The wave of Juggalo-mania may have ebbed over a year ago, but that doesn’t mean our cultural obsession with Insane Clown Posse, their fans, and what it all means is entirely over. This morning, the Village Voicebrings us the news that downtown fixture Neal Medlyn will present a show called Wicked Clown Lovenext week at the experimental performance venue The Kitchen. Inspired by ICP and their Juggalos, the piece will explore themes of male bonding. And Kathleen Hanna is designing the sets. Yes, that Kathleen Hanna. The one from Le Tigre, and now The Julie Ruin, and originally Bikini Kill. Yup.
This all sounds pretty random, but as the Voice points out, it’s pretty easy to connect the dots: Medlyn is known for his over-the-top, musical homages to pop stars ranging from Phil Collins to Britney Spears, and he’s performed with Kenny Mellman, the ex-Kiki and Herb star who is now a member of The Julie Ruin. He and Hanna have also both appeared in the monthly Joe’s Pub pop-camp-fest Our Hit Parade. Medlyn, meanwhile, attended the Gathering of the Juggalos last summer and wrote a fantastic piece about it for Salon. Unlike many pieces that have found cultured, city-dwelling types immersing themselves in ICP, which can be roughly summarized as “look at these fucking Juggalos,” he ended up identifying with the marginalized subculture — suggesting that Medlyn’s theatrical take on the phenomenon will be somewhat sympathetic. We can’t help but wonder whether Hanna’s visual interpretation of the hyper-masculine movement will be equally nuanced.
This fall, Mary Poppins — er, actress and singer Julie Andrews — is directing a new musical entitled “The Great American Mousical,” based on the children’s book of the same name she co-wrote with her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton. Goodspeed Musicals will put on the production at the Norma Terris Theater in Chester, Conn., from Nov. 8 to Dec. 2. Though Andrews has directed musicals before, this is the first original show she will have organized — though it shouldn’t be too hard for her, considering she wrote all the original material. In addition, the sets and costumes will be designed by Tony Walton, Emma’s father and the original illustrator for the book. Sounds like a success-in-the-making to us. [via ArtsBeat]
In what seems to us like the bizarre result of a round of pop culture Mad Libs, Deadline is reporting that Hugh Jackman (who previously played a stage magician in Christopher Nolan’s underappreciated 2006 film The Prestige) has signed on to star in Aaron Sorkin’s Houdini, a new musical about “the life and death of America’s first superstar,” which is set to debut on Broadway sometime in 2013.
“Rather than being a biography, Houdini, told in a contemporary tone, tells the story of an epic battle that took place between the world’s greatest illusionist and a trio of women, known as ‘Spiritualists,’ who convinced millions of people, including the editors of Scientific American and The New York Times, that they could communicate with the dead,” Sorkin says of the project, which marks his “librettist debut,” and apparently has been kicking around for quite some time now. Danny Elfman was originally working on the music, but has since been replaced by Stephen Schwartz, the man behind Godspell, Pippin, and Wicked.
Given the insane credentials of everyone involved, we’re wondering if there’s any chance that this musical won’t win a Tony. What do you think?
We’ve been reading reviews by New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley for long enough to know that he’s not always a fan of celebrities’ work on Broadway; perhaps that is what’s at the root of the homophobic, oddly-personal piece that he recently filed on Hugh Jackman’s new one-man show. Maybe he was just pissed to be in the company of the theater’s “largely female audiences”? It’s not clear.
Let us start by saying that the whole “two sides” of Jackman framing of the piece is an idea so played out that it has already been a rather lame SNL sketch. Good, we’re glad that’s out of the way. So aside from Brantley’s stated belief that the actor is “for entertainment purposes, bisexual,” and thus “gleefully comports himself onstage in the manner of what, in less enlightened times, might have been called a flaming queen,” the critic also inexplicably makes an undermining remark about the state of Jackman’s marriage and hints that his loves of musicals could be seen as a red flag.
There’s also this misogynistic little gem toward the end, aimed at the ladies who love Mr. Jackman: “For some women his double-jointedness makes him the perfect platonic lover: part leading-man seducer (who gives you the best sex you never had), part gay best friend (who picks up your spirits by singing show tunes with you).” For the uninitiated, this is a prime example of mansplaining, and that facepalm you’re doing is a totally appropriate response.
Earlier this month we told you that Big Bang Theory star Jim Parsons was interested in playing the role of Elwood P. Dowd — a character so eccentric that he makes Sheldon Cooper look normal — in the revival of Harvey that’s headed to Broadway this spring. The only hiccup? It couldn’t interfere with his TV shooting schedule.
Evidently, the Emmy Award-winning actor was able to make it work; the show, which marks the first Broadway revival of Harvey since 1970, will begin preview performances at Studio 54 on May 18. Scott Ellis (The Little Dog Laughed) is on board to direct, and Jessica Hecht (A View from the Bridge) and Charles Kimbrough (Murphy Brown) will round out the cast as Dowd’s meddling sister and the head of the sanitarium, respectively. Given that Jimmy Stewart has basically owned that whole-guy-who-sees-a-giant-invisible-white-rabbit schtick since starring in the 1950 film adaptation of the comedy, do you think that Parsons will be able to take this part and make it his own? We’ve actually got pretty high hopes for this one. [via ArtsBeat]
Hitchcock’s noir drama Rebecca will be hitting the Broadway stage with actress Sierra Boggess — who has appeared in musical faves like The Little Mermaid — as the headliner. The Master of Suspense’s 1940 film is based on the Daphne du Maurier novel of the same name, which finds a wealthy couple haunted at their gothic estate by the husband’s former wife, now dead. Boggess will play the new bride, Maxim de Winter’s second spouse who has been renamed “I” for the stage production. Preview performances begin next March, with an opening in April at the Broadhurst Theater. The show will cost a whopping $13 million to produce. Hopefully this Broadway musical sees fewer injuries than Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, which cost a ridiculous $75 million to make and nearly killed everyone in the process. Can you picture the gripping tale on the big stage, with … songs?
A play is causing a ruckus amongst our friends on the other side of the pond. The Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Marat/Sade (The Persecution and Assassination of Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade) — originally written by Swedish playwright Peter Weiss — seems to be too “perverse” for British audiences. Ironically, the production was first staged at the RSC in 1964, where it was applauded for its progressive, avant-garde approach. Nearly 50 years later, up to 80 audience members a show are walking out on Marat/Sade — which is set in an insane asylum and revolves around inmate the Marquis de Sade’s play about the assassinated Jean Paul Marat. This play isn’t the first controversial theatrical work that upset audiences, however. Hit the jump for a look at other “shocking” stage productions.
Now that The Book of Mormon is Broadway’s second-biggest box-office hit of the year and two revivals of Christian-themed musicals — Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar — are making their way back to the stage this year, we think it’s fair to say that the theater has seen the way of the Lord. Has someone been putting sacrament in the water? Or have playwrights just gotten in touch with their devout — and devoutly satirical — sides? Either way, we’re more interested in how the current slate of God-oriented programming plays measures up to holy productions past, so we’ve ranked seven of them from burn-in-hell blasphemy to virginal virtue after the jump.
The grandson of famed playwright Oscar Wilde claