Monthly Archives: April 2023

KENNETH BRANAGH TO DIRECT AND STAR IN KING LEAR IN LONDON AND NEW YORK · Apr 30th

(Chris Wiegand’s article appeared in the Guardian, 4/28/2023; via Pam Green; Photo: Transatlantic tragedy … Kenneth Branagh. Photograph: Johan Persson.)

The play, which the actor has described as being pertinent to our ‘savage and judgmental’ political climate, will run for 50 performances in the West End before transferring to the US

Kenneth Branagh is to star as King Lear in a production that he will also direct in London and New York.

The play will run for 50 performances at Wyndham’s theatre in the West End from October and then transfer to the Shed’s Griffin theatre in the US in autumn 2024.

It is produced by the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company (KBTC) which presented a season of seven plays at the Garrick theatre in London from 2015-16 including John Osborne’s The Entertainer with Branagh in the lead role. In 2017, Branagh directed Tom Hiddleston as Hamlet in a limited-run production to raise funds for Rada. In 2021, KTBC’s planned production of The Browning Version by Terence Rattigan, starring and directed by Branagh, was cancelled due to Covid-related absences during rehearsals.

Branagh, who played Edgar opposite Richard Briers’ Lear in a 1990 touring production of Shakespeare’s tragedy, said in a 2019 interview that King Lear has a “sense of contained outrage by previously voiceless people” that remains pertinent in the modern political climate. The play, he added, explores a “tremendous lack of forgiveness … that is perhaps also something that our world is experiencing – a savage and judgmental and instant and violent division”.

(Read more)

 

TIM MINCHIN: ‘POLITICS AFFECTS MY MENTAL HEALTH … I FEEL GASLIT · Apr 29th

(Tom Lamont’s article appeared in the Guardian, 4/29; Photo: Photograph: David Vintiner/The Guardian.)

He’s the anarchic comedian behind the musicals Matilda and Groundhog Day. He talks about dashed Hollywood hopes, the dangers of modernising Roald Dahl and feeling out of step with his progressive fanbase

The Australian composer and entertainer Tim Minchin sits outside a rehearsal room in London. It is a pleasant day in April. Tooled up on tea and creative adrenaline, talking quickly and well, the 47-year-old is comparing the experience of working on two big stage musicals. In 2010, there was Matilda, the planet-devouring omni-smash, which flourished in the West End, on Broadway and on family car journeys, transforming Minchin from an anarchic musical comedian who could fill a good-sized room at the Edinburgh festival into a feted and wealthy man. “I mean, Matilda, fuck,” is all the loquacious Minchin can say about that show’s successes for now. More interesting to him, because more troubled, was the follow-up, Groundhog Day, a 2016 musical adapted from the popular 90s movie of the same name.

“When you make something so detailed, over so many thousands of hours, something you think is broadly appealing, about how we’re to be as people – and it doesn’t fly? That’s incredibly painful,” Minchin says.

Dressed today in muted colours, his famous untidy reddish hair tied back under a baseball cap, he lists the little catastrophes that hobbled Groundhog Day seven years ago: investors pulling out; the choreographer falling ill; a feeling of being rushed to New York after a strong London opening, before the show was quite ready. Groundhog Day closed on Broadway in autumn 2017, after 200-odd performances, and has more or less sat in a drawer since. “It’s not a meritocracy,” Minchin shrugs. “Mamma Mia’s one of the highest-selling musicals ever … Broadway is not a measure of what is good, or not to me. If you want to go there to make your moolah, then you can’t be surprised if you have a rough ride.”

Fittingly, given that Groundhog Day is a story about do-overs, Minchin and his collaborators will try to revive their beleaguered musical at the Old Vic in London next month. He is confident things will work out better this time. From inside the rehearsal room, loud enough to boom through a soundproofed door, the new cast of Groundhog Day burst into song. They’re being taught the musical’s opening number.

“Tomorrow / There will be sun!” goes the line they’re belting out. Minchin tilts his head. Something is bugging him and when I ask what, he notes that the actors are singing “too-morrow” instead of “ta-morrow”. Minchin lives in Sydney with his wife and two children. He has flown to London for a fortnight of rehearsals, specifically to pepper the Groundhog Day cast with pedantic corrections. “It has to be ‘ta-morrow’. Who ever says ‘too-morrow’?”

