Monthly Archives: August 2009

BOOK: LOUIS ZORICH’S ‘WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?’: “LOVE LETTER TO THE ENDURING SPIRIT OF THE ARTIST” · Aug 31st

(The following review of Louis Zorich's 'What Have You Done?' appeared on Playbill.com, August 29.)

What Have You Done? The Inside Stories of Auditioning, from the Ridiculous to the Sublime
Edited by Louis Zorich
Published by: Limelight Editions
Publication Date: Sept. 15, 2009
List price: $14.99 paperback; 320 pages
Actor Louis Zorich — whose professional credits include a long stint on TV's "Mad About You" as Paul Reiser's dad and appearances on Broadway in the Roundabout Theatre Company's 2001 revival of Follies and the 1993 revival of She Loves Me and whose personal credits include being the husband of actress Olympia Dukakis — has compiled a book of entertaining, funny and inspirational war stories about the triumphs and failures faced by actors as they go through the audition process. Those few moments in a casting director's office that can mean everything to an actor are recounted by a star-studded roster that includes Robert De Niro, Barbra Streisand, James Dean, Nathan Lane, Madonna, Oprah Winfrey and many more. It is Zorich's love letter to the enduring spirit of the artist.

On Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Stories-Auditioning-Ridiculous-Sublime/dp/0879103655/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251762352&sr=1-5

COLUMBINE AND THE PLAYWRIGHT: SIMON STEPHENS READIES ‘PUNK ROCK’ (INTERVIEW) · Aug 30th

(Kate Kellaway's article appeared in The Guardian, August 30.)

How Simon Stephens's plays are galvanising British theatre

Pornography, Sea Wall, Punk Rock… is Simon Stephens the busiest man in British theatre?

'Excuse me, are you Simon Stephens?' He is sitting on the front steps of Black's club, in Soho's Dean Street. His pose is a bit like Rodin's The Thinker – hand on chin. He is on his mobile, talking concentratedly, dressed in black – a sort of uniform. He could be a waiter or a theatrical usher. But I am guessing that I have the right man. I have just overheard him say he can't take on any more work – and that clinches it. For Stephens is in overdrive. To say that he is 'in demand' would be putting it mildly. 'Pornography', about the London bombings has just finished a successful run at The Tricycle in Kilburn, 'Sea Wall', a tragic monologue – a Father's Tale – has been at the Edinburgh Festival and his new play 'Punk Rock' is about to open at the Lyric Hammersmith (it is also a debut production from Sean Holmes as the theatre's new artistic director with Simon Stephens as his associate). It is true: Stephens does not have much room for manoeuvre.

He owns up to being himself at once – and scrambles to his feet. He is tall, good-looking with hair that seems under attack (all that earlier thinking). He seems to have the combined energy of several people in one body. I like his punchy, engaged manner. At different moments, I notice him throw his arms wide, as if someone had scored a goal and use both forefingers to add double emphasis to his points. If you were to guess what sort of plays he wrote from his demeanour, you would plump for dynamic comedy. But you would be wrong. His writing can entertain but it is darkness that draws him in.

Visit Stage Voices blog: http://stagevoices.typepad.com/

BLAST FROM THE PAST: TO BE YOUNG, GIFTED, AND JOANNE AKALAITIS · Aug 29th

(Gholson's interview with the director originally appeared in BOMB, Spring 1983.)

JoAnne Akalaitis

Craig Gholson Have you had any formal training? Did you come out of any school?

JoAnne Akalaitis No, not really. I didn’t study theater in college.

CG What did you study?

JA I studied Philosophy and Pre-med.

CG What was the process of getting involved in theater?

JA I had thought about it for quite a long time and then finally decided just to do it. I wasn’t really that interested in getting a Phd. in Philosophy. I was more interested in being an actor.

CG Did you ever seriously get into being an actor in that kind of New York way?

JA Sure, because I went to the Actor’s Workshop in San Francisco and did whatever I could to learn. We had little scene groups and stuff like that. And I studied with San Francisco Mime Troupe a little bit. And when I went to New York I did go to these various acting classes. And I quit them. I never stuck any of them out.

CG Did you ever subscribe to any of those theories, like get involved with Stella Adler or any of that?

JA Well I think that the only theory that was around at that time was the Stanislavski Method and that’s what was taught in New York and still is taught by most acting teachers. I went to an Open Theater Workshop, I think it was 1968, and that was about the time that Grotowski came to New York. And I was going to a lot of workshops, that was the era of workshops, and then I went and studied with Grotowski himself in France. Ruth Malechech from Mabou Mines and I both went. And that was, for me, a big revelation, because it was a different kind of training, a different idea about acting.

CG I’m not sure what the tenets of that are.

