Eliana Willis

More stories

  • 138 Shares189 Views

    in Theater

    As Broadway Rebounds, ‘Some Like It Hot’ Gets 13 Tony Nominations

    As Broadway’s rebound from the pandemic shutdown picks up pace, Tony nominators showered much-sought attention on a wide variety of shows, from razzle-dazzle spectacles to quirky adventurous fare.“Some Like It Hot,” a musical based on the classic Billy Wilder film about two musicians who witness a gangland slaying and dress as women to escape the mob, scored the most nominations: 13. But it faces stiff competition in the race for best new musical — ticket buyers have not made any of the contenders a slam-dunk hit, and there does not appear to be a consensus among the industry insiders who make up the Tony voting pool.Three other musicals picked up nine nominations apiece: “& Juliet,” which combines pop songs with an alternative narrative arc for Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers; “New York, New York,” a dance-driven show about a pair of young musicians seeking success and love in a postwar city; and “Shucked,” a pun-laden country comedy about a rural community facing a corn crisis. “Kimberly Akimbo,” a critical favorite about a high school student with a life-altering genetic condition and a criminally dysfunctional family, picked up eight nominations.The Tony nominations also feature plenty of boldfaced names. Among the stars from the worlds of pop music, film and television who earned nods are Sara Bareilles, Jessica Chastain, Jodie Comer, Josh Groban, Sean Hayes, Samuel L. Jackson, Wendell Pierce and Ben Platt. Another went to one of Broadway’s most-admired stars: Audra McDonald, who, with nine previous nominations and six wins, has won the most competitive Tony Awards of any performer in history.The musical “Shucked,” the rare Broadway show about corn, got nine nominations. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThis year’s Tony Awards come at the end of the first full-length season since the coronavirus pandemic forced theaters to close for about a year and a half. Given that tourism remains below prepandemic levels, many workers have not returned to Midtown offices, and inflation has made producing far more expensive, the season has been surprisingly robust, with a wide range of offerings.“Entertainment is like food — sometimes you’re in the mood for an organic small plate, and sometimes for a burger and fries, and the best thing about New York is we’ve got the variety,” said Victoria Clark, the Tony-nominated star of “Kimberly Akimbo.”Broadway shows this season had grossed $1.48 billion as of April 30, according to figures released Tuesday by the Broadway League. That’s nearly double the grosses at the same point last season — $751 million — but lower than the $1.72 billion at the same point in 2019, during the last full prepandemic season.Other key metrics are better, too: 11.5 million seats have been filled on Broadway this season, compared with 6 million at the same point last season, but still down from the 13.8 million that had been filled by this point in 2019.The Tony nominations, which were chosen by a panel of 40 theater industry experts who saw all 38 eligible shows and have no financial interest in any of them, are particularly important to shows that are still running, which try to use the vote of confidence to woo potential ticket buyers.“It’s all about what’s going to make a show run longer and create more jobs for more people,” said Casey Nicholaw, the director and choreographer of “Some Like It Hot.” “Hopefully we’ll sell more tickets, and the show will be more of a success.”The Tony nominations can also boost the employment prospects, and the compensation, of artists. And, of course, they are a tribute to excellence. “It means something when your peers and your colleagues see beauty in something you make,” said James Ijames, whose play “Fat Ham” was among the nominated productions.“Between Riverside and Crazy” was among the nominees for best new play. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBroadway is a complicated place, dominated by commercial producers but also with six theaters run by nonprofits, and the work this season, as is often the case, featured everything from experimental plays tackling challenging subjects to more mainstream fare that aims primarily to entertain.Among the five nominees for best new play, three have already won the Pulitzer Prize in drama, including “Between Riverside and Crazy,” Stephen Adly Guirgis’s story of a retired police officer trying to hang onto his apartment; “Cost of Living,” Martyna Majok’s exploration of caregiving and disability; and “Fat Ham,” Ijames’s riff on “Hamlet,” set in the North Carolina backyard of a family that runs a barbecue restaurant.The two other Tony-nominated plays are each significant in their own ways: “Leopoldstadt” is Tom Stoppard’s autobiographically inspired drama about a European Jewish family before, during and after World War II, while “Ain’t No Mo’” is Jordan E. Cooper’s outlandish comedy imagining that the United States offers its Black residents one-way tickets to Africa.The nominations for “Ain’t No Mo’” were especially striking given that the show struggled to find an audience and closed early. “I’m just so elated, I can barely find the words,” said Cooper, who was nominated both as writer and actor. “There was a lot of turbulence, but we landed the plane.”Stoppard is already the winningest playwright in Broadway history, having won Tony Awards for four previous plays (“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” “Travesties,” “The Real Thing” and “The Coast of Utopia”). He is now 85 years old, and “Leopoldstadt” is his 19th production on Broadway. Stoppard said he was proud of the nomination, but sorry the play had come to seem so timely at a moment of rising concern about antisemitism.“Nobody wants society to be divided,” he said in an interview, “and I like to think ‘Leopoldstadt’ works against a sense of human beings dividing up and confronting each other.”Jordan E. Cooper in his comedy “Ain’t No Mo’,” which was nominated for best play.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesOf the 38 Tony-eligible plays and musicals this season, 27 scored at least one nomination, leaving 11 with no nods. Among the musicals snubbed by the nominators were “Bad Cinderella,” the critically drubbed new musical from one of the most successful musical theater composers of all time, Andrew Lloyd Webber, as well as a progressive rethink of “1776,” about the debate over the Declaration of Independence, which was revived with a cast of women, nonbinary and transgender performers.One of the musicals that did not score any nominations, a revival of “Dancin’,” quickly declared plans to close: A little more than nine hours after the Tony nominations were announced, the revue’s producers said its last performance would be May 14. Among the seven plays shut out was “The Thanksgiving Play,” which is thought to be the first work on Broadway by a female Native American playwright, Larissa FastHorse.The season featured shows examining a wide variety of diverse stories, and the nominations reflect that.At a time when gender identity issues have become increasingly politicized in the nation, nominations were earned by two gender nonconforming actors: J. Harrison Ghee, a star of “Some Like It Hot,” and Alex Newell, a supporting actor in “Shucked.”Helen Park, who is the first Asian American female composer on Broadway, was nominated in the best score category for the musical “KPOP.” “The more authentic we are to our respective cultures and stories,” she said, “the richer the Broadway soundscape and Broadway landscape will be.”Five plays by Black writers were nominated in either the best play or best play revival category, and four of the five nominees for leading actor in a play are Black.“I broke down in tears,” Pierce said about learning that he was among those nominees, for playing Willy Loman in a revival of “Death of a Salesman” in which the traditionally white Loman family is now African American. “I did not know how profoundly moving it would be. It was the culmination of years of hard work and a reflection on how much effort and toil went into the challenge of playing the role.”This was a strong season for musical revivals, and the nominated shows include two with scores by Stephen Sondheim — “Into the Woods” and “Sweeney Todd” — as well as the Golden Age classic “Camelot” and “Parade,” which is a show about the early 20th-century lynching of a Jewish man in Georgia.“Into the Woods” was one of two Stephen Sondheim revivals to earn nominations.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“We’re so happy audiences are taking to it, and we hope that Sondheim would be happy this morning as well,” said Groban, starring as the title character in “Sweeney Todd.”The nominated play revivals are also a compelling bunch: a hypnotically minimalist version of Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” adapted by Amy Herzog and starring Chastain as a Norwegian debtor trapped in a sexist marriage; a bracing production of Suzan Lori-Parks’s “Topdog/Underdog,” about two brothers ominously named Lincoln and Booth; a rare staging of Lorraine Hansberry’s “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window,” featuring Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan; and a ghostly performance of “The Piano Lesson,” August Wilson’s classic drama about a family wrestling with the meaning, and monetary value, of an heirloom.The 769 Tony voters now have until early June to catch up on shows they have not yet seen before they cast their electronic ballots. The awards ceremony itself will be held on June 11 at the United Palace in Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan in a ceremony hosted by Ariana DeBose.Julia Jacobs More

  • 125 Shares199 Views

    in Theater

    ‘Dancin’’ to Close on Broadway, a Casualty of Tony Nominations

    The production, a revue celebrating the choreography of Bob Fosse, received no Tony nominations on Tuesday. Its last show will be May 14.This season’s Broadway revival of “Dancin’,” a revue celebrating the choreography of Bob Fosse, will end its short run on Sunday, May 14, the show’s producers announced on Tuesday evening, just hours after receiving zero Tony nominations.The show, with little narrative but virtuosic dance, opened on March 19. At the time of its closing it will have played 17 preview performances and 65 regular performances.The original production, which opened in 1978, fared far better, running for a total of 1,787 performances. The original was nominated for seven Tony Awards and won two, including for best choreography; among the nominees was the dancer Wayne Cilento, who is directing the current revival.The New York Times’s chief theater critic, Jesse Green, called the current production “often-thrilling, often-frustrating,” and other reviews were mixed.The production was one of 11 that received no Tony nominations on Tuesday. The revival had a pre-Broadway production last year at the Old Globe in San Diego.The revival’s lead producer is Joey Parnes, and Fosse’s daughter, Nicole, was also involved with the production. It was capitalized for up to $15 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission; that money has not been recouped. More

  • 175 Shares159 Views

    in Theater

    Helen Park on the ‘KPOP’ Tony Nomination: It ‘Feels Like an Encouragement to Continue’

    Helen Park was tucked in bed in her New Jersey home when her talent agent texted her news of her Tony Award nomination. Park, the first Asian American female composer on Broadway, was nominated in the best score category for the Korean- and English-language musical “KPOP,” which follows three K-pop acts challenged by strict routines and personal struggles as they prepare for a U.S. concert tour.“It was great to wake up to the news,” said Park, who wrote the show’s score and lyrics with Max Vernon. The production also received nominations for best choreography and costume design of a musical.The Tonys recognition was significant given that “KPOP” struggled at the box office and closed after only 44 preview performances and 17 regular performances.In an interview on Tuesday, Park reflected on her Broadway experience and the importance of productions that embrace the Asian American experience. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.How does it feel to be nominated next to other members of the “KPOP” creative team?A lot of us have been working on this show for eight years and for people to be recognized, it really feels like a celebration and recognition of the hard work that everybody put in.In a Playbill guest essay, you mentioned taking your son to see “KPOP” and how his favorite song was “Halfway,” sung by the biracial character Brad. How have Asian and Asian American audience members responded to the show?Our show really spoke for them, the experience of being an immigrant and being in between cultures. I’m surrounded by those people. I am one of those people. My son is biracial. I belong to both American culture and Korean culture, and I speak both languages and sometimes I feel like I have no language of my own.How have you felt since it closed?I’m still struggling with the closure of the show, because I do think that everyone who came to see the show really enjoyed it. It was a celebration of the genre and the diverse stories within the community of K-pop stars and Korean people.We saw the potential and the growth of love toward the show after we opened. The fact that it was still too late to sustain the show — that was very painful.Will “KPOP” come back to Broadway?I certainly won’t say no if anyone wants to bring it back! But, it feels like one step forward.There are reasons K-pop is beloved across languages and cultures, and we wanted to capture that. This recognition definitely feels like an encouragement to continue. The more authentic we are to our respective cultures and stories, the richer the Broadway soundscape and landscape will be. More