London, 2016. Photograph: Manuel Harlan

It is not unusual for artists to contain a combustible blend of high confidence and low self-esteem. In this, Minchin conforms to type: belief by the bucket-load and plenty of doubt. But he was trained on the British comedy circuit. After years in that cauldron, most of what he utters is buried under layers of protective irony. There are micro shifts of tone, eye-widenings, manic grins, flirty pouts, all meant to signal his constantly modulating levels of seriousness. Minchin is aware that some of what he says in interviews comes over badly, his humour sometimes flattened without the accompanying performance.

He gives an example. “I could lean forward to you and say: ‘The trouble with you, Tom, is that you’re clearly a cunt’ … And you would hear from the juxtaposition of content and intent that I actually like you.” Now write the C-word down. Now put the C-word in a quote in a newspaper. Suddenly it reads differently. “That’s the problem with the internet right now,” Minchin says, bringing up a subject – what he sees as the shallowness and untruthfulness of progressive politics – that he’ll return to later. “Everybody clashes up against each other online, pretending irony doesn’t exist. It drives me nuts.”

A luckless Groundhog Day publicist emailed Minchin on the morning of our interview, listing what he wasn’t supposed to talk about. Minchin did not take well to that. Just as with the notes he was handed, the previous weekend, when he was invited to go on stage at the Royal Albert Hall and present an Olivier award, Minchin tends to ignore instructions on principle. “Many, many people have put a huge amount of money and time into Groundhog Day. They are invested in making sure I toe the line. But this is my job. Talking about what matters to me is literally my job, whether through art or by the words that come out of my own mouth.”

Good to hear, because I want to ask Minchin about something sticky. His musical of Matilda is still running in London after more than 4,000 performances. It was recently made into a movie starring Emma Thompson. Minchin has a long-standing, lucrative relationship with Roald Dahl’s estate, which, latterly, has meant a relationship with Netflix, which bought the rights to Dahl’s work in 2021. That Netflix deal roughly coincided with a move by the children’s publisher Puffin to make textual alterations to new editions of Dahl’s books. Certain words (outmoded, unfashionable, offensive, harmless: it depended on your point of view) were edited out.

In the revised Matilda, for instance, Dahl’s rather abrupt use of “female” as a noun was replaced with “woman”. A couple of plot points were tweaked, apparently to align the books more snugly with the 2010 musical and the 2022 movie. After an investigation by the Telegraph, and much public protest, Puffin has decided that two versions of Dahl’s books will have to be published, one altered, one not. What are Minchin’s thoughts on this?

“I decided not to wade in,” he says. His diplomacy is so uncharacteristic I simply wait it out.

“I think I’m not sure,” he says. “And I’m very happy sitting in that space.”

I wait.

“It seems there’s an incredible slippery slope problem with editing texts. I mean, my initial reaction, when I heard about it? ‘Now we’ll have to get all the rapes out of all the history books. Then the world will be a better place.’”

I wait.

“It’s not actually about morality. It’s about keeping the property, owned by the Dahls and Netflix, contemporary … It’s an interesting part of modern progressivism, that a huge amount of change is happening because corporations have identified where their bottom-line is best served.

(Read more)

 

2023 DRAMA DESK NOMINATIONS · Apr 27th

(via Scott Klein, Keith Sherman Associates.)

www.DramaDesk.org

The 67th Annual Drama Desk Awards (www.DramaDesk.org) will be held on Tuesday afternoon, June 6 at Sardi’s Restaurant, it was announced today by Drama Desk co-presidents David Barbour and Charles Wright. The cutoff for this year’s Awards is April 26.

 

The nominations will be announced on April 27 in the 12pm noon hour by NY1 “On Stage” host Frank DiLella and Broadway icon Donna McKechnie on Spectrum News NY1’s “News All Day” with anchor Ruschell Boone.

 

The Drama Desk Awards are the only major New York City theater awards for which productions on Broadway, Off Broadway and Off-Off Broadway compete against each other in the same categories.

 

For the first time, all performance categories will be gender-free. The updated gender-free categories are: Outstanding Leading Performance in a Play, Outstanding Leading Performance in a Musical, Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play, and Outstanding Featured Performance in a Musical. 

 

Each of these categories will have twice as many nominees as the former gendered categories and voters will cast two votes for each category. These categories will also have two winners each. If there is a tie, there may be more than two winners in a category.

 

Additional details will be announced shortly.

 

What sets the Drama Desk Awards apart is that they are voted on and bestowed by theater critics, journalists, editors, and publishers covering theater. The Drama Desk Awards honor all aspects of New York’s professional theater.

 

The 2022-2023 Drama Desk Nominating Committee is composed of: Martha Wade Steketee (Chair; freelance: UrbanExcavations.com), Linda Armstrong (New York Amsterdam News), Daniel Dinero (Theatre is Easy), Peter Filichia (Broadway Radio), Kenji Fujishima (freelance: Theatermania), Margaret Hall (Playbill) and Charles Wright, ex-officio.

