B'way Update: Cast for Mother Play; Death Becomes Her

Jessica Lange will star in
Paula Vogel's Mother Play.

Casting and dates have been announced for Mother Play by Paula Vogel (Indecent, How I Learned to Drive) to open this coming spring at Second Stage's Hayes Theater. Tony and Drama Desk winner Celia Keenan-Bolger (To Kill a Mockingbird), Oscar, Emmy and Tony winner Jessica Lange (Long Day's Journey Into Night), and Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG winner Jim Parsons (Big Bang Theory) will star in the world premiere directed by Tony nominee and Drama Desk winner Tina Landau (SpongeBob SquarePants the Musical). Previews begin April 2 with an April 25 opening. 

Lange will play Phyllis, a domineering matriarch supervising the move of her teenaged children Carl (Parsons) and Martha (Keenan-Bolger) into a new apartment outside Washington, DC in 1962. Phyllis has definite ideas about how her children should lead their lives. The play follows the family's rollercoaster ride through the coming years. 

In other news, Megan Hilty (Smash) and Jennifer Simard (Disaster, Once Upon a One More Time) will star in a musical version of the 1992 film comedy Death Becomes Her which starred Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn, set to play Chicago's Cadillac Theater from April 30-June 2, 2024. The new musical, which has its sights set on Broadway, features a score by Noel Carey and Julia Mattison, book by Marco Pennette and direction by Christopher Gattelli (Newsies). Simard plays Helen, a writer whose husband has an affair with her former friend Madeline (Hilty), a glamorous movie star. As Helen plots her revenge against Madeline, the stakes becomes higher when both partake of a mysterious potion granting them eternal youth and beauty. 

Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn in
Death Becomes Her.

Cutting the Cable Cord, Part 5

Only Murders in the Building with
Selena Gomez, Steve Martin
and Martin Short
Credit: Hulu

The last blog post about Cutting the Cable Cord (Part 4) was written in Jan. 2016. That was the first time our household experimented with cutting cable. We eventually re-attached Spectrum, the lure was just too strong. But now we have severed the connection again for two reasons: 1) our monthly bill for phone, internet and three cable boxes with DVR was over $300 monthly; and 2) streaming services have gotten much more sophisticated and inclusive of most of the networks TWC Spectrum provided. Another reason has popped up in the past week: 3) Spectrum is in a dispute with ABC and their various Disney channels, just as they were in a battle with CBS a few years ago--chronicled here in a blog post from 2013. So Spectrum has apparently cut off ABC. That spat will probably be resolved soon, but the first two considerations still loom large.

Book Review: The Big Lie: Election Chaos, Political Opportunism and the State of American Politics After 2020

(Taken out of the Jackson Heights Library) Jonathan Lemire is a familiar face and welcome presence for his appearances on Morning Joe and his tough questions for Trump as a reporter for Politico and the Associated Press. His book on Trump's endless mendacities is valuable in that its a fairly detailed record of the past seven years beginning with Trump's 2016 statement that the upcoming presidential election would be rigged if he doesn't win. I didn't learn anything I didn't already know and there is a lack of independent interviews (Most quotes are from other books.) But a good summary of Trump's efforts to discredit our election system when it didn't go his way, plus his history of an extremely loose relationship with the truth.

Thoughts on 2024, Trump and the Fate of Democracy

On Jan. 6, 2021, if you told me that we'd be where we are today, I wouldn't have believed you. Well, maybe I would since our current political mess derives from the gullibility and blindness of a big swatch of the American voting public. About 30 percent still believes Trump's huge lies about the 2020 presidential election being rigged against him and that he did absolutely nothing wrong, legally, ethically, or morally in its aftermath. 

But here we are with the very real possibility that the Cheeto Julius Caesar could return to office in 2024. It's not impossible. Biden's age, voter indifference and whatever the shiny object of the moment will be next November could combine to propel Trumpy back into the White House. Hopefully that won't happen, but it's not out of the question.

Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show: Part 42: Paley Center Visits 4 & 5

In the waning days of summer, I was able to make two brief visits to the Paley Center here in NYC in order to catch up on their archival collection of Carol's two series subsequent to the end of her long-running variety show. They had all four episodes of Carol Burnett and Company (1979) and some eps of Carol and Company (1990-1).

Carol Burnett and Company
Aug. 18, 1979: Cheryl Ladd

Carol with Cheryl Ladd on Carol Burnett and
Company (1979)

The first of Carol's four summer shows begins with her farewell speech for the last show of the 1967-78 CBS series. She talks about moving on from variety and how change is growth. Cut to Carol in 1979: "So I changed my mind." She explains the plan of this new ABC series is to do four shows for the summer and hopefully do it every August like summer camp. (Unfortunately, ABC opted out after one year and CBS decided to go with the Tim Conway Show instead.) This series is like an extension of the original with much of the same personnel (Carol's husband Joe Hamilton producing, Tim and Vicki, Peter Matz as music director, and many of the same chorus dancers. Craig Richard Nelson and Kenneth Mars sub for Harvey. The writing staff was reduced and joined by Ann Elder, formerly of Laugh-In and Emmy winner for her contributions to Lily Tomlin's specials.)

The first sketch is a reunion of Mr. Tudball and Mrs. Wiggins dealing with the energy crisis. Tim as Tudball mocks a poster of President Jimmy Carter for forcing him to cut back on electricity. Carol as Mrs. Wiggins almost gets herself fired for slow shorthand, general incompetence and asking for the afternoon off. (When asked why she wants to skip work, Wiggins answers, "I'm out of gas and I'm odd," referring to the national plan that drivers should get gas on odd or even days.) But she catches Tudball running an illegal fan and blackmails him into letting her keep her job. 

B'way Update: Noise Adds Thurs. Matinees, etc.

A Beautiful Noise with Will Swenson and cast
will now play four matinees per week.

A Beautiful Noise, the Neil Diamond bio-musical at the Broadhurst, has been flagging at the box office and will now play four matinees a week instead of three. Beginning Sept. 6, in addition to Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, the company will perform on Thursday afternoons, eliminating Wednesday evenings. Noise opened Dec. 4, 2022 and received no Tony nominations....Once Upon a One More Time, the Britney Spears fairy-tale musical, has posted a closing notice of Sept. 3 at the Marquis Theater. The show opened on June 22 and will have played 42 previews and 81 performances. Plans are underway for national and international tours....The Encores series of concert performances of revived musicals at New York City Center will go to two weeks of performances instead of a weekend's worth. Encores' 2024 season will consist of a new staging of Once Upon a Mattress with Sutton Foster directed by Encores' artistic director Lear de Bessonet (Jan. 24--Feb. 3); Jelly's Last Jam (Feb. 21-March 3); and Titanic (June 12-23).... Josh Groban returned to Sweeney Todd at the Lunt-Fontanne on Aug. 24 after testing negative for COVID-19. His co-star Annaleigh Ashford, also recovering from COVID-19, is scheduled to return after Aug. 25 while her standby Jeanna de Waal continues as Mrs. Lovett.

B'way Update: Outsiders Musical, Vineyard Season

Cast members of The Outsiders
at La Jolla Playhouse
Credit: Rich Soublet II

A new musical based on The Outsiders,  S.E. Hinton's young-adult novel about rival teen gangs in 1967 Oklahoma, will be opening on Broadway this spring after a world premiere production at the La Jolla Playhouse in Feb.-March of this year. Oscar winner Angelina Jolie will be among the lead producers. Previews begin March 16 at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theater prior to an April 11 opening. Danya Taymor (Pass Over) directs. 

The Outsiders is regarded as a classic in young-adult literature and has been named by BBC News as one of the 100 most influential novels and was voted one of 100 Best Loved Novels in PBS' Great American Read. Francis Ford Coppola directed the 1983 film version which made stars out of Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise, C. Thomas Howell, Ralph Macchio, and Diane Lane. There was also a short-lived TV series in 1990.