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, opening April 9, 2020. Russell Tovey and Patsy Ferran will co-star.

Signature Theater 2019-2020 Season:

Fires in the Mirror By Anna Deavere Smith Directed by SaheemAli October 22 – November 24, 2019 A revival of Smith’s extraordinary documentary mosaic of the people involved in the Crown Heights riots in the summer of 1991 in the aftermath of the deaths of an African-American boy and a young Orthodox Jewish scholar.

The Young Man from Atlanta By Horton Foote Directed by Michael Wilson November 5 – December 8, 2019 A revival of the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama of an aging couple still reeling from the death of their only child, whose friend visits them with the truth they don’t want to acknowledge.

Cambodian Rock Band**A New York Premiere** By Lauren Yee Directed by ChayYew February 4 – March 8, 2020 The story of a Khmer Rouge survivor returning back to Cambodia for the first time in thirty years as his daughter prepares to help prosecute one of Cambodia’s most infamous war criminals. It is infused with a live band playing contemporary Dengue Fever hits and classic Cambodian oldies

The Hot Wing King By Katori Hall Directed by Steve H. Broadnax III February 11 – March 15, 2020 Ready, set, fry! It’s time for the annual Hot Wang Festival in Memphis, Tennessee, and Cordell Crutchfield knows he has the wings that’ll make him king.When Dwayne takes in his troubled nephew however, it becomes a recipe for disaster

Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 By Anna Deavere Smith Directed by TaibiMagar April 28 – May 31, 2020 The Smith treatment of the Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King police brutality verdict.

Confederates  By DominiqueMorisseau Directed by Kamilah Forbes May 12 – June 14, 2020 Sarah, a savvy slave turned Union spy, and Sandra, a brilliant professor in a modern-day private university, are facing similar struggles, even though they live over a century apart.

92Y’s Reel Pieces series will present a conversation with Tony and Oscar winner Glenda Jackson April 29 at 7:30 PM.”

Jayne Houdyshell with a canine at Broadway Barks

The 21st annual Broadway Barks, the pet adoption event co-founded by Tony winner Bernadette Peters and the late Emmy winner Mary Tyler Moore, will be held July 13.

Billy Crystal is working with composer Jason Brown and lyricist Amanda Green on a musical version of his film Mr. Saturday Night, according to Variety.  The 1992 film focused on Buddy Young Jr., the self-destructive, washed-up (or never-was) comedian estranged from his family, which began as a sketch on Saturday Night Live. Crystal age from his 20s to his 70s in the film. “It’s a great character and now I don’t need the makeup!” said Crystal, who turned 70 in March.

Oh, and we’ve BEEN rehearsing…#InTheHeightsMovie pic.twitter.com/ogA0QzWdKs

— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) April 11, 2019

    How adult actors pull off playing children onstage

The bigger challenge is pulling off realism, creating the illusion that the adults onstage are plausible as the much-younger characters — a feat accomplished by two of Broadway’s biggest hits, “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” and “To Kill a Mockingbird.” “Mockingbird” features Celia Keenan-Bolger, 41, as Scout; Will Pullen, 28, as Jem; and Gideon Glick, 30, as Dill. Potter has a new cast that took over March 20, with Nicholas Podany, 22, as Albus Potter; Bubba Weiler, 25, as Scorpius Malfoy; and Nadia Brown, 24, as Rose Granger-Weasley — all ages 11 to about 15 during the course of the two-part play. (The original Rose was played by Susan Heyward, 36.)

The distance between an audience and actors in a theater helps. Podany also doesn’t want to “play a kid,” saying instead he tries to “stop being an adult.” “It’s a small shift in semantics but a big shift in my mind-set,” he said. Kids experience everything so vividly while adults “make a choice not to feel things so intensely.”

Rest in Peace

I’m shocked and saddened by the death of Broadway veteran Eric LaJuan Summers, at age 36, from cancer. In 2013, when he had six roles in @MotownMusical , I called him the best male dancer on Broadway.https://t.co/bT6Pn7GRub

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) April 10, 2019

RIP Georgia Engel, 70, best known for portraying sweet Georgette on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. She began her career on the stage (she was in the original Broadway production of Hello Dolly), and returned Off-Broadway (in @AnnieNBaker‘s John) pic.twitter.com/Khd85nSIce

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) April 16, 2019

Engel obituary

Alan Wasser, a veteran Broadway general manager, dies at age 70

A memorial for late actor and director Alvin Epstein, who made his mark as a premiere interpreter of Samuel Beckett’s plays, will be held at the Irish Repertory Theatre on April 29 at 3 PM

Pulitzer Honors Fairview. Pride Plays. Plays on Paper. Tina on Broadway. #Stageworthy News of the Week What is a play – and what is its purpose? These questions come to mind after reading the 15 plays commissioned by T the New York Times Style Magazine in…