THE MORNING LINE
DATE: Friday, July 20, 2012
FROM: Kelly Guiod Michelle Farabaugh, Jennifer Laski, Colleen O’Connell
PAGES: 20, including this page
'Scandalous,' Musical About Aimee Semple McPherson, Sets Broadway Opening - NYTimes.com
JULY 19, 2012, 12:29 PM ‘Scandalous,’ Musical About Aimee Semple McPherson, Sets Broadway Opening
By PATRICK HEALY Many Broadway shows struggle for media attention - hence the tactic of casting Hollywood stars - but the new musical "Scandalous" has an extraordinary weapon in its publicity arsenal: NBC's "Today" show. On Thursday's broadcast, the co-host Matt Lauer plugged "a very big announcement," then introduced Kathie Lee Gifford, who shares hosting duties for the final hour of "Today."
"I can't even believe the words are coming out of my mouth," Ms. Gifford said. "A lot of weird words have come out of my mouth over the years, but we're announcing today that a musical I've been writing for going on 13 years now will be coming to Broadway this fall."
"Broadway!" Mr. Lauer said, applauding.
By using her "Today" platform, Ms. Gifford instantly put "Scandalous" in a national spotlight that other Broadway musicals this fall, like "Chaplin" and "Rebecca," could only dream about. How often Ms. Gifford rah-rahs her own show on "Today" remains to be seen.
"Scandalous," based on the life of Aimee Semple McPherson, a colorful evangelist from the early 20th century, has a book and lyrics by Ms. Gifford, herself a born-again Christian who was a gospel singer early in her career. The music is by David Pomeranz and David Friedman, and the production is directed by David Armstrong, the artistic director of 5th Avenue Theater in Seattle. The musical ran there in 2011 under the title "Saving Aimee," earning mixed reviews from critics.
Broadway musicals based on religious themes have had a tough time lately; the $14 million musical "Leap of Faith" flopped quickly this spring, and the revivals of "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Godspell" struggled at the box office this year and closed this summer. The musical "Sister Act," which prominently features singing nuns and a salvation storyline, is due to close in August.
Through a spokesman, the producers for "Scandalous" declined to provide the capitalization amount on Thursday, but it is believed to be in the high seven figures.
The show will star musical theater veteran Carolee Carmello as Aimee; Ms. Carmello was nominated for Tony Awards for her performances in "Parade" (during the 1998-99 season) and "Lestat" (2006), and she is currently starring in "Sister Act" as Mother Superior.
Preview performances are scheduled to begin on Oct. 13 at the Neil Simon Theater.
"We have opening night - pinch me - Nov. 15," Ms. Gifford added on the "Today" broadcast.
"Kathie Lee Gifford on Broadway, baby," Mr. Lauer replied.
The lead producers of "Scandalous" include some unusual newcomers like Dick DeVos, a Michigan businessman who ran one of the most expensive races ever for governor in 2006, as the Republican http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/...lous-musical-about-aimee-semple-mcpherson-sets-broadway-opening/?pagewanted=print[7/20/2012 9:48:51 AM] 'Scandalous,' Musical About Aimee Semple McPherson, Sets Broadway Opening - NYTimes.com
nominee against Democrat Jennifer Granholm (who won). Mr. DeVos is the son of billionaire Amway founder Richard DeVos. Dick DeVos's wife Betsy is also a lead producer; they have a foundation in their name that provides money primarily to religious groups and to organizations that promote free-market economic policies. Another lead producer is Foursquare Foundation, which provides grants to evangelical churches and ministries.
A spokesman for the show did not immediately reply when asked if Ms. Gifford is putting any of her own money into the show.
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/...lous-musical-about-aimee-semple-mcpherson-sets-broadway-opening/?pagewanted=print[7/20/2012 9:48:51 AM] Some Subway Characters, Even Stranger Than Usual - The New York Times
July 19, 2012 THEATER REVIEW Some Subway Characters, Even Stranger Than Usual
By LAUREL GRAEBER
Rats probably travel through New York subway tunnels as often as commuters. But hares, hedgehogs and a hippopotamus? You won’t see them on the tracks.