  • 113 Shares179 Views

    in Theater

    Audra McDonald Makes History With 10th Tony Award Nomination

    Audra McDonald has been here before.And before. And before. And before. And before. And before. And before. And before. And before.The actress earned her 10th acting Tony Award nomination on Tuesday, for best leading actress in a play, for her role as the writer Suzanne Alexander in Adrienne Kennedy’s 1991 play “Ohio State Murders,” the 91-year-old Kennedy’s Broadway debut. The feat ties her with Chita Rivera and Julie Harris as the most nominated individual performers in the 76-year history of the awards.“It’s an honor,” said McDonald, who has won six Tony Awards, the most of any performer. “But the work is the true joy.”McDonald, 52, previously won four featured actress Tonys in the play and musical categories for her roles in “Carousel” (1994), “Master Class” (1996), “Ragtime” (1998) and “A Raisin in the Sun” (2004). She won leading actress Tonys for her performance as the strongheaded Bess in the musical “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess” in 2012 and her turn as the famed jazz singer Billie Holiday in the play “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill” in 2014. She is the only person to win in all four acting categories.In his review of “Ohio State Murders,” which he called a “piercing production,” the New York Times critic Jesse Green praised McDonald’s performance, “ripped from her gallery of harrowing women,” and noted that it builds to “a shattering catharsis.”In an interview during her lunch break from a workshop in Manhattan on Tuesday, McDonald discussed her milestone achievement, why it still feels special to be recognized for this particular production and what she hopes people took away from her performance. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.This is your 10th nomination, and you’ve already secured the record for the winningest performer, with six Tonys. Is it still special?It’s incredibly special. Being able to be a part of Adrienne Kennedy having her Broadway debut and getting her work seen by a larger audience was something that was very important to me. Even if I hadn’t gotten a nomination, I’d still feel very proud of the work. I was honored that she trusted our vision and what we wanted to do with the play.The older and younger versions of Suzanne Alexander are usually played by two different actors, but you played both. Why?Because Suzanne is going back in time to remember these things, I thought being able to actually step into those memories and feel them in her body would inform even more when she stepped back out of them to a narrative, reflective place. So I asked Adrienne for permission for that and she said, “Sure, that’s great, let’s see what happens.”What spoke to you about the show?How often do we have plays that really center a Black woman’s experience? This is a chance for the character Suzanne — and it’s semi-autobiographical, so Adrienne, to an extent — to be able to speak her experience. Being able to play this incredibly brilliant, wounded and, in some ways — at the end of the play — triumphant woman was very appealing, even though it was very, very difficult. And it was an indictment that needs to be delivered in terms of what systemic racism does to people, and how it destroys.In his review, Jesse Green praised your “astonishing access to tragic feeling.” Where did you go to find that?When you’re playing a role you have to be that character’s advocate at all times, even when you’re playing a villain. Part of being an advocate for Suzanne is trying to find the empathy for the pain and the terror and the tragedy and the trauma that she experienced. The powerful question in acting is, “What if that were to happen to me?” What would I be thinking? What would I be feeling?How did your performance evolve over the course of the run?Because the play is so incredibly dense and the language is so full and poetic, for me the evolution came in becoming more at ease with Adrienne’s language, which I don’t think I had at the beginning of the run.Your character’s babies are represented, not with dolls, but as slips of pink fabric. Why?That was the brilliance of Kenny Leon, who’s an incredible director. We knew that once you bring babies onstage, even if they’re dolls — which was one thought at one point — it was going to be very difficult to set them aside for times when the focus isn’t necessarily on them. We wanted to make sure the audience wasn’t distracted by them.What do you hope people took away from the show?I hope they had a broader understanding of the destructive power of racism. I also hope that people who are not Black could see that we are not a monolith. This is a woman, as a character, who is not always represented onstage, and I wanted this very educated and smart and brilliant, yet wounded, woman out there telling her story and centering her story and demanding that it be heard.What did Kennedy tell you after seeing it?She was very moved. I still speak with her. I got an email from her a couple of days ago, actually, and I’m going to go visit her in a couple of weeks. She was very happy that we had done it. She’s had a lot of people play the role and I think loved all the interpretations of it.How does it feel to have been able to bring a lesser-seen work to the stage?Plenty of people have known who Adrienne Kennedy was for years, but there was a younger generation that was introduced to Adrienne Kennedy with that production, and that makes me happy. More

