Theater

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares169 Views

      in Theater

      Ankara Print Dresses? These Aren’t Shakespeare’s ‘Merry Wives.’

      by

      Shakespeare in the Park is back, and Dede Ayite’s West African-influenced costume designs are just as lively as Jocelyn Bioh’s adaptation.When Saheem Ali, the director of this summer’s Shakespeare in the Park production of “Merry Wives,” thought about which costume designer he wanted to create the clothes for the show, he knew immediately that it should be Dede Ayite. The two have been friends for years, and have worked together on “Twelfth Night” for the Public Mobile Unit, “Fires in the Mirror” at Signature Theater Company and the upcoming “Nollywood Dreams” at the MCC Theater.“Dede fit the bill for this particular project to a T,” he said. Not only because of her artistry, he added, “but because of her identity.” He knew the Ghanaian-born costume designer “would bring an authenticity and a truth to the world that I couldn’t imagine any other designer bringing up for this particular world.”In the playwright Jocelyn Bioh’s modern take on Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” the setting is Harlem instead of Berkshire, England; its characters West African, not English. Falstaff is a lifelong Harlemite; the Pages are Ghanaian; and the Fords are Nigerian. The costumes play as vital a role in reimagining and breathing new life into this work as the acting, the writing, the sets and more. In his review, The New York Times’s chief theater critic, Jesse Green, said Ayite’s costumes helped the production look “especially grand.”Ayite, a two-time Tony Award nominee for her work on “Slave Play” and “A Soldier’s Play,” knew that she wanted the costumes to reflect and highlight both the similarities and the differences between the cultures. She and her team sourced fabrics from Kumasi, Ghana, as well as from fabric haunts in Yonkers and the Bronx. She said she hoped that the costumes would add to the production’s celebration of Harlem and other immigrant communities and what contributions, cultural and otherwise, immigrants bring to the places they settle in.Dede Ayite gathered a variety of Ankara prints for her designs in the show.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe patterns and symbols reflect the play’s characters and their personalities.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesSara Krulwich/The New York TimesSara Krulwich/The New York Times“I’m hopeful that as people get to experience the show and see these Black beautiful bodies and shapes and people onstage, that they truly see them and embrace them and recognize that they exist and they matter,” Ayite said.She recently spoke about her process, the art of marrying traditional and modern West African styles with modern Western designs and creating costumes that flatter and feel natural on actors with different body shapes.The Pages and the FordsSusan Kelechi Watson as Madam Ford, left, in a lace blouse and wrap skirt that is usually worn by Nigerian women. Pascale Armand, center, and Kyle Scatliffe as the Pages. Armand is wearing a two piece jumpsuit.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe characters Ekua and Kwame Page are from Ghana, and for some of the couple’s clothes, Ayite got woven kente cloth from that country. Madam Page is a traditional woman who still has her finger on the pulse, Ayite said. For one of Madam Page’s dresses, Ayite leaned into a traditional silhouette reminiscent of the 1950s, but it also has modern-day cutouts and design details.“It feels like an Ankara print, but in some ways feels like an elevated or modern version of an Ankara print,” Ayite said, adding that she chose three Adinkra symbols with specific meanings to add a sense of playfulness to the garment. Those symbols — representing strength and humility; unity; and wisdom and creativity — speak more broadly to Madam Page’s personality and character, which viewers become familiar with throughout the play.With each costume, Ayite said, she wanted to create layers that symbolize where a character was from and who they are as an individual.Naturally, the Pages dress quite differently from the Fords, who are from Nigeria.Ayite dove into her own knowledge of the countries and into a well of research about different styles of dress not only within the two countries, broadly, but also within different tribes. The Nigerian couple, for example, are Igbo.For every character, Ayite played around with various silhouettes and shapes. Madam Ford’s dress at the top of the show is a modern take on the traditional aso ebi, a type of uniform dress worn as a show of solidarity for celebrations in Nigeria.Traditionally, Ayite said, “it’s a bit longer, but we shortened it a little bit, so we see a bit more leg.”Falstaff the HarlemiteJacob Ming-Trent as Falstaff, a Harlemite whose interactions with his West African neighbors are reflected in his clothes. The print for the Ghana Must Go bag inspired this pair of shorts.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesTo bring to life Bioh’s version of Falstaff, the loud, often clownish and inappropriate beer-bellied player of Harlem, Ayite wanted to create a conversation, through costume, of his Harlem roots and his interactions with his West African neighbors.In one scene, when Falstaff goes to speak with Madam Ford, he puts on a colorfully printed Stacy Adams shirt that looks as if it has paint speckled across it. Ayite pointed out that the shirt “is very American,” but there are elements of Africanness in his costumes that fit with his African neighbors. Falstaff has a pair of shorts with the print of the common Ghana Must Go bag. The print on the bag — a colorful red-and-white or blue-and-white plaid — has been around for decades.“It brings me joy just to highlight that as a people, we come from somewhere and the culture is deep, it’s rich, and as much as we might lose certain things, there are essences of it that never leave us,” she said.Doctor CaiusDavid Ryan Smith as Doctor Caius dressed in an agbada or Senegalese boubou. Shola Adewusi plays Mama Quickly, who runs a clinic with the doctor.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesDavid Ryan Smith plays the Senegalese Doctor Caius, whose personality is bold, as are his costumes. He’s educated, has a bit of flair, and he has money. Each of his costumes takes up space and demands attention thanks to the silhouettes and striking colors.“He wants to be seen,” Ayite said. “He’s a presence that we feel like we need to acknowledge. You can’t miss him.”Secondary CharactersAbena, right, as Anne Page, who is courted by three suitors, including MaYaa Boateng’s Fenton, left. Dede Ayite gave the younger characters a more fashion forward look.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAyite has traveled to several African countries and when she arrived in the United States 20 years ago, she settled in Harlem. These experiences are perhaps why the show’s costumes feel authentic to all the cultures they represent.The research and her experience come alive with each character, but especially stand out among the younger, perhaps more fashion forward characters, like Anne Page.She is a first-generation American, who wears clothes that could be seen on West 116th Street and in a viral TikTok post. Ayite explored how being a first-generation young woman could factor into how she would dress. One scene, for example, has Anne in a classic, long white button-down. But atop it is a printed corset that feels both old and new, African and American.“I changed the paneling a little bit and the silhouette of that corset, so it feels like it’s pushing against culture a little bit,” she said, “so it feels African, but also feels like — in terms of fashion — she has our finger on the pulse because she has access to YouTube, to Instagram, to TikTok.” More

    • 113 Shares169 Views

      in Theater

      Theater Director With Exaggerated Résumé Quits, Citing Mental Illness

      by

      Christopher Massimine found success as a theater executive in New York and Utah, but resigned after facing questions about errors on his résumé, saying he had mental illness.Christopher Massimine, whose job as the managing director of the Pioneer Theater Company in Salt Lake City was thrown into doubt after a local television affiliate found that he had embellished his résumé with untrue claims, announced Monday that he would resign his post and said that he had long struggled with mental illness.Massimine announced his resignation shortly after The New York Times published an article about his career, and the discrepancies and errors on the résumé that had helped him win the position at the Pioneer, the largest professional theater company in Salt Lake City. “Despite many good things that have happened over the last two years under my direction, effective Aug. 20, 2021, I will resign my position at Pioneer Theater Company in order to address issues in my personal and professional life, stemming from untreated and at times an incorrectly treated mental health condition,” he said in a statement. Massimine, who said that he had battled with mental illness for his entire life, and that most of his friends and colleagues had not known of his condition, had come to the Pioneer Theater from the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene in New York. Massimine was something of an unusual choice to lead the Folksbiene, a small nonprofit with a niche audience. In 2012, when he became an executive with the century-old theater that produces shows for a largely older audience, he was a 26-year-old Italian American Catholic with limited experience as a theatrical administrator and even less with Yiddish.But when he left seven years later, the Folksbiene’s “Fiddler on the Roof,” directed by Joel Grey, was moving from its own theater, within the Museum of Jewish Heritage, to Stage 42, one of Off Broadway’s largest venues. The show had already enjoyed a sold-out run at the museum, and the theater’s revenue had more than doubled in a year to nearly $5 million.“He was smart, dedicated, motivated, professional and always a pleasure to deal with,” said Ron Lasko, a publicist who worked with Massimine at the Folksbiene.To the surprise of many, though, Massimine did not stick around to celebrate the successful transfer of “Fiddler” to a new theater. He instead left the Folksbiene in early 2019 and soon accepted a job as the managing director of the Pioneer Theater Company.“Chris has a proven track record of success,” Dan Reed, a vice president with the University of Utah, which oversees the professional theater on its campus, said at the time of Massimine’s appointment.But two years into his tenure there, Massimine was accused of embellishing his life story with wildly inaccurate depictions of his theatrical pursuits and side gigs.“Fiddler on the Roof” in Yiddish was so popular at its home theater, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, that it later transferred to an Off Broadway theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWorking from public records and tips, Salt Lake City’s Fox affiliate KSTU-TV reported earlier this year that Massimine did not have a master’s degree from New York University, as asserted on his résumé. The station said his claims to have helped develop popular video games and some major advertising campaigns did not check out.And, though he said he had received a national arts advocacy award — and released a picture of himself wearing the medal — the bestowing organization does not appear to exist.Adam Herbets, a reporter for the television station, said his sources included people who had seen Massimine’s résumé and found it “unbelievable.”“And, you know,” he continued, “unbelievable sometimes has a positive connotation and sometimes has a negative connotation. In this case it’s literally not believable.”Massimine, whose representatives had denied some of the accusations that he had misrepresented his accomplishments, acknowledged Monday night that there had been “errors” in his résumé. “Local and national news outlets have reported this year that I misrepresented my work history on my résumé, in press releases and interviews, both prior to accepting the P.T.C. position and during my tenure here,” he said in the statement. “There is a fair amount of truth within the reporting, withstanding discrepancies. Regardless, I take responsibility for errors in my résumé but stand by my work product throughout my career.”As it turns out, Massimine’s embellishments extended beyond what the TV station had reported, to include claims that he was born in Italy and was once a full-time employee of the Dramatists Guild.Before the resignation, Chris Nelson, the Utah university’s director of communications, had acknowledged that some “misinformation” had been found on Massimine’s résumé and that his position was put “under review.”Massimine was credited with raising the profile of the Folksbiene, and its revenue doubled in his last year as its chief executive. Richard Drew/Associated PressIn prior remarks, his wife, Maggie Massimine, had said that her husband was on family medical leave and not available for interviews. A spokesman for Massimine, Michael Deaver, had said that some of the discrepancies might have been attributable to misunderstandings on matters such as his client’s work on ad campaigns, where he had been employed by a subcontractor.Maggie Massimine had denied that her husband had exaggerated or misled people, but she did not directly discuss his mental state and said she could not address some of the discrepancies. “Our side of the story has not been told,” she said in an interview several weeks ago. “I really wish I could say more.”At N.Y.U., Massimine earned a bachelor’s degree in dramatic literature in 2007, a university spokesman said, after three years of study. Maggie Massimine said her husband thought he had earned both a master’s and a bachelor’s degree, until KSTU reported he had not. “He was as surprised as everyone else,” she said.A photograph appears to show Massimine at the White House during a 2020 trip to Washington to pick up an award. But the organization said to have taken the photo and bestowed the award does not appear to exist.Massimine’s profile on LinkedIn, the professional networking site, reports that during his college years he also served for more than 18 months as “publications manager and creative affairs coordinator” for the Dramatists Guild, the national trade association for playwrights, composers and others.However, Tari Stratton, director of education for the guild, said it seems Massimine spent only four months there as an unpaid intern. “We do not have any records indicating Mr. Massimine held any paid positions with the guild or had any title other than intern,” she wrote in an email.Massimine did serve in a number of roles with theatrical organizations before joining the staff of the Flea, a small, scrappy New York theater, in 2011. The following year he was hired by the Folksbiene and was promoted to chief executive in 2016.At the Yiddish theater, framed letters from Hal Prince, the legendary Broadway producer and director, hung in Massimine’s office. He counted Manny Azenberg, a producer and eight-time Tony Award winner, among his mentors, and appeared poised to continue advancing through the ranks of Manhattan’s theater ecosystem.Bruce Cohen, a retired publicist who worked with the Folksbiene to promote its Drama Desk-nominated operetta “The Golden Bride,” said Massimine was “a very sweet man” capable of deftly navigating tempestuous artist egos.Beck Lee, who served as a publicist for the Folksbiene during much of Massimine’s tenure, described him as an ambitious hard worker.“He did a great deal to raise the profile of the company,” Lee said, “and was sometimes prone to exaggeration, which I have learned is typically a tool of impresarios and showmen. If anything I thought he was a 21st-century version of a David Merrick, happily pushing his shows to the public and the press with bluster.”Certainly there were issues with a 2018 profile of Massimine that ran in The Daily Beast under the headline, “Meet Christopher Massimine, the ‘Nice Goy’ Running the National Yiddish Theatre.”The piece, based on an interview with Massimine, reported he had come to the United States as an infant from Italy and had appeared on Broadway as a child in shows like “Beauty and the Beast” and “Les Misérables.” But he was born in New Jersey and there are no records of him performing in either show, according to the Broadway League’s database, which is widely viewed as authoritative.Maggie Massimine said her husband had not been born in Italy and had requested a correction from The Daily Beast, a contention that the website recently took issue with.“Our editorial staff has no record of any request from Mr. Massimine for a correction to his profile,” a Daily Beast spokesman said.Despite his success in leading the Folksbiene, the circumstances under which Massimine left the theater are not clear, and its executive director declined to comment. Beck Lee, the former publicist for the theater, said that he was told by theater officials that Massimine was asked to leave after having invested theater funds in an unrelated production without authorization.“He was given the opportunity to admit his behavior, and leave without further incident,” Lee said.A second person with knowledge of the dispute agreed that Massimine had left after an issue over an investment.But Maggie Massimine denied there had been any problem like that, and noted that her husband had been invited back to attend the opening of “Fiddler” at Stage 42 in February 2019.The Pioneer Theater at the University of Utah.Robert ClaytonIn Utah, Massimine was hired at a salary of $152,000 to run a theater with nearly a $5 million operating budget. The school had paid a search firm, Management Consultants for the Arts, nearly $36,000 to recommend candidates.“That résumé was so extraordinary that it probably intoxicated people,” said Brant Pope, chair of the drama department at the University of Texas at Austin and past president of the University Resident Theater Association. “It probably blurred their vision.”Maggie Massimine said her husband had heard of the Utah job through his relationship with Azenberg, the producer who has been an influential backer of the Yiddish theater. Azenberg’s daughter, Karen, a former Broadway stage manager, has served as the artistic director of the Pioneer Theater since 2012.“The search committee was looking for a managing director who would help this theater grow and would support my desire to develop new musicals,” Karen Azenberg wrote in an email.In Utah, Massimine continued to promote his own accomplishments. Two years ago, using information he provided, his new theater put out a news release stating he had been named “Humanitarian of the Year” by the National Performing Arts Action Association and would be honored at a reception in Washington.Jenny Thomas, a spokesman for the Association of Performing Arts Professionals, a Washington-based advocacy group, said that neither she nor several other colleagues who work for similar nonprofits have heard of the National Performing Arts Action Association.No organization by that name has a website or is mentioned by news outlets aside from those that picked up the news release from the theater.But Massimine traveled to Washington in January 2020, purportedly to pick up the award, and later billed the university nearly $800 for his expenses. An image of him on the trip, supposedly taken at the White House and wearing a medal, was credited to the fictitious National Performing Arts Action Association and appeared two months later on a website with an article about Massimine’s relationship with his mother.The writer of the piece said the photograph, caption and credit information were provided by Massimine.Joseph Berger contributed reporting. More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Theater

