B'way Review: Death of a Salesman

Laurie Metcalf and Nathan Lane in
Death of a Salesman.
Credit: Emilio Madrid

The most fascinating element of Joe Mantello’s innovative and powerful production of Death of a Salesman, is the deceptively simple set by Chloe Lamford. When the show was first announced, it seemed the cavernous Winter Garden Theater was all wrong for the intimate drama of Willy Loman’s descent into disillusion yet Bamford’s stark set works perfectly. When the audience first files in, Lamford’s environment appears to be nothing but a bare stage with only a card table and some metal chairs for furnishings. But once Jack Knowles’ evocative lighting illuminates the stage and Nathan Lane drives Willy’s 1940s Studebaker onto the stage, we see that we’re in an abandoned factory or warehouse. The onstage automobile becomes a symbol of Willy’s lost dreams and his impending death. A bare brick wall is interrupted by a sliding garage gate and a metallic door. Piles of dust spread across the floor. Light barely shines through a wall of dirty windows. Huge industrial-looking columns reach to the flies. The set is a metaphor for Miller’s vision of the blighted American Dream. Willy and his family have nothing left after investing their energy and passion in a false promise of prosperity. It’s a perfect visual means of expressing Miller’s critique of rampant, thoughtless capitalism and the essential platform for Mantello’s brilliant staging.

This is the sixth version of Miller’s classic I’ve seen—the previous viewed iterations starred Lee J. Cobb and Dustin Hoffman on TV, Brian Dennehy, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Wendell Pierce on Broadway. There is always something new to be found in this timeless drama of fractured family and crushing economic reality. Mantello’s vision is a bleak one set in this industrial wasteland, but it blazingly highlights the fraught relationships within the Loman family.

B'way Update: Death of a Salesman

Nathan Lane, Laurie Metcalf and 
Christopher Abbott with star in
Death of a Salesman next spring.

Willy Loman is returning to Broadway. The seventh Main Stem production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman will begin previews at the Winter Garden Theater on March 6, 2026 prior to an April 9 opening. Tony winner Joe Mantello (Wicked, Little Bear Ridge Road) will direct Tony winners Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf, Christopher Abbott (James White, House of Blue Leaves) and Ben Ahlers (Jack the footman/now rich clock maker from The Gilded Age). Scott Rudin and Barry Diller will produce. The production was originally planned in 2020, but the COVID pandemic delayed it. Earlier this year, it was announced for 2026-27. Salesman opened on Broadway in 1949, starring Lee J. Cobb, Mildred Dunnock, Arthur Kennedy and Cameron Mitchell. winning the Tony, NY Drama Critics Circle Award and Pulitzer Prize. Broadway revivals have starred George C. Scott (1975), Dustin Hoffman (1984), Brian Dennehy (1999), Philip Seymour Hoffman (2012), and Wendell Pierce (2022).

In a statement, Kate Miller, Trustee of the Arthur Miller Literary and Dramatic Property Trust said, “This production promises to channel Salesman's dynamic power in a completely new way. Part of what's so exciting about Joe Mantello’s approach is that he has been immersing himself in our extensive archives and interacting with Arthur's earliest drafts of Salesman—sounding out a deeper understanding of the play's inner workings. It's been wonderful to work with someone who is successfully finding new ways into a play that's been thoroughly studied, taught, and performed by the greatest artists in the world for nearly 80 years. Mantello’s approach will bring Salesman’s impactful and ever relevant commentary on the American dream to modern audiences, and we're so eager to see it come to life."

Mantello added, "It’s been incredibly rewarding to work closely with the Arthur Miller Estate, who’ve so generously opened the archive and encouraged real exploration. Looking through Miller’s early drafts revealed insights into the play’s first impulses—including some surprising theatrical ideas that feel both deeply familiar and unexpectedly modern."

