Connect with us

Broadway

Theatre News: La La Land, Girl from the North Country, Dear World, Please Leave, The Harder They Come and MJ

Published

on

Directed by Bartlett Sher is bringing the six-time Oscar-winning La La Land to the stage. Sher is currently directing the Broadway revival of Camelot, which will open in April. The stage adaptation features a new book by Ayad Akhtar (President of PEN America and Pulitzer Prize winner for Disgraced) and three-time Barrymore Award winner Matthew Decker. The Academy Award-winning composing team (music by Justin Hurwitz, lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul) will reunite. Tony-winning producer Marc Platt, who also produced the movie, is also onboard.

The Tony-nominated Conor McPherson musical, Girl from the North Country is heading to the big screen. McPherson will direct, with a cast cast set to include Chloë Bailey as Marianne, Tosin Cole as Joe, Olivia Colman as Elizabeth, and Woody Harrelson as Nick. Set in 1934 in Duluth, Minnesota during the Great Depression. It features the music of Bob Dylan, with songs including “Forever Young,” “All Along The Watchtower,” “Hurricane,” “Slow Train Coming,” “Make You Feel My Love,” and “Like A Rolling Stone.”

New York City Center Encores! production of Dear World, has announced its cast. Joining two-time Tony winner Donna Murphy (Hello, Dolly!) will take on Countess Aurelia, originally played by Angela Lansbury. She will be joined by two-time Tony nominee Brooks Ashmanskas (The Prom) as President, Andréa Burns (On Your Feet!) as Constance, three-time Tony nominee Christopher Fitzgerald (Company) as Sewerman, Ann Harada (Into the Woods) as Gabrielle, Kody Jauron as Artiste, Phillip Johnson Richardson as Julian, and Samantha Williams (Caroline, or Change) as Nina.

Dear World features music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, and a book by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. The musical premiered in 1969, making Jerry Herman the first composer-lyricist in history to have three shows running simultaneously on Broadway. The story follows a motley band of outcasts who must rally together to save their picturesque neighborhood in Paris from a greedy cabal of oil-hungry bankers.

The Encores! production will be directed and choreographed by Josh Rhodes, who helmed the 2019 Encores! production of Herman’s Mack & Mabel. New Encores! music director Mary-Mitchell Campbell will lead the Encores! orchestra March 15-19.

Rob Sedgwick and Tony Award-Winning Actor Anthony Crivello announced that they will present a private industry reading of Mr. Sedgwick’s new play Please Leave. Directed by Bob Balaban, the reading will feature Emmy and Tony Award-Winning actor Tony Shalhoub, David Rasche, Clark Johnson,

and Tony Award-Nominee Johanna Day. Please Leave is a satirical, dark comedy: a raw presentation of life as presented on TV, making art out of others’ misery. It will take place on Monday, February 13th at 3:00 p.m. in the Anne L. Bernstein Theater at The Theater Center (210 West 50th St – 4th floor).

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and The Public’s Writer-in-Residence, Suzan-Lori Parks, brings to The Public a new musical adaptation of the 1972 movie, The Harder They Come. Celebrating its 50th anniversary, the book tells the story of Ivan, a young singer who arrives in Kingston, Jamaica, eager to become a star. After love and cutting a record deal with a powerful music mogul, Ivan soon learns that the game is rigged, and as he becomes increasingly defiant, he finds himself in a battle that threatens not only his life, but the very fabric of Jamaican society.Featuring Grammy Award winner Jimmy Cliff’s hits, “You Can Get It If You Really Want” and “Many Rivers to Cross,” former Artistic Director of Berkeley Repertory Theatre Tony Taccone directs this new musical, with co-direction by Tony Award winner Sergio Trujillo and choreography by Edgar Godineaux. The cast of The Harder They Come features:

You can get tickets through Joseph Papp Free Performance program by offering free tickets to the Thursday, February 16 performance at 8:00PM ET. Tickets will be available via the TodayTix Digital Lottery. The Lottery is now open for entries on the TodayTix app and will close at 12PM ET on Wednesday, February 15, which is the day before the performance. Winners will be notified by email and push notification anytime from 12PM to 4PM, and if selected, winners will have one hour to claim their tickets.The day after the conclusion of the TodayTix Digital Lottery, free same-day tickets may become available starting at 4PM ET on Thursday, February 16at the theater, which is located at 425 Lafayette St.The Box Office agents will add your name to our digital standby upon arrival. We will keep your spot in our digital line and contact you by SMS text message or pager if and when tickets become available. All line members must be in or return to the lobby thirty minutes before the scheduled curtain to ensure timely distribution of tickets that become available at the last minute.

