A Hit in Seattle, 'First Date' Coming to Broadway - Nytimes.Com
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A Hit in Seattle, 'First Date' Coming to Broadway - NYTimes.com MARCH 7, 2013, 1:25 PM A Hit in Seattle, ‘First Date’ Coming to Broadway By ALLAN KOZINN It was probably only a matter of time before the high-tech side of dating – Google background checks and fake emergency cellphone calls – would find its way onto the Broadway stage. The technological aspects of romance will be part of the fabric of “First Date,” a new musical that will open at the Longacre Theater on Aug. 4, with previews starting on July 9. The musical follows a mismatched couple – an investment banker and a fledgling artist – on a blind date, and was first staged in Seattle last year. Its book is by Austin Winsberg, who is best known as a producer and writer for television. His credits include “Gossip Girl,” “Jake in Progress” and “Glory Days,” but he has also directed productions at the Blank Theater Company’s Young Playwrights Festival in Los Angeles. The music and lyrics are by Michael Weiner and Alan Zachary, a young composing partnership whose 2005 “Twice Charmed: An Original Twist on the Cinderella Story” was written for Disney Cruise Line, and whose latest work, a musical adaptation of the film “Secondhand Lions,” will have its premiere in Seattle in September. “First Date” is being staged by Junkyard Dog Productions, the company that produced “Memphis,” the winner of the Tony Award for best musical in 2010. Bill Berry will direct, and Josh Rhodes is the choreographer. Casting has not been announced. This post has been revised to reflect the following correction: Correction: March 7, 2013 An earlier version of this post misidentified the company that is staging "First Date" on Broadway. It is Junkyard Dog Productions, not Junkyard Productions. http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/07/a-hit-in-seattle-first-date-coming-to-broadway/?ref=theater&pagewanted=print[3/8/2013 10:55:38 AM] Elizabeth Olsen to Star in 'Romeo and Juliet' at Classic Stage Company - NYTimes.com MARCH 7, 2013, 12:20 PM Elizabeth Olsen to Star in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ at Classic Stage Company By ERIK PIEPENBURG The twins Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen have found success after transitioning from TV sitcom tots on “Full House” to major design darlings with their own fashion house. Now it’s time for their sister Elizabeth Olsen to make a high-profile career switcheroo: the Classic Stage Company announced on Thursday that the actress will star in a production of “Romeo and Juliet” that will open the company’s 2013-14 season this fall. Additional casting, a creative team and run dates are to be announced. The production will be Ms. Olsen’s first time originating a stage role. Her theater background includes two stints as an understudy: in the 2009 Broadway production of the play “Impressionism” and in the 2008 Off Broadway play “Dust.” Ms. Olsen is known mostly for her film roles, including “Silent House,” “Martha Marcy May Marlene” and “Liberal Arts.” She recently completed production on Spike Lee’s remake of Park Chan-wook’s “Oldboy,” with Samuel L. Jackson and Josh Brolin, set for release in October. This post has been revised to reflect the following correction: Correction: March 7, 2013 An earlier version of this post misstated the name of the theater company where Elizabeth Olsen will be performing in "Romeo and Juliet." It is the Classic Stage Company, not the Classic Theater Company. Using information from a publicist it also referred imprecisely to her role in Spike Lee's film adaptation of "Oldboy." She has completed production on the film; she is not currently filming it. http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/...zabeth-olsen-to-star-in-romeo-and-juliet-at-classic-stage/?ref=theater&pagewanted=print[3/8/2013 10:56:31 AM] Fiery, Salty and Brash, This Rose of Texas - The New York Times March 7, 2013 THEATER REVIEW Fiery, Salty and Brash, This Rose of Texas By CHARLES ISHERWOOD She was a memorable figure even before she opened her mouth — that sculptured meringue of hair seemed to enter the room before she did — and an unforgettable one when she opened it, as salty wisecracks poured forth like popcorn from a machine. She was politically as blue as they come, but managed to win the leadership of a state as red-trending as any in the land. She acquired a national political profile without holding national office, and openly discussed her alcoholism before this became a rite of passage for famous figures from across the political spectrum. Unless you slept through the late 1980s and