Lane revealed, “In 1995 while rehearsing a Terrence McNally play with Joe, he turned to me one afternoon out of the blue and quietly said, ‘Someday you and I are going to do Death of a Salesman.’ And true to his word, 30 years later, that day has come. I couldn’t be more thrilled and honored to follow in the footsteps of so many great actors in tackling the role of Willy Loman, especially with the brilliant Laurie Metcalf by my side and the remarkable cast Joe is assembling. It’s a privilege to do what is arguably the greatest drama of the twentieth century, and like all great plays it always seems to speak to us anew each time we see it.”

Metcalf said, “Collaboration is everything in the theatre. I am lucky to be going from one exciting project to another with Joe Mantello—and in the very same season. Joe and Nathan are longtime collaborators, and my shared history with—and deep respect for—them makes what might otherwise feel daunting feel familiar, and absolutely thrilling.”

B'way Update: The Return of Scott Rudin

Banished producer Scott Rudin says 
he's gone through therapy, made apologies,
 and plans toreturn to Broadway.

According to the New York Times, producer Scott Rudin is planning a return to Broadway following a long absence due to his abusive behavior with subordinates. Rudin stepped away from producing on stage and film in 2021 after articles in the Hollywood Reporter and New York magazine alleged his verbal abuse, bullying, throwing objects, pushing assts. from a moving car, smashing a computer on an assistant's hand and firing an assistant for bringing him the wrong kind of muffin. He also resigned from the Broadway League and withdrew from the Broadway revival of The Music Man as well as from five A24 films including Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth, The Daniels' Everything Everywhere All at Once, and  Alex Garland's Men. He has won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy and 18 Tony Awards. Rudin states he has undergone therapy and apologized publicly and to certain individuals. 

Laurie Metcalf and Micah Stock
in Little Bear Ridge Road at Steppenwolf.
Credit: Michael Brosilow

In the Times article, Rudin states he plans to produce Little Bear Ridge Road by Samuel D. Hunter (The Whale, Grangeville) in the fall. The play will star Laurie Metcalf, following the play's premiere last year at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater Company, directed by Tony winner Joe Mantello. The play, set as most of Hunter's works are in Idaho, centers on an estranged aunt and nephew settling the estate of their brother and father at the start of the COVID 19 pandemic. In the spring, Rudin will reunite Metcalf and Mantello as star and director for David Hare's new play Montauk. A revival of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is planned for the 2026-27 season to star Nathan Lane and Metcalf with Mantello directing. Such a production with Lane, Metcalf and Mantello was announced in 2020, but the pandemic shut down theaters and another Salesman with Wendell Pierce came to Broadway from London after the theaters re-opened. (Presumably, Metcalf will have more time for the stage now that The Conners is ending its seven-season run on ABC.)

Rudin also intends to present Cottonfield by Bruce Norris (Clybourne Park, Downstate) and directed by Robert O'Hara (Shit. Meet. Fan.) on Broadway in the fall of 2025. (Side note: The New York magazine article from 2021 says that Rudin pulled out of the Broadway production of Clybourne Park and two other Norris plays when the actor-playwright withdrew from a Rudin-produced HBO pilot.) There will also be an Off-Broadway production of Wallace Shawn's What We Did Before Our Moth Days, directed by Andre Gregory, Shawn's co-star from My Dinner With Andre.

2024 Drama Desk Awards

Stereophonic, winner of 7 Drama
Desk Awards.
Credit: Chelcie Perry

Stereophonic, Water for Elephants and Dead Outlaw won the top honors at the 68th Drama Desk Awards, presented June 10 at NYU's Skirball Center. Stereophonic won the most accolades with seven including Outstanding Play. Water took the most musical prizes with four including Jessica Stone's direction. Dead Outlaw won Outstanding Musical, Lyrics, and Book. Outlaw is only the fifth Off-Broadway musical to take the DD's top prize (previous OB winners were Little Shop of Horrors, Hamilton, A Strange Loop, and Kimberly Akimbo). Unlike the Broadway-only Tonys, the Deskies consider Broadway and Off-Broadway in all of its multiple categories. There are whisperings that with all the prizes it has won (Outer Critics Circle and NY Drama Critics Circle), Dead Outlaw is planning a Broadway transfer.

