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      What to expect from this year’s nominations.

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      Here’s what to expect today:There were nine new musicals this season, and just five of them will be nominated for the best musical Tony Award, which is generally the prize with the biggest financial upside.Four of the best musical spots are likely to go to “A Strange Loop,” which is an outré metamusical about an aspiring writer making a musical about an aspiring writer making a musical; “Girl From the North Country,” which uses the songs of Bob Dylan to tell a story about a Depression-era boardinghouse; “MJ,” which is a biographical jukebox musical about Michael Jackson; and “Six,” which imagines the wives of Henry VIII competing at a pop concert. What else will be nominated? That is harder to predict; stay tuned.In the competition for best play, one contender looms especially large: “The Lehman Trilogy,” which is a sprawling exploration of the rise and fall of the Lehman Brothers financial empire. This season was also noted for its historically high number of plays by Black writers, and watch for a few of them to score nominations, possibly including “Pass Over,” “Skeleton Crew” or “Clyde’s.” Also in contention: “Hangmen” and “The Minutes.”There were only four musical revivals this season, and three or four of them will score nominations. Two of them are sure to be included: “Caroline, or Change” and “Company.” The two others — “The Music Man” and “Funny Girl” — though selling more strongly, were not well reviewed by critics, and it is not clear which of them will get nominated (if the nominators are closely divided, it could be both).There were nine play revivals, many praised by critics. Among the best reviewed were “Trouble in Mind,” “How I Learned to Drive,” “For Colored Girls,” “American Buffalo” and “Take Me Out.” More

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      When are the Tony Awards?

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      This year’s Tony Awards ceremony will take place on Sunday, June 12.The four-hour ceremony will take place at Radio City Music Hall. The first hour, starting at 7 p.m. Eastern, will be focused on awards, and will be streamed on Paramount+; the other three hours, which will be dominated by performance numbers, will be broadcast on CBS.The ceremony will be hosted by Ariana DeBose, an actress who earlier this year won an Academy Award for playing Anita in last year’s remake of “West Side Story.” DeBose has also appeared in six Broadway shows, and was nominated for a Tony Award for her role in “Summer — The Donna Summer Musical.” More

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      What happens next?

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      Once the nominations have been announced, the spotlight shifts to the voters.There are about 650 people who cast ballots for the Tony Awards, and most of them have some kind of stake in the theater industry: producers and performers, directors and designers, and even some journalists (though none from The New York Times, which views such involvement as a conflict of interest).The deadline for the voters to cast their ballots is Friday, June 10, just two days before the awards ceremony. The voting is electronic, and the voters are only supposed to vote in categories in which they have seen all the nominees.Between now and then there is a bit of campaigning. Shows often send voters scripts, or cast recordings, and sometimes a souvenir book or other form of promotional merchandise. And many of the nominees try to stay in the public eye during the voting period, by granting more interviews, performing at nonprofit galas, and presenting at theater-related conferences. More

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      Interview: Hopping on the Kindertransport to the Little Angel

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      Smoking Apples’ Molly Freeman on Kinder at Little Angel Theatre

      Kinder is an immersive new show for children, hitting the stage of the Little Angel Theatre this May. Set just before WW2, it tells the story of a small Czech-Jewish girl called Babi, who is sent away from her home on a journey to safety in the UK.

      We had a chat with Director Molly Freeman of Smoking Apples, the award-winning puppetry and visual theatre company, who have created this intriguing production, to find out more.

      So Molly, Kinder is about the Czech Kindertransport rather than the more familiar German one. Did they both happen at the same time? Why have you chosen to explore the Czech one?

      The Kindertransport in Germany and Czechoslovakia, took place at the same time, yes. This was all just before the outbreak of WW2, in 1938. The catalyst for this movement was Kristellnacht, where the Nazis undertook violent acts against Jewish people and businesses in Germany.

      A lot of people are familiar with the German Kindertransport, but Europe and the Jewish communities were very connected so word got out elsewhere that these violent acts were taking place. As a result, the British authorities allowed minors to seek refuge and enter Great Britain from Germany and German-annexed territories, which Czechoslovakia fell under.

