Theater News: Shakespeare, Sunshine, and Rear Window

Lots of theater news today:

Mark Rylance as Olivia in Twelfth Night (l.) and as Richard III

Two time Tony winner Mark Rylance (Boeing-Boeing, Jerusalem), Stephen Fry of Black Adder fame, and Drama Desk winner and Tony nominee Samuel Barnett (The History Boys) will be coming to Broadway in a repertory of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and Richard III. Previews begin Oct. 15 with a Nov. 10 opening at the Belasco. These Globe Theater productions were hits in London and will be staged as in Shakespeare's time with all-male casts, lighting by candles, and Elizabethan musical instruments. Twelfth Night features Rylance as Olivia, Fry as her servant Malvolio, and Barnett as the gender-bending Viola. Rylance will play Richard and Barnett his sister-in-law Queen Elizabeth.

Edwin Drood Tony-Drama Desk nominees Stephanie J. Block and Will Chase will reunite for the musical version of Little Miss Sunshine at Second Stage with previews beginning the same day (Oct. 25) with the opening November date to be announced.

New York's most distinguished critic, Michael Feingold, just laid off from the Village Voice, will be writing a column for Theatermania. No word if he will freelance for the Voice. The publication has asked if he will continue to chair the Obie committee. But what will the Voice's commitment to theater coverage be beyond handing out grants and awards?

Playwright-actor Keith Reddin, currently understudying David Hyde Pierce in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, is working on a stage version of Rear Window, the Conrad Woolrich short story which inspired Alfred Hitchcock's classic 1954 thriller starring James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter, and Raymond Burr. Terry Kinney (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest revival) directs.  

Oh, and the Tonys are on Sunday. My predictions are on ArtsinNY.com