The Outer Critics Nominations
for 2017-18 68th Annual Awards for Broadway
and Off-Broadway were announced at the
Algonquin. Jenn
Colella and Katrina
Lenk (photo
below) read the nominations. OCC is the
first critics organization to announce their
nominations. The winners will be announced
on May 7th and they will receive their
awards on May 24th at the Annual Gala Dinner
at Sardi's restaurant. I am a proud member
of the Executive/Nominating Committee for
the past 40 years.
The Drama Desk Nominations were announced
for 2017-18 63rd Annual Drama Desk Awards
for Broadway, Off-Broadway and
Off-Off-Broadway at Feinstein's/54 Below by Jane
Krakowski and Tituss
Burgess (photo below).
The winners will receive their awards at
Town Hall on June 3rd.
A revival of Travesties,
by Tom
Stoppard, at
the American Airlines Theater, is a play
which takes place in Zurich, Switzerland in
1917, about Henry Carr (Tom
Hollander),
a consular official, who becomes involved
with Tristan
Tzara, James Joyce and Lenin.
It also takes place 50 years later, when he
remembers what happened in 1917. The eight
member cast is expertly directed by Patrick
Marber.
As the playwright is an erudite person, he
is quite clever in mixing historical
characters and events with fiction. Also The Importance
of Being Ernest by Oscar
Wilde is included in this absurd, funny
and ingenious play. Hollander will probably
be nominated for a Tony Award.
Harry Potter and the
Cursed Child, Parts One and Two, by Jack
Thorne, is based on an original new
story by J.
K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John
Tiffany, at the Lyric Theatre, is a
convoluted story. The theater was filled
with Harry Potter fans. I have not read the
books or seen the films. The
press materials, that I received, would take
more time to read than if I were studying
for Ph.D. Judging from almost six hours of
watching staircases being moved across the
stage, and floating chairs, and characters
being pulled out a hole from the back wall,
and two of the leads being drenched in a
pool of water, and a whole slew of magic
tricks, I found the production numbing, but
the packed house seemed to enjoy every
minute of it,
Summer, The Donna Summer
Musical, book by Colman
Domingo, Robert Cary and Des
McAnuff, songs by various composers, at
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, is for lovers of
disco music. The three major stars, who play
Donna at various times in her career, are LaChanze, Ariana
DeBose and Storm
Lever, directed by Des McAnuff. They
have good voices. The audience loves
listening to them sing, and wants to
participate singing with them. The ensemble
are wonderful disco dancers, choreographed
by Sergio
Trujillo. The book is trivial, and not
very interesting, considering that it took
three writers to write it. But it does not
matter. All the audience wants is to hear
and move to the music. Perhaps, instead of a
Broadway Theater, it should be staged in a
discotheque.
A revival of The
Iceman Cometh,
by Eugene
O'Neill,
at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, takes
place over a couple of days in a downtown
bar in New York City, inhabited by drunks
and prostitutes in 1912. The nineteen member
cast is directed by George
C. Wolfe.
The director could not have a better cast,
full of stars, headed by Denzel
Washington.
It is not fair to not mention the entire
cast by name, but space and time limits me
to praise, among all the outstanding
performances, four in particular, David
Morse, Colm Meaney, Frank Wood and Reg
Rogers.
Although it is a long play of four acts, the
audience is riveted by the brilliant acting
of a bunch of losers, who find refuge in
alcohol. When Washington returns to the
bar at the end of Act I, he has rejected
booze and wishes to convert his former
friends. What happens and the secret he
finally bares complete a magnificent and
memorable production. The opening night
party took place at Delmonico's, 56 Beaver
St, where the cast celebrated with a lavish
buffet and cocktails galore. As they play
alcoholics in the play, they deserve the
drinks.
A revival of Saint
Joan,
by Bernard
Shaw,
at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, is a fine
production of a great play, with an
outstanding performance by Condola
Rashad in
the title role, as the heroine who saved
France from the English. The entire cast is
excellent, under the direction of Daniel
Sullivan,
but one must single out Patrick
Page as
the Inquisitor in Scene 6, the trial scene
in Rouen, 1431. In May 1947, at 14-years 0f
age, I played the role of Brother Martin
Ladvenu in my high school in England. so
naturally I have a great affection for the
play.
