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      Interview: Belinda McGuirk invites us all to EverAfter

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      Anyone who has ever been to see a Chickenshed Christmas show will know what a big affair it is. This year they are doing EverAfter, and directing it will be Belinda McGuirk. So it felt a good time to chat with Belinda about the show, her involvement with Chickenshed and how you even start directing 800 performers.

      EverAfter – A Mixed Up Fairytale!

      When Hansel and Gretel are left to fend for themselves in the Wild Woods, a series of events is set in motion, taking the two children on a journey through some of our best loved fairytales. Come and be enchanted by mischievous Princesses, who dance until their shoes are worn out; meet – at least one – wicked stepmother intent on revenge; sympathise with Hansel and Gretel’s father, who searches the forest for a sign of his beloved children; and laugh, boo and hiss at the man with no name…

      Chickenshed is thrilled to announce the return of its Christmas Show with EverAfter. Featuring their famously large and amazingly diverse cast, this mixed up fairytale will be a dazzling and unforgettable theatrical journey for adults and children alike. More

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      ‘Chicago’ Pops the Cork on 25 Years of Razzle Dazzle

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      Bebe Neuwirth, Joel Grey, Chita Rivera, John Kander and others discuss the Broadway revival’s surprising early success and its lasting legacy.When “Chicago” had its debut in 1975 no one expected it to become the longest-running American musical in Broadway history.The reviews were mixed. Walter Kerr wrote that it was “altogether too heavy to let the slender, foolish story breathe.” And though the show had a two-year run, it was dwarfed in impact by “A Chorus Line.”It “seemed too chilly, in those days, to be truly loved,” Ben Brantley wrote two decades later, reflecting on the show’s themes of “murder, greed, corruption, violence, exploitation, adultery and treachery.”But then came the “Encores!” production, in 1996 at City Center, a streamlined reworking that bubbled “like vintage Champagne,” Brantley wrote.The delirious reception to the concert staging was “like ice cubes down your back,” John Kander, the musical’s composer, recalled recently. “The original production was not exactly what you’d call a blockbuster.”That four-night concert event propelled the show back to Broadway, where the revival opened 25 years ago, on Nov. 14, 1996, at the Richard Rodgers Theater. (The same theater in which the show debuted in 1975, though back then it was known as the 46th Street Theater.)“This new incarnation,” Brantley wrote in his review, “makes an exhilarating case both for ‘Chicago’ as a musical for the ages and for the essential legacy of Fosse.”Six Tony Awards, three Broadway houses, an Oscar-winning film adaptation and over 30 international reproductions later, this Jazz Age satire has become both a cultural touchstone and a New York City landmark. And the show has continually renewed itself through headline-grabbing cast replacements, which have included Broadway veterans (like Norm Lewis and Jennifer Holliday), singers (Patti LaBelle, Usher and Mel B), screen actors (Brooke Shields and Patrick Swayze) and even media and reality TV figures (Wendy Williams and NeNe Leakes).Adapted from the journalist Maurine Dallas Watkins’s 1926 play, based on the sensationalist murder trials she covered, the vaudeville-style musical follows the ascent to fame of the down-on-her-luck chorine Roxie Hart after she murders her lover. She soon becomes a media spectacle, thanks to her sleazy lawyer, Billy Flynn; but her husband, Amos, and the vaudevillian, Velma Kelly — in the same jail as Roxie for double homicide — are none too pleased.A stable of frequent collaborators made up the creative team: John Kander and Fred Ebb wrote the music and lyrics; Ebb and Bob Fosse wrote the book; and the choreography, of course, is Fosse’s.Ann Reinking, Fosse’s protégée and romantic partner, played a vital role in keeping his legacy alive. Reinking, who died last year, adapted his work for the revival; she also filled in as Roxie in the original production (replacing Fosse’s wife, Gwen Verdon), and starred, again as Roxie, in the revival.In advance of the anniversary, which will be celebrated Nov. 16 with a special performance, I spoke about the musical’s history and legacy with several important figures. Here are edited excerpts from our conversations.From Encores! to BroadwayBebe Neuwirth, seated, won the Tony for best actress in a musical for playing Velma.Sara Krulwich/ The New York TimesJAMES NAUGHTON (played Billy Flynn, Roxie’s lawyer, in 1996 and 2004) That first opening night at Encores! left a tremendous impression on me. I was standing backstage and, at the end of the first number, “All That Jazz,” the audience exploded. It was the kind of sound you just don’t hear very often in the theater, or certainly not often enough.JOHN KANDER (composer) I had never experienced anything like this. Fred [Ebb] and I didn’t know much about what Encores! was going to do, so we were totally unprepared.JOEL GREY (played Amos Hart, Roxie’s simpleton husband, in 1996 and in London in 1998) I remember standing next to Jimmy Naughton backstage, and we looked at each other in pure amazement and joy.WALTER BOBBIE (director) I thought the score deserved to be heard again because “Cabaret” had kind of eclipsed it. I was watching the O.J. Simpson trial at the time I started reading the script and thought it felt completely newly minted. It is astonishing to me that the show is almost 50 years old, yet it doesn’t feel that way. It still feels vital: it has theatrical muscle, the characters are vivid, and its issues are ongoing in our public discourse.Joel Grey as Roxie’s husband, Amos, “achieves the miracle of turning passivity into pure show-biz electricity,” Brantley wrote in his review.Sara KrulwichFRAN WEISSLER (Broadway producer) Barry [Weissler] and I were so blown away by the Encores! production that we ran home to call Kander and Ebb and ask for just a little piece of it. Fred Ebb finally told us we could have the whole show. He said, “To tell you the truth, no chandelier is dropping, there’s no French Revolution, or a helicopter onstage; nobody wants to do it.”BEBE NEUWIRTH (Velma Kelly in 1996; Roxie Hart in 2006; and Matron “Mama” Morton in 2013) Pretty much every time you do anything onstage, there’s talk of it going to Broadway. When these talks happened, I was like, “Yeah right,” but then it really transferred, and just kept going and took on a life of its own.The Reinking FactorAnn Reinking updated Bob Fosse’s choreography for the revival and her Roxie was “the most entertainingly erotic cartoon character since Jessica Rabbit,” Brantley wrote.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times NEUWIRTH The strength and longevity of this production would not have been possible without Annie. She had such respect for Bob, and was incredibly attuned to his very specific style.WEISSLER There was nobody like her. She was not only stunning and amazingly talented, with the greatest legs I’ve seen in my life, but she was so kind and giving in her direction to the performers.NAUGHTON I don’t think there are many pieces that are as focused on performers as “Chicago.” Given Walter and Annie’s decision to keep the brilliant, bare-bones Encores! staging when we went to Broadway, when you look at this show, it is pure performing.BOBBIE I said this when I gave my speech at the reopening performance on Sep. 14: “Chicago” has turned into the legacy of Ann Reinking. She really carried the legacy of [Fosse’s] choreography through to this production, which sort of sharpened the aesthetic of his work.Stunt Casting? Or Flexible Casting?Usher took on the role of Billy Flynn when he joined the cast for a few months in 2006.Evan Agostini/Getty ImagesBARRY WEISSLER (Broadway producer) The word “stunt” really comes from the unexpected. The onlooker doesn’t believe that a singer like Usher can play Billy Flynn, so they start calling it a stunt. It’s not a stunt: We don’t take anyone that can’t fulfill the stage work. And there have been people — even important people in the music world — who couldn’t cut it onstage, so didn’t make it into the show.KANDER No matter how bizarre the casting might seem, it always seems to fit right into our original intentions. You could cast a Bulgarian tap dancer as Billy Flynn and, if intelligently cast, it will still be that character, but with whatever personality that performer brings.LILLIAS WHITE (Matron “Mama” Morton, jail matron, in 2006 and 2021) The show is very clear; you see who’s who, and what’s what, from the very beginning. It’s lasted this long because its numbers, with great music and stunning dancing, come up very quickly, so if you like musical theater, you’re going to love this. It’s simple: when you’re good to Mama, Mama’s good to you.CHITA RIVERA (Velma in the 1975 production, and Roxie on the U.S. tour in 1999) Liza Minnelli joined our original production’s cast because she realized it was a wonderful piece, and that it would be great for her. When Gwen [Verdon, the original “Roxie”] got sick, she expressed that she would like to take on the role, and people ate it up.BRANDY NORWOOD (Roxie on Broadway in 2014 and 2017; Los Angeles in 2016; Washington, D.C., in 2017) I didn’t want to be the new R&B chick that comes in and messes everything up. It was the music that sustained me; these are the kind of solid, jazzy numbers I saw myself singing, and I knew I could put my own flavor into them without disrespecting their very Broadway style.GREY When they called me about Encores!, I thought, “No, I can’t play Amos: that’s a big, seven-foot, overweight mechanic.” I didn’t see myself in that. But, after Annie [Reinking] called me, I realized the show just has these great solo spots that could be tailored for each actor.Cross-Cultural RelevanceRyoko Yonekura, who originated the role of Roxie in the Japanese-language production in 2008, made her Broadway debut in 2012, after learning the role in English.Masahiro NoguchiPAULO SZOT (Billy Flynn in 2020 and 2021) I saw [“Chicago”] on Broadway years and years ago, and then, after seeing a production in Paris, knew I had to do it. People just love the script, and the choreography. I’ll be starring in a São Paulo production next year, and I know everyone there will relate to its message and humor.BIANCA MARROQUÍN (Roxie in Mexico City in 2001 and on Broadway, on and off, from 2002-2018; Velma on Broadway in 2021) There was a similar case to the plot’s going on in Mexico when I played Roxie there 20 years ago: Gloria Trevi, a pop star who was in jail at the time, popped the big news that she was pregnant — it’s the same thing! When I’d say the line about how I was going to have a baby, people would lose it.WEISSLER At one point, we wanted to have a Japanese presence in New York, and Japan wanted an American presence in their company. So we brought in Ryoko Yonekura and taught her Roxie, phonetically, and Amra-Faye Wright learned Japanese phonetically and played Velma in the Japanese company. You don’t get that with most Broadway shows.BOBBIE I’m very pleased that we’ve never had issues with ethnicity, going back to our first national tour, which was headed by Obba Babatundé and Jasmine Guy. We have been really vigilant about this for 25 years, and it was not something that we went talking about, we just did it. [When the show reopened after the shutdown, four of its five leads were played by Latinx and Black actors.]Crime ContinuesBrandy Norwood played Roxie on multiple occasions and in multiple cities. “Roxie never stopped dreaming,” Norwood said, “she was going to turn that whole world into her own vaudeville.”Jeremy DanielANA VILLAFAÑE (Roxie in 2021) This show is still incredibly relevant, especially after the pandemic, when we’ve been living on our phones in a completely different way. Roxie has this famous line — “You want to know something? I’ve always wanted to have my name in the papers” — but now it’s not about your name in the paper, it’s about how many followers and likes you have online. I started reading the script on my phone and realized its themes of fast fame, and this obsession with who we are versus who we appear to be, immediately translated to what I am usually looking at on my phone.NORWOOD You fall in love with these characters who are always doing what they want to do, even if it’s dark. Roxie never stopped dreaming, and it didn’t matter if she was just hanging around in bars, she was going to turn that whole world into her own vaudeville. That was her way of coping with the fact that she wasn’t everything she dreamed she was.KANDER We were certainly aware of the piece’s darkness when we created it. There are two ways of dealing with catastrophe: One is that you can pick up banners and yell about it, and the other is to do the same thing by simply holding the evil up to ridicule, and making an audience feel entertained before they realize what it is they’re seeing.RIVERA It seems to be an American thing where, much later, somebody else says something’s brilliant, and critics come back and agree. I go, “Why couldn’t they acknowledge it?” when thinking about the original, but the revival just came along at a better time. Kander, Ebb, and Bob Fosse are true artists, and something that’s really great will last forever. More