Sutton Foster and Aaron Tveit
hosting the DD Awards

Tony winners Sutton Foster and Aaron Tveit who just completed a run co-starring in Sweeney Todd hosted the event. The ceremony opened with a funny specialty number reviewing the highlights of the past season working in a desk into the lyrics. (For Drama Desk, get it?) Andrew Rannells, Josh Breckinridge, Taylor Marie Daniel, Raymond J. Lee and Lindsay Joans joined Foster and Tveit in the opening. The ceremony was long at three hours, but never felt tedious thanks to smooth direction by Lorin Latarro and a witty script by Steve Rosen and David Rossmer. Executive producers Staci Levine and Jessica R. Jensen delivered a proficient event. At the midway point, Foster and Tveit announced the audience was in need of a sugar rush and threw Halloween-size candy packages to them (I copped a Peanut M&Ms.) Brenda Braxton supplied voice-overs, reading all of the nominees whose photos were displayed on a giant screen (Ido Levran is credited with video design). Braxton also had a funny segment announcing parody awards such as Outstanding Bathroom in a Broadway Theater (the winner was the renovated James Earl Jones Theater) and Outstanding Performance in a Made-Up Production (disgraced ex-Congressman George Santos in Starlight Express.)

The winners of the acting categories were almost all women. Last year, the Drama Desk joined the Lortel and Outer Critics Circle Awards by eliminating gender in all acting divisions due to the increasing number of non-binary performers. Except for the Solo Performance award, two winners are chosen in the acting slot with more than two winners possible in the case of ties. Only two males won--Patrick Page for his solo show All the Devils Are Here and Brian d'Arcy James of Days of Wine and Rose, co-winning Leading Performance in a Musical with his co-star Kelli O'Hara and Maleah Joi Moon of Hell's Kitchen. 

Presenters included newly-elected Equity president Brooke Shields, Laura Benanti, Matthew Broderick, Andrew Rannells, Debra Messing, Brian d’Arcy James, Montego Glover, Lena Hall, Ruthie Ann Miles, Seth Rudetsky, Shoshana Bean, James Lapine, Corbin Bleu, Sarah Hyland, Miriam Silverman, Steven Pasquale, James Monroe Inglehart, DD winner Kecia Lewis, and (via audio) Carol Burnett. There were several musical numbers. Nikki M. James performed "Wait My Turn" from Suffs. Kelli O'Hara delivered an impassioned performance of "This Nearly Was Mine" from South Pacific in tribute to William Wolf Award winner Andre Bishop, artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater. Santino Fontana introduced the Harold Prince Award for Lifetime Achievement by singing a clever medley of phrases from the many shows Prince directed and/or produced. Matthew Broderick then introduced the recipient, his Lion King voice-over, Producers and Odd Couple co-star Nathan Lane who quipped, "This is the third Lifetime Achievement Award I've received recently. I'm beginning to think there's something my doctors aren't telling me... How did I suddenly get to be Angela Lansbury? Next after Lifetime Achievement, you wind up in the In Memorial segment. It's the Show-Biz Circle of Life." 

Kara Young (Featured Performance in a Play 
for Purlie Victorious) and
Irene Gandy (Special Award for 
Career Achievement)

Award News: DD Presenters and Tony Pre-Show

Aaron Tviet and Sutton Foster
will host the 2024 Drama Desk Awards 
on June 10.
Drawing by Justin "Squiggles" Robertson

The 68th Drama Desk Awards, held on Mon. June 10 at 6:15 pm at NYU's Skirball Hall and hosted by Sutton Foster and Aaron Tveit of Sweeney Todd, have announced presenters: BROOKE SHIELDS, LAURA BENANTI, MATTHEW BRODERICK ANDREW RANNELLS, NIKKI M. JAMES, DEBRA MESSING, BRIAN D'ARCY JAMES, MONTEGO GLOVER, LENA HALL, and RUTHIE ANN MILES. Kelli O'Hara (nominated for Days of Wine and Roses) will perform a musical tribute to William Wolf Award recipient Andre Bishop. Nathan Lane will receive the Harold S. Prince Award for Lifetime Achievement. Lane has previously won six Drama Desk Awards, three Tonys, six Outer Critics Circle Awards, the Drama League Award, a Lortel and two Obies. 