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Metronmaniacs, by David
Ives, at the Duke on 42nd Street, is an adaption of
a French play La Metromanie from 1738 by Alexis
Piron. It is a convoluted story spoken in rhyme. The
seven member cast, directed by Michael
Kahn, is quite good, in this hyperactive production
about mistaken identity and gender bending. We
congratulated the cast at the opening night party at the
West Bank Cafe with guests like Laila
Robins, David Pittu and Steven
DeRosa.
Daybreak,
by Joyce
van Dyke,
at the Beckett Theatre at Theatre Row, is a production
of Pan Asian Repertory. It is a dream play in three
scenes about the Armenian genocide of 1915. It
is a grim, depressing tale. As it is a dream, it is a
complex play. It is a 90 minute intermission-less
play.The six member cast is directed by Lucie
Tiberghien.
The 2018 Spring Season for the New York City Ballet at
the David H. Koch Theater presented an All Balanchine program.
It began with Apollo, music by Igor Stravinsky,
danced by four wonderful dancers, Chase
Finlay, Maria Kowroski, Sara Meansand Teresa Reichlen.
It was the first of two highlights, that Balanchine himself
would have applauded. The second was Tschaikovsky Pas
de Deux, with costumes by Karinska,
who was honored at the Irene Sharaff Awards on April
20. Joaquin De Luzwas
astounding in his solos, and paired with Ashley
Bouder, they became the perfect dancing couple. The
other two ballets were Le Tombeau de Couperin,
music by Maurice
Ravel, and Symphony in Three Movements, music
by Igor Stravinsky, completed a perfect night at the
ballet. The orchestra, under Clotilde
Otranto, never played better.
The 32nd Annual Easter Bonnet Competition
was held at the Minskoff Theatre for Broadway
Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. I have attended everyone of
them, and it is a most delightful production. Dancers
and singers from various Broadway and Off-Broadway shows
perform, introduced by Broadway stars like Lea Salonga,
Ethan Slater and Taylor
Louderman. The awards for the winners were presented
by four Broadway treasures Bernadette
Peters, Victor Garber, Nathan Lane and Andrew
Garfield.
Columbus Library presented Top
Hat,
by Mark Sandrich, USA,
1935, is delightful musical with songs by Irving
Berlin.
It starred Fred
Astaire and Ginger
Rogers.
They danced divinely. It is a case of mistaken identity,
which takes place in London and Venice. The highlight
is Dancing
Cheek to Cheek,
with the two leads, and Top
Hat, White Tie and Tails danced
solo by Astaire with a male ensemble behind. I enjoyed
every minute of this entertaining film.
In a series entitled Broadway Legacies comes
a new book Big Deal: Bob Fosse and the dance in the
American Dance Musical, by Kevin
Winkler, published by Oxford University Press, 2018.
The author was a professional dancer, and then worked 20
years in the New York Public Library as a curator, archivist
and library administrator. The book tells the story of
the subject as a performer, choreographer and director
in Hollywood, television and Broadway. The author's
technical knowledge is astounding. He describes every
dance number with such insight that you can almost
visualize it, and the photographs in the book further
clarifies his comments. Fosse was a brilliant dance
maker, whom I knew when he did his first show on
Broadway, The Pajama Game in 1955. His Steam
Heat number began a style which was inimitable. All
his work was magnificent. His passing at age 60 years of
age was a great loss to the world of dance. If you love
dance, add this terrific volume to your collection. You
will not regret it.
The Designs of William Ivey
Long, by Bobbi
Owen, forward by Paul
Rudnick, is published by USITT (United States
Institute for Theatre Technology), 2018. I am proud to
state that I have known William since he received his
first Tony Award for his costume design for Nine in
1982. I have seen everyone of his productions in New
York from Broadway to the Metropolitan Opera. As the
writer of the preface remarks, that besides being a
genius of costume design, he is wonderful human being.
To meet him, to admire his talent is to love him. This
also is a book in a series on theatre design and the
author knows her subject well. There are many photos of
his drawings, production shots and personal photos,
including one of him wearing jeans. This is shocking
because he always is elegantly dressed. However, he was
very, very young at the time. Every lover of theatre
and fashion must purchase this book for an insight into
his remarkable work. You will be well satisfied. At the
Drama Bookshop, 250 West 40th St, the subject and the
author held a Q & A and a reception afterwards. Among
his many fans that attended were Susan
Stroman, Barry Weissler, Debra Monk, Julie Halston, Dana
Ivey and many others too numerous to mention. |