 

*   *  *

 

About The Drama Desk

 

The Drama Desk was founded in 1949 to explore key issues in the theater and to bring together critics and writers in an organization to support the ongoing development of theater in New York. The organization began presenting its awards in 1955, and it is the only critics’ organization to honor achievement in the theater with competition among Broadway, Off Broadway, and Off-Off Broadway productions in the same categories.

Nominations for the 67th Annual Drama Desk Awards were announced today and the full list of nominees is available below.

April 27, 2023: In keeping with the Drama Desk’s mission, the nominators considered shows that opened on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off Broadway during the 2022-2023 New York theater season, with the Drama Desk cut-off being April 26, 2023. Only shows with 21 or more unique performances are eligible.

In determining eligibility of productions with recent Off-Broadway runs in prior seasons, the nominating committee considered only those elements that constituted new work. These productions included A Child’s Christmas in Wales, Ain’t No Mo’, Between Riverside and Crazy, Catch as Catch Can, Cost of Living, Dog Man: The Musical, Kimberly Akimbo, KPOP, The Thanksgiving Play, Wolf Play, and Yes! Reflections of Molly Bloom.

Additional productions on and Off Broadway deemed not eligible as they were considered in their entirety in prior seasons included A Sherlock Carol, Cheek to Cheek, Fiddler on the Roof, Hitler’s Tasters, Just for Us, Take Me Out, The Jungle, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and Winnie the Pooh.

Winners will be announced the week of May 29 and the Awards will be presented during a ceremony at Sardi’s (234 West 44th Street) on Tuesday, June 6 from 3:00 – 6:00PM. 

The Drama Desk Awards are the only major New York City theater awards for which productions on Broadway, Off Broadway, and Off Off Broadway compete against each other in the same categories. David Barbour and Charles Wright are The Drama Desk co-presidents.

In accordance with a decision by the Drama Desk board of directors, this year all performance categories will be gender-free, as they were for the first 19 years of the awards’ existence. The updated gender-free categories are: Outstanding Lead Performance in a Play, Outstanding Lead Performance in a Musical, Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play, and Outstanding Featured Performance in a Musical.

Each of these categories has twice as many nominees as the former gendered categories and voters will cast two votes for each category. These categories will also have two winners each. If there is a tie, there may be more than two winners in a category.

What sets the Drama Desk Awards apart is that they are voted on and bestowed by critics, journalists, editors, and publishers covering theater. The Drama Desk Awardshonor all aspects of New York’s professional theater.

“Congratulations to the nominees of the 67th Annual Drama Desk Awards!,” said Commissioner Anne del Castillo of the NYC Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment. “These long-standing awards celebrate the tremendous talent of Broadway, Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway, both on stage and behind the scenes, as voted on by an esteemed group of critics, journalists and publishers who cover the NYC theatre industry.”

The 2022-2023 Drama Desk Nominating Committee is composed of: Martha Wade Steketee (Chair; freelance: UrbanExcavations.com), Linda Armstrong (New York Amsterdam News), Dan Dinero (Theatre is Easy), Peter Filichia (Broadway Radio), Kenji Fujishima (freelance: Theatermania), Margaret Hall (Playbill) and Charles Wright, Drama Desk co-president, ex-officio.

About The Drama Desk

The Drama Desk was founded in 1949 to explore key issues in the theater and to bring together critics and writers in an organization to support the ongoing development of theater in New York. The organization began presenting its awards in 1955, and it is the only critics’ organization to honor achievement in the theater with competition among Broadway, Off Broadway, and Off-Off Broadway productions in the same categories.

