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SALUTING “EDWARD ALBEE’S WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF

By Lindsey Delahunt

60 years ago on this date in 1962, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? exploded on Broadway at the Billy Rose Theatre; the author was an acclaimed Off-Broadway playwright, Edward Albee, whose previous successes had included The Zoo Story, An American Dream and The Death of Bessie Smith.  The director was Alan Schneider, whose reputation soared after this production and went on to direct several Albee plays (Tiny Alice, A Delicate Balance, and The Ballad of the Sad Café) as well as major productions of Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett, and Robert Anderson. His life was tragically cut short when he was killed in an accident in London, when he looked to his left for traffic on a cross street, forgetting that motor vehicles traveled on the left side of the road, and was hit by a motorcycle. The play won Tony Awards for its leading actors, Uta Hagen and Arthur Hill, who were supported by George Grizzard and Melinda Dillon and became a cause celebre, as well as the talk of the town, when it was passed over for a Pulitzer Prize despite the recommendation of the advisors to the Pulitzer Prize board.  It was said to have been denied the award because of its frank language and explicit sexual themes. It played for 664 performances, it did not have an out of town engagement, there were only five previews when it opened in New York, and the first-string critics all attended the opening night.

One of the intriguing anecdotes concerning the production was the potential involvement of Henry Fonda, the great film actor who periodically returned to the stage every few years beginning in 1948 with Mister Roberts, then Point of No Return, then The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, Two For the Seesaw and Critic’s Choice. His agent rejected the script out of hand, without consulting him. The agent gave as his reason the assertion that, “You don’t want to be in a play about four people yelling at each other all the time.” Fonda, who was an admirer of playwright Edward Albee’s talents, reportedly was furious. Finally seeing the show himself, Fonda was duly impressed by Arthur Hill’s performance in the role, and conceded that he couldn’t have played the part any better.

In 1970, he and Richard Burton approached Albee about doing an all-male version; for the younger couple they wanted Warren Beatty and Jon Voight, but the playwright turned them down.

Virginia Woolf didn’t come to Broadway again until 1976 when Ben Gazzara and Colleen Dewhurst co-starred in a production at the Music Box Theatre. It played for slightly over 3 months and unlike the original production, which had a second company doing matinees due to the length and the fierce, uncompromising battle of the sexes (that second company by the way included Elaine Stritch at one point), Gazzara and Dewhurt played all eight performances.

By that time Virginia Woolf had entered into the canon of major American plays, helped also by the film version which starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, with Sandy Dennis and George Segal in support. Major artists who interpreted the roles over the years ranged from Mike Nichols and Elaine May to a recent production in Los Angeles with Zachary Quinto and Calista Flockhart.

Zachary Quinto and Calista Flockhart (photo by Justin Bettman)

The next time that Virginia Woolf appeared on Broadway was approximately 28 years after the first revival, which was 14 years after the original. Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin were Martha and George and Irwin won a Tony for his performance. He had earned the admiration of Albee when he stepped in to do The Goat after Bill Pullman had departed. The play alternated seven and eight performances bi-weekly and played for 177 performances. Since the 60’s when Hagen and Elizabeth Taylor (who won an Oscar), the role of Martha has eluded the top prize but George in the three out of four major Broadway productions has provided Tony Awards for its interpreters.

The most acclaimed revival came to Broadway in a very roundabout way just seven years after the Turner-Irwin. For the first time the artist who staged the play was a woman who had done resident theatre productions of The Play About the Baby (Philadelphia Stage Company), The Goat or Who is Sylvia (the Alley Theatre) and the world premiere of Pete and Jerry at the Hartford Stage Theatre; the latter served an opener to The Zoo Story.  Pam Mackinnon, the director, had the previous season brilliantly directed the award-winning play Clybourne Park and wanted to do Virginia Woolf with Amy Morton as Martha Henry. Molly Smyth, Artistic Director, was all set to do the production, which had been approved, when Martha Lavey, the Artistic Director of Steppenwolf, insisted that as Amy Morton was a member of the company it had been to be done at that theatre first. Albee had never allowed a play of his to be done at Steppenwolf, but Mackinnon was persuasive and the play began its life there in 2011-2012 and then traveled to the Arena Stage. The response to the production was overwhelming, there were two performances left, when Lavey called the New York producer Jeffrey Richards and ask him to come and see the production, noting his relationship with Amy and Tracy Letts (portraying George) from August: Osage County and Superior Donuts. The matinee performance was magnificent, so much so that Richards and his producing partner Susan Gallin immediately decided to bring it to New York. Albee’s agent, Jonathan Lomma, was called who met with Richards the next afternoon and granted the rights. The play now titled Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? again awarded the George (Tracy Letts) with a Tony Award, Mackinnon with the Best Director Award, and the play won Best Revival. Noteworthy note: it was the first time two American women directors had won the Tony Award in the same year (Mackinnon for Woolf, Diane Paulus for Pippin).

When Richards met with Albee, he asked why it was now called Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.  Richards had retitled, with the playwright’s permission, the generic The Best Man to Gore Vidal’s The Best Man. Albee said he had seen a program of a production in a resident theatre in which his name was so small that he felt that it would never happen again if his name was in the title.

At intermission when the play opened, 50 years to the actual date of the first production, Albee agreed to come onstage at the end of the performance and received a standing ovation.  It was the last time he was to appear on stage at the conclusion of one of his plays.

A production of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was scheduled to open in March 2020 with Rupert Everett (initially Eddie Izzard had been announced) and Laurie Metcalf as George and Martha and Joe Mantello was the director.  Sadly it was one of the productions which never reopened after Covid and it was the production which signaled the beginning of the Broadway shutdown when an usher at the theatre was found to have Covid.  