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      Preview: Our Last First

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      The Union Theatre

      16 – 19 November

      Four actors walk onto the stage. Uncast. With one story to tell. But who will tell it?

      Our Last First follows the lives of A&B, as we watch them go through the firsts (and lasts) of their relationship, and meet the people along the way who alter their journey. Cast live at the start of each performance, each show is guaranteed to be unique, as relationships are.

      Written without pronouns, genders, ages or physical descriptions of any kind, the play is designed to be played by any and every actor. For far too long romantic leads in theatre have all looked the same, not reflecting the society we live in. Everyone experiences love, it is universal, so why aren’t we seeing everyone represented on stage. “Our Last First” is changing that.

      Writer Lucinda Coyle on the story behind the show

      In lockdown one I was inspired by talking to a fellow actor who was fed up of being told by casting directors they ‘just didn’t look right for the role’ and was concerned by the lack of roles in particular for those who identity as non-binary. I then began to think what if a play was written to be played by anyone and everyone. A play with characters with no gender, no pronouns, no age, no physical descriptions of any kind. Just their words and thoughts. I then began to think of what universally connects us all; love. From that A&B were born, a couple with nothing particularly extraordinary about them. The play follows A&B, as we watch them go through the firsts (and lasts) of a relationship with each other. But I wanted as many actors to play these roles, to have the chance to be the romantic lead as opposed to being stuck cast as the “fat best friend”, so I decided to add in the live casting at the start of the show. As every relationship is unique, so is every show. The four roles are cast live in front of the audience at the start of each show, igniting the relationship we the audience are about to witness, and the two actors are about to explore. 

      Reviews for Our Last First

      ★★★★ A high-quality new play with love at its centre.Everything Theatre

      It is witty, ambitious and works wellThe Reviews Hub

      it’s an original and refreshing ideaand one that it would be great to explore further.Theatre Things More

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      Features and Interviews – Everything Theatre

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      Features and Interviews – Everything Theatrehttps://everything-theatre.co.uk
      Reviews, interviews and news for theatre lovers, London and beyondMon, 08 Nov 2021 18:00:36 +0000en-GB
      hourly
      1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.7.3https://everything-theatre.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/EverythingTheatre_FAVICON-70×70.jpgFeatures and Interviews – Everything Theatrehttps://everything-theatre.co.uk
      3232Preview: In Bad Taste, Sixteen Sixty Theatrehttps://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/11/preview-in-bad-taste-sixteen-sixty-theatre.html
      https://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/11/preview-in-bad-taste-sixteen-sixty-theatre.html#respondMon, 08 Nov 2021 17:53:56 +0000https://everything-theatre.co.uk/?p=28103Bread and Roses Theatre 22 – 24 Nov
      The post Preview: In Bad Taste, Sixteen Sixty Theatre appeared first on Everything Theatre.
      ]] >Bread and Roses Theatre

      22 – 24 November

      “We just killed and ate a man Jennifer. We’re all on edge.”In Bad Taste is a moral play for people whose morals are consistently tested. Performed by women who are infuriated by the current state of affairs worldwide, the play is a reflection of the general mood of a generation. The story follows a group of five best friends as their moral compasses are pushed to breaking point (and then to cannibalism) by the top 1%, homophobes, misogynists and people with skewed opinions on what it means to be a woman.

      Violet HATES her boss. And capitalism. Mostly capitalism though (at least that is what she tells her friends when roping them into creating her new utopia.) Fuelled by an onslaught of sexism, homophobia and unrealistic expectations of what it means to be a woman, the group set about chewing the fat of people who have done them wrong. It’s time to spark a cannibalismmeets-feminism revolution.

      The story is told through many different and unexpected mediums including narration, poetry, movement and rap. Improvisation also plays a key part and each performance is different from the last.

      You can read our review for the show when originally performed at The Space here.

      Sixteen Sixty Theatre

      Sixteen Sixty Theatre are a force of six women who exist to create, empower and take up space.The company take their name from the year that British women were finally allowed to tread theboards as paid actresses! The work they create is driven not only by this, but also their real lifeexperiences as predominantly queer, working class women and what they see in the media. Fromequality to morality and fake news to reality, the work they create is a reflection of society and InBad Taste is no exception.
      The post Preview: In Bad Taste, Sixteen Sixty Theatre appeared first on Everything Theatre.
      ]] >https://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/11/preview-in-bad-taste-sixteen-sixty-theatre.html/feed0Interview: Is It Good Cop, Bad Cop? Rising Tides decidehttps://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/11/interview-is-it-good-cop-bad-cop-rising-tides-decide.html
      https://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/11/interview-is-it-good-cop-bad-cop-rising-tides-decide.html#respondMon, 01 Nov 2021 21:27:27 +0000https://everything-theatre.co.uk/?p=28015Gavin Dent & Neil Sheppeck on Good Cop, Bad Cop 26
      The post Interview: Is It Good Cop, Bad Cop? Rising Tides decide appeared first on Everything Theatre.
      ]] >Gavin Dent and Neil Sheppeck of Rising Tides on Good Cop Bad Cop 26 Festival

      To co-incide with the COP26 summit, Rising Tides take over The Space for the next 12 days for their Good Cop, Bad Cop 26 Festival. Featuring plays, discussions and music the festival is their response to the climate crisis.

      With so much happening, it seemed a perfect opportunity to catch up with Gavin Dent and Neil Sheppeck from Rising Tides and hear what to expect at the festival, why The Space is the ideal venue and whether they hold out much hope for the outcome of COP26.

      Good Cop, Bad Cop 26

      With the future of our species at risk, this November the COP26 summit will bring parties together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. 

      This summer’s IPCC report is a code red for humanity.  The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable. Extreme weather and climate disasters are increasing in frequency and intensity. That is why this year’s United Nations climate conference in Glasgow is so important. 

      How should artists respond? What does a theatrical response look like? How can we make our voices heard?  What contribution can we make? How can we influence change? 

      LETTERS1 NOVThe largest creative response to the climate and ecological emergency the world has yet seen, Letters to the Earth is the first book to chronicle how humankind is collectively processing planetary crisis.

      20402 NOVConcerned about his young daughter’s future, filmmaker Damon Gameau travels the world in search of new approaches and solutions to climate change. He meets with innovators and changemakers in many fields to draw on their expertise.Also livestreamed

      ACCIDENTAL BIRTH OF AN ANARCHIST3 NOV – 12 NOVAn anarchist – activist or terrorist?A darkly funny play by Luke Ofield. Two novice activists get jobs on a North Sea oil rig with the sole intention of staging a sit in protest. Trapped in a room full of drilling instruments and forced to negotiate, the lines of protest, activism and terrorism are debated, as the threat of military action looms closer.As the world is torn between wildfires and flooding, this play couldn’t be any more timely.Livestreamed on 4th November & 10th November

      EVIDENCE6 NOV – 9 NOVWhat happens when you introduce experts at the forefront of the sustainability debate and today’s most exciting theatre makers? Rising Tides create four exciting partnerships and commission them to create an evening of entertaining and informative theatre.Livestreamed on 8th November

      CLIMATE CHANGE WORKSHOPS6 NOV – 7 NOVEvery child matters today and tomorrow. Rising Tides deliver informative, creative, and of course, fun workshops that explore and engage participants in the subject of Climate Change.Inform. Explore. Solve.

      ISYLA AND P M K S7 NOV“Achingly gorgeous and heartfelt… A beautiful blend of voices and fine songwriting. Be absorbed.” on ISYLAAlso Livestreamed
      The post Interview: Is It Good Cop, Bad Cop? Rising Tides decide appeared first on Everything Theatre.
      ]] >https://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/11/interview-is-it-good-cop-bad-cop-rising-tides-decide.html/feed0Competition: Win tickets for Little Boxes in Manchesterhttps://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/10/competition-win-tickets-for-little-boxes-in-manchester.html
      https://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/10/competition-win-tickets-for-little-boxes-in-manchester.html#respondThu, 21 Oct 2021 19:35:45 +0000https://everything-theatre.co.uk/?p=278502 tickets to Manchester’s 53Two
      The post Competition: Win tickets for Little Boxes in Manchester appeared first on Everything Theatre.
      ]] >Whilst 99% of our coverage is in London, that doesn’t mean there isn’t theatre outside of the capital. Manchester is a perfect example, we are certainly seeing more and more happening up in the North West. We even have a couple of reviewers lurking and we’re always looking for more (if you’re interested do get in touch, more info here).

      So, our latest competition is the opportunity to win a pair of tickets to see Alphamum Productions‘ Little Boxes when it plays at Manchester’s 53two in November (prize can be for either 16 or 17 November). There are four ways to enter, and we’ll count each one as a seperate entry, so you can quadruple your chances.

      Email us at competitions@everything-theatre.co.uk with “Great things come in little boxes” in the subject line.Share our pinned Facebook post and comment below the original post “Great things come in #littleboxes”.Quote tweet this Twitter post with the phrase “Great things come in #littleboxes”.Like this Instagram post and comment “Great things come in #littleboxes”.Do you spot the trend in all the ways to enter? Entries must be made by 7pm on 29 October 2021.

      Terms and conditions for the competition can be found below.

      If you aren’t successful in the competition, you can still buy tickets to see this show via the below link.

      Little Boxes

      After a successful run at VAULT Festival 2020, with sell out shows, multiple 4- and 5- star reviews and an “Offie” Short Run Commendation, Little Boxes is coming to Manchester.

      “… ticks all the right boxes” London Pub Theatres ★★★★

      Little Boxes follows Joann Condon (Little Britain, Dad’s Army the Lost Episodes), as she explores the boxes she has “found herself in” throughout her life:  The hopes and dreams of a child, the frustrations of an acting career, the tensions of being a parent, the grief in losing loved ones, the fear of being…herself.

      “Condon promises we will laugh and cry … and laugh and cry we did” Phoenix Remix

      Described as “funny, touching and at times heartbreaking,” by London Pub Theatres, Joann uses personal anecdotes to highlight assumptions and judgements made about her based-on looks, age, gender and background.  This phenomenon of classifying people is called ‘social categorization’ by psychologists, and most of us can relate to these experiences.

      “a joyful delve into one woman’s life, celebrating the successes, the heartbreak, and everything in between” The Plays the Thing

       ★★★★★ Spy in the Stalls                             ★★★★ Broadway Baby

       ★★★★     Theatre Weekly                           ★★★★ London Theatre1

      “It’s natural for people in our lives to want to force us into nice little boxes,” says Condon, “but the scary thing is, you often end up putting yourself in that same box.” 

      We want to use these performances in Manchester to launch a tour in 2022 and look forward to bringing Little Boxes to a broader audience.

      To make the performance more accessible we will be having a BSL interpreted performance on Wednesday 17th November at 7:30pm and we also have 2 tickets at £2 for each performance for unemployed or low income audience members.

      Starring: Joann CondonWritten by: Joann Condon and Leonie RachelDirected by: Daniel BrennanProduced by: Alphamum Productions and Lights Down Productions

      T&C’S

      The prize is for two tickets to a performance of Little Boxes at Manchester’s 53Two on either 16 or 17 October 2021. No alternative dates or cash alternative is available.

      Competition closes at 7pm on Friday 29 October 2021. Winner will be selected at random from all eligible entries, and will be notified no more than 3 days after the closing date. The winner has 3 days to accept the prize and provide contact details, otherwise a new winner will be chosen at random.  All additional expenses are the responsibility of the prize winner. Editor’s decision is final.
      The post Competition: Win tickets for Little Boxes in Manchester appeared first on Everything Theatre.
      ]] >https://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/10/competition-win-tickets-for-little-boxes-in-manchester.html/feed0Interview: Ardent Theatre asks us to Rethinkhttps://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/10/interview-ardent-theatre-asks-us-to-rethink.html
      https://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/10/interview-ardent-theatre-asks-us-to-rethink.html#respondThu, 21 Oct 2021 10:58:44 +0000https://everything-theatre.co.uk/?p=27827Andrew Muir and Georgia Bates
      The post Interview: Ardent Theatre asks us to Rethink appeared first on Everything Theatre.
      ]] >Andrew Muir and Georgia Bates on new play Rethink and the struggles for actors outside of London

      For our latest podcast interview we caught up with Andrew Muir, writer and joint Creative Director of Ardent Theatre, and Georgia Bates, who will be appearing in their latest production, Rethink, which is on at The Union Theatre from 26 to 30 October.

      The pair talk about how the play was inspired by this 2020 government ad campaign suggesting those in the arts could retrain during lockdown for alternative careers. We also delve into the difficulties of becoming an actor when you live outside of London, and don’t have the financial backing to relocate full time to London.

      You can follow us on Spotify or Itunes (plus many other other podcast providers) for future editions of our interview series. Further information can be found on our Podcast here

      Rethink @ Union Theatre

      Graduation is a day full of celebration and joy. The cloaks, the hats, the bubbles and the dreams all laid bare for the world to see. In July 2020, that class of graduating students had little to celebrate. There were no cloaks, no hats, possibly a bubble but whatever dreams there were, they were soon cut short when the world shut down.

      Rethink is a play about the aftermath of that sunny July in 2020, when six graduates from a performing arts course on the South Coast of England, are encouraged to think again, in the wake of theatre closures and lack of opportunity. What choice do they have? According to a Government-backed advertising campaign their next job could be in cyber, they just don’t know it yet. So, there’s the choice. It’s as easy as that. Isn’t it?

      Rethink plays between 26 and 30 October. Bookings via the below link. Tickets just £10 plus £1 booking fee.

      The post Interview: Ardent Theatre asks us to Rethink appeared first on Everything Theatre.
      ]] >https://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/10/interview-ardent-theatre-asks-us-to-rethink.html/feed0Interview: Andrew Lancel on his (not literal) Swan Songhttps://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/10/interview-andrew-lancel-on-his-not-literal-swan-song.html
      https://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/10/interview-andrew-lancel-on-his-not-literal-swan-song.html#respondFri, 15 Oct 2021 13:00:42 +0000https://everything-theatre.co.uk/?p=27793Andrew Lancel talks about his latest role in Swan Song
      The post Interview: Andrew Lancel on his (not literal) Swan Song appeared first on Everything Theatre.
      ]] >Actor Andrew Lancel talks about his latest role in Swan Song at Turbine Theatre.