JA It’s not really in the long run that different from Stanislavski. But the idea is based less on immersion in character, or becoming the character and more on a series of moments in which the actor connects through his personal history which brings…working with what’s called an image to the text. So the interpretation of the text is not as important in this theory of acting as it is in, say, the Stanislavski Theory. And that theory of acting was very conducive to the way Mabou Mines started to work which was in a more abstract, less linear, less psychological mode.

CG How long did you stay in France?

JA I think it was a month.

CG So that was 1969. When was Mabou Mines formed?

JA In 1970 Mabou Mines was formed.

Visit Stage Voices blog: http://stagevoices.typepad.com/

BECOMING ZERO MOSTEL: JIM BROCHU TAKES ON THE LEGEND · Aug 28th

(Jonathan Padget's article appeared in The Washington Post, August 28. Jim Brochu–a friend of Stage Voices–will be bringing his show–directed by Piper Laurie–Off-Broadway after its D.C. run. Among many credits for both, Brochu is the author of 'Lucy in the Afternoon'; Laurie was nominated for an Oscar as the mother in 'Carrie'. Visit http://www.jimbrochu.com/ to find out more.)

'Zero': A Sum Of Many Parts

When writer and actor Jim Brochu picks up the phone at his home in Los Angeles, he is eager to share some good news.

He has just learned that "Zero Hour," his one-man play about the late, larger-than-life actor Zero Mostel, which opens Saturday at Theater J, has been picked up for an off-Broadway run in the fall.

But there's bad news, too: Brochu has picked up something else — an annoying cold.

Yet even the misfortune has an upside. "I think I caught the cold from Topol!" he says gleefully.

Brochu explains that he met Chaim Topol after a recent performance of "Fiddler on the Roof," the musical in which Topol has toured extensively in the decades since winning the role of Tevye — originated by Mostel on Broadway in 1964 — when the hit show was adapted for the screen.

For Tickets in Washington, D.C.: http://washingtondcjcc.org/center-for-arts/theater-j/on-stage/09-10-season/zero-hour/tj-zero-hour-home-page.html

ZERO HOUR

August 29–September 27

Written & Performed by Jim Brochu
Directed by Piper Laurie

Channeling Zero Mostel’s wild moods, crazy humor and righteous anger, Jim Brochu reintroduces us to this funny, fantastically contrary man whose penchant for truth-telling has been sorely missed.

Zero Hour Awards and Accolades

– "1 of 10 best plays of 2008" Florida Sun Sentinel

– Winner of 2006 Los Angelos Ovation Award

– "Brochu captures the all-important wild-eyed look and the actor's idiosyncratic outbursts are fully credible." Theatremania. Com

– "It takes a big man to fill the shoes of the late Zero Mostel and Jim Brochu slips into those loafers perfectly in "Zero Hour," his brilliant portrayal of the Broadway titan." The Desert Sun

– “Embodies the flamboyance, mood swings and dead-on comic timing of this legendary yockmeister” – Variety

– “Captures Mostel's rich contradictions in a loving but unvarnished homage as entertaining as the man himself. Jim Brochu seems almost fatefully destined to play Mostel” – LA Times

About Jim Brochu

"Brochu has brought back to us the memory of a volcano that was thought to be extinct!" –Theodore Bikel

Jim Brochu is an actor, writer, director, and playwright. Brochu's acting career has taken him to regional stages all over the United States, including the Washington Theatre Club, the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, two seasons at the Goodspeed Opera House and at the legendary Café DejaVu in Los Angeles. He is the co-writer of the hit musicals The Last Session and The Big Voice: God or Merman?. A friend of Lucille Ball, he is known as the author of the unauthorized biography Lucy in the Afternoon, and in this capacity, appeared on an episode of MythBusters.

From a Post Raisin Bran Raisin to playwright to actor…Jim Brochu is a man of many talents with a long and glorious resume to show for it.

Visit Stage Voices blog: http://stagevoices.typepad.com/

PATRICK STEWART SEES A GHOST: GETTING SPOOKED IN THE THEATRE · Aug 27th

(Michael Simkins's blog appeared in The Guardian, August 26.)

Never mind Godot … Patrick

Stewart spooked by ghostly goings-on in theatre

The actor isn't the first to announce an encounter with a spectre while performing on stage. And he won't be the last …

Patrick Stewart's claim that he witnessed an apparition while performing in Waiting for Godot at the Theatre Royal Haymarket will come as no surprise to the acting fraternity. We are used to seeing deathly-white individuals wringing their hands in ghastly torment – even if it's just accountants scanning our tax returns.

The surprise is that it's taken Stewart so long: there's hardly a venue in the country that doesn't have a resident ghost. Many of them are happy to appear twice nightly and provide their own costume into the bargain.