      We wanted to explore the Czech Kindertransport for a number of reasons. Firstly, there can often be a sense of compartmentalisation with these stories, as in, ‘oh that happened in Germany because that’s where the war started’. But we wanted to reflect that the repercussions of the early situation in Germany had a ripple effect across Europe, impacting and affecting a huge number of people elsewhere. Secondly, the Czech Kindertransport was instigated by Sir Nicholas Winton, a British man, and myself and my co-artistic directors, Matt and Hattie used to live in Prague, so it felt like we would be able to tell this story from a place of understanding, in terms of the locations and cultures.

      I understand you have rather an unusual immersive space for the show. Can you tell us a bit about it and how the audience fit in?

      The space is a freestanding, self-sufficient box structure. The audience are seated inside and the performers play from the outside of the box inwards, through a series of hatches and openings. The set allows us to be completely in control of the show environment and to reflect the visceral nature of Babi’s journey; her excitement, bombardment and, at times, fear of it all. It also means that wherever we take the show, the audience can always have the same experience, whether that’s in a theatre, a community centre or a school hall.

      Smoking Apples are renowned for their fabulous puppetry work: I was very impressed with your giant walking tree last summer! What kind of puppets are in this show? And why use puppetry rather than just do a straight play?

      Ah yes, that was our Arbor, the tree! He’s pretty hard to miss! Kinder uses a combination of table-top bunraku-style puppetry, shadow puppetry and object manipulation. We are a puppetry company but we always ask ourselves ‘why puppets?’ at the start of every show. For Kinder, it allows us to jump backwards and forwards in the timeline of Babi’s story, but the form itself allows us to bring new resonance to actions. Across her journey, the actions that both Babi and the people she encounters around her are magnified and this helps the audience to focus on them as catalysts. When an actor performs an action, you read it as a whole but you may miss the importance of it because it is natural and already in human form. When a puppet performs an action, it is magnified because of the effort and care that has to be taken in order for it to do it.

      Are there any other interesting or unusual production features you can tell us about?

      In Kinder we are, for the first time, using a combination of shadow puppets, silhouette and OHP puppetry to form our overall shadow puppetry strand. This is a fairly new system of working for us but enables us to have a more film-like quality to the work.

      We’ve also taken inspiration from Czech illustrators, such as Miroslav Sasek, to create illustrated backgrounds for the shadow puppetry, so there is additional visual depth there. Czech illustration, as a broad style, is very striking and often warps scale and perception, which felt appropriate as a reflection of Babi’s young mind. We also use verbatim throughout the show, so there are segments of stories from real people who were evacuated on Kindertransport trains. The Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive kindly gave us permission to use them and the piece would be very different without those.

      What themes does the show explore? Presumably, it’s not just a bleak and depressing war story?

      Not at all! Mostly, Kinder is about hope and about how the acts of kindness that Babi encounter along the way really do make all the difference to her; in fact, they save her. Of course, there is difficult content in there and we wouldn’t be doing the story justice if we didn’t cover that, but it’s a tale of humanity, in all its various forms. For me, that’s what’s so compelling, particularly in light of the situation in Ukraine. Despite nationality, despite culture, despite race, despite religion; what binds us is that we are human and if we can hold on to that, kindness will prevail.

      You’ve made a show for older children, age 11-16, which is brilliant to see, as teenagers can often miss out on this kind of really creative, visual theatre. Is Kinder just for schools, or for wider family groups?

      We wanted to make a show specifically for teenagers because as you say, they’re often missed out.  We regularly work with young people, so something the story focuses on is this idea of identity and what that means. Teenagers are often asked to make really tricky calls on their futures; who they are, what they want to be. But ultimately, it’s sometimes OK to not have all the answers, to change your mind, or to just not know.

      We’ve also reflected the age group in the actual construction and presentation of the work. Sometimes shows can feel physically and emotionally very distant, making them hard to engage with. By placing the audience literally in the centre of the action and actively removing the preconceived notion of sitting still and being quiet, we hope that their engagement and investment will be much greater. Kinder is definitely something that wider family groups can enjoy though, and whilst we wouldn’t recommend it for younger audiences, it’s a great show for families, as familial ties are at the heart of our story and you see Babi as a grandmother, revisiting her past with her Grandson.

      What do you hope your audiences will come away with from Kinder?

      As I mentioned, Kinder is a show about hope. There are joyful parts and there are sad parts, but ultimately it is a reminder of all of the things that unite us when conflict tries to divide us. Being sat inside the set, with the show taking place around you, brings a different perspective on the work, one that we hope will resonate with our audiences. 

      I believe the show is going on a journey of its own, isn’t it? Where will your tour take you?

      We’re opening the show at the Little Angel Theatre in London and then we’ll be visiting the National Holocaust Centre and Museum in Newark (near Nottingham) before heading on to Harwich Festival. We’re planning on touring Kinder fully next year and will be visiting theatres, schools, festivals and community centres.

      Many thanks to Molly for taking the time to talk to us. Kinder is on at the Little Angel Studios from 12–14 May, and is aimed at ages 11-16. Further information and bookings can be found here.

      The show will also play National Holocaust Centre & Museum 31 May & 1 June, then Harwich Festival, Harwich on 30 June & 1 July More

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      Interview: Face Off with Fight or Flight

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      Jess Barton & Ross Kernahan on Don’t Forget My Face

      Don’t Forget My Face was such a success last year when it played at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre that they have been invited back for a second run (17 – 21 May, tickets here)

      The show sees twins Rhea and Jack share everything together, hardly ever apart. But what happens when one of them gets the opportunity to move on, and break that special bond they have always had?

      And as here at ET we aren’t afraid to jump on a bandwagon if we feel it’s going our way, we thought this would be the perfect time then to catch up Fight or Flight‘s Jess Barton and Ross Kernahan, the people behind (and in front) of the show, to find out why we should get along to see the show now we’ve been given a second chance.

      How good does it feel to get invited back to the Lion and Unicorn then?

      It feels great! As associate artists of the theatre it’s amazing for there to be a home for our work, and to have the space to experiment and play with new ideas. David [Bardy], and the rest of the L&U team, have always been incredibly supportive of us and other companies in creating the work that we want to make first! We’re so delighted to be invited back after our last run was jinxed by the Omnicron wave, and for audiences to have another opportunity to join us! 

      The show is about twins – is that something either of you have experience of? Or if not, what brought you to writing a play about them?

      We’re not twins, but we both have siblings, and there are definitely parts of our own sibling relationships written into Jack and Rhea. However we were mostly interested in the idea of two people with near identical upbringings who react to life events unfolding around them in a very different way – there’s also something fascinating in the way we can remember a shared memory so differently! We wanted their sense of shared identity to be put into flux, to challenge their similarities and begin to embrace being different people. Many of us, ourselves included, rely on family a great deal to get through modern life – we think we cannot know anyone any better – and yet these people will still surprise you about who they really are and what they share with you.

      As well as writing the play together, Ross acts (alongside Aimee Kember) and Jess directs; how easy is it to be subjective when you are so heavily involved to be able to see when maybe things aren’t quite right and need a little tinkering?

      We’ve been working together for nearly a decade now – which makes the play’s theme of turning 30 feel all too familiar! – and have learnt to trust each other’s instincts, as they’re usually very similar to what the other is thinking. We also made sure to invite an outside pair of eyes into the room –  our dramaturg, Farah Najib, came in and asked all the big questions to keep us honest.

      What has been particularly enjoyable about making this show ourselves, is the freedom to play and develop the piece as we go. We learnt a few years ago that we really enjoy challenging and interrogating a show and its characters – so we’re constantly learning and finding new things within the script. It’s always a joy when something catches us by surprise!

      For those who didn’t see the show the first time at Lion and Unicorn, what can we expect if we come this time?

      We hope you’ll laugh, and cry, and ultimately be entertained – but also come away with a different appreciation of the people who support us through life! This is a play that celebrates the small moments that exist within the really big ones, whilst also confronting how overwhelming life can be. It was important to us to acknowledge how global events – and the habit of constant media consumption, and seemingly endless doomscrolling – can destabilise a person’s mental health, and how that is a very valid experience. When combined with our own, often non vocalised personal crises such as loss, family tragedy etc it can lead to explosive and mentally damaging behaviour – which you may witness when you see the show!

      Ultimately, this is a play about questioning the version of yourself that you present to the world, learning to live with grief, and figuring out how to challenge the pressures of societal expectation!

      Have you made any major changes from the original version you put on stage the first night?

      Since our last run we’ve been able to step back and look at what worked and didn’t work as well. We never had an R&D session when creating this show, it was put together rather quickly! So our first run was extremely useful in gauging audiences’ responses, and also in revealing things to us that perhaps we didn’t see at first! Since then we have been able to look at the script and address some imbalances, refocus some themes that didn’t get the limelight they deserved, and hone the story down to be what we really wanted it to be. 

      A second run at Lion and Unicorn, so obviously some mutual appreciation between you and the venue. What is it that makes this theatre such a fantastic place to put on a show?

      The London fringe theatre scene is always evolving, and despite the incredible hardships these venues have faced over the last few years the ones that survive seem to be shifting for the better: lower/zero hire costs, more production support, more interest in new work etc – it’s great to see – but these are things the Lion & Unicorn has been doing for years thanks to its AD David Brady. Their motto ‘be who you want to be’ feels very apt – in our experience, we have always felt in complete control of the show when we are in their venue. It’s a wonderfully open place to work, and allows us and other companies to be bold and take risks, which is exactly what theatre should be doing in our opinion. We just feel incredibly lucky that the theatre likes our work and continues to support us in doing what we do. 

      Is this the last hooray for Don’t Forget My Face then, or do you have further plans for it?

      We shall see!

      And if not this show, what do you have in the pipeline next then?

      We have hopes of creating something new later in the year – although what that might be is anyone’s guess right now! We will have to see if the rest of 2022 has something that will inspire us – for better or worse! 

      Our thanks to Jess and Ross for taking time out of their busy day to chat with us. Don’t Forget My Face will play at Lion and Unicorn Theatre between 17 and 21 May. Further information and bookings can be found here. More

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      Interview: Over The Bridge, Into The Shed

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      Luke Adamson on Bridge House Theatre and The Man In The Shed

      We’ve not had the pleasure of visiting Penge’s Bridge House Theatre except for one fleeting visit back in 2014! Something we really need to change. But in the meantime, the second best thing to an actual visit would be a sit down with Luke Adamson, who is not only the Artistic Director of the venue, but also the director of The Man In The Shed, which will be playing at the venue from 10 May.

      Let’s start with The Man In The Shed, what attracted you to bring the play to Bridge House, and even to direct it yourself?

      Well, initially I was reading the play with a view to programming it as a visiting show as part of the spring season. As I was reading through the script in the bar of the Bridge House I found myself genuinely guffawing out loud. The humour hits you in the face in the first line and you’re off. Then what I loved was how the depth of the character and the show crept in amongst the humour.

      I contacted the writers saying that I’d love to programme the show at which point they admitted that they didn’t have any idea how to actually produce the show but had the finances in place, so we came to the agreement that we would act as producers for the show with their finances and I would direct it.

      The play is “told through the music of a classic album”; is there one album in play here, or is this a nice plot device just to draw us in?

      There is one specific album that The Man In The Shed wants to tell us ‘facts’ about. It’s one that I’m sure everyone will have heard of, even if they haven’t listened to it. Though it’s safe to say that his knowledge of this album may not be quite accurate, and his ‘facts’ may not be facts, so much as confused ramblings and ridiculous assumptions.

      And of course we do now have to ask, do you have a classic album of choice you would use to soundtrack your own life?

      It may be cliche, but I was introduced to Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours as a child. My dad was a big fan and it was always on in the car. I know all the words to every song and once one song ends I could tell you what the next song is before it has even started.

      The play is about a man who finds himself out of touch with the modern world yet clearly feels he is in the right; can we assume our man is very anti-woke? Is the play mocking him or trying to sympathise with someone whose viewpoints are perhaps best left in the past?

      This is what so appealed to me about the play, The Man In The Shed definitely isn’t woke, but I also wouldn’t say he was anti-woke, he’s not your classic, gammony Pie*s Mo**an type who seems to want to rage against, and actively oppose anything or anyone that isn’t him, he’s more left behind. A man who has found himself out of touch with society and with his children, who wants to be able to understand, wants to connect to them and be able to talk to them but the era that he grew up in has left him ill equipped to do so. He’s emotionally inept and, in a way, insecure. The play shows us his yearning to do these things, but also why he falls back on the old ‘blokey’ tropes.

