Issue #22: May 2, 1999

• As mentioned previously in this column, Ally McBeal star Calista Flockhart is a veteran of the Broadway stage. Well it looks like she is considering a return to the boards this summer for a limited five-week run in an Off-Broadway production. There have been a number of offers to the star but it looks like John van Druten’s I Am a Camera will get the nod. If it happens look for this latest revival to go into rehearsal at the end of May.

• Kathleen Turner is also returning to Broadway following a four to five-month national tour of the bioplay Tallulah. The one-woman show based on theatre legend Tallulah Bankhead will open in the spring of 2000

• More stars hitting the stage this summer include Gwyneth Paltrow taking on another Shakespearean role in the 45th Williamstown Festival production of As You Like It. Uma Thurman’s main squeeze Ethan Hawke will also join the festival in Tennessee Williams’ Camino Real. The festival will run from June 16 to Aug. 29.

• Keeping with the summer festival theme the Barrington Stage Co. will revive the short-lived 1974 Broadway musical Mack and Mable at the Consulate Performing Arts Center in Sheffield, Mass. The run begins on June 22, continuing through to July 18–keep your eyes open, you may see composer Jerry Herman in the audience since he worked on the newly revised book.

• The Berkshire Theater Festival in Stockbridge kicks off its ’99 season with Paul Giovanni’s Sherlock Holmes mystery The Crucifer of Blood. Christopher Renshaw will stage this production when it opens on June 24. Orson Welles’ adaptation of Moby Dick–Rehearsed will follow on July 13.

• Former American poet laureate, Rita Dove will probably be in the front row when her play The Darker Face of the Earth premieres at the Royal National Theatre’s Cottesloe auditorium on August 5. Director James Kerr will begin previews of this European premiere on July 30.

• The latest revival of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing will open on June 2 for a nine-week run at the Donmar Warehouse. Director David Leveaux returns to the West End following his dazzling Broadway staging of Electra earlier this season.

• Renowned British playwright Harold Pinter is currently being represented in Australia by The Sydney Theatre Company’s stunning production of Betrayal. The drama starring Angie Milliken, Robert Menzies and Paul Goddard runs through to May 8 at the Wharf Theatre.

• Two Oliver! veterans die. Days apart the theatre world lost Anthony Newley and Lionel Bart. Newley is best remembered for his portrayal of the Artful Dodger in the 1948 classic film version of Oliver Twist. He was also a distinguished playwright, composer and lyricist. In 1961 his musical Stop The World–I Want To Get Off became his most celebrated stage performance. Lionel Bart ‘s legacy lives on with Cameron Mackintosh’s stunning revival of Oliver! currently in London but soon to make its way to North America at the end of this year. As a lyricist and composer of many musicals it is for Oliver! that he will be most remembered. Bart, in the words of Andrew Lloyd-Webber "was the father of the modern British musical."