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Neil Patrick Harris to Host Tonys

He promises a 'first-class evening'

(Newser) - Neil Patrick Harris will host the Tony Awards, slated for June 7 at Radio City Music Hall. His “love for Broadway and on-stage presence makes him the perfect person,” the show’s co-producer tells Playbill. The screen and stage actor’s Broadway credits include Assassins, Cabaret, and Proof....

White House Jams to Spoken Word

Theater, jazz, poetry collide in East Room event

(Newser) - Spoken word, jazz, and theater took the White House by storm last night in what has been called the first presidential poetry jam, the Washington Post reports. “We're here to celebrate the power of words,” President Obama said, adding that his wife is his poet. The jam, Michelle...

Billy Elliot Grabs 15 Tony Nods

(Newser) - Musical Billy Elliot snagged 15 Tony nominations today, tying fellow movie adaptation The Producers for most ever. Main rival Next to Normal has a shot at 11 awards. Among plays, Mary Stuart and The Norman Conquests got seven nominations each, but neither got a Best Play nod, while God of ...

White Director for Black Play Puts Race Center Stage

Violates playwright Wilson's wishes

(Newser) - The selection of a white director for the Broadway revival of an August Wilson play has sparked racial tension, the New York Times reports. Before his death in 2005, Wilson refused to let white directors oversee productions of his work, partially out of racial solidarity, partially because he felt black...

Still Wrestling 'Fat Kid Thing,' John Goodman Returns to Stage

Actor will star opposite Nathan Lane in Godot

(Newser) - Unlike millions of Americans, John Goodman hated Dan Conner, the beleaguered husband he famously played on Roseanne. “It’s one of those arrogant things that happen to you when you don’t realize the breaks you’re catching,” Goodman tells the New York Times. But the portly actor...

Street Theater Sparks New Showdown at OK Corral

(Newser) - The Old West town of Tombstone, Ariz.—scene of the shootout at the OK Corral—is still swarming with gunmen. Actors, to be sure, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t bitter rivalries. Since a professional troupe rolled into town and started drawing tourists from the main drag...

Decades Later, Hair Still Swings
 Decades Later, Hair Still Swings 
Theater review
Apr 1, 2009 11:00 AM CDT

Decades Later, Hair Still Swings

Critics love 'exuberant' revival

(Newser) - Bursting with energy, the Broadway revival of Hair, recently moved indoors from Central Park, has wowed critics—though there are a few gripes. What they had to say:
  • “Hair, for all its references to hippies, Vietnam, free love and the revolution, feels utterly of the moment in its exuberance,
...

UK Shakespeare Troupe Seeks Canine Thespians

(Newser) - Dog-owners in the UK city of Bath can audition their pooches tomorrow for a spot in a Shakespeare play, the Telegraph reports. The role in The Taming of the Shrew is historically accurate, the director said: “In Shakespeare’s time … they had a troupe of dogs specially trained...

New Bilingual West Side Story Tender, Uneven

 New Bilingual 
 West Side Story 
 Tender, Uneven  
Theater review
Mar 20, 2009 11:44 AM CDT

New Bilingual West Side Story Tender, Uneven

Production can be uneven, but still enjoyable

(Newser) - The highly anticipated revival of West Side Story on Broadway opened last night to solid reviews, with critics applauding an unusually tender interpretation in which the women rule. Highlights:
  • “Even when they’re flashing switchblades and kicking people in the ribs, the teenage hoodlums who maraud through Arthur Laurents’
...

Richardson Died After 'Blunt Impact,' Clot

(Newser) - Natasha Richardson’s cause of death was an “epidural hematoma due to blunt impact to the head,” the New York Post reports. The verdict comes from the city’s medical examiner, ruling the actress’ death an accident. A hematoma is a blood clot that grows between the brain...