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Creative

Broadway Fairy Tales

by Jordan Levinson

With rumors currently spreading regarding a forthcoming transfer of Once Upon a One More Time at the Marquis Theatre in the spring, it means New York City is being treated to three different musicals in the 2022-23 season using fairy tales as their inspiration (also Into the Woods and the forthcoming Bad Cinderella). 

Why fairy tales? Perhaps the answer lies in the colorful utopia in which these stories are set: a perfect world free of corruption, plague, and strife, and full of love and magic defined by larger-than-life creatures, humans or not. In this second full Broadway season back from an 18-month COVID-19 shutdown, it can be assumed theatregoers want to forget their troubles and be transported to a different environment — and the familiarity of centuries-old fairy tales can help their cause, serving as lighthearted, bubblegum fare to all those in need of it.

But there’s a twist though…this season, these stories that have been told and retold for generations are not always the ones you think you know. Audiences will head to their seats expecting the familiar, but instead be treated to new, diverse tales with some recognizable figures. 

Once Upon a One More Time

Take, for instance, Once Upon a One More Time. While utilizing the impressive back catalogue of pop princess Britney Spears, Jon Hartmere’s book brings the Brothers Grimm’s princesses together at a book club. There, a fairy godmother introduces the group to Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique”, inspiring them to gain new perspective on themselves and their lives. The women eventually realize that waiting for their princes or knights in shining armor to arrive and kiss them may not be the only path to “happily ever after.” 

Sondheim’s Into The Woods

Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods also combines multiple Grimm stories to form an original creation. Though the show begins rather lighthearted, it eventually becomes the darker side of a fairy tale. James Lapine’s book introduces a common everyman and everywoman — the Baker and his wife — and their quest to start a family. To do so, they must reverse the curse that a witch has placed on their house. The two interact with Jack, Cinderella, Rapunzel, and Little Red Riding Hood. It turns out, they all have something they wish for — and the latter half of the show teaches audiences a harsh truth: granted wishes have consequences and repercussions, so “careful the wish you make.”

A second revival kicked off the current Broadway season in late June 2022; it was originally staged in 1987 and revived for the first time in 2002.

Bad Cinderella

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Bad Cinderella will begin previews at the Imperial Theatre on February 17, prior to a March 23 official opening. Here, the famous titular damsel in distress is both a damsel and a distress. Cinderella is a goth-dressing, rebellious outcast in Belleville, a town that prides itself on beauty and attractiveness. Also, her beloved Prince Charming (as seen in other works) is seemingly dead; his younger brother — the shy Prince Sebastian — is Cinderella’s only friend and love interest. Other plot points in this new adaptation include reflections on body shaming and some recast gender relationships. 

Between the Lines

Some credit must also be given to Between the Lines, which had a brief Off-Broadway run at the beginning of the season. Although it isn’t based on any particular fairy tale (the basis is Jodi Picoult’s YA novel of the same name), this musical follows a high school girl who escapes her difficult life at home and school by reading books. In particular, she is struck by a fictional fairy tale involving a prince who she has a crush on. When the prince starts talking to her, she longs to escape into his world; however, if the two want to stay together, they must change the story he is stuck in so that they can control their own narrative. 

Of course, adapting fairy tales into Broadway musicals is not a brand-new trend; more traditional productions have popped up through the years. As early as 1903, L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz — considered by some to be America’s first great fairy tale — was musicalized for the first time before receiving a legendary film adaptation in 1939 and a Motown makeover in 1975’s The Wiz. Wicked — the backstory of the two witches of Oz — provided a prequel of The Wizard of Oz in 2003 and is still currently running on Broadway. 

The Wiz
Wicked

In 2013, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella opened on Broadway for the first time. Although more traditional (and true to the Grimm original) than something like Bad Cinderella, librettist Douglas Carter Beane adapted the old tale by throwing in some small additions to bolster the show’s running time, including a romantic subplot, several new characters, and a sympathetic stepsister. 

Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella

The various stories of Danish author Hans Christian Andersen have also made their way to the Great Bright Way; in 1959, his The Princess and the Pea was adapted into Once Upon a Mattress. The plot chronicles a far-off place in which its inhabitants must abstain from marriage until Prince Dauntless — the Queen’s son — finds a bride of his own. The Mary Rodgers tuner received a Broadway revival in 1996. 

Disney’s Frozen

Finally, no list on musical fairy tales would be complete without mentioning the success of Disney on Broadway. Under the leadership of Thomas Schumacher, the Mouse has launched many of its films into the theatrical medium. The venture launched in 1994 with the purple-and-gold warhorse known as Beauty and the Beast, running for 13 years at two different houses and ushering in a new era of commercial Broadway theatre that continues to this day, before closing to make way for a splash-hit adaptation of Andersen’s The Little Mermaid (which in turn, was given a Caribbean twist in Once on This Island). 

Andersen’s most recent Broadway adaptation was a twist on his short story “The Snow Queen.” Following the runaway success of the 2013 animated feature Frozen, Disney did not miss a beat and brought a stage version to New York five years later. The heartwarming story about two sisters who find love where they least expect it thawed many cold hearts, and it had a solid run at the St. James Theatre before the COVID-19 shutdown provided its knockout punch.

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Creative

Gore Vidal Would Have Been 97 Today, We will Look at His Contribution to the American Theatre

Gore’s first venture in the theatre was the result of a teleplay that had been produced on the Goodyear Playhouse in 1955;  It was described thusly:  “A visitor from another planet arrives on Earth and seems anxious to provoke a war- “one thing you people do really well”.   The teleplay starred Cyril Ritchard, at the height of his US popularity having created the role of Captain Hook in Peter Pan.  He starred as Kreton, the visitor who had hoped to cover the United States during the Civil War, and through a time warp, had arrived in the 1950’s, upending the household of a General in Manassas, Virginia.  The popularity of the Playhouse presentation inspired Gore to expand the “Visit” into a full-length play and it opened to mostly positive reviews in February of 1957.

