All Arts’ upcoming non-fiction feature “Manhattan Theatre Club, a Home for Artists” will explore the 50-year history of one of the most impactful off-Broadway theaters in New York. Helmed by the club’s very own Lynne Meadow and Barry Grove, the film stitches together archival footage and photos and interviews with stars like Laura Linney, Edie Falco, Sam Waterston and Sarah Jessica Parker.
“Through their stewardship of Manhattan Theatre Club, Lynne Meadow and Barry Grove have left an indelible mark on the theatrical landscape for decades to come,” said Joe Harrell, executive producer of All Arts, a Wnet group streaming platform and broadcast channel based in New York. “Their story champions the vital role of nonprofit theaters in allowing artists to take risks, explore innovative ideas and challenge conventions.”
The Manhattan Theatre Club was founded in 1970 at Stage 73 but took off under the guidance of Meadow as artistic director and Grove as executive producer.
“Through their stewardship of Manhattan Theatre Club, Lynne Meadow and Barry Grove have left an indelible mark on the theatrical landscape for decades to come,” said Joe Harrell, executive producer of All Arts, a Wnet group streaming platform and broadcast channel based in New York. “Their story champions the vital role of nonprofit theaters in allowing artists to take risks, explore innovative ideas and challenge conventions.”
The Manhattan Theatre Club was founded in 1970 at Stage 73 but took off under the guidance of Meadow as artistic director and Grove as executive producer.
- 9/13/2023
- by Sophia Scorziello
- Variety Film + TV
The Tony Awards Administration Committee met on April 28, for the third and final time during the 2022-2023 Broadway season, to discuss the eligibility of 11 productions for the 76th Annual Tony Awards. This year’s ceremony will be held at the United Palace in Washington Heights, and will broadcast live on Sunday, June 11, 2023, on the CBS Television Network, and stream live and on demand on Paramount+. The Tony Awards are presented by The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing.
The productions under discussion were: “Life of Pi,” “Shucked,” “Fat Ham,” “Camelot,” “Peter Pan Goes Wrong,’ “The Thanksgiving Play,” “Prima Facie,” “Good Night, Oscar,” “Summer, 1976,” “New York, New York,” and “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window.”
See 2023 Tony Awards eligibility rulings (round 2): Stephen McKinley Henderson, Linedy Genao confirmed as lead actors
The following determinations were made:
Hiran Abeysekera will be considered eligible in the Lead Actor in a Play...
The productions under discussion were: “Life of Pi,” “Shucked,” “Fat Ham,” “Camelot,” “Peter Pan Goes Wrong,’ “The Thanksgiving Play,” “Prima Facie,” “Good Night, Oscar,” “Summer, 1976,” “New York, New York,” and “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window.”
See 2023 Tony Awards eligibility rulings (round 2): Stephen McKinley Henderson, Linedy Genao confirmed as lead actors
The following determinations were made:
Hiran Abeysekera will be considered eligible in the Lead Actor in a Play...
- 4/28/2023
- by Sam Eckmann
- Gold Derby
Broadway can be a loud place, with belters belting and orchestras swelling and actors playing to rafters in the theater across the street, so it’s both comforting and mesmerizing to see a play as quietly poignant as David Auburn’s Summer, 1976.
Starring Laura Linney and Jessica Hecht – both outstanding – Summer, 1976, a Manhattan Theatre Club production opening tonight at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, recounts a long-ago friendship that, on the surface, doesn’t seem particularly unusual or outwardly impactful.
Two women, both connected to Ohio State University, are brought together through their young daughters: the mothers are part of a babysitting co-op, and though the two women take an instant disliking to one another, circumstance and proximity begin to wear away their defenses. Alice, played by Hecht, is vaguely hippie-ish, married to a professor and often carrying a joint or two, while the other, Linney’s Diana, is a single mom,...
Starring Laura Linney and Jessica Hecht – both outstanding – Summer, 1976, a Manhattan Theatre Club production opening tonight at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, recounts a long-ago friendship that, on the surface, doesn’t seem particularly unusual or outwardly impactful.
Two women, both connected to Ohio State University, are brought together through their young daughters: the mothers are part of a babysitting co-op, and though the two women take an instant disliking to one another, circumstance and proximity begin to wear away their defenses. Alice, played by Hecht, is vaguely hippie-ish, married to a professor and often carrying a joint or two, while the other, Linney’s Diana, is a single mom,...
- 4/26/2023
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: The 1/52 Project, a new financial grant program founded by Tony Award-winning set designer Beowulf Boritt, has selected the first seven early-career designer recipients to benefit from 100,000 in grants. Each of the inaugural recipients will receive grants up to 15,000, with applicants chosen based on talent, creativity, innovation, and potential for future excellence in the professional theatrical field.
