AP's Arts Decision and the Slow Death of "Niche Culture"

Off-Broadway plays like Detroit at Playwright Horizons
will no longer be reviewed by the AP.
Credit: Jeremy Daniel

In a recent email, AP theater critic Mark Kennedy explained the wire service would be severely restricting its news, reviews, and features on Off-Broadway, opera, and dance. Kennedy explains the AP's clients who run their stories are fine with reviews of music (presumably pop, rock, etc., none of that classical crap), books (presumably best sellers), movies (blockbusters), and TV (reality). But they actually resent reviews of high-toned, elitist stuff like opera, dance, and Off-Broadway. OK, I added the adjectives, but resenting Off-Bway? Maybe these resentful newspapers feel their readers can't get to Off-B'way so why should they run reviews. Evidently Broadway is still OK. But how long before AP starts cutting reviews of Main Stem shows with no major names in them? Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? They never heard of Tracy Letts in Podunk, North Dakota, so forget it. I suppose if Kim Kardashian starred as Medea Off-Broadway, they'd review that.

Recent Subway Encounters: Two Poems

Two diverse NYC subway events:

1.
A disheveled young man stands in the middle of the car
He asks our forgiveness for interrupting
His voice is tired
He tells us he is homeless and unemployed
But he has a job interview at a restaurant the next day
He's had a run of bad luck
He's been sleeping on the subways
"They don't let you lay down, so you can only get about four hours of sleep."
He'd like to get a shower and some sleep
But the cheapest hostel he can find costs $38 for the night
Anything we can spare
He's had food poisoning recently and had to go to the hospital
That just about wiped out all his money
He stands by the doors in the middle of the car
Not moving
He's not experienced at panhandling
The veterans know to keep their pitch short and simple
Then move through the car, asking each passenger
Some of the more desperate stand in front of each rider for several seconds
This young man just stands waiting for us to come to him
Two or three people get up and give him a dollar or two
He gets off at Union Square

2.
A young actor from a recently cancelled TV series

(Andy Mientus, Kyle from Smash)
Gets on the train with a woman friend
They chat and find a seat
I debate with myself if I should say something to him
As I reach my stop, I go over to him and say "Hi, I was so sorry when your character was killed."
And I'm not lying, I was.
He says "Thank you" with a smile.
I exit to have lunch with a friend

I know I stopped blogging about Smash several episodes before the series ended. I will write a wrap-up once I can bring myself to watch the season finale.

2013-14 Broadway Season: Hawke to Star in Scottish play

Ethan Hawke studying for his next Broadway role

Lincoln Center Theater just announced its season for 2013-14. The hot news is Ethan Hawke will be playing Macbeth,bringing to four the number of Shakespearean productions this Broadway season (Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, and Richard III being the others). And we just saw Hawke in Before Midnight, but I ain't going to The Purge. It looks scary. (We should have been tipped off he would essay the Thane because he hosted a segment of Shakespeare Uncovered on the play.) Other Macbeths I've seen: Alan Cumming, Patrick Stewart, Tom Gualtieri (in That Play: A Solo Macbeth), Liev Schrieber, Raul Julia, Alec Baldwin, Orson Welles, Jon Finch (Roman Polanski's film), Ian McKellen, Nicol Williamson, John Douglas Thompson, whoever played it in Sleep No More (there was more than one).

So much Shakespeare is exciting, but a really troubling Broadway trend is the lack of new plays. So far, only one has been announced--The Snow Geese from Manhattan Theatre Club. But it's still early. Here's a rundown of the 2013-14 season as of now:

July 14--Luis Bravo's Forever Tango (Walter Kerr)
July 24--Let It Be (St. James)
Aug. 4--First Date (Longacre)
Aug. 15--Soul Doctor (Circle In the Square)
Sept. 19--Romeo and Juliet (Richard Rodgers)
Sept. 26--The Glass Menagerie (Booth)
Oct. 5--Big Fish (Neil Simon)
Oct. 24--The Snow Geese (Samuel Friedman)
Nov. 3--Betrayal (Barrymore)
Nov. 10--Twelfth Night/Richard III (Belasco)
Nov. 17--The Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder (Walter Kerr)
Nov. 21--Macbeth (Vivian Beaumont)
Nov. 24--Waiting for Godot/No Man's Land (Cort)
TBA--The Winslow Boy (American Airlines)
Jan. 16--Machinal (American Airlines)
Mid-Feb.--The Bridges of Madison County (Gerald Shoenfeld)
March 23--Les Miserables (Imperial)
March 27--If/Then (Theatre TBA)
April 17--Act One (Vivian Beaumont)
Spring--The Real Thing (American Airlines)
Spring--Houdini (Theatre TBA)
Spring--Rocky (Winter Garden)
Spring--Bullets Over Broadway (St. James)

