Category: theatre

“It’s not the first time that multiple people share a single acting nomination at the Tony Awards. This year the three boys who portray the title star of ‘Billy Elliot’ on different nights on a rotating basis — David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik, Kiril Kulish — compete for best actor in a musical. There are four previous examples in Tonys history.”

Because playwrights write on spec, they tend to be “white, male, middle-class graduates from south-east England – the group who can most afford to take this financial risk. It follows that most plays they write will inevitably reflect the world view and concerns of this narrow group. A system has evolved that ensures plays and playwrights are developed by a process of financial natural selection.”

“Jerry Herman, Phyllis Newman, publicist Shirley Herz and the Signature Theater in Arlington, Va., will receive the annual Tony honors in noncompetitive categories.”

“‘Ruined’ took the award for play and Brit import ‘Billy Elliot’ scored the laurel for tuner, while Scottish production ‘Black Watch’ nabbed the title for foreign production. A special citation went to director Matthew Warchus and the cast of ‘The Norman Conquests’ on Broadway. Career citations went to Angela Lansbury, currently appearing in ‘Blithe Spirit,’ and to Gerard Alessandrini, creator of the long-running ‘Forbidden Broadway’ series of legit spoofs.”

The 1,055-seat theater, on 43rd Street between Avenue of the Americas and Broadway, was built on the site of a theater planned by the actor Henry Miller, which opened in 1918. Over the decades, the original theater fell into disrepair and was used as a movie house and a disco before Roundabout produced the musical “Cabaret” there in 1998, followed by a run of “Urinetown.”

“Broadway has had bust-and-boom cycles before, but based on a review of this season’s grosses, attendance and production, none in recent memory has been quite like the 2008-9 season, which unofficially ended Thursday with the eligibility deadline for the Tony Awards.”

“If you subscribe to the notion of play scripts as instant zeitgeist meters, then the plays presented at this year’s Pacific Playwrights Festival suggest that we’re in for a period of dark reflection over the political era that just ended.”

“If TV and movie actors have such an affinity for the stage — in New York right now, Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon, Jeremy Irons, Geoffrey Rush and Marcia Gay Harden are flaunting their Oscar-validated skills alongside such multiple Emmy winners as James Gandolfini and Allison Janney — why don’t more of the L.A.-based among them take advantage of the great opportunities in their own backyard?”

“The 35-year-old nonprofit has announced that it is suspending operations, a victim of declines in attendance, fundraising and corporate sponsorships.”

“To orchestrate a Broadway show is a backbreaking job, one that requires special training of a kind that most songwriters don’t have — and that many would be incapable of completing in any case. The ability to write a good showtune is unrelated to the ability to score it.”