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Tag: Theater

  • What to stream this week: Annette Bening, Jason Aldean, Awkwafina, NKOTB and ‘Blue Eye Samurai’

    What to stream this week: Annette Bening, Jason Aldean, Awkwafina, NKOTB and ‘Blue Eye Samurai’

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    Awkwafina starring as a game-show-obsessed woman in “Quiz Lady” and the animated historical drama “Blue Eye Samurai” about a mixed-race, revenge-seeking female samurai in Japan are some of the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near you

    Also among the offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists are a studio album from Jason Aldean, a new Hulu series made from Charmaine Wilkerson’s novel “Black Cake” and Annette Bening portrays a real-life hero who swam the treacherous passage from Cuba to Key West in 2013.

    — It took Diana Nyad more than 30 years and five tries to swim from Cuba to the Florida Keys. “Free Solo” filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s “Nyad,” streaming Friday, Nov. 3 on Netflix, dramatizes her feat of endurance, along with the perseverance of her closest friends and collaborators. Bening plays Nyad, who was 60 when she began training herself again for the open-ocean swim. In a stand-out supporting performance, Jodie Foster plays her friend and trainer Bonnie Stoll. In my review, I wrote that there is enough here to help the film “if not swim against the tide of sport-biopic convention then at least ride a swift current to the finish line.”

    — In “Quiz Lady,” a 30-something accountant named Anne (Awkwafina) has devotedly watched every episode of “Can’t Stop the Quiz” since she was 4-year-old. After her pug is kidnapped and held for ransom, Anne and her estranged sister Jenny (Sandra Oh) embark on a mission to get Anne on “Can’t Stop the Quiz,” a “Jeopardy!”-like show in which Will Ferrell plays an Alex Trebek-like host. “Quiz Lady” debuts Friday, Nov. 3, on Hulu.

    — The formidable trio of Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed and James Allen White anchor director Christos Nikou’s “Fingernails,” a sci-fi drama set in a near-future where couples can use science to determine if they’re meant to be together. In the film, which debuts Friday, Nov. 3 on Apple TV+, Buckley and White play a couple with a 100% positive score, proving that they’re soulmates. But things get complicated when Buckley’s character hits it off with a colleague (Ahmed).

    — AP Film Writer Jake Coyle

    — Last month, the singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett, who turned his unique brand of beach bum soft rock and “Margaritaville” escapism into a lifestyle and movement, died. As the music world continues to mourn the loss of a giant, Mailboat and Sun Records have teamed up to release his final album, a posthumous release titled “Equal Strain on All Parts,” recorded earlier this year. It features Paul McCartney, Emmylou Harris, Lennie Gallant, Angelique Kidjo, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Buffett’s light-hearted, goodtime jams live on, as evidenced on the previously released tracks, “My Gummie Just Kicked In” and “Bubbles Up.”

    — “Highway Desperado” is the 11th studio album from mainstream country juggernaut Jason Aldean, released on the heels of his first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single, the controversy-creating “Try That in a Small Town.” Produced by Michael Knox, Aldean says “Highway Desperado” takes inspiration from his live show. “I think when I look back on it, I built my career early on my live show, and have been on the road touring since I was 18 years old,” Aldean said in a press release. “For us, touring is our favorite part. Getting on the bus and going town to town and playing our shows and doing our thing and seeing the fans… the title for the tour and album was really inspired from that.”

    — In 2008, after having been on a hiatus as a group for 12 years, Boston boy band New Kids on the Block returned with a new album, “The Block.” This year, to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the album responsible for the second chapter of their career, NKOTB will release “The Block: Revisited.” It includes four previously unreleased tracks as well as a new remix of their single “Dirty Dancing,” this time featuring a new generation of boy band: Dino, DK, and Joshua of the best-selling K-pop group SEVENTEEN.

    — For some, Australian-via-Zimbabwe rapper-singer Tkay Maidza ’s unique vocal tone might be most closely associated with her cover of the 1988 Pixies’ song “Where Is My Mind?” as utilized in an Apple AirPods commercial. (She recasts the song in a style all her own — quite the feat for a track frequently covered and tethered to the final scene in “Fight Club.”) But it’s her original work that deserves attention. “Sweet Justice,” her sophomore album that follows 2016’s self-titled debut and a 2020 EP series — is an eclectic collection of soulful electronics and psychedelic production elevated by her playful flow and smooth vocal tone.

    — AP Music Writer Maria Sherman

    — Before Charmaine Wilkerson’s novel “Black Cake” was published in 2022, Oprah Winfrey secured the TV rights in a bidding war and it’s now a new Hulu series. The first three episodes of “Black Cake” drop Wednesday, with new episodes released weekly. It follows Benny and Byron, adult estranged siblings whose mother has died and left them a mysterious flash drive with the details of her family history, explaining how she arrived in California from the Caribbean in the 1960s. The story also connects to a Caribbean Black cake from their heritage.

    — Another popular novel, the WWII-themed “All the Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr, has also been turned into a series. Shawn Levy directs the story of Marie (played by newcomer Aria Mia Loberti) as a blind, young woman in hiding in German-occupied France and a Nazi solder named Werner (Louis Hoffman). He’s an orphan who was drafted against his will and the show explores how they’re linked by a radio broadcast, despite their different backgrounds. The four-episode series also stars Mark Ruffalo and Hugh Laurie and premieres Thursday on Netflix.

    — The animated historical drama “Blue Eye Samurai” about a mixed-race, revenge-seeking female samurai in Japan is already getting praise for its use of 2D and 3D artistry. Maya Erskine voices the lead character, Mizu, alongside Masi Oka, George Takei, Randall Park, Kenneth Branagh, Brenda Song, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa and Darren Barnet. “Blue Eye Samurai” drops Friday, Nov. 3 on Netflix.

    — Naturalist Sir David Attenborough narrates a long-awaited third installment of the “Planet Earth” series. The new episodes use modern technology including drones, submersibles, and high-speed cameras to capture both awe-inspiring views of nature and the heartbreaking struggles of wildlife because of climate change. “Planet Earth III” debuts Saturday, Nov. 4 on BBC America and AMC+.

    — In 2021, National Geographic premiered the limited series called “9/11: One Day in America,” to critical acclaim. A second installment called “JFK: One Day in America” premieres Sunday, Nov. 5. The three-part series has previously unseen testimony from surviving witnesses to create an oral history of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Nov. 22 marks the 60th anniversary of his death. “One Last Day: JFK” will also stream on Disney+ and Hulu a day later.

    — Alicia Rancilio

    — The bad news: Humanity is extinct. The good news: Our robot descendants are fans of human culture. In The Talos Principle II, you are an artificial intelligence on a mission to figure out how people screwed it all up, and maybe avoid repeating their mistakes. The 2014 original, from the Croatian developer Croteam, was one of the more challenging puzzle games of its generation. The studio is promising a wider array of 3D brainteasers in the sequel, with new techniques like gravity manipulation and mind transference — not to mention “questions about the nature of the cosmos and the purpose of civilization.” If you dig mind-benders like Portal and The Witness, you probably already have Talos II on your wish list for Thursday on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S and PC.

    — Another highly regarded European studio, France’s Don’t Nod, is back with another intriguing puzzle game, Jusant. The goal here is to climb to the top of a gigantic, mysterious tower, but as you ascend, you’ll discover different environments and artifacts from a lost civilization. I found it exhausting to just watch the preview, but the developer — best known for the time-twisting adventure Life Is Strange — describes Jusant as “a meditative journey.” And you have an adorable companion, a watery blob named Ballast, to ask for clues when you get stuck. The conquest begins Tuesday on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S and PC.

    — Lou Kesten

    ___

    Catch up on AP’s entertainment coverage here: https://apnews.com/entertainment.

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  • What to stream this week: Annette Bening, Jason Aldean, Awkwafina, NKOTB and ‘Blue Eye Samurai’

    What to stream this week: Annette Bening, Jason Aldean, Awkwafina, NKOTB and ‘Blue Eye Samurai’

    [ad_1]

    Awkwafina starring as a game-show-obsessed woman in “Quiz Lady” and the animated historical drama “Blue Eye Samurai” about a mixed-race, revenge-seeking female samurai in Japan are some of the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near you

    Also among the offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists are a studio album from Jason Aldean, a new Hulu series made from Charmaine Wilkerson’s novel “Black Cake” and Annette Bening portrays a real-life hero who swam the treacherous passage from Cuba to Key West in 2013.

    — It took Diana Nyad more than 30 years and five tries to swim from Cuba to the Florida Keys. “Free Solo” filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s “Nyad,” streaming Friday, Nov. 3 on Netflix, dramatizes her feat of endurance, along with the perseverance of her closest friends and collaborators. Bening plays Nyad, who was 60 when she began training herself again for the open-ocean swim. In a stand-out supporting performance, Jodie Foster plays her friend and trainer Bonnie Stoll. In my review, I wrote that there is enough here to help the film “if not swim against the tide of sport-biopic convention then at least ride a swift current to the finish line.”

    — In “Quiz Lady,” a 30-something accountant named Anne (Awkwafina) has devotedly watched every episode of “Can’t Stop the Quiz” since she was 4-year-old. After her pug is kidnapped and held for ransom, Anne and her estranged sister Jenny (Sandra Oh) embark on a mission to get Anne on “Can’t Stop the Quiz,” a “Jeopardy!”-like show in which Will Ferrell plays an Alex Trebek-like host. “Quiz Lady” debuts Friday, Nov. 3, on Hulu.

    — The formidable trio of Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed and James Allen White anchor director Christos Nikou’s “Fingernails,” a sci-fi drama set in a near-future where couples can use science to determine if they’re meant to be together. In the film, which debuts Friday, Nov. 3 on Apple TV+, Buckley and White play a couple with a 100% positive score, proving that they’re soulmates. But things get complicated when Buckley’s character hits it off with a colleague (Ahmed).

    — AP Film Writer Jake Coyle

    — Last month, the singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett, who turned his unique brand of beach bum soft rock and “Margaritaville” escapism into a lifestyle and movement, died. As the music world continues to mourn the loss of a giant, Mailboat and Sun Records have teamed up to release his final album, a posthumous release titled “Equal Strain on All Parts,” recorded earlier this year. It features Paul McCartney, Emmylou Harris, Lennie Gallant, Angelique Kidjo, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Buffett’s light-hearted, goodtime jams live on, as evidenced on the previously released tracks, “My Gummie Just Kicked In” and “Bubbles Up.”

    — “Highway Desperado” is the 11th studio album from mainstream country juggernaut Jason Aldean, released on the heels of his first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single, the controversy-creating “Try That in a Small Town.” Produced by Michael Knox, Aldean says “Highway Desperado” takes inspiration from his live show. “I think when I look back on it, I built my career early on my live show, and have been on the road touring since I was 18 years old,” Aldean said in a press release. “For us, touring is our favorite part. Getting on the bus and going town to town and playing our shows and doing our thing and seeing the fans… the title for the tour and album was really inspired from that.”

    — In 2008, after having been on a hiatus as a group for 12 years, Boston boy band New Kids on the Block returned with a new album, “The Block.” This year, to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the album responsible for the second chapter of their career, NKOTB will release “The Block: Revisited.” It includes four previously unreleased tracks as well as a new remix of their single “Dirty Dancing,” this time featuring a new generation of boy band: Dino, DK, and Joshua of the best-selling K-pop group SEVENTEEN.