Except around 140th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, where these creatures and many more occupy subterranean — and subconscious — depths in “Flying Fables,” a spirited production for families from New Haarlem Arts Theater at City College.
As dark and dank as any forest from the Brothers Grimm, the subway’s passages lead a couple, Charles and Marie, on a feverish quest: not to catch a train but to find a mysterious trunk they each glimpsed in a dream. The materialistic Charles (Serge Thony) hopes it offers money and electronics, while the embittered Marie (Maggie Lalley) thinks it holds a resolution to their troubled marriage.
Charles and Marie never quite emerge as real people, yet this doesn’t matter, since they spend much of their hour onstage as animals. Opening the trunk, they encounter a book of fables, along with Marieable (Kristen Adele), Marie’s imaginary friend from childhood, and Chungkowe (Craig Dolezel), the identity Charles adopted as a boy. With these guides they travel through tales from Africa, Europe and Asia, transforming themselves into an Aesop’s stable of the furry and the feathered.
The script, adapted by Stephanie Berry, works best when it favors fun over Charles and Marie’s moral education. Incorporating some chanting and song (the original music is by Patricia Ju and Carlos Ricketts, with choreography and staging by Bruce Hawkins), the fables include a tortoise-and-hare variation, set in Scotland, in which a hedgehog wins a race by his wits. A Spanish story about a half-chick (one leg, one eye, one wing) addresses not only ethical behavior but also the invention of weathervanes. The final piece, a rap involving a cat, a dog, a rat and beat-box rhythms, seems to have been born in 21st-century New York.
Under John-Martin Green’s direction the young ensemble — completed by Michael Anthony, Barron B. Bass and Chanel Jenkins — proves that talent works as well as elaborate costumes in changing humans into beasts. All the sniffing, nose twitching, one-legged hopping and screechy vocalizations had a recent audience of children delightedly giggling. They hadn’t entered a real subway, but they were definitely on a journey.
http://theater.nytimes.com/...heater/reviews/flying-fables-by-new-haarlem-arts-theater-at-city-college.html?pagewanted=print[7/20/2012 9:49:53 AM] Puppets Embodying Tales of China - The New York Times
July 19, 2012 THEATER REVIEW Puppets Embodying Tales of China
By CHARLES ISHERWOOD
A guardian angel singing snatches from the greatest hits of the British rock band Queen is perhaps the strangest apparition in “Hand Stories,” an autobiographical work from Yeung Fai, a Chinese-born puppeteer, presented at the Clark Studio Theater as part of the Lincoln Center Festival.
Mr. Yeung, the show’s creator and the principal puppeteer, was born to a father celebrated for his glove puppetry, a traditional Chinese art form that dates back centuries and is passed down directly through families. In an early sequence we watch a film from the 1960s of Mr. Yeung’s father, Yang Shen, performing a scene of courtship between a lord and lady projected on a narrow strip of screen at the back of the stage. Mr. Yeung then performs the same scene live, using beautifully fashioned hand puppets that move with a delicacy that evokes real movement and also gently lampoons it to humorous effect.
Mr. Yeung’s father had the misfortune of being an artist during the violent upheaval of the Cultural Revolution, hauntingly symbolized by a silver-scaled dragon that appears, snaking through the darkness. A moving scene depicts a puppet version of Yang Shen enduring the humiliating re-education process that artists and intellectuals were forced to undergo in this grim period in Chinese history. It is chilling to discover that even an art form as seemingly innocuous as puppetry was considered suspect, and its practitioners mercilessly harassed.
After the death of his father, the result of a grueling sentence of hard labor, Mr. Yeung himself is jailed, although the details of the episodic story are sometimes hard to pick out. (There are no subtitles and very little dialogue, but a synopsis is included in the program; it’s a good idea to read it beforehand.) Entering the story himself, Mr. Yeung is seen cowering in a prison cell, hiding behind Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book.