There are balcony seats available for the general public and may be purchased at https://tickets.nyu.edu/dramadesk2024/15422

To purchase prime VIP orchestra seats please click HERE.

Julianne Hough and Utkarsh Ambudkar will
host the Tonys' pre-show on Pluto.

Tony Pre-Show: Emmy Award winner Julianne Hough and star of CBS’ GHOSTS Utkarsh Ambudkar will host THE TONY AWARDS: ACT ONE, a live pre-show with exclusive content that is available to viewers for free on Pluto TV beginning Sunday, June 16 at 6:30-8:00 PM, ET/3:30-5:00 PM, PT. Hough, who starred in the hit Broadway play “POTUS,” and Ambudkar, who made his Broadway debut in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s improvisational hip-hop show “Freestyle Love Supreme,” will kick off Broadway’s biggest night with the presentation of the first round of Tony Awards during the exciting pre-show telecast. 

Immediately following, THE 77TH ANNUAL TONY AWARDS, with Academy Award winner and Tony Award nominee Ariana DeBose, will air live from the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, from 8:00-11:00 PM, LIVE ET/5:00-8:00 PM, LIVE PT on the CBS Television Network, and streaming on Paramount+ in the U.S. (live and on-demand for Paramount+ with SHOWTIME subscribers, or on-demand for Paramount+ Essential subscribers the day after the special airs)*.

No word yet on which awards will be presented on Pluto and which on CBS.

Nathan Lane's Daytime Emmys

 

Much has been said about Nathan Lane finally winning his first Prime Time Emmy for Guest Actor in a Comedy for Hulu's Only Murders in the Building after seven nominations. He was previously nominated for Modern Family (3 times as Pepper Saltzman, Cameron and Mitchell's excitable friend), The Good Wife, Mad About You and Frasier. But what everyone seems to forget is that he already won two Daytime Emmys for his voice work on two cartoon shows--Disney's The Lion King's Timon and Pumbaa and Teacher's Pet. The latter was a delightfully quirky ABC series about a talking dog who disguises himself as a boy in order to attend school with his master. It ran from 2000 to 2002 and was pretty funny. The artwork was bizarre and fascinating and the cast was particularly distinguished for an animated show. Lane was joined by Jerry Stiller as sarcastic parrot Pretty Boy, David Odgen Stiers as neurotic cat Mr. Jolly, Debra Jo Rupp as the boy's teacher who also happens to be his mom, Wallace Shawn as the principal Mr. Strickler, and I'm pretty sure Betty White did a guest shot as the grandmother. Bernadette Peters, Fred Willard, Tim Curry, and Patrick Warburton also did guest appearances. There was also a film version which I never saw.

The 2020 Tony Awards Fantasy Clip Show

The 2019 Tony Awards

CBS is breaking my heart as we enter the ninth week of lockdown (NYC is still in quarantine while the rest of the country rushes back to the beaches, malls and nail salons.) The Eye network had announced the 32nd season of The Amazing Race--my favorite TV show as you can tell from past recap-blogs--would premiere on this Wed. May 20. When I tried to DVR it, the listing was absent. It turns out they are pushing back the whole series until sometime later in the year because the network is saving a strong ratings performer like TAR for the fall or winter just in case there are no new shows in production because of the coronavirus.

