Theatre

[Strider]

Mamet has been hit-and-miss lately, and after reading his new play's subject matter...old rich guy marrying a younger woman...it seems he is retreading tired ground. Even with Al Pacino, who was so good in "Glengarry Glen Ross" and "American Buffalo", I can't say I am eager to see this one. But there is hope...Pam MacKinnon is directing and she did a bang-up job with the revival of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?".

On a theatre-related note, there was a poll undertaken in the UK asking women who were the dishiest British dramatic actors. Here are the results:

UKTV's Survey of 2000 Women

Britain's Top 10 Dishiest Dramatic Actors

1 Benedict Cumberbatch 12%

2 David Tennant 11%

3 Sean Bean 8%

4 Idris Elba 8%

5 Damian Lewis 5%

6 Aidan Turner 4%

7 James Nesbitt 3%

8 Rupert Penry-Jones 3%

9 Laurence Fox 2%

10 James D'Arcy 2%

Not surprised Benedict Cumberbatch won, but I am kind of surprised Colin Firth did not place in the Top 10.

Benedict Cumberbatch seems to be everywhere these days...and now, just in time for Easter, he is covered in chocolate. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Choco-Batch!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/celebrity-news-video/11508456/Chocolate-Benedict-Cumberbatch-model-created.html

[ebk]

Time for another dust up of this thread

First up:

Pacino. Mamet. Broadway. Go.

David Mamet's ‘China Doll' adds Fran Kranz opposite Pacino

The Associated Press

9:52 PM, Apr 2, 2015

PICTURE BY ANDY KROPA

NEW YORK (AP) — The return of Al Pacino to Broadway this fall in “China Doll’ has attracted actor Fran Kranz and Tony Award-winning set and costume designers.

Producers Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel, and Steve Traxler said Thursday that Derek McLane will make the sets and Jess Goldstein will dress the actors.

Pacino will act opposite Kranz, who appeared in “You Can’t Take It With You” with James Earl Jones, and was also seen in the Tony-winning Mike Nichols revival of “Death of a Salesman.”

In the play, written by David Mamet, Pacino plays a wealthy man about to retire and marry a younger woman when his plans are shaken by a phone call. Pam MacKinnon will direct.

Previews begin Oct. 20, with an official opening on Nov. 19 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre.

http://www.gosanangelo.com/entertainment/arts-and-culture/david-mamets-china-doll-adds-fran-kranz-opposite-pacino_66237426

It occurs to me that I've never seen Al Pacino on stage. If this is still running in January (and we can get tickets), we may go see it. Something to look forward to!

[Patrycja]

^^ lol Strider, I don't really get the Batch-hype, good actor, but the rabid fandom is bizarre...

It occurs to me that I've never seen Al Pacino on stage. If this is still running in January (and we can get tickets), we may go see it. Something to look forward to!

If you get a chance to, I'd recommend it unreservedly. It's clear Pacino's lifeblood is in the theatre. I've seen him twice in NYC - once as Shylock in Merchant of Venice, and once as Jack Lemon's character in the movie (name escapes me) in Glengarry Glen Ross. The Shakespeare play was brilliant, and while the Mamet production was uneven (it could have used some more rehearsal time to get it to be the sum of its parts), the acting was nevertheless charged with an energy you don't see in films.

Strider's right that the story of this Mamet play sounds trite, but I thought the same thing about The Humbling, and it turned out to be a funny, poignant movie, so you never know.... Pacino seems to explore roles in phases -- gangster, cop, and now ageing musician/actor/whoever at the top of his game and looking around asking, "Now what?" etc., looking for redemption. He should just do King Lear already.

A note about Mamet - I don't revere him as many do, in large part because his portrayals of women, which have been described as ranging from wooden to misogynistic. He reminds me of J.M. Coetzee in that regard. In all of the novels I've read (with the exception of maybe Boyhood), you sort of get the sense that if the characters had a choice, particularly the women, they wouldn't stick around.

Nevertheless, a Mamet play would never deter me from seeing Pacino on stage. He's an incredible force live.

[Strider]

If you get a chance to, I'd recommend it unreservedly. It's clear Pacino's lifeblood is in the theatre. I've seen him twice in NYC - once as Shylock in Merchant of Venice, and once as Jack Lemon's character in the movie (name escapes me) in Glengarry Glen Ross. The Shakespeare play was brilliant, and while the Mamet production was uneven (it could have used some more rehearsal time to get it to be the sum of its parts), the acting was nevertheless charged with an energy you don't see in films.

A note about Mamet - I don't revere him as many do, in large part because his portrayals of women, which have been described as ranging from wooden to misogynistic. He reminds me of J.M. Coetzee in that regard. In all of the novels I've read (with the exception of maybe Boyhood), you sort of get the sense that if the characters had a choice, particularly the women, they wouldn't stick around.

Nevertheless, a Mamet play would never deter me from seeing Pacino on stage. He's an incredible force live.

A brief timeline of Al Pacino's involvement with "Glengarry Glen Ross". As you know, first it was a play, premiering in London in 1983 and subsequently in Chicago and Broadway in 1984. Joe Mantegna played the role of Ricky Roma on Broadway. Ricky Roma was the character Al Pacino played in the 1992 film adaptation of "Glengarry Glen Ross", with Jack Lemmon playing Shelley "The Machine" Levene. In 2012, Al Pacino finally tackled "Glengarry Glen Ross" on the stage. Only, instead of Ricky Roma, he played Shelley Levene, the character Jack Lemmon portrayed in the film.

I'll add to your note about Mamet, Patrycja, by saying that at least David Mamet isn't as bad as Neil LaBute when it comes to women and sexual politics.

[ebk]

A brief timeline of Al Pacino's involvement with "Glengarry Glen Ross". As you know, first it was a play, premiering in London in 1983 and subsequently in Chicago and Broadway in 1984. Joe Mantegna played the role of Ricky Roma on Broadway. Ricky Roma was the character Al Pacino played in the 1992 film adaptation of "Glengarry Glen Ross", with Jack Lemmon playing Shelley "The Machine" Levene. In 2012, Al Pacino finally tackled "Glengarry Glen Ross" on the stage. Only, instead of Ricky Roma, he played Shelley Levene, the character Jack Lemmon portrayed in the film.

I'll add to your note about Mamet, Patrycja, by saying that at least David Mamet isn't as bad as Neil LaBute when it comes to women and sexual politics.

I won't ever see a LaBute play. And I know that sounds closed-minded since I've never seen one, but from what I read, I have way more important things to do with my time and money. Blech.

[Patrycja]

A brief timeline of Al Pacino's involvement with "Glengarry Glen Ross". As you know, first it was a play, premiering in London in 1983 and subsequently in Chicago and Broadway in 1984. Joe Mantegna played the role of Ricky Roma on Broadway. Ricky Roma was the character Al Pacino played in the 1992 film adaptation of "Glengarry Glen Ross", with Jack Lemmon playing Shelley "The Machine" Levene. In 2012, Al Pacino finally tackled "Glengarry Glen Ross" on the stage. Only, instead of Ricky Roma, he played Shelley Levene, the character Jack Lemmon portrayed in the film.

I'll add to your note about Mamet, Patrycja, by saying that at least David Mamet isn't as bad as Neil LaBute when it comes to women and sexual politics.

Well LaBute loves Mamet and their themes are similar; sadly, it's a difference of degree not in kind. It's just surprising to see a certain kind of masculinity being pushed today which is tied to a narrow demeaning presentation of female characters. I mean, it's a kind of thing you could read from another era and examine it in its context, but even Shakespeare had some more interesting, fleshed out female characters (albeit played by males on stage). Besides the small mindedness of such a pov (I don't mean exploring masculinity, but tying it to reductive perceptions of women), it makes for boring theatre. You could see it unfold predictably. It's more a wish fulfillment rather than an enlightening idea.

Shelley - that's who Pacino played in 2012, thanks. Uneven production; movie was great.

[Strider]

I won't ever see a LaBute play. And I know that sounds closed-minded since I've never seen one, but from what I read, I have way more important things to do with my time and money. Blech.

I don't blame you one bit. Mamet's "Oleanna" also ranks up there as one of the most unpleasant theatre experiences of my life...the complete opposite of something like "Glengarry Glen Ross", which at least had the Mamet's poetry of vulgarity and its modern "Death of a Salesman"-vibe to sustain interest.

Intriguingly enough, I rather like David Mamet's books.,.particularly "Writing in Restaurants" and "On Directing Film".

Neil LaBute, however, is a tool. I have yet to find anything of interest in him.

[Patrycja]

So, not a play, but the theatre group New York Shakespeare Exchange is in the midst of an interesting project of filming all of Shakespeare's sonnets in various NYC locations to help students and new audiences better connect to Shakespeare in modern urban contexts. People forget that Shakespeare was a popular playwright in his time because he's been hidden behind dusty university walls for so long since.

I love the initiatives with modern technology in the bold parts. Interesting uses of space to interpret what each sonnet calls for as well.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets, All 154, Reimagined Through a New York Lens

By STUART MILLER APRIL 5, 2015

A crew filming Sonnet 108 at the John T. Brush stairway. CreditChang W. Lee/The New York Times

Billy Magnussen climbed slowly and silently up an outdoor stairway in northern Manhattan on a blustery afternoon. He stopped briefly to wave to the woman draped in a shawl awaiting him two landings above. But once he reached her, he returned to the bottom of the John T. Brush Stairway, an obscure spot near where the Polo Grounds once stood, named for the long-ago owner of the New York Giants baseball team. Then, with a camera rolling, he climbed the stairs again and again.