      Review: Revisiting Four Nobodies in ‘[title of show]’

      by

      For an outdoor residency at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the Bridge Production Group breathes fresh life into a 2004 musical.The charm of the early internet era — before the web became an all-consuming necessity and was a seemingly innocent tool for promoting your work — survives in a new revival of “[title of show],” Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell’s autobiographical one-act musical from 2004.And charm is what this Bridge Production Group show, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, has in spades. Documenting its own creation, from inception through the self-hyping vlogs that would eventually lead to its 2008 Broadway run, “[title of show]” is an appropriately low-stakes affair that knows exactly where it stands as a short-and-sweet entertainment. Bolstered by committed performances from its cast of four and an Olympian of a music director, this production of the meta-musical transcends its bare-bones staging by focusing on the simple joys of a shared theatrical space.If playing a character based on a real person presents a unique challenge, playing a character based on the person who originally wrote and performed the role — as Bowen and Bell did — is an unenviable task. As Jeff, Max Hunter (who also directs) more than acquits himself as the goal-oriented book writer, imbuing the character’s snappy dialogue and constant grammar corrections with a simmering self-doubt.He finds an ideal match in the skilled Josh Daniel, who plays the composer-lyricist Hunter Bell, and their alluring chemistry renews itself in every scene. A malfunctioning mic pack at the performance I attended forced Daniel to use a hand microphone, which only helped him further play up his zestful showboating.The two men decide to enter the New York Musical Theater Festival with only three weeks to complete an original work, and enlist their friends Heidi (based on, and originally played by, Heidi Blickenstaff) and Susan (Susan Blackwell, ditto) to round out their small cast. Those very particular real-life women are perhaps the show’s toughest roles, but Keri René Fuller as Heidi and Jennifer Apple as Susan ground themselves in the characters’ earnest love for their friends and their creative process.Apple, having to play an un-actorly personality, is somewhat too mannered for the part, at first forcing Blackwell’s deadpan humor into the ensemble’s peppier cadence. It doesn’t help that she is given the bulk of the book’s most dated jokes (remember “random” humor?). Regardless, she delivers the encouraging “Die Vampire, Die!” song, about banishing creative doubts, with the same tenderness that Fuller lends to her 11-o’clock number, “A Way Back to Then.”Performed outdoors, on the steps of one of the industrial complex’s street-side courtyards, this production relies on Victoria Bain’s lighting design to do most of the technical heavy lifting. As director, Hunter does not employ much of the space’s plain, yet potentially rich, surroundings. This is most felt in the show’s later scenes, when a sudden need for more dynamic choreography kicks in.Still, seeing these artists (and the actors playing them) delve deep into their own creative misgivings, at a time when the theater industry itself is at a crossroads, is a rejuvenating balm. And witnessing the music director, Jason Weisinger (“Larry,” in the meta-narrative), play the keyboard with one hand, while scrambling to fix a variety of technical issues with the other, was a lesson in assertive scrappiness.Outdoors, barely-staged and, on the night I saw it, plagued by acts of god, this production of “[title of show]” became a paean to the uneasy but hopeful footing upon which we all find ourselves. Not to mention that at least two droning ambulance sirens provided the cast a meal of ad-libbed material. I’d be hard-pressed to find a more honest theatrical experience right now.[title of show]Through Aug. 21 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard; bridgeproductiongroup.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

    • 88 Shares169 Views