Brooks Atkinson in the Times called “Planet” “uproarious” and Life Magazine called it “the freshest and funniest invasion of the Broadway season.”  Not only did Ritchard create the role, he also directed the production. The play was later adapted into a Jerry Lewis film which bore little resemblance to the original. In the fall of 2000, there was a special reading of “Visit to a Small Planet at the Douglas Fairbanks Theatre.  The cast included Alan Cumming (as the Visitor), Lily Tomlin (in the gender-changed role of the General), Philip Bosco, Christine Baranski, Kristin Chenoweth and Tony Randall, directed by John Tillinger.  One could have charged premium tickets.  While the reading was positively received, its future was dimmed when Cumming, who was approached to continue in the role, was unable to schedule a commitment.

Melvyn Douglas, Lee Tracy and Leora Dana in “The Best Man” by Gore Vidal, (1960)

His most famous play would open three years later. When it opened in 1960, it was simply titled “The Best Man” and acclaimed as one of the best political plays ever on Broadway.  It ran for over a year at the Morosco Theatre and the leading role won Melvyn Douglas the Tony Award for Best Actor.  In the fall Douglas had portrayed President Warren G. Harding in “The Gang’s All Here” but here he was merely a former Secretary of State who was was an aspiring Presidential Candidate at a convention. The play was written pre-primary politics which has subsequently become a staple on the American scene, though that spring there would be the first highly publicized major Presidential primary with Senators Stuart Symington, Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey and John F. Kennedy vying to be the Democratic candidate. In the play the opposing candidates were famously drawn upon Adlai Stevenson who had twice been the Democratic presidential candidate and Richard Nixon. Almost stealing the spotlight was the character of the ex-President and potential kingmaker (patterned after Harry Truman) portrayed by Lee Tracy, who recreated the role in the film, which co-starred Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson.

Melvyn Douglas (far right) with fellow 1960 Tony winners Mary Martin (“The Sound of Music”), Jackie Gleason (“Take Me Along”), and Anne Bancroft (“The Miracle Worker”).

When the play was revived in the year 2000, it came on the heels of the popular film “The Best Man” which starred Taye Diggs. When the producer Jeffrey Richards, with director Ethan McSweeney,  travelled to Ravello to meet with Vidal, it was suggested, to avoid confusion, that the play be retitled “Gore Vidal’s The Best Man”. Gore’s response:  “I thought you’d never ask”.   The production which co-starred Charles During, Spalding Gray, Chris Noth, Elizabeth Ashley, Michael Learned and Christine Ebersole won both the Drama Desk Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Revival and was a surprise success of the fall season. It also benefitted from the five week delay in the Presidential contest which resulted in the George Bush presidency.  A line that before the election did not get a laugh was noted to receive one after November 4th when the putative candidate Joe Cantwell remarked “and the last thing we want is a deadlocked convention.”

Spalding Gray, Mark Blum and Charles Durning, 2000 THE BEST MAN Photo by Peter Cunningham
John Larroquette and James Earl Jones, 2012 THE BEST MAN directed by Michael Wilson
From left, Angela Lansbury, Candice Bergen, Amy Tribbey, Kerry Butler and Donna Hanover in “Gore Vidal’s The Best Man.”Credit…Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Elizabeth Ashley as Mrs. Sue-Ellen Gamadge and Cybill Shepherd as Alice Russell in The Best Man. Photo Joan Marcus

There was a second revival of the play in 2012 with another all-star cast including John Larroquette, James Earl Jones, Eric McCormack, Angela Lansbury, Candice Bergen, Jefferson Mays, Kerry Butler, and Michael McKean.  Again the play was a success. Gore attended the second week of rehearsals in a wheelchair and serenaded the company with stories about the original production and the night that JFK attended a performance. Unlike the first revival in which he joined the company on stage at a glittering opening night with celebrities in the audience included Woody Allen, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Bebe Neuwirth, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick among others, Gore was unable to attend the second re-opening. He died later that year, during the engagement of the production, which focused attention on his life and work and, consequently, resulted in an extension of the play with a replacement cast of Cybill Shepherd, John Stamos, Elizabeth Ashley and Kristin Davis.

Gore Vidal (AP)

Gore’s third Broadway play was an adaptation of Frederich Durrenmatt’s “Romulus” about the last of the Roman emperors. premiered on Broadway in 1962; once again his director and star was Cyril Ritchard (Vidal quipped- “Cyril was a wonderful actor but as a director he would just tell the actors to stand there, in a line and recite the dialogue”) and Dame Cathleen Nesbitt and Howard DaSilva were also starred.  

His fourth play reunited him with the original director of “Gore Vidal’s The Best Man”, Joseph Anthony, but did not repeat the success.  The play was “Weekend “and a one sentence description of the play read as follows:  “An unscrupulous Republican senator’s son brings home his black girlfriend”.  The play opened in March of 1968;  the previous December the Spencer Tracy-Katherine Hepburn-Sidney Poitier film had a similar racial theme in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” and was Oscar-nominated and a big box office success.  “Weekend” was neither a box office success, despite a starry cast which included John Forsythe, Rosemary Harris and Academy Award winner Kim Hunter and introduced Carol Cole, Nat King Cole’s daughter, as the girlfriend, nor was it well received. The producers advertised it without quotes calling it THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE. It wasn’t. It played three weeks at the Broadhurst Theatre.