    — For some, Australian-via-Zimbabwe rapper-singer Tkay Maidza ’s unique vocal tone might be most closely associated with her cover of the 1988 Pixies’ song “Where Is My Mind?” as utilized in an Apple AirPods commercial. (She recasts the song in a style all her own — quite the feat for a track frequently covered and tethered to the final scene in “Fight Club.”) But it’s her original work that deserves attention. “Sweet Justice,” her sophomore album that follows 2016’s self-titled debut and a 2020 EP series — is an eclectic collection of soulful electronics and psychedelic production elevated by her playful flow and smooth vocal tone.

    — AP Music Writer Maria Sherman

    — Before Charmaine Wilkerson’s novel “Black Cake” was published in 2022, Oprah Winfrey secured the TV rights in a bidding war and it’s now a new Hulu series. The first three episodes of “Black Cake” drop Wednesday, with new episodes released weekly. It follows Benny and Byron, adult estranged siblings whose mother has died and left them a mysterious flash drive with the details of her family history, explaining how she arrived in California from the Caribbean in the 1960s. The story also connects to a Caribbean Black cake from their heritage.

    — Another popular novel, the WWII-themed “All the Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr, has also been turned into a series. Shawn Levy directs the story of Marie (played by newcomer Aria Mia Loberti) as a blind, young woman in hiding in German-occupied France and a Nazi solder named Werner (Louis Hoffman). He’s an orphan who was drafted against his will and the show explores how they’re linked by a radio broadcast, despite their different backgrounds. The four-episode series also stars Mark Ruffalo and Hugh Laurie and premieres Thursday on Netflix.

    — The animated historical drama “Blue Eye Samurai” about a mixed-race, revenge-seeking female samurai in Japan is already getting praise for its use of 2D and 3D artistry. Maya Erskine voices the lead character, Mizu, alongside Masi Oka, George Takei, Randall Park, Kenneth Branagh, Brenda Song, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa and Darren Barnet. “Blue Eye Samurai” drops Friday, Nov. 3 on Netflix.

    — Naturalist Sir David Attenborough narrates a long-awaited third installment of the “Planet Earth” series. The new episodes use modern technology including drones, submersibles, and high-speed cameras to capture both awe-inspiring views of nature and the heartbreaking struggles of wildlife because of climate change. “Planet Earth III” debuts Saturday, Nov. 4 on BBC America and AMC+.

    — In 2021, National Geographic premiered the limited series called “9/11: One Day in America,” to critical acclaim. A second installment called “JFK: One Day in America” premieres Sunday, Nov. 5. The three-part series has previously unseen testimony from surviving witnesses to create an oral history of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Nov. 22 marks the 60th anniversary of his death. “One Last Day: JFK” will also stream on Disney+ and Hulu a day later.

    — Alicia Rancilio

    — The bad news: Humanity is extinct. The good news: Our robot descendants are fans of human culture. In The Talos Principle II, you are an artificial intelligence on a mission to figure out how people screwed it all up, and maybe avoid repeating their mistakes. The 2014 original, from the Croatian developer Croteam, was one of the more challenging puzzle games of its generation. The studio is promising a wider array of 3D brainteasers in the sequel, with new techniques like gravity manipulation and mind transference — not to mention “questions about the nature of the cosmos and the purpose of civilization.” If you dig mind-benders like Portal and The Witness, you probably already have Talos II on your wish list for Thursday on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S and PC.

    — Another highly regarded European studio, France’s Don’t Nod, is back with another intriguing puzzle game, Jusant. The goal here is to climb to the top of a gigantic, mysterious tower, but as you ascend, you’ll discover different environments and artifacts from a lost civilization. I found it exhausting to just watch the preview, but the developer — best known for the time-twisting adventure Life Is Strange — describes Jusant as “a meditative journey.” And you have an adorable companion, a watery blob named Ballast, to ask for clues when you get stuck. The conquest begins Tuesday on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S and PC.

    — Lou Kesten

    ___

    Catch up on AP’s entertainment coverage here: https://apnews.com/entertainment.

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  • Robert Brustein, theater critic and pioneer, dies

    Robert Brustein, theater critic and pioneer, dies

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    NEW YORK — Robert Brustein, a giant in the theatrical world as critic, playwright, crusader for artistic integrity and founder of two of the leading regional theaters in the country, has died. He was 96.

    Brustein died on Sunday at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, according to an emailed statement from Gideon Lester, the artistic director and chief executive of the Fisher Center at Bard University and a decades’ long family friend. Lester said he heard the news from Brustein’s his wife, Doreen Beinart.

    Known as a passionate and provocative theater advocate who pushed for boundary-breaking works and for classics to be adventurously modernized, Brustein founded both the Yale Repertory Theatre and the American Repertory Theatre at Harvard.

    Some of the works he championed upset critics and playgoers unused to nontraditional productions, but he was unapologetic. “I know I’m out of step,” he told The New York Times in 2001. “I’m so out of step I’m almost in step.”

    Even in his 80s, Brustein continued offering his opinions on everything from art to politics, lashing out at the Tea Party and describing the pain of breaking ribs on his own blog. He was a distinguished scholar in residence at Suffolk University, a professor of English emeritus at Harvard University and longtime critic at The New Republic.

    Born in New York City, Brustein earned a bachelor’s from Amherst and a master’s and Ph.D. from Columbia. A Fulbright scholar, he taught at Cornell, Vassar and Columbia, where he taught drama. He was dean of the Yale School of Drama from 1966-1979 and during that time founded the Yale Repertory Theatre.

    Yale Rep, a champion of new work, has produced several Pulitzer Prize winners and nominated finalists. Many of its productions have advanced to Broadway and together have garnered 10 Tony Awards and more than 40 nominations.

    “The goal is to try and have people in the audience take away something that lasts and will haunt them, be it either a subject for debate or of their dreams,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 1997. “They’ll have an unresolved experience.”

    After a painful, highly publicized dismissal from Yale, Brustein in 1979 switched to Harvard, where he taught English and founded the American Repertory Theatre in 1980. Then in 1987, he founded the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training, a two-year graduate program. He retired as artistic director from A.R.T. in 2002 but continued serving as its founding director.

    A.R.T. has grown into one of the country’s most celebrated theaters and the winner of numerous awards, including the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In 2003, it was named one of the top three regional theaters in the country by Time magazine.

    Over the course of his long career as director, playwright, and teacher, Brustein aided the artistic development of such theater artists as Meryl Streep, Christopher Walken, Cherry Jones, Sigourney Weaver, James Naughton, James Lapine, Tony Shalhoub, Linda Lavin, Adam Rapp, William Ivey Long, Steve Zahn, Wendy Wasserstein, David Mamet and Peter Sellars.

    At both Yale Rep and A.R.T., Brustein told The Boston Globe in 2012, he embraced popular theater with a nationalistic streak: “We were trying to liberate American theater from its British overseers. We were trying to find an American style for the classics,” he said.

    “I was looking for the energies of popular theater applied to traditional work. I was also looking for new American plays. This was a very important function of ours, to encourage and develop new American playwrights.”

    Brustein’s own full-length plays include “Demons,” “The Face Life” and “Spring Forward, Fall Back” and “Nobody Dies on Friday,” based on the real-life relationship between Lee Strasberg and his student Marilyn Monroe.

    His work has been produced at the Vineyard Playhouse on Martha’s Vineyard, at Theater J in Washington, D.C., and the Abington Theatre in New York. “Playwriting is not so much a craft as an obsession,” he once observed.

    His trilogy on the life and work of William Shakespeare includes “The English Channel,” which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; “Mortal Terror”; and “The Last Will,” a witty play which takes place inside a tavern on the eve of Shakespeare’s theater career and presents the young poet as an intellectual kleptomaniac. Brustein published his first book on Shakespeare, “The Tainted Muse: Prejudice and Presumption in Shakespeare and His Time,” in 2009.

    Brustein was a staunch believer that theater should be first and foremost an art form, not just a political platform. He once criticized the African-American playwright August Wilson for declaring that Black people should not participate in colorblind casting but should form their own separatist companies. The pair then aired their differences in 1997 in a high-profile confrontation at New York’s Town Hall.

    Brustein, a tall man with a deep voice, also wrote “Shlemiel the First,” based on the stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer and set to traditional klezmer music. The light, absurd comedy, which gently mocks the lavishness of other musicals, premiered in 1994 at the American Repertory Theatre and was close to making it to Broadway. It was revived in 2011 by Theatre for a New Audience.

    “I think the greatest theater is that which combines the low and the high,” he told the Globe. “One thing I can’t stand is the middle.”

    His short plays include “Poker Face,” “Chekhov on Ice” and “Airport Hell.” His other books include “Revolution as Theatre,” “Letters to a Young Actor” and multiple volumes of his essays and criticism.

    He won multiple honors, including the George Polk Award for Journalism and an award for distinguished service to the arts from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was also inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame. In 2010, he was awarded the Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama at the White House and hailed as “a leading force in the development of theater and theater artists in the United States.”

    He is survived by his wife, who ran the human rights film program at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Kennedy School of Government; and a son, Daniel. His first wife, the actress Norma Brustein, died just after he was let go from Yale.

    Brustein was asked in 2012 what he thought of the current state of American theater and said tickets were too expensive and the work often failed to find a deep resonance.

    “I love entertainment, but entertainment has got to be a serious effort to investigate the American soul through its theater. Novelists understand this, poets understand this, and for a while the playwrights really understood it,” he told the Globe. “We don’t have that anymore. And if we do, it’s not making it on the stage.

    ___

    Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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  • Eno Ichikawa, Japanese Kabuki theater actor and innovator, dies at 83

    Eno Ichikawa, Japanese Kabuki theater actor and innovator, dies at 83

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    TOKYO — Eno Ichikawa, who revived the spectacular in Japanese Kabuki theater to woo younger and global audiences, has died. He was 83.

    Ichikawa died after suffering heart problems on Wednesday in Tokyo, the entertainment company Shochiku Co., a major Kabuki producer, said Saturday.

    Ichikawa, or Masahiko Kinoshi, became known for “Super Kabuki,” incorporating modern music and storytelling as well as the circus-like elements of the tradition — such as “flying” supported by ropes — that had been discarded over the years. He focused on what he called the three S’s: “Speed, story and spectacle.”

    Kabuki, which features live music and dance on a revolving stage, originated in the 17th Century Edo era and is traditionally performed only by men. So, Ichikawa played beautiful damsels, as well as witches, samurai and even animals throughout his career.

    He is best known for bringing back the stunt “chunori,” which translates as “lifted into space,” portraying a joyous fox that receives from a princess a small drum made from the hide of its slaughtered parents.

    Ichikawa was listed in the Guinness World Records in 2000 for having “flown across the stage and audience for 5,000 performances since April 1968.”

    Hailed as “the rebel in Kabuki” by Japanese media, Ichikawa also created new works. “Yamato Takeru,” based on Japanese mythology and centered on a prince who battles evil forces, debuted in 1986. At the end, the hero transforms into a magnificent white bird that flies through the theater.

    Ichikawa not only collaborated with modern writers and composers but also recruited and trained people outside the Kabuki families as actors. That had been unheard of, although such collaborations are routine now due to Ichikawa’s efforts.

    After he divorced from actress Yuko Hama, Ichikawa became estranged from his son, Teruyuki Kagawa, a well-known actor in movies and TV shows. They later reunited, and Kagawa took up Kabuki as Chusha Ichikawa when he was in his 40s. Most Kabuki actors start as children, learning the art that is passed down from grandfather to father to son.

