New York City Theater

From news.trendaz.com. This does not sound credible at all to me, but is nevertheless amusing. (FYI to the writer of the article: The West End is not the same thing as Broadway. Being in a West End play would not make Britney Spears a "Broadway star.")
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Britney Spears the Broadway star? The pop singer, and recently TV guest actress, has been reportedly offered the lead female role in the West End production of "A Streetcar Named Desire."

A source reveals, "Britney's been on the list for this for some time but was considered too risky until recently. Her appearance in the American TV show 'How I Met Your Mother' changed all that. She had poised, timing and real flair."

"We wanted her for Blanche because, even though she's technically too young to play her, who else could embody this fallen Southern Belle so well?"

Spears, 26, recently gave boost to the said sitcom's rating after she successfully played a dorky receptionist. Her performance was a hit among viewers and critics alike.

The source adds, "She's living out the story, so to harness that on stage would be amazing for an audience to see - and cathartic for Britney, too."

http://news.trendaz.com/index.shtml?show=news&newsid=1163969&lang=EN

JUNIE B. JONES (Friday at 6pm) - I'll skip discussing this for now since it'll be my Tuesday review.

JUNO (Friday at 8pm) - Let's get something straight - this is the kind of show that Encores! was designed for. the whole of the series was to do the shows that don't merit Broadway revivals - or scores that have not been heard in New York for at least two decades. To be honest, I didn't even know the show existed before Encores! announced its intent to stage it a few months ago.

A lot of people have claimed that the subject matter, JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK, was not meant to be a musical. I totally disagree with that. I am optimistic enough to believe that any story can be musicalized - when done well. The dark nature of this material could have worked, but perhaps it was before its time. The very end, when the militaristic bad guys took over, reminded me of the end of CABARET. And when they aimed their rifles for the audience and fired, it reminded me of the end of ASSASSINS.

This was also a very good Encores! staging - and far, far better than APPLAUSE, the first 2008 Encores production - and probably the worst Encores staging to date. It also marked their first full production of a Mark Blitzstein score. Maybe REGINA could be next?? Garry Hynes, the prestigious director of the production, ought to stage more musical theater. Maybe an Encores production of FINIAN'S RAINBOW, or something at the Met? It was also nice to see Michael Arden in another show, though his role here was pretty forgettable in spite of one pretty song.

SOUTH PACIFIC (Saturday at 8pm) - Will need to wait till Friday to express an opinion.

THE SONGS OF JOE ICONIS (Sunday at 3pm) - I've never this singer-songwriter's work before, in spite of his various recordings and Joe's Pub concerts. This revue of his songbook took place at the tiny Provincetown Playhouse, performed by a very large ensemble of NYU Steinhardt musical theater students - in fact, too many... For the first time, I began to appreciate the fact that most songwriter revues have only 4 actors (2 males, 2 females). Keeping so many people onstage during individual solos was distracting, especially since they all appeared to have nothing to do. However, they all pretty strong vocally, and it made for an entertaining 90 minutes. Iconis' punk-style, East Village-flavored work is very smart and catchy. I'd like to hear more...

ALMOST AN EVENING (Sunday at 7pm) - "Almost a play" will be a more accurate title.

These are fantastic choices for Papermill. A truly solid schedule. Yay 1776!!!!

Spt. 17 - Oct. 19, 2008 - Oklahoma!
Nov. 5 - Dec. 7, 2008 - Disney High School Musical
Jan. 14 - Feb. 15, 2009 - The Importance of Being Earnest
Mar. 4 - Apr. 5, 2009 - Master Class
Apr. 15 - May 17, 2009 - 1776
Jun. 10 - Jul. 12, 2009 - The Full Monty

The Broadway press agents act curiously when it comes to announcing stuff. News of casting or show premieres tends to spread before they can actually announce it all officially. Here are some examples:

-We're now finally getting the "official" word that GLORY DAYS will indeed move from DC's Signature Theater to Broadway's Circle in the Square. Broadway.com reported this news like two weeks ago, yet no one else had the news. Then it started actually selling tickets to the show, still before anyone else had the news. Finally, The Washington Post reported this yesterday, and Playbill is reporting it too. I meanwhile have yet to receive any "official" press release. :(

-RENT will extend to September. Okay, in fairness to the producers, they announced this before news spread, but we all already suspected this would happen.