Gore’s fifth and final play on Broadway was in 1972; a blistering satire called “An Evening With Richard Nixon and…” with George S. Irving in the title role.  Originally scheduled to be directed by (Sir) Peter Hall, it was directed by Ed Sherin, who had staged “The Great White Hope”. It opened 50 years ago and was budgeted at $150,000; there was a cast of fifteen (with a very young Susan Sarandon) portraying a gallery of over 50 characters ranging from George Washington to JFK, including, FDR, Harry Truman, Thomas E. Dewey, Dwight Eisenhower, FDR, Gloria Steinem and Pat Nixon – Clive Barnes in his review said “I laughed a great deal at this political bloodletting” but had reservations about the play’s cumulative impact.  So did audiences, and without the star power that had been associated with previous Vidal entries, the play last only two weeks after opening at the Shubert Theatre.

George S. Irving, Susan Sarandon
Gore Vidal celebrates Charles Durning birthday during the engagement of On The March to the Sea
Charles and Gore Vidal bond backstage

Gore’s final play that received a production premiered at Duke as part of Duke Theatres’ Previews in 2005.  A glittering cast headed by Charles During, Chris Noth, Michael Learned, Harris Yulin, Richard Easton, Isabel Keating and David Turner brought “On the March to the Sea” to life for a brief engagement.  Directed by Warner Shook, who had brought “The Kentucky Cycle” to Broadway, “Sea” was a noble effort that failed to march on to New York.  The play concerned a Georgian family’s trial by fire during Sherman’s famous march during the Civil War.  Vidal delighted students at a writing class with various bon mots such as “The best writers have been actors…Shakespeare, Shaw, Twain, Wilder.”;  “Reading is like going to bed with someone.  Save Jane Eyre for a dismal night” and on the staged reading format of the play “naked language…the eye is not distracted by the adventurous and dangerous set designer”…

Gore had developed and was retooling a script inspired by his novel Lincoln (which had also been a mini-series on television in the late 80’s) when he passed away. A reading had been scheduled and ultimately was not realized.

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Creative

8 Shows Opening on Broadway in October

Mother Nature has her faux fur coat on the foot of her bed and she’s almost ready to step out for New York’s hottest shows. We are here to celebrate the eight shows that will open up on Broadway before October.

October 2
Leopoldstadt (Longacre Theatre)

  • Olivier Award Winning NEW play by Tom Stoppard
  • Features 38 actors
  • Tom Stoppard’s “most personal work of his career”
  • From Director Patrick Marber (Closer, Tom Stoppard’s Travesties)

October 3
Cost of Living (Samuel J. Friedman Theatre)

  • Winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize
  • Martyna Marjok is a new playwright with a very promising future (she’s penning The Great Gatsby with Florence Welch)
  • Kara Young stars after exploding onto the Broadway stage after Clyde’s

October 6
1776 (American Airlines Theatre)

  • Reimagined revival with an all woman presenting cast
  • Jeffrey L. Page (Violet, FELA!) and Diane Paulus (Waitress, Pippin, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, Jagged Little Pill) co-directs
  • Carolee Carmello is back on Broadway after 6 years

October 9
Death of a Salesman (Hudson Theatre)

  • Marianne Elliott (Company, Angels in America, Warhorse) directs this critically-acclaimed West End Transfer
  • Tony Award Nominee and Multi-Olivier Award Winner Sharon D. Clarke, Wendell Pierce (HBO’s The Wire) and the incomparable André De Shields round out this powerhouse cast
  • The Black actors portraying the Loman family during the 1940s transcends the writing making an even harder hit for Willy, his wife and his boys

October 13
The Piano Lesson (Ethel Barrymore Theatre)

  • Samuel L Jackson and Danielle Brooks return to Broadway in this much-anticipated revival
  • Directed by Latanya Richardson Jackson
  • August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize Winning Masterpiece about how we perceive our past

October 20
Topdog/Underdog (John Golden Theatre)

  • The first ever Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize-winning drama revival
  • Kenny Leon directs
  • New York Times says it’s “the Greatest Plays of the last 25 years”

October 27
Take Me Out (Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre)

  • The hit revival is back from it’s sold-out run at the Helen Hayes
  • Jesse Tyler Ferguson won his first Tony Award for this hilarious and heart-breaking role
  • A scintillating drama about being authentically oneself and the importance of friendship and community

October 27
Walking with Ghosts (Music Box Theatre)

  • Gabriel Byrne (Hereditary, HBO’s In Treatment) returns to Broadway with his one-man staged biography
  • The incredible Lonny Price directs
  • The Times calls it “Spell-binding”

NOVEMBER OPENINGS

November 3 – Almost Famous (Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre)

November 10 – Kimberly Akimbo (Booth Theatre)

November 13 – Mike Birbiglia: The Old Man & the Pool (Vivian Beaumont Theater)

November 17 – & Juliet (Stephen Sondheim Theatre)

November 20 – KPOP (Circle in the Square Theatre)

November 21 – A Christmas Carol (Nederlander Theatre)

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Creative

History of Movies to Musicals on Broadway

The 2017-2018 Broadway season reached 13,792,614 in attendance and grossed over $1.6 million. Despite these record setting numbers, discussion and debate broke out amongst fans as all four Tony nominated Best Musicals were stage adaptations of films; The Band’s Visit, SpongeBob SquarePants the Musical, Frozen, and Mean Girls. 

The Broadway cast of Some Like It Hot

A major criticism of Broadway is the trend of stage adaptations of popular movies, which has been featured heavily in recent seasons. With this upcoming season having two announced adaptations, Almost Famous and Some Like It Hot, and even more rumored for the future including The Notebook, The Devil Wears Prada, and a transfer of the West End’s Back to the Future, there is an understandable interest in the creation and development of original stories on Broadway. What many theatergoers are unaware of is that this trend isn’t new to Broadway. In fact, Broadway has a long history of translating movies to the stage including some classic and fan favorite shows. 