      One of the shows that’s really piqued our interest this November is a new revival of Swan Song at the Turbine Theatre, Battersea Power Station. The star of this one-man play, Andrew Lancel, has appeared in so many TV and stage shows it would be hard to have missed him! Famously he played DI Neil Manson in The Bill and the creepy Frank Foster in Coronation Street, but he’s also highly regarded for his phenomenal portrayal of the Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein in Epstein – the Man who Made the Beatles and in Cilla; as Brian Clough in The Damned United; and more recently as Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music.

      We caught up with Andrew to ask him about bringing the show from sold out performances in Liverpool to one of London’s newest, most passionate theatre spaces.

      Swan Song feels like a great show to get people back going back to live theatre right now. Can you tell us a bit about it?

      It’s ideal – it’s intimate  and I think people really feel a part of it.

      Whilst it’s set in the 90’s it feels topical. We all know a Dave and will be able to relate  to him in life and our school memories. He is always left behind because he can be a bit of an idiot but he’s also very funny.

      It’s billed as a bittersweet comedy – is there more bitter or sweet, or maybe a balance of both?

      Bang in the middle. (playwright) Jonathan Harvey is the master at this. 

      Are you and your character Dave Titswell alike in any ways? Do you wear a lot of beige? Is Dave a character that you recognise in real life?

      I’ve just got some beige boot socks but that’s about it! We look alike but that’s about it too – I think ..though I admit to liking the same music and soaps as him! It’s a cliche but we all know a Dave. Whilst he winds people up and can be a total dick, we do care for him. 

      You have an incredible, award-winning creative team on this show. How has it been working with Jonathan Harvey and Noreen Kershaw, and are you an honorary Scouser now?  You know she supports Bury, right?

      Yup – and I’ve watched bury a few times. Also we shot Hillsborough there. I’ve known them both for years and Jonathan and I only had one name written down for who we wanted to direct it. Noreen. Working with them both is a joy – their talent is endless.

      What is it about the Lake District and Liverpool dramas?? From Willy Russell to Jimmy McGovern, things always happen out of town, so you seem to be in good company!

      Hadn’t thought of that. In the original it was Swanage! It’s firmly rooted in Liverpool and takes us to the lakes – but this could be anywhere and anytime. 

      You have a fabulous background in musicals, starring in productions like The Sound of Music and Cilla. Will we get to hear you sing in this show? What have you enjoyed about the part of Dave?

      He’s hard work to play but great fun. I’m on my own up there but JH surrounds us with images and characters. A lot happens in the hour.. no singing but seriously bad dance moves!

      The original 1997 play was scripted for a woman. What do you think it brings to the narrative in changing it to a gay man?

      Well it was so I could do it for one! The original was wonderful – I wish I’d  seen it but I was far too young! It’s changed massively – obviously – but the heart is still the same. Need. Oh the need. 

      Do you think the story reflects on the teaching profession differently after what they’ve been through during the Covid pandemic?

      I remember when I did cardiac arrest a doctor telling me ‘we are hard done by’ and it feels very much like that now. They are and have been scapegoated and put under enormous pressure. So not much has changed .. which makes this play topical and accessible. It’s taken off with a life of its own – teachers love it- I’m thrilled about that. 

      The Turbine seems a lovely new addition to London’s theatre scene.  Have you been to check it out yet and if so, what do you feel the venue and its audiences will be like for the show?

      I love it. It’s perfect do this and I’ve seen wonderful things there. The area is beginning to bounce and now with the Tube.. wow, what a buzz. I think and hope they will be eclectic fun and up for a laugh.. and maybe a tear.. aren’t we all!?

      Our thanks to Andrew for giving up his time to chat to us. Swan Song comes to Turbine Theatre between 29 November and 4 December. Further information and tickets via the below link.

      The show also performs pre-London dates at The Coro in Ulverston on 19 and 20 November.
      The post Interview: Andrew Lancel on his (not literal) Swan Song appeared first on Everything Theatre.
      ]] >https://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/10/interview-andrew-lancel-on-his-not-literal-swan-song.html/feed0Interview: Maia Kirkman-Richards tells us There’s a Rang-Tan in my Bedroomhttps://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/10/interview-maia-kirkman-richards-tells-us-theres-a-rang-tan-in-my-bedroom.html
      https://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/10/interview-maia-kirkman-richards-tells-us-theres-a-rang-tan-in-my-bedroom.html#respondFri, 15 Oct 2021 11:14:05 +0000https://everything-theatre.co.uk/?p=27774We chat to director and puppet maker Maia Kirkman-Richards
      The post Interview: Maia Kirkman-Richards tells us There’s a Rang-Tan in my Bedroom appeared first on Everything Theatre.
      ]] >There’s a Rang-Tan in my Bedroom at The Little Angel Theatre recently got a whopping five stars from us.  It’s a puppet show for children from ages 5-11 that challenges human environmental damage by showing how it affects some of the animals impacted by businesses such as dirty palm oil production, and by plastic waste in the ocean.  Heavy stuff for our little ones to handle, perhaps?  But they all seemed to have great fun in the process and came out buzzing! We asked director and puppet maker Maia Kirkman-Richards to tell us a bit more about the show.

      So Maia, this might seem quite a challenging topic for children, but you’ve approached it very directly, simplifying rather than dumbing down. What’s been the response?

      It’s been incredibly exciting for me to work on this project, especially as it’s a show that genuinely encourages conversation from its audiences – something that I’ve really missed over the last couple of years.

      The show itself is based on two really beautiful adverts that Greenpeace created a few years ago, so to try and shy away from any of the discussion that they held just felt wrong, regardless of the age of our audience.  Having said that, ultimately our aim has always been to leave audiences feeling empowered and excited about the prospect of change and all the new opportunities that may bring – and I really feel like that excitement and eagerness for change has been largely reflected in the response to the show from the audience and reviewers.

      It felt really important that we placed our audience at the heart of this story and allowed their voices to be heard.  A beautiful result of that is that we are constantly engaging and hearing responses about the show, it’s subject matter and what we can do to make a difference.  I love hearing about the things that our young audience members passionately shout out – at this moment in time it feels like it’s the most authentic and heart-warming response that a director could hope for.

      The Rang-Tan story is probably well known to many people from the Iceland Christmas ad a few years ago, and is also a picture book by James Sellick.  How do you think puppetry works differently to other media in telling this story?

      Puppets are brilliant for allowing an audience to really invest a part of themselves within the characters and the story.  As a puppet designer, you are never looking to create 100% of the puppet, it’s really important to allow that neutral space for the audience to see and add an element of themselves in, that way they become invested and so when something happens to the puppet, the audience feel it too.  That emotional connection that an audience develops with a puppet is incredibly useful and important to our storytelling and kept every audience member as one of the show’s key protagonists.

      However, it was quite daunting when approaching this project to figure out how to transfer such an iconic series of adverts into something that would work physically on stage. The main question we needed to answer was how do we recreate so many different locations without it feeling like a slightly wasteful amount of set and props that would only get used once.  That would be pretty hypocritical of us right?! It was a joy to problem solve this with the creative team though and ultimately I’m proud of our choices.

      The puppets in the play are absolutely beautiful, and so creatively used.  Can you tell us about how you devised them?

      This was actually a really tricky one, and I definitely spent a lot of days and nights exploring different options!

      As a production we wanted to push to create a show that was more environmentally aware in its creation and this was a real challenge for me. In the process of creating these puppets, I discovered some incredible recycling centres across South London and really enjoyed having to think outside the box and wherever possible, use what was available to me.

      As for the visuals of the puppets, I wanted to create characters that although inspired from the animals in the adverts, they felt like they had their own identity and language.  It has been such a privilege to have the time to learn more about these animal’s habitats and the serious threats that they are up against, and I wanted to pay homage to that.  Each of the animal puppets in the show are covered in a bespoke fabric, made up of images of either their habitats, or the objects that threaten them.  Our Jaguar is entirely covered in ariel photos of the Amazon Rainforest burning, our turtle is covered in photos of plastic floating in the ocean and piling up on beaches, and our orangutan is covered in photos of palm fruits.  My aim with these puppets is always to ensure that you see the puppet and the animal first – the visual stories behind their fabrics is something that you have to search for as an active audience – I think that’s really exciting.

      I loved how the audience and the animals become part of an actively shared world through the staging. Was this a conscious choice, or did it just evolve in the production process?

      Yes!  I have always been a big fan of creating work that feels genuinely accessible to lots of different types of audience.  For me, that means ensuring that people have different options of how to ‘watch’ a show – giving them plenty to look at as well as listen to, interact with and be a part of.  So it was definitely a conscious choice to involve the audience in as much as we could and place them right in the heart of the story, experiencing it alongside our puppet characters as it all unfolds. 

      Our Set Designer, Kate Bunce, created a really special set for this show and I loved all our early conversations about how to create something on a small scale that somehow still felt vast and all consuming.  Kate was so responsive to the show that we were creating (things were still changing in the final days of rehearsal!) but that meant that we could constantly push ourselves towards the most exciting visual options without limitations of what it had to look like.  Being truely responsive and adapting as you go is a real gift and not something that everyone can do, so I really lucked out with my creative team in that sense.

      There are so many details in the show that signal problem items in the home, and the urgency of the situation. It’s almost like a ‘Where’s Wally?’ once you start to spot them.  Did this help in constructing multiple layers of engagement for different age groups?

      Yes absolutely, I think that a lot of the time the layers built up quite naturally as myself and the team learnt more and more throughout the rehearsal process!

      As with a lot of work for children, you end up with such a wide age range of people in your audience (from babies to grandparents and everyone in between) so I was mindful to make sure that there was something for everyone.  So the ‘signals’ that you mentioned could be spotted not only in the puppets and props, but also in the set, the projection, the lighting colours, the speech and of the course the soundtrack. 

      Another thing I loved about the show was that the children were handed an opportunity to voice their opinions and get creative with solutions.  Have you had any follow-up responses from your audiences?

      I love that about the show too – it’s such a joy to hear the ideas that the audience passionately shout out in each performance.  I had an email come through just today to say that one young audience member had shouted out “Go in a boat and collect all the plastic bags from the sea!”.  It’s so important that our audiences feel like their voices are heard and that without them, change cannot actually happen. 

      I know that The Little Angel has had some lovely feedback emails from families after the show, chatting about how the show has impacted life beyond the theatre walls.  I read one that simply said ‘My son now says he’ll eat less snacks in plastic bags!’ – I think her son is a legend.

      What’s next for Rang-Tan and her friends?

      Good question!  We’re really hopeful that this is the start of the theatre industry opening back up and thriving again so that we can continue to share this production with new audiences around the country – starting with a National tour in autumn 2022. 

      There’s A Rang-Tan in my Bedroom and Other Stories runs at Little Angel Theatre until 7 November. Further information on this and other shows can be found via the below link.

      The post Interview: Maia Kirkman-Richards tells us There’s a Rang-Tan in my Bedroom appeared first on Everything Theatre.
      ]] >https://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/10/interview-maia-kirkman-richards-tells-us-theres-a-rang-tan-in-my-bedroom.html/feed0Interview: Who Cares? Matt Woodhead doeshttps://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/10/interview-who-cares-matt-woodhead-does.html
      https://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/10/interview-who-cares-matt-woodhead-does.html#respondSat, 09 Oct 2021 10:41:34 +0000https://everything-theatre.co.uk/?p=27720Matt Woodhead talks about his pay Who Cares?
      The post Interview: Who Cares? Matt Woodhead does appeared first on Everything Theatre.
      ]] >Matt Woodhead on Who Cares? The play and the campaign.

      Our latest podcast interview is with Matt Woodhead, co-Artistic Director of Lung Theatre. Matt wrote Who Cares, a play about young carers. The play led to the creation of the Who Cares Campaign which has gone on to help hundreds of children who act as a primary carer for other members of their family.

      You can read a previous interview we did with Matt here. You can also see our review of the play when it was perfromed at 2019’s Edinburgh Fringe here.

      The radio version of the play is still available via BBC Sounds here.

      You can follow us on Spotify or Itunes (plus many other other podcast providers) for future editions of our interview series. Further information can be found on our Podcast here

      Who Cares? National Tour

      ‘The Alarm Rings. I take a breath. Then it starts’

      Sitting at the back of the bus, skipping the lunch queue and skiving lessons. At school Nicole, Jade and Connor are just like everybody else. But when they get home, things are very different. 

      Nicole started caring for her mum when she was four. Every morning Nicole helps her get washed, put on clothes and eat breakfast. Jade has always cared for her brother, but she never expected to look after dad as well – now she juggles two lots of appointments, two lots of prescriptions, two lots of assessment forms. Connor cares for his mum. But he doesn’t like to talk about it. 

      ​Adapted from real-life testimonies, this bold and pertinent piece of documentary theatre examines our failing care system, the impact of austerity and what happens when a child becomes the parent.

      ​Made in partnership with The Lowry & Greater Manchester Charity, Gaddum and its Salford Carers Service. With funding by Arts Council England, Curious Minds and the Oglesby Charitable Trust.

      Full tour dates and booking can be found here
      The post Interview: Who Cares? Matt Woodhead does appeared first on Everything Theatre.
      ]] >https://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/10/interview-who-cares-matt-woodhead-does.html/feed0Interview: Phoebe Angeni tackles anxieties head onhttps://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/09/interview-phoebe-angeni-tackles-anxieties-head-on.html
      https://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/09/interview-phoebe-angeni-tackles-anxieties-head-on.html#respondWed, 29 Sep 2021 14:27:56 +0000https://everything-theatre.co.uk/?p=27710Turning mental health into a positive
      The post Interview: Phoebe Angeni tackles anxieties head on appeared first on Everything Theatre.
      ]] >Mental Health and Wellbeing Awareness Day Interview (part 2)

      This interview was originally recorded as part of Runn Radio’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Awareness Day. The day consisted of interviews and talks on mental health.

      Phoebe Angeni joins us all the way from San Francisco to talk about her own journey with mental health from a very young age and how she has turned these around into positives in her writing and latest show, Itacha.

      You can find out more about Phoebe here.

      You can follow us on Spotify or Itunes (plus many other other podcast providers) for future editions of our interview series. Further information can be found on our Podcast here

      The post Interview: Phoebe Angeni tackles anxieties head on appeared first on Everything Theatre.
      ]] >https://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/09/interview-phoebe-angeni-tackles-anxieties-head-on.html/feed0Interview: Jen Roehrig breathes life into Mental Healthhttps://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/09/interview-jen-roehrig-breathes-life-into-mental-health.html
      https://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/09/interview-jen-roehrig-breathes-life-into-mental-health.html#respondSat, 25 Sep 2021 14:32:29 +0000https://everything-theatre.co.uk/?p=27684Jen Roehrig on overcoming mental health
      The post Interview: Jen Roehrig breathes life into Mental Health appeared first on Everything Theatre.
      ]] >Mental Health and Wellbeing Awareness Day Interview (part 1)

      This interview was originally recorded as part of Runn Radio’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Awareness Day. The day consisted of interviews and talks on mental health.

      Jen Roehrig talks about her own experiences with mental health, which were as a result of a freak medical situation, but affected her life for years. Jen talks about how, with the right help, she overcame her conditions and ultimately returned to education in her 40s. We also hear about how she hopes to take her experiences onto the stage with her upcoming work.

      You can find out more about Jen and her production company here.

      You can also download this podcast by clicking on the forward arrow and selecting the download option.

      You can follow us on Spotify or Itunes (plus many other other podcast providers) for future editions of our interview series. Further information can be found on our Podcast here

      The post Interview: Jen Roehrig breathes life into Mental Health appeared first on Everything Theatre.
      ]] >https://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/09/interview-jen-roehrig-breathes-life-into-mental-health.html/feed0Interview: Biting into Dracula: The Untold Storyhttps://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/09/interview-biting-into-dracula-the-untold-story.html
      https://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/09/interview-biting-into-dracula-the-untold-story.html#respondSat, 18 Sep 2021 15:08:14 +0000https://everything-theatre.co.uk/?p=27613Bringing a graphic novel to the stage
      The post Interview: Biting into Dracula: The Untold Story appeared first on Everything Theatre.
      ]] >Andrew Quick of Imitating The Dog on bringing a grapic novel to the stage

      Episode 4 in our podcast interview series sees us moving outside of London for the first time, to chat to Andrew Quick, Artistic Director of Imitating The Dog. The company whose stated aims are:

      we are most interested in telling stories. We create beautiful, memorable images for audiences, and the work fuses live performance with digital technology, in order to serve the story in the best possible way. The work is always fresh and often surprising. We take risks.

      The podcast features the full version of the interview. An edited version was originally broadcast on our Runn Radio show on 15 September 2021.