    “He was an actor who devoted his life to blazing new trails, always with a heart that aspired to fly to the heavens, no matter the obstacles,” Kagawa said in a statement.

    “He was truly blessed to have been loved by so many people and for giving his all to his own Kabuki Way.”

    Kagawa’s son Danko has now started acting in Kabuki and is on track to inherit the family roles.

    “There was so much more I wanted to learn from my grandfather,” Danko said.

    “I vow to keep doing my best, never forgetting the drive to soar above and the power to dream that he so treasured,” he added.

    Ichikawa continued to act even after suffering a stroke in 2003, delivering his final performance in 2013. He has been honored with numerous cultural prizes, including from the Japanese and French governments.

    Tragedy struck Ichikawa’s family earlier this year when his brother and fellow Kabuki actor Danshiro Ichikawa and his wife died in an apparent triple-suicide attempt. Their son, Ennosuke Ichikawa, whose attempt failed, is set to face trial over the deaths.

    A public memorial for Ichikawa is being planned for a later date, following family services, according to Shochiku.

    ___

    Yuri Kageyama is on Twitter https://twitter.com/yurikageyama

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  • After a Vermont playhouse flooded, the show went on

    After a Vermont playhouse flooded, the show went on

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    WESTON, Vt. — Members of a beloved Vermont acting company were sleeping in theater housing when torrential rains and flooding forced them to flee, with water inundating the playhouse’s vast basement of dressing rooms, costumes and props and reaching into the first floor.

    The July storms left the large, column-fronted white Greek Revival building with layers of mud and debris, and as volunteers and others dug out of the mess, the Weston Theater Company eventually kept performing — on higher ground. The shortened season came to end last week on a smaller stage on higher ground, and the actors are now figuring out how to make up for some of the losses and rebuild their leased playhouse to be more flood resistant in the tiny riverside town.

    The prominent playhouse sits in the center of the 620-resident southern Vermont community of Weston along the West River. The oldest professional theater company in Vermont draws people from around the country, including part-time residents and visitors who want to see actors from the New York City area without traveling to the Big Apple.

    When the theater flooded, some actors who were about to arrive for “Singin in the Rain” rehearsals were delayed for days. The basement also flooded during Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. This time around the floodwaters were about 2.5 feet (0.7 meters) higher.

    The damage is heartbreaking, especially after the struggle to recover from the pandemic shutting down performances in 2020, said Susanna Gellert, the company’s executive artistic director. The company performed under an outdoor tent in 2021 and didn’t start returning to pre-pandemic numbers until this year, she said.

    “The real casualty of it is on our earnings,” she said.

    Most of the water was pumped out of the the Playhouse but the damage was worse than after Irene, the company posted on Facebook, while also taking up offers from community members to help scrape mud out of the building and administrative offices.

    The company was in the middle of performances of the sold-out show “Buddy, The Buddy Holly story.” The set and instruments were on stage but all the costumes were downstairs as well as the scene shop’s high-grade tools, which Gellert estimated was a $150,000 equipment loss. Also trashed were the building’s HVAC and sprinkler systems.

    The Weston Community Association, which owns the building and supports the theater, is still tallying the damage and cost of repairs to submit to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

    It was the first time floodwater reached the auditorium of the playhouse, said Dave Raymond, president of the association, who also led the group during Irene. Water “took out” the first five rows of seats, which will be salvaged, but the hardwood floors were done for, he said.

    “We had to tear all of that up,” Raymond said. “We had to tear out the front part of the stage because the water had come up through the old pit where the orchestra was.”

    The association and theater company spent about $450,000 to have professional crews clean out and remediate the building, he said. The association plans to have all the electrical moved upstairs except for the sprinkler system and use concrete to block windows where the water came in — a “no-brainer,” Raymond said.

    “There’ll be no view out to the beautiful river, which becomes a monster when it decides to,” he said.

    Putting on the show despite the flooding “speaks to the resiliency of theater people,” said Andrea Johnson, of Wellesley, Massachusetts, who attended “Singin’ in the Rain” with her husband when the show was moved to the company’s smaller Walker Farm theater at higher ground. “The show must go on.”

    That’s what actor Conor McShane, who played Cosmo, said in the musical. “The show must go on come rain, come shine,” he told The Associated Press — though he can’t believe he didn’t add “come flood” to the line every time, he said.

    The theater company, citing the extreme devastation, eventually decided to cut its summer season short, canceling an upcoming show and postponing another until next summer, when Raymond expects the theater to reopen.

    “To everyone who came to help dig the Playhouse out of the mud (from near and far!) and donated their time, food, money, and resources to help us pave the path forward – thank you,” the theater company, which just completed its 87th season, posted on Facebook on Sunday. “While the road to recovery will be long and arduous, it is nothing compared to the resiliency you’ve reminded us of, and there aren’t words to describe the magnitude of our gratitude.”

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  • After a Vermont playhouse flooded, the show went on

    After a Vermont playhouse flooded, the show went on

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    WESTON, Vt. — Members of a beloved Vermont acting company were sleeping in theater housing when torrential rains and flooding forced them to flee, with water inundating the playhouse’s vast basement of dressing rooms, costumes and props and reaching into the first floor.

    The July storms left the large, column-fronted white Greek Revival building with layers of mud and debris, and as volunteers and others dug out of the mess, the Weston Theater Company eventually kept performing — on higher ground. The shortened season came to end last week on a smaller stage on higher ground, and the actors are now figuring out how to make up for some of the losses and rebuild their leased playhouse to be more flood resistant in the tiny riverside town.

    The prominent playhouse sits in the center of the 620-resident southern Vermont community of Weston along the West River. The oldest professional theater company in Vermont draws people from around the country, including part-time residents and visitors who want to see actors from the New York City area without traveling to the Big Apple.

    When the theater flooded, some actors who were about to arrive for “Singin in the Rain” rehearsals were delayed for days. The basement also flooded during Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. This time around the floodwaters were about 2.5 feet (0.7 meters) higher.

    The damage is heartbreaking, especially after the struggle to recover from the pandemic shutting down performances in 2020, said Susanna Gellert, the company’s executive artistic director. The company performed under an outdoor tent in 2021 and didn’t start returning to pre-pandemic numbers until this year, she said.

    “The real casualty of it is on our earnings,” she said.

    Most of the water was pumped out of the the Playhouse but the damage was worse than after Irene, the company posted on Facebook, while also taking up offers from community members to help scrape mud out of the building and administrative offices.

    The company was in the middle of performances of the sold-out show “Buddy, The Buddy Holly story.” The set and instruments were on stage but all the costumes were downstairs as well as the scene shop’s high-grade tools, which Gellert estimated was a $150,000 equipment loss. Also trashed were the building’s HVAC and sprinkler systems.

    The Weston Community Association, which owns the building and supports the theater, is still tallying the damage and cost of repairs to submit to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

    It was the first time floodwater reached the auditorium of the playhouse, said Dave Raymond, president of the association, who also led the group during Irene. Water “took out” the first five rows of seats, which will be salvaged, but the hardwood floors were done for, he said.

    “We had to tear all of that up,” Raymond said. “We had to tear out the front part of the stage because the water had come up through the old pit where the orchestra was.”

    The association and theater company spent about $450,000 to have professional crews clean out and remediate the building, he said. The association plans to have all the electrical moved upstairs except for the sprinkler system and use concrete to block windows where the water came in — a “no-brainer,” Raymond said.

    “There’ll be no view out to the beautiful river, which becomes a monster when it decides to,” he said.

    Putting on the show despite the flooding “speaks to the resiliency of theater people,” said Andrea Johnson, of Wellesley, Massachusetts, who attended “Singin’ in the Rain” with her husband when the show was moved to the company’s smaller Walker Farm theater at higher ground. “The show must go on.”

    That’s what actor Conor McShane, who played Cosmo, said in the musical. “The show must go on come rain, come shine,” he told The Associated Press — though he can’t believe he didn’t add “come flood” to the line every time, he said.

    The theater company, citing the extreme devastation, eventually decided to cut its summer season short, canceling an upcoming show and postponing another until next summer, when Raymond expects the theater to reopen.

    “To everyone who came to help dig the Playhouse out of the mud (from near and far!) and donated their time, food, money, and resources to help us pave the path forward – thank you,” the theater company, which just completed its 87th season, posted on Facebook on Sunday. “While the road to recovery will be long and arduous, it is nothing compared to the resiliency you’ve reminded us of, and there aren’t words to describe the magnitude of our gratitude.”

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  • Tom Jones, creator of the longest-running musical ‘The Fantasticks,’ dies at 95

    Tom Jones, creator of the longest-running musical ‘The Fantasticks,’ dies at 95

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    NEW YORK — Tom Jones, the lyricist, director and writer of “The Fantasticks,” the longest-running musical in history, has died. He was 95.

    Jones died Friday at his home in Sharon, Connecticut, according to Dan Shaheen, a co-producer of “The Fantasticks,” who worked with Jones since the 1980s. The cause was cancer.

    Jones, who teamed up with composer Harvey Schmidt on “The Fantasticks” and the Broadway shows “110 in the Shade” and “I Do! I Do!,” was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1998.

    “The Fantasticks,” based on an obscure play by Edmond Rostand, doesn’t necessarily have the makings of a hit. The set is just a platform with poles, a curtain and a wooden box.

    The tale, a mock version of “Romeo and Juliet,” concerns a young girl and boy, secretly brought together by their fathers, and an assortment of odd characters.

    Scores of actors have appeared in the show, from the opening cast in 1960 that included Jerry Orbach and Rita Gardner, to stars such as Ricardo Montalban and Kristin Chenoweth, to “Frozen” star Santino Fontana. The show was awarded Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre in 1991.

    “So many people have come, and this thing stays the same — the platform, the wooden box, the cardboard moon,” Jones told The Associated Press in 2013. “We just come and do our little thing and then we pass on.”

    For nearly 42 years the show chugged along at the 153-seat Sullivan Street Playhouse in Greenwich Village, finally closing in 2002 after 17,162 performances — a victim both of a destroyed downtown after 9/11 and a new post-terrorism, edgy mood.

    In 2006, “The Fantasticks” found a new home in The Snapple Theater Center — later The Theater Center — an off-Broadway complex in the heart of Times Square. In 2013, the show celebrated reaching 20,000 performances. It closed in 2017, ending as the longest-running production of any kind in the history of American theater with a total of an astonishing 21,552 performances.

    “My mind doesn’t grasp it, in a way,” Jones said. “It’s like life itself — you get used to it and you don’t notice how extraordinary it is. I’m grateful for it and I’m astonished by it.”

    Its best known song, “Try To Remember,” has been recorded by hundreds of artists over the decades, including Ed Ames, Harry Belafonte, Barbra Streisand and Placido Domingo. “Soon It’s Gonna Rain” and “They Were You” are also among the musical’s most recognized songs.

    The lyrics for “Try to Remember” go: “Try to remember the kind of September/When life was slow and oh, so mellow./Try to remember the kind of September/When grass was green and grain was yellow.”

    Its longevity came despite early reviews that were not too kind. The New York Herald Tribune critic only liked Act 2, and The New York Times’ critic sniffed that the show was “the sort of thing that loses magic the longer it endures.”

    In 1963, Jones and Schmidt wrote the Broadway show “110 in the Shade,” which earned the duo a Tony Award nomination for best composer and lyricist. “I Do! I Do!,” their two-character Broadway musical, followed in 1967, also earning them a Tony nomination for best composer and lyricist.

    Jones is survived by two sons, Michael and Sam.

