Streep Donates $1 Million for Public Theater Renovation - NYTimes.com

OCTOBER 4, 2012, 8:00 PM Streep Donates $1 Million for Public Theater Renovation

By ALLAN KOZINN At a reception on Thursday night to mark the completion of the Public Theater's $40 million renovation of its Astor Place home, the theater was scheduled to announce another reason to celebrate: the actress Meryl Streep has donated $1 million to be put toward the cost of the reconfiguration.

"I give this gift, " Ms. Streep said in a statement, "in honor of the founder of the Public Theater, my friend and mentor Joseph Papp, and in remembrance of one of the theater's Board members and greatest supporters, my friend Nora Ephron." (Papp died in 1991; Ephron died in June.)

Ms. Streep's association with the company goes back to her 1975 Broadway debut in Papp's staging of "Trelawny of the Wells" (the cast also included Mandy Patinkin and John Lithgow). She has also appeared in Shakespeare in the Park productions of "Henry V" and "Measure for Measure," and more recently, "The Seagull" and "Mother Courage and Her Children."

The Public Theater's renovation includes an expanded lobby, a new mezzanine-level cocktail lounge called the Library, a lobby snack bar meant to encourage theatergoers to congregate, a new entrance to Joe's Pub and an expanded box office.

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/...4/streep-donates-1-million-for-public-theater-renovation/?ref=theater&pagewanted=print[10/5/2012 9:51:31 AM] Faith, Doubt and All Sorts of Scars - The New York Times

October 4, 2012 THEATER REVIEW Faith, Doubt and All Sorts of Scars

By BEN BRANTLEY

Even standing stock still, this guy vibrates with discomfort. It’s as if he’s paralyzed by cramps, not so much in his body but in his mind. Sam, who’s been scarred all over by life, has come to mistrust the world. And because Sam is played by Michael Shannon, we trust in his mistrust so deeply that it hurts. By the way, his instincts aren’t wrong.

Anyone doubting that Mr. Shannon is our reigning champion in embodying uneasy American manhood (well, him and Joaquin Phoenix) need only check out his portrait of the doomed Sam in Craig Wright’s “Grace,” which opened on Thursday night at the Cort Theater. This cool, strangulated little essay of a play, which also stars the very able Paul Rudd, deals with really big subjects seldom addressed onstage these days. (Its title refers not to a woman’s name but the theological concept.)

But if “Grace” is remembered in years to come — and I can’t promise it will be — it will most likely be as the production that brought Mr. Shannon’s electrically anxious acting to Broadway. Having played all-consuming paranoia to a fare-thee-well in the Off Broadway and film versions of Tracy Letts’s “Bug” and the movie “Take Shelter,” Mr. Shannon is allowed to be the sane man in “Grace.” But that doesn’t mean his character is any more at ease in his skin.

Uneasiness, on many levels, dominates “Grace,” which was first produced at the Woolly Mammoth Theater in Washington in 2004 and has since been seen around the country. Staged by Dexter Bullard (who directed Mr. Shannon in “Bug” and in Mr. Wright’s “Mistakes Were Made”), this current production exists in a sustained tremor of apprehension.

As lighted by David Weiner, with hushed nerve-scraping sound design by Darron L. West, “Grace” exudes the clinical, creepy brightness of a morgue. The slowly revolving set by the industrious Beowulf Boritt (“Chaplin,” “If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet”) does include an otherworldly vista of cerulean heavens. But the sum effect is of those very worldly post-mortems so beloved by true-crime television series.

Like many such shows “Grace” starts with a murder — or three murders, to be exact, and one suicide. (See, I wasn’t spoiling a thing by telling you that Sam was doomed.) The play opens on several corpses, who then rise and act out the last moments of their lives in reverse order, as if a tape were being rewound. That scene, restored to conventional sequence, will be repeated at the end, 90 airless minutes later.

In other words, this is not a whodunit but a why-dunit. And the whys are those asked by theologians and philosophers as well as homicide detectives. (Mr. Wright, for the record, was once a seminary student.)