Little Shop Of Horrors

While some adaptations are more obvious, such as the Disney Broadway catalog including shows like Beauty and the Beast, Newsies, and The Lion King, many well known theater classics were inspired by movies. Sondheim and Wheeler’s A Little Night Music, which originally opened on Broadway in 1973 and ran for 601 performances, is based on the 1955 Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night. The well-known Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon staple Sweet Charity, written by Neil SImon with music by Cy Coleman and lyrics by Dorothy Fields, is based on the 1957 screenplay Nights of Cabiria. Little Shop of Horrors, whose award winning Off-Broadway revival is currently running at the Westside Theatre, is based on the low budget 1960 dark comedy, The Little Shop of Horrors. Andrew Lloyd Webbers’ Sunset Boulevard, which broke advance sale records and sold over 1 million tickets with its original Broadway production, is based on the 1950 film of the same name. Some other classics include Nine, based on Frederico Fellini’s 1963 film 8½, On The 20th Century, based on the 1930s film of the same name, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s State Fair, and Promises, Promises, based on the 1960 film The Apartment.  

Heathers The Musical on Roku

Beyond the classics, many fan favorites, such as Heathers which currently has a production on the West End, are based on films. The 2007 Legally Blonde, which has become a go-to for many community theaters and High Schools across the country, is heavily based heavily on the 2001 film starring Reese Witherspoon as well as the Amanda Brown novel. The beloved Sara Bareilles musical Waitress, which ran on Broadway from 2016 to 2020 and returned in a limited engagement in 2021, is based on the 2007 film written by Adrienne Shelly. Other fan favorite adaptations include the currently running Beetlejuice, based on the Tim Burton horror comedy, 9 to 5, based on the 1980 film, Anastasia, based on the 1997 animated movie, and many more. 

Billy Elliott the Musical

Some screen to stage adaptations have even garnered critical acclaim and gone on to win Tony Awards, such as Once, which won the 2012 Tony Award for Best Musical. Carnival, which won the 1962 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical and an Outer Critics Circle Award, was based on the 1953 film Lili. The 2013 winner Kinky Boots, which ran on Broadway for 2,507 performances and is currently running Off-Broadway at Stage 42, is based on a 2005 British film of the same name. The 2021 Tony Award-winning Best Musical, Moulin Rouge!, is based on the 2001 film starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor. Other Tony Award winning adaptations include Billy Elliot the Musical, Spamalot, Hairspray, Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Producers, and Passion. 

The river flows both ways. While many musicals based on films have gone on to win awards and break records, Hollywood continues to turn out movies based on beloved Broadway shows. In the last 5 years alone, there have been a slew of film adaptations of Musicals including Jonathan Larsons’ Tick, Tick…Boom, directed by Lin Manuel Miranda starring Andrew Garfield, a remake of West Side Story directed by Stephen, In The Heights, 13, The Prom, Dear Evan Hansen, and The Last 5 Years (although this came out in 2014 and has yet to have a Broadway production). Coming to Netflix this December will be a movie adaptation of the acclaimed musical Matilda. The long-running Broadway musical Wicked, which has multiple national tours and international productions, has a film adaptation in the late stages of development starring Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, and Jonathan Bailey. 

While there should be a healthy mix of original stories and adaptations in commercial theater, the relationship between Broadway and the silver screen has an extensive history that shouldn’t be dismissed. If a screen to stage adaptation is done well, it has the potential to connect with audiences, set records, and become a staple in the theater canon. 

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Creative

Celebrating the Jewish Holidays with Iconic Moments in the American Musical Theatre

by Sydney Lydecker

Is there anything more moving or beautifully rendered than the Sabbath Prayer from “Fiddler on the Roof”.  Whether it was recently celebrated on Broadway by Danny Burstein or is currently in its fourth year in a record-breaking national tour, whether it is done in English or in Yiddish by Steven Skybell about to return to New York for the holiday season in the unique Joel Grey production, this is a highlight of one of the great American musicals.

Danny Burstein (Photo: Joan Marcus) Steven Skybell
(Photo © Matthew Murphy)

What better time to listen to “Falsettoland” which not only has its youngest protagonist singing about “The Miracle of Judaism” but then also has the ensemble celebrating “Jason’s Bar Mitzvah”.  William Finn is not the only acclaimed composer-lyricist that has explored the Bar Mitzvah on stage—one could go back 60 years ago when Harold Rome’s heartfelt “A Gift Today” was sung (by Elliot Gould, no less) to Sheldon the young Bar Mitzvah in “I Can Get It For Your Wholesale”. 

And composer Jule (“Gypsy,” “Funny Girl”) Styne, one of the most prolific of Broadway composers, couldn’t get his musical “Bar Mitzvah Boy” to Broadway (it played in London and was introduced in New York by the American Jewish Theatre) but if you can find the original British recording, take a listen to the obscure song “The Bar Mitzvah of Eliot Green”.

Stephen Bogardus, Barbara Walsh, Chip Zien, Jonathan Kaplan, Michael Rupert, Heather MacRae and Carolee Carmello in the original Broadway production of Falsettos Photo by Carol Rosegg – pictured right, Elliot Gould

Looking forward to Jerry Herman’s “Dear World” at Encores this coming season.  Well, before that there was “Hello, Dolly!” and “Mame” and after that came “Mack and Mabel” and “La Cage Aux Folles”.   But in his very first show, Herman said hello to Broadway with “Shalom”, the opening number of his vastly underrated score for “Milk and Honey”.  That may not have been the first time that word found itself in a Broadway lyric but it definitely was the first Broadway song to use that word in the title.   When “Milk and Honey” arrived on Broadway in the state of Israel had recently celebrated its Bar Mitzvah as a nation and the rousing title song was a paean to the spirit, humanity, the dreams and the hopes of that country.

