All tagged Public Theater
This week’s show is a special tribute to the life and legacy of Bernard Gersten (1923-2020), a trailblazing producer and non-profit administrator responsible for the success of the Public Theater and Lincoln Center Theater (LCT). Jamie and Rob sat down with Bernard last summer for what would be his final interview. You’ll hear excerpts from that conversation along with remembrances and reflections from the Public Theater’s artistic director Oskar Eustis, LCT’s founding artistic director Gregory Mosher, LCT’s current producing artistic director André Bishop, and celebrated director Jerry Zaks.
On this week’s show, Jamie and Rob bring you an interview with the extraordinary choreographer Camille A. Brown, who in the last year alone worked on the Metropolitan Opera’s production of “Porgy and Bess”, The Public Theater’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When The Rainbow Is Enuf”, and “Toni Stone” for Roundabout, and earned a Tony Award nomination for her work on Manhattan Theatre Club’s “Choir Boy”.
Deeper cuts from the Bob Dylan songbook are roughly interpolated into “Girl from the North Country”, a new musical by Irish playwright and director Conor McPherson. Heavy on mood, this original Depression-era story offers a compelling look at a mélange of ordinary, forgotten people on the margins of low-rent society, but the effort is hampered by Mr. Dylan’s anachronistic songs and their poor integration into the plot. This one left me chilly and detached.
By my count, I’ve attended 234 performances of theatre, dance, music, opera, and cabaret during 2019. Out of a field that large, it’s hard to pick just ten, but nevertheless, here are my top ten (ok, eleven) favorite shows I saw in 2019.
Here I take a look at “The Michaels” and “Dr. Ride’s American Beach House”, two Off-Broadway plays of very different substance that trade in the same, refreshing approach of eschewing bombast and declaration for delicacy and introspection.
“Soft Power”, David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori’s dramaturgically breathtaking new musical-within-a-play, experiments with form while rendering a sort of reverse version of “The King and I”. The resulting satire of American culture and politics brims with an unpretentious intelligence and an unexpectedly penetrating sense of patriotism. If democracy will break your heart, “Soft Power” can mend it.
The city that never sleeps also boasts a theatre scene that never sleeps. With the summer now behind us, this is an overview of all that’s coming to New York stages this fall (spoiler alert: it’s a lot).
"Flying Over Sunset", "The Lightning Thief: the Percy Jackson Musical", "How I Learned to Drive", "A Soldier's Play", "Caroline, or Change", "Slava's Snowshow", "A Christmas Carol", and "Diana" announce Broadway runs; "Harmony" and "Forbidden Broadway" announce Off-Broadway runs; Gideon Glick to step into “Little Shop of Horrors” for Jonathan Groff; film of "Everybody's Talking About Jamie" will be released in October 2020; "What the Constitution Means to Me" filmed for future release ; RIP Bob Ullman
“Sea Wall / A Life”—two monologues by two different playwrights performed by two different actors—is a unique offering for Broadway: two well-written pieces of storytelling whose power derives from the strength of their solo performance, rather than from any theatrical trappings. Following a transfer from the Public Theatre, the “play” still doesn’t justify its composition, but is saved by engaging performances by its marquee stars: Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge.
"Hadestown" leads in Outer Critics Circle nominations, followed by "Tootsie" and "Oklahoma!"; Disney plans revival of "Beauty and the Beast"; “Sea Wall/A Life" headed to Broadway this summer; Phylicia Rashad to direct "Blue" on Broadway next spring; Mel Brooks will play a two night residency at the Lunt Fontanne Theatre; MCC announces 2019-2020 season; "The Boys in the Band" cast to reunite for Netflix adaptation; "Survivor: The Destiny's Child Musical" will premiere in Houston; Noah Galvin to join the cast of "Waitress"; “The Lehman Trilogy" eyes Broadway; "Nowhere Boy" musical in development; "The Prom" to receive YA novel treatment; cast album news update; RIP Harvey Sabinson
Theatre for a New Audience in Brooklyn presents a new nondescript production of Shakespeare’s “The Tragedy of Julius Caesar” featuring an athletic use of choreographed movement to summon the emotional charge created by crowd and battle scenes, elevating and sustaining the intensity of the political drama. “Julius Caesar” is hard to get right; TFANA pulls it off with this well-acted, smartly staged, deeply engaging, and flat-out thrilling production.
Two duos of complementary works recently opened Off-Broadway: “Sea Wall / A Life” at the Public Theater, featuring Tom Sturridge and Jake Gyllenhaal performing monologues by Simon Stephens and Nick Payne, and Classic Stage Company’s repertory presentation of “Mies Julie” and “The Dance of Death”, two newly adapted works of August Strindberg. This is a short look at each.