CBS is also not running the Tony Awards. That's not their fault. The Broadway League and the

Joel Grey in Cabaret

American Theater Wing have opted not to present the awards at all because of the pandemic, unlike the Drama Desks, Outer Critics, Obies, Lortels, New York Drama Critics Circle, and Drama League which are going forward to honor the truncated 2019-20 season on various virtual and TV platforms. So I don't blame CBS, but they could have come up with a better substitute than a sing-along broadcast of the movie version of Grease. Why not a clip show of highlights from previous Tonycasts? I suggested the idea on Twitter and Facebook and the response was a resounding yes. Here are my suggestions and those of some Twitter and FB friends on what we would have included for ALL the previous nationally televised Tony shows. OK, the show would probably run for five hours if everything here were shown, but this is just a fantasy. Note: I tried not to go for the obvious every year and didn't always pick whatever show won Best Musical. Some years, they didn't even include numbers from the nominated shows.

1967--Wilkommen from Cabaret--Joel Grey

1968--Before the Parade Passes By from Hello, Dolly--Pearl Bailey

Jack Crowder, Sherri Peaches Brewer,
Pearl Bailey, and Winston DeWitt Hemsley in Hello, Dolly!

1969--Turkey Lurkey Time from Promises, Promises--Donna McKechnie, Baayork Lee, Margo Sappington

1970--Always Mademoiselle from Coco--Katharine Hepburn, George Rose

1971---(25 years of Tony-winning musicals) Shall We Dance? from The King and I--Yul Brynner, Patricia Morrison; Before the Parade Passes By from Hello, Dolly--Carol Channing; If I Were a Rich Man from Fiddler on the Roof--Zero Mostel

1972--You Can Dance With Any Girl At All from No, No, Nanette--Helen Gallagher, Bobby Van

1973--Magic to Do from Pippin--Ben Vereen

1974--Upper Berth sketch from Phoenix 55--Nancy Walker, Harvey Lembeck, JJ Barry, Charles Nelson Reilly

1975--The Story of Lucy and Jessie from Follies--Alexis Smith; Everything's Coming Up Roses from Gypsy--Angela Lansbury

Broadway Update: Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf to Star in 'Death of a Salesman'

Nathan Lane as another sad salesman
in The Iceman Cometh.
Credit: Liz Lauren

Two of the biggest names on Broadway will headline one of the greatest plays of the 20th century. Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf are slated to star in the sixth Broadway production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. The announcement is not official, but Lane confirmed to the Hollywood Reporter that Salesman would be opening sometime during the spring of 2021. It will be staged by Joe Mantello who is currently directing Metcalf in another American classic, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Willy Loman. the desperate drummer of the title, has been played on the Main Stem previously by Lee J. Cobb, George C. Scott, Dustin Hoffman, Brian Dennehy, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Lane is mostly known for his comic roles in such shows as The Producers, The Front Page, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. But this will not be the first time he's played a tragic salesman. He starred as the illusion-shattering Hickey in O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh at Chicago's Goodman Theater and BAM.

Broadway Update: Lane and Martin to Star in Mac's Gary and Network Moves

Andrea Martin and Nathan Lane

The weirdest press release of the year just came into my mailbox. At first I thought it was a joke. Tony winners Nathan Lane and Andrea Martin will be starring in a new comedy called Gary, A Sequel to Titus Andronicus by Obie-winning performer-playwright Taylor Mac. Weird title, huh? But it's legit. The show will be directed by another multiple Tony winner George C. Wolfe and begin previews at the Booth Theatre on March 5 with an opening set for April 11. (The Booth will play host to American Son with Kerry Washington and Steven Pasquale in a limited run in the fall. Also, Glenda Jackson's King Lear has announced an April 11 opening but no theater. So somebody will have to change their dates.)