      You can follow us on Spotify or Itunes (plus many other other podcast providers) for future editions of our interview series. Further information can be found on our Podcast here

      Dracula: The Untold Story tours to the following venues. Further dates are possible though, so do check Imitating The Dog’s website for updates.

      Leeds Playhouse

      25 Sept – 9 Oct at 7.45pm

      (Mat: 30 Sept & 7 Oct at 2pm and 2 & 9 Oct at 2.30pm)

      Box office: 0113 213 7700   www.leedsplayhouse.org.uk

      Tickets on sale: NOW

      Liverpool Playhouse

      12-16 Oct at 7.30pm

      (Mat: 14 at 1.30pm & 16 at 2pm)

      www.everymanplayhouse.com

      Tickets on sale: NOW

      Derby Theatre

      19-23 Oct at 7.30pm

      (Evenings at 7.30pm & Wed 20th & Sat 23rd at 2.30pm)

      www.derbytheatre.co.uk

      Box Office: 01332 593939

      Tickets on sale: 6 Aug

      Dukes Lancaster

      29 & 30 Oct at 7.30pm

      (Mat: 30 at 2.30pm)

      Box office: 01524 598500 (From 21 May)    www.dukeslancaster.org

      Tickets on sale: NOW

      Watford Palace Theatre

      2-6 Nov at 7.30pm

      (Mat: 4 & 6 at 2.30pm)

      www.watfordpalacetheatre.co.uk

      Tickets on sale: NOW

      Mercury Theatre, Colchester

      9 & 10 Nov at 7.30pm

      (Mat: 10 at 2.30pm)

      Box office: 01206 573948   www.mercurytheatre.co.uk

      Tickets on sale: NOW
      The post Interview: Biting into Dracula: The Untold Story appeared first on Everything Theatre.
      ]] >https://everything-theatre.co.uk/2021/09/interview-biting-into-dracula-the-untold-story.html/feed0 More

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      ‘I Think We’re Cousins?’: ‘Ain’t Too Proud’ Performers Realize Link

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      A post in a family Facebook group led an actor and a musician in the Broadway musical to discover that they are distant cousins.Before the curtain comes down each night on “Ain’t Too Proud,” the Broadway jukebox musical that follows the rise of the R&B group the Temptations, the cast turns around in unison and lowers down to one knee as the lights go up to illuminate the show’s 17-piece band.After playing more than two hours of Motown classics, the guitarists, the drummers and the string section wave as the audience applauds.During the curtain call on Feb. 28, 2020, the day Matt Manuel made his Broadway debut in the flashy role of David Ruffin, he bowed alone, then with his fellow Temptations, all wearing gleaming white jackets and ties. When he turned and knelt down to give the musicians the spotlight, he thought to himself vaguely that the violist had cool hair.Two days later, he received a message from that violist, Andrew Griffin, who had been in the band since the show opened in 2019.“So…I think we’re cousins…?” Griffin wrote to Manuel in an Instagram message.Manuel responded with the requisite number of exclamation points for such a discovery: “Omg yes we are cousins!!!!!!!!”In fact, they’re second cousins once removed, according to the family tree recently drawn by Griffin’s mother. (She’s enthusiastic about genealogy.) Manuel’s great-grandmother is Griffin’s grandfather’s older sister, with 14 years separating the two siblings.Manuel made his Broadway debut as David Ruffin in the show just weeks before the shutdown.Julieta CervantesThe realization was a delight and a comfort to Manuel, 29, who, in January 2020, arrived in New York from Detroit after he had been cast as Ruffin, replacing Ephraim Sykes. It was a daunting move across the country: He left quickly with only two suitcases — the rest of his stuff remained in his parents’ garage — and it was his first time living independently, away from his family.He had always heard that Griffin’s side of the family eagerly supported their relatives however they could.“Wherever you’re at, they will take you up in a heartbeat,” said Manuel, whose professional acting debut was playing Marvin Gaye on tour in “Motown: The Musical.” “If you’ve got family, you’ve got everything that you need.”Griffin, 35, who grew up in Pittsburgh and moved to New York about six years ago to advance his music career, was shocked to learn that a new leading member in “Ain’t Too Proud” was a blood relative.“I knew nothing of him — absolutely nothing,” Griffin said. “I saw him onstage whenever they turn around and the musicians wave. That’s about it.”If it wasn’t for a video of the curtain call on Feb. 28, they might never have realized it. Manuel and his family had missed an earlier reunion, and the one scheduled for 2020 was canceled because of the pandemic.In February 2020, Manuel’s mother, Amiesha Williams, traveled to New York City to see his debut, and the day after, she posted a YouTube video of the curtain call on a family Facebook page used to plan reunions.“You know how proud moms are,” Manuel said, “they just brag.”The post garnered clapping emojis, encouraging remarks and then a comment from Griffin’s mother, Linda, pointing out that her son was in the center of the video playing the viola. She didn’t realize who Matt Manuel was and why Williams had posted the video of him in the first place.“How do you know him?” Linda Griffin wrote in the comments section.Williams replied the next day: “I’m sorry I fell asleep so I’m just seeing this. Matthew is my son.”As comments flew back and forth about the specifics of their genealogy, Manuel was onstage crooning into the microphone as Ruffin, the original lead voice of “My Girl.” Griffin was not far away, playing his viola beneath the stage. When Manuel returned to his dressing room, he saw a text from his mother: He had a cousin in the band and he should go meet him.“I’m like, ‘What does he look like?’” Manuel said. “And she’s just like, ‘His name is Drew and he plays the viola.’”Outside the stage door, Manuel signed autographs for a throng of giddy Broadway fans, glancing back every so often to look for the viola player. When Griffin walked out, the two introduced themselves tentatively. “I think we’re cousins,” Griffin said. Two fans holding a poster stared at them blankly, Manuel recalled.The pair did the natural thing to do when you discover a family member: schedule a lunch date. They made plans for the following week, but soon, the airborne virus that had been spreading across the world had producers worrying. Then, on March 12, less than two weeks after Manuel’s debut, the industry shut down.“Maybe we should postpone,” Griffin remembered saying.During the lockdown, Griffin fled to North Carolina to hunker down with his girlfriend and her family; Manuel went back to Detroit, thinking the pause in the production would be a good opportunity to drive back the rest of his stuff in a U-Haul.The shutdown stretched on and on, keeping performers like Griffin and Manuel out of a regular job and perpetually wondering when they would get a return date. Griffin spent time composing, something he didn’t always have time to do with a full performance schedule. Manuel grieved the loss of a relative, spent time with family and tried to reconnect with the part of himself that wasn’t a performer, always eager to entertain those around him.The cousins fell out of touch, their discovery outside of the stage door seeming like another era, where fans mingled freely with actors after exiting a tightly packed theater.But last month, the show took back its place at the Imperial Theater. The initial days were all work: Manuel, who lives in Harlem, tried to get his body accustomed to doing back flips, splits and microphone tricks for seven shows a week. Griffin, who lives in Williamsburg, had four days to sit back in front of his music stand with the rest of the band and get songs like “You’re My Everything” and “Get Ready” back into their muscle memory.“Going down the street for the first day of work, I started to well up a little bit,” Griffin said. “It was like nothing had really changed — there were still jokes and stuff written on our stands.”They hadn’t gotten a moment to spend time together until late last month, when a member of the show’s production staff had a birthday party and they were both invited.“Now let’s pick up where we left of,” Manuel said. “Actually go eat a meal and talk and, you know, gossip.” More

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      Review: ‘Gnit’ Seeks Itself in a Mist of Magic and Mischief