2023 DRAMA DESK NOMINATIONS

Outstanding Play

A Case for the Existence of God, by Samuel D. Hunter, Signature Theatre

Fat Ham, by James Ijames, The Public Theater and National Black Theatre

Leopoldstadt, by Tom Stoppard

Love, by Alexander Zeldin, Park Avenue Armory

Prima Facie, by Suzie Miller

Wish You Were Here, by Sanaz Toossi, Playwrights Horizons

Outstanding Musical

& Juliet

Between the Lines

F*ck7thGrade, The Wild Project

Shucked

Some Like it Hot

White Girl in Danger, Vineyard Theatre and Second Stage Theater

Outstanding Revival of a Play

A Raisin in the Sun, The Public Theater

Death of a Salesman

Endgame, Irish Repertory Theatre

The Piano Lesson

Ohio State Murders

Wedding Band, Theatre for a New Audience

Outstanding Revival of a Musical

A Man of No Importance, Classic Stage Company

Into the Woods

Merrily We Roll Along, New York Theatre Workshop

Parade

Sweeney Todd

Outstanding Lead Performance in a Play

Hiran Abeysekera, Life of Pi

Kyle Beltran, A Case for the Existence of God, Signature Theatre

Will Brill, A Case for the Existence of God, Signature Theatre

Brittany Bradford, Wedding Band, Theatre for a New Audience

Jessica Chastain, A Doll’s House

Sharon D Clarke, Death of a Salesman

Sean Hayes, Good Night, Oscar

Denise Manning, Amani, National Black Theatre and Rattlestick Theater

Audra McDonald, Ohio State Murders

Wendell Pierce, Death of a Salesman

John Douglas Thompson, Endgame, Irish Repertory Theatre

Kara Young, Twelfth Night, The Classical Theatre of Harlem

Outstanding Lead Performance in a Musical

Annaleigh Ashford, Sweeney Todd

Nicholas Barasch, The Butcher Boy, Irish Repertory Theatre

Sara Bareilles, Into the Woods

Andrew Burnap, Camelot

Micaela Diamond, Parade

Andrew Durand, Shucked

Callum Francis, Kinky Boots, Stage 42

J. Harrison Ghee, Some Like it Hot

Jonathan Groff, Merrily We Roll Along, New York Theatre Workshop

Somi Kakoma, Dreaming Zenzile, New York Theatre Workshop

Lindsay Mendez, Merrily We Roll Along, New York Theatre Workshop

Anna Uzele, New York, New York

Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play

Emily Bergl, Good Night, Oscar

Danielle Brooks, The Piano Lesson

Amelda Brown, Love, Park Avenue Armory

Ray Fisher, The Piano Lesson

K. Todd Freeman, Downstate, Playwrights Horizons

Francis Guinan, Downstate, Playwrights Horizons

Nick Holder, Love, Park Avenue Armory

Arian Moayed, A Doll’s House

Brian Quijada, Wolf Play, MCC Theater and Soho Rep

Miriam Silverman, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, Brooklyn Academy of Music

Brandon Uranowitz, Leopoldstadt

Kara Young, Cost of Living

Outstanding Featured Performance in a Musical

Kevin Cahoon, Shucked

Kevin Del Aguila, Some Like it Hot

Robyn Hurder, A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical

Mark Jacoby, A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical

Tarra Conner Jones, White Girl in Danger, Vineyard Theatre and Second Stage Theater

Julia Lester, Into the Woods

Alex Newell, Shucked

Daniel Radcliffe, Merrily We Roll Along, New York Theatre Workshop

Phillipa Soo, Into the Woods

Mare Winningham, A Man of No Importance, Classic Stage Company

Outstanding Direction of a Play

Zi Alikhan, On That Day in Amsterdam, Primary Stages

Shayok Misha Chowdhury, Public Obscenities, Soho Rep and NAATCO

Miranda Cromwell, Death of a Salesman

Adam Meggido, Peter Pan Goes Wrong

Max Webster, Life of Pi

Alexander Zeldin, Love, Park Avenue Armory

Outstanding Direction of a Musical

Jeff Calhoun, Between the Lines

John Doyle, A Man of No Importance, Classic Stage Company

Maria Friedman, Merrily We Roll Along, New York Theatre Workshop

Thomas Kail, Sweeney Todd

Jack O’Brien, Shucked

Outstanding Choreography

Andy Blankenbuehler, Only Gold, MCC Theater

Tislarm Bouie, the bandaged place

Edgar Godineaux, The Harder They Come, The Public Theater

Casey Nicholaw, Some Like it Hot

Susan Stroman, New York, New York

Jennifer Weber, KPOP

Outstanding Music

Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, Shucked

Michael R. Jackson, White Girl in Danger, Vineyard Theatre and Second Stage Theater

Tom Kitt and AnnMarie Milazzo (vocal designer), Almost Famous

Elyssa Samsel and Kate Anderson, Between the Lines

The Kilbanes, Weightless, WP Theater

Outstanding Lyrics

Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, Shucked

Jonathan Hogue, Stranger Sings! The Parody Musical

Michael R. Jackson, White Girl in Danger, Vineyard Theatre and Second Stage Theater