Photo credit: Michaelah Reynolds

Last Wednesday night, the four-time Tony Award-winning musical MJ celebrated it’s first anniversary on Broadway. Audience members were gifted a special edition merch item, and the cast celebrated on stage with a giant MJ themed cake.The smash hit musical continues to play to sold out audiences, and has broken the box office record at the Neil Simon Theatre 10 times. It is the most Tony Award-winning musical of the 2021-2022 season.

Last but not least Neil Patrick Harris took his family to Kimberly Akimbo, as Lin-Manuel Miranda saw & Juliet.

Suzanna, co-owns and publishes the newspaper Times Square Chronicles or T2C. At one point a working actress, she has performed in numerous productions in film, TV, cabaret, opera and theatre. She has performed at The New Orleans Jazz festival, The United Nations and Carnegie Hall. She has a screenplay and a TV show in the works, which she developed with her mentor and friend the late Arthur Herzog. She is a proud member of the Drama Desk and the Outer Critics Circle and was a nominator. Email: suzanna@t2conline.com

Broadway

Parade: A Musical That Asks Us Do We Have The Eyes And Ears To See.

Published

on

Micaela Diamond and Ben Platt Photo by Joan Marcus

I have always loved Jason Robert Brown’s score for Parade. “You Don’t Know This Man,” “This Is Not Over Yet” and the wonderfully romantic “All the Wasted Time” are just the tip of the iceberg for music that stirs your soul and tells a tale of heartbreak. There is a reason this score won the Tony Award in 1999.

Ben Platt Photo By Joan Marcus

The musical now playing on Broadway dramatizes the 1913 trial of Jewish factory manager Leo Frank (Ben Platt), who was accused and convicted of raping and murdering a thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan (Erin Rose Doyle). The trial was sensationalized by the media, newspaper reporter Britt Craig (Jay Armstrong Johnson) and Tom Watson (Manoel Feliciano), an extremist right-wing newspaper aroused antisemitic tensions in Atlanta and the U.S. state of Georgia. When Frank’s death sentence is commuted to life in prison thanks to his wife Lucille (Micaela Diamond), Leo was transferred to a prison in Milledgeville, Georgia, where a lynching party seized and kidnapped him. Frank was taken to Phagan’s hometown of Marietta, Georgia, and he was hanged from an oak tree. 

Erin Rose Doyle, Photo by Joan Marcus

The telling of this horrid true tale begins with the lush ode to the South in “The Old Red Hills of Home.” Leo has just moved from Brooklyn to in Marietta, where his wife is from and he has been given the job as as a manager at the National Pencil Co. He feels out of place as he sings “I thought that Jews were Jews, but I was wrong!” On Confederate Memorial Day as Lucille plans a picnic, Leo goes to work. In the meantime Mary goes to collect her pay from the pencil factory. The next day Leo is arrested on suspicion of killing Mary, whose body is found in the building. The police also suspect Newt Lee (Eddie Cooper), the African-American night watchman who discovered the body, but he inadvertently directs Starnes’ suspicion to Leo.

Across town, reporter Britt Craig see this story as (“Big News”). Mary’s suitor Frankie Epps (Jake Pederson), swears revenge on Mary’s killer, as does the reporter Watson. Governor John Slaton (Sean Allan Krill) pressures the local prosecutor Hugh Dorsey (the terrific smarmy Paul Alexander Nolan) to get to the bottom of the whole affair. Dorsey, an ambitious politician sees Leo as he ticket to being the Governor and though there are other suspects, he willfully ignores them and goes after Leo.

Sophia Manicone, Emily Rose DeMartino, Ashlyn Maddox Photo By Joan Marcus

The trial of Leo Frank is presided over by Judge Roan (Howard McMillan). A series of witnesses, give trumped up evidence which was clearly is fed to them by Dorsey. Frankie testifies, falsely, that Mary said Leo “looks at her funny.” Her three teenage co-workers, Lola, Essie and Monteen (Sophia Manicone, Emily Rose DeMartino, Ashlyn Maddox), collaborate hauntingly as they harmonize their testimony  (“The Factory Girls”). In a fantasy sequence, Leo becomes the lecherous seducer (“Come Up to My Office”). Testimony is heard from Mary’s mother (Kelli Barrett ) (“My Child Will Forgive Me”) and Minnie McKnight (Danielle Lee Greaves)before the prosecution’s star witness, Jim Conley (Alex Joseph Grayson ), takes the stand. He claims that he witnessed the murder and helped Leo conceal the crime (“That’s What He Said”). Leo is given the opportunity to deliver a statement (“It’s Hard to Speak My Heart”), but it is not enough. He is found guilty and sentenced to hang. The crowd breaks out into a jubilant circus.