  • 175 Shares199 Views

    in Theater

    Jodie Comer on Her Tony Nomination: It ‘Has to Mean More Than Just Me’

    That Jodie Comer should have received a nomination for her work in the solo show “Prima Facie,” a role that already won her Olivier and Evening Standard Theater awards, should have come as a surprise to no one. Except apparently Comer.“I’m in shock,” she said from the back of a taxi late Tuesday morning.In “Prima Facie,” which also earned nominations in three design categories, Comer plays Tessa, an ambitious young barrister who finds herself transformed after a colleague rapes her. With compassion, bold physicality and raw, febrile emotion, Comer enacts that assault and its aftermath eight times a week, standing in the stage rain (which the backstage crew has usually, though not always, warmed up) as Tessa struggles to gain a new perspective on her life and the law.Comer said she hopes that the play continues to generate discussions around sexual assault and hopes that her nomination is in service of the many women she endeavors to represent. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.How do you feel?We’ve been on such a journey with this play. I never dreamed that this would be a point that we would be at. So it just feels incredible. The response has been beautiful, and I just feel very, very grateful that so many on the team have been recognized as well. I can’t stress enough how much of a team effort this piece truly is.On the night I saw the play, as it ended, I could hear several women weeping. Has the response here been any different than it was in London?The only difference, I would say, has been to the humor. People find humor in different moments. But given the subject matter, which is so universal, the response has been very, very similar to the U.K. We’ve had a lot of people sending letters to us backstage, explaining their experiences watching the play and how it affected them. And we’ve had people reach out who came to see the play in London, and have also come to Broadway, expressing and confiding how their lives have changed within the past year. It feels like we can have the same conversation here.The nomination is clearly a testament to a truly astonishing Broadway debut. But given what the play concerns, do you feel that the nomination honors something more?I hope so. It has to. I have so many people to be thankful for and so many people that I am representing. This nomination has to mean more than just me.What’s the pleasure of playing Tessa, even knowing that this terrible thing happens to her?What I love about performing this play every night is the journey that she goes on. The evolution of this woman, even through this really difficult time, her sense of self and strength and resilience, I really do love. She comes out of this experience definitely changed in some way, but by no means defeated. Tessa still inspires hope. We get a lot of messages like that, like, “I felt completely crushed, but also invigorated.” More

  • 138 Shares169 Views

    in Theater

    Alex Newell Earns First Tony Nomination For Their Role in ‘Shucked’