Well, to a degree. “Grace” isn’t as intellectually probing or unsettling as it means to be. It tidily stacks the deck of its central thesis, which concerns the nature of grace as it is visited on inhabitants of this earth. In Mr. Wright’s version the evangelical Christian doesn’t stand a chance. http://theater.nytimes.com/...grace-with-paul-rudd-and-michael-shannon-at-cort-theater.html?ref=theater&pagewanted=print[10/5/2012 9:58:18 AM] Faith, Doubt and All Sorts of Scars - The New York Times

The play’s born-again protagonist is Steve (Mr. Rudd), a Minnesotan who has moved to Florida with his wife, Sara (Kate Arrington), with the goal of creating a chain of gospel-theme hotels. (His slogan: “Where would Jesus stay?”) This is a man for whom capitalism and Christianity have been conflated into a single ideology of achievement. Mr. Rudd, whose screen performances have often been edged with a piquant skepticism, plays the part with a committed straightforwardness and no hint of condescension.

Steve has a way of zealously, even manically, bringing up God with everyone he encounters. That includes his reclusive neighbor Sam, a NASA scientist who lost his fiancée (and much of his skin) in a car accident, and Karl (an avuncular, bluff Ed Asner, in a welcome return to the stage), a German-born exterminator whose wife is dying of cancer and who lost his family as a child in Nazi Germany.

Sam and Karl, understandably, don’t have much patience with Steve’s ideas of a beneficent providence. When pressed, Sam reluctantly says he sees Jesus as a mythical figure exploited for profit by churchly corporations. But as the play continues, both these doubters — along with Sara, who has never been as doctrinaire a Christian as her husband — come to think that some sort of spiritual grace may indeed operate in this world.

The paradox of the financially beleaguered Steve losing his religion while everybody else finds theirs is laid out as tidily as a PowerPoint presentation. And while all the performances are solid, I often had difficulty in believing these characters as something other than figures in a parable.

There are a couple of lovely monologues of self-revelation for Sara (played with a serene clarity by Ms. Arrington) and Sam. But there are also instances of glib, shortcut exposition you associate with sitcom pilots. (An exultant Steve to Sara when he thinks his financing has come through: “Do you what this means?” Sara: “That we can have a baby?”)

If “Grace” winds up haunting you, it will be because of Mr. Shannon’s performance. And give credit to those who cast him, against obvious type, as the passive Sam instead of the increasingly crazy Steve. From his tight- muscled posture to his pinched, effortful voice, Mr. Shannon here suggests someone for whom continuing to live is a painful act of labor. It’s when Sam is allowed, briefly, to imagine things might be otherwise that the dialectic of “Grace” acquires achingly human impact.

Grace

By Craig Wright; directed by Dexter Bullard; sets by Beowulf Boritt; costumes by Tif Bullard; lighting by David Weiner; sound by Darron L.West; fight director, J. David Brimmer; makeup by Nan Zabriskie; technical supervisor, Neil A. Mazzella; production stage manager, James Harker; associate producers, Roberta Pereira and Judy Page; general manager, 101 Productions Ltd. Presented by Debbie Bisno, Fox Theatricals, Paula Wagner, Jed Bernstein and Jessica Genick, in association with Christian Chadd Taylor, Miles Marek/Peter May, Bruce Bendel/Scott Prisand, William Berlind/Amanda DuBois and Alex DiClaudio/LaRue-Noy. At the Cort Theater, 138 West 48th Street, Manhattan, (212) 239-6200, telecharge.com. Through Jan. 6. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes.

WITH: Paul Rudd (Steve), Michael Shannon (Sam), Kate Arrington (Sara) and Ed Asner (Karl).

http://theater.nytimes.com/...grace-with-paul-rudd-and-michael-shannon-at-cort-theater.html?ref=theater&pagewanted=print[10/5/2012 9:58:18 AM] Occupying Paris With Revolutionary Zest, Amplified by the Cancan - The New York Times

October 4, 2012 THEATER REVIEW Occupying Paris With Revolutionary Zest, Amplified by the Cancan

By BEN BRANTLEY

Have you ever wondered what it’s like, really like, to be part of a state-toppling revolution? If so, might I suggest you try dancing the cancan? It would need to be an especially vigorous cancan, with skyscraping kicks and twirls upon twirls, and you would have to keep dancing until you felt like falling down. But in the end you might experience some of the dizzy exhilaration, liberation and exhaustion known by the Parisians who took over their city in the heady spring of 1871.