Last season the Tony nominated revival of “Caroline, Or Change” reminded us of the  Festival of Lights, with its joyous “The Chanukah Party”.  The Tesori-Kushner score was even handed with its equal appreciation of that other seasonal holiday with its lively “Santa Comin Caroline”.   Theatergoers can look forward later this fall to the latest Jeanine Tesori score when “Kimberly Akimbo” arrives on Broadway at the Booth Theatre.

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Finally let us salute, with break fasts coming up in at the conclusion of Yom Kippur, the ultimate panacea proscribed by almost every Jewish mother.  Again we reference “I Can Get It For You Wholesale” with the quiet but powerfully moving finale (in the original production) of “Eat a Little Something”, sung by Mrs. Bogen to her son Harry, whose ambition and manipulation has come tumbling down on his friends, family and business empire.

Lillian Roth

Maybe “Milk and Honey” at a future Encores; maybe “I Can Get It For You Wholesale” at a major revival of a resident theatre.  Maybe happy New Beginning and Ending for them both, as we wish you a Happy New Year from Broadway’s Best Shows.

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Creative

Stupid Kids

STUPID KIDS
By John C. Russell
Directed By Michael Mayer
Starring John Clay III, Lauren Patten, Ali Stroker and Taylor Trensch
With Stage Directions By Christian Borle

Stupid Kids premiered Wednesday, September 22nd, 2021 at 8:00PM ET/5PM PST and was available to stream on demand through Saturday, September 25th at 6:00PM ET.

STUPID KIDS follows four students at Joe McCarthy High School as they make their way from first through eighth period and beyond, struggling with the fears, frustrations, and longings peculiar to youth. With his magical touch, John C. Russell turns these familiar stereotypes into moving and provocative archetypes of adolescence whose lingo takes on a lyricism that is both true to its source and revelatory of the hearts and minds of contemporary youth.

Categories
Creative

Dear Elizabeth: Introduction

“Sometimes it seems…as though only intelligent people are stupid enough to fall in love & only stupid people are intelligent enough to let themselves be loved.” – Elizabeth Bishop, from her notebook

Dream

I see a postman everywhere

Vanishing in thin blue air,

A mammoth letter in his hand.

Postmarked from a foreign land.

The postman’s uniform is blue.

The letter is of course from you

And I’d be able to read, I hope,

My own name on the envelope

But he has trouble with this letter

Which constantly grows bigger & bigger

And over and over with a stare,

He vanishes in blue, blue air. 

–Elizabeth Bishop, Uncollected Poems, Drafts and Fragments

“Elizabeth told me about Robert Lowell. She said, “He’s my best friend.” When I met him a few years later, I mentioned that I knew her and he said, “Oh, she’s my best friend.” It was nice to think that she and Lowell both thought of each other in the same way” (Thom Gunn, Remembering Elizabeth Bishop, 244.)

“While we were with her, she managed to finish ‘North Haven,’ the poem [or elegy] for Lowell. She read it to us and walked about with it in her hand. I found it very moving that she felt she could hardly bear to put it down, that it was part of her. She put it beside her plate at dinner” (Ilsa Barker, Remembering Elizabeth Bishop, 344)

“I can remember Cal’s carrying Elizabeth’s “Armadillo” poem around in his wallet everywhere, not the way you’d carry the picture of a grandson, but as you’d carry something to brace you and make you sure of how a poem ought to be.” (Richard Wilbur, Remembering Elizabeth Bishop, 108)


FORWARD 

The great poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell were great friends, and they wrote over eight hundred pages of letters to one other. When I was on bed-rest, pregnant with twins, a friend gave me their book of collected letters Words in Air: the complete correspondence between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. I already had a long-standing obsession with Elizabeth Bishop; my obsession with Lowell and their friendship now began. I could not put the letters down. I hungered to hear them read aloud; I particularly longed to hear letter number 157 read out loud. Number 157 is Lowell’s most confessional letter to Bishop, and I think, one of the most beautiful love letters ever written. In it, he says, about not asking Bishop to marry him: “Asking you is the might have been for me, the one towering change, the other life that might have been had.” 

Reading these eight hundred pages, these strands of two lives, intersecting, rarely meeting–I thought: why do I find this narrative so compelling, even though theirs is not a story in the traditional sense? I was desperate to know how the “story” would come out—how each life would progress, how the relation would end. But I also loved how the letters resisted a sense of the usual literary “story”—how instead, the letters forced us to look at life as it is lived. Not neat. Not two glorious Greek arcs meeting in the center. Instead: a dialectic between the interior poetic life and the pear-shaped, particular, sudden, ordinary life-as-it-is-lived. 

Life intrudes, without warning. Elizabeth Bishop’s great love and partner Lota commits suicide without much warning. Bishop has multiple asthma attacks, and often needs to be hospitalized for alcoholism and depression. Robert Lowell dies suddenly of a heart attack in a taxi cab en route to see his ex-wife, Elizabeth Hardwick. As he died in the taxi he held a painting of his third wife, painted by her ex-husband, Lucian Freud. Lowell had bipolar disorder, and often found himself quite suddenly in a sanitarium. Bishop and Lowell’s carefully built, Platonic poetic worlds are intruded on constantly by the vagaries of life and the body. And through such sudden disturbances, their letters were like lanterns sent to one another across long distances. Bishop lived in Brazil most of her life, and Lowell lived in New York, Boston and London. Their friendship was lived largely on paper, though they met at crucial times in their lives. 

Bishop was in New York when Lota commited suicide, and she stayed at Hardwick and Lowell’s apartment. They paid for her ambulance ride through Central Park, a result of a bad fall she took, perhaps induced by too much drink, after Lota’s suicide. Bishop was plagued her whole life with alcoholism; at one point a friend eliminated all the liquor in her house and Bishop was reduced to drinking rubbing alcohol and ended up in the hospital. Lowell visited Bishop in South America and was hospitalized in Argentina for a manic episode. 

