Broadway Update

Hamilton will transfer to Broadway this summer
Credit: Joan Marcus

No sooner do we get over the Oscars than it's time to start thinking about the Tonys...and the Drama Desks...and the Lortels..and the Outer Critics. Invitations to the final rush of Broadway shows have begun to pour in. March and April are looking very crowded as we approach the Tony cut-off date of April 23. Of course the hottest ticket in town isn't on Broadway. Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda's rap-hip-hop treatment of the controversial founding father, is such a smash at the Public, it's moving to Broadway in the summer. Will it be remembered for the 2016 Tonys? Speaking of 2015-16, Bruce Willis will be starring in a stage version of Misery and Oprah has dropped the idea of headlining a revival of Night, Mother. Too depressing she says. Here's a rundown of the rest of the season:

Oscar Thoughts and Predictions

It's the weekend before the Oscars and time for my annual predictions. I always try to see as many of the nominated pictures as possible and this year I haven't done too badly, catching all of the Best Picture nominees and all but a few of the acting nominees. I have seen most of the nominated short films and only need to catch two more of the documentary short subjects. It makes me feel like a part of the evening if I've seen everything nominated. Some year, I will do it and get to all the Foreign and Animated feature films as well.

Unlike most years, there is no frontrunner for Best Picture. It's between Boyhood and Birdman. Neither is a typical, big-subject, historical epic. I think the voters will split the difference and give Boyhood Best Picture and Birdman Best Director.

Broadway Update: 2015 Beckons

Airline Highway at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre
(Credit: Michael Brosilaw)

As 2014 winds down, it's time to look forward to 2015. As usual, the spring is crowded with openings in order to qualify for the Tonys. It's a little early, but the frontrunner for Best Play is still The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Dog's biggest threats are also from Britain--The epic Wolf Hall and Helen Mirren in The Audience, both featuring royalty (Henry VIII in Wolf and the current monarch in Audience.) Both have snob hit written all over them. Mirren will probably take Best Actress so she can have a Tony for playing a queen to go with her Oscar and Emmy. Wolf is a two-evening spectacle and could give Dog a run for its money as Best play--both are based on novels which never stopped The Grapes of Wrath.The design categories still belong to Dog, though Wolf will probably win for Costumes.My choice for Best Play so far is from off-Broadway: Samuel D. Hunter's Pocatello. Lisa D'Amour's Airline Highway looks fascinating and has received excellent reviews in Chicago plus Joe Mantello, of Wicked, Take Me Out, and Assassins fame, is at the helm. D'Amour's Detroit is one of my favorite plays and this one about displaced New Orleans residents celebrating the life of their dying den mother in a rundown motel could be a big winner. It's the last show of the season and will be fresh in voters' minds. But it's American and the Tony people love their British theater. 

What I'm Watching

In the science-fiction classic Childhood's End, author Arthur C. Clarke imagines mankind's last generation before reaching the next evolutionary level. As humanity discards the earth and is about to take up with extraterrestrial super-intelligent beings, there are tens of thousands of TV channels to amuse us as a sort of farewell present. I think we've reached that plateau since there are now literally millions of shows that can be watched anywhere anytime on hundreds of difference platforms. I am participating in this media frenzy like everyone else but I'm not as bad as the folks on The People's Couch who will watch anything their Bravo overlords tell them to. (But I do like them because they are the only people on TV were respond to my Tweets, especially the Zeno family.) Right now I am following animated original series on Netflix and Hulu as well as new shows on Amazon and Itunes (from Pivot). And let's not forget my standbys Doctor Who, The Amazing Race, and Project Runway.


On Hulu I recently started watching The Awesomes, the service's first original animated series. Its premise of a bunch of bumbling, second-tier superheroes attempting to break into the top tier has been attempted before. DC had a comic book in the 60s called The Inferior Five featuring a crowd of superpowered goof-ups. Seth Meyers of Late Night stars as the voice of Prock, Professor-Doctor Awesome whose only super power is his intelligence and the ability to stop time, but every time he does it, he gets a nosebleed. plus his arm is constantly in a cast. It's genuinely funny, and one of the few series on Hulu you can get for free without having to buy Hulu Plus. But they include commercials. I've grown used to living without these annoying ads so I turned on AdBlocker. But now I have a blank screen on my computer for four minutes during the breaks. It really interrupts the flow worse than the ads. I suppose I could turn off the Adblocker but I'm too lazy.

