Book Review: I Was Better Last Night

(Received as a birthday present) Harvey Fierstein's entertaining memoir covers his amazing career with humor and insight. From community theater in Brooklyn to drag avant-garde at LaMama and with Andy Warhol to his Tony-winning breakthrough in Torch Song Trilogy to becoming Broadway's go-to book author for musicals like La Cage Aux Folles, Kinky Boots, Newsies, and A Catered Affair, Fierstein's career trajectory has been unique. No one else has succeeded as an actor, writer and gay trailblazer, on such a scale. What's really shocking is reading how being gay was so totally anathema to the majority of American society when Harvey was starting out. I remember when Torch Song was on Broadway, they didn't even mention that it was about a gay drag queen in the commercial. (Happy audience members gushed how it was about love.) That play took the revolutionary stance that gay people wanted the same thing as straight people--love, marriage, children, etc.--not endless booze, sex and partying. In addition to backstage tales of his many credits as playwright and star, Fierstein delivers the goods on his personal life, detailing how his sexuality has affected his relationships with his parents (difficult) and brother (supportive), as well his struggles with alcoholism and many medical procedures.

Side note: As in Mary Rodgers and Barbra Streisand's book, Arthur Laurents does not come off well.

B'way Update: Mattress Transfers; Swept Away to Sweep In

Sutton Foster in
Once Upon a Mattress at Encores
Credit: Joan Marcus

Tony winner Sutton Foster will headline a revival of Once Upon a Mattress this summer on Broadway. The production is a transfer of the Encores presentation of the 1959 satirical fairy-tale musical which launched the career of Carol Burnett when she took on the lead of role of Princess Winifred the Woebegone. Mattress will begin previews at the Hudson Theater on July 31 with an opening set for Aug. 12 for a limited run through Nov. 30. The beloved musical returns to Broadway in a new adaptation by Emmy Award winner Amy Sherman-Palladino (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”, “Gilmore Girls”), directed by Tony Award nominee and Drama League Award winner Lear deBessonet (Into The Woods). 

Following its Broadway engagement, Foster will headline the production in Los Angeles for a four-week engagement at Center Theatre Group's Ahmanson Theatre from December 10, 2024 – January 5, 2025. 

Further casting has not been confirmed. The Encores production also featured Michael Urie, Harriet Harris, Cheyenne Jackson, Nikki Renee Daniels, J. Harrison Ghee, Francis Jue and David Patrick Kelly. Mattress opened Off-Broadway in 1959 and later transferred to the Alvin Theater (now the Neil Simon). The show changed theaters several times and ended up at the St. James for a total run of 470 performances. Sarah Jessica Parker starred in a 1996 revival and Jackie Hoffman and Jon Epperson (aka Lypsinka) headlined a 2015 production from Transport Group. There have been three TV adaptations, airing in 1964, 1972 and 2005 with Burnett repeating her Winifred role in the first two and playing the evil Queen Aggravain in the latter. Here is a link to my blog on those broadcasts as part of the Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show series.

The company of Swept Away
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Swept Away: The musical Swept Away (not to be confused with the 1974 Lina Wertmuller film of the same name) will be sweeping onto Broadway this fall. The show with a score by the Avett Brothers has had productions at Berkely Rep and Arena Stage. The announcement was made on May 17 at an Avett Brothers concert at Forrest Hill Stadium. A date or theater was not specified. Tony winner John Gallagher, Jr. (Spring Awakening), Tony nominee Stark Sands (Kinky Boots), Adrian Blake Enscoe and Wayne Duvall are slated to star. Based on the Avett Brothers' 2004 concept album Mignonette, the musical is inspired by an 1844 shipwreck of a whaling vessel off the coast of New Bedford, Mass. Michael Mayer (American Idiot, Thoroughly Modern Millie) directs. The book is by John Logan (Moulin Rouge, The Last Ship, Red).

B'way Update: Death Becomes Her

Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard in
Death Becomes Her in Chicago.
Credit: Matthew Murphy and
Evan Zimmerman

Death Becomes Her, the musical version of the 1992 film comedy starring Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn as deadly frenemies, will be coming to Broadway after a run at Chicago's Cadillac Palace where it is playing until June 2. Previews begin Oct. 23 at the Lunt-Fontanne prior to a Nov. 12 opening. Directed and choreographed by Tony Award winner Christopher Gattelli, Death Becomes Her features a book by Marco Pennette, and an original score by Julia Mattison & Noel Carey. 

The cast will be headlined by Tony nominees Megan Hilty (Wicked, “Smash”), Jennifer Simard (Company, Disaster!), Christopher Sieber (Spamalot, Company), and Grammy® Award winner Michelle Williams (Destiny’s Child, Chicago). 

Madeline Ashton is the most beautiful actress (just ask her) ever to grace the stage and screen. Helen Sharp is the long-suffering author (just ask her) who lives in her shadow. They have always been the best of frenemies… until Madeline steals Helen’s fiancé away. As Helen plots revenge and Madeline clings to her rapidly fading star, their world is suddenly turned upside down by Viola Van Horn, a mysterious woman with a secret that’s to die for. 