    “Such a good guy. I truly adored him,” wrote Broadway veteran Danny Burstein on Facebook.

    ___

    Mark Kennedy can be reached at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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  • Lea Salonga heads the first all-Filipino cast of a Broadway show in ‘Here Lies Love’

    Lea Salonga heads the first all-Filipino cast of a Broadway show in ‘Here Lies Love’

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    Lea Salonga is back on the stage where her Broadway journey first began. But she isn’t playing someone Vietnamese or Chinese or Japanese at the Broadway Theatre.

    For the first time in her storied career, the Filipino musical legend is actually playing a Filipino. What’s more, she is surrounded by an all-Filipino cast and she is part of a team of mostly Filipino producers that includes singer H.E.R., comedian Jo Koy and Black Eyed Peas’ Apl.de.Ap.

    Even when she was the lead at the same theater in “Miss Saigon” in 1991 and acted her way to a Tony Award, Salonga never imagined a Filipino-dominated production would become reality. She’s topped other all-Asian Broadway casts (“Flower Drum Song,” “Allegiance” ) but Filipino culture was never the one spotlighted.

    Thousands of poor Filipinos risk their lives by living and working in villages inside a permanent danger zone around Mayon volcano.

    FILE - White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan takes a question from a reporter at a press briefing at the White House in Washington, Monday, April 24, 2023. National security advisors from the United States, Japan and the Philippines, in their first such trilateral talks Friday, June 16, 2023 agreed to strengthen their defense cooperation, as Washington and its partners seek to reinforce their alliances to adapt to growing tensions over North Korea, China and Ukraine, Sullivan said. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

    The national security advisers of the United States, Japan and the Philippines have held their first joint talks and agreed to strengthen their defense cooperation.

    Students hold class under trees because the school was converted into a temporary evacuation center at Malilipot town, Albay province, northeastern Philippines, Thursday, June 15, 2023. Thousands of residents have left the mostly poor farming communities within a 6-kilometer (3.7-mile) radius of Mayon's crater in forced evacuations since volcanic activity spiked last week. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

    Nearly 20,000 people have fled from an erupting volcano in the Philippines and are sheltering in schools, disrupting the education of thousands of students.

    Chinese navy sailors wave as they arrive on board their naval training ship, Qi Jiguang, for a goodwill visit at Manila's port, Philippines Wednesday, June 14, 2023. The Chinese navy training ship made a port call in the Philippines on Wednesday, its final stop on a goodwill tour of four countries as Beijing looks to mend fences in the region. (AP Photo/Basilio Sepe)

    A Chinese navy training ship with hundreds of cadets has made a port call in the Philippines, its final stop on a goodwill tour of four countries as Beijing looks to mend fences in the region.

    “There’s absolutely no ‘effing way that I would have seen this happening. Ever,” Salonga told The Associated Press in an interview earlier this month. “So, for it to be happening while I’m still actually strong enough to be on my feet and be a part of it, I’m just incredibly grateful.”

    The anticipation of getting to play a Filipino character for the first time is something shared by the entire company of “Here Lies Love.” The first Broadway show with an all-Filipino ensemble opens July 20, a decade after it played off-Broadway.

    But this isn’t some light and airy musical. It chronicles the dictatorship of Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos in the 1970s and ‘80s and the pro-democracy People Power Revolution movement. Jose Llana, who was in the original iteration, and Arielle Jacobs play the dictator and first lady Imelda Marcos.

    Musicians David Byrne and Fatboy Slim provide the soundtrack. The theater is laid out like a nightclub complete with disco ball. Audiences can choose to join or be in a standing-only area, making them feel a part of the party.

    The praise for the groundbreaking representation has nearly been eclipsed by criticism, a lot of it from other Filipinos, arguing that the Marcos regime should not be musical fodder. This comes over a year after Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. was proclaimed president in the Philippines. He has ignored his father’s massive human rights violations.

    Salonga has vivid memories of watching news reports with her parents at home in the Philippines as the anti-Marcos People Power Revolution instigated a government overthrow. She also had friends who were out there in the chaos. So she understands why some people may have reservations about the show.

    But “Here Lies Love” is more about the sacrifices made by anti-Marcos leaders like Ninoy Aquino (played by “How to Get Away with Murder” star Conrad Ricamora), she argues. August will mark 40 years since Aquino was assassinated at the airport in Manila, creating a flashpoint in the movement.

    “It seems to be more of him and how his death sparked this anger and rage in a country and how it led to the People Power Revolution and how that led to the ousting of the Marcoses,” said Salonga, who plays Aquino’s mother, Aurora. “I come away with feeling hopeful when the show comes down. Because I saw in real time what was happening.”

    Llana, who was born in Manila but raised in the U.S., is playing the man who drove his family to flee their country. When he told his parents 10 years ago he’d be portraying Marcos off-Broadway, they watched the show without hesitation and liked it enough to make repeat visits. A decade later, they’ll be there for opening night on Broadway.

    “They know that I would never be a part of the show that glorified the Marcoses,” Llana said. “Telling the history of the Philippines, sometimes it’s not easy… When history repeats itself is when you don’t talk about it and when you don’t remember the bad things that happened. And that’s really what our show is about.”

    In fact, after all these years, Llana’s confidence in the show has only grown.

    “There’s less fear of whether it’s going to work,” said Llana, who was Salonga’s love interest in “Flower Drum Song” over 20 years ago. “Now, it’s just about polishing it and really fine-tuning the story and really resting into the new elements, which are our Filipino producers, Clint Ramos and Jose Antonio Vargas.”

    Arielle Jacobs, known for lead Broadway roles in “Aladdin” and “In the Heights,” recently unearthed old emails from when she auditioned for the off-Broadway production.

    “The feedback my agent was told from the casting director was they loved my audition, it’s not going to work out right now but maybe potentially for future productions,” Jacobs said. “That’s so funny because at the time they didn’t even know when or if it might come to Broadway.”

    Being in the show has helped Jacobs not be as “naive about the history.” She has been doing research on her own to try and not make her Imelda one-dimensional. Born in San Francisco, Jacobs said her Filipino mother didn’t really talk about the Marcos’ era. But, nobody cried more happy tears than her mom when Jacobs landed this role.

    Her mother was “just so proud that I’m getting to tell the story and lead this company and play a Filipino and a Filipino story.” Since childhood, Jacobs and her brother, Adam (also a Broadway actor), always got so-called “ethnic” theater parts from Puerto Rican to Middle Eastern because of their half-white, half-Asian makeup.

    “It has been a blessing in terms of our career growth. At the same time, we’ve always felt that, because nobody knows we’re Filipino, there’s also this feeling that nobody ever really knows who we are,” Jacobs said.

    Working with Salonga has added to the joy for Jacobs and other cast members. Salonga is pretty much considered a first lady of pop culture in the Philippines and a Broadway icon. But in “Here Lies Love,” she is venturing into a whole new world of producer.

    Just entering the stage door where she was once the young ingenue and is now a boss has been “magic,” she said.

    “How is this happening? And how fortunate am I that I get to see all of this happening in real time,” said Salonga, also known for singing in Disney’s “Aladdin” and “Mulan” films. “Maybe I’ll get behind more shows and put my name behind something else that I really, really believe in, see where my career goes as a Broadway producer.”

    The show is adding to several Filipino American entertainment “firsts” that have made a splash in the past year. Koy starred in “Easter Sunday,” the first all-Filipino major studio movie. “Sesame Street” introduced TJ, the first Filipino Muppet. Several Filipino American chefs were recognized last month at the James Beard Awards. All of this happening now seems simultaneously “synergistic and serendipitous,” Salonga said. It’s heartening for a country that has been colonized by Spain, Japan and the U.S.

    “It’s like one thing is supporting this other thing and that thing is supporting the first thing, and it’s fantastic,” Salonga said. “It’s like the universe giving us permission to just be who we always knew we were.”

    ___

    Tang, who reported from Phoenix, is a member of The Associated Press’ Race and Ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter at @ttangAP.

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  • Go Inside SCAD Lacoste’s Christian Lacroix Exhibition

    Go Inside SCAD Lacoste’s Christian Lacroix Exhibition

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    “The crux of this exhibition is the marriage of Christian Lacroix’s couture legacy with his passion for the theatre. These costumes exemplify his level of mastery through unimaginable attention to detail,” says Gomes. “[They] have the same technique and skill level as those shown on the runway, manifesting in these layered, textural pieces that emphasize Peer Gynt’s fantasy world. Whether the costumes are lavishly embellished or aged and dyed, Lacroix achieves this in a realistic, well-done way.”

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  • Stranger Things” Shares Mysterious Clip For Stage Play, Teases the “Beginning of the Story

    Stranger Things” Shares Mysterious Clip For Stage Play, Teases the “Beginning of the Story

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    Henry Creel’s dark past is coming to light in the Duffer Brothers’ forthcoming “Stranger Things” stage play, “Stranger Things: The First Shadow.” The prequel, set in 1959 Hawkins, premieres in London’s West End later this year and will take a deep dive into Vecna’s chilling origin story. Like Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Will seeing their D&D nightmares realized, the theatrical production promises to take fans right back to the beginning of Hawkins’s deepest and most terrifying secrets — and then some.

    On July 5, the show’s official social media accounts posted a preview clip for the play, teasing that the “Stranger Things” origin story just “might hold the key to what comes next,” too.

    Written by Kate Trefry, staff writer and story editor for the TV series, the new play will be “rooted in the mythology and world of the Netflix global phenomenon.” The stage show will be produced by Netflix and Sonia Friedman Productions. It’ll also feature the Duffer Brothers as creative producers and 21 Laps as associate producer. Stephen Daldry will direct with codirection by Justin Martin.

    “We’re dying to tell you more about the story but won’t — it’s more fun to discover it for yourself.”

    “We are beyond excited about ‘Stranger Things: The First Shadow,’” the Duffer Brothers previously said in a press release. “Collaborating with the brilliant Stephen Daldry has been nothing short of inspiring, and Kate Trefry has written a play that is at turns surprising, scary, and heartfelt. You will meet endearing new characters, as well as very familiar ones, on a journey into the past that sets the groundwork for the future of ‘Stranger Things.’ We’re dying to tell you more about the story but won’t — it’s more fun to discover it for yourself. Can’t wait to see you nerds in London!”

    Ahead, find out everything else we know about the “Stranger Things” stage play.

    “Stranger Things: The First Shadow” Plot

    The “Stranger Things” play will cover many of fans’ biggest unanswered questions about Vecna. “Hawkins, 1959: a regular town with regular worries,” the play’s logline reads. “Young Jim Hopper’s car won’t start, Bob Newby’s sister won’t take his radio show seriously and Joyce Maldonado just wants to graduate and get the hell out of town. When new student Henry Creel arrives, his family finds that a fresh start isn’t so easy . . . and the shadows of the past have a very long reach.”

    “Stranger Things: The First Shadow” Cast

    Netflix’s “Stranger Things” TV series features a star-studded cast: Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Noah Schnapp, Caleb McLaughlin, Sadie Sink, Gaten Matarazzo, Priah Ferguson, Joe Keery, Natalia Dyer, Maya Hawke, Joseph Quinn, Charlie Heaton, Jamie Campbell Bower, and more. While most of the show’s prominent characters won’t be included in the prequel stage production — because they haven’t been born yet — the play will see the return of beloved players including Hopper (Harbour), Joyce (Ryder), and Bob (Sean Astin).