the 1990s, folks, you probably know by now that I refer to Ann Richards, the onetime governor of Texas, whose life and career are being given a ticker tape parade on the stage of the Vivian Beaumont Theater, where the new Broadway show “Ann,” written by and starring Holland Taylor, opened on Thursday night. To put it as the plain-talking Richards might, this one-dynamo show — Ms. Taylor is the lone cast member — is neither a shapely work of drama nor a deeply probing character study. But admirers of Richards probably won’t give a darn. She was a brightly shining political star and an inspiring figure during the years of her renown, and Ms. Taylor is essentially just giving this beloved dame one more chance to bask in the spotlight. As a performer, Ms. Taylor also emerges from this two-hour pep rally smelling like a rose (a yellow one, let us say). In a Broadway season sadly deficient, at this late juncture, in impressive leading performances from women (not that notable women’s roles have been thick on the ground), Ms. Taylor’s lively, funny, humane Ann Richards looks mighty formidable, despite the unshaded if colorful writing and the slack direction of Benjamin Endsley Klein. The solo format is challenging to negotiate even for seasoned playwrights, of course. Ms. Taylor divides the show into distinct sections: the first half-hour or so consists of a speech Richards is giving at a college graduation in some imaginary “present,” as the program has it. (Richards died in 2006.) The device allows Richards to retail folksy advice to a new generation, but mostly to reminisce about her unlikely path from contentedly domesticated housewife to high-office holder. Her history runs along well-worn lines that make good bio copy for American politicians to this day: “simple as a crayon drawing,” as Ms. Taylor’s Ann puts it. A Depression-era baby, she was born in rural Texas to a doting father who was “pure sunlight,” and a mother who kept pointing out the clouds in the sky. She skirts smoothly over her divorce from David Richards, a civil rights lawyer whose unwillingness to run for a particular office instigated his wife’s full-ahead plunge into the “contact sport” that is Texas politics. Even her battle with alcoholism is dispatched with a few jokes and a few home truths. “I musta drunk eleven hundred thousand martinis by the time I landed in A.A. — and by then, I was this big http://theater.nytimes.com/...eviews/ann-with-holland-taylor-at-vivian-beaumont-theater.html?ref=theater&pagewanted=print[3/8/2013 11:02:06 AM] Fiery, Salty and Brash, This Rose of Texas - The New York Times ol’ county commissioner!” she recalls. “So I like to think I broke a barrier for politicians with an addiction in their past. And nowadays, hell, you can’t hardly even get into a primary unless you’ve done time in rehab.” After this tidy, homespun recital of her upbringing and history in local politics before the governorship, Richards then steps away from the podium and onto an imposing set (by Michael Fagin) representing the Texas governor’s office, where a harried day in the life of the hard-driving Richards unfolds. She displays more or less the same qualities in the public and (comparatively) private spheres. She’s frank and funny, earthy and warm, tough as saddle leather and, when it comes to family and friends, loyal as they come. Juggling flurries of phone calls as she whips through a busy day (Bill Clinton is first on the line), Ann takes just as much time to arrange a family vacation, smoothing over one son’s sensitivities when it comes to charades, flatly telling his sister that she’s baking the pies again. She’s both demanding and nurturing to her devoted staff, complaining vociferously about her tardy speechwriter at one moment, ordering up a trunk full of cowboy boots as gifts the next. Running on gut instinct, she also has the political savvy to know exactly how much capital her tougher decisions are going to cost: during this day-in-the-life scene, Richards is wrestling with a decision to grant a stay of execution to a notorious murderer. “Right now on the news they’re saying Governor Richards ‘did not take’ Mother Teresa’s call!” she rants to her secretary in an outer office (patiently voiced by no less than the Tony-winning, Texas-bred Julie White). “I was giving a speech — it’s not like I hung up on her.” Ms. Taylor, wearing a facsimile of a Chanel-style suit Richards once wore, her cherry-red lips blazing beneath a white wig that seems to travel with its own spotlight, has worked this lovably ornery woman deep into her bones. If you can spy even a crack of daylight between actor and character in this performance, you’ve got better eyes than I do.