The 2022 recipients are Brittany Bland, projection designer; Everett Elton Bradman, sound designer; Stefania Bulbarella, projection designer; Jessica Alexandra Cancino, set designer; Frank Cazares, costume designer; Jordan McCree, sound designer; and Jingyi Johanna Pan, costume designer.
“I know I am extraordinarily lucky to be able to make a living as a theatre designer, much less to have the opportunity to do it on Broadway,” said Boritt. “Part of that luck was being born a middle-class white boy. The goal of The 1/52 Project is to give a little encouragement to a talented group of early...
The 2022 recipients are Brittany Bland, projection designer; Everett Elton Bradman, sound designer; Stefania Bulbarella, projection designer; Jessica Alexandra Cancino, set designer; Frank Cazares, costume designer; Jordan McCree, sound designer; and Jingyi Johanna Pan, costume designer.
“I know I am extraordinarily lucky to be able to make a living as a theatre designer, much less to have the opportunity to do it on Broadway,” said Boritt. “Part of that luck was being born a middle-class white boy. The goal of The 1/52 Project is to give a little encouragement to a talented group of early...
- 9/7/2022
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Click here to read the full article.
John Lithgow is set to direct the off-Broadway run of Everything’s Fine, the one-man show from Academy Award and BAFTA nominee Douglas McGrath.
The autobiographical play recounts the actor, writer and director’s life, starting at the age of 14 in Midland, Texas, the town made famous by the 1987 well rescue of “Baby Jessica.” The Emma and Nicholas Nickleby screenwriter will detail some of his most significant remembrances, including the courtship of his one-eyed father and his mother — the latter of whom worked at Harper’s Bazaar for Diana Vreeland and became pals with Andy Warhol — and an eighth-grade teacher who changed McGrath’s life in the most unexpected way.
Everything’s Fine will mark McGrath’s first New York stage performance in more than 25 years. The show serves as Lithgow’s return to directing after more than four decades.
The world premiere is set...
John Lithgow is set to direct the off-Broadway run of Everything’s Fine, the one-man show from Academy Award and BAFTA nominee Douglas McGrath.
The autobiographical play recounts the actor, writer and director’s life, starting at the age of 14 in Midland, Texas, the town made famous by the 1987 well rescue of “Baby Jessica.” The Emma and Nicholas Nickleby screenwriter will detail some of his most significant remembrances, including the courtship of his one-eyed father and his mother — the latter of whom worked at Harper’s Bazaar for Diana Vreeland and became pals with Andy Warhol — and an eighth-grade teacher who changed McGrath’s life in the most unexpected way.
Everything’s Fine will mark McGrath’s first New York stage performance in more than 25 years. The show serves as Lithgow’s return to directing after more than four decades.
The world premiere is set...
- 8/22/2022
- by Abbey White
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Click here to read the full article.
Pose star Angelica Ross is set to make her Broadway debut in Chicago this September, her arrival marking a historic moment for both the musical and the industry.
Ross will star as Roxie Hart, the aspiring actress turned murderess, in Broadway’s second longest-running musical. She is the first openly trans actress in the role, and among one of the first known trans actresses to star in a leading role in a Broadway musical.
The activist, executive producer, president of Miss Ross, Inc. and founder of TransTech Social Enterprises will begin her run at the Ambassador Theater on Sept. 12, with the American Horror Story star playing an eight-week limited engagement through Nov. 6. Earlier this year, Pamela Anderson portrayed the same character for her own limited run during the spring.
In 2018, Ru Paul’s Drag Race star Peppermint became the first known, openly trans...
Pose star Angelica Ross is set to make her Broadway debut in Chicago this September, her arrival marking a historic moment for both the musical and the industry.
Ross will star as Roxie Hart, the aspiring actress turned murderess, in Broadway’s second longest-running musical. She is the first openly trans actress in the role, and among one of the first known trans actresses to star in a leading role in a Broadway musical.
The activist, executive producer, president of Miss Ross, Inc. and founder of TransTech Social Enterprises will begin her run at the Ambassador Theater on Sept. 12, with the American Horror Story star playing an eight-week limited engagement through Nov. 6. Earlier this year, Pamela Anderson portrayed the same character for her own limited run during the spring.
In 2018, Ru Paul’s Drag Race star Peppermint became the first known, openly trans...
- 8/4/2022
- by Abbey White
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Twenty-five years after her last appearance on Broadway, Sarah Jessica Parker has returned to the stage in the first revival of Neil Simon’s “Plaza Suite.” For her long-awaited bow, Parker has brought along a familiar theatre actor, her husband and two-time Tony winner Matthew Broderick. The comedy features three standalone acts centering on a different couple that each occurs in Suite 719 of the famed Plaza Hotel in New York City. This production features the direction of Tony-winning actor John Benjamin Hickey and opened at the Hudson Theatre on March 28.