Eventually freed, Mr. Yeung returns to his puppetry. One of the show’s most purely entertaining sequences takes us behind the scenes. The small stage is turned around so that we can see the mechanics of the performance — an elaborate comic sequence involving a tiger who swallows a man — while a video of what the audience would see is projected onto the screen. Surprisingly it detracts little from the enjoyment of the show itself to see how the various puppets are manipulated by the two puppeteers as they scramble back and forth behind the scenes. (Mr. Yeung is assisted by the skilled Yoann Pencolé.)
You may be wondering by now exactly when and how that angel with the distinctive musical tastes enters the story. Mr. Yeung, who sent his son to the United States, eventually follows him there when the Tiananmen Square protests inspire a crackdown by the authorities. But he is unable to find work and loses his inspiration. Enter the madcap angel, who somewhat bizarrely is also apparently a piggy bank with a slot on his head for coins. The angel raises Mr. Yeung’s spirits by singing bits of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “We Are the Champions” while flitting around his small room, pestering him to return to practicing his art.
http://theater.nytimes.com/...eater/reviews/hand-stories-by-the-puppeteer-yeung-fai-at-lincoln-center.html?pagewanted=print[7/20/2012 9:50:47 AM] Puppets Embodying Tales of China - The New York Times
This Mr. Yeung eventually does, even if it sometimes means busking on the street with a sign on his back advertising that he is a fifth-generation puppeteer. “Hand Stories,” a production from the Théâtre Vidy- Lausanne , gives a flavorful taste of a traditional art form rarely seen and perhaps in danger of extinction.
Mr. Yeung’s hands themselves are fascinating to watch: Through long training and experience in the art he practices, his fingers have become unusually limber and dexterous, seemingly with personalities of their own. Mr. Pencolé is shown in the production’s final moments in a yogalike pose with his hands pressed to the ground, stretching his fingers, presumably to increase their expressiveness. Although the link in the family chain has perhaps been broken, Mr. Yeung is clearly devoted to seeing that the skills he has been entrusted with are carried through to a new generation.
Hand Stories
Creation, design and puppets by Yeung Fai; music by Colin Offord; video by Yilan Yeh; lighting by Christophe Kehrli; sound by Patrick Ciocca; outsider’s view, Pauline Thimonnier; artistic consultant, Thierry Tordjman. A Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne production, presented by the Lincoln Center Festival, Nigel Redden, director. At the Clark Studio Theater, 165 West 65th Street, Lincoln Center; (212) 721-6500, lincolncenterfestival.org. Through Wednesday. Running time: 1 hour 10 minutes.
http://theater.nytimes.com/...eater/reviews/hand-stories-by-the-puppeteer-yeung-fai-at-lincoln-center.html?pagewanted=print[7/20/2012 9:50:47 AM]
Broadway 'Glengarry' adds cast - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety
Posted: Thu., Jul. 19, 2012, 3:27pm PT
Broadway 'Glengarry' adds cast Schiff, Shamos, Harbour sign on
By GORDON COX
Richard Schiff, David Harbour and recent Tony nominee Jeremy Shamos have signed on to join the cast of the Broadway revival of "Glengarry Glen Ross" this fall.
Trio will portray hustling real estate agents who work with the characters played the previously announced topliners Al Pacino and Bobby Cannavale in the David Mamet play, to be helmed by Daniel Sullivan.
Schiff ("The West Wing"), cast as George Aaronow, makes his Rialto debut in the production. Harbour, playing John Williamson, previously appeared opposite Pacino in the 2010 Rialto production of "The Merchant of Venice," also helmed by Sullivan, while Shamos, tapped to appear as James Lingk, is currently on the Rialto in the limited run of "Clybourne Park," a stint that earned him a Tony nomination in the spring.
"Glengarry Glen Ross" begins previews Oct. 16 ahead of a Nov. 11 opening at the Schoenfeld Theater.
Contact Gordon Cox at [email protected]
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118056817?refcatid=15&printerfriendly=true[7/20/2012 9:40:58 AM]