    “Stranger Things: The First Shadow” includes set design by Miriam Buether; costume design by Brigitte Reiffenstuel; lighting design by Jon Clark; sound design by Paul Arditti; illusions design by Jamie Harrison and Chris Fisher; video design by 59 Productions; movement direction by Coral Messam; wigs, hair, and makeup design by Campbell Young Associates; casting by Charlotte Sutton CDG; international casting consultancy by Jim Carnahan; and Gary Beestone as technical director.

    Further casting details and the full performance schedule for the stage production will be announced at a later date.

    How to Buy Tickets to the “Stranger Things: The First Shadow” Stage Play

    Tickets for the “Stranger Things” stage play went on sale this past spring, as the show kicks off in November. Though all dates throughout that month and halfway through December are already sold out, play attendees can still grab tickets for all other shows running until Aug. 25, 2024. Visit the production’s website for more info.

    “Stranger Things: The First Shadow” Poster

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    Chanel Vargas

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  • Historic Boston church where the Revolution was sparked to host its first play

    Historic Boston church where the Revolution was sparked to host its first play

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    BOSTON — Old North Church played a pivotal role in the nation’s fight for independence and has continued to be an active house of worship for 300 years.

    Today, one of Boston’s most popular tourist attractions is also, for the first time, a theater hosting an original play.

    “Revolution’s Edge,” set the day before the start of the American Revolution, is a dramatic imagining of the interactions of three real people with different views whose lives are about to be upended by the impending war, and explores what the events will mean for their families.

    The play opening Thursday is set just hours before two men hung two lanterns in the church’s bell tower on April 18, 1775 — to signal that British soldiers were heading across the Charles River, and to Lexington and Concord. The event has been immortalized in the line “One if by land, and two if by sea” in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1860 poem “Paul Revere’s Ride.”

    “This is a moment of intense drama and a moment of pivotal importance to the lives of these three men,” said playwright Patrick Gabridge.

    One of the characters is Minister Mather Byles Jr., who remains loyal to the British crown while another, vestry member Capt. John Pulling Jr., is an ardent Patriot, and one of the two men who would hang the lanterns in the tower.

    Cato, who does not have a last name, is a man enslaved by Byles.

    Gabridge is the producing artistic director of Plays in Place, an organization that works with historic sites and cultural institutions to create site-specific plays and presentations. To ensure historical accuracy, he did six months of painstaking research into historical archives.

    “In the end, it has to be a dramatic play that’s going to engage an audience and it has to be a play that’s going to work for a modern ear,” he said. “But we want to make sure we’re not telling things that we know aren’t true.”

    A play seemed like a natural way to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the church located in Boston’s North End, said Nikki Stewart, the executive director of Old North Illuminated, the secular nonprofit that operates the historic site, which draws about 500,000 tourists per year and is also still home to an active Episcopal congregation.

    The organization’s primary purpose is to teach — and a play aligns with that perfectly, she said.

    “The reason we teach history at Old North Illuminated is to help people understand how we came to the present and then to help people think about and feel inspired to change the future or to impact the future,” she said.

    It’s a message that Gabridge took to heart. The three people in the play are not fictional characters; they were real people. They walked the floors of the church’s sanctuary, where the play will be performed, and sat in the pews where the audience will sit.

    “I think for a play like this, we want them to appreciate that the people in our past were real people who had complex decisions to make and real lives,” Gabridge said. “Sometimes we look back in history and we feel like it was easy for them to make their choices. You know, ‘It was so much simpler back then.’ But I think when we look at them as real complex humans, we realize that just like us today, they didn’t know what was going to happen next, just like we don’t.”

    Nathan Johnson, the actor who plays Cato, says it is one of the most important projects in which he’s been involved.

    Johnson, who is Black, promised himself early in his acting career that he would never play an enslaved person. But the depiction of Cato, and the importance of the play’s message, made the role too compelling to pass up.

    “I want everyone to see that we have all something to contribute to our history,” Johnson said. “I want everyone to see that it is not a matter of white and Black. It is a matter of America. It is a matter of progress. It is a matter of stakes, it is a matter of tension. And not just for Pulling and Byles, but for Cato as well.”

    The 45-minute play, funded in part by a grant from the Mass Cultural Council and will have three performances per week in the church through mid-September.

    “One thing I hope people will feel is that after they’ve seen this play, they will never see Old North the same way again,” Gabridge said. “They will have a different relationship, a deeper relationship to this place than they did before.”

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  • Tina Turner musical on national tour gains extra meaning in the wake of the rock icon’s death

    Tina Turner musical on national tour gains extra meaning in the wake of the rock icon’s death

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    NEW YORK — The national tour of Broadway’s “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical” makes its California debut this week, arriving as a poignant, posthumous celebration following the rock music icon’s death last month.

    “Tina” opens in Los Angeles at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre on Wednesday, steps away from her Hollywood Walk of Fame star and where she recorded for Capitol Records. It plays there until July 9, followed by two weeks at Segerstrom Center the Arts in Costa Mesa and stops in San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose later this summer.

    “We have always wanted to put audiences in the room with her and it’s obviously going to have even more of a special meaning now that she is gone from us physically,” says Katori Hall, co-writer of the musical.

    “But her energy, her spirit, obviously has been interwoven into our creative processes. And I pray that we’ll always be able to give every audience member a little piece of Tina when they come to the show.”

    Turner, who survived a horrifying marriage to triumph in middle age with such hits as “What’s Love Got to Do With It” and “Better Be Good To Me,” died last month in Küsnacht near Zurich. She was 83.

    After California, the tour continues its multi-year national journey, visiting 37 more cities across North America next season. It has been touring regularly since fall 2022. There are also productions running on London’s West End, as well as in Sydney, Australia, and Stuttgart, Germany.

    The musical traces the highs and lows of the two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, including her hellish marriage scarred by domestic violence and the rise as a beloved solo artist with songs like “Private Dancer,” ″River Deep, Mountain High,” “The Best” and “Proud Mary.”

    “Tina” captured 12 Tony nominations, including an eventual best actress winning trophy for Adrienne Warren in the title role. Hall wrote the book with Frank Ketelaar and Kees Prins.

    Two actors share the role of Turner on the road — Naomi Rodgers and Zurin Villanueva, each playing four of the eight performances a week. Also co-starring are Roderick Lawrence, Roz White, Carla R. Stewart and Lael Van Keuren.

    Tour organizers realized by seeing Warren as Turner on Broadway that not just one actor could play the demanding role on the road, says Hall.

    “We saw how hard it is on the body — It’s the physicality, it’s the singing, but it’s also just the emotional heft every night one has to put upon their shoulders and go through, two hours plus of the life of Tina Turner.”

    Hall recalls finding out that Turner had died when she woke up with messages flooding her phone. Her mind went back to the time when Turner attended “Tina” on Broadway.

    “When she walked through the door, to see people get on their feet and give her a standing ovation, I was so grateful that she was able to feel that energy and feel that love on the American side of the pond before she passed,” says Hall.

    “I think it was just a beautiful gift that we were able to give her in that moment and to be in the room breathing with her and witnessing that love just showering down from the balcony.”

    ___

    Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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  • Inside the Tony Awards: No script, but plenty of song, dance, high spirits and history

    Inside the Tony Awards: No script, but plenty of song, dance, high spirits and history

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    NEW YORK (AP) — No script? No problem!

    There was plenty of uncertainty in the run-up to this year’s Tony Awards, which at one point seemed unlikely to happen at all because of the ongoing Hollywood writer’s strike.

    But the ceremony went off without a hitch on Sunday night. The event was scriptless, to honor a compromise with striking writers, but chock-full of high-spirited Broadway performances drawing raucous cheers from an audience clearly thrilled just to be there at all.

    It was a night of triumph for the small-scale but huge-hearted musical “Kimberly Akimbo,” about a teenager with a rare aging disease, but also a night notable for inclusion: Two nonbinary performers, Alex Newell and J. Harrison Ghee, made history by winning their respective acting categories.

    The ceremony also touched on the specter of antisemitism in very different places: World War II Europe, with best play winner “Leopoldstadt,” and early 20th-century America, with “Parade,” winner for best musical revival.

    In the end, the lack of scripted banter didn’t much dampen the proceedings, and little wonder: Broadway folks are trained in improv. And of course there was more room for singing and dancing — including from current shows not in competition — and nobody was complaining about that.

    Oh, and the show ended right on time. Oscars, are you listening?

    Some key moments of the night:

    BROADWAY HEADS UPTOWN

    It wasn’t just the writers strike that made for a different evening. The venue was new, too. It was on Broadway, yes, but miles from the theater district. The ceremony took place uptown in Washington Heights, in the ornate, gilded United Palace, a former movie theater filled with chandeliers and carpets and majestic columns.

    “Thank you for coming uptown — never in my wildest dreams,” quipped Lin-Manuel Miranda, who has helped bring events to the venue in the neighborhood where he set his “In the Heights.” The afterparty was held in tents outside the building instead of the usual festivities in the fancy food halls of the Plaza Hotel near Central Park.

    A BLANK PAGE, BUT A FULL NIGHT

    Oscar winner and Broadway luminary Ariana DeBose, hosting for the second year running, immediately addressed the elephant in the room. Speaking to the audience before the pre-show telecast began, she explained nothing would be scripted and told winners the only words they’d see on teleprompters would be “wrap up please.” When the main telecast began, she appeared on camera reading a Tony script, but the pages were blank.

    Instead of words, DeBose and others spoke with their dance moves, doing a brassy number in the theater’s grand lobby, staircases and aisles, complete with gravity-defying leaps. Afterward, DeBose warned anyone who may have thought last year was “unhinged”: “Buckle up!”

    DeBose, who performed in the original cast of “Hamilton” and won an Oscar for “West Side Story,” also passionately explained why the Tonys are so crucial to the economic survival of Broadway, and to touring productions around the country.

    A TIMELY REMINDER OF ANTISEMITISM IN EUROPE …

    An early award brought a sobering reminder of the horrors of antisemitism. Brandon Uranowitz of “Leopoldstadt,” Tom Stoppard’s sweeping play about a Jewish family in Vienna, thanked the celebrated playwright “for writing a play about Jewish identity and antisemitism and the false promise of assimilation,” and noted his ancestors, “many of whom did not make it out of Poland, also thank you.”

    Uranowitz, who won for featured actor in a play, also joked that the thing he wanted most in life was to repay his parents for the sacrifices they made — only he couldn’t, because he works in the theater.

    … AND IN AMERICA

    “Leopoldstadt” went on to win best play, while best musical revival went to another searing work about antisemitism: “Parade,” starring Ben Platt as Leo Frank, a Jewish man lynched in 1915 in Georgia. In his acceptance speech for best director, Michael Arden echoed the play’s somber themes: “We must battle this. It is so, so important, or else we are doomed to repeat the horrors of our history.”

    He added his own story of how, growing up, he often had been called the “f-word,” referring to a homophobic slur. He then earned some of the night’s loudest cheers when he triumphantly reclaimed the slur while pointing out that he now had a Tony.

    ‘I SHOULD NOT BE UP HERE’

    It was an emotional moment when Alex Newell of “Shucked” became the first out nonbinary person to win an acting Tony, taking the prize for best featured actor in a musical. Newell, also known for “The Glee Project” and “Glee,” thanked close family for their love and support and then addressed the outside world.

    “Thank you for seeing me, Broadway. I should not be up here as a queer, nonbinary, fat, Black, little baby from Massachusetts,” they said. “And to anyone that thinks that they can’t do it, I’m going to look you dead in your face and tell you that you can do anything you put your mind to.”

    Like the Oscars, the Tonys have only gendered categories for performers.

    ‘THIS IS FOR YOU’

    J. Harrison Ghee was the second nonbinary actor of the night to make history, winning best actor in a musical for their role in “Some Like It Hot,” based on the classic 1959 film. They play a male musician on the run who disguises as a woman in what becomes a voyage of discovery about gender (the movie role involved disguise, but no discovery). Accepting the award, Ghee said they had been raised to use their gifts not for themselves, but to help others.

    “For every trans, non-gender-conforming, nonbinary human who ever was told you couldn’t be seen, this is for you,” Ghee said, tapping the Tony for emphasis.

    LEA MICHELE GETS HER TONY MOMENT (NEIL DIAMOND, TOO)

    Not to mix show metaphors or anything, but Lea Michele was not about to throw away her shot. The “Funny Girl” lead was not eligible for a Tony because she didn’t originate the role last year (that would be Beanie Feldstein, whom Michele replaced in a matter of months).

    But the former “Glee” star, who has turned around the fortunes of the revival, is seen by many as the ultimate Fanny Brice, and her gorgeously belted rendition of “Don’t Rain On My Parade” — 13 years after she first performed it at the Tonys — definitely did not disappoint.

    Judging from faces in the crowd, neither did Neil Diamond — actually Will Swenson, who plays Diamond in the musical “A Beautiful Noise” (not nominated but currently playing). After the audience was warned during a commercial break to keep the aisles clear for a big moment, Swenson came onstage crooning “Sweet Caroline,” soon accompanied by dancers dressed in sparkly gold, filling the aisles. Among those seen singing happily along: Sara Bareilles, Jessica Chastain, Melissa Etheridge, Miranda, and countless others shouting out the lyrics: “So good! So good!”

    PARTY TIME

    Most Tony attendees spent a good five hours in the United Palace, and the room got pretty warm. So folks were happy to step outside to the afterparty, where guests munched on ceviche, mangoes on sticks and mini-Cuban sandwiches, and sipped specially designed cocktails.

    Ghee was a clear star of the party, towering over most guests — literally and figuratively — as they clutched their Tony and accepted well wishes or agreed to selfies. Ghee also chatted with last year’s winner of the same award, Myles Frost, who played Michael Jackson in “MJ.”

    “Our industry is shifting forward! We are erasing labels and boundaries and limits,” Ghee said when asked their main takeaway of the night. The actor wore a bright blue custom ensemble by Bronx designer Jerome LaMaar, with a choker of glistening jewels.

    “When you’re getting it custom made, you can really do something,” they quipped.

    ___

    For more on the 2023 Tony Awards, visit https://apnews.com/hub/tony-awards

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  • Inside the Tony Awards: No script, but plenty of song, dance, high spirits and history

    Inside the Tony Awards: No script, but plenty of song, dance, high spirits and history

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    NEW YORK (AP) — No script? No problem!

    There was plenty of uncertainty in the run-up to this year’s Tony Awards, which at one point seemed unlikely to happen at all because of the ongoing Hollywood writer’s strike.

    But the ceremony went off without a hitch on Sunday night. The event was scriptless, to honor a compromise with striking writers, but chock-full of high-spirited Broadway performances drawing raucous cheers from an audience clearly thrilled just to be there at all.

    It was a night of triumph for the small-scale but huge-hearted musical “Kimberly Akimbo,” about a teenager with a rare aging disease, but also a night notable for inclusion: Two nonbinary performers, Alex Newell and J. Harrison Ghee, made history by winning their respective acting categories.

    The ceremony also touched on the specter of antisemitism in very different places: World War II Europe, with best play winner “Leopoldstadt,” and early 20th-century America, with “Parade,” winner for best musical revival.

    In the end, the lack of scripted banter didn’t much dampen the proceedings, and little wonder: Broadway folks are trained in improv. And of course there was more room for singing and dancing — including from current shows not in competition — and nobody was complaining about that.

    Oh, and the show ended right on time. Oscars, are you listening?

    Some key moments of the night:

    BROADWAY HEADS UPTOWN

    It wasn’t just the writers strike that made for a different evening. The venue was new, too. It was on Broadway, yes, but miles from the theater district. The ceremony took place uptown in Washington Heights, in the ornate, gilded United Palace, a former movie theater filled with chandeliers and carpets and majestic columns.

    “Thank you for coming uptown — never in my wildest dreams,” quipped Lin-Manuel Miranda, who has helped bring events to the venue in the neighborhood where he set his “In the Heights.” The afterparty was held in tents outside the building instead of the usual festivities in the fancy food halls of the Plaza Hotel near Central Park.

    A BLANK PAGE, BUT A FULL NIGHT

    Oscar winner and Broadway luminary Ariana DeBose, hosting for the second year running, immediately addressed the elephant in the room. Speaking to the audience before the pre-show telecast began, she explained nothing would be scripted and told winners the only words they’d see on teleprompters would be “wrap up please.” When the main telecast began, she appeared on camera reading a Tony script, but the pages were blank.

    Instead of words, DeBose and others spoke with their dance moves, doing a brassy number in the theater’s grand lobby, staircases and aisles, complete with gravity-defying leaps. Afterward, DeBose warned anyone who may have thought last year was “unhinged”: “Buckle up!”

    DeBose, who performed in the original cast of “Hamilton” and won an Oscar for “West Side Story,” also passionately explained why the Tonys are so crucial to the economic survival of Broadway, and to touring productions around the country.

    A TIMELY REMINDER OF ANTISEMITISM IN EUROPE …

    An early award brought a sobering reminder of the horrors of antisemitism. Brandon Uranowitz of “Leopoldstadt,” Tom Stoppard’s sweeping play about a Jewish family in Vienna, thanked the celebrated playwright “for writing a play about Jewish identity and antisemitism and the false promise of assimilation,” and noted his ancestors, “many of whom did not make it out of Poland, also thank you.”

    Uranowitz, who won for featured actor in a play, also joked that the thing he wanted most in life was to repay his parents for the sacrifices they made — only he couldn’t, because he works in the theater.

    … AND IN AMERICA

    “Leopoldstadt” went on to win best play, while best musical revival went to another searing work about antisemitism: “Parade,” starring Ben Platt as Leo Frank, a Jewish man lynched in 1915 in Georgia. In his acceptance speech for best director, Michael Arden echoed the play’s somber themes: “We must battle this. It is so, so important, or else we are doomed to repeat the horrors of our history.”

    He added his own story of how, growing up, he often had been called the “f-word,” referring to a homophobic slur. He then earned some of the night’s loudest cheers when he triumphantly reclaimed the slur while pointing out that he now had a Tony.

    ‘I SHOULD NOT BE UP HERE’

    It was an emotional moment when Alex Newell of “Shucked” became the first out nonbinary person to win an acting Tony, taking the prize for best featured actor in a musical. Newell, also known for “The Glee Project” and “Glee,” thanked close family for their love and support and then addressed the outside world.

    “Thank you for seeing me, Broadway. I should not be up here as a queer, nonbinary, fat, Black, little baby from Massachusetts,” they said. “And to anyone that thinks that they can’t do it, I’m going to look you dead in your face and tell you that you can do anything you put your mind to.”

    Like the Oscars, the Tonys have only gendered categories for performers.

    ‘THIS IS FOR YOU’

    J. Harrison Ghee was the second nonbinary actor of the night to make history, winning best actor in a musical for their role in “Some Like It Hot,” based on the classic 1959 film. They play a male musician on the run who disguises as a woman in what becomes a voyage of discovery about gender (the movie role involved disguise, but no discovery). Accepting the award, Ghee said they had been raised to use their gifts not for themselves, but to help others.

    “For every trans, non-gender-conforming, nonbinary human who ever was told you couldn’t be seen, this is for you,” Ghee said, tapping the Tony for emphasis.

    LEA MICHELE GETS HER TONY MOMENT (NEIL DIAMOND, TOO)

    Not to mix show metaphors or anything, but Lea Michele was not about to throw away her shot. The “Funny Girl” lead was not eligible for a Tony because she didn’t originate the role last year (that would be Beanie Feldstein, whom Michele replaced in a matter of months).

    But the former “Glee” star, who has turned around the fortunes of the revival, is seen by many as the ultimate Fanny Brice, and her gorgeously belted rendition of “Don’t Rain On My Parade” — 13 years after she first performed it at the Tonys — definitely did not disappoint.

    Judging from faces in the crowd, neither did Neil Diamond — actually Will Swenson, who plays Diamond in the musical “A Beautiful Noise” (not nominated but currently playing). After the audience was warned during a commercial break to keep the aisles clear for a big moment, Swenson came onstage crooning “Sweet Caroline,” soon accompanied by dancers dressed in sparkly gold, filling the aisles. Among those seen singing happily along: Sara Bareilles, Jessica Chastain, Melissa Etheridge, Miranda, and countless others shouting out the lyrics: “So good! So good!”

    PARTY TIME

    Most Tony attendees spent a good five hours in the United Palace, and the room got pretty warm. So folks were happy to step outside to the afterparty, where guests munched on ceviche, mangoes on sticks and mini-Cuban sandwiches, and sipped specially designed cocktails.

    Ghee was a clear star of the party, towering over most guests — literally and figuratively — as they clutched their Tony and accepted well wishes or agreed to selfies. Ghee also chatted with last year’s winner of the same award, Myles Frost, who played Michael Jackson in “MJ.”

    “Our industry is shifting forward! We are erasing labels and boundaries and limits,” Ghee said when asked their main takeaway of the night. The actor wore a bright blue custom ensemble by Bronx designer Jerome LaMaar, with a choker of glistening jewels.

    “When you’re getting it custom made, you can really do something,” they quipped.

    ___

    For more on the 2023 Tony Awards, visit https://apnews.com/hub/tony-awards

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  • Tony Awards telecast makes inclusive history and puts on quite a show despite Hollywood strike

    Tony Awards telecast makes inclusive history and puts on quite a show despite Hollywood strike

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    NEW YORK (AP) — The intimate, funny-sad musical “Kimberly Akimbo” nudged aside splashier rivals on Sunday to win the musical crown at the Tony Awards on a night when Broadway flexed its creative muscle amid the Hollywood writers’ strike and made history with laurels for nonbinary actors J. Harrison Ghee and Alex Newell.

    “Kimberly Akimbo,” with songs by Jeanine Tesori and a book by David Lindsay-Abaire, follows a teen with a rare genetic disorder that gives her a life expectancy of 16 navigating a dysfunctional family and a high school romance. Victoria Clark, as the lead in the show, added a second Tony to her trophy case, having previously won one in 2005 for “The Light in the Piazza.”

    Producer David Stone credited the musical’s writers for penning a magic trick, calling “Kimberly Akimbo” a “musical comedy about the fragility of life, so healing and so profound and joyous that is almost impossible.” The musical took home a leading five awards, including best book and score.

    Earlier, Tony Awards history was made when Newell and Ghee became the first nonbinary people to win Tonys for acting. Last year, composer and writer Toby Marlow of “Six” became the first nonbinary Tony winner.

    “Thank you for the humanity. Thank you for my incredible company who raised me up every single day,” said leading actor in a musical winner Ghee, who stars in “Some Like It Hot,” the adaptation of the classic cross-dressing comedy film. The soulful Ghee stunned audiences with their voice and dance skills, playing a musician — on the run from gangsters — who tries on a dress and is transformed.

    Newell, who plays Lulu — an independent, don’t-need-no-man whiskey distiller in “Shucked” — has been blowing audiences away with their signature number, “Independently Owned.” They won for best featured actor in a musical.

    “Thank you for seeing me, Broadway. I should not be up here as a queer, nonbinary, fat, Black little baby from Massachusetts. And to anyone that thinks that they can’t do it, I’m going to look you dead in your face that you can do anything you put your mind to,” Newell said to an ovation.

    Tom Stoppard’s “Leopoldstadt,” which explores Jewish identity with an intergenerational story, won best play, also earning wins for director Patrick Marber, featured actor Brandon Uranowitz and Brigitte Reiffenstuel’s costumes.

    The British-Czech playwright, who now has five best play Tony Awards, joked he won his first in 1968 and noted that playwrights were “getting progressively devalued in the food chain” despite being “the sharp ends of the inverted pyramid.”

    Second-time Tony Awards host Ariana DeBose opened a blank script backstage before dancing and leaping her way to open the main show with a hectic opening number that gave a jolt of electricity to what is usually an upbeat, safe and chummy night. The writers’ strike left the storied awards show honoring the best of musical theater and plays without a script.

    Before the pre-show began, DeBose revealed to the audience the only words that would be seen on the teleprompter: “Please wrap up.” Later in the evening, virtually out of breath after her wordless opening performance, she thanked the labor organizers for allowing a compromise.

    “I’m live and unscripted. You’re welcome,” she said. “So to anyone who may have thought that last year was a bit unhinged, to them, I say, ‘Darlings, buckle up.’”

    Winners demonstrated their support for the striking writers either at the podium or on the red carpet with pins. Miriam Silverman, who won the Tony for best featured actress in a play for “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window,” ended her speech with: “My parents raised me to believe in the power of labor and workers being compensated and treated fairly. We stand with the WGA in solidarity!”

    Jodie Comer, the three-time Emmy nominated star of “Killing Eve” won leading actress in a play for her Broadway debut, the one-woman play “Prima Facie,” which illustrates how current laws fail terribly when it comes to sexual assault cases.

    Sean Hayes won lead actor in a play for “Good Night, Oscar,” which dramatizes a long night’s journey into the scarred psyche of pianist Oscar Levant, now obscure but once a TV star.

    “This has got to be the first time an Oscar won a Tony,” Hayes cracked.

    Suzan-Lori Parks’ “Topdog/Underdog,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning play about sibling rivalry, inequality and society’s false promises, won the Tony for best play revival. She thanked director Kenny Leon and stars Corey Hawkins and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II: “They showed up to be large in a world that often does not much want the likes of us living at all.”

    Bonnie Milligan, who won for best featured actress in a musical for “Kimberly Akimbo,” also had a message to the audience: “I want to tell everybody that doesn’t maybe look like what the world is telling you what you should look like — whether you’re not pretty enough, you’re not fit enough, your identity is not right, who you love isn’t right — that doesn’t matter.”

    “’Cause just guess what?” she continued, brandishing her award. “It’s right, and you belong.”

    Many of the technical awards — for things like costumes, sound, lighting and scenic design — were handed out at a breakneck pace during a pre-show hosted by Skylar Astin and Julianne Hough, allowing winners plenty of airtime for acceptance speeches but little humor.

    The pre-show telecast on Pluto featured some awkwardly composed shots and some presenters slipped up on certain words. The tempo was so rapid, it ended more than 10 minutes before the main CBS broadcast was slated to start.

    John Kander, the 96-year-old composer behind such landmark shows as “Chicago,” “Cabaret” and “The Scottsboro Boys,” was honored with a special lifetime award. He thanked his parents; his husband, Albert Stephenson; and music, which “has stayed my friend through my entire life and has promised to stick with me until the end.”

    Jennifer Grey handed her father, “Cabaret” star Joel Grey, the other lifetime achievement Tony. “Being recognized by the theater community is such a gift because it’s always been, next to my children, my greatest, most enduring love,” the actor said.

    Echoing the theme of antisemitism, “Parade” — a doomed musical love story set against the real backdrop of a murder and lynching in pre-World War I Georgia that won Tonys as a new musical in 1999 — won for best musical revival, with Michael Arden winning for best musical director.

    “‘Parade’ tells the story of a life that was cut short at the hands of the belief that one group of people is more valuable than another and that they might be more deserving of justice,” Arden said. “This is a belief that is the core of antisemitism, white supremacy, homophobia and transphobia and intolerance of any kind. We must come together. We must battle this.”

    The telecast featured performances from all the nominated musicals and Will Swenson — starring on Broadway in a Neil Diamond musical — led the audience in a vigorous rendition of “Sweet Caroline.” Lea Michele of “Glee” and now “Funny Girl” fame also performed a soaring version of “Don’t Rain on My Parade.”

    It all took place at the United Palace Theatre, in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan — a new venue for the ceremony, many miles from Times Square and the theater district.

    “Thank you all for coming uptown. Never in my wildest dreams, truly,” Lin-Manuel Miranda joked onstage. He, of course, wrote the musical “In the Heights,” set in Washington Heights.

    ___

    AP National Writer Jocelyn Noveck contributed to this report.

    ___

    Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

    ___

    For more coverage of the 2023 Tony Awards, visit https://apnews.com/hub/tony-awards

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  • An unscripted Tony Awards honors ‘Kimberly Akimbo’ and ‘Leopoldstadt,’ among other shows

    An unscripted Tony Awards honors ‘Kimberly Akimbo’ and ‘Leopoldstadt,’ among other shows

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    Call it an equal opportunity Tony Awards.

    No single show dominated Broadway’s big night, with prizes split almost evenly among a handful of productions. “Kimberly Akimbo,” a quirky, smaller-scaled show that chronicles the story of a teenager who suffers from a disease that effectively traps her in an older person’s body, was named best musical, the evening’s most heralded honor.

    But otherwise, the show captured a respectable but hardly record-breaking four other awards — namely, ones for Victoria Clark for lead actress in a musical, Bonnie Milligan for supporting actress, Jeanine Tesori for score and David Lindsay-Abaire for book. By contrast, “Hamilton” won a total of 11 awards when it competed in 2016.

    Similarly, “Leopoldstadt,” legendary dramatist’s Tom Stoppard’s chronicle of a Jewish Viennese family before, during and after the Holocaust, was honored for best play, but didn’t sweep its way through all the other categories in which it was nominated. Still, it picked up wins for Brandon Uranowitz for best supporting actor, Patrick Marber for direction and Brigitte Reiffenstuel for costume design.

    Other major winners: a production of Suzan-Lori Parks’ “Topdog/Underdog” was named best revival of a play and a production of Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown’s “Parade” was recognized for best revival of a musical.

    This year’s Tony Awards ceremony, held at the United Palace theater in New York City, was significant on several other levels. For starters, it was an unscripted awards show — a situation borne from the fact that the Writers Guild of America is still on strike. The powers behind the Tony Awards worked out an agreement with the union to let the show proceed, but without the preamble and intros that usually accompany any awards program.

    Still, there was a host — veteran actress Ariana DeBose — who acknowledged some of the awkwardness of the situation from the start, but also showed that, well, the show must go on.

    “Darlings, buckle up!” DeBose said at the beginning of the main ceremony, which was seen on CBS and Paramount+.

    It was also an occasion for Broadway to flex some of its muscle as it continues its recovery from the pandemic, which forced theaters to shut down for more than year. Shows grossed nearly $1.6 billion during the 2022-’23 season — a sizable figure, but still not equal to the record $1.8 billion that Broadway took in during the 2018-’19 season.

    In addition, this marked the first time the Tonys recognized a non-binary performer with an award — actually, two performers, with J. Harrison Ghee of “Some Like It Hot” for best lead actor in a musical and Alex Newell of “Shucked” for best featured actor in a musical.

    Newell gave one of the most emotional acceptance speeches of the night.

    “Thank you for seeing me, Broadway,” Newell said. “I should not be up here as a queer, nonbinary, fat, Black little baby from Massachusetts. And to anyone that thinks that they can’t do it, I’m going to look you dead in your face. That you can do anything you put your mind to.”

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  • Chelsea Peretti on her directorial debut ‘First Time Female Director,’ premiering at Tribeca

    Chelsea Peretti on her directorial debut ‘First Time Female Director,’ premiering at Tribeca

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    NEW YORK — Chelsea Peretti plays a first-time director in her directorial debut: “First Time Female Director.”

    The film premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival takes an acutely meta premise in lampooning the tumultuous experience of an inexperienced woman brought in to a direct a play at a small, local theater in Glendale, California, after its original male director is accused of misconduct.

    In one scene, while Peretti’s character bangs a trash can lid and shouts “Learn your blocking,” a cast member grumbles, “We replaced a predator with a female disaster.”

    Things went far smoother for Peretti, the 45-year-old comedian and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” star, during her first time behind the camera. “First Time Female Director,” which is up for sale at Tribeca, brings together a cast of funny people, including Megan Mullally, Kate Berlant, Andy Richter and Megan Stalter, along with cameos from Amy Poehler (a producer) and Peretti’s husband, Jordan Peele.

    “It was like a crazy summer camp as an adult,” Peretti says.

    “First Time Female Director” takes a satire of small-town theater and puts it in the context of a post-#MeToo entertainment world. For Peretti, it was a way to make something unabashedly silly with a little commentary on some of the shifts she’s experienced in recent years in Hollywood, she told The Associated Press in an interview.

    AP: Where did the idea for this begin?

    PERETTI: Weirdly, it started from me as sort of challenging myself to come up with something by booking a UCB slot years ago, and just forcing myself. I wanted to do a fake excerpt from a play. And I thought it would be funny to then have like a pretentious Q&A about it with the cast, and act like we’re a theater group and this is part of a real play. I went to so much theater as a young person. I was very intimately a lover of theater. But also, anything I love is also fair game to make fun of.

    AP: In the upheaval of the entertainment industry in the wake of #MeToo, were there things in how Hollywood responded that struck you as funny?

    PERETTI: Well, 100%. I think some things have felt like they moved so fast. Most of my career there was an absolute misogynistic tone in the response to what I was doing. And then one day all of a sudden there was shock and pearl clutching that these things are happening. And I’m like: “Where were you for the last 20 years? Where were you for all my YouTube comments that I’ve endured?” It’s been such a whirlwind that I was trying to process it in this project.

    AP: A few years ago on “Conan,” you joked about noticing an uptick in the audience for your stand-up special because viewers were looking for comedy from “people who aren’t rapists.”

    PERETTI: I do remember saying that. There were so many comedians that were outed for varying levels of horrific misogyny that I started really contemplating the last 20 years of my life, going: “Wow, I was trying to get a pat on the head from a lot of these people. I was being told to emulate half these people.” It was a revelation and it’s been so inspiring, people like Megan Stalter who are this younger generation. I was told never dress sexy when you’re doing stand-up. I’m watching all these younger women break all these rules and having the time of their lives. That’s the way to do it, you know? So it’s been such a period of reflection. And obviously the pandemic was this pause button in which you could really reflect on, “Wow, I was on a sitcom! That’s cool.” And: “Whoa, my stand-up life was tumultuous in many ways.”

    AP: You kind of hold a funhouse mirror up that tumult in “First Time Film Director.” Even what the audiences in the film cheer for is kind of a joke.

    PERETTI: When I started stand-up, I was told the audience is never wrong. And I have to say I disagree. I think the audience is wrong sometimes. I remember going to Carolines on Broadway and having a joke that I was really excited to work on and going up and just absolutely bombing. Now, probably that was my fault. But then I remember a guy going up after me and doing a bit about double-sided dildos and just destroying. I was going: “I don’t know if they are right.” Andy Warhol was right that everyone’s famous now. All these comedians have podcast empires. Everyone is preaching to their own choir in a way.

    AP: Yet instead of skewering some of the male comedians you were thinking about, you mostly make fun of yourself in the film.

    PERETTI: (Laughs) Well, this is a recurring theme for me. Like, it’s not fun satirizing Trump. It’s more fun satirizing people that you know intimately and love. I would have a really hard time like writing about a businessman. Speaking of another adage, write what you know. I know self-doubt. I know failure. I know feeling like people don’t like me.

    AP: But I gather your experience directing went better than your character’s?

    PERETTI: I really loved it. I often feel that, when you’re being directed as a comedy actor, that directors try to keep you in line a little bit. Like, if you have a big idea, they almost want you to rein it in. When some of these actors on this movie had ideas, I was like: “Let’s do it!” And so many of them were brilliant. As a rule, every comedian I know holds these strange obsessions. Heather Lawless was like: “Can I have Band-aids on my finger when I’m driving?” And Jermaine Fowler was like, “Can I roll around in a pile of cords?” And I’m like, “Yeah!” I just love saying yes to people.

    AP: You seem quite game to try new things, like film directing, or making a coffee-themed concept album.

    PERETTI: Sometimes before doing standup, I get really anxious a lot of times, especially in new venues. And I would be backstage and I just go, “F—- it.” I feel like you just have to have this part of you that says, “F—- it.” I always want to be like trying new things and I always want to be growing. That’s the fun of being creative to me. And that doesn’t mean that all these ideas work. But I love spontaneity and following inspiration and seeing what happens.

    ___

    Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

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  • David Byrne and Broadway Musicians’ Union Reach Hiring Agreement for Here Lies Love

    David Byrne and Broadway Musicians’ Union Reach Hiring Agreement for Here Lies Love

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    David Byrne has come to an agreement with the American Federation of Musicians’ Local 802 over hiring live musicians for the musiacl  Here Lies Love, which is set to begin previews on June 17. The show, which Byrne co-wrote with Fatboy Slim, will now move forward with 12 musicians, as a Local 802 representative confirmed to Pitchfork. “Broadway is a very special place with the best musicians and performances in the world, and we are glad this agreement honors that tradition,” said Tino Gagliardi, Local 802’s president and executive director, in a statement. Pitchfork has contacted Byrne’s representatives for Byrne and Here Lies Love for comment.

    According to a Local 802 rep, the music for Here Lies Love will now be provided by nine musicians and three actor-musicians, all of whom are union members. The union objected to the show’s plan to use pre-recorded music last month, claiming that it violated a contract clause requiring that at least 19 musicians are hired for all musicals staged at the Broadway Theater.

    Responding to criticism in The New York Times, a spokesperson for the production claimed that the decision to use pre-recorded music was “part of the karaoke genre inherent to the musical and the production concept.” Byrne issued a statement of his own defending the production choices, explaining the “dance club track-act immersion” as part of the show’s nontraditional staging. “The performance of the live vocals to pre-recorded, artificial tracks is paramount to its artistic concept. Production has ripped out the seats in the theater and built a dance floor. There is no longer a proscenium stage,” he wrote in part.

    Here Lies Love, a musical about the early life of the embattled Filipina first lady Imelda Marcos, debuted in its original run at New York’s Public Theater in 2013. It’s since been staged in Seattle and London, and its official opening date on Broadway is July 20.

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    Allison Hussey

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  • New version of ‘The Wiz’ will be led by Wayne Brady and Alan Mingo Jr. sharing the title role

    New version of ‘The Wiz’ will be led by Wayne Brady and Alan Mingo Jr. sharing the title role

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    NEW YORK — Two men who stepped into 6-inch heels for “Kinky Boots” on Broadway will play the title character behind the curtain when “The Wiz” tours the U.S. starting this fall and lands on Broadway in 2024 — Wayne Brady and Alan Mingo Jr.

    “Me and Wayne go way back to where we were friends in Los Angeles as actors,” says Minho. “So what better way to share a gig with your friends?” Adds Brady: “It’s a dream. It truly is a dream.”

    Brady will star as the Wiz in San Francisco from Jan. 16-Feb. 11 at the Golden Gate Theatre, and in Los Angeles from Feb. 13–March 3, before hitting Broadway in spring 2024.

    Mingo will play the Wiz in the remaining cities of the national tour, starting with the launch in Baltimore and including Cleveland; Washington, D.C.; Pittsburgh; Charlotte, North Carolina; Atlanta; Greenville, South Carolina; Chicago; Des Moines, Iowa; Tempe, Arizona and San Diego.

    The two actors were last on Broadway in “Kinky Boots” playing Lola. Brady handed the role to Mingo and “now I’ll go on the road and then hand him the baton,” says Mingo.

    “The Wiz” was one of two shows that a young Brady always dreamed of one day performing in. “I always wanted to be in ‘The Wiz.’ I always wanted to be in ‘Dreamgirls.’ Those were two of the classics that, as a kid, were kind of the North Star of theater. It was like, ‘Hey, if you can be in one of these shows, then that means that you’ve made it.’”

    The cast will also include Kyle Ramar Freeman as the Lion, Phillip Johnson Richardson as the Tin Man and Avery Wilson as the Scarecrow. Schele Williams will be directing, saying she hopes the show becomes a “touchstone for a new generation.”

    The show is adapted from “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum, with a book by William F. Brown, and music and lyrics by Charlie Smalls.

    “The Wiz” opened on Broadway in 1975 and won seven Tonys, including best musical. It has such classic songs as “What Would I Do If I Could Feel” and “Ease On Down the Road.”

    A 1978 movie version of “The Wiz” starred Diana Ross, Lena Horne and Richard Pryor as the Wiz. Michael Jackson co-starred as the Scarecrow, with Nipsey Russell as the Tin Man and Ted Ross as the Lion. NBC televised a live version in 2015 with Queen Latifah, Ne-Yo and David Alan Grier.

    Both Brady and Mingo say the show — featuring Black actors front and center — has a new resonance as it eases on down the road over the coming months.

    “I think of all these people of color on this stage telling the story of a young woman who’s lost and looking for something. She’s disenfranchised and she happens to meet three other young people who are all looking for something and they can’t get the answers from the older people around them because the world is in chaos. She has to step up to the plate and find her way — absolutely now is the time.”

    Mingo, who was in the original runs of “Rent” and “The Little Mermaid,” said “The Wiz” had an important part in inspiring his career.

    “It sparked me to get into this business,” he says. “I love to share our art with a new set of audiences. Hopefully they’ll turn into wonderful patrons, if not turn to the arts themselves.”

    The original Broadway production featured Stephanie Mills as Dorothy, Dee Dee Bridgewater as good witch Glinda and Andre De Shields as the Wiz.

    Brady, who won a Primetime Emmy Award with “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” says he’ll pitch his Wiz somewhere between Prior and De Shields.

    “I already know that I’ve got two places that I can pull from for inspiration. I loved Richard’s dark turn and I loved Andre’s star turn and his panache and all the grandiosity,” he says. “So I think somewhere in the middle will I lay my guy. I think I can bring a certain charm and light to it.”

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    Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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  • Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan on the “Serendipitous” Second Life of The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window

    Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan on the “Serendipitous” Second Life of The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window

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    Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan never imagined their revival of The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window would make it to Broadway. “It happened so fast,” Brosnahan told Vanity Fair over the phone. “It felt like whiplash, but the fun kind.” In a separate phone call, Isaac shared a similar sentiment regarding their production, which was supposed to end at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in March: “It’s serendipitous.”

    “A project I was going to do didn’t come together in time, so it fell apart, opening up a window,” Isaac says, pointing out the whims of the universe that allowed Sidney Brustein to make it to Broadway. “The fact that the theater happened to open up, and it was at the James Earl Jones [Theatre]—a beautiful synchronicity. It wasn’t willed into being. It wasn’t this designed idea. It’s a thing that kind of took its own momentum.” 

    A sense of momentum, of urgency, is at the heart of The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s window, the second and final Broadway play written by trailblazing playwright Lorraine Hansberry, who, in 1959, became the first Black woman to have a play produced on Broadway with, arguably, the greatest American play of the 20th century, A Raisin in the Sun. Perhaps the urgency inherent in her second play—which details the difficult marriage between Isaac’s intellectual Bohemian Sidney Brustein and his aspiring actor wife, Iris, played by Brosnahan—could be traced back to the fact that Hansberry herself was running out of time. On January 12, 1965, Hansberry died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 34, just two days after the original Broadway run of Sidney Brustein closed. 

    Despite Hansberry’s tragically short life, she left an indelible mark on American theater with A Raisin in the Sun, which has received multiple revivals, including Tony Award–winning productions starring everyone from Sean Combs to Denzel Washington, and most recently at the Public Theater this past fall. However, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window has existed more under the radar, having only been revived once on Broadway in the ’70s since its initial production that starred Gabriel Dell and future EGOT Rita Moreno. “For me, it was a bit more of an academic idea,” Isaac says of the play. “I read it in school. I had seen some scenes from it. I was very moved by it, but it remained a little bit of a museum piece for me.” Brosnahan admits that she’s “embarrassed to say that I had never heard of this play before I was asked to do a reading of it,” despite being “intimately familiar with A Raisin in the Sun.” “I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to become familiar with the rest of Lorraine Hansberry’s extraordinary legacy left behind after such a short life.”

    Thankfully, Hansberry’s work can reach new audiences thanks to BAM’s production of The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window transferring to Broadway at the last possible moment. Brosnahan points out that it wouldn’t have been possible without Slave Play playwright and Sidney Brustein producer Jeremy O. Harris, who, via a series of text exchanges with Brosnahan, was instrumental in helping the play find a life beyond BAM. “He wrote, ‘Let me make a call or two,’ and that was at 2:26 p.m.,” Brosnahan explains, reading the texts aloud. “And I said, ‘That would be incredible.’ Then, at 2:36 p.m. he said, ‘Okay, I’ve done a call about bringing your show to Broadway.’ And I said, ‘You work quick.’”

    In that 10 minutes, a show that was supposed to close in March began its journey to a 10-week limited run on Broadway, a run that would also mark Isaac’s Broadway debut. Since graduating from Juilliard in 2005, Isaac has spent the majority of his career onscreen, starring in massive franchises like Dune and Star Wars, as well as TV series like Marvel’s Moon Knight. “It’s completely different,” says Isaac of acting onstage rather than the screen. “Now, it’ll be two years since I’ve been on a set. So I’d had a lot of space away. My first acting gig back being theater did feel quite organic. I think there was a bit more willingness to fail and risk failure and risk things being bad, I guess, in order to find something new, in order to investigate a new way of working.”

    And even now, as they near the end of their limited run, on July 2, not every night feels all that great. “Last night, elements felt awful. But, in some ways, it was really exciting,” he tells me. “I found certain reactions weren’t there for me, like, my own reactions, things that have been built into the structure of the play. They just weren’t coming easily, and instead of forcing those things to happen, I just allowed whatever it was to be.” Brosnahan—who recently wrapped up her fifth and final season of the Emmy-winning The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel—agrees with Isaac that theater “is a completely different kind of challenge,” and says that it’s “one that I’m hooked on.” “Theater is my first true love, and it was the perfect way to close one chapter and open another one,” she says.

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    Chris Murphy

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