Mr. Magnussen, who earned a Tony nomination for “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” did not speak while filming the scene. There is to be no dialogue, just a voice-over, in which he will declaim his love, reciting Shakespeare’s Sonnet 108: “So that eternal love in love’s fresh case/Weighs not the dust and injury of age/Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place.”

The film is part of an ambitious project to create a short film for each of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets, with each movie shot at a different New York City location.

From left, Christian Campbell, director of photography, Mark Karafin, director, and Billy Magnussen, an actor. CreditChang W. Lee/The New York Times

“It brings Shakespeare to people who might not be in touch with it, and we can use social media like Twitter and Instagram to spread the word,” Mr. Magnussen said. The endeavor, called the Sonnet Project, grew from the work of the New York Shakespeare Exchange, a local theater group.

The group, which started the project in 2013, just completed its 100th film: Sonnet 27, starring Carrie Preston, an Emmy award-winning actress, and filmed on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, It will premiere April 8 on the Sonnet Project website and app. (Sonnet 108 will appear on April 22.)

“We’re always looking for new ways to reach audiences that go beyond the restrictions of a live performance in a small theater,” said Ross Williams, the producing artistic director of the project and the theater group.

Mr. Williams tried matching sonnets with locations based on their “imagery and rhetorical arguments,” pairing, for example, the legal-minded Sonnet 46 with the State Supreme Court building.

He mixed well-known locations, like Grand Central Terminal and the Unisphere, with less familiar ones, like the Holocaust memorial near Madison Square Park.

“I wanted a balance so people from out of town had somewhere they could say, ‘I know what that is,’ and others for New Yorkers who might go by these sites every day without realizing it and now they’ll notice them,” Mr. Williams said.

Mr. Williams has relied mostly on little-known actors.

He has, however, reserved Sonnet 18 — “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” — and the finale, Sonnet 154, for the most famous names because they will be “calling cards for the project.” (The last sonnet should premiere next spring.)

So far, the project’s organizers have spent about $30,000, most if it raised through crowdfunding campaigns. All the actors work at no cost. Mr. Williams hopes to create a walking tour app out of the project. He is also writing a curriculum for high school teachers, to help students learn iambic pentameter, the meaning of the sonnets, and how to make their own films.

Some directors found inspiration at the location where the films were shot. At Leidy’s Shore Inn, a 110-year-old bar on Staten Island, Daniel Finley, who was making Sonnet 19, filmed Laurie Birmingham, an actress who works mostly in regional theater, as a world-weary regular musing over her drink.

“We walked in at 10 a.m. and the regulars were there watching OTB and scratching their lotto tickets,” he said. “We learned some of their stories and Laurie based her character on those impressions.”

At the John T. Brush Stairway, at Edgecombe Avenue near West 157th Street, the director, Mark Karafin, considered incorporating baseball into his film but stuck to the text’s theme “about love being ageless.”

While filming Sonnet 116 on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, Virginia Donohue, who has appeared in a New York Shakespeare Exchange production, spent four hours strolling in the pouring rain with Rich Sommer, an actor familiar to fans of “Mad Men.” She shrugged it off. “The theme is about love’s constancy and the rain was like another obstacle thrown our way so it fit the theme,” she said. Besides: Mr. Sommer happens to be her husband and, she said, “We have small children, so getting a few hours with him away from them is great no matter what.”

For Sonnet 13, the director, Ryan Mitchel, faced a different challenge. He and Devin E. Haqq, an actor, wanted to film inside Yankee Stadium while on a tour of it, but their film equipment was not allowed.

When they returned a week later, Mr. Mitchel carried a 35-millimeter camera that also records video. “I could film with it but they thought I was just taking photos,” Mr. Mitchel said.

Another director, Nicholas Biagetti, tried to film without being noticed after he was unable to get a permit to film Sonnet 50 at Kennedy Airport. He held his camera low to the ground while an actress,

Cristina Lippolis, wearing a prosthetic pregnancy belly, lugged a suitcase. Many passers-by seemed to regard Mr. Biagetti as a loutish sort for not carrying her bag. “I got dirty looks,” he said.

Ms. Preston and the director, Michael Dunaway, met their share of surprises too, while filming Sonnet 27, about an obsessive love creating a jangle of nerves. Ms. Preston plays a married commuter on her way home, exhausted but excited by a workplace affair. But the drive over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, in a hired car, went smoothly. Too smoothly. “We were hoping for a traffic jam — it’s the perfect metaphor for being stuck in your own mind at the end of a long day — and we filmed at rush hour, but the traffic flowed perfectly,” Ms. Preston said.

Ms. Preston said she, Mr. Dunaway, and Karin Hayes, the co-director, went back over the bridge 10 times to get the shots they wanted, running up a much higher than expected bill. “What we forgot about was the toll,” Mr. Dunaway said. “I chalk it all up to the sacrifices we make for art.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/06/nyregion/rise-restive-muse-154-times-all-shakespeares-sonnets-through-a-new-york-lens.html

Check out the sonnets completed so far: http://sonnetprojectnyc.com/

[Juliet]

Here's a site for Stratford Canada http://www.stratfordfestival.ca/

[Patrycja]

A new Shakespeare play?!

Fake Shakespeare play Double Falsehood 'is genuine' after all

New claims that work discovered 300 years ago was actually written by the Bard

MATILDA BATTERSBY Friday 10 April 2015

A lost play once claimed to be by Shakespeare but subsequently poo-pooed as a forgery, is now “strongly” believed to be genuine according to new research.

The play, which is appropriately titled Double Falsehood, was published in 1728 by Lewis Theobald, who claimed to have adapted the piece from three original Shakespeare manuscripts which were subsequently lost in a library fire.

Set in Andalusia in Spain, the play has many of the hallmarks of the Bard’s work: sexual intrigue between a Duke and peasant girl; women disguised as men; intercepted letters and tragedy laced with comedy.

Following three centuries of dispute, researchers at the University of Texas claim to have been “surprised” to have identified Double Falsehood as Shakespeare’s work.

By combining psychological theory and text analysing software on his known plays to build up a profile of Shakespearean characteristics and linguistic patterns, academics claim to have “strongly identified” him as the author of the contested play.

Thirty three plays by Shakespeare, twelve by Theobald and nine by Shakespeare's collaborator John Fletcher, were examined in the study published in Psychological Science.

Co-authors Ryan Boyd and James Pennebaker looked at the playwright’s use of function words (such as pronouns, articles and prepositions) as well as words belonging to various content categories (such as emotions, family, sensory perception, religion).

Every measure examined but one identified Shakespeare as the likely author of Double Falsehood, according to the research.

“Honestly, I was surprised to see such a strong signal for Shakespeare showing through in the results,” said Boyd, from the University of Texas at Austin.

“Going into the research without any real background knowledge, I had just kind of assumed that it was going to be a pretty cut and dry case of a fake Shakespeare play, which would have been really interesting in and of itself.”

Double Falsehood, also known by the title “Distressed Lovers”, is based on the “Cardenio” episode in Don Quixote and appears be taken from the 1612 translation of Cervantes’ novel by Thomas Shelton. It wasn't included in Shakespeare's First Folio and there is little written evidence to link it to the Bard.

The 18th century poet Alexander Pope was among the loudest voices to decry Theobald’s claims that the play had Shakespearean origins soon after it was published.

But in the second half of the 20th century there was a growing consensus that Theobald's claims had not been investigated enough.

In 2010 scholarly discussion was reignited when Professor Brean Hammond of the University of Nottingham published the play in its fully annotated form claiming that he believed it to be a collaboration between Shakespeare and the dramatist John Fletcher.

He hailed the Texan researchers for having “a more objective view” than some literary scholars but suggested their work might “draw suspicion” for its analysis of the words belonging to content categories which are arguably arbitrary.

“I think that Shakespeare’s DNA can be found in the play so anything that supports that view is good in my opinion,” Professor Hammond told the Independent.

However, Professor Hammond also expressed concern that Boyd and Pennebaker’s work might not take into consideration evidence that the play was heavily revised on at least two occasions and he wonders if their analysis can pick up that level of complexity.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/news/fake-shakespeare-play-double-falsehood-is-genuine-after-all-10167657.html

Now if only someone could find a copy of the lost Cardenio...

[Patrycja]

New York, NY! Here's your chance to see Crystal Pite's 'A Picture of You Falling' on selected dates from May 12th to 24th (Program A) at The Joyce Theater, performed by Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.

Crystal Pite is an incredible choreographer. Check it out!

http://www.joyce.org/performance/hubbard-street-dance-chicago-2/#.VVVp6_lVhBe

[Patrycja]

Shakespeare in the Park is here!

http://publictheater.org/en/support/summer-supporters/?src=20071&mid=1030280629&ml=29982929

[Patrycja]

Pacino rarely comments on his beliefs, but his actions here speak volumes. Good for him.

AL PACINO QUITS THEATRE PRODUCTION AFTER LEARNING OF AUTHOR’S NAZI PAST

by KIPP JONES 29 May 2015New York, NY

Ian West/PA Wire URN:23049311 (Press Association via AP Images)

Actor Al Pacino is being praised for removing himself from the stage adaptation of a novel written by Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun, after becoming aware of the author’s support for Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

Pacino, 75, pulled out of a commitment last week to film a narration of Hamsun’s dark novel, Hunger, which was intended to be displayed on stage through a hologram,according to the New York Daily News.

After the actor learned of the Hamsun’s support for Hitler’s occupation of Norway and of the personal relationship between him and Hitler, Pacino informed producers at Copenhagen’s Aveny-T theatre he no longer wished to participate.

