That will change in the fall when the show gets its Broadway debut a half century after it was created. It will begin performances Sept. 24 prior to an official opening Oct. 22 at Broadway's Helen Hayes Theatre (which is soon to become Second Stage’s new home, but, apparently, not yet).
Infinity Theatre Company and Perry Street Theatricals — two entities you’ve likely never heard of — are producing the Broadway bow, which will be directed and choreographed by Randy Skinner, whom you may have heard of. Skinner hardly goes near a show if it doesn’t have heaps and heaps of tap-dancing in it. His best-known assignments were the original Broadway staging of 42nd Street and its 2001 revival.
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The 60th Annual Drama Desk Awards, hosted by the theatre world’s favorite diva/goofball Laura Benanti, were presented May 31 at The Town Hall in New York City. And, in the latest version of the story that's become awfully familiar, Hamilton claimed most every trophy in sight — seven in total, the most of any production of the season. Other productions with multiple wins included The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which took home six awards, including Oustanding Play; and the new Gershwin musical An American In Paris, which earned four awards.
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These days, when actresses primarily known for film or television work, want to prove their mettle with a stage role, they turn to one of three playwrights: Tennessee Williams (A Streetcar Names Desire, The Glass Menagerie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, etc.), Eugene O'Neill (Long Day’s Journey Into Night, A Moon for the Misbegotten, etc.) and Henrik Ibsen (Hedda Gabler and, well, mainly Hedda Gabler).
Gillian Anderson has decided to play the Williams card when she comes to St. Ann's Warehouse this season. She will star in the Young Vic’s production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Best known for “The X-Files,” Anderson has carved out a second career as a London stage actress over the past several years. Ben Foster will be Stanley Kowalski.
Also coming to St. Ann’s will be Mark Rylance in the New York premiere of Nice Fish, with is not a sequel to Fish in the Dark, but a play conceived, written and adapted by Louis Jenkins and Rylance. The production, which premiered at the Guthrie Theater, reflects the wry, surreal quality of the poetic work, set at the end of the fishing season on a lake in frozen Minnesota. There, two men search for answers to life's biggest questions.
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A musical collaboration with Courtney Love? What could go wrong?
L.A.'s Kirk Douglas Theatre will find out. When the company recently announced its 12th season, part of it was revealed to be the West Coast premiere of Kansas City Choir Boy, the musical work by Todd Almond and rock icon and tabloid fodder Courtney Love. The show premiered at New York City's HERE earlier this year.
Performed by Love and Almond with direction by Kevin Newbury, Kansas City Choir Boy features music and lyrics by Almond. The piece tells the story of small-town lovers who become separated when the woman travels to New York in search of her destiny but ultimately disappears. Love and Almond are joined by a chorus and string quartet.
The operetta marked Love's musical theatrical debut (apart from her everyday life, that is), and it garnered critical acclaim following its Off-Broadway premiere in January.
*** You haven’t seen the last of Sting’s The Last Ship.
The new musical ended its Broadway run Jan. 24 after just under four months of performances at the Neil Simon Theatre. But it will play several Scandinavian venues over the next two years. Why Scandinavia? Well, maybe with all that coastline, they just like shows about the sea.
It will be mounted in Oslo in 2016 and Stockholm and Helsinki in 2017, according to the New York Times. Each country will perform the musical, inspired by Sting's childhood, in its native language. Discussions are also underway for productions in Germany, Eastern Europe and the United Kingdom.
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Tonya Pinkins has been tapped to star in the title role of Classic Stage Company’s upcoming Off-Broadway production of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children. The production will be helmed by CSC artistic director Brian Kulick.
This is not the first time an African-American actress has been cast in the classic part. In 1980, the late, great Gloria Foster played the role in a production at the Public Theater.
