Issue #200: October 1, 2007

Read the Toronto Star article on Camp Broadway!!
Read the Toronto Sun article on Camp Broadway!!

• Before it lands on Broadway in April at the Walter Kerr Theater, The Catered Affair is currently working the stage at the Old Globe in San Diego. Based on the 1956 feature film starring Bette Davis and Debbie Reynolds, this new musical has Faith Prince, Tom Wopat, Leslie Kritzer and in a supporting role Harvey Fierstein. Fierstein, who wrote the book, first thought of adapting this project for the stage back in the 80s when he thought it would be a perfect vehicle for stage veteran and good friend Chita Rivera.

• Dolly Parton recently confirmed that the musical based on her film 9 to 5 will open in the spring of 2009. Parton has written the songs for the production.

• The Homecoming, which opens at the Cort Theater on December 9, will have Eve Best joining the cast.

• The Donmar Warehouse Theatre will be the place to be in June 2009 when Kenneth Branagh will be directing Jude Law in Hamlet. Both gentlemen are no strangers to the theatre or film where they were recently in Toronto for the premiere of the remake of the movie Sleuth at the Toronto International Film Festival. I suppose director and actor got along so well they decided to take on the Bard in the same capacity. Remember, Branagh is a veteran of Shakespeare’s Hamlet…he has not only played Hamlet on stage on four occasions but also had a critically acclaimed 1996 film about the ‘great Dane’ in which he directed, scripted and starred.

• Mega producer Cameron Mackintosh recently announced a joint venture with China’s biggest performing arts agency, China Arts and Entertainment Group, to stage Chinese versions of his London and Broadway hits Cats, Les Miserables, Mary Poppins, etc. First up will be Les Miserables, based on Victor Hugo’s epic novel, scheduled to open in November 2008, in Chinese with Chinese performers.

• A proud Canadian to the end, Montreal born actor Percy Rodrigues died on September 6 at the age of 89. Although the name may not be readily familiar, the face and voice certainly are. He was one of the most recognizable black faces on television in the 60s and 70s, carving out a long career on such shows as Perry Mason, Mission Impossible, Star Trek, Ironside, Marcus Welby M.D., Mannix, The Jeffersons, Payton Place and the mini-series Roots: The Next Generation. Rodrigues began his stage career in 1948 when he was in Eugene O’Neill’s Emperor Jones at the Royal Alex in Toronto. His Broadway career was launched in 1960 when he joined the cast of Lillian Hellman’s Tony Award-winning play Toys in the Attic along side Jason Robards Jr. and Maureen Stapleton. His next play was in James Baldwin’s Blues for Mister Charlie, which was also nominated for a Tony. In 1963 he returned to Canada to perform in George Bernard Shaw’s Androcles and the Lion at the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake. It was shortly after that that Hollywood came calling. with the Rodrigues family relocating to California where he lived until his death. However he never forgot his Canadian roots….he and his family returned to the family home in Longueuil, Quebec every summer until his wife of 52 years, Alameda, died in 1996. His daughter Hollis currently lives in the family home.