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      Chita Rivera Found Her Emotional Voice for Shows Like ‘West Side Story’

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      Her dancing sometimes overshadowed her thrillingly dramatic way with a song: husky yet clarion, unaffected but full of comment and character.Yes, the legs. Yes, the line. Yes, the look.But also, less commented on, the voice.Chita Rivera, who died on Tuesday at 91, was a Broadway star as long as anyone — and maybe longer. At first, making her way up in the 1950s, from the chorus of “Guys and Dolls” to Anita in “West Side Story,” dancing was her calling card. In the ’60s and ’70s, comedy and satire followed, with “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Chicago.” Later, in works like “The Rink” (1984), “Kiss of the Spider Woman” (1993) and “The Visit” (2015), her sense of drama prevailed.Yet for me, it’s her voice that remains indelible.It almost didn’t emerge. Back when she started, dancers stayed in their own lane. (There were often separate ensembles for dancers and singers.) Like many people exceptionally intent on mastery, Rivera was single-minded. At her audition for the School of American Ballet at 15, she kept tossing off fouetté turns despite a burst blister that was bleeding through her toe shoe. George Balanchine himself dressed the wound. (She was accepted.)Mastery is not what she felt about her singing. As she relates in “Chita: A Memoir,” written with Patrick Pacheco, she always “hung back” when cast members went out after shows to drink and flirt and belt out show tunes. But while she was on tour with “Call Me Madam” in the early 1950s, a piano player at a theatrical hangout in Chicago overheard her and offered lessons. “Chita, you can sing,” he said.“I could sing? Really? That was news to me.”There are singers who make sure it’s news — they’re great. And then there are those who just sing naturally, with little break from their speaking voices. Rivera, perhaps because she at first felt less confident in song than in movement, never got fussy about the border between dialogue and lyrics. She plowed right past it, sounding exactly alike in both: slightly reedy, husky yet clarion, unaffected but full of comment and character.You can hear all of that in her Anita, whose furious lyrics for “A Boy Like That” (by Stephen Sondheim) are essentially prose dialogue anyway. (“A boy like that, who’d kill your brother!”) And indeed, anger was always a good key for Rivera. Even in a comic role — even in a comic song — she worked the edge of the notes and emotions.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      ‘Days of Wine and Roses’ Review: Romance on the Rocks

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      Kelli O’Hara and Brian d’Arcy James are superb as a midcentury-modern couple free-falling into addiction in Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel’s musical.Seldom have a pair of alcoholics looked as glamorous as they do in Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel’s bruised romance of a Broadway musical, “Days of Wine and Roses,” starring Kelli O’Hara and Brian d’Arcy James as midcentury-modern Manhattan lovers free-falling all the way to hell, drinks in hand.What’s astonishing about this show, though — aside from the central performances, which are superb, and Guettel’s anxious, spiky, sumptuous score, which grabs hold of us and doesn’t let go — is the way its devastating chic snuggles right up to catastrophic self-destruction.For all the glossy come-hither of Michael Greif’s tone-perfect production, which opened on Sunday night at Studio 54, not for an instant does it glamorize the boozing itself. And yet we can sense the allure: how alcohol might become the one true thing that matters, smoldering wreckage be damned.Adapted from JP Miller’s recovery-evangelizing 1958 teleplay and 1962 film of the same name, this “Days of Wine and Roses” is like a jazz opera melded seamlessly with a play. Deeper, wiser and warmer than it was in its premiere at Off Broadway’s Atlantic Theater Company last year, it is no longer so wary of melodrama that it’s afraid of feeling, too. Gone is the emotional aridity that kept the story at a strange remove.Granted, the opening scene is still perplexing, too sparely written and staged to situate the audience properly, or let us grasp the skin-crawling 1950s creepiness of what James’s Joe Clay is up to on a yacht in the East River. A public relations guy, Joe has arranged a corporate party onboard, and procured female guests for the pleasure of the male executives.So there is a certain rancidness to his mistaking O’Hara’s Kirsten Arnesen — the impeccable secretary to the boss at the firm where they both work — for one of the women in his Rolodex. Not exactly a meet-cute, even if she does set him straight, puncturing his condescension with a tight, nice-girl smile pasted to her face.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      ‘Patriots,’ About Putin’s Falling Out With an Oligarch, Is Broadway Bound