“It is correct: he jumped at the last minute because he couldn’t come to terms with Knut Hamsun’s support for the German occupation and Nazism,” Aveny-T’s manager, Jon Stephensen, told a Danish publication, per the Daily News. “We must respect that.”

Hamsun, a Nobel prize-winning author who died in 1952 at the age of 92, admired Germany and was sympathetic to the country’s invasion of Norway in 1940.

Hamsun was so sympathetic to the cause, he presented Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels with his 1920 Nobel Prize in Literature as a gift.

The author also published an obituary describing Hitler as “a preacher of the gospel of justice for all nations,” after the German leader’s 1945 suicide.

“If one looks at the impact Hunger made on Hemingway, Kafka, Hesse, Lindgren, Singer and other prominent authors at the time, it is somewhat strange to see to what extent this differs from today’s judgment,” Hamsun Society chairperson Hege Faust said.

“Many people choose not to read Hamsun at all, or when it comes to famous people such as Al Pacino, to risk having their name connected to him.”

After World War II, the author was stripped of his property and fined heavily. He was also placed under a psychiatric hold for a short time, and despite accumulating a great deal of wealth and fame, died broke.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2015/05/29/al-pacino-pulls-out-of-theatre-production-after-learning-of-authors-nazi-past/

[ebk]

Pretty happy with the Tony winners tonight. I really want to see Fun Home next time I'm in NY.

[Patrycja]

Tickets are now on sale for David Mamet's China Doll at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, NYC starring Al Pacino and Fran Kranz. The run is from Oct. 21, 2015 (first preview) to Jan. 31, 2016, with Nov. 19, 2015 being opening night.

China Doll Summary

Oscar and Tony Award® winner Al Pacino returns to Broadway in China Doll, a new play about big money, fast planes, a beautiful young woman, and other objects of desire.

Written by Tony® and Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet and directed by Tony Award® winner Pam MacKinnon (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, A Delicate Balance), China Doll is the story of a man of means, ready to walk away from it all to start a new life with his beautiful young fiancée. Until one phone call changes everything.

Mr. Pacino will be joined on stage by Fran Kranz (You Can’t Take It With You, Death of a Salesman).

China Doll Cast Members:

Al Pacino, Fran Kranz

China Doll Creative Team

Author: David Mamet
Director: Pam MacKinnon
Producer: Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel, Steve Traxler
Press Agent: Jeffrey Richards Associates

Get them here!: https://www.telecharge.com/Broadway/China-Doll/Overview

[Strider]

Shakespeare in the Park is here!

http://publictheater.org/en/support/summer-supporters/?src=20071&mid=1030280629&ml=29982929

It's here, too!

http://www.iscla.org/griffith-park-festival/

And here...

http://www.shakespearebythesea.org/wp/

[Patrycja]

For those who are increasingly frustrated with intrusive texting, photographing, selfieing or cell phone use in general in the most inappropriate places and situations, a moment of catharsis.

Hold the Phone, It’s Patti LuPone

By ERIK PIEPENBURG

JULY 9, 2015

A scene from "Shows for Days" with, from left, Dale Soules, Patti LuPone and Michael Urie.Credit

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

For Patti LuPone, it was “the day from hell, all day.”

At Wednesday’s matinee of the Douglas Carter Beane comedy “Shows for Days,” in which Ms. LuPone plays a small-town theater diva, four cellphones went off, twice from the same phone. It created, as Ms. LuPone put it, “a cacophony of noise.”

So Ms. LuPone was on edge by the evening performance at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. And when the woman seated at the end of the second row texted — and texted and texted — during the show, Ms. LuPone took action. Without breaking character, Ms. LuPone walked into the audience and took the woman’s phone. “She didn’t know what was going on,” Ms. LuPone said in a phone interview on Thursday. “I should be a sleight of hand artist.” (The phone was returned after the show.)

The incident comes on the heels of recent theatrical breaches of audience conduct at “Hand to God,” on Broadway (for an incursion onto the set), and “Hamilton” (for texting) at the Public Theater. Still reeling from Wednesday’s events, Ms. LuPone — who stopped a performance of “Gypsy” in 2009 to berate someone who was taking photographs — talked about the frustration of having to police theatrical etiquette. Following are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Q. So what happened Wednesday night?

A. This woman — a very pretty young woman — was sitting with her boyfriend or husband. We could see her text. She was so uninterested. She showed her husband what she was texting. We talked about it at intermission. When we went out for the second act I was very close to her, and she was still texting. I watched her and thought, “What am I going to do?” At the very end of that scene, we all exit. What I normally do is shake the hand of the people in the front row. I just walked over to her, shook her hand and took her phone. I walked offstage and handed it to the stage manager, who gave it to the house manager.