In the nearly 55 years since “Plaza Suite” premiered, critics have mostly cooled on the comedy. In a positive notice, Peter Marks (Washington Post) calls the show a “merry old time,” and Parker, Broderick, and Hickey “do proud the memory of Simon.” He applauds the “unbeatable” John Lee Beatty’s “resplendently detailed set of Room 719, a luxe facsimile of a Plaza Hotel room,...
In the nearly 55 years since “Plaza Suite” premiered, critics have mostly cooled on the comedy. In a positive notice, Peter Marks (Washington Post) calls the show a “merry old time,” and Parker, Broderick, and Hickey “do proud the memory of Simon.” He applauds the “unbeatable” John Lee Beatty’s “resplendently detailed set of Room 719, a luxe facsimile of a Plaza Hotel room,...
- 3/29/2022
- by David Buchanan
- Gold Derby
Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite couldn’t seem better suited to the long-in-coming stage-taking of real-life couple Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker. What better way for two actors who got their early starts in the theater – she as a young star of Annie, he in Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues – than a vintage Broadway comedy with multiple roles for its leading man and woman?
Toss in the fact that Simon’s triptych of comic scenarios offers Parker the chance to break free of the melodramatic leanings of And Just Like That and gives Broderick a comfy stretch before his upcoming Netflix drama about the opioid crisis.
A comfortable fit, no? Maybe too comfortable. More than anything else, Plaza Suite, opening tonight at the Hudson Theatre, provides one of Broadway’s most loved couples the chance to share the stage in a slick, amiable setting that asks...
Toss in the fact that Simon’s triptych of comic scenarios offers Parker the chance to break free of the melodramatic leanings of And Just Like That and gives Broderick a comfy stretch before his upcoming Netflix drama about the opioid crisis.
A comfortable fit, no? Maybe too comfortable. More than anything else, Plaza Suite, opening tonight at the Hudson Theatre, provides one of Broadway’s most loved couples the chance to share the stage in a slick, amiable setting that asks...
- 3/29/2022
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker will be joined in Broadway’s upcoming revival of Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite by Danny Bolero (In The Heights), Molly Ranson (Prayer for the French Republic) and, in his Broadway debut, Eric Wiegand, producers announced today.
Rounding out the cast will be Michael McGrath and Erin Dilly as standbys for Broderick and Parker.
Bolero will play The Waiter, Ranson will play Jean McCormack/ Mimsey Hubley, and Wiegand is cast as The Bellhop/Borden Eisler.
The revival begins previews at Broadway’s Hudson Theatre on Friday, February 25, with the official opening night set for Monday, March 28. A new block of tickets for the limited engagement went on sale today for tickets through June 26.
The production, directed by John Benjamin Hickey, played a sold-out pre-Broadway engagement at Boston’s Emerson Colonial Theatre in February 2020; the Broadway run originally was set to begin in March 2020 but...
Rounding out the cast will be Michael McGrath and Erin Dilly as standbys for Broderick and Parker.
Bolero will play The Waiter, Ranson will play Jean McCormack/ Mimsey Hubley, and Wiegand is cast as The Bellhop/Borden Eisler.
The revival begins previews at Broadway’s Hudson Theatre on Friday, February 25, with the official opening night set for Monday, March 28. A new block of tickets for the limited engagement went on sale today for tickets through June 26.
The production, directed by John Benjamin Hickey, played a sold-out pre-Broadway engagement at Boston’s Emerson Colonial Theatre in February 2020; the Broadway run originally was set to begin in March 2020 but...
- 2/7/2022
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: A newly launched financial grant program called The 1/52 Project will offer $15,000 grants to theater designers, with a mission to encourage early career designers from historically excluded groups and to diversify the Broadway design community.
Funded by designers with shows running on Broadway, the 1/52 Project encourages the working designers to donate one week every year of their weekly royalties to this fund. Applicants will be chosen based on talent, creativity, innovation, and potential for future excellence in the professional theatrical field. Demonstrated financial need will be a determining factor.
Beowulf Boritt, the Tony Award-winning set designer who founded the fund, said in a statement, “I always understood how lucky I was to work on Broadway, how tough it is to get that opportunity. But the past few years made clear to me what should probably have already been obvious, that part of my ‘good luck’ was being born a white boy,...
Funded by designers with shows running on Broadway, the 1/52 Project encourages the working designers to donate one week every year of their weekly royalties to this fund. Applicants will be chosen based on talent, creativity, innovation, and potential for future excellence in the professional theatrical field. Demonstrated financial need will be a determining factor.
Beowulf Boritt, the Tony Award-winning set designer who founded the fund, said in a statement, “I always understood how lucky I was to work on Broadway, how tough it is to get that opportunity. But the past few years made clear to me what should probably have already been obvious, that part of my ‘good luck’ was being born a white boy,...
- 1/5/2022
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
After a lengthy delay due to the pandemic shutdown, the Broadway revival of Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite starring Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker has locked in a 2022 opening date. Plaza Suite will begin preview performances on Friday, February 25, 2022, with the official opening night set for Monday, March 28, 2022, at Hudson Theatre.