Adam Schlesinger, The Bedwetter, Atlantic Theater Company

Scott Whitman and Marc Shaiman, Some Like it Hot

Outstanding Book of a Musical

Jonathan Hogue, Stranger Sings! The Parody Musical

Robert Horn, Shucked

Matthew López and Amber Ruffin, Some Like it Hot

Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli, and Tye Blue, Titanique

David West Read, & Juliet

Outstanding Orchestrations

Bruce Coughlin, A Man of No Importance, Classic Stage Company

Jason Howland, Shucked

Charlie Rosen and Bryan Carter, Some Like it Hot

Kenny Seymour, The Harder They Come, The Public Theater

Daryl Waters and Sam Davis, New York, New York

Outstanding Music in a Play

Ben Edelman, Zane Pais, and Sinan Refik Zafar, Letters from Max, a ritual, Signature Theatre

Mauricio Escamilla, the bandaged place, Roundabout Theatre Company

Suzan-Lori Parks, Plays for the Plague Year, The Public Theater

Ian Ross, Wuthering Heights, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Wise Children, National Theatre

Daniel Schlosberg, Montag, Soho Rep

Outstanding Scenic Design of a Play

Jason Ardizzone-West, Wedding Band, Theatre for a New Audience

Beowulf Boritt, Ohio State Murders

dots, Public Obscenities, Soho Rep and NAATCO

Tim Hatley, Life of Pi

Natasha Jenkins, Love, Park Avenue Armory

John McDermott, Chains, Mint Theater Company

Outstanding Scenic Design of a Musical

Beowulf Boritt, New York, New York

David Korins, Only Gold, MCC Theater

Scott Pask, Shucked

Walt Spangler and Brendan McCann (production props), Stranger Sings! The Parody Musical

Michael Yeargan, Camelot

Outstanding Costume Design of a Play

Kara Branch, According to the Chorus, New Light Theater Project

Enver Chakartash, Public Obscenities, Soho Rep and NAATCO

Qween Jean, Wedding Band, Theatre for a New Audience

Sarah Laux, Wish You Were Here, Playwright Horizons

Emilio Sosa, Ain’t No Mo’

Roberto Surace for Peter Pan Goes Wrong

Outstanding Costume Design of a Musical

Gregg Barnes, Some Like it Hot

Tilly Grimes, Shucked

Jennifer Moeller, Camelot

Clint Ramos and Sophia Choi, KPOP

Anita Yavich, Only Gold, MCC Theater

Donna Zakowska, New York, New York

Outstanding Lighting Design of a Play

Isabella Byrd, Epiphany, Lincoln Center Theater

Jiyoun Chang, The Far Country, Atlantic Theater Company

Natasha Chivers and Willie Williams (video), Prima Facie

Allen Lee Hughes, Ohio State Murders

Cha See, On That Day in Amsterdam, Primary Stages

Japhy Weideman, The Piano Lesson

Outstanding Lighting Design of a Musical

Ken Billington, New York, New York

Jeff Croiter, Only Gold, MCC Theater

Heather Gilbert, Parade

David Grill, Bob Fosse’s Dancin’

Natasha Katz, Sweeney Todd

Outstanding Projection and Video Design

Simon Baker, Wuthering Heights, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Wise Children, and National Theatre

Andrzej Goulding, Life of Pi

Caite Hevner, Between the Lines, Tony Kiser Theater

Josh Higgason, White Girl in Danger, Vineyard Theatre and Second Stage Theater

Nicholas Hussong, On That Day in Amsterdam, Primary Stages

Johnny Moreno, Public Obscenities, Soho Rep and NAATCO

Outstanding Sound Design of a Play

Justin Ellington, Ohio State Murders

Tom Gibbons, Hamlet, Park Avenue Armory

Josh Anio Grigg, Love, Park Avenue Armory

Lee Kinney and Daniel Kluger, You Will Get Sick, Roundabout Theatre Company

Ben & Max Ringham, A Doll’s House

Mikaal Sulaiman, Fat Ham, The Public Theater and National Black Theatre

Outstanding Sound Design of a Musical

Peter Hylenski, Almost Famous

Scott Lehrer and Alex Neumann, Into the Woods

John Shivers, Shucked

Joanna Lynne Staub, Weightless, WP Theater

Jon Weston, Parade

Outstanding Wig and Hair

Campbell Young Associates, Almost Famous

Cookie Jordan, The Piano Lesson

Mia M. Neal, Ain’t No Mo’