      in Theater

      ‘Walden’ Review: Getting Away From It All

      by

      Amy Berryman’s three-character drama, set in a one-room cabin as crises rage outside, asks how much we owe to ourselves and our world.We don’t know exactly how many years into the future Amy Berryman sets “Walden,” her incisive three-character drama. But the climate emergency has already worsened, along with a refugee crisis. Synthetic foods are now widespread. Cloning, too. War rages somewhere. (Everywhere?)“The bombs on Christmas? We could see them through one of our telescopes on the moon,” Cassie (Jeena Yi), a NASA astronaut, says by way of casual conversation.Cassie, recently returned from a lunar mission, has arrived at a secluded cabin in an undisclosed location to visit her twin sister, Stella (Diana Oh), and Stella’s partner, Bryan (Gabriel Brown). Stella had also trained as an astronaut, but she failed NASA’s physical fitness test. Bryan is an avowed Earth Advocate. He holds that the government should put money toward problems on Earth rather than investing elsewhere in the solar system. So the visit, though lubricated by bartered wine and home brew, isn’t an entirely cozy one.TheaterWorks Hartford and the director Mei Ann Teo have given the play, which runs through Aug. 29, an environmental staging, locating it in a functional one-room cabin, ringed with chicken coops and a vegetable garden, in a meadow alongside the Connecticut River. (The set, rough-hewed and ingenious, is by You-Shin Chen; Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew provides the inspired lighting.) If you can’t travel to Connecticut, TheaterWorks has made the play available for streaming, also through Aug. 29.That’s how I saw it. And if it felt wrong to watch a drama so concerned with environmentalism from a laptop, on my sofa, with a window unit whirring quietly in the background, tensions like this interest Berryman. She doesn’t situate herself as smarter than her characters, and distributes her sympathies equally among them. Still, go to Connecticut if you can, especially if you can get there by emissions-friendly means. Because that meadow looks beautiful. And birdsong and crepuscular rays are best experienced in person. Then again, there are no mosquitoes in digital theater. The filming is deft enough, and the performances — layered, unshowy — land even through the screen.“Walden” borrows its name from Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden; or, Life in the Woods,” a memoir, harangue, self-help manual and work of autofiction rolled into one clothbound volume. “Walden,” which extols solitude and self-reliance, was a favorite text of Cassie and Stella’s father, also an astronaut. And Walden is the name that Stella gives to the habitat she has designed for Mars. “I sort of think it reads like a whiny hipster’s blog from 19whatever,” Cassie says dismissively of the book. She isn’t exactly wrong.Thoreau went into the woods, he wrote, “because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” While Berryman loads her play with vivid details and plenty of plot mechanics, it’s Thoreau’s question of how to live and what constitutes a good life that animates her. Should we live for ourselves or for others? Engaged with the present or focused on the future? What do we have to sacrifice to live in community and what do we have to forfeit if we live without it?It’s probably that last question, which became a lot less rhetorical during the pandemic, that lends the play its poignancy. The humans of “Walden,” thrust together for this visit, are responding to various disasters — natural, unnatural, interpersonal — and trying their best to treat one another decently.The play never fully resolves its philosophical dilemmas, except to suggest that no philosophy will fit everyone comfortably. Even Thoreau, who preached self-reliance while famously bringing his laundry home to his mother, might have agreed. “Heaven,” he wrote, “is under our feet as well as over our heads.” So why not have both?WaldenThrough Aug. 29 at 100 Meadow Road, Windsor, Conn. and online; twhartford.org/events/walden. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Theater