That, in any case, is the formula devised by the Civilians, an investigative theater troupe celebrated for its imaginative reach of empathy. That dance that once shook (and shocked) the world is performed, at length and in high gear, twice during “Paris Commune,” the spirited, 90-minute re-creation of a 10-week revolution, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Fishman Space.

On one occasion the cancan is used to help present a synoptic if extensive history of organized labor, from the days of the pharaohs to the present. On the other the ensemble performs the dance as part of an animated timeline that charts revolutions throughout the ages. Bet you Mrs. Raulerson never did that for you in European history class in high school (though wouldn’t it be pretty to think so?).

That timeline cancan is probably essential for those of you who have difficulty keeping your French revolutions apart. The one anatomized in “Paris Commune,” which opened Wednesday and runs through Sunday as part of the BAM New Wave Festival, is not nearly as famous as, say, the June Rebellion of 1832 (that’s the one in “Les Miserables,” soon to be a major motion picture) or the whopper that exploded in 1789 (that’s the one in “A Tale of Two Cities,” coming soon to your daughter’s reading list).

The relatively low profile, at least in current cultural memory, of what happened in March of 1871 is part of what attracted Steven Cosson and Michael Friedman, the creators of “Paris Commune.” In their 11 years of existence the Civilians have created works of journalistic theater — ranging from the cosmic, in “(I Am) Nobody’s Lunch,” to the civic, “In the Footprint: The Battle Over Atlantic Yards” — that give voice to the voiceless and form to the undocumented. (One of their works in progress is devoted to the Occupy Wall Street movement.)

For the roughly 70 days of the government known as the Paris Commune it indeed seemed as if a voice — booming and epochal — had been given to a group that had seldom commanded the public ear. That would be the working-class Parisians who wrested control of their city from a French army that had been depleted by the disastrous Franco-Prussian War.

From mid-March to late May the product of what is sometimes described as the first socialist revolution held sway in Paris. Using archival documents — including letters, diaries and insurrectionary pamphlets — and

http://theater.nytimes.com/...aris-commune-from-the-civilians-at-bam-new-wave-festival.html?ref=theater&pagewanted=print[10/5/2012 9:57:41 AM] Occupying Paris With Revolutionary Zest, Amplified by the Cancan - The New York Times

songs from the period the Civilians have created a warmer variation on a Brechtian cabaret to evoke the jubilation, chaos, fear and intoxicating sense of possibility that pervaded those days.

A mere 90 minutes isn’t much for a cast of seven to embody a cast of thousands and to cover the breadth of even a revolution as short-lived as this one. At times “Paris Commune,” directed by Mr. Cosson, can seem a bit like something a passionate, aspiringly hip teacher — determined to raise the collective scores on his Advanced Placement students — might devise to hold his classes’ attention.

Yet as an eternal if superannuated student I seldom found my attention wandering. That’s because “Paris Commune,” like most Civilians productions, is informed by a lust to imagine the existences of others, to translate distant lives into immediate experience.

Accordingly, the show begins with the cast members, in their street clothes, asking us to envision a concert, held in the Palace of the Tuileries (destroyed by fire shortly thereafter), which might be regarded as both the triumphant pinnacle and resonant last gasp of the commune. As the production continues, the performers don period costumes (by Sarah Beers) to become an assortment of those who helped create the Commune, and a few who opposed it.

So we meet a matronly proponent of anarchy, a disciple of Marx, a beleaguered French president on the run, a cloistered bourgeois shopkeeper, assorted soldiers, a rabble-rousing pamphleteer and — standing in for the common folk, receiving their first taste of power — a baker and his wife (warmly portrayed by Daniel Jenkins and Aysan Celik). And then there are the singers, who perhaps more than anyone are responsible for giving us the flavor and urgency of the time.

They include, at opposite ends of the spectrum, La Bordas (Kate Buddeke), an earthy chanteuse of the people who defiantly identifies herself as a member of “la canaille,” or the “scum,” and an exquisitely attired diva (Charlotte Dobbs), whose soprano captures the artificial allure of an embattled status quo. (Mr. Friedman, who wrote the score for “Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson,” has adapted and translated the songs, which feature “The Internationale,” of course; a music-hall bit of nonsense involving yodeling ducks; and an airy Gounod aria.)