Earon Nealey, Twelfth Night, The Classical Theatre of Harlem

Mitsuteru Okuyama, Chushingura 47 Ronin

Luc Verschueren, A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical

Outstanding Solo Performance

Jodie Comer, Prima Facie

David Greenspan, Four Saints in Three Acts, Lucille Lortel Theatre

Jessica Hendy, Walking With Bubbles, AMT Theater

Anthony Rapp, Without You

Tracy Thorne, Jack Was Kind, Irish Repertory Theatre

Unique Theatrical Experience

Asi Wind’s Inner Circle

Peter Pan Goes Wrong

Plays for the Plague Year, The Public Theater

Zephyr, Cirque Mechanics at The New Victory Theater

Outstanding Fight Choreography

B.H. Barry, Camelot

Rocio Mendez, Día Y Noche, LAByrinth Theater Company

Rocio Mendez, How to Defend Yourself, New York Theater Workshop

Unkledave’s Fight-House, soft, MCC Theater

Outstanding Adaptation

A Doll’s House, by Amy Herzog

Arden of Faversham, by Jeffrey Hatcher and Kathryn Walat, Red Bull Theater

black odyssey, by Marcus Gardley, Classic Stage Company

Oresteia, by Robert Icke, Park Avenue Armory

Wuthering Heights, by Emma Rice, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Wise Children, National Theatre

Outstanding Puppetry

John Leader, Wuthering Heights, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Wise Children, National Theatre

James Ortiz (design), Kennedy Kanagawa (as Milky White), Into the Woods

Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell, Life of Pi

Kirjan Waage, The Immortal Jellyfish Girl, Wakka Wakka and Nordland Visual Theatre at 59E59

SPECIAL AWARDS

Harold Prince Lifetime Achievement Award

Stephen McKinley Henderson has been bringing in-depth, gripping portrayals of memorable characters to the stage for over four decades. With his return to Broadway this season as Pops in Between Riverside and Crazy, which the Drama Desk previously nominated in 2015, this year’s Harold Prince Lifetime Achievement Award marks Henderson’s role in this powerful production as a celebration of his brilliant career.

Ensemble Award

The cast of Soho Rep’s Public Obscenities – Tashnuva Anan, Abrar Haque, Golam Sarwar Harun, Gargi Mukherjee, NaFis, Jakeem Dante Powell, and Debashis Roy Chowdhury – embodied the transnational world of Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s bilingual play with memorable authenticity, remarkable specificity, and extraordinary warmth.

Sam Norkin Off-Broadway Award

From his standout performance in american (tele)visions, to writing and performing the autobiographical Dark Disabled Stories, Ryan J. Haddad’s work this season has expanded on and interrogated what the idea of “accessibility” really means. Whether riding a shopping cart like a throne, or relating his experiences on a “gay, pink bus,” Haddad shared with audiences an unabashed queer fabulosity that was both unforgettable and deeply human.

Productions with multiple nominations:

Shucked: 12

Some Like it Hot: 8

Into the Woods: 6

New York, New York: 6

Life of Pi: 5

Love: 5

Merrily We Roll Along: 5

Ohio State Murders: 5

The Piano Lesson: 5

White Girl in Danger: 5

A Doll’s House: 4

A Man of No Importance: 4

Between the Lines: 4

Camelot: 4

Death of a Salesman: 4

Only Gold: 4

Parade: 4

Public Obscenities: 4

Sweeney Todd: 4

Wedding Band: 4

Wuthering Heights: 4

A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical: 3

A Case for the Existence of God: 3

Almost Famous: 3

On That Day in Amsterdam: 3

Peter Pan Goes Wrong: 3

Prima Facie: 3

Stranger Sings! The Parody Musical: 3

& Juliet: 2

Ain’t No Mo’: 2

Downstate: 2

Endgame: 2

Fat Ham: 2

Good Night, Oscar: 2

KPOP: 2

Leopoldstadt: 2

Plays for the Plague Year: 2

the bandaged place: 2

The Far Country: 2

The Harder They Come: 2

Twelfth Night: 2

Weightless: 2

Wish You Were Here: 2

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HARRY BELAFONTE, ACTIVIST AND ENTERTAINER, DIES AT 96 · Apr 25th

(Hillel Italie’s article appeared on AP News, 4/25; via the Drudge Report; Photo: Vanity Fair.)

NEW YORK (AP) — Harry Belafonte, the civil rights and entertainment giant who began as a groundbreaking actor and singer and became an activist, humanitarian and conscience of the world, has died. He was 96.

Belafonte died Tuesday of congestive heart failure at his New York home, his wife Pamela by his side, said publicist Ken Sunshine.

With his glowing, handsome face and silky-husky voice, Belafonte was one of the first Black performers to gain a wide following on film and to sell a million records as a singer; many still know him for his signature hit “Banana Boat Song (Day-O),” and its call of “Day-O! Daaaaay-O.” But he forged a greater legacy once he scaled back his performing career in the 1960s and lived out his hero Paul Robeson’s decree that artists are “gatekeepers of truth.”