Q. How did the rest of the cast react?

A. Everybody is deeply upset by it. How can you not be distressed by this? Everybody is freaked out.

Q. If you could see it, then the rest of the audience probably could, too. It takes one screen to disrupt an entire theater.

A. I don’t know why they buy the ticket or come to the theater if they can’t let go of the phone. It’s controlling them. They can’t turn it off and can’t stop looking at it. They are truly inconsiderate, self-absorbed people who have no public manners whatsoever. I don’t know what to do anymore. I was hired as an actor, not a policeman of the audience.

Q. How did the audience react when you took her phone?

A. They got it. She was totally seen texting because she was in light. Some people gasped when I took the phone. Some people applauded.

Q. In a statement you released you said, “I am so defeated by this issue that I seriously question whether I want to work onstage anymore.” Is that true?

A. Absolutely. It’s getting worse. I’m hired to tell a story, and it takes a lot of effort and work to do that convincingly. It’s a handful of people who destroy that experience for everyone. It’s heartbreaking. Theater is not a social event.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/10/theater/hold-the-phone-its-patti-lupone.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur

Regardless of what the patron thought of the show, this is just beyond rude. I was at a theatre show last night and sure enough some asshole's phone indicated he got a text. He took it out. Read it. Responded. Geeez!!

Just as laws have yet to catch up with the speed of developing technology, so too do manners in using it. In the meantime, perhaps an electric zap in the seat of culprits... hmm...

[ebk]

I read that earlier and applauded from my couch! There was some discussion several years ago when Ms. LuPone stopped Gypsy one night and yelled at someone in the audience taking pictures about whether that was acceptable behavior. I thought she was totally within her rights. Since then, the rudeness and cluelessness of people has exploded and there's no question that she did the right thing.

Brava Patti! Too bad it had to be done. I hope she doesn't retire from the stage, although I'd totally understand.

[Strider]

^^^Brava Patti indeed! I would have applauded if Patti had smashed the phone against the woman's face. Rude people with cellphones have ruined many a night at the ballet, theatre, symphony, cinema...even at weddings.

Spent the evening at a staging of Monty Python's Spamalot at the Hollywood Bowl. Summer evenings are made for the Hollywood Bowl. The show is great fun and marvelous use of the Bowl's distinctive shell as part of the overall design of the show. Really wonderful cast, led by Craig Robinson as King Arthur and a hilarious Warwick Davis as his coconut-clopping Patsy. Christian Slater was surprisingly good in his multiple roles (peasant/Sir Galahad/Prince Herbert's Father/Black Knight). Monty Pythoners Eric Idle and Michael Palin were on hand, naturally...Eric Idle as the Historian and Michael Palin as God.

But the two cast standouts for me were Merle Dandrige as that watery tart The Lady of the Lake ("The Song That Goes Like This" and "Whatever Happened to My Part?" brought the house down), and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who nails the role of Sir Robin perfectly. His "You Won't Succeed on Broadway" was priceless.

Some nice California and Hollywood-specific jokes were sprinkled throughout the show. A rousing finish at the end singing "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life".

[Patrycja]

A couple more named and shamed incidents:

Benedict Cumberbatch to Fans: No Cellphones, Please

Oh No She Didn't! Audience Member Seeks Relief Backstage in Midst of a Performance

How hard is common sense, really?

[ebk]

A couple more named and shamed incidents:

Benedict Cumberbatch to Fans: No Cellphones, Please

Oh No She Didn't! Audience Member Seeks Relief Backstage in Midst of a Performance

How hard is common sense, really?

Obviously damn near impossible. Geez...what's the matter with people??

[ebk]

http://www.npr.org/2015/09/16/440925873/first-listen-cast-recording-hamilton

 

First Listen to the Hamilton Cast Recording.  I'm ridiculously excited to see this show...someday...

[Patrycja]

^From one cast album to another 

Watch out theatre world, the inimitable Tori is expanding the universe of her craft -yes!

"I thought, 'We're going to roll our sleeves up and dedicate our lives to doing this. This is what we have to do, because that girl in Ohio doesn't know it yet, but she's waiting for this record, and I'm waiting for her to hear it." - LOVE IT!

"I Feel Her In My Bones," Says Tori Amos of Writing a New Rebellious Heroine in a Violently Contemporary World

By Carey Purcell
07 Oct 2015

Acclaimed singer-songwriter Tori Amos joined forces with British playwright Samuel Adamson to write a contemporary adaptation of the Scottish fairytale The Light Princess, which played London’s National Theatre in 2013. As the duo look forward to the release of their cast album Oct. 9, they reflect on the journey of their rebellious heroine and how, in many ways, she echoes the values of the composer who brought her to life.

"The idea of writing a G-rated piece…I'm not sure if I'm the woman for the job!" laughed Tori Amos. 

Few would disagree with Amos' statement. The singer-songwriter and composer, who has received eight Grammy nominations over the course of her multi-faceted career, has demonstrated an independent streak and rebellious tendencies from almost the first moment she sat down at a piano.