Their correspondence spans political epochs—coups in Brazil, the Vietnam war—personal epochs, and literary epochs. Bishop observes Lowell’s trajectory as he creates the confessional movement in poetry. I love, in the letters, the extraordinary dialectic between Lowell’s more confessional mode and Bishop’s formal restraint. Her disgust for the confessional, however, didn’t keep her from loving Lowell’s poetry. They both carried each other’s poems in their minds and in their pockets. Lowell carried Bishop’s Armadillo (a poems she dedicated to Lowell) in his wallet, a kind of talisman for how a poem ought to be. 

Lowell wrote Skunk Hour for Bishop, as well as many sonnets, and a poem called “Water”, about a seminal weekend the two of them spent in Maine. 

After Lowell divorced Jean Stafford in July of 1948, he visited Elizabeth Bishop in Maine. It’s a visit they would both return to again and again in their letters and in their poetry. It’s impossible to reconstruct exactly what happened; we know from letters and poems that they spent the weekend together, at one point standing waist high in water, and Bishop said to Lowell, “When you write my epitaph, you must say I was the loneliest person who ever lived.” Bishop wrote later that they were: “Swimming, or rather standing, numb to the waist in the freezing cold water, but continuing to talk. If I were to think of any Saint in his connection then it is St. Sebastian—he stood in a rocky basin of the freezing water, sloshing it over his handsome youthful body and I could almost see the arrows sticking out of him.” 

We know that shortly after that visit, Lowell told some friends he was going to marry Bishop. Soon after, they had a drunken weekend at Bard where many poets were gathered. Lowell was rumored to have proposed to her that weekend. Bishop wrote to another friend, “Saturday night was worst—a really drunken party, I’m afraid, with everyone behaving very much the way poets are supposed to.” In another account, Bishop remembers that she and Elizabeth Hardwick had helped a drunken Lowell back to his room, taken off his shoes and tie, loosened his shirt, upon which Hardwick said, “Why, he’s an Adonis!” and Bishop said “from then on I knew it was all over.” 

We also know from their friend Joseph Summers that at the end of the Bard weekend, “He and Elizabeth seemed to be very much in love that weekend. He was saying, ‘Now let me know when you are coming back.’ And she said, “I don’t know.’ “Let me know where you are,” and so on.” Another friend reports, “She told us at one point she loved Cal more than anybody she’d ever known, except for Lota, but that he would destroy her.” And from another friend: Lowell “was the one of the few people Bishop addressed in her poems. She said that he had proposed to her, and she had turned him down.” Apparently her greatest regret was not having a child, and she considered having one with Lowell early on, but worried about the history of mental illness in both of their families. 

The gaps between their letters, the mysterious interludes in which Lowell and Bishop actually saw each other, leaves much to the imagination. Their letters are so hyper-articulate that one almost has the impression that no bits of life were lived without been written down. These silences between the letters fascinated me as much as the letters themselves. But rather than invent dialogue for these interludes in which they actually met, it felt important to me to let Bishop and Lowell speak only in their own words. Bishop’s reserve, and her insistence on not mixing fact and fiction, was always with me as I arranged the letters. All the words from the play are taken from their letters and from their poetry. 

There are many ways to do this play. One can imagine the full spectacle I have suggested in the stage directions, complete with planets appearing and water rushing onto the stage, as in its premier at Yale Repertory Theater. I wanted to see the images in their letters made three- dimensional, to somehow see the reach of their imagery. But I’m also interested in how much the language can do all by itself. One can imagine, for example, a simple book club version. I saw pictures of one such event in Illinois and was very moved by the simplicity of non-actors who loved poetry reading the letters out loud to fellow travelers. One could also 

imagine doing the play in a library, at a poetry foundation, or even doing the play on the set for another play on its dark Monday night. You really need nothing more than a table and two chairs for two wonderful actors who could even read the letters straight from the page rather than memorizing them. You might then use someone to read stage directions rather than projecting subtitles. 

Regardless of how the play is performed, in a theater or in a room, when I first read the letters, I felt that they demanded to be read out loud, whether by actors or by lay-people. Bishop and Lowell had unerring, consummate ears, and they wrote poetry for a time when Lowell could command massive crowds in Madison Square Gardens, all gathered to hear him read his poems out loud. I offer this arrangement, then, in the spirit of a contemporary hunger to hear poetry out loud. I think we are starved for the sound of poetry. I wonder if Bishop and Lowell are among the last great people of letters to write out their lives in letter form. Their letters become almost a medieval church constructed in praise of friendship. It’s difficult to write about friendship. Our culture is inundated with the story of romantic love. We understand how romantic love begins, how it ends. We don’t understand, in neat narrative fashion, how friendship begins, how it endures. And yet life would be unbearable without friendship.

– Sarah Ruhl

Categories
Creative

A Show of Titles Preview!

We can’t wait to have you join us for our presentation of Show of Titles, streaming from Sunday, June 13 at 7pm EST to Thursday, June 17 at 4pm EST.

We’ve created a Spotify playlist of some classic title songs you can expect to hear during the show. Check it out below!

Broadway’s Best Shows is proud to present Show of Titles, a musical extravaganza with dozens of Broadway stars performing the title songs from over 20 beloved musicals to benefit The Actors Fund.

With Performances by Annaleigh Ashford, Glenn Close, Len Cariou, Gavin Creel, Darren Criss, Santino Fontana, Kelsey Grammer, David Alan Grier, Jake Gyllenhaal, Isabelle Huppert, Norm Lewis, Patti LuPone, Rob McClure, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Melba Moore, Jessie Mueller, Eva Noblezada, Kelli O’Hara, Laura Osnes, Steven Pasquale, Michael Rupert, Ernie Sabella, Lea Salonga, Phillipa Soo, Will Swenson, Aaron Tveit, Leslie Uggams, Vanessa Williams, Patrick Wilson, and more!

