Category: theatre

The final Kander & Ebb musical “seemed to have a shot at redemption for its short-lived, six-week Broadway run when it was nominated for 12 Tony Awards … Instead, The Scottsboro Boys set a record at Sunday night’s ceremonies by becoming the most nominated show to receive no Tony Awards.” (The two runners-up are also Kander & Ebb shows.)

The “smash-hit Broadway musical made out of the unlikeliest of elements – unwavering faith, jokes about AIDS and lyrics so profane that many of its songs could not be televised” won nine Tony Awards. The sold-out about a horse drafted into World War I received five statuettes.

Charles McNulty: “I went from the Public Theater to the Yale Rep to the McCarter Theatre in a 12-year span that laid the groundwork for my understanding of how the American theater works. … [The people at these companies] understood they were not just adding to the repertory but that they were also feeding souls – their audiences’ and their own.”

“The Broadway stagehands’ union will not have a picket line by the red carpet at the Tony Awards on Sunday evening, after reaching an agreement on Friday morning with the managers of the awards festivities to allow union workers to stage the carpet.”

“Behind these transatlantic transfers lies a complex drama of economic realities, international investment, entrepreneurial risk-taking and a radical new commercial approach from British theatre’s subsidised sector.”

“On Thursday the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, the union that represents theater directors including Julie Taymor, said it had filed an arbitration claim against the producers of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” for failure to pay royalties to her.”

“On average, winners of the Tony for best musical saw their average weekly gross jump 48 percent, from $656,784 in the eight weeks before the ceremony to $972,006 in the eight weeks after. By contrast, the other nominees saw only a 21 percent increase in their weekly gross in the comparable time frames.”

“While the Broadway season was a bountiful one in many ways – what’s this, almost a dozen new musicals? – it was pretty thin on significant leading roles for women.”

The company’s trademarks are imaginative spectacle and intense physicality (often including acrobatics), as well as a concentration on brand new work. Among Lookingglass’s best-known productions are Mary Zimmerman’s adaptations of Arabian Nights and Metamorphoses.

“The opportunity [to audition] has prompted parents to seek out Annie boot camps around New York to get their daughters ready. Workshops – many led by former Annie cast and creative-team members – are helping little girls figure out what to sing (no age-inappropriate love songs), what to wear (no prissy dresses) and how to enter the audition room (fearlessly).”