Between musical numbers battles are fought, elections are held, and debates are conducted on the subjects including the existence of God, the status of women, the nature of government and the right time to bake bread. (This is the French we’re talking about.)

Even listing the topics and events covered by “Paris Commune” is tiring. And I can only imagine how weary its cast members must be at the end. But that is perhaps as it should be. One of the points of “Paris Commune” is that the revolutionary spirit is an eruption of uncommon energy that inevitably dissipates.

But the Civilians would like you to understand that this spirit is always lurking within the human metabolism. And that another furious cancan is always waiting for its moment to take over the dance floor once again.

Paris Commune

By Steven Cosson and Michael Friedman; songs translated and adapted by Mr. Friedman; directed by Mr. Cosson; sets by Alexander Dodge; costumes by Sarah Beers; lighting by Thomas Dunn; sound by Ken Travis and Benjamin Furiga; musical director, Jonathan Mastro; choreography by Tracy Bersley; production

http://theater.nytimes.com/...aris-commune-from-the-civilians-at-bam-new-wave-festival.html?ref=theater&pagewanted=print[10/5/2012 9:57:41 AM] Occupying Paris With Revolutionary Zest, Amplified by the Cancan - The New York Times

manager, Robbie Saenz de Viteri; production stage manager, Terri K. Kohler; projections by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew; dramaturges, Jocelyn Clarke and Abigail Katz. A Civilians production, Mr. Cosson, artistic director; J. J. Lind, executive director, presented by the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival. At the Brooklyn Academy of Music Fishman Space, 321 Ashland Place, Fort Greene; (718) 636-4100, bam.org. Through Oct. 7. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes.

WITH: Kate Buddeke (La Bordas/Dressmaker/Others), Aysan Celik (Seamstress/Others), Charlotte Dobbs (the Soprano), Nina Hellman (Elisabeth Dmitrieff/ Others), Jeanine Serralles (Louise Michel/Others), Brian Sgambati (French Army Officer/Adolphe Thiers/Raoul Rigault/Others), Daniel Jenkins (Baker/Others) and Sam Breslin Wright (le Père Duchêne/Paris Guardsman/General Rossel/Others).

http://theater.nytimes.com/...aris-commune-from-the-civilians-at-bam-new-wave-festival.html?ref=theater&pagewanted=print[10/5/2012 9:57:41 AM] Broadway Royals, Out at the Summer Palace - The New York Times

October 4, 2012 THEATER REVIEW Broadway Royals, Out at the Summer Palace

By CHARLES ISHERWOOD

Hard though it may be to fathom, one of America’s most glamorous locales during the middle decades of the last century was a small town in Wisconsin with the homey name of Genesee Depot. There Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, the first couple of the Broadway stage, spent their summers, gathering around them luminaries like Noël Coward, Alexander Woollcott and Edna Ferber, who would descend on rural Wisconsin like so many brightly colored, exotic birds settling on a cornfield.

“Ten Chimneys,” a comedy-drama by Jeffrey Hatcher drawing its title from the name of the Lunts’ Wisconsin compound, imagines the offstage life of the stars at their country retreat as a combination of theatrical boot camp and backstage soap opera. The play, which opened Wednesday at Theater at St. Clement’s, directed by Dan Wackerman for the Peccadillo Theater Company, is peppered with allusions to and parallels with “The Seagull.” Although they made their reputations in lighter fare — often in new plays written expressly to showcase their talents — the Lunts took their artistry seriously and were eager to test their talents on richer material: hence the challenge of “The Seagull,” just starting rehearsals in the summer of 1937 as “Ten Chimneys” begins.

Lynn (Carolyn McCormick) is to portray Arkadina, naturally, and Alfred (Byron Jennings) is her lover, Trigorin. Joining them for early rehearsals are Sydney Greenstreet (Michael McCarty), a longtime member of the Lunts’ repertory company cast as Sorin and irreverently known within the charmed Lunt circle as “G- string,” and a young newcomer named Uta Hagen (Julia Bray) who has been signed to play the aspiring actress Nina.

On hand to watch the proceedings, and offer tart commentary as needed, are members of Alfred’s family: his domineering mother, Hattie (Lucy Martin), and his half siblings, Louise (Charlotte Booker) and Carl (John Wernke). When Lynn comes upon the put-upon Louise with a copy of the “Seagull” script, she offers this airy explanation of the play: “It’s about a beautiful actress and how she and the man she loves descend upon an estate causing havoc and heartbreak among the provincials.”