And Special Appearances by Broadway Inspirational Voices, Candice Bergen, Danny Burstein, Bryan Cranston, Sheldon Harnick, John Kander, Angela Lansbury, John Leguizamo, John Lithgow, Lindsay Mendez, Phylicia Rashad, BD Wong & Florian Zeller.

Show of Titles premieres on Stellar at 7PM ET / 4PM PT on Sunday, June 13th and will be available for a limited time only.

Categories
Creative

Spotlight on Plays – Spring 2021

Broadway’s Best Shows is proud to present Spotlight on Plays, a starry series of livestream readings of Broadway’s best plays to benefit The Actors Fund (now the Entertainment Community Fund).

With Jason Alexander, Debbie Allen, Ellen Burstyn, Bobby Cannavale, Alfred Enoch, Carla Gugino, Kathryn Hahn, Kevin Kline, Eric McCormack, Audra McDonald, Mary-Louise Parker, Phylicia Rashad, Keanu Reeves, Heidi Schreck, Alia Shawkat, Meryl Streep, and many more. 

The Spring 2021 season of Spotlight on Plays, a celebration of women playwrights, raised over $100,000 for the Entertainment Community Fund.

The seven productions were produced and captured entirely virtually by dedicated digital line production and post-production teams with each show’s cast, creative, and crew scattered across the United States and the world. The playwrights and directors were intimately involved in the process and often made adjustments to the material to better adhere to the medium.

We are proud to have given a platform to women playwrights, continuing to make theatre while in-person live entertainment was shut down, and fundraising for those in need in our community while keeping each other safe and healthy.

The virtual series has acted as an incubator for upcoming Broadway productions, with The Thanksgiving Play and Ohio State Murders recently announcing Broadway runs, and more are currently in discussion.

Thank you to our streaming and ticketing partner Stellar Tickets!


THE THANKSGIVING PLAY
By Larissa FastHorse
Directed By Leigh Silverman
Starring Bobby Cannavale, Keanu Reeves, Heidi Schreck and Alia Shawkat

Larissa FastHorse’s wickedly funny comedy finds a troupe of terminally “woke” teaching artists scrambling to create a pageant that manages to celebrate both Turkey Day and Native American Heritage Month. “A delicious roasting” (The New York Times) of the politics of entertainment and political correctness, The Thanksgiving Play puts the American origin story in the comedy-crosshairs.

Premiered Thursday, March 25th, 2021 at 8:00PM ET


ANGRY, RAUCOUS AND SHAMELESSLY GORGEOUS
By Pearl Cleage
Directed By Camille A. Brown
Starring Debbie Allen, Phylicia Rashad, Heather Alicia Simms, and Alicia Stith

Pearl Cleage’s “funny and hopeful” (Georgia Magazine) comedy is all about aging gracefully and gorgeously. Anna Campbell, now 65, sparked controversy when she bared it all on stage years ago. When a theatre festival asks to re-stage the work with a younger actress in her role, dramatic and comic fireworks ensue.

Premiered Thursday, April 8th, 2021 at 8:00PM ET


THE BALTIMORE WALTZ
by Paula Vogel
Directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz
Starring Mary-Louise Parker, Eric McCormack, and Brandon Burton

A comic and dramatic fantasia based on the love and adventures of a brother and sister, one of whom has a fatal disease.  Winner of the 1992 Obie Award for Best New American Play.

Premiered Thursday, April 29th, 2021 at 8:00PM ET


WATCH ON THE RHINE
By Lillian Hellman
Directed by Sarna Lapine
Starring Ellen Burstyn, Alan Cox, Sasha Diamond, Alfred Enoch, Carla Gugino, Luca Padovan, Mary Beth Peil, Gabriella Pizzolo, Neel Sethi, and Jeremy Shamos

Written and set during the rise of Hitler’s Germany, Watch on the Rhine is a play about an American family, suddenly awakened to the danger threatening its liberty.  Hellman’s powerful drama won the 1941 New York Drama Critics Circle Award.

Premiered Thursday, May 13th, 2021 at 8:00PM ET


THE SISTERS ROSENSWEIG
By Wendy Wasserstein
Directed by Anna D. Shapiro
Starring Jason Alexander, John Behlmann, Tracee Chimo Pallero, Lisa Edelstein, Kathryn Hahn, Kathryn Newton, Chris Perfetti, and James Urbaniak

Three very different sisters reunite after a lengthy separation and discover humanity, respect, and love in this definitive serious comedy about sisterhood. 

Premiered Thursday, May 20th, 2021 at 8:00PM ET


OHIO STATE MURDERS
By Adrienne Kennedy
Directed by Kenny Leon
Starring Audra McDonald, Warner Miller, Lizan Mitchell, and Ben Rappaport

Ohio State Murders is an unusual look at the destructiveness of racism in the U.S.  When Suzanne Alexander, a fictional African American writer, returns to Ohio State University to talk about the violence in her writing, a dark mystery unravels.

Premiered Thursday, June 3rd, 2021 at 8:00PM ET


DEAR ELIZABETH
By Sarah Ruhl
Directed by Kate Whoriskey
Starring Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline

Based on the compiled letters between poets Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop, Dear Elizabeth maps the relationship of the two poets from first meeting to an abbreviated affairand the turmoil of their lives in between.

Premiered Thursday, June 17th, 2021 at 8:00PM ET


The Actors Fund envisions a world in which individuals contributing to our country’s cultural vibrancy are supported, valued and economically secure.

The Actors Fund fosters stability and resiliency, and provides a safety net for performing arts and entertainment professionals over their lifespan.