“We’re overjoyed to finally be able to welcome Broadway audiences to the Hudson Theatre to see Neil Simon’s celebration of New York, New Yorkers, and the wonderful ways they fall in love. We simply can’t wait,” said Broderick and Parker in a joint statement.
Plaza Suite played a sold-out pre-Broadway engagement at Boston’s Emerson Colonial Theatre from February 5, 2020 through Saturday, February 22, 2020. The production was ready to begin Broadway previews on March 13, 2020 when Governor Cuomo issued the shut-down mandate on Thursday, March 12, 2020 closing all Broadway theaters.
In addition to Broderick, Parker and, in his Broadway directing debut,...
“We’re overjoyed to finally be able to welcome Broadway audiences to the Hudson Theatre to see Neil Simon’s celebration of New York, New Yorkers, and the wonderful ways they fall in love. We simply can’t wait,” said Broderick and Parker in a joint statement.
Plaza Suite played a sold-out pre-Broadway engagement at Boston’s Emerson Colonial Theatre from February 5, 2020 through Saturday, February 22, 2020. The production was ready to begin Broadway previews on March 13, 2020 when Governor Cuomo issued the shut-down mandate on Thursday, March 12, 2020 closing all Broadway theaters.
In addition to Broderick, Parker and, in his Broadway directing debut,...
- 6/29/2021
- by Denise Petski
- Deadline Film + TV
Chicago will return to Broadway just in time for its 25th anniversary: The musical is set to reopen at the Ambassador Theatre on Tuesday, September 14.
The Kander-Ebb-Fosse musical becomes the third Broadway production to set its reopening since New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday that theaters could reopen in September at 100% capacity. Producers Barry & Fran Weissler announced today that tickets are now on sale for the Tony Award-winning Chicago.
As with The Phantom of the Opera and Six – the two musicals that announced their Fall returns earlier this week – the reopening of Chicago is subject to the approval of the NY State Department of Health and the Governor.
In their announcement today, the Weisslers noted, “The approval of the Department of Health and the Governor will be based on the continuing growth of the fully vaccinated population, coupled with an ongoing decline in total Covid 19 cases and positivity rates.
The Kander-Ebb-Fosse musical becomes the third Broadway production to set its reopening since New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday that theaters could reopen in September at 100% capacity. Producers Barry & Fran Weissler announced today that tickets are now on sale for the Tony Award-winning Chicago.
As with The Phantom of the Opera and Six – the two musicals that announced their Fall returns earlier this week – the reopening of Chicago is subject to the approval of the NY State Department of Health and the Governor.
In their announcement today, the Weisslers noted, “The approval of the Department of Health and the Governor will be based on the continuing growth of the fully vaccinated population, coupled with an ongoing decline in total Covid 19 cases and positivity rates.
- 5/7/2021
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Arthur P. Siccardi, a longtime Broadway production supervisor whose five-decade career included work on such notable original and revival stagings as Sweeney Todd, Whose Life is it Anyway?, Sunday in the Park with George, Gypsy, The Heidi Chronicles and Sunset Boulevard, to name a few, died December 23 of complications from pneumonia. He was 89.
His death was announced by his son Drew Siccardi.
Born in Englewood, NJ, and raised in Fort Lee, Siccardi began his professional life as a minor league baseball pitcher for the Johnson City Cardinals from 1951-53. An employment offer to work as a show carpenter on the original national tour of Gypsy led to what would be his life’s work.
Siccardi established Arthur Siccardi Theatrical Services in 1975 at the suggestion of Michael Bennett, and he’d go on to work with such notable directors as Mike Nichols, Jerome Robbins, Tommy Tune, Gower Champion, Trevor Nunn and Michael Blakemore.
His death was announced by his son Drew Siccardi.
Born in Englewood, NJ, and raised in Fort Lee, Siccardi began his professional life as a minor league baseball pitcher for the Johnson City Cardinals from 1951-53. An employment offer to work as a show carpenter on the original national tour of Gypsy led to what would be his life’s work.
Siccardi established Arthur Siccardi Theatrical Services in 1975 at the suggestion of Michael Bennett, and he’d go on to work with such notable directors as Mike Nichols, Jerome Robbins, Tommy Tune, Gower Champion, Trevor Nunn and Michael Blakemore.
- 12/28/2020
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
The Broadway revival of Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite, starring Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker and directed by John Benjamin Hickey, will postpone its opening more than a year due to the pandemic shutdown. The production, which had been set to begin previews the day after the March 12 shutdown was announced, will now begin performances at the Hudson Theatre on Friday, March 19, 2021.
An official opening date will be announced. The revival will run through Sunday, July 18, 2021.