Belafonte stands as the model and the epitome of the celebrity activist. Few kept up with his time and commitment and none his stature as a meeting point among Hollywood, Washington and the civil rights movement.

Belafonte not only participated in protest marches and benefit concerts, but helped organize and raise support for them. He worked closely with his friend and generational peer the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., often intervening on his behalf with both politicians and fellow entertainers and helping him financially. He risked his life and livelihood and set high standards for younger Black celebrities, scolding Jay-Z and Beyoncé for failing to meet their “social responsibilities,” and mentoring Usher, Common, Danny Glover and many others. In Spike Lee’s 2018 film “BlacKkKlansman,” he was fittingly cast as an elder statesman schooling young activists about the country’s past.

Belafonte’s friend, civil rights leader Andrew Young, would note that Belafonte was the rare person to grow more radical with age. He was ever engaged and unyielding, willing to take on Southern segregationists, Northern liberals, the billionaire Koch brothers and the country’s first Black president, Barack Obama, whom Belafonte would remember asking to cut him “some slack.”

Belafonte responded, “What makes you think that’s not what I’ve been doing?”

Belafonte had been a major artist since the 1950s. He won a Tony Award in 1954 for his starring role in John Murray Anderson’s “Almanac” and five years later became the first Black performer to win an Emmy for the TV special “Tonight with Harry Belafonte.”

In 1954, he co-starred with Dorothy Dandridge in the Otto Preminger-directed musical “Carmen Jones,” a popular breakthrough for an all-Black cast. The 1957 movie “Island in the Sun” was banned in several Southern cities, where theater owners were threatened by the Ku Klux Klan because of the film’s interracial romance between Belafonte and Joan Fontaine.

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SOMERSET MAUGHAM: A WILY PLAYWRIGHT OF LIGHT DRAMAS AND WEIGHTY MORALS · Apr 24th

(Michael Billington’s article appeared in the Guardian, 4/24; Photo: Deeply deceptive dramas … W Somerset Maugham, 1957. Photograph: Jane Bown/The Observer.)

A new revival of The Circle is a reminder of a dramatist who smuggled vital messages into broad crowdpleasers

Never trust what dramatists say about themselves. Noël Coward spent decades disclaiming he had any purpose beyond entertainment while giving us finger-wagging lectures. The case of Somerset Maugham is remarkably similar. He once wrote that “prose drama is one of the lesser arts, like wood-carving or dancing, but in so far as it is an art at all, its purpose is to afford delight. I do not think it can usefully concern itself with the welfare of humanity or the saving of civilisation.” Yet this is the man who in For Services Rendered, first seen in 1932 and since much revived, wrote a blistering attack on the ruinous aftermath of the first world war and the creation of a society unfit for heroes.

You could argue that play is a special case. I would suggest, however, that Maugham is a deeply deceptive dramatist. His plays look as if they are dated old crowdpleasers, yet often challenge conventional ideas. There is a prime example in The Circle, shortly to be revived at the Orange Tree with a cast headed by Jane Asher, Olivia Vinall, Clive Francis and Nicholas Le Prevost. On the surface, it may seem like a piece of pure escapism. It even has French windows before which a young hero enquires, “I say, what about this tennis?” Yet, without spoiling the fun for potential theatregoers, I would say the play is not only expertly constructed but morally unexpected. Showing what happens in old age to a pair of once-romantic lovers, it ends with a palpable message that is not easily predicted and that prompted boos at the 1921 premiere.

“Sincerity in society,” says a character in The Circle, “would be like an iron girder in a house of cards.” The subversive nature of sincerity is shown to even greater effect in The Constant Wife, which flopped badly in 1926 but now looks like one of Maugham’s best works. It shows the resourceful heroine publicly acknowledging what she has long known: that her husband has been having an affair with her best friend. Her reaction is twofold: to assert her economic independence and to head off on an adulterous Italian jaunt with a devoted admirer. When the play was buoyantly revived in 2002 with Jenny Seagrove, it struck me that, even if its arguments no longer shocked us, there was still a frisson to the heroine’s claim that “the modern wife is a prostitute who doesn’t deliver the goods” and that, as she finally returns to her husband, “I may be unfaithful but I am constant”.

My point is that Maugham was a wily old bird: he knew how to operate within commercial parameters while disturbing complacent audiences. Sometimes his eye for the market short-circuits moral debate. I feel that about The Sacred Flame (1928) which deals with the sudden death of a disabled war hero whose vivacious wife has fallen in love with his brother: Maugham raises big issues about assisted dying and amorous transience without leaving room to discuss them properly. But I refuse to accept Maugham’s estimate of himself as a harmless entertainer.