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      The play, by Peter Morgan of “The Crown,” will star Michael Stuhlbarg and is scheduled to open in April.“Patriots,” a well-received British play about a Russian oligarch’s ill-fated role in the rise of Vladimir V. Putin, will transfer to Broadway in April, adding a dose of international intrigue to a packed spring season.The drama, which the critic Matt Wolf called “gripping” and “coolly unnerving” in a 2022 review of a London production for The New York Times, was written by Peter Morgan, the creator and primary writer of “The Crown,” the Emmy-winning six-season Netflix show. Morgan has written two other plays that made it to Broadway, “The Audience,” about Queen Elizabeth II, and “Frost/Nixon,” about the journalist David Frost’s famous interviews of former President Richard M. Nixon.The Broadway production of “Patriots” will star Michael Stuhlbarg, who last appeared on Broadway in 2005, when he received a Tony nomination for starring in Martin McDonagh’s “The Pillowman.” Stuhlbarg has numerous stage credits, but most recently has worked in film (“A Serious Man”) and television (“Boardwalk Empire”). Stuhlbarg will play Boris A. Berezovsky, a Russian business tycoon who helped Putin rise to power but then fell out with him and later died in exile. The role was played in London by Tom Hollander.Stuhlbarg will star alongside Will Keen, who will play Putin, now the president of Russia; Keen also played that role in London, and for that performance won last year’s Olivier Award for best supporting actor in a play. Luke Thallon will also reprise the role he played in London, as another Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovich.The production is scheduled to begin previews April 1 and to open April 22 at the Barrymore Theater.The play is directed by Rupert Goold, a British director who has twice been nominated for Tony Awards, for “Ink” and “King Charles III,” and who will also be directing “The Hunt” at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn early this year. “Patriots” was staged in 2022 at the nonprofit Almeida Theater in London, where Goold is the artistic director, and last year it had a profitable commercial run in London’s West End.The lead producer of the Broadway production will be Sonia Friedman, who is a major force in both the West End and on Broadway.The play will open in the final days of a Broadway season that is proving to be quite challenging for producers and investors because production costs are higher and ticket sales are lower than they were before the coronavirus pandemic. The economics have been especially hard for musicals. On Sunday evening, the producers of “How to Dance in Ohio,” a musical about a group of young autistic adults, announced that show would close on Feb. 11, after 99 performances. And last week, the producers of “Harmony,” a musical about a German singing group that ran afoul of the Nazis, announced that show would close on Feb. 4. More

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      How ‘Days of Wine and Roses’ Became Their Passion Project

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      Kelli O’Hara and Brain d’Arcy James didn’t let the door close on their new Broadway musical about a couple undone by addiction.As origin stories go, the transformation of “Days of Wine and Roses” from a movie into a musical is a straight shot, with a twist. Kelli O’Hara and Adam Guettel had the inkling more than 20 years ago, when she was a Broadway ingénue, working on what became her breakthrough Tony-nominated role in “Light in the Piazza.” Guettel had written the music and lyrics for that musical, which went on to earn him a Tony Award for best score. They talked through their coordinating vision for evolving “Wine and Roses,” the midcentury classic of a romance ruined by addiction. “I think I used the words ‘a weird dark opera,’” O’Hara recalled.She already had a co-star in mind: Brian d’Arcy James, debonair and wry, like Jack Lemmon was in the 1962 movie, opposite the O’Hara look-alike Lee Remick. The film memorably traced the stuttery arc of alcoholism and recovery, a trajectory now familiar — onscreen and off — but rarely put to song.Guettel was not only game to try, he eventually brought in the playwright Craig Lucas, the Tony-nominated book writer for “Light in the Piazza.” Both had, separately, been facing their own addictions, in ways that informed, and sometimes overlapped with, the show’s development.The twist, then, is that, two decades on, the musical about a whiskey-soaked couple has actually arrived on Broadway — it opens on Sunday — starring O’Hara and James, now in the prime of their careers, with gorgeously matched vocals. The production takes pains to show the love that propels their characters’ relationship — however misguided it turns out to be.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      ‘Heartstopper’ Star Joe Locke Has a Soft Spot for ‘The Goonies’

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      “It’s the peak coming-of-age adventure film,” said the actor, who is set to make his Broadway debut in “Sweeney Todd.”Joe Locke was so moved when he saw “Next to Normal” at the Donmar Warehouse in London last fall that he called his agent with a request.“I was like, ‘I want to do a musical so bad,’” said Locke, 20, who for two seasons has played the sensitive teenager Charlie Spring in Netflix’s L.G.B.T.Q. coming-of-age drama “Heartstopper.”Soon after, his agent said he’d gotten an email from the casting team of Broadway’s “Sweeney Todd,” and the show was looking for a new Tobias Ragg, an urchin taken in by the scheming pie-maker, Mrs. Lovett.“The easiest way to play him is that he’s a bit simple — he’s not a full egg, as the Irish would say,” Locke said in a phone conversation in early January from his Manhattan apartment, before one of his first rehearsals. “But I think he’s a very street-smart character who’s survived in a world where people like him shouldn’t survive.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Broadway Shows to See This Winter and Spring

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      Broadway Shows to See This Winter and SpringA guide to the shows onstage now and scheduled to arrive this winter and spring, including “Cabaret,” “Hell’s Kitchen” and “The Outsiders.”What to See | Getting Tickets Illustrations by Golden CosmosWhat to SeeAnd suddenly, Broadway is packed again. After an autumn that wasn’t exactly overwhelmed with openings, spring is looking absolutely jammed, with 19 productions currently set to open between now and the deadline for Tony Awards eligibility in late April. But right now we’re in a quieter part of the season, which for audiences means deals are afoot — including the two-for-one offers that are part of Broadway Week, underway through Feb. 4.Last ChanceLeslie Odom Jr. and Kara Young, center, with the rest of the “Purlie Victorious” cast at the Music Box Theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesGutenberg! The Musical!Silliness runs amok in this musical comedy duet starring Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells (Tony nominees for “The Book of Mormon”) as Bud and Doug, a pair of theater-loving goofballs with big Broadway dreams for their show about Johannes Gutenberg, the 15th-century inventor of the printing press — so they’re giving a performance, playing all the roles themselves, to persuade an audience of producers. Written by Scott Brown and Anthony King (“Beetlejuice”), the show is directed by Alex Timbers, a Tony winner for “Moulin Rouge!,” who staged an endearingly zany Off Broadway production of “Gutenberg!” in 2006. (Through Jan. 28 at the James Earl Jones Theater.) Read the review.HarmonyBarry Manilow and Bruce Sussman retell the true story of the Comedian Harmonists — a Weimar-era vocal sextet of Jewish and gentile Berliners — in this long-gestating musical. With a cast that includes Chip Zien, Sierra Boggess and Julie Benko, the show is directed and choreographed by the Tony winner Warren Carlyle. Notably, this is not a jukebox show; the music, written and arranged by Manilow, is original. (Through Feb. 4 at the Ethel Barrymore Theater.) Read the review.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      ‘Gutenberg!’: A Guide to the Inventor Behind the Broadway Musical

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      “Gutenberg! The Musical!,” a comic meta-musical about two talentless dolts pitching a show about the father of the printing press, wraps up its limited Broadway run on Jan. 28.Written by Scott Brown and Anthony King and starring Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells (reprising their “Book of Mormon” buddy act), the show has drawn mixed reviews and strong box-office returns. But even before it opened, its mere existence on Broadway sent book and library nerds vibrating with anticipation and a bit of disbelief.There have also been grumblings from some traditionalists (of the rare book, not the Rodgers and Hammerstein, variety), along with some resignation. Well, why not a musical about Johannes Gutenberg? If Broadway can turn a semi-overlooked founding father like Alexander Hamilton into a household name and cultural hero, why should the guy whose invention helped jump-start mass literacy throw away his shot?Rannells with Josh Gad, left, in the musical, which reunited the pair onstage for the first time since they starred in “The Book of Mormon” over a decade ago. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesHamilton had some big fat biographies on his side. But as Gad’s character in the show notes, Wikipedia (correctly) declares records of Gutenberg’s life “scant.”Here is a primer for those who, even after seeing the show, might be left wondering: “Guten-Who?”What do we actually know about Johannes Gutenberg?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      ‘Stereophonic,’ a New Play About Making Music, to Open on Broadway

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      Written by David Adjmi and featuring songs by Will Butler, the drama follows five musicians making an album in the 1970s.“Stereophonic,” an acclaimed behind-the-music play about a disputatious band recording a studio album, will transfer to Broadway this spring following a buzzy and sold-out Off Broadway run.The play, written by David Adjmi, is set mostly inside a Sausalito, Calif., recording studio, and follows five musicians and two sound engineers through a year in the 1970s. The story — featuring romance, infighting, drug use and a solo-star-in-the-making — resembles that of Fleetwood Mac, but Adjmi says he had many inspirations for the play.The 14-week Broadway production is expected to begin previews April 3 and to open April 19 at the Golden Theater.The Off Broadway run, over 10 weeks last fall at the nonprofit Playwrights Horizons, garnered strong reviews. Writing in The New York Times, the critic Jesse Green called it “relentlessly compelling.”The show also won significant praise for its original songs, which were written by Will Butler, a former member of Arcade Fire.Adam Greenfield, the artistic director of Playwrights Horizons, described the play as being about “a group of brilliant artists who are at odds with each other, trying to figure out how to collaborate without killing one another, even when killing one another might be the easier way out.” Also, he said, “it’s set in a world that is incredibly sexy — the West Coast rock scene of the ’70s,” and “it has a killer title.”Adjmi has been working on the play for a decade; he said the idea first came to him while he was listening to a Led Zeppelin song on a plane and wondering what it would have been like to be in the studio when they were recording it.“I saw it in my mind’s eye, and I thought, this could be a great idea for a play,” he said. “I didn’t know anything about the recording process, but I would talk to experts and try stuff out.”The process, which included inviting engineers to comment on the script as it evolved, resulted in a high level of verisimilitude, down to the details of a much-praised set by David Zinn.The production is directed by Daniel Aukin; the entire Off Broadway cast, including Will Brill, Juliana Canfield, Tom Pecinka, Sarah Pidgeon and Chris Stack as the musicians, as well as Andrew R. Butler and Eli Gelb as the engineers, is expected to transfer to Broadway.The show will be capitalized for up to $4.8 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It is being produced by Sue Wagner, John Johnson, Seaview, Sonia Friedman Productions, Linden Productions, and Ashley Melone & Nick Mills. More