      With the show we’re neither mocking his outdated views, nor asking people to sympathise with them, we’re kind of lifting the curtain and taking a look at the man behind the views and seeing why people might behave in a certain way. We hope that the play will provoke discussion about the fact that ultimately we’re all shaped and formed into the people we are by the society and the world we grow up in.

      And as well as directing this play, you are AD of Bridge House Theatre – what took you there in 2021 then?

      Well I’ve lived in the area since 2013 and The Bridge House Theatre had always been on my radar. When trying to initiate some theatre in Crystal Palace Park back mid pandemic, I was in a Zoom meeting with Guy Retallack – the previous AD of The Bridge House Theatre – who revealed that he was no longer running the venue, so after a few conversations with Guy, he put me in touch with the management of the pub and, as I’d always wanted to run my own venue, I submitted a proposal to them of what I’d like to do and they liked it and the rest is history!

      And what is your vision for what you’d like the theatre to say with its scheduling?

      Our programme features shows from established small-scale companies as well as offering opportunities for emerging theatre-makers. We ensure that all the shows we present are entertaining as well as being what we term ‘socially conscious’ –  does the work say something about the world that we live in? It’s also important to us that all the shows offer opportunities to, and representation of, groups that are traditionally underrepresented in the theatre world. This includes but is not limited to: Working class artists, Artists from the Global Majority, Non binary or gender fluid artists, LGBTQ+ Artists.

      You were previously Associate Direction at The Hope Theatre, how different are the two venues?

      They’re very similar spaces in terms of the fact that they’re rooms above pubs, but that’s probably where the similarity ends. The Hope is a much more edgy space, the pub is more lively and, what with the musical history, has an almost raucous atmosphere. The Hope can also take a few more risks in their programming as they’re a much more established venue. The Bridge House is a very lovely, family friendly pub right on the edge of Crystal Palace Park with a much more chilled out atmosphere. As we’re not particularly well known as a venue yet and we’re still building a reputation we have to be quite canny in our programming in that we need to be able to balance out the edgier, less ‘commercial’ work with shows that have a slightly wider appeal.  We also have more scope for family friendly work and are able to supplement our theatre offerings with monthly comedy nights and spoken word events. Our space is also a little bit bigger than The Hope.

      We’re guilty of only having been to Bridge House once, way back in 2014 – it’s clearly not in the usual theatre heartlands such as The Hope was (no offence to Penge), does this make it more of a challenge on what you programme and drawing in an audience?

      How very dare you!? Penge is the centre of the theatrical universe! (Or at least it will be when I’m finished with it.) We’ve actually found that, unlike The Hope, we have quite a local audience around here. At The Hope we found that the audiences were primarily made up of friends and family of the companies, and people that were interested in the Off West End theatre scene and would travel to visit the venue specifically, but very few people that lived locally would visit the theatre regularly. We’re delighted that we’ve got a very supportive local community and we see the same faces returning to see shows again and again. We’re looking forward to the days that our local audiences are joined by those lovely fringe theatre supporters as they travel out to Penge. In the review of our last in-house production, Steve Coats-Denis said of us “If Under Electric Candlelight is the sublime level of drama we can expect under Artistic Director Luke Adamson, theatre lovers should be getting on that train to Penge!”

      Finally, what else do you have lined up for the coming season? What should we be trying to convince some of our reviewers along to check out?

      We have a rehearsed reading of new play Boys Will Be Boys and then a transfer of five star play A Final Act Of Friendship from The White Bear. Then in June we’re heading into a month of Edinburgh Festival previews and special events for the annual Penge Festival. Further details of our exciting Summer Season will be announced soon!

      Our thanks to Luke for finding time away from running Bridge House and rehearsing for the upcoming show to chat to us.