Richardson a Superb Artist of Own Making

Late actress commanded a presence that went far beyond mere inheritance

(Newser) - Natasha Richardson had the finest theater pedigree possible, but her stage presence owed itself to far more than her acting genes, Lisa Schwarzbaum writes in Entertainment Weekly. Her upbringing in the theater—and those famous Redgrave cheekbones—were plainly visible, but the late actress had an aura of competence and...

China Prepares for Das Kapital: The Musical

Marx's treatise gets some much-needed singing and dancing

(Newser) - Karl Marx's Das Kapital offers hundreds of pages of dense German prose on class struggle and modes of production—so why not add some singing and dancing? That's the idea of several Chinese producers who are mounting a Das Kapital musical, which promises a live band and Vegas-style theatrics to...

Verona Wants You to Wed Romeo and Juliet Style

(Newser) - Verona, Italy, the scene for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, is making a bid to become a “wedding capital,” ANSA reports. Packages include an exchange of vows on the Juliet Balcony, thought by some to be the locale for her famous “Romeo, Romeo” speech. It won’t...

Lifetime Portrait of Bard Found

Work is only living painting of the Bard

(Newser) - A family heirloom is thought to be the only surviving portrait of William Shakespeare painted during his life, the Telegraph reports. Art restorer Alex Cobbe noticed that a portrait of the Bard in the Folger Shakespeare library in Washington—known to be a posthumous copy of another work—bore an...

Money Woes Ground Spidey, Other Musicals

Stephen Sondheim revue stumbles before opening

(Newser) - Financial woes are forcing more musicals to face the music: Spider-Man’s Broadway appearance has been delayed until next January, while Stephen Sondheim’s latest couldn’t raise the cash for tryout performances, Bloomberg reports. Spidey’s show, with tunes by U2’s Bono and the Edge, costs a record...

Comic Fritzl Play Sparks Death Threats

Director insists he's mocking media, not rape and incest

(Newser) - A comic play about accused rapist Josef Fritzl is set to open in Vienna, drawing the ire—and death threats—of Austrians who are not amused, the BBC reports. Director Hubsi Kramar stressed that the largely improvised piece, co-starring victims of abuse, is a commentary on media coverage of Fritzl’...

Virginia Woolf Gets Silly in 'New' Play

Off-Broadway troupe revives author's one satirical work

(Newser) - A satirical play by Virginia Woolf received its professional premiere today in New York, NPR reports. Featuring figures like poet Alfred Lord Tennyson and painter George Frederic Watts, Freshwater lampoons "high-falutin', oldish, long-bearded Victorians," the play's producer said. Woolf wrote the hour-long farce as a fun project for...

Sleepwalker Stirs Yuks Off-Broadway

Sleepwalking With Me wins praise from neurologists

(Newser) - Fighting off an imaginary Brad Pitt and leaping from a second-story window confirmed it: Mike Birbiglia was ready to turn his sleepwalking stories into a one-man show, Newsweek reports. Launched off-Broadway in November, the comedic Sleepwalk With Me is drawing raves from reviewers and sleep researchers alike. "Mike...

TomKat Plot London Move
 TomKat Plot 
 London Move 
Jan 22, 2009 11:52 AM CST

TomKat Plot London Move

Holmes could pursue theater across the pond: Cruise

(Newser) - Europe is fast becoming the new Beverly Hills, with Tom Cruise saying last night he may move back to London. The Valkyrie star lived there for 2 years with ex Nicole Kidman, and it seems he still remembers the lingo: “Katie was absolutely brilliant on Broadway,” Cruise tells...

Actor Nearly Killed by Prop Gun
 Actor Nearly Killed by Prop Gun 
Jan 21, 2009 2:34 PM CST

Actor Nearly Killed by Prop Gun

Unexpectedly loaded revolver shakes up Of Mice and Men rehearsal

(Newser) - A Florida theater company’s production of Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men got a little too real Monday when a prop gun almost killed an actor in rehearsal, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports. A revolver used in the play’s final scene—in which the character Lennie is shot—turned...

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