Last September I told you about a book covering the fascinating topic of how Rodgers, Hammerstein and Logan created the musical South Pacific out of James Michener’s pulitzer prize winning novel “Tales of the South Pacific.” Now, as they say, you can read “the rest of the story!”
Archives for April 2011
The Walworth Farce
Enda Walsh, the featured playwright of The New Ireland Festival at Studio Theatre, defies easy classification. But one thing is sure: whether he grabs part of the myth of Odysseus and resets it at the bottom of a drained swimming pool as in Penelope or uses the bashed-in skeleton of a London Council flat to […]
Supremes reject Wildely imaginative arguments, throw booklet at Ideal villain
Oyez, oyez, oyez, all you girlz and boyez! Last night, the Honorable the Supreme Court of the United States (supplemented by Judges from the Honorable the Less Supreme Courts) let the extortion conviction of celebrated blackmailer Laura Cheveley stand in the face of a slew of imaginative arguments presented by her gifted counsel, Beth Wilkinson.
2011 Curtain Call – the Helen Hayes Award nominated creative collaborators
Beginning today, DC Theatre Scene will roll out our annual Curtain Call feature to tell you about some of last year’s most exceptional theatre from the best source possible: the artists who created it. As the 2011 Helen Hayes Awards ceremony approaches, our five part 2011 Curtain Call presents nearly 100 of the playwrights, designers, […]
Eric Schaeffer’s Signature Story released
Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer and Sarah Valente will be signing copies of their new book “My Signature Story” Thursday, April 14th, from 7 – 9pm in the Signature’s Mead Lobby overlooking the glittering shops of Shirlington Village, in which Signature Theatre is an important anchor. “My Signature Story” tells the story of the origins of Arlington, […]
Catch Me If You Can
I don’t know who first said “let’s make a musical out of the hit movie “Catch Me If You Can”. Let’s assume it was Margo Lion, the producer, Jack O’Brien, the director, or Marc Shaiman, the composer, but clearly it was also decided to bring together virtually the entire creative staff of their last musical […]
Anything Goes
The very wise Roundabout Theatre management, and the very gifted director/choreographer Kathleen Marshall decided to lift some Cole Porter gems from their sources and plop them down in the middle of this stunning revival of Porter’s Anything Goes at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre on Broadway.
Cain repeats as Steinberg winner with 9 Circles; Theater J play is runner-up
9 Circles, a play about a tortured young soldier’s climb through an Iraqi inferno, has won the $25,000 Harold and Mimi Steinberg Award as the best new play arising out of regional theater in 2010 for playwright Bill Cain. David Bar Katz’s The History of Invulnerability, which will be part of Theater J’s 2011-2012 season, […]
Monologue Madness: and the winner is …
The play’s the thing… eventually. But the tumultuous process of getting cast — whether into a play, or out onto the street — consumes our actors’ daily energies more than anything. And given the dense strata of competition surrounding most casting events, actors everywhere come to perfect a unique performance style, similar to acting in […]
DC director/playwright Bob Bartlett on “MASTER HAROLD” … and the boys
Bob Bartlett is a big, friendly, generous guy who easily wraps his arms around every project and everyone. As a friend, I’ve had a front row seat in his life for the last 10 years. I have watched actors readily sign on to be directed by him, and volunteers show up to sweep out a […]
Looming government shutdown means loss for Liberty
The impending shutdown of the Federal Government would also close Ford Theatre’s performances of Liberty Smith, the Ford Theatre Society announced last night. The announcement reverses a previous decision to continue the show regardless of whether the government is authorized to spend money after midnight on Friday, April 8.
China: The Whole Enchilada
As paper-thin and disposable as a one-sentence fortune and about as filling as the cookie it came in, Mark Brown and Paul Mirkovitch’s musical pseudo-homage to China is getting a silly, sporadically successful production at DCAC in Adams Morgan, thanks to the eager and disheveled efforts of Landless Artistic Director Andrew Lloyd Baughman, his brother […]