A Fall 2020 date for Plaza Suite at the Hudson wasn’t a possibility, and not just because of the increasingly unlikely scenario of Broadway reopening before January 2021: The Hudson is currently booked for the Fall with the limited engagement return of David Byrne’s American Utopia.
In a statement, Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker said, “We remain deeply committed to bringing Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite to New York as promised...
An official opening date will be announced. The revival will run through Sunday, July 18, 2021.
A Fall 2020 date for Plaza Suite at the Hudson wasn’t a possibility, and not just because of the increasingly unlikely scenario of Broadway reopening before January 2021: The Hudson is currently booked for the Fall with the limited engagement return of David Byrne’s American Utopia.
In a statement, Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker said, “We remain deeply committed to bringing Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite to New York as promised...
- 5/12/2020
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Is one hotel bathroom big enough for personalities as outsized as Harvey Fierstein and Bella Abzug? The playwright’s Bella Bella, opening tonight at the Manhattan Theatre Club’s Off Broadway venue in the New York City Center, suggests a pretty tight fit.
A public personality has reached true large-than-life status when a mere signifier can stand for whole shebang. A bright red hat with a brim the size of a manhole cover shouts to any New Yorker of a certain age “Bella Abzug”, and if the voice doing the shouting has more gravel than a Bronx construction site, it’s probably Harvey Fierstein.
Both battle for attention Fierstein’s solo show, in which the playwright channels the late, great Congresswoman from New York.
If the show seems more Harvey Harvey than Bella, Bella, the playwright’s love and reverence for his subject is louder than the hat and voice combined.
The forever hatted Abzug was a fierce, lifelong fighter for women’s rights and righteous causes who became New York’s voice in Congress through much of the 1970s. Witty, combative, beloved, hated, feared and revered, Abzug was a major figure on the city and national political scenes through much of that decade, her failures as notable as her victories.
Bella Bella, directed by Kimberly Senior, takes place on the eve of one of those rare failures: An unsuccessful bid in 1976 for the the Democratic nomination to U.S. Senate. Her loss to the moderate Daniel Patrick Moynihan all but ended her political career, though she remained active in public life until her death in 1998.
Fierstein tells her story in a way that will be familiar from various one-person shows, particularly Jay Presson Allen’s form-setting Tru from 1989. Allen had Truman Capote trapped in his United Nations Plaza apartment awaiting the fallout from a just-published scandal-mongering magazine piece, while Fierstein ensconces Abzug in the bathroom (efficiently designed by John Lee Beatty) of the New York Summit Hotel as she awaits the election results from that final Senate race. Here a nervous Abzug takes a breather from her loyal – and sometimes famous – supporters gathered just outside the door.
Fierstein, dressed in a man’s black shirt and pants – that red hat, the sole nod to Abzug’s own look, is doffed within seconds of Fierstein’s entrance – speaks directly to the audience (as Tru’s Capote did) in a non-stop monologue of history lesson, confession, braggadocio, name-dropping, joking and intimacy.
Much of the monologue seems in Abzug’s own words, for better or worse. Zingers that once zinged, no matter how true they still ring, can now seem like dialogue for a ’70s-era Norman Lear comedy. When Abzug says “A woman’s place is in the house,” at least some in the audience will know – and others should guess – that the punchline will be “of Representatives.”
That’s not to suggest that Bella Bella lacks contemporary relevance – Abzug’s crusades for equal rights, abortion rights, and political representation and visibility, well conveyed in this play, remain as vital as ever, the causes they espouse newly under threat. Few in Fierstein’s Off Broadway audience will disagree with a word Abzug says – anecdotes about Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon, with barely veiled and eerily accurate shades of the current White House occupant, received rounds of applause at the reviewed performance.
And if there’s a comfort-food element to Abzug’s compassionate, common-sense humanism, the same can be said of the man onstage. With the exception of adopting Abzug’s Yiddish accent, Fierstein is as much Harvey as Bella, blustering, shouting, emoting and capping many a rant with the sheepish smile that dates back at least to Torch Song Trilogy.
Endearing? As always. Rehearsed? Absolutely. Fierstein knows just how to speak to his audience, even if he has to talk over Bella Abzug to do it.
A public personality has reached true large-than-life status when a mere signifier can stand for whole shebang. A bright red hat with a brim the size of a manhole cover shouts to any New Yorker of a certain age “Bella Abzug”, and if the voice doing the shouting has more gravel than a Bronx construction site, it’s probably Harvey Fierstein.
Both battle for attention Fierstein’s solo show, in which the playwright channels the late, great Congresswoman from New York.
If the show seems more Harvey Harvey than Bella, Bella, the playwright’s love and reverence for his subject is louder than the hat and voice combined.
The forever hatted Abzug was a fierce, lifelong fighter for women’s rights and righteous causes who became New York’s voice in Congress through much of the 1970s. Witty, combative, beloved, hated, feared and revered, Abzug was a major figure on the city and national political scenes through much of that decade, her failures as notable as her victories.
