How about a Fall Weekend in New York City to celebrate and benefit from the great productions that are opening this Autumn? As the air turns cooler, Three great revivals and a host of other stunning productions make a trip to New York appealing to theater aficionados of all categories.
An exciting new musical, Grey Gardens will make a delayed to transfer to Broadway this October. Starring Christine Ebersole, many in the New York Press and theater community believed the off-Broadway offering of Grey Gardens to be the best new musical of 2006. Grey Gardens was not eligible for the Tony Award since it played only Off-Broadway this past season. This will make Ebersole eligible for the Best Actress Tony Award in the 2007 season. She is the 2001 Tony Award Winner for best actress in a musical for the role of Dorothy Brock in the revival of 42nd Street. The following articles from Playbill.com are a wonderful start to learn about this thrilling production. I am certain that it will be wonderful.
Detail about the cast recording of Grey Gardens.
Information about the opening of Grey Gardens this Fall.
Here’s how the producers characterize the show: “Grey Gardens concerns both the deliciously eccentric aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who were once among the brightest names in the pre-Camelot social register, but became East Hampton’s most notorious recluses, living in a dilapidated 28-room mansion. Set in two eras — in 1941 when the estate was in its prime and in 1973 when it was reduced to squalor — the musical tells the alternatively hilarious and heartbreaking story of two indomitable individuals, Edith Bouvier Beale and her adult daughter ‘Little’ Edie.”
A Chorus Line will return to Broadway with previews beginning this September 18 with the official opening scheduled for October 5. The original run of A Chorus Line began life on Broadway on October 19, 1975 winning nine 1976 Tony Awards including Best Musical. On April 28, 1990, the show closed having become the longest running show in Broadway history with 6,137 shows at the Schubert Theater on 44th Street in Manhattan.
A Chorus Line began life at Joseph Papp’s Public Theater. It is about a collection of Broadway gypsies who tell there stories and reveal their fears as they go through the fraught and trying process of trying out for the chorus of a new show. It was revolutionary not only for the long workshop process that created the show (and which birthed a workshop ethos which has persisted—for better or worse—in nonprofit theatre to this day), but for epitomizing the “concept musical,” a genre which began with such Sondheim works as Company and Follies and reaches its peak in Line.
Toward the end of the original’s long run, the creators added a line to the program that read “Time: 1975.” The Producer’s said that the piece will still remain rooted in that year. “We’re treating it as a period piece,” he explained. “We won’t be changing any words. The themes of Chorus Line go far beyond any words in the peice. I hope we’re right. Only the public will tell us that. To try to take it out of its time, then you’re tinkering. We explored that possibility, talked about it and rejected it.”
The official web site of A Chorus Line: this is a wonderful site and full of information.
The cast announcement for A Chorus Line
More News on the 2006 A Chorus Line
The revival of long running shows on Broadway apparently has appeal to producers trying to entice the paying public into their theaters. Les Miserables will be back on Broadway after an absence of only three years. The third longest running production in Broadway history is coming to Broadway for a six month limited engagement. The original Broadway production opened on March 12, 1987 at the Broadway Theater. The production closed on May 18, 2003 with a mega-finale featuring over 200 voices. The final show represented the 6,680th performance of this show. It is currently the third longest running musical in history after Phantom of the Opera and Cats.
The Offical Les Miserables web site.
Casting information for the 2006 Les Miserables on Broadway
Information on the May 2003 closing of Les Miz Les Miz wrap-up on May 19, 2003
When Company opened in New York at the Alvin Theatre on April 26, 1970, it was met with decidedly positive notices. Sondheim’s music and lyrics were praised, along with the honest and fresh approach with which the show examined relationships. “So brilliant it passes over one like a shock wave,” said the Daily News. “A landmark,” raved both Time and Newsweek. In The New Yorker, Brendan Gill described the show as “an original piece of work, and one, moreover, that joyously breaks new ground. Mr. Sondheim’s deservedly celebrated talents are at their wryest, driest, highest pitch of tunefulness and wit.”
Company earned for Sondheim, long considered one of Broadway’s finest and most inventive lyricists, his first recognition as a serious composer. The show was honored with the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical as well as six Tony Awards, including those for music and lyrics (Sondheim’s first), book, scenic design, director and best musical.
This Company will open in New York in November at The Ethel Barrymore Theater on 47th Street. This exact production was presented at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park during the Spring of 2006. It staged in a style that duplicates the current revival of Sweeney Todd which has been playing Broadway since November, 2005 with the actors doubling their duties as actors while playing the instrumental accompaniment parts on stage. It is a novel concept that seems to have struck gold once, but may be overplayed in this second incarnation within a year.
A detailed article on the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park production of Company
Add to all of the above shows the currently playing and wortwhile productions of Wicked, Jersey Boys, The Drowsy Chaperone, Hairspray, Rent, Chicago, The Color Purple, and Sweeny Todd, it would be a great time for anyone to pay a visit to the capital of the world!
For updates, scroll down……..