At the Theatre Royal York, where I spent a year, the wardrobe assistants regularly refused to work late in their attic eyrie after several sightings of the infamous grey lady who haunted the building. And as recently as 2001, an actor I was working with in Mamma Mia! at the Prince Edward theatre swore she saw a venomous-looking figure staring at her from the wings. She was certain of the ghoul's barely-concealed malice while she was singing The Winner Takes It All during a Saturday matinee. She remained adamant it wasn't her understudy she'd glimpsed.

Stage Voices blog: http://stagevoices.typepad.com/

CHRISTOPHER HAMPTON ON ODON VON HORVATH: TRANSLATING A DRAMATIST WHO SAW NAZI GERMANY FROM THE INSIDE · Aug 26th

(Hampton's article appeared in the Evening Standard, 8/26/09.)

Christopher Hampton translates the big questions

The critic Jean-Claude François memorably described Ödön von Horváth as “the black book of the Third Reich”: by which he meant that no other writer documented more circumstantially than Horváth the day-to-day experience of life in Nazi Germany in the years leading up to the Second World War. Bertolt Brecht, for example, sitting in exile in Scandinavia, wrote of Fear and Misery in the Third Reich, a title which could have covered any amount of émigré writing; for those in self-imposed exile, what seemed salient were the crimes and atrocities of the Nazi régime. But for those, like Horváth, who remained, what seemed striking was how little the texture of everyday life had changed, despite the manifest insanity of the truculently self-righteous morons so wilfully handed power by the German electorate in 1933.

MARK TAPER 2010 SEASON–PRODUCTION RUNS: RAJIV JOSEPH’S ‘BENGAL TIGER AT THE BAGHDAD ZOO,’ DIR. MOISES KAUFMAN; MAMET, MCDONAGH, WILLIAMS · Aug 25th

(The following appeared in the LA Times, August 21.)

In a season that had to make concessions to the changing economy, the Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum has announced a 2010 lineup that includes David Mamet's "Speed-the-Plow," directed by Neil Pepe, Martin McDonagh's "The Lieutenant of Inishmore," Rajiv Joseph's "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo" and Judith Ivey in the Long Wharf Theatre production of Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie."

The season, announced today by Michael Ritchie — artistic director of CTG, which oversees the Taper, the Ahmanson Theatre and Culver City's Kirk Douglas Theatre — also includes the world premiere of a musical which CTG describes as featuring "the work of one of America's greatest living singer/songwriters," with title and details to be announced soon. The touring production of 'Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps' at the Ahmanson Theatre is offered as a bonus production to Taper subscribers.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/08/mark-taper-forum-season-announcement.html

Stage Voices: http://stagevoices.typepad.com/

ZETA-JONES AND LANSBURY IN BROADWAY’S NEW ‘NIGHT MUSIC’ · Aug 24th

(The following article appeared on AOL, 8/24.)

Catherine and Angela's Family Ties

Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury are set to take on Broadway together as mother and daughter in the revival of Stephen Sondheim's 'A Little Night Music.' Rumor has it Angela refused to take on the part of Madame Armfeldt unless a Hollywood heavyweight was cast as her daughter, Desiree. I don't quite see the family resemblance between Angela and Catherine, but there is enough talent to make up for that.

BETTE BOURNE FOUND: ICONIC RADICAL ACTOR, DRAG QUEEN, AND ACTIVIST AT THE FRINGE · Aug 24th

(Mark Revenhill's article appeared in The Guardian, August 23.)

The fabulous life of Bette Bourne

After four decades as a drag queen, actor and activist, Bette Bourne has more than a few tales to tell. Here's how I turned them into an Edinburgh show, A Life in Three Acts

I first met Bette Bourne 10 years ago, when I was researching the gay underworld of 18th-century London for my play Mother Clap's Molly House. A mutual friend suggested that Bette would be the perfect actor to bring into a workshop. I was suspicious at first, assuming – largely because of his name – that here was a pub drag act who had pretensions to working in the "straight" theatre.

McPHERSON DU MAURIER HITCHCOCK CUSACK GATE: ‘THE BIRDS’ · Aug 23rd

WORLD PREMIERE TUES 29 SEP
PREVIEWS FROM FRI 25 SEP

THE BIRDS

Written and Directed by Conor McPherson
Adapted from the short story by Daphne Du Maurier

From the celebrated author of such masterworks as Rebecca, Jamaica Inn and My Cousin Rachel, comes Daphne Du Maurier’s enthralling gothic tale of mystery and suspense. Immortalised by Alfred Hitchcock in his legendary film and now re-imagined in a chilling new adaptation by acclaimed Irish playwright Conor McPherson, The Birds is an unrelenting and spellbinding portrait of terror and alienation.

The Birds will be presented as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival 2009.

Starring

Sinéad Cusack · Denise Gough · Ciarán Hinds

Designer Rae Smith · Lighting

Remember the film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiPtr2kdNVU&NR=1raccoon off of my leg, but he- she – IT –

Visit the Gate Theatre, Dublin, online: http://www.gate-theatre.ie/