Bella Bella, directed by Kimberly Senior, takes place on the eve of one of those rare failures: An unsuccessful bid in 1976 for the the Democratic nomination to U.S. Senate. Her loss to the moderate Daniel Patrick Moynihan all but ended her political career, though she remained active in public life until her death in 1998.
Fierstein tells her story in a way that will be familiar from various one-person shows, particularly Jay Presson Allen’s form-setting Tru from 1989. Allen had Truman Capote trapped in his United Nations Plaza apartment awaiting the fallout from a just-published scandal-mongering magazine piece, while Fierstein ensconces Abzug in the bathroom (efficiently designed by John Lee Beatty) of the New York Summit Hotel as she awaits the election results from that final Senate race. Here a nervous Abzug takes a breather from her loyal – and sometimes famous – supporters gathered just outside the door.
Fierstein, dressed in a man’s black shirt and pants – that red hat, the sole nod to Abzug’s own look, is doffed within seconds of Fierstein’s entrance – speaks directly to the audience (as Tru’s Capote did) in a non-stop monologue of history lesson, confession, braggadocio, name-dropping, joking and intimacy.
Much of the monologue seems in Abzug’s own words, for better or worse. Zingers that once zinged, no matter how true they still ring, can now seem like dialogue for a ’70s-era Norman Lear comedy. When Abzug says “A woman’s place is in the house,” at least some in the audience will know – and others should guess – that the punchline will be “of Representatives.”
That’s not to suggest that Bella Bella lacks contemporary relevance – Abzug’s crusades for equal rights, abortion rights, and political representation and visibility, well conveyed in this play, remain as vital as ever, the causes they espouse newly under threat. Few in Fierstein’s Off Broadway audience will disagree with a word Abzug says – anecdotes about Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon, with barely veiled and eerily accurate shades of the current White House occupant, received rounds of applause at the reviewed performance.
And if there’s a comfort-food element to Abzug’s compassionate, common-sense humanism, the same can be said of the man onstage. With the exception of adopting Abzug’s Yiddish accent, Fierstein is as much Harvey as Bella, blustering, shouting, emoting and capping many a rant with the sheepish smile that dates back at least to Torch Song Trilogy.
Endearing? As always. Rehearsed? Absolutely. Fierstein knows just how to speak to his audience, even if he has to talk over Bella Abzug to do it.
- 10/23/2019
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Real-life marrieds Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker will team up for a Broadway revival of Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite to be directed by John Benjamin Hickey. The staging will get a pre-Broadway run at Boston’s Emerson Colonial Theatre in February before hitting New York in March.
The 17-week Broadway revival was announced today by producers Ambassador Theatre Group, Gavin Kalin Productions and Hal Luftig. Ambassador operates both the Colonial in Boston and Broadway’s Hudson Theatre, where Plaza Suite will begin previews March 13, 2020, for an opening night of April 13.
The Boston engagement will run Feb. 5-22.
Plaza Suite will mark Hickey’s Broadway directing debut. The actor is set to reprise his London performance in Matthew Lopez’s The Inheritance on Broadway this fall, with plans to take a brief hiatus from that production in the spring for Plaza Suite‘s rehearsals.
The design team will include...
The 17-week Broadway revival was announced today by producers Ambassador Theatre Group, Gavin Kalin Productions and Hal Luftig. Ambassador operates both the Colonial in Boston and Broadway’s Hudson Theatre, where Plaza Suite will begin previews March 13, 2020, for an opening night of April 13.
The Boston engagement will run Feb. 5-22.
Plaza Suite will mark Hickey’s Broadway directing debut. The actor is set to reprise his London performance in Matthew Lopez’s The Inheritance on Broadway this fall, with plans to take a brief hiatus from that production in the spring for Plaza Suite‘s rehearsals.
The design team will include...
- 9/10/2019
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Off Broadway’s Manhattan Theatre Club has completed casting for Donald Margulies’ plan Long Lost for production this summer, Hereditary‘s Alex Wolff joining a roster that also includes Kelly AuCoin (Billions), Annie Parisse (Friends from College) and Lee Tergesen (Oz).
Long Lost will reunite playwright Margulies with director Dan Sullivan. The two previously collaborated on Margulies’ The Country House, Brooklyn Boy, the Tony Award-nominated Time Stands Still, the Pulitzer Prize finalist Sight Unseen, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Dinner with Friends.
Long Lost begins previews Tuesday, May 14 at Mtc’s New York City Center Stage 1, with an opening night of June 4. The casting was announced today by artistic director Lynne Meadow and executive producer Barry Grove.
Mtc describes Long Lost as “a funny, unsettling, ultimately moving play about the limits of compassion and filial obligation. When troubled Billy appears out-of-the-blue in his estranged brother David’s Wall Street office, he...