    Alex Newell’s Monday night was already pretty great. They attended the Met Gala, landing a spot next to Jimmy Fallon and Glenn Close. “I was like, ‘I’ve made it,’” they said.Then boom — on Tuesday morning, their first Tony Award nomination.“I haven’t cried yet,” they said in an interview from the Pierre Hotel on Tuesday, “so I’m waiting for that little dime to drop soon.”Newell, 30, who uses they/them pronouns, was nominated for best featured actor in a musical, for their role as the big-voiced whiskey entrepreneur Lulu in “Shucked,” the new, countrified Broadway musical about a small farming town whose corn crop begins mysteriously dying.In The New York Times review of the production, Jesse Green wrote that Newell, who may be most recognizable for their time on “Glee” as the transgender teenager Unique Adams, turns Lulu “into a full-blown comic creation.” They have become the show’s breakout star, bringing down the house in the middle of the first act with the showstopping feminist anthem “Independently Owned,” a soulful, commanding number in which Lulu emphatically declares that she doesn’t need a man to be fulfilled. (Newell’s powerful voice is showcased in two Tony-nominated productions this season: Their high-energy bop, “Kill the Lights,” plays during the disco-inspired dance party at the end of “Fat Ham.”)Newell, operating on a few hours of sleep, discussed their first nomination, their dream role and their feelings about corn. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.How does it feel to receive your first nomination?Surreal. Crazy. Absurd. I feel like I could throw up at any time.Your performance of the feminist anthem “Independently Owned” has been earning nightly standing ovations. Did that happen at the first preview?Yes.Were you expecting it?This is going to sound like the most pretentious thing in the world, but we built it for that. We made the song to make people lose their minds.It happens every night now, right?That’s the part that’s flabbergasting. The standing ovation isn’t jarring as much as the consistency of it. I’m beside myself a lot of the time because I’m like, “Y’all are really still standing up.”How similar are you to your character?Very, in the sense this woman has built her career and her livelihood on her own. I’m not saying I’ve done everything on my own without any help, but I’ve been making life decisions, moving cross-country on my own. So when I sing “Independently Owned,” it’s kind of my own anthem talking about what I’ve done for myself as well.You identify as nonbinary, and the Tony Awards use gendered categories. Why did you choose to compete in the best featured actor category?I look at the word “actor” as one, my vocation, and two, genderless. We don’t say plumbess for plumber. We don’t say janitoress for janitor. We say plumber, we say janitor. That’s how I look at the word, and that’s how I chose my category.Have you seen any of the other nominated shows?I saw “Some Like It Hot,” and I’m so happy that my friend J. Harrison was nominated. I haven’t gotten to see “Kimberly Akimbo,” but I’m superexcited that my good friend Bonnie Milligan is nominated.If you could have anyone in the audience at a performance, who would you choose?Beyoncé.What would be your dream role?I’m still gunning for Effie in “Dreamgirls.”Last question, and I must ask — do you like corn?My publicist says I’m not allowed to say it, but I do hate corn. OK, I don’t hate it. I’ll eat it from Chipotle, and there’s this lovely corn couscous dish at Glass House Tavern that’s tolerable. And my mom makes a great cornbread, so I’ll eat that, too. More

  • 250 Shares99 Views

    in Theater

    ‘Some Like It Hot’ scored the most nods as nominators showered attention on a wide variety of shows and performers.

    As Broadway’s rebound from the pandemic shutdown picks up pace, Tony nominators showered much-sought attention on a wide variety of shows, from razzle-dazzle spectacles to quirky adventurous fare.“Some Like It Hot” scored 13 nominations, the most of any show. But it faces stiff competition in the race for best new musical: “& Juliet,” “New York, New York,” and “Shucked” each picked up nine nods, and “Kimberly Akimbo,” a critical favorite, picked up eight.Among the well-known performers who were nominated are Sara Bareilles, Jessica Chastain, Jodie Comer, Josh Groban, Sean Hayes, Samuel L. Jackson, Wendell Pierce and Ben Platt, as well as the perennial Broadway favorite, Audra McDonald.The nominees for best play were “Ain’t No Mo’,” by Jordan E. Cooper; “Between Riverside and Crazy,” by Stephen Adly Guirgis; “Cost of Living,” by Martyna Majok; “Fat Ham,” by James Ijames; and “Leopoldstadt,” by Tom Stoppard. “Between Riverside and Crazy,” “Cost of Living” and “Fat Ham” have already won Pulitzer Prizes.Here are some other notable developments:Not everyone can wake up to good news on Tony nominations morning. Take a look at this year’s snubs and surprises.When it came to musicals, the nominators favored a familiar mix of both smallish sweethearts and biggish blowouts, our critic writes.Jessica Chastain and Jodie Comer were both nominated for best leading actress in a play, a highly competitive category in which they will face Audra McDonald and Jessica Hecht.Two gender nonconforming performers, J. Harrison Ghee of “Some Like It Hot” and Alex Newell of “Shucked,” earned nominations.Broadway is showing signs of recovery: Its shows have grossed $1.45 billion so far this season — more than double what they had grossed last year at this same point, but still lower than the last full season before the pandemic.Check back here throughout the day for more news about the Tony Awards, including reaction from nominees, as well as analysis from reporters and commentary from critics. More