-The casting of SHREK is another case. Everyone already knew for a long time that Sutton Foster was in it before the official word came, and the same goes for most of the other cast members, most of which have now been officially announced.

These situations put me in an awkward situation when it comes to my print theater column. Without an official press release, do I feel comfortable enough to report this kind of news anyway? Or should I wait for the official word? And if I do, will this stuff still be "newsworthy" anymore?

Nothing against the full cast of KISS ME KATE, which was announced yesterday, but I am very surprised that either Bob Cuchioli or Paul Schoeffler is not playing Fred Graham. In the past, these kinds of prime roles have gone to Paper Mill veterans. Amanda Watkins and Michele Ragusa, for instance, playing Lily and Louis Lane, respectively, are vets. And I recall that Schoeffler sang "Were Thine Thy Special Face" at Broadway Unplugged in November, which caused me to wonder whether he was already set for the role.

So I trecked up to 95th Street on Monday night to check out the 10th Anniversary "gala" for Musicals Tonight at Symphony Space. Interestingly, none of the press releases actually said when the event started. I finally found the info only on the Symphony Space website. I had thought that the event would showcase performers from the earlier productions singing songs from those productions. Weirdly, that wasn't the case. About a dozen actors were put onstage and invited to sing whatever they wanted, though a few did chose to sing either what they sang Musicals Tonight or what they sang to audition for their roles. This made the event feel kind of futile to me, or at lease for an audience member who didn't really know these actors personally. We did, however, see a sneak peak of their upcoming production of HALF A SIXPENCE, which I do intend to check out.

On Sunday night I saw the final performance of John Belluso's THE POOR ITCH, at the Public Theater, which received a two-week run as part of the new Public Lab series. The play, which was not finished before Belluso's untimely death in 2006, is presented in a Brechtian style where the actors openly acknowledge scenes that were not completely, and often juxtapose different versions of the same scene in different drafts. Overall, I found the work pretty gripping and wish they'd work on it further.

So TALE OF 2 CITIES will go to Broadway after all. Two and a half years ago in the summer of 2005, I went to an industry reading of the show. I left at intermission, but mostly cause Act One alone was about two hours. Let's put it this way - I'm impressed it's actually going to Broadway. And I assume what I'll see is very different from the reading. In terms of readings, I also went to a CRY BABY reading in the summer of 2006, at which time the show was undercooked but still showing potential.

I haven't been to Birdland since last year when I saw Jason Robert Brown perform there. And judging by the partial view seating I received tonight for THE LAST FIVE YEARS, I probably won't be back again until JRB comes back.

It was announced two months ago that JRB would make a return to Birdland in concert and that Lauren Kenny would join him. A few weeks later it was revealed that not only would they perform together, but that they'd do the entire score of THE LAST FIVE YEARS - with him at piano singing Jamie, and her nearby singing Cathy.

While JRB has often performed from the score in his concerts, Lauren actually originated Cathy in the show's first production in Chicago. Why didn't she do the role Off-Broadway? Cause she got offered the chance to play Nellie in Trevor Nunn's London revival of South Pacific.

So how were the two? Wonderful, of course. Lauren was able to deliver a far more nuanced performance since a) she is a trained actress, whereas JRB is not, and 2) she did not have to play piano simultaneously, like in a John Doyle Sondheim revival. Whereas Lauren never broke character, even when JRB was singing, JRB couldn't be that dedicated. His singing, of course, was animated and his performance usually compelling.

It seemed as though Lauren's voice was constantly breaking apart on high belting notes, but in her defense it is a very difficult score and who knows how much preparation she received beforehand.

The six-person band, which fully replicated the Off-Broadway orchestrations (2 cellos, violin, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, piano), was perfect. Totally perfect.

When will we see a full revival of the show in NYC? Who knows. But do we need one right now? I guess not. It's still receiving lots of regional productions here and there, and maybe it has a future in concert settings and with other performers.