      Beanie Feldstein to Star in ‘Funny Girl’ on Broadway

      by

      With the “Booksmart” actress taking on the role originated by Barbra Streisand in 1964, the show is getting its first Broadway revival in 58 years.Beanie Feldstein will star as Fanny Brice, the role that helped make Barbra Streisand a star, in a production of “Funny Girl,” which is returning to Broadway for the first time in 58 years.The revival of the 1964 musical will be directed by Michael Mayer, who oversaw a 2015 revival of the show in London. Producers said performances would begin in the spring, but did not specify a date — though a recent Equity casting call gave April 2 as the first performance. The theater where the musical will be housed will be announced later.“The first time I played Fanny Brice was at my third birthday party, in a head-to-toe leopard print outfit my mom made for me,” Feldstein said in a statement. “So, it’s safe to say that stepping into this iconic role, on Broadway and not in my family’s backyard, is truly my lifelong dream come true.“I am immensely grateful to be able to do so alongside such a remarkable creative team,” she added, “and cannot wait for audiences to get back in theaters again!”Feldstein made her Broadway debut in 2017 as Minnie Fay in “Hello, Dolly!,” which starred Bette Midler, and had memorable roles in the films “Booksmart” and “Lady Bird.” She’ll play Monica Lewinsky next month in the new FX series “Impeachment: American Crime Story.”“Funny Girl” charts the rise of the self-deprecating comedian and actress Fanny Brice, and her relationship with the professional gambler Nick Arnstein. The original production was nominated for eight Tony Awards, including best musical.Streisand won a best actress Oscar for the 1968 film and her performance has cast a long shadow over the title role — a multidimensional character who must sing, generate laughs and succeed against the odds all at once.An attempt to revive the show in 2012, with Bartlett Sher directing the television actress Lauren Ambrose in the lead role, fell apart. So for many theatergoers, the long-awaited return of “Funny Girl” makes it one the most highly anticipated revivals in years.Jule Styne and Bob Merrill’s score includes such classic songs as “People” and “Don’t Rain on My Parade.” Isobel Lennart’s original book is being revised by Harvey Fierstein. And Mayer has a strong track record, though some of his biggest directing successes have been with rock-inflected material, including “Spring Awakening” in 2006 (for which he won a Tony) and the 2014 revival of“Hedwig and the Angry Inch.”The new production will also feature the choreography of Ellenore Scott and scenic design by David Zinn. Ayodele Casel, an artist in residence at Little Island, will oversee tap choreography for the show.Producers said that additional casting announcements would be released shortly. “Funny Girl” is the second previously unscheduled musical to announce its Broadway opening since the pandemic began. Preview performances for the new musical “Paradise Square” will begin on Feb. 22 at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Theater