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

B'way Update: 2015-16 and Twice-Told Tales

Andrea Martin at the 2013 Tony Awards

The trend for twice revived shows continues into 2015-16. The latest announced show for the next Broadway season follows the trend of plays or musicals receiving their second revival within the memory of old farts like me and which I have seen at least twice before. It's like I'm reliving my first few years in New York. Roundabout Theatre Company will be staging Michael Frayn's Noises Off which opened on Broadway in 1983 and was staged again in 2001. Andrea Martin stars in the Dorothy Loudon-Patti LuPone role. Among the other recent and current twice revived productions (original dates followed by their double restagings) are La Cage Aux Folles (1984, 2004, 2010), The Elephant Man (1979, 2002, 2014), A Delicate Balance (1966, 1996, 2014), Les Miserables (1987, 2006, 2014), The Real Thing (1984, 2000, 2014), Into the Woods (1987, 2002, 2012--Central Park, 2015--Laura Pels).

Additional announcements for 2015-16 include Al Pacino in a new David Mamet play called China Doll, Keira Knightley in a new adaptation of Therese Racquin (also from Roundabout), the revival of Fiddler on the Roof, and On Your Feet, the Gloria Estefan musical. 

Updated rundown:
Oct. 29--Lips Together, Teeth Apart (Second Stage)

Oct. 30--The Real Thing (American Airlines/Roundabout)

Oct.--Father Comes Home from the Wars (Public); Grand Concourse (PH)
Nov. 3--The Oldest Boy (LCT/Mitzi Newhouse)
Nov. 6--Sticks and Bones (New Group at Signature Center)

Nov. 11--Lost Lake (City Center/MTC)

Nov. 16--The River (Circle in the Square) 

Nov. 16--Our Lady of Kibeho (Signature)
Nov. 17--Side Show (St. James)
Nov. 18--By the Water (MTC/City Center Stage II)
Nov. 19--Allegro (CSC)

Nov. 20--A Delicate Balance (Golden)
Nov. 23--A Particle of Dread (Signature) 

November--Straight White Males (Public); Pocatello (PH);Punk Rock (MCC/Lortel)
Dec. 4--The Illusionists: Witness the Impossible (Marquis)
Dec. 7--The Elephant Man (Booth)
2014 (Sometime)—Dames at Sea, Liberace Musical, The Color Purple 
2015 (Sometime)--The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas

Jan. 13--Constellations (MTC/Samuel J. Friedman)
Jan. 15--Honeymoon in Vegas (Nederlander)
Jan. 22--Into the Woods (Roundabout/Laura Pels)
Jan. 2015--Hamlet (CSC); Hamilton (Public)

Feb. 23--Big Love (Signature)

Feb. 24--The World of Extreme Happiness (City Center/MTC)

February 2015--Placebo (PH); The Liquid Plan (Signature); The Nether (MCC/Lortel)

March 3--John and Jen (Keene Company)
March 5--Fish in the Dark (Cort)
March 12--On the 20th Century (American Airlines/Roundabout)
March 28--The Audience (Schoenfeld)

March--The Heidi Chronicles (theater TBA); The Total Bent (Public); Iowa (PH)
April 2--Skylight (Golden)
April 7--Hand to God (Booth)
April 8--Finding Neverland (Lunt-Fontanne)
April 9--Wolf Hall, Parts I and II (Winter Garden)
April 12--An American in Paris (Palace)
April 14--It Shoulda Been You (Brooks Atkinson)

April 15--The King and I (LCT/Vivian Beaumont)
April 21--Doctor Zhivago (Broadway)
April 22--Fun Home (Circle in the Square)
April 23--Airline Highway (MTC/Samuel J. Friedman)
Spring 2015--Amazing Grace

May 21--The Sound and the Fury (Elevator Repair Service at the Public)
May 2015--Dr. Faustus (CSC); What I Did Last Summer (Signature); Permission (MCC/Lortel)

Oct. 5--On Your Feet (Marquis)
Oct. 29--Therese Racquin (American Airlines/Roundabout) 
Fall 2015--China Doll, Fiddler on the Roof, American Psycho
Jan. 14, 2016--Noises Off (Roundabout)

2015-16--Children of a Lesser God, Houdini, Gigi, Night Mother

Future--Bandstand, Disney's Frozen, Soul Train, Pretty Woman, The First Wives Club, Magic Mike, Freaky Friday, King Kong, Miss Saigon, The Visitor 

B'way Update: Will 'Heidi' Take Over the Jacobs?

Will Elisabeth Moss in The Heidi Chronicles
move into the Jacobs once Once vacates?

Just felt like doing an update. Once has announced it will close at the Bernard Jacobs on Jan. 4, 2015. So what will go into that house? The only show announced for spring with no theater yet is The Heidi Chronicles with Elisabeth Moss from Mad Men. So I'd bet that revival will pounce on this desirable theater, right on 45th St....The new Birdman film starring Michael Keaton as a former action star headlining a Broadway show was filmed in the St. James. The trailer looks fascinating. Keaton had a similar real-life career track when he starred as Batman, but he has yet to tackle the Main Stem.

Updated rundown:
Oct. 14--Found (Atlantic)

Oct.16--On the Town (Lyric) 
Oct. 19--The Belle of Amherst (Westside)
Oct. 20--Billy and Ray (Vineyard)

Oct. 23--Disgraced (Lyceum) 

Oct. 26--The Last Ship (Neil Simon) 
Oct. 29--Lips Together, Teeth Apart (Second Stage)

Oct. 30--The Real Thing (American Airlines/Roundabout)

Oct.--Father Comes Home from the Wars (Public); Grand Concourse (PH); The Fortress of Solitude (Public Theatre)
Nov. 3--The Oldest Boy (LCT/Mitzi Newhouse)
Nov. 6--Sticks and Bones (New Group at Signature Center)

Nov. 11--Lost Lake (City Center/MTC)

Nov. 16--The River (Circle in the Square) 

Nov. 16--Our Lady of Kibeho (Signature)
Nov. 17--Side Show (St. James)
Nov. 18--By the Water (MTC/City Center Stage II)
Nov. 19--Allegro (CSC)

Nov. 20--A Delicate Balance (Golden)
Nov. 23--A Particle of Dread (Signature) 

November--Straight White Males (Public); Pocatello (PH);Punk Rock (MCC/Lortel)
Dec. 4--The Illusionists: Witness the Impossible (Marquis)
Dec. 7--The Elephant Man (Booth)
2014 (Sometime)—Dames at Sea, Liberace Musical, The Color Purple 
2015 (Sometime)--The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas

Jan. 13--Constellations (MTC/Samuel J. Friedman)
Jan. 15--Honeymoon in Vegas (Nederlander)
Jan. 22--Into the Woods (Roundabout/Laura Pels)
Jan. 2015--Hamlet (CSC); Hamilton (Public)

Feb. 23--Big Love (Signature)

Feb. 24--The World of Extreme Happiness (City Center/MTC)

February 2015--Placebo (PH); The Liquid Plan (Signature); The Nether (MCC/Lortel)

March 3--John and Jen (Keene Company)
March 5--Fish in the Dark (Cort)
March 12--On the 20th Century (American Airlines/Roundabout)
March 28--The Audience (Schoenfeld)

March--The Heidi Chronicles (theater TBA); The Total Bent (Public); Iowa (PH)
April 2--Skylight (Golden)
April 8--Finding Neverland (Lunt-Fontanne)
April 9--Wolf Hall, Parts I and II (Winter Garden)
April 12--An American in Paris (Palace)

April 15--The King and I (LCT/Vivian Beaumont)
April 21--Doctor Zhivago (Broadway)
April 22--Fun Home (Circle in the Square)
April 23--Airline Highway (MTC/Samuel J. Friedman)

Spring 2015--Amazing Grace
May 21--The Sound and the Fury (Elevator Repair Service at the Public)
May 2015--Dr. Faustus (CSC); What I Did Last Summer (Signature); Permission (MCC/Lortel)

Oct. 5--On Your Feet (Marquis)
Fall 2015--Fiddler on the Roof, American Psycho

2015-16--Children of a Lesser God, Houdini, Gigi, Night Mother, Noises Off (Roundabout)

Future--Bandstand, Disney's Frozen, Soul Train, Pretty Woman. The First Wives Club, Magic Mike, Freaky Friday, King Kong, Miss Saigon