Another performance has been added for Tuesday night, though that is supposedly also sold out. Maybe Birdland will add another for a future date? Or maybe Feinstein's will take the hint and give this a full week next season?

CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE ON THE EVENT

For weeks, we've seen advertisements reminding us that not only are tix to YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, the most disappointing Broadway musical in recent memory (and one of the worst ones too), readily available, but you can get tix for about $120 instead of the super draconian $450 price.

Now, it appears that the $450 price tag is gone - totally cast away. Now all tix are $50 to $120.

But considering how bad the show is, I wouldn't spend a dime on it.

“The Poor Itch,” the unfinished, final play of playwright John Belluso, will receive a full production at the Public Theater this and next week following a lengthy series of workshops. Belluso, who was confined to a wheelchair, was only 36 when he died last year and was widely considered a rising talent in the theater world. He wrote passionately about characters with disabilities. A mix of dreamscape and reality, “The Poor Itch” centers on a 22-year-old veteran of the war in Iraq who lost the use of his legs and now suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and a dependence on pain killers. While Belluso did in fact write several complete drafts of the play, it was not technically finished. The current production is described as a mix of several different versions of the play.

The crowd that’s been regularly attending the Broadway By the Year shows over the past couple of years knows when they’ve seen one of the best productions in the series’ history. At the after party, they start gossiping and debating over whether what they just saw was in fact the best one to date. It happens a lot… The conversation goes something like “But what about 1959 when Marc Kudisch directed?” or “You weren’t around when they did 1926 with Sutton Foster.”

Broadway Musicals of 1947, which opened this year’s BBTY season, stood out not just for the exceptional quality of its songbook, but for the exceptionally vibrant staging of director-choreographer and performer Jeffry Denman, who was also aided by choreographer-performers Noah Racey and Kendrick Jones. Never before has a tap number been performed by not just as a duet, but by the entire company as a finale.

1947, producer-host Scott Siegel reminded us, was the year that “Howdy Doody” premiered on TV. At the mention of during Scott’s opening monologue, Ross Patterson and his Little Big Band, starting playing the theme song, leading to a spontaneous audience sing-a-long. (“The 92nd Street Y has nothing on us,” Scott quipped afterwards.) 1947 also stood out for planting the seeds of the Cold War, numerous UFO sightings, and an emphasis on “the fantastick” in the Broadway musical.

As expected, Monday night’s playlist heavily emphasized Brigadoon and Finian’s Rainbow, in addition to some ditties from Street Scene, High Button Shoes and Allegro. Denman and Meredith Patterson, who starred together last year in the Encores! production of Face the Music, gracefully performed “Heather on the Hill.” And in a new take on “Necessity,” which is typically done by a trio of black women, Denman and Racey turned it into a two-man tap-off.

In what was surely the show’s creepiest moment, Marc Kudisch turned street hustler in “Wouldn’t You Like to Be on Broadway,” trying to seduce Kristen Beth Williams. And in the sweeter moments, Eddie Korbich brought his dependable sense of character and gloriously high voice to “When I’m Not Near the Girl I love” from Finian’s Rainbow and Alexander Gemignani delivered a sincere rendition of “Come to Me, Bend to Me” from Brigadoon.

The second act’s big comic moment came courtesy of surprise guest Christine Pedi, who not only performed “Civilization” from the forgotten musical revue Angel in the Wings, but did it in the style of original star Elaine Stritch. Though Stritch was only 21 years old at the time, Pedi performed the song as if it were Stritch doing it today, complete with Stritch’s trademark coarseness.

Other highlights included “A Fellow Needs a Girl” from Allegro, sung by Marc Kudisch; Kerry O’Malley’s performance of the Allegro ballad “The Gentleman is a Dope”; Donna Lynne Champlin’s performance of “If It Were Easy” from Angel in the Wings; Howard McGillin and Christine Noll’s duet of “Almost Like Being in Love,” which opened the show; and a second act finale of “Go Home with Bonnie Jean” from Brigadoon, performed by Alexander Gemignani and the male ensemble.

The season’s upcoming performances including BBTY 1953 (April 7), BBTY 1965 (May 12), and BBTY 1979 (June 16).