After one sip of Viola’s magical potion, Madeline and Helen begin a new era of life (and death) with their youth and beauty restored…and a grudge to last eternity.

 Life’s a bitch and then you die. Or not!

B'way Update: George Clooney, Sarah Snook, Darren Criss

George Clooney in the film version of
Good Night and Good Luck.
Credit: Warner Bros./Allstar

More film and TV stars including George Clooney, Sarah Snook and Darren Criss are announcing their Broadway debuts or returns. Oscar winner Clooney will make his first Broadway appearance in a stage version of Good Night and Good Luck, the 2005 film about pioneering TV journalist Edward R. Murrow and his crusade against the red-baiting tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. The script is by Clooney and Grant Heslov, based on their screenplay. Clooney directed the film and played Fred Friendly, the president of CBS News, and Murrow's boss. David Strathairn played Murrow in the film and was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar. In the play Clooney will be playing Murrow and Tony winner David Cromer will direct.

In a statement, Mr. Cromer said, “Edward R. Murrow operated from a kind of moral clarity that feels vanishingly rare in today’s media landscape. There was an immediacy in those early live television broadcasts that today can only be effectively captured on stage, in front of a live audience.”

Mr. Clooney added, “I am honored, after all these years, to be coming back to the stage and especially, to Broadway, the art form and the venue that every actor aspires to.”

Good Night and Good Luck will open on Broadway at a Shubert house in Spring 2025.

Theater World Award Winners

A.J. Shively and David McElwee
in Philadelphia, Here I Come
Credit: Jeremy Daniel

Theater award season is in full swing. Yesterday, the Outer Critics Circle and New York Drama Critics Circle Award winners were announced. Today, the 78th annual Theater World Award winners for outstanding Broadway or Off-Broadway debuts were announced. The awards will be presented on Mon. June 10 at 8:08pm at the Marquis Theater on the set of The Wiz. In addition to the honorees, A.J. Shively of Philadelphia, Here I Come will receive the 15th Annual Dorothy Loudon Award for Excellence in the Theater. As previously announced, Tony Award winner Len Cariou will receive the 11th Annual John Willis Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, and a 2024 TWA Special Award will be presented to theater journalist Peter Filichia, who has hosted the event for many years.

2024 Theatre World Award Honorees
For Outstanding Broadway or Off-Broadway Debut Performance
during the 2023-2024 theatrical season

Ali Louis Bourzgui, The Who’s Tommy
Cole Escola, Oh, Mary!
Brody Grant, The Outsiders
Michael Imperioli, Enemy of the People
Phillip Johnson Richardson, The Wiz
Will Keen, Patriots
Nichelle Lewis, The Wiz
Rachel McAdams, Mary Jane
Maleah Joi Moon, Hell’s Kitchen
Tom Pecinka, Stereophonic
Sarah Pidgeon, Stereophonic
Chris Stack, Stereophonic

The Theater World Awards will present a logistical problem for several of the honorees. The Drama Desk Awards will be held the same day at 6:10pm at the NYU Skirball Center in Greenwich Village. At the DDs, Cole Escola is receiving the Sam Norkin Off-Broadway Award and Shively, Grant, Keen, McAdams, and Moon are nominees in the performance categories. In addition, Peckina, Pidgeon and Stack are part of the Outstanding Ensemble Award for Stereophonic. So if they plan to attend both events, they will need rapid transportation from downtown to Times Square.

Book Review: Ripley's Game

(Downloaded on my Kindle for $3): This is the third of Patricia Highsmith's five Ripley novels. Preferable to the second, Ripley Underground which had some extraneous characters and credulity-stretching incidents. This time, every moment and character is essential to the story and it all makes sense. The sociopathic Ripley toys with the fate of an innocent acquittance just because he was offended by the man's tone when they meet casually at a party. Murder on a moving train, the mafia, hit jobs, disposing of bodies, all are described with tension and detail. I couldn't put it down. Once again, Highsmith demonstrates how "ordinary" people can be slowly drawn into committing heinous crimes if the price is right.

Stereophonic, Dead Outlaw Top NYDCC Awards

Dead Outlaw was voted Best Musical
by the New York Drama Critics Circle
Credit: Matthew Murphy

Stereophonic and Dead Outlaw were named Best Play and Best Musical by the New York Drama Critics Circle during its 88th annual meeting on May 13 to chose the top productions of the season. The awards, which will be presented during a private ceremony on Tuesday, May 21, include a cash prize of $2,500 for best play, made possible by a grant from the Lucille Lortel Foundation.

A joint special citation was awarded to the revivals of Merrily We Roll Along and Purlie Victorious. A joint special citation was also awarded to married actors Maryann Plunkett and Jay O. Sanders for lifetime achievement; Ms. Plunkett appeared this season in The Notebook and Deep Blue Sound, Mr. Sanders in Primary Trust and Purlie Victorious. They also appeared in Richard Nelson's Rhinebeck Panorama cycle of plays at the Public Theater and on Zoom during the COVID pandemic. A third special citation was awarded to writer-composer Heather Christian, whose Terce: A Practical Breviary premiered this season.

Jay O. Sanders and Maryann Plunkett
seen here in What Happened: The Michaels Abroad
will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award
Credit: Jason Ardizzone-West