Theater Memories Part 13: Shakespeare The Histories

David Tenant as Richard II
Credit: Keith Pattison

To complete my Shakespeare recollections, here are all the history plays I can remember seeing (again this is only stage versions, there are too many film and TV productions to list):

Richard II: David Tenant (one of my all-time favorite Doctor Whos) RSC at BAM in rep with both parts of Henry IV and Henry V; Steven Skybell (Theater for a New Audience); Peter MacNichol (Delacorte).

Henry IV, Parts I and II: Alex Hassell (RSC at BAM, the same series as the David Tenant Richard II, Anthony Sher was a brilliant Falstaff); a really weird production directed by JoAnne Akalitis at the Public; a one-evening adaptation at the Vivian Beaumont at Lincoln Center with Kevin Kline as Falstaff, Michael Hayden as Prince Hal, Richard Easton as King Henry IV, Ethan Hawke as Hotspur, with Dana Ivey, Audra MacDonald and Dakin Matthews (who did the adaptation); Shakespeare and Company, Lenox, Mass.

Henry V: Twice at the Delacorte with Kevin Kline and then Andre Braugher; Alex Hassell in the RSC/BAM four-part production; Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, set during World War I. Act One had the soldiers in a trench rehearsing for a performance of Henry V, then Act Two, they are all in the hospital, wounded, and the nurses take part.

Broadway Goes to the Beach for 2017-18

The Spongebob Musical
Credit: Joan Marcus

Broadway is headed to the beach for the 2017-18 season. Two new musicals with seaside settings, The Spongebob Musical and Escape to Margaritaville, have just announced definite dates for the fall. The Spongebob Musical, based on Spongebob Squarepants, the popular NIckelodeon cartoon series, will wash up at the Palace Theatre for previews beginning Nov. 6 before it officially docks for a Dec. 4 opening. The family-oriented musical premiered at Chicago's Oriental Theater last year and features original songs by Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Sara Bareilles (Waitress), Cyndi Lauper (Kinky Boots), John Legend, The Flaming Lips, They Might Be Giants, and T.I. with an addition song by David Bowie and additional lyrics by Jonathan Coulton. Tina Landau (Superior Donuts, Bells Are Ringing) directs. Leads from the Chicago

Spongebob: "I'm going to Broadway!"

run will repeat their performances including Ethan Slater as the titular sponge, Gavin Lee (Mary Poppins) as the sour octopus Squidward, Lilli Cooper (Spring Awakening, daughter of Tony winner Chuck Cooper) as Texas squirrel Sandy Cheeks, and Danny Skinner as dim-bulb starfish Patrick. BTW, Lauper is also set to do the score for Working Girl. a stage version of the 1988 film comedy.

Escape from Margaritaville is derived from the music of Jimmy Buffett (you know, he had that big hit with the tune about the outlawed shaker of salt), and is set for previews at the Marquis on Feb. 16 before a March 15 opening. Currently playing at the La Jolla Theatre and ready to tour New Orleans, Huston, and Chicago before its Broadway bow, the show's plot concerns a laid-back bartender at a beachside resort falling in love with a urban-oriented tourist. Christopher Ashley (Come from Away) directs. Tom Kitt (Next to Normal) is music supervisor. Kitt will also serve in the same capacity for Jagged Little Pill, a musical based on Alanis Morrisette's Grammy-winning output, which will have a reading starring Idina Menzel. The Wicked Tony winner is scheduled to star in Joshua Harmon's Skintight Off-Broadway, so she is not set to appear in Pill's planned April 2018 run at the American Repertory Theatre.

2016 Oscar Predictions

The Oscars are this coming Sunday Feb. 28 and it's time to make my annual predictions. This year has not been particularly exciting with no huge blockbuster dominating the proceedings. The new Star Wars has not generated much excitement, but Mad Max: Fury Road has garnered a bunch of nominations and will probably sweep the technical awards. I usually try to see all of the Best Picture and acting nominees. This time I did catch nine and a half of the top film candidates (I only got through the first hour of Mad Max on HBO.Go before I had explosion overload, I'll try to get back to the rest of it.) I've seen most of the acting nominees, three of the five feature documentaries, one each of the foreign and feature animated films, and all of the short films (I wrote them up for GoldDerby.com and here's a link). I always say some year I will see all of the nominees but I never make it. Here are my predix:

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