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Serving the Theatre Community since 1998

Issue #154: July 1, 2005

Broadway

  • Sarah Jessica Parker joins Brian Stokes Mitchell as a member of the 2005-06 Tony Awards Nominating Committee.  I wonder if you need three names to be considered for membership?
  • Director Jerry Zaks has signed on for the Broadway revival of Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial.  More details when info becomes available.
  • With works ranging from a musical about Prince Charles and Princess Diana to a play where a woman can predict the reviews in the New York Times BEFORE they come out, the Sixth Annual Midtown International Theatre Festival (MITF6) will be holding court in five separate spaces on 36th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues in Manhattan.  The festival will run from July 18 to August 7.
  • Mentioned in a previous column was the upcoming revival of The Odd Couple with the dynamic Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick.  The Neil Simon classic will begin previews at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on October 4.
  • Lennon opens at the Broadhurst Theatre on August 4 after a bit of a rocky out-of-town tryout in San Francisco.  Producers hope the changes and reworking they've done prior to the opening will reap great reviews.  This project has been sanctioned by Yoko Ono and reflects the songs Lennon wrote post-Beatles.
  • Bush Is Bad: the musical cure for the blue-states blues, a new musical revue by Joshua Rosenblum, aims venomous, highly partisan musical barbs at the president and his dissembling gang of conspirators, resulting in a take-no-prisoners show.  Performances begin Off Broadway at The Triad Theatre, on September 15.  The show stars Kate Baldwin, Neal Mayer and Michael McCoy.  It is directed and choreographed by Gary Slavin with lighting and sound by Tonya Pierre and design by Colin Stokes.  The opening is September 29 at 9:00 pm for the limited engagement.

London's West End

  • David Mamet's play Romance will hit the Almeida Theatre in September.  Leading the cast is Fraser's  "father" John Mahoney.
  • Dame Judi Dench is returning to the London stage early next year in a revival of Noel Coward's Hay Fever.  The 1925 comedy also has director extraordinaire Sir Peter Hall signed on for the project.  This has Dench and Hall together again.. They teamed up in 1998 for the revival of Filumena and again in 2001 in The Royal Family.
  • An example that shows reviews aren't everything.. Val Kilmer's The Postman Always Rings Twice currently at the Playhouse Theatre is packing them in even though the reviews were less than stellar.  The run has been extended to August 13 but with the boffo box office don't be surprised if it's extended again.
  • Sir Ian McKellen heads to the Donmar Theatre early next year to make his first appearance there in The Cut.
 
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