No stranger to theatrical repartee, Louise cracks, “I need to read about that?”

But in fact it’s heartbreak among the principals more than the provincials that Mr. Hatcher provides, along with generous doses of arch quipping in the Coward mold. The slender narrative thread of “Ten Chimneys” derives from the notion that the Lunt-Fontanne marriage was more a congenial business alliance and firm friendship than a potent love match — as was indeed widely considered to be the case. (Both were thought by some to be bisexual.)

Echoing “The Seagull” somewhat ham-handedly, Mr. Hatcher has Alfred becoming mildly besotted with Uta, which naturally causes Lynn to fume. Her anxieties boil once again when she discovers that Alfred has been in

http://theater.nytimes.com/...eviews/ten-chimneys-about-lunts-at-theater-at-st-clements.html?ref=theater&pagewanted=print[10/5/2012 9:54:59 AM] Broadway Royals, Out at the Summer Palace - The New York Times

correspondence with an old friend (male) who may just be an old flame.

But the play is by no means a vicious take-down. Mr. Hatcher’s affection for the Lunts and the golden age of American theater shines throughout. “Ten Chimneys” is more fun when it’s dishing bits of stage lore than when the characters are huffing and puffing over misalliances and infatuations. A nifty passage finds Sydney sharing with Uta the secret of the Lunts’ famous flair for overlapping dialogue: the key is to let the telling lines stand alone, and overlap only on unnecessary words and phrases. In another choice bit Lynn explains the perils of coming onstage in a hat: “If they can’t see you, they can’t hear you.” Ms. McCormick, brandishing a skillful if overstated British accent, radiates lissome glamour as Lynn, her natural ease softening the character’s stereotypical facade. Mr. Jennings (her real life husband) is less supple as Alfred, although he’s supplied with fewer zingers and saddled with the unrewarding role of the misunderstood, loving spouse. (It helps both actors that because the Lunts resisted Hollywood, they are not firmly fixed in the mind’s eye.)

Ms. Bray doesn’t bring any interior life to the role of the eager-eyed young Uta, who is written as a fairly generic ingénue — a less conniving but less colorful Eve Harrington. Although the play’s second act features a long monologue in which Uta recalls the process of finding her way into the heart of Nina, it is hard to believe that the bland figure in “Ten Chimneys” will go on to become one of the American theater’s greatest actresses, and one of its greatest acting teachers too.

Ten Chimneys

By Jeffrey Hatcher; directed by Dan Wackerman; sets and lighting by Harry Feiner; costumes by Sam Fleming; sound by John Emmett O’Brien; wig and hair design by Sarah Levine; production stage manager, Claudia Zahn; production supervisor, Production Core; technical director, Carlo Adinolfi; general manager, Lisa Dozier King. Presented by the Peccadillo Theater Company, Mr. Wackerman, artistic director; Kevin Kennedy, managing director; Sarahbeth Grossman, executive producer. At the Theater at St. Clement’s, 423 West 46th Street, Clinton, (212) 352-3101, thepeccadillo.com. Through October 27. Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes.

WITH: Byron Jennings (Alfred Lunt), Carolyn McCormick (Lynn Fontanne), Charlotte Booker (Louise Greene), Julia Bray (Uta Hagen), Lucy Martin (Hattie Sederholm), Michael McCarty (Sydney Greenstreet) and John Wernke (Carol Sederholm).

http://theater.nytimes.com/...eviews/ten-chimneys-about-lunts-at-theater-at-st-clements.html?ref=theater&pagewanted=print[10/5/2012 9:54:59 AM] Parallel Lives, Spliced From Sondheim - The New York Times

October 4, 2012 THEATER REVIEW Parallel Lives, Spliced From Sondheim

By DAVID ROONEY

For his first production since assuming artistic directorship of the Keen Company — and the first musical in that Off Broadway fixture’s 13-season history — Jonathan Silverstein was smart to choose a show built for intimate presentation.

That would be “Marry Me a Little,” the dialogue-free repurposed song cycle fashioned in 1980 by Craig Lucas and Norman René around music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. It observes the parallel Saturday-night solitudes of two New York singles separated by only floorboards and a ceiling in identical studio apartments.