Six years after being admitted to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University at the age of five — the youngest person ever to have been admitted — Amos was expelled for her interest in pop and rock music and refusal to sight read. ("They were trying to drum theory into me, while I was dreaming of running away with John Lennon," she recalled.)

Her devotion to independence and her refusal to compromise her artistic values have followed Amos throughout her career; this is clearly evident in the music she composed for The Light Princess, the new musical that played London's National Theater in September 2013, featuring music and lyrics by Amos and a book and lyrics by Samuel Adamson (All About My Mother, Mrs. Affleck).

"I feel her deeply in my bones," Amos said of Althea, the title character of the new adaptation of the George MacDonald fairy tale. Unable to cope with the death of her mother, Althea loses her gravity and her ability to cry. Struggling to connect to her distant father, Althea refuses to accept role the of Queen of her country and an arranged marriage, fleeing into the woods.

The cast of The Light Princess
Photo by Brinkhoff/Mögenburg 

"She's cursed in the original story. It really isn't until the end of the story when she loses love that she becomes clear about what she wants from life," Adamson said of Althea, who, in the musical, spent a childhood stuck in a tower, educating herself with books left to her by her mother. "We felt we wanted to have a character who was much more active than that and who, earlier in her journey, began to have sense of what it was that she wanted and also what it was that she needs. She's quite a headstrong character."

"I feel like a lot of teenagers that saw it, and not just teenagers, related to her and her circumstance — the idea that she wasn't accepted and that a lot of people around her were demanding her to change," Amos said. Elaborating on the connection between her personal life and her art, she added, "It's no secret that my father and I weren't always singing from the same hymn sheet all the time."

It was Amos' family — her nieces and nephews as well as her own daughter — who influenced her desire to write the music for The Light Princess, which she described as a production that honors their emotional experiences in the 21st century.

"I wanted it to be part of a fairytale, however, one that really tackled issues that teenagers are dealing with now, and certain dark issues, specifically… I feel like musicals can tackle some really tough issues, and I think it's exciting when you can bring magic along with darkness and empower people to look at certain things in their lives that they need to confront."

"We wanted to stay true to the fairytale genre. We weren't particularly interested in sending up or ironizing that genre," Adamson said. "We wanted to sincerely start with the words, 'Once Upon a Time,' but we wanted to write a piece that was kind of violently contemporary."

Often seen as a feminist role model in the music industry — her album "Strange Little Girls" features her singing songs written by men but  performed from a woman's perspective — Amos also appreciated the storyline of Althea denying the typical course of action for a young woman in a royal family: "We're in a world, of course, that's questioning the patriarchy, and I think [Althea] really has been treated irresponsibly, so we wanted to investigate consequences to choices and how she has to face the consequences. We felt that it was important that everybody has to feel the results of their actions and have a dose of their own medicine."

Rosalie Craig
Photo by Brinkhoff/Mögenburg

"That's very much part of Tori's identity, and she has absolutely struck out on her own, compiled her own sorrow, done her own thing," Adamson said. "She has a unique voice, and she's never compromised. And in finding out who she is, Althea does similar strikingly independent things."

Amos' perspective comes from her own experience. Following her artistic and commercial breakthrough with the album "Little Earthquakes," which illustrates her personal background and sexual awakening, Amos worked to establish her independence from record company executives, converting a barn into her own recording studio and negotiating the termination of contracts with record labels in order to work independently by forming her own record label, Transmission Galactic.

"In the music industry, it was very challenging to be successful and not an object, and that was really something that I had to make sure of," she recalled. "People would try in all kinds of ways to make you more appealing. Sometimes it's putting an image on you that is disingenuous, that isn't real, but that they feel would sell more records. I would constantly be making choices that would go against the marketing ideas around me. If you don't do that, then you look back on your career and realize you don't know who you are anymore."

Amos remained true to her artistic values even while recording the two-disc cast album of The Light Princess, which she completed while on tour and described as "one of the crazier things that I've done. I don't know if I recommend it."

The unconventional recording process came about because representatives from Mercury Classics, which is part of Universal Records, had seen the musical at the National Theatre in London — which is a state theatre, not a commercial one. Amos and Adamson still hold the rights to the stage show. Encouraged by Universal Records, the writing team decided to record the album.

"I thought, 'OK, but we're not doing it how some cast albums have to be made because the stage producers, the commercial producers, are demanding it be done in such a way,'" Amos said. "I thought, 'We're going to roll our sleeves up and dedicate our lives to doing this. This is what we have to do, because that girl in Ohio doesn't know it yet, but she's waiting for this record, and I'm waiting for her to hear it."

The cast of The Light Princess
Photo by Brinkhoff/Mögenburg

As a girl in North Carolina, Amos grew up listening to Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals that were favorites of her mother's, especially Oklahoma! and The Sound of Music. Laughing, she remembered that, as a minister's daughter, she shocked parishioners at her church by loving the songs in Jesus Christ Superstar. ("I was just in love with Judas," she admitted.)