      by

      Will Eno’s inward-looking incarnation of “Peer Gynt” steps out of Ibsen’s shadow just as Ibsen shrugged off elements of the original fairy tale.We know the formula of the fairy tale: There is often a youth, sometimes a journey and always a touch of the fantastical to convey a moral or theme. Since we know the classic tropes from our childhood bedtime stories — don’t deviate from the path, be wary of witches, fear trolls — to contemporize a fairy tale is to shade these narrative standbys, coloring in the context of the time, updating the tone and plot to challenge our expectations.In 1867 Henrik Ibsen did just that, putting his own experimental, modernist spin on the Norwegian story of Peer Gynt to create a timeless narrative of self-discovery — in the form of a five-act play in verse, no less. In Ibsen’s “Peer Gynt,” the title character is a lazy, selfish liar who is a headache to his poor, sick mother. When he goes to a wedding to steal away the bride — an old flame — only to fall instantly in love with another woman at the wedding, the town turns against him for his troublemaking. So he flees, and his meanderings lead him to odd characters and even odder situations — encounters with magical beings, thieves and asylum patients.The playwright Will Eno puts his own stamp on Ibsen’s version in “Gnit,” which opened at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn on Sunday night. Portraying the protagonist as a listless young man on a search for self, Eno ends up with a funny story that is myopic in scope — a self-aware and sometimes cloyingly precocious thought experiment in individualism and identity.In “Gnit,” which originally premiered in the Actors Theater of Louisville in 2013, Eno translates Peer Gynt to Peter Gnit (that’s pronounced “Guh-nit”; you’re welcome) and consolidates many of the other characters so that a cast of six can represent a whole town. That’s one of the tricky parts of Ibsen’s text — the long list of characters, the insistent verse, the constant setting shifts, the frequent and abrupt dips into the absurd and surreal.Eno’s text takes a route of calculated whimsy: Ibsen’s trolls are changed to real estate agents, characters make knowing references to the original story and the dialogue is tuned to a cheeky deadpan. Playing off Eno’s heightened sense of language and pacing, Oliver Butler opts for comically stylized direction in this production by the Theater for a New Audience. The actors’ movement and intonation are stiff and curiously robotic, and the lines move with the rapid Ping-Pong tempo of the dialogue in an episode of “Gilmore Girls.”Joe Curnutte and Deborah Hedwall in the Theater for a New Audience production.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“I’m on a journey to discover, to uncover, the authentic self,” Peter tells his mother.Her stone-dry response: “Yeah? Get some milk while you’re out.” Which isn’t to say it’s not funny — in fact, the work is genuinely hilarious, the turns are unpredictable and the performers, especially the priceless Deborah Hedwall as Mother Gynt, Jordan Bellow as several different characters, and of course Joe Curnutte in the lead role, seem to effortlessly hit their cues. (David Shih, who plays various townspeople at once, and spends most of the show in conversation with himself like a mini one-man show within the show, struggles to convey the multitude of tones and personalities and accents, and the novelty of the joke quickly wears off.)But Eno’s self-consciously idiosyncratic, academic style eventually gets old somewhere between the nuptial kidnapping and a trip to Egypt. Offbeat, Beckett-esque ruminations and existential querying are common in Eno’s works — including the poignant “Wakey, Wakey” and his popular Pulitzer Prize finalist, “Thom Pain (based on nothing).” So his adaptation brings out the big-picture questions Ibsen had in his original, about the ways we form, and own up to, our “authentic self.” Eno’s narrow and incessant philosophizing, however, quickly limits the play from exploring other themes that may have otherwise proved more fruitful.Ibsen’s incarnation of the fairy tale, for example, also works as a social satire of a community set at odds with its individuals and that emphasizes status over human empathy. Though the skeleton of that satire is visible in Eno’s version, “Gnit” does little to examine or expand it from Ibsen’s time to the present. Likewise, there could be a dissection of gender, a critique of class hierarchies, a sendup of this genre of storytelling itself.There’s magic in Kimie Nishikawa’s set of verdant rolling hills with a valley in the center, and periodically the facades of little cottages descend from the ceiling. Nishikawa’s hills, which the cast members travel among, through and around as they enter and exit scenes, draw the eyes to the pastoral scene and also provide a sense of Peter’s extensive journeying.This isn’t Norway, though. And it doesn’t seem to be the 19th century either. In fact, everything about the setting and characters is vague, which leads us yet again to the question of what Eno is trying to achieve with his adaptation?“There is a limit to the magic powers of language,” Peter says as he tells a story to his dying mother. The lesson, that cleverness can fail when wordplay and chin-stroking ruminations distract, is one that Eno himself could have taken to heart. “Gnit” is brainy and full of rhetorical magic, but with more dimension and greater relevance it could be spellbinding.GnitThrough Nov. 21 at the Theater for a New Audience, Brooklyn; tfana.org. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes. More

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      Alice Childress Finally Gets to Make ‘Trouble’ on Broadway

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      Wiletta Mayer walks into the theater already knowing how things will go. Smartly dressed, attractive and middle-aged (don’t ask for a number, because “a woman that’ll tell her age will tell anything”), she is a veteran actress who’s played maids and mammies and knows how to cater to white directors and producers. You can call it “Uncle Tomming.” Or you can call it plain common sense. Either way, it’s a living.Until enough is enough.Alice Childress created Wiletta Mayer, the protagonist of her 1955 play, “Trouble in Mind,” to paint a realistic portrait of what it was to be Black in the theater industry. Or to be more accurate: She wanted to portray what it is to be Black in theater, because 66 years later, as the play opens on Broadway in a Roundabout Theater Company production, the words Childress wrote remain just as relevant.And yet this author and play, a comedy-drama about an interracial cast rehearsing an anti-lynching play written by a white author and led by a white director, haven’t gotten their proper due in the decades since its premiere. Childress was supposed to be the first Black female playwright on Broadway, with a play critiquing the racism and misogyny of the theater industry.Thanks to interfering white theatermakers and a Broadway unwelcoming to challenging Black art, things didn’t turn out as planned. But the content of the play, and its troubled production history, prove how rightly “Trouble in Mind” and its author should be celebrated as part of the canon.From left: Chuck Cooper, LaChanze, Danielle Campbell and Michael Zegen in “Trouble in Mind,” which will have its long-awaited Broadway opening night this month.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIn the play, Wiletta arrives for her part in “Chaos in Belleville” alongside a young Black actor named John; an older Black actor named Sheldon; a younger Black actress named Millie; and two white actors, Judy, a well-meaning yet naïve Yale graduate, and Bill, a neurotic character actor. The play within the play is about a Black man who dares to vote and is killed for it.During rehearsals Wiletta tries to give the newcomer John tips on how to survive as a Black actor in the business, but her own advice fails when the white director, Al Manners, pushes her to perpetuate stereotypes.It’s a familiar scenario, one Childress encountered herself as a young actress in the 1944 Broadway production of “Anna Lucasta.” She based Wiletta on the character actress Georgia Burke, who appeared with her in that production. Like Wiletta, Burke had also done her fair share of mammy roles, and she would later appear in the original Broadway “Porgy and Bess.”Burke had problems with the director of “Anna Lucasta,” but Childress knew her to complain only to her fellow Black actors; when it came to white directors and producers she kept quiet for the sake of her career.In “Trouble in Mind,” Childress wrote a version of Burke who finally had to speak up.“Darling, don’t think. You’re great until you start thinking,” Al Manners says to Wiletta during rehearsals. That kind of condescending treatment may have been par for the course for Black theater performers. Childress, however, was uncompromising.“She was a woman of amazing integrity,” said Kathy Perkins, Childress’s friend and the editor of a major anthology of her plays. (She is also the lighting designer for Roundabout’s production.) “She hated the saying ‘ahead of your time.’ Her thing was that people aren’t ahead of their time; they’re just choked during their time, they’re not allowed to do what they should be doing.”Childress, at left, with actors rehearsing the premiere of “Trouble in Mind” in 1955.Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing ArtsIt’s this integrity — or, more accurately, the times choking a great writer of integrity — that cost Childress Broadway. In an ironic echo of the play’s plot, Childress found herself at odds with the would-be director when “Trouble in Mind” was slated for its Off Broadway premiere. Unwilling to budge, she took over as co-director, along with the actress Clarice Taylor, who starred as Wiletta.The play premiered on Nov. 5, 1955, at the Greenwich Mews Theater, and ran for 91 performances.But that version isn’t the version we know today.The white producers were concerned about the play’s ending, which they thought was too negative. According to Perkins, as a relatively new playwright Childress was intimidated by these experienced producers.And then there was the rest of the cast and crew to think about. Childress was a fierce advocate for unions and workers’ rights, and feared that pulling the play would cost everyone their jobs. So she conceded, providing an ending of reconciliation and racial harmony, even though she maintained that it was unrealistic.The New York Times praised the play as “a fresh, lively and cutting satire” — except for the ending. Childress always regretted the change, and said she’d never compromise her artistic integrity again. So when “Trouble in Mind” was optioned for Broadway with the happy ending and a new title (“So Early Monday Morning”), Childress refused. She would have been the first Black female playwright to see her work there; instead, that honor would go to Lorraine Hansberry four years later, for “A Raisin in the Sun.”Childress, who died in 1994, never had the financial success nor popular recognition that her work merited in her lifetime. It’s unfortunate because her plays are works of merit. Many of her works, like “Florence” (1949), “Wedding Band: A Love/Hate Story in Black and White” (1966) and “Wine in the Wilderness” (1969), are confrontational without being pandering or preachy. Not simply about race, they are also about gender and class and artistry, and challenge their audiences to look at their own prejudices and misconceptions. (Theater for a New Audience is reviving “Wedding Band,” a tale of interracial love set amid the 1918 flu pandemic, Off Broadway this spring.)And they’re clever. The meta structure of “Trouble in Mind” makes Childress’s satire especially poignant; it’s both explicitly biting and subtly searing.Childress, at right, with James Broderick and Ruby Dee, the stars of the 1972 production of her play “Wedding Band.” Theater for a New Audience will present a revival in 2022.Jack Mitchell/Getty ImagesOne reason Childress is often left out of conversations about the American canon is her style. In an essay in “The Cambridge Companion to African-American Theater,” the historian and dramaturge Adrienne Macki Braconi calls Childress a “transitional” writer, unheralded because her work reflects “the conventions of dramatic realism.”“Critics often overlook their subtle variations on the form, including such innovations as bold thematic content; assertive, complex female characters; and a focus on lower-class and middle-class blacks,” Macki Braconi wrote of Childress and the writer Eulalie Spence.Sandra Shannon, a scholar of Black theater and emeritus professor of African-American literature at Howard University, maintained that Childress’s blend of naturalistic dialogue and social commentary put her “at the top of her game” among playwrights in the late ’40s and early ’50s. Her plays, Shannon said, “raise awareness, stop short of just getting out and marching in the streets.”And La Vinia Delois Jennings, the author of the 1995 book “Alice Childress” and a distinguished professor in the humanities at the University of Tennessee, pointed out the “dynamism” of Childress’s works, which so often feature Black women taking agency. The stereotypical trope of the angry Black woman gets turned on its head, Jennings said, proving that anger can be “liberating — a force that brings about change.”But for all of Childress’s dynamism, it still took over 60 years to get her work to a Broadway stage.A 1950 portrait of Alice Childress, painted by Alice Neel, was included in a recent Metropolitan Museum of Art show.The Estate of Alice Neel and David Zwirner; The Collection of Art BerlinerCharles Randolph-Wright, who will be directing the Broadway production, said he’s been eyeing this play for the big stage for more than a decade.On June 20, 2011, a nonprofit called Project1Voice hosted an event in which 19 theaters across the country did readings of “Trouble in Mind.” Randolph-Wright directed a Roundabout reading at the American Airlines Theater, which included André De Shields, Leslie Uggams, Bill Irwin and LaChanze, who will be starring as Wiletta in the full production at the same Broadway venue.“I’ll never forget everyone coming up to me saying, ‘Did you rewrite this?’ and I was like, ‘No, she wrote this in 1955.’ And they said, ‘But you tweaked it —’ I said, ‘No, I didn’t touch one thing,” Randolph-Wright explained.After all, theater insiders and outsiders are still loudly calling for improved representation more than a half-century later.“There’s been a false sense of progress. That progress has been in fits and starts,” Shannon said. “The same issues that Childress deals with, or dealt with in the 1950s with ‘Trouble in Mind,’ have always been bubbling beneath the surface. They’ve never gone away.”In one scene in the play, Manners says, “I want truth. What is truth? Truth is simply whatever you can bring yourself to believe, that is all. You must have integrity about your work.”Though the statement comes from a flawed character, the sentiment is Childress all the way. Perkins said that at the end of the day, Childress wouldn’t say she was writing for white audiences or Black audiences; she only wrote for herself, and she concerned herself first and foremost with the truth, whatever form that would take.Randolph-Wright said he thinks of John Lewis when he approaches the play. “It is ‘good trouble,’ ” he said, referring to the call to action made famous by the activist and congressman. “It agitates, it illuminates, it makes you laugh, it’s entertaining.”But he hopes this production will only be the beginning — that audiences will learn more about Childress’s work, and that she and other Black writers will get greater recognition for their contributions to the art form. Because this moment — after Black Lives Matter and “We See You, White American Theater,” and when seven new Broadway plays this fall are by Black writers — is perfect for Childress, but also for Spence and Ed Bullins and Angelina Weld Grimké and other Black playwrights past and present.So will change really come this time around? The version of “Trouble in Mind” that’s finally arriving on Broadway ends inconclusively, not optimistically. The ending Childress’s producers rejected back in 1955 seems right for right now. More