Alex Joseph Grayson Photo by Joan Marcus

Act 1, is not as strong as it should have been. I have attended three different incarnations, the last being with Jeremy Jordan as Leo and Joshua Henry as Jim in 2015. Part of the problem is Michael Arden’s direction. Instead of allowing his performers to act, he has them pantomime, as the solo goes forth. “Come Up to My Office” was not as haunting as in past productions. The same can be said of “That’s What He Said”. Who’s stands out in the first act is Jake Pederson as Frankie and Charlie Webb as the Young Soldier who sings “The Old Red Hills of Home.”

Micaela Diamond and Ben Platt Photo by Joan Marcus

In Act 2, Lucille finds Governor Slaton at a party (the hypnotic “Pretty Music” sung wonderfully by Krill) and advocates for Leo. Watson approaches Dorsey and tells him he will support his bid for governor, as Judge Roan also offers his support. The governor agrees to re-open the case, as Leo and Lucille find hope. Slaton realizes what we all knew that the witnesses were coerced and lied and that Dorsey is at the helm. He agrees to commute Leo’s sentence to life in prison in Milledgeville, Georgia, which ends his political career. The citizens of Marietta, led by Dorsey and Watson, are enraged and riot. Leo is transferred to a prison work-farm. Lucille visits, and he realizes his deep love for his wife and how much he has underestimated her (“All the Wasted Time”). With hope in full blaze Lucille leaves as a party masked men kidnap Leo and take him to Marietta. They demand he confess and hang him from an oak tree.

Paul Alexander Nolan, Howard McMillan Photo By Joan Marcus

In Act Two Parade comes together with heart and soul. Diamond, who shines brightly through out the piece is radiant, and her duets with Platt are romantic and devastating. Platt comes into his own and his huge following is thrilled to be seeing him live. Alex Joseph Grayson’s also nails his Second Act songs.

Dane Laffrey’s set works well with the lighting by Heather Gilbert.


Frank’s case was reopened in 2019 and is still ongoing.

Parade has multiple messages and the question is will audiences absorb it. I am so glad this show is on Broadway, making us think and see. This is a must see.

Parade: Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, 242 W 45th Street.

Continue Reading

Art

Ken Fallin’s Broadway: Celebrating Hadestown’s 1000th Performance

Published

on

On Sunday, March 19, 2023, Hadestown celebrated the first day of spring and the show’s recently-achieved milestone of 1,000 performances at Broadway’s Walter Kerr Theatre.

The handsome artist with Anais Mitchell

On hand were songwriter Anaïs Mitchell and director Rachel Chavkin, Tony Award winner Lillias White, original Broadway cast member Jewelle Blackman as Persephone, Grammy Award winner Reeve Carney as Orpheus, Tony Award nominee Tom Hewitt as Hades, and two-time Tony Award nominee Eva Noblezada as Eurydice. were joined by Amelia Cormack, Shea Renne, and Soara-Joye Ross as the Fates. The chorus of Workers is played by Emily Afton, Malcolm Armwood, Alex Puette, Trent Saunders, and Grace Yoo.

The winner of eight 2019 Tony Awards including Best New Musical and the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, Hadestown is the most honored show of the 2018-2019 Broadway season. In addition to the Tony and Grammy Awards, it has been honored with four Drama Desk Awards, six Outer Critics Circle Awards, including Outstanding New Broadway Musical, and the Drama League Award for Outstanding Production of a Musical.

Following two intertwining love stories — that of young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice, and that of King Hades and his wife Persephone — Hadestown invites audiences on a hell-raising journey to the underworld and back. Mitchell’s beguiling melodies and Chavkin’s poetic imagination pit industry against nature, doubt against faith and fear against love. Performed by a vibrant ensemble of actors, dancers, and singers, Hadestown delivers a deeply resonant and defiantly hopeful theatrical experience.

Continue Reading

Broadway

Broadway Up Close (R) Gives Dance Workshops In Times Square

Published

on

A fun way to get active, learn and have fun: InterContinental New York Times Square has partnered with Broadway Up Close to provide monthly dance workshops. The new series offers the opportunity to learn choreography with current Broadway professionals, and to join them in conversation about their Broadway careers.

On Saturday, April 15, 2023 join Broadway Performer Sarah Meahl (Bad Cinderella, Hello, Dolly!, Kiss Me, Kate) and on Sunday, May 13, 2023 – Broadway Performer Thayne Jasperson (Hamilton, Newsies, Matilda).

All classes are scheduled from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm and include 60 minutes of dance class and 30 minutes to learn and connect.

Following the class, an à la carte lunch menu is provided at The Stinger Cocktail Bar & Kitchen for an additional cost; perfect timing for a matinee performance.

Tickets are $36.25 and you can tickets here.

Continue Reading
Advertisement pf_06-2

Trending

Copyright © 2023 Times Square Chronicles

Times Square Chronicles