Long Lost will reunite playwright Margulies with director Dan Sullivan. The two previously collaborated on Margulies’ The Country House, Brooklyn Boy, the Tony Award-nominated Time Stands Still, the Pulitzer Prize finalist Sight Unseen, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Dinner with Friends.
Long Lost begins previews Tuesday, May 14 at Mtc’s New York City Center Stage 1, with an opening night of June 4. The casting was announced today by artistic director Lynne Meadow and executive producer Barry Grove.
Mtc describes Long Lost as “a funny, unsettling, ultimately moving play about the limits of compassion and filial obligation. When troubled Billy appears out-of-the-blue in his estranged brother David’s Wall Street office, he...
- 3/28/2019
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Broadway’s Gavin Lee will play the green villain in this holiday season’s Madison Square Garden production Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical. The casting was announced by the Msg Company today.
Lee was Tony-nominated for his most recent performance as the tap-dancing Squidward Tentacles in Broadway’s SpongeBob SquarePants. (He’d previously been nominated for a Tony as Bert in Mary Poppins).
TV audiences know Lee for his recurring role of Alan Woodford on USA Network’s White Collar.
“As a dad myself, I know first-hand the magic of introducing kids to live theater and I look forward to hearts growing three sizes as they experience this beloved story in a whole new way…live on stage,” Lee said.
The Grinch musical will play a limited engagement at Msg’s Hulu Theater from December 13 through December 30. Including songs “You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch...
Lee was Tony-nominated for his most recent performance as the tap-dancing Squidward Tentacles in Broadway’s SpongeBob SquarePants. (He’d previously been nominated for a Tony as Bert in Mary Poppins).
TV audiences know Lee for his recurring role of Alan Woodford on USA Network’s White Collar.
“As a dad myself, I know first-hand the magic of introducing kids to live theater and I look forward to hearts growing three sizes as they experience this beloved story in a whole new way…live on stage,” Lee said.
The Grinch musical will play a limited engagement at Msg’s Hulu Theater from December 13 through December 30. Including songs “You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch...
- 9/28/2018
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
One of Broadway's busiest and most respected set designers, Tony Award winner John Lee Beatty, swings by Shetler Studios to sit down with Rob and Kevin and review his portfolio which includes over 100 Broadway credits including the set designs for Ain't Misbehavin, Talley's Folly, Baby, The Most Happy Fella, Chicago, Once Upon a Mattress, Wonderful Town, and so many shows over at Encores...
- 7/17/2018
- by Behind the Curtain
- BroadwayWorld.com
The first Broadway revival of A.R. Gurney’s seminal epistolary play has assembled a high-profile cast for a series of limited engagements this fall.
Love Letters remains one of theater’s most enduring romances of the past 25 years, having first opened in New Haven, Connecticut, in November 1988. The show paints a portrait of two friends—Melissa Gardner and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III—who have exchanged letters for over 50 years, having spent a lifetime discussing their greatest hopes and deepest disappointments.
Directed by Gregory Mosher, Love Letters will feature a rotating ensemble of players who will star in the two-person romance,...
Love Letters remains one of theater’s most enduring romances of the past 25 years, having first opened in New Haven, Connecticut, in November 1988. The show paints a portrait of two friends—Melissa Gardner and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III—who have exchanged letters for over 50 years, having spent a lifetime discussing their greatest hopes and deepest disappointments.
Directed by Gregory Mosher, Love Letters will feature a rotating ensemble of players who will star in the two-person romance,...
- 7/31/2014
- by Marc Snetiker
- EW.com - PopWatch
New York – In a fussy bit of business employed multiple times in the Shakespeare in the Park summer staging of Much Ado About Nothing, a garden trellis wall flanking designer John Lee Beatty's gorgeous 19th century Sicilian villa slides away as if by magic, with music providing the force that muscle cannot. This is perplexing given that unlike, say, A Midsummer Night's Dream, this play's turmoil of the heart is the result purely of foolish human behavior, and not of some mysterious enchantment. However, magic is essentially missing from the chemistry of Lily Rabe and Hamish Linklater as Beatrice and
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- 6/17/2014
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Out goes one Broadway season, and in comes another, marked by the first new Broadway show announcement following this year’s Tony Awards.
Disgraced, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Ayad Akhtar, will open on Broadway this fall on Oct. 23 at the Lyceum Theatre, with previews slated to begin Sept. 27. How I Met Your Mother star Josh Radnor (who made his Broadway debut opposite Kathleen Turner in 2002’s The Graduate) will lead the cast, which includes Gretchen Mol, Karen Pittman, and Hari Dhillon.
The play follows the story of a Muslim-American lawyer and his artist wife, who invite a co-worker and...
Disgraced, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Ayad Akhtar, will open on Broadway this fall on Oct. 23 at the Lyceum Theatre, with previews slated to begin Sept. 27. How I Met Your Mother star Josh Radnor (who made his Broadway debut opposite Kathleen Turner in 2002’s The Graduate) will lead the cast, which includes Gretchen Mol, Karen Pittman, and Hari Dhillon.