      The Man In The Shed plays between 10 and 14 May. Further information and bookings can be found here. More

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      ‘Last Ward’ Review: Ashes to Ashes, Dirt to Dirt

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      Yaa Samar! Dance Theater’s production at Gibney is an uncommonly deft combination of dance and verbal theater.Picture a standard, sterile hospital room. From behind a cabinet, an arm snakes out, followed by the rest of the body — a man with serpentine moves who slinks around and creeps under the bed. Immediately, the death implicit in the setting has become visible, corporeal, though still metaphorical, in a particular way. The man suggesting death is a dancer.“Last Ward,” which Yaa Samar! Dance Theater premiered on Thursday at the Gibney: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, is a dance work, with choreography by the company’s artistic director, Samar Haddad King. But it’s a play, too, with poetic text by Amir Nizar Zuabi, who also directs the 65-minute production. The uncommonly deft combination of dance and verbal theater heightens the impact of what might sound like a cliché: a profound meditation on life and death.At the center is a patient, played by the accomplished Palestinian actor Khalifa Natour. He and a woman who appears to be his wife (Yukari Osaka) look bewildered as they enter the hubbub of the hospital. Dancers in scrubs skip around and gesture officiously, doing a stylized version of the inscrutable activity that any patient might recognize.The stylization brings out the absurdity, and as Natour receives plant-bearing guests, the physical comedy continues. Two visitors who might be his grown children squabble over proximity to his bed. Later, the medicine he’s given seems to induce hallucinations. A friend (the lithe Mohammed Smahneh, who also plays the serpentine figure at the start) appears to come undone, his body parts all going in different directions.But the stakes remain high, as is confirmed when Natour — who does almost all of the talking, in Arabic, with English supertitles clearly projected onto the back wall — recounts the moment when his doctor gave him his diagnosis.His condition is incurable. Unnamed, it sounds like cancer: “the same power that created life” now “gone wild.” Zuabi’s text and Natour’s understated performance give the disease a terrible beauty: “My cells divide and divide and divide.”This mix of beauty and the awful truth is the text’s power, made more affecting by quotidian details, as when Natour lists “Things You Will Do After I’m Gone.” Earlier, he tells the boyhood story of buying a fish in a plastic bag. On his way home, bullies snatch the bag and toss it to one another. “I could see my fish swimming calmly in midair,” he says, before the bag is dropped and he watches as the fish’s gills open and close and go still — his first understanding of death.Death is all around him in the hospital, of course. The production reminds us of this when dancers wielding IV bags emerge during his fish story. His room opens to a hallway at the rear, and periodically an orderly wheels by with a body on a gurney.And then there is the dirt. It first appears as the food he’s given, an oddity you might not initially notice. But soon dirt is spilling everywhere, despite the desperate efforts of his wife to tidy it up or the semi-comic cleaning routines of staff members (to Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit,” mixed into an effective electronic score by King). As a theatrical metaphor, the dirt is not subtle. It’s strong.The proliferation of dirt summons a memory of Natour’s character helping to bury his grandmother when he was 15. He remembers thinking of her not as the old woman she had become but as the desirable girl she once was, a thought he acts out by shoveling dirt onto a dancer embodying feminine allure. After burying his grandmother, he says, he went behind the house with his girlfriend, undressed and fell to the ground with her “again and again and again.”The repetition of those words echoes the cells that “divide and divide and divide,” the force that will kill him. It’s the “swirl of life” that will fill the void he leaves, a force that King’s choreography gives form to in a swirl of dancers. The inextricable connection between life and death is what “Last Ward” understands. The connection between words and dance, too.Last WardThrough May 12 at Gibney: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, Manhattan; gibneydance.org More

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      Equity Drops ‘Waitress’ Unionization Effort and Files Grievance

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      The union said it was withdrawing the petition because the producers of the nonunion tour now plan to end its run in June.Actors’ Equity, the union representing performers and stage managers, has withdrawn its attempt to organize a touring production of “Waitress,” and instead has filed a grievance against the musical’s producers.The union last month filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board, seeking an election to represent the nonunion touring cast and stage managers, saying they were doing the same work as those working for a touring production of the same show, but being paid far less.But on Thursday the union said it was withdrawing the petition because the producers of the nonunion tour said they were ending its run in June, which is too soon for the election process to take place. The union said the tour had previously planned performances into next year.The union said that it had filed a grievance against the musical’s licensors, Barry and Fran Weissler and the National Artists Management Company (NAMCO), for “double-breasting” — simultaneously running union and non-union operations.A “Waitress” spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. More