      Museum of Broadway in Times Square Sets New Opening Date

      by

      The first institution dedicated to the history of the Great White Way and the artistry of its shows and theaters plans to welcome visitors next summer.After multiple delays, the first museum dedicated to telling the storied history of Broadway shows is now expected to open its doors next summer in the heart of the theater district.The Museum of Broadway, described as an interactive and immersive experience, was originally scheduled to debut in 2020. But its founders, Julie Boardman, a four-time Tony nominated producer, and Diane Nicoletti, founder of Rubik Marketing, said the project was delayed by the pandemic.“We really thought it would be this great idea that was a hybrid of both an experiential museum that’s very interactive and colorful and fun,” Nicoletti said in an interview, “as well as making sure that we were really getting the integrity of the history of Broadway, by including costumes and artifacts and historic elements as well.”The museum, at 145 West 45th Street, next door to the Lyceum Theater, will have three sections: The first, a map room, will lay out the migration of the city’s theaters from the financial district to Union Square, Herald Square and then, eventually, Times Square.The second area will be a timeline, stretching from Broadway’s birth in the mid-18th century to classic book musicals and follies to shows currently running onstage. Opening-night telegrams, lyric sketches and handwritten pieces of sheet music have been obtained with the help of the Billy Rose Theater Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.Along the timeline there will be installations created by visual artists and Broadway designers — think vibrant murals or interactive augmented reality experiences — that will explore some of the most important and influential shows. A room at the end of this section will highlight the shows playing on Broadway at that moment, and examine some of the 41 theaters that make up Broadway.A stage door will open into a backstage that deconstructs the making of a Broadway show. This last area is intended to honor the professionals — both onstage and off, actors and not — who ensure the shows go on.“It really paints the picture of how that all comes to be, and then honors all of the brilliant, talented creatives, and people who bring that to life,” said Boardman, one of the producer’s of a revival of “Company” this season.The Museum of Broadway was founded in collaboration with Playbill, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, the Al Hirschfeld Foundation, Concord Theatricals and Goodspeed Musicals. Tickets are expected to go on sale next year.“With Covid, and the industry being completely shut down, we’re really excited to be able to open our doors to everyone” next summer, Boardman said. More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Theater

      Review: Making S’mores Around the Campfire at the Apocalypse

      by

      In “The Grown-Ups,” a play by Skylar Fox and Simon Henriques, audience members sit around a real fire in a backyard in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.In the light of the campfire on a summer night, after the children have gone to bed, some of the grown-ups sit up and talk. Most of them have been coming here since they were small, and when they roast marshmallows for s’mores, the scent must take them right back — the charred-sugar sweetness that means, yep, someone’s marshmallow is suddenly aflame.They’re so comforting, aren’t they, these seasonal rituals from childhood? In “The Grown-Ups,” an apocalyptic play by Skylar Fox and Simon Henriques staged for a handful of audience members around a real fire in the backyard of a house in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the freshly minted adults are senior camp counselors at Indigo Woods, and they earnestly want to pass those traditions on.Well, except the traditions that are racist, like the Indigenous name their extremely white camp had until this year, or otherwise exclusionary, structured to favor the boys or the older kids. Trouble is, there are a lot of those traditions.“I guess it’s just a question of what you care about more,” says Cassie (Chloe Joy Ivanson), the self-possessed newcomer to this tight-knit group of counselors, and the only one who isn’t white. “Taking the best care of these kids that you can? Or doing things the way you’ve always done them.”Cassie (Chloe Joy Ivanson) is the self-possessed newcomer to this tight-knit group of counselors.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesDirected by Fox for the experimental company Nightdrive, “The Grown-Ups” is part satire, part scary story. If it buckles under the weight of too many targets, that overstuffedness is very 2021: so many crises to frighten us, so much damage to fend off and fix, so much anxious-making news to navigate.At night, when these 20-something counselors retrieve their phones from Aidan (Justin Phillips), the endearingly dutiful assistant camp director, they scroll for the latest developments in what sounds like a new American civil war — sparked, absurdly, by an image of a pineapple in which some people see the face of Dwayne Johnson, a.k.a. the Rock, and well-armed others furiously do not.The counselors wonder whether to tell the children, and if so, what to say; then, as the danger moves closer, how to protect and prepare them, preferably without shattering their illusion of safety.“The second we tell the kids,” Aidan says, “this isn’t camp anymore.”Under a dusting of stars in Greenpoint the other night, the air smelled of earth and foliage and somehow of fresh water, too, as if Indigo Woods’s lake really were just out of sight. The firelight was soft, the physical space just right. It was quirkily charming that, as we filed through the house, whose location you learn only after you book a ticket, the other seven audience members and I had to pass through a bathroom to reach the yard.Justin Phillips as Aidan, the dutiful assistant camp director, and Emily E. Garrison as Becca, a veteran counselor.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesIvanson and Phillips managed nicely with performances very different in style. Yet I never did feel truly immersed in the play, or sense the bone-deep familiarity that the three veteran counselors — Becca (Emily E. Garrison), Lukas (Henriques) and Maeve (Abby Melick) — would have from their years of shared summertimes.Doing theater this intimate, though, with actors and spectators in the same circle of chairs around a fire, is like doing close-up magic. It’s harder for the illusion to work, and relies on delicate calibration. It is also probably easier to pull off without a critic right in your face.The Grown-UpsThrough Oct. 3 at a secret location in north Brooklyn; nightdrive.org/thegrownups. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. More