Awards Roundup for 2012-13

Andrea Martin at the Tonys

Last night's Tonys finished off the 2012-13 award season. As I did last year, I tallied up ALL the NYC award winners and recipients--just for giggles. This season the prizes were spread around without one performer dominating all the shows as Angela Lansbury in Blithe Spirit, Christine Ebersole in Grey Gardens, and Geoffrey Rush in Exit the King have done in years past. There were several top award-and-nomination grabbers with the most being five citations.

Sharing top quintuple honors are Bertie Carvel for Matilda; Tom Hanks for Lucky Guy; Shuler Hensley for The Whale; Rob McClure for Chaplin; Laura Osnes for Cinderella; Billy Porter for Kinky Boots; and Andrea Martin for Pippin.

The rundown lists nominees in lower case and winner in CAPS. If different awards organizations have placed actors in different categories, I just put them wherever I thought they belonged. For example, Kristine Nielsen was considered a leading actress by the Tonys, but a featured actress by the Outer Critics. I judged her as a leading lady of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike and put her there.

The breakdown is Astaire=Astaire Award for dancers; CD=Clarence Derwent Award from Equity for newcomers; DD=Drama Desk; DL=Drama League; LL=Lucille Lortel Award for Off-Broadway; Obie=Obie Award for Off and Off-Off-Broadway; OCC=Outer Critics Circle; RS=Richard Seff Award from Equity for veteran performers; Tony=Tony Award; TW=Theater World Award for newcomers.

Actor in a Play
Alec Baldwin, Orphans (dl)

Reed Birney, Uncle Vanya (dd)

Danny Burstein, Talley’s Folly (dl, ll)

Bobby Cannavale, The Big Knife, Glengarry Glen Ross (dl)

Brandon J. Dirksen, The Piano Lesson (dl, ll, OBIE, TW)

Jesse Eisenberg, The Revisionist (dl)

Daniel Everidge, Falling (dd, ll)

Tom Hanks, Lucky Guy (dd, dl, occ, tony, TW)

Shuler Hensley, The Whale (dd, dl, LL, OBIE, occ)
Nathan Lane, The Nance (dd, DL, OCC, tony)
Tracy Letts, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?(DD, dl, occ, TONY)

Matthew Maher, sustained excellence (OBIE)

Aasif Mandvi, Disgraced (ll)

Seth Numrich, Golden Boy (dl)
David Hyde Pierce, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (dl, occ, tony)

Paul Rudd, Grace (dl)

Michael Shannon, Grace (dl)
Tom Sturridge, Orphans (dl, OCC, tony, TW)

Paul Thureen, Blood Play (OBIE)

Stephen Tyrone Williams, My Children! My Africa (dl)

More Theatre News: Bridges Not Too Far for Broadway

Eastwood and Streep in The Bridges of Madison County

Of course there's more theater news today: the musical version of The Bridges of Madison County will definitely be moving to Broadway. (You know, the movie with Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood mooning over each other.) The musical which features a score by Jason Robert Brown (13, The Last  Five Years) and a book by Marsha Norman (Night, Mother, The Secret Garden) will begin previews at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater on Jan. 13, 2014 with an opening in mid-February. Tony winner Bartlett Sher (South Pacific) directs. The show is scheduled to play the Williamstown Theater Festival this summer Aug. 1-18.

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

Theatre World Awards

Shalita Grant of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike
at the Theatre World Awards

"This is a show!," exclaimed Alan Alda upon receiving the John Willis Lifetime Achievement Award at the 69th annual Theatre World Awards, held Mon. June 3 at the Music Box Theater where the hit revival of Pippin is currently playing. Alda then recalled the very different ceremony when he won his Theatre World Award for Fair Game for Lovers in 1964. "It was in an office that held maybe four people if they all stood up," he said. Instead of the handsome trophy presented to the 2013 winners, Alda received a piece of paper, but it was very important to him. The award, presented to newcomers to Broadway and off-Broadway, signified he was able to earn a living as an actor and didn't have to rely on income from driving a cab or serving as a doorman. The late John Willis was the publisher of the annual Theatre World volumes. 2013 marks the first year a lifetime achievement award bearing his name was presented.