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BARRY HUMPHRIES, THE COMEDIAN WHO CREATED DAME EDNA EVERAGE, DIES AT 89 · Apr 23rd

(Mathew Murphy’s article appeared in the Daily Beast, 4/23; via Pam Green; Photo: REUTERS/Ian Waldie.)

GOODBYE POSSUMS

Tributes have poured in for Australian comedian Barry Humphries who has passed away in Sydney.

Barry Humphries, the Australian comedian best known for playing Dame Edna Everage, has died at the age of 89.

He had been in hospital in Sydney after suffering complications following hip surgery in March.

Humphries played the lilac-haired drag persona Dame Edna, who was known for her love of gladioli and her catchphrase “Hello Possums”, for more than 60 years. He also played the uncouth drunk Sir Les Patterson, among other characters.

His family confirmed his death in a statement, saying, “He was completely himself until the very end, never losing his brilliant mind, his unique wit and generosity of spirit.”

“With over 70 years on the stage, he was an entertainer to his core, touring up until the last year of his life and planning more shows that will sadly never be,” the statement said. “His audiences were precious to him, and he never took them for granted.

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UKRAINE ARTISTS PUSH BACK AGAINST IDENTITY DENIAL · Apr 22nd

(Juri Rescheto’s report appeared on DW, 4/21.)

View at: https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-artists-push-back-against-identity-denial/video-65401461

Vladimir Putin claims Ukraine has no national identity and is historically part of Russia. Many Ukrainian artists are pushing back against that narrative. A new Ukrainian ballet has opened in the Latvian capital Riga. The dancers are from Latvia, but the creative team behind the production comes from Kyiv.

NEW DAWN: THEATRE AFFIRMATIONS · Apr 21st

It is never too late to be alive (to theatre)–Penelope Chatterton paraphrase

I take the time needed to express my creativity—and it is always  in demand.

Inspiration and invention lead me, and my ship comes in now.

I can easily solve any problem and correct answers come to me easily.  I know what to do.

My projects complete easily and automatically—and I am pleased with my process and results.

All right resources are mine now–and I am grateful. 

I am worthy of success.

My path is important to myself and our community.

I am most truly successful, as an artist and otherwise, when I am my most authentic self, openly and honestly.

I adapt my vision to the new theatrical reality—and it has all positive outcomes for me.

Theatre comes back strong in 2021—and heals us.

(Many of the above affirmations are from or based on work by Teri D. Mahaney, Florence Scovel Shinn, Louise Hay, and others.)

 

ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER: THE CLOSING OF ‘PHANTOM,’ THE LOSS OF MY SON AND THE FUTURE OF BROADWAY · Apr 20th

(Lloyd Webber’s opinion appeared in The New York Times, April 17, 2023; via Pam Green.  Photo:  Andrew Kelly/Reuters.)

By Andrew Lloyd Webber

Mr. Lloyd Webber is the composer of 13 Broadway musicals, including his most recent, “Bad Cinderella.”

“An apple a day, if well aimed, keeps the doctor away.”

I was speaking in P.G. Wodehouse quotes with my eldest son, Nick, who was in hospice, where he was being treated for cancer just days ago.

“Here’s one for you,” said Nick, laughing. He had surmised that, after bulletins from New York, his father, as Wodehouse might have put it, was less than gruntled. “Has anybody ever seen a dramatic critic in the daytime? Of course not. They come out after dark, up to no good.” We hugged and said our goodbyes.

The next day, my son died. Nothing’s worse for a parent than the death of a child. In my bones I feel it wrong to write about the closing of “Phantom” or where Broadway’s going right now.

But I’ll try. I owe everything to my love of Broadway and its glorious legacy of musicals. So everything I write comes from my childhood dream that I’d make it to the Great White Way.

All roads lead to my late friend and collaborator Hal Prince. My association with Hal goes back to 1970, when he sent me a telegram proposing that he direct and produce “Jesus Christ Superstar” on Broadway. It got to me only after the show was already committed. Hal knew of my regret, and we kept in touch.

Cut to 1975. Hal had just triumphantly opened “A Little Night Music” when “By Jeeves,” the Wodehouse musical for which I wrote the music, bombed in London.

Hal wrote to me when I was at my lowest. The letter contained his mantra. He said he liked my score but “you can’t listen to music if you can’t look at it.” The sets for “By Jeeves” were as hideous as the ones for “Night Music” were gorgeous.

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