It pains me to say it, but the new Spidey musical, which finally came to rest at the Foxwood Theatre on 42nd Street after a very tough start, should more aptly be called Spider-Man: Turn off the Noise.
Archives for June 2011
DC actors join national casts celebrating African American theatres with reading on June 20
On Monday, June 20, 2011, 17 African-American theatre companies across the country will take part in the first annual celebration of African-American Theatre by producing benefit staged readings of Alice Childress’ Obie Award winning Trouble in Mind.
Nacirema
We have been telling each other stories through theater for twenty-seven hundred years, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do it better. Two hundred years ago, a proposal to sing songs in the middle of a play would have brought howls of outrage; now we have musicals about religious books. Five years ago the innovative […]
Spacebar: A Broadway play by Kyle Sugarman
As Spacebar opens, Kyle Sugarman’s dad (Brian Razzino, good in this) is dragging himself into Kyle’s room, carrying a neat whiskey for fortification. He looks like he is preparing himself to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a dog. He draws himself up, and then delivers an astounding monologue – shocking, howlingly funny, bitter, profoundly tragic. It […]
I Wish You Love
Cozying up in the Terrace Theatre for Penumbra Theatre Company’s reverent musical portrait of Nat King Cole is like taking a nice, long, lukewarm bath. The unvarying pace lulls you into a state of quiet nodding. Familiar melodies massage your ears. The show’s plot raises no challenges or difficult questions. By the time audiences leave […]
Purge
When Aliide looks out her window, across her silent stretch of rural Estonian farmland, she sees a country sent reeling from the impact of Soviet occupation. Cold-eyed and resolute, she is the kind of hardened survivor who stands at the center of some of the most moving historical dramas. Her role in Sofi Oksanen’s 2007 […]
Follies will transfer to New York
Just announced – the Kennedy Center’s star studded production of Follies, just ending its six week sold-out run here on June 19th, will be transferring to New York City for a limited run this summer. The $7.3 million production of the Goldman/Sondheim Tony Award winning musical will move into the Marquis Theatre, until recently home […]
Sondheim’s Company opens tonight
For four sold out performances in New York’s Avery Fisher Hall, a star studded cast performed Stephen Sondheim’s Company acompanied by the New York Philharmonic. The recording of that once in a lifetime event is now touring area cinemas and opens in the DC area for a limited run this week. Neil Patrick Harris. You […]
Signature Idol Competition calls for audition videos
Attention, all you future Broadway stars. Signature Theatre is ready to discover you. The Tony Award-winning company in Arlington, VA, has just announced that audition slots are now open to find the best non-professional singers in its popular Signature Idol Competition. Audition videos must be submitted by July 11th. The Competition takes place on July […]
Horton Foote: America’s Storyteller
Devotees of Jack Sbarbori’s Quotidian Theatre won’t be the only ones fascinated by this new biography of the late Horton Foote, one of the two authors whose work inspired that company to specialize in the fascinating tiny details of the plain, day-to-day life of people who are remarkable in their unexceptionalness. (Quotidian, of course, refers […]
The People in the Picture
The Roundabout is offering Donna Murphy to its audiences for a run in a new musical with book and lyrics by Iris Rainer Dart, with music by Mike Stoller and Artie Butler.
Canto Al Peru Negro (Song for Black Peru)
Shake those hips and roll those shoulders loose. Viva Peru! Vicky Leyva, a.k.a. “The Mulatta Flower of Peru,” dances barefoot, sings folklore straight from an impassioned heart and lights up the stage with bravura alongside her singing and dancing daughters Vanessa Diaz and Susan Duston. Together they represent a revolution.