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      ‘Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord’ Review: Our Sewing Superhero

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      The first post-shutdown live performance at New York Theater Workshop is almost a debriefing after the crisis we have endured.Before the lights go down at New York Theater Workshop, Kristina Wong gets up from her Hello Kitty sewing machine, where she’s been making a face mask, to deliver some trigger warnings about the solo performance she’s about to give.Her tone is tongue in cheek — she is, after all, a comedian — but her heads-up to the audience is for real, because she’s wading straight into one of the great divides in live theater right now: between people hungry for drama that examines the last 20 months and people desperate for psychic escape from all that.“This show takes place in the pandemic,” Wong says. “I know. I know! Now you get to find out if watching live theater about the pandemic, during a pandemic, is your thing. And because it’s set in the pandemic, there are mentions of death, illness, poverty, mental health stressors, racism, trauma.” A pause, and then she adds one more possible trigger: “The last U.S. president.”Truth be told, I have not been clamoring for theater about dire recent events. And I confess that, en route to Wong’s show, I was feeling particularly ground down by all the barefaced people I’d seen, once again, on the subway.Yet “Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord” turns out to be a spiky comic tonic for just such gloom. Directed by Chay Yew, it’s the first post-shutdown live performance at New York Theater Workshop, and it’s ideally suited as such: almost a debriefing after the crisis we have endured, even though we haven’t reached its end.Wong’s outfit includes a bandoleer with bright spools of thread, which she slings across her chest, and, strapped to her back, a giant pair of scissors.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesDon’t be fooled by the bluster in the show’s title. The tale that Wong tells isn’t truly self-aggrandizing. It’s about the Auntie Sewing Squad, a far-flung group of volunteers she assembled from her home in Los Angeles in March 2020 to make face masks, which were desperately needed then and perilously hard to come by. Selflessness and human connection are dominant themes of this narrative.“Sweatshop Overlord” is also about mothers and daughters and heritage — sewing skills passed down from one generation of Asian American women to the next — and how at a time of horrific anti-Asian bigotry and violence in this country, some of those women harnessed perennially undervalued skills for an urgent common good. Amid corrosive cultural discord, as President Trump and others loudly blamed Asians for the coronavirus, they acted with a kind of ferocious grace.Wong, whose Zoom version of the show was part of New York Theater Workshop’s online programming last May, didn’t mean the Auntie Sewing Squad to last more than a few weeks.“There is a rumor that the U.S. post office will be delivering five masks to every address in America,” she tells the audience, one month into the project, “and that will make us obsolete very soon.”Remember that rumor? “Sweatshop Overlord” is full of little memory jolts like that. Those deliveries never happened, of course, and Wong’s group grew to include hundreds of people — including her own mother — who sewed more than 350,000 face masks for vulnerable communities before disbanding in August 2021.“Is America a banana republic disguised as a democracy?” Wong asks more than once, aghast at what she sees as the government’s failure to protect its citizens from the pandemic threat.Alternating dark humor and wry social commentary with anger, sorrow and fear, she tells the story of the Aunties inside the chronology we all lived through. These were ordinary Americans — many Asian, mostly female — enlisting in a fight for the health and well-being of their country. Sort of like a patriotic war movie in which the hostilities involve a lethal virus and belligerent resistance to mask wearing, and where people under fire volley back with the copious fruits of traditional “women’s work.”To immerse herself in this battle, Wong dons a wonderfully playful action-hero costume by the Tony Award winner Linda Cho. The bandoleer that Wong slings across her chest holds bright spools of thread, not bullets; a jumbo pair of scissors is strapped to her back.Junghyun Georgia Lee’s set has an upstage wall made of surgical masks, which becomes an ideal screen for Caite Hevner’s many projections.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAs vital as her humor is to the tone of the performance, the production design is just as important. The set, by Junghyun Georgia Lee, has an upstage wall made of about 1,400 surgical masks — an ideal screen for Caite Hevner’s many projections — but the real eye-catcher is the candy-colored sewing room laid out before it.The objects there are built on an Alice in Wonderland scale: tomato-shaped pincushions as big as chairs, a gargantuan seam ripper in royal blue, bobbins a giant could use. It feels heightened and hallucinatory, like the first year of the pandemic, but also safe, like a child’s playroom. Amith Chandrashaker’s saturated lighting aids the shift between those moods.“Sweatshop Overlord” sags a bit in its last third, and one moment meant to be solemn is puzzling instead. But Wong is good company and an accomplished storyteller, and she and Yew have made a show that is both heartening and cathartic. Tripping our collective memories of a strange, scary, isolated time, it asks us to recall them together. Which helps, actually.Back out on the street afterward, we’re lighter — and, thanks to the Aunties, imbued with hope.Kristina Wong, Sweatshop OverlordThrough Nov. 21 at New York Theater Workshop, Manhattan; nytw.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More