2018 Tony and Drama Desk Predictions

Just like last year the Tony and Drama Desk Awards are going to be very different. In 2017, Dear Evan Hansen and Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 dominated the Tonys, but were ineligible for the Drama Desks because they were in the running for 2016 because of their earlier Off-Broadway runs. The Tonys are only for Broadway shows and the Drama Desks include on and Off. Usually the DDs and Tonys results are pretty similar because the DD voters tend to go for Broadway shows. (The Tonys are voted on by 841 industry insiders including producers, directors, designers, actors, stage managers and a few critics who belong to the New York Drama Critics Circle, while the Drama Desks are voted on by about 100 theater reviewers, editors and reporters.) This year, The Band's Visit is the likely Tony champ, but it played Off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theatre Company last season, taking home several 2017 DD Awards as well as the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical. In addition, several Broadway performers and creative personnel who received Tony love are absent from the DD list, particularly Lauren Ambrose and Norbert Leo Butz of My Fair Lady (the seven-member DD nominating committee didn't seem to like Bartlett Sher's Lincoln Center revival of the Lerner and Loewe classic.) Ambrose won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical for her scrappy Eliza Doolittle and Butz took the OCC Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his boisterous Alfred Doolittle. Harry Hadden-Patten's Henry Higgins is in the running for both a DD and a Tony.

Here are my predications for both awards. The Drama Desks will be presented on June 3 and the Tonys the following week on June 10.

Best Play
Tony: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts One and Two
Drama Desk: Admissions
Harry Potter isn't even nominated for the top DD play category. In fact, all of the DD outstanding play candidates are Off-Broadway shows. This will be one of the few times the DD award goes to a non-Broadway show. In the over 40 years since the Drama Desk began given out Best Play awards, they have only done it six times. The rare past exceptions are Tribes (2012), Ruined (2009), Wit (1999), How I Learned to Drive (1997), Marvin's Room (1992), and A Lie of the Mind (1986).

Angels and Mockingbirds Descend on Broadway

Nathan Lane and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett in Angels in America
at London's National Theatre
Credit: Helen Maybanks

There's been a flock of new Broadway announcements lately. The smash hit National Theater revival of Tony Kushner's two-part epic Angels in America will be winging its way from London to New York and the long-gestating stage adaptation of the beloved classic To Kill a Mockingbird has confirmed an opening date. Angels will begin performances Feb. 23, 2018 at the Neil Simon Theatre prior to a March 21 opening night. Most of the London cast including Nathan Lane and Andrew Garfield will be repeating their performances which were seen in cinemas worldwide as part of the NT Live series. The only cast member not to make the trek will be Russell Tovey (whose bare chest caused an audience member to swoon during A View from the Bridge). Denise Gough will repeat her performance as the delusional Harper Pitt, but first she will repeat her Olivier Award-winning turn as an alcoholic, drug-addicted actress in People, Places and Things at St. Ann's Warehouse. Speaking of Harpers, the stage version of Harper Lee's classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird to be adapted by The West Wing's Aaron Sorkin was first announced months ago. Producer Scott Rudin took out a two-page ad in the New York Times announced the show will open on Dec. 18, 2018. I picked up a copy of the print edition of the Times recently (I hadn't looked at it in ages) and I was astonished at how few ads there were in the theater section. Tony winner Bartlett Sher (South Pacific, Golden Boy) will direct.

2015-16 Ends as 2016-17 Gets Ready

Nathan Lane will star in a revival of
The Front Page next season.

The 2015-16 Broadway and off-Broadway theater season is heading into the home stretch with a whirlwind of openings, nominations and awards about to be unleashed. Meanwhile, 2016-17 is waiting in the wings and raring to go. Though there was no official press release, an Equity casting notice revealed Nathan Lane and John Slattery will be starring a revival of The Front Page with John Goodman, Rosemary Harris, Sherie Rene Scott, and Jefferson Mays. The Great Comet (shortened from Natasha, Pierre, and The Great Comet of 1812) with Josh Groban has announced an opening date of Nov. 14 at the Imperial. We also have Hello, Dolly with Bette Midler, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The SpongeBob Musical, and lots more. Here is a breakdown of the end of this season and what we know about the next one and beyond:

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

2014-15 Broadway/Off-B'way Season Update

Glenn Close will star in
Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance this fall

Theater awards for 2013-14 are pouring in and so are announcements of new shows for 2014-15. In addition to This Is Our Youth with Michael Cera and Kieran Culken, there are several revivals of plays of which I have strong memories. It's Only a Play is Terrence McNally's inside-baseball comedy set on the opening night of a huge flop. Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick will reunite as a bitter actor and nervous playwright. I saw an earlier version of it called Broadway, Broadway during its out-of-town try-out in Philadelphia just before I went away to college in 1977. It starred James Coco and Geraldine Page, and closed out of town. I do remember one joke about Beatrice Straight doing a cabaret act. It resurfaced as It's Only a Play Off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club in 1986, again with Coco and Christine Baranski, Joanna Gleason and Mark Blum.

Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance is also coming back, this time with Glenn Close, John Lithgow, Lindsay Duncan and Martha Plimpton, directed by Pam McKinnon who staged Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf for Steppenwolf and on Broadway. When I was in college in Pittsburgh, there were two simultaneous productions by different groups. I must be getting old because the 1996 revival seems like only a few months ago to me.

Freaky Friday in TheaterWorld: Voice Firings, Tempest in a Tony Teapot

Michael Feingold

Friday was a pretty overwhelming day. In addition to the fallout from the phone smashing at Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, the Drama League Awards were presented and the Village Voice further cut its staff, firing its chief theater critic, Pulitzer Prize finalist Michael Feingold and popular gossip columnist Michael Musto. I admire both writers greatly and was saddened to hear this distressing news. There was also an emergency meeting of the Tony Administration Committee because producer Jeffrey Richards allegedly violated some silly rule with the brochure he sent out to Tony voters for his production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? All material sent to voters must be approved by the Committee and Richards apparently overlooked this step. Michael Reidel wrote in the Post the meeting was prompted by producer Nelle Nugent whose The Trip to Bountiful is Woolf's biggest competition for the Best Revival of a Play Award. According to Reidel's column, producers can only send Tony voters exactly the same souvenir program theatergoers receive. Richards had a new one made up just for the Tony electorate. It's kind of a stupid rule. As a Tony voter, I received the Virginia Woolf brochure and it's not going to make me vote for it over Bountiful. (I'm deciding between Woolf and Golden Boy, but the brochure is not influencing me one way or the other.)

The Drama League Awards went to Vanya, Sonia, Masha, and Spike, Kinky Boots, Pippin, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (I guess Drama League voters got that same brochure) and to Nathan Lane of The Nance for Distinguished Performance. Earlier this week, Boots won the Outer Critics Circle Award over Matilda. The Drama League win cements Boots' status as the underdog, upset winner for Best Musical at the Tonys. It can't win at the Drama Desks tonight because it's not even nominated for Best Musical, but will probably triumph for Billy Porter's lead performance as Lola. Lane's win, along with his Outer Critics victory, designates him as the front runner for the Tonys, but I still think Tom Hanks has the edge for Lucky Guy because most of the Tony voters are industry people, not critics and they want more movie stars to come to Broadway. It will be interesting to see who wins tonight at the DDs since Lane has already won several times (The Lisbon Traviata, Guys and Dolls, Forum, Producers), they might go for Hanks.

Tom Hanks and 'Lucky Guy' Tony Frontrunners

Tom Hanks can move his two Oscars to the side of the mantelpiece to make room for the Best Actor in a Play Tony he's bound to win for his Broadway debut in Lucky Guy which opened this week. His closest competition is probably Nathan Lane in The Nance and Tracey Letts in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Lane already has two Tonys (for Forum and The Producers) while Letts' show closed months ago. Hanks gives a terrific performance as the gritty tabloid columnist Mike McAlary. He gets to swear, cry, deal with cancer, get high on booze and morphine, feel guilty for causing a corrupt cop to commit suicide, and deliver a big emotional wrap-up speech at the end. It's got Tony-bait written all over it. I'll probably be voting for Letts whose challenge was greater having to justify the sadomasochistic behavior of George in a play usually dominated by whoever plays Martha.

Lucky itself is a bit of jumble, but it will make great television to have playwright Nora Ephron honored posthumously. So far, The Other Place is its only competition. Grace and Dead Accounts shuttered long ago and Breakfast at Tiffany's got a lukewarm reception. The Nance and The Assembled Parties have yet to open, but I doubt they'll be able to tackle Lucky Guy.