Despite her history with musical theatre, working on The Light Princess introduced Amos to a new kind of writing, after spending the past few decades composing for herself or a band. The key changes that were necessary to make in songs for the actors were a challenge for her.

"It began to be really clear to me that we needed to study the instruments of the actors… I was told there are some composers who just refuse," she said. And you think, 'Well, we have this amazing talent standing in front of us, and this is just out of their range.' It would be very much about making the dress fit the girl, not the girl fitting the dress."

Elaborating on the collaborative aspects of writing for theatre, rather than for oneself, Adamson added, "Coming into the theatre world, [Amos] had to — not change the way she works, necessarily, but she began to collaborate in new ways. She was working very closely with me, and then obviously she was working with lots of other people, and that's very different from what she does in the music world. I think she really, really loved that."

While aspects of The Light Princess differ greatly from those of conventional fairy tales, one of the musical's themes is found in many classic tales: the difficulty of growing up.

"Ultimately, it's a piece about growing up and becoming an adult," Adamson said, "working out who you are and your place in the world and falling in love with all of the glorious mess that means."

Nick Hendrix and Rosalie Craig Photo by Brinkhoff/Mögenburg

"It's not easy growing up for everyone," Amos added. "Certain conversations are difficult, and sometimes you can really believe there's no way out of a situation. And there are moments when Althea gets pushed to the brink — the very, very edge of a cliff. She feels that she has to take her own life, and yet she is given a sense of support from nature.

"There's something that I found really beautiful about the relationship she had with nature and the lake, and how it became a spiritual mother for her," she said. "I think it's a really beautiful relationship she has with Mother Earth, with nature — a spiritual relationship that gives her a lot of strength. I really loved that, even though The Light Princess has moments that are so harrowing and dark, she still survives those challenges and takes control of her own life and is going to be her own savior."

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/i-feel-her-in-my-bones-says-tori-amos-of-writing-a-new-rebellious-heroine-in-a-violently-contemporary-world-365851

An earlier article: http://www.playbill.com/news/article/tori-amos-producing-the-light-princess-cast-album-is-broadway-next-217988

 

[Patrycja]

Mike Nichols Memorial Will Be Held in November

[Patrycja]

Remember all those times you really wanted to see a Broadway show but couldn't get to New York? Well, now the Broadway show can come to you via on-demand streaming services. Some sports like boxing do this so it will be interesting to know how the profits are split which, if it potentially helps productions, then great. It's a benefit for those who may be ill or can't get around, as well, but it remains to  be seen how that affects the ephemeral quality of performances or actors who know they're being filmed. Obviously they'll have to be mic'd in some way and this surely affects delivery. There are many implications for the nature of the productions themselves. On the one hand, it's a helpful way to use technology, on the other, it'll be interesting to see whether (if at all) this affects how productions are staged. 

There's a Harry Potter sequel - Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - that is being put together, and that will surely make a killing from all those who won't get a ticket. But for productions that may be less popular, I wonder how this may affect actual ticket sales. I've been to a Broadway show at around -22C and even for someone who doesn't hate winter, I must admit, it was nippy (AND it was for a Pacino show, so it didn't matter how cold it got). I could see someone opting for a stay-at-home option instead.

I wonder, too, whether music concerts could go this route (if they have already, I've not heard of it). Imagine if something along the lines of the O2 show were streamed... actually, that would probably crash the internet as a whole. Never mind 

 

Broadway Producers Launch On-Demand Streaming of Stage Shows

By Robert Viagas
26 Oct 2015 

 

Two Broadway producers have launched BroadwayHD, an on-demand service that will stream recorded theatre productions as Netflix and Hulu have been doing for broadcast media, according to Variety.

The service was created by Tony Award-winning Broadway producers Stewart F. Lane and Bonnie Comley.

The initial 100-plus offerings include Broadway productions of Romeo and Juliet, starring Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad; Jekyll & Hyde,starring David Hasselhoff; and Memphis, with more to come. Many in the initial lineup are from Broadway Worldwide's Direct From Broadway library and from London shows, which are recorded more frequently than Broadway or Off-Broadway productions.

Viewers can pay to watch a specific show, or can buy subscriptions by the month or by the year.

Lane told Mashable.com that there are no plans to compete directly with running shows. "We don’t want to, and we’re not going to be able to, compete against the actual experience, the communal experience of sitting in a theater and laughing with a group of people and seeing live performers onstage. But you can get a sense of it [with BroadwayHD] because you are seeing it in real time. It’s not a movie or a TV show, it’s real actors on stage, sweating and spitting and dancing their hearts out."

http://playbill.com/news/article/broadway-producers-launch-on-demand-streaming-of-stage-shows-368839