    • 150 Shares149 Views

      in Theater

      New Work by Suzan-Lori Parks to Be Part of Public Theater Season

      by

      “The Visitor” and “cullud wattah,” two shows postponed by the pandemic, will get their premieres alongside works by James Ijames, Shaina Taub and Lloyd Suh.The Public Theater’s 2021-22 season will feature a mix of projects postponed because of the pandemic and new works, including “Plays for the Plague Year” by Suzan-Lori Parks.Behind the scenes, the Off Broadway nonprofit — responding to renewed calls for racial equity in the theater industry — said it will include over 50 percent representation by people of color in artistic leadership roles, from the directors and writers to the choreographers and the designers.“This last year and a half, in addition to Covid, has been about a call for racial justice and equity that we take profoundly seriously,” Oskar Eustis, the Public’s artistic director, said in an interview. “The Public obviously has always been, we felt, progressive on racial issues. And what became clear to us is we weren’t progressive enough.”The season begins with a musical that was about to have its world premiere in March 2020, before theaters were shuttered because of the pandemic: “The Visitor,” by Tom Kitt, Brian Yorkey and Kwame Kwei-Armah. Directed by Daniel Sullivan and based on the film about a college professor and two undocumented immigrants, it will feature David Hyde Pierce and Ari’el Stachel, both Tony Award winners. Performances will begin Oct. 7.The pandemic also led to the postponement of the debut of Erika Dickerson-Despenza’s play, “cullud wattah.” In the interim, she received the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, which honors work by women and nonbinary playwrights. The play is about the effects of the water crisis in Flint, Mich., on three generations of women. Candis C. Jones will direct the play, which begins performances in November.Another delayed work, Mona Mansour’s “The Vagrant Trilogy,” about Palestinians’ displacement, will be directed by Mark Wing-Davey and will now open in April 2022.And Shaina Taub’s anticipated musical about the American women’s suffrage movement will take the stage in March 2022. “Suffs,” described as an epic show about some of the unsung heroines of the movement, will be directed by Leigh Silverman and feature the choreography of Raja Feather Kelly.In addition to Parks’s “Plays for the Plague Year,” in which the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright wrote a play a day since the beginning of the pandemic, the season will also include “Out of Time,” a collection of monologues by five award-winning Asian American playwrights; “The Chinese Lady,” Lloyd Suh’s portrait of the first Chinese woman to step foot in America in 1834; and “Fat Ham,” James Ijames’s “hilarious yet profound new ‘Hamlet’-inspired play” set at a Southern barbecue, Jesse Green wrote in his review of a streaming production. (Some of these are co-productions with Barrington Stage Company, Ma-Yi Theater Company, NAATCO and National Black Theater.)The theater artist Daniel Alexander Jones’ digital album, “Altar No. 1 — Aten,” will unfold through a series of weekly installments beginning Sept. 22. And Joe’s Pub will be back, too: The performance space tucked inside the Public will have live music starting Oct. 5.The lineup of shows reflects the current moment well, Eustis said, for a few reasons. There’s the representation of artists of color and the partnerships with theater companies hit harder by the past year than the Public. And then there’s what he called Parks’s “astonishing” new work, “Plays for the Plague Year.”“They give a sort of map,” Eustis said, “and a day by day examination of what this year has been, like no other work of art I’ve seen. I think it’s an incredibly important and powerful work.”Parks began writing “Plays for the Plague Year” on March 12, 2020, and it covers at least a year. Among the snapshots she captured were those “almost like a small domestic adjustment drama,” Eustis said, in April, and the murder of George Floyd in May, as well as the racial reckoning that followed.The past year has sparked dialogue and rocked foundations, and the theater is no exception. Much of the conversation at the Public has been in the gap between “we need to be more thoughtful” and “the show must go on,” Eustis said.“Because the show must go on; it really must,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t figure out a way to be more thoughtful about how we work, and more mindful about and contemplative about the ways we treat each other while the show goes on.” More