Mr. Silverstein’s update is a wee bit obvious in its incorporation of contemporary gadgetry to make the material resonate in our age of hyper-connected isolation. But it nonetheless retains a pleasing retro flavor and is a model from which many later songbook confections could learn a thing or two.

The outtakes, alternative numbers and underexposed early compositions that make up the song list were lifted from several musicals. So the show inevitably has a revue feel. But its patchwork assembly is mitigated by the thematic coherence of Mr. Sondheim’s work. The skeptical view of love, often tenderly at odds with sentiments of romantic yearning, loneliness and regret, gives “Marry Me a Little” a more convincing semblance of narrative than its origins might indicate.

Lauren Molina, the cello-playing Johanna in the 2005 “Sweeney Todd” revival on Broadway, and Jason Tam, seen last season in “Lysistrata Jones,” play the two nameless Brooklynites unknowingly orbiting each another as they face another evening alone. The characters inhabit a single space that serves as both apartments in Steven C. Kemp’s boho-affordable design. They register each other’s presence almost exclusively in imagined interludes, and yet the communion of their longing is palpable.

Not every song is a perfect fit for the concept. Nor are they all ideally suited to the performers. But both actors bring emotional transparency to their roles, providing a quietly affecting counterpoint to the guarded ambivalence inherent in many of Mr. Sondheim’s lyrics.

Watching the production is a reminder of how unaccustomed we are to hearing unamplified voices on New York stages. The simplicity of this presentation, accompanied only by John Bell on piano, makes it a disarming experience if taken on its own modest terms.

The Sondheim vaults have been so thoroughly trawled over the years that many of these one-time rarities are now familiar. But the pleasures of rediscovery are ample. Just savoring the delicious rhymes in the “Follies” casualty “Can That Boy Foxtrot,” is reward enough — even if having to deliver them while sexting does Ms. Molina no favors. Mr. Tam gets a similar cringe moment, watching online pornography while crooning “Bring on the Girls.”

http://theater.nytimes.com/...iews/marry-me-a-little-sondheim-songs-at-clurman-theater.html?ref=theater&pagewanted=print[10/5/2012 9:56:47 AM] Parallel Lives, Spliced From Sondheim - The New York Times

That excised number from “Follies” is the misfire among additions to this production. Better use is made of the new opener, “If You Can Find Me, I’m Here” from “Evening Primrose”; “Ah, but Underneath,” a vampy self- assessment written for Diana Rigg’s Phyllis in the London production of “Follies”; and “Rainbows,” a poignant face-off between dreams and disillusionment, written for an as-yet-unproduced film of “Into the Woods.”

No living Broadway composer’s gifts have been more celebrated than Mr. Sondheim’s. But it’s a testament to his skills that the discards and remnants from which this show was stitched are more beguiling than so much of what passes for contemporary musical theater.

http://theater.nytimes.com/...iews/marry-me-a-little-sondheim-songs-at-clurman-theater.html?ref=theater&pagewanted=print[10/5/2012 9:56:47 AM]

October 4, 2012

Top Cast Albums Issue Date: 2012-10-13

Weeks This Last Two Weeks Title, Artist Peak on Week Week Ago Imprint | Catalog No. | Distributing Label Position Chart Carrie: The Musical, Premiere Cast Recording 1 NEW 1 1 Ghostlight/Sh-K-Boom 86660 | Razor & Tie | 18.98 Wicked, Original Broadway Cast Recording 2 2 1 1 353 1 Decca Broadway 001682 | Decca | 18.98 Bring It On: The Musical, Original Broadway Cast 3 NEW 1 Recording 3 Back Lot Music DIGITAL EX | 11.98 The Book Of Mormon, Original Broadway Cast 4 2 2 72 Recording 1 Ghostlight 84448 | Sh-K-Boom | 18.98 Once: A New Musical, Original Broadway Cast Recording 5 3 3 29 1 Masterworks Broadway 94824 | Sony Masterworks | 12.98 Jersey Boys, Original Broadway Cast Recording 6 5 5 351 1 Rhino 73271 | 18.98 The Lion King, Original Broadway Cast Recording 7 7 6 337 3 Walt Disney 860802 | 18.98/11.98 Jekyll & Hyde: 2012 Concept Recording, Cast 8 NEW 1 Recording 8 Broadway Records 00512 | 18.98 Nice Work If You Can Get It, Original Broadway Cast 9 NEW 1 Recording 9 Shout! Factory DIGITAL EX | 11.98 Newsies, Original Broadway Cast Recording 10 6 4 25 1 Ghostlight/Sh-K-Boom 84457 | Razor & Tie | 18.98 The Phantom Of The Opera, Original London Cast 11 8 7 224 Recording 4 4 Really Useful 543928 | Decca Classics | 37.98/18.98 Evita, New Broadway Cast Recording 12 RE-ENTRY 10 Masterworks Broadway 42435 | Sony Masterworks | 1 19.98 Rodgers & Ammerstein's Pipe Dream, Cast Recording 13 4 - 2 4 Ghostlight/Sh-K-Boom 84463 | Razor & Tie | 18.98 Beauty & The Beast, Original Broadway Cast Recording 14 RE-ENTRY 81 9 Walt Disney 860861 | 18.98 Les Miserables, Original Broadway Cast Recording 4 15 13 - 9 7 Geffen 424151 | UMe | 35.98

Gelber leads cast of 'Elf' - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety

Posted: Thu., Oct. 4, 2012, 10:42am PT

Gelber leads cast of 'Elf' Kritzer also signs on to Broadway musical

By GORDON COX

Jordan Gelber has been tapped to play the lead role in the Broadway musical version of "Elf," with legit fave Leslie Kritzer now on board to play the title character's love interest.

Gelber ("Avenue Q," Todd Solondz's "Dark Horse") steps into a role initially played by Sebastian Arcelus in the tuner's 2010 preem. He'll play Buddy, a human raised in North Pole by Santa and his elves. Kritzer ("A Catered Affair," "Legally Blonde") takes on the part of a department store clerk, portrayed in 2010 by Amy Spanger.

Moppet Mitchell Sink also will appear in the show, joining a cast that already includes Wayne Knight and four alums of the 2010 staging: Beth Leavel, Mark Jacoby, Valerie Wright and Michael Mandell.

Produced by Warner Bros. Theater Ventures with Unique Features and Jujamcyn Theaters, "Elf" -- a strong B.O. performer the first time around -- returns to the Rialto in an unusually crowded climate for holiday shows, facing competish from Broadway cohort "A Christmas Story" as well as other Yuletide offerings including "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" at Madison Square Garden and the Rockettes' annual Christmas show.

Casey Nicholaw returns to helm the tuner by sonwriters Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin and book writers Thomas Meehan and Bob Martin.

"Elf" begins its limited run Nov. 9, running through Jan. 6.

Contact Gordon Cox at [email protected]

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118060281?refcatid=15&printerfriendly=true[10/5/2012 10:01:23 AM] LCT3 adds two titles - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety

Posted: Thu., Oct. 4, 2012, 12:16pm PT

LCT3 adds two titles Plays by Greenidge, Pearle join lineup

By GORDON COX

New plays by Kirsten Greenidge and Daniel Pearle are on the 2013 slate at LCT3, the Lincoln Center Theater programming initiative dedicated to showcasing the work of up and coming creatives.

Latest by Greenidge (whose play "Milk Like Sugar" ran Off Broadway last season), "Luck of the Irish," centers on a 1950s African-American couple who enlists an Irish family to help them purchase a house in a white Boston nabe, and the resulting property dispute that arises 50 years later. Rebecca Taichman, helmer of "Milk Like Sugar," directs the play, which had its world preem in the spring at Boston's Huntington Theater. Gotham incarnation begins previews Jan. 28 ahead of a Feb. 11 opening.

Pearle, who recently earned an MFA from Gotham's New School for Drama, pens "A Kid Like Jake," about the parenting and societal conflicts that arise when a four-year-old boy develops a taste for Cinderella and playing dress-up. LCT3 staging, which begins previews June 2 prior to its June 17 opening, will be helmed by Evan Cabnet, who will also direct Broadway comedy "The Performers" this spring.

The newly added shows round out an LCT3 season that begins Oct. 7 with the first performance of Ayad Akhtar's "Disgraced" starring Aasif Mandvi.

Contact Gordon Cox at [email protected]

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118060293?refcatid=15&printerfriendly=true[10/5/2012 10:02:11 AM]