The play follows the story of a Muslim-American lawyer and his artist wife, who invite a co-worker and...
- 6/10/2014
- by Marc Snetiker
- EW.com - PopWatch
Stage director Daniel Sullivan's feature debut is a competent adaptation of Jon Robin Baitz's 1989 play about a Holocaust survivor grown into a hard-headed publisher and hard-hearted father. "The Substance of Fire", an upcoming Miramax release, premiered locally Saturday at the AFI Los Angeles International Film Festival.
Lauded for his performances in the theatrical version, Ron Rifkin reprises the role of Isaac Geldhart, seen in a new opening as a child observing a book-burning during the war. The scene quickly shifts to current times, with Isaac in New York and a heap of problems about to ignite.
Having lost his family and wife and grown stony in the face of criticism for printing only narrow-interest works on the war, Isaac rebuffs his more practical son, Aaron (Tony Goldwyn). The latter is having no luck attracting investors and seeks to publish a potential best seller.
Isaac believes in high standards of craftsmanship and Old World integrity. A struggle ensues for control of the company, with Isaac losing his grip over Aaron's weak older brother (Timothy Hutton) and insurgent sister, Sarah Sarah Jessica Parker). All have equal shares, and Isaac is conspired against.
Meanwhile, Ronny Graham as a cranky author and loyal friend of Isaac lends support as Rifkin, with assured moves, takes us through the lead's mounting crises. Elizabeth Franz is another welcome presence as Isaac's won't-go-down-with-the-ship secretary.
Goldwyn, Hutton and Parker, however, are anything but inspiring. One develops little interest in their characters' problems when the spotlight shines so harshly on Isaac. Rifkin is commanding, but one grows weary waiting for his armor to crack.
One does learn a few things about paper stock and binding in Sullivan's latching onto cinematic possibilities, but the drama is still stagy while lacking the energy and urgency of a live performance.
THE SUBSTANCE OF FIRE
Miramax Films
Goldheart Films
Director Daniel Sullivan
Writer Jon Robin Baitz
Producers Jon Robin Baitz, Randy Finch,
Ron Kastner
Co-producer Lemore Syvan
Director of photography Robert Yeoman
Production designer John Lee Beatty
Editor Pamela Martin
Costume designer Jess Goldstein
Casting Meg Simon
Cast:
Isaac Geldhart Ron Rifkin
Aaron Geldhart Tony Goldwyn
Martin Geldhart Timothy Hutton
Sarah Geldhart Sarah Jessica Parker
Miss Barzakian Elizabeth Franz
Val Chenard Gil Bellows
Louis Foukold Ronny Graham
Running time -- 101 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Lauded for his performances in the theatrical version, Ron Rifkin reprises the role of Isaac Geldhart, seen in a new opening as a child observing a book-burning during the war. The scene quickly shifts to current times, with Isaac in New York and a heap of problems about to ignite.
Having lost his family and wife and grown stony in the face of criticism for printing only narrow-interest works on the war, Isaac rebuffs his more practical son, Aaron (Tony Goldwyn). The latter is having no luck attracting investors and seeks to publish a potential best seller.
Isaac believes in high standards of craftsmanship and Old World integrity. A struggle ensues for control of the company, with Isaac losing his grip over Aaron's weak older brother (Timothy Hutton) and insurgent sister, Sarah Sarah Jessica Parker). All have equal shares, and Isaac is conspired against.
Meanwhile, Ronny Graham as a cranky author and loyal friend of Isaac lends support as Rifkin, with assured moves, takes us through the lead's mounting crises. Elizabeth Franz is another welcome presence as Isaac's won't-go-down-with-the-ship secretary.
Goldwyn, Hutton and Parker, however, are anything but inspiring. One develops little interest in their characters' problems when the spotlight shines so harshly on Isaac. Rifkin is commanding, but one grows weary waiting for his armor to crack.
One does learn a few things about paper stock and binding in Sullivan's latching onto cinematic possibilities, but the drama is still stagy while lacking the energy and urgency of a live performance.
THE SUBSTANCE OF FIRE
Miramax Films
Goldheart Films
Director Daniel Sullivan
Writer Jon Robin Baitz
Producers Jon Robin Baitz, Randy Finch,
Ron Kastner
Co-producer Lemore Syvan
Director of photography Robert Yeoman
Production designer John Lee Beatty
Editor Pamela Martin
Costume designer Jess Goldstein
Casting Meg Simon
Cast:
Isaac Geldhart Ron Rifkin
Aaron Geldhart Tony Goldwyn
Martin Geldhart Timothy Hutton
Sarah Geldhart Sarah Jessica Parker
Miss Barzakian Elizabeth Franz
Val Chenard Gil Bellows
Louis Foukold Ronny Graham
Running time -- 101 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 10/28/1996
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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