Broadway Update: 2015 Beckons

Airline Highway at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre
(Credit: Michael Brosilaw)

As 2014 winds down, it's time to look forward to 2015. As usual, the spring is crowded with openings in order to qualify for the Tonys. It's a little early, but the frontrunner for Best Play is still The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Dog's biggest threats are also from Britain--The epic Wolf Hall and Helen Mirren in The Audience, both featuring royalty (Henry VIII in Wolf and the current monarch in Audience.) Both have snob hit written all over them. Mirren will probably take Best Actress so she can have a Tony for playing a queen to go with her Oscar and Emmy. Wolf is a two-evening spectacle and could give Dog a run for its money as Best play--both are based on novels which never stopped The Grapes of Wrath.The design categories still belong to Dog, though Wolf will probably win for Costumes.My choice for Best Play so far is from off-Broadway: Samuel D. Hunter's Pocatello. Lisa D'Amour's Airline Highway looks fascinating and has received excellent reviews in Chicago plus Joe Mantello, of Wicked, Take Me Out, and Assassins fame, is at the helm. D'Amour's Detroit is one of my favorite plays and this one about displaced New Orleans residents celebrating the life of their dying den mother in a rundown motel could be a big winner. It's the last show of the season and will be fresh in voters' minds. But it's American and the Tony people love their British theater. 

B'way Update: Holiday Shuffle

As the holidays loom, Broadway vultures are circling ailing shows in the hopes of plucking up the theaters they vacate. No sooner does Pippin announce it's throwing in the towel on Jan. 4 than The Heidi Chronicles dives in and snaps up its home the Music Box. Right now the only unclaimed house is the Jacobs which will be vacant

Will It's Only a Play move to the Jacobs?

when Once shutters on the same day as Pippin. But instead of a new show opening there, the word on the street is that the fabulously hot It's Only a Play will move there from the Schoenfeld which is promised to The Audience with Helen Mirren. Nathan Lane, the star of It's Only a Play and the best thing about it, is committed to play The Iceman Cometh at BAM, so rumors are flying that he will be replaced by Martin Short whose memoir I Must Say has just been released. There is speculation that The Last Ship, Sting's debut musical which received mixed notices, might not survive till New Year's and hovering over the desirable Neil Simon are The Visit, the musical version of the Durrenmatt play which has been on the regional circuit for decades, The Band Wagon, the stage version of the classic MGM movie playing at Encores this weekend, and Amazing Grace, a show telling the story behind the well-known spiritual, recently in Chicago. There's also The First Wives Club, also playing in Chicago in March, but it probably won't be ready for this season

B'way Update: Tony Aftermath, New Season

Jennifer Hudson at the Tonys:
What is that lady in a silver nightgown doing in our bedroom, boys?

With the Tony Awards handed out, the 2013-14 New York theater season is finally over. There have been a deluge of closings in the wake of that ceremony. Mothers and Sons and After Midnight posted closing notices while big winners All the Way and A Raisin in the Sun will end their limited engagements as scheduled. In a moment worthy of the NBC's crazy Smash, Jennifer Hudson showed up just before the Best Musical category to sing a song from a show she won't be in that hasn't even opened yet (Finding Neverland), dressed totally out of sync with the other characters, all because producer Harvey Weinstein didn't want Sting to be the only one to tout an upcoming production. BTW, next year, I guarantee the Best Score category will be given out on the air because the aforementioned multiple Grammy winner will be a nominee for his The Last Ship (another BTW, did they know that show would have the same title as a sci-fi TV series?)

B'way Season Winds Down; New One Takes Shape

Michael Cera and Kieran Culkin in This Is Our Youth

As the 2013-14 Broadway season winds down, 2014-15 begins to take shape. Definite productions include Holler If Ya Hear Me, the Tupac Shakur musical; the revival of This Is Our Youth with Michael Cera, Kieran Culkin, (pictured in an Australian production of the play) and fashion blogger Tavi Gevinson, all making their Broadway debuts along with playwright Kenneth Lonergan; Sting's The Last Ship; and Ewan McGregor, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Cynthia Nixon in The Real Thing. Shows which have announced but don't have a definite date yet include Bradley Cooper in The Elephant Man, and the revival of On the Town which is definitely going into the Lyric (formerly the Foxwoods) knocking out the previously-announced King Kong. 

Here's a rundown of the remaining openings and award events in 2013-14 as well as what's up for 2014-15 and beyond.

April 16--Of Mice and Men (Longacre)
April 17--Act One (Vivian Beaumont)

April 20--Violet (American Airlines/Roundabout)

April 20--The Cripple of Inishmaan (Cort)

April 21--The Velocity of Autumn (Booth)
April 21—Your Mother’s Copy of the Kuma Sutra (PH/Peter Sharp)
April 22--Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Belasco)
April 22--Outer Critics Nominations Announced by Cicely Tyson and Vanessa Williams (Friars Club)
April 23--Casa Valentia (Friedman/MTC)
April 23--Drama League Nominations Announced by Christopher Seiber and Judith Light (Sardis)
April 24--Cabaret (Studio 54/Roundabout)
April 25--Drama Desk Awards Nominations  Announced by Fran Drescher, Robert Lopez and Kristin Andersen-Lopez (54 Below)

April--Annapurna (New Group/Acorn)
April 29--Tony Award Nominatons Announced by Lucy Liu and Jonathan Groff (DIamond Horseshoe Night Club/Paramount Hotel)
May 4--Lortel Awards Hosted by Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman (NYU Skirball Hall)
Nay 5--NY Drama Critics Circle Awards Announced.

May 5—The City of Conversation (Mitzi Newhouse/Lincoln Center)
May 16--Drama League Awards Hosted by Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Marriott Marquis)
May 19--Obie Awards Hosted by Tamara Tunie and Hamish Linklater (Webster Hall)
May 22--Outer Critics Circle Awards (Sardi's)
June 1--Drama Desk Awards Hosted by Laura Benanti (Town Hall)
June 8--Tony Awards Hosted by Hugh Jackman (Radio City Music Hall)

June 9—Fly By Night (Playwrights Horizons)

June 17—When We Were Young and Unafraid (MTC/City Center Stage I)

June 19--Holler If Ya Hear Me (Palace)
June--Macbeth (Kenneth Branagh) (Park Ave. Armory)
Sept. 11--This Is Our Youth (Cort)
Oct.--On the Town (Lyric)
Oct. 5--The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Barrymore)
Oct. 26--The Last Ship (Neil Simon)
Oct. 30--The Real Thing (American Airlines/Roundabout)
2014 (Sometime)—Dames at Sea, Liberace Musical, Titanic, The Elephant Man, The Color Purple

Fall 2015--Fiddler on the roof
2015--Winter--Noises Off, The River
2015-16--Houdini, Night Mother, The King and I (Lincoln Center)
Future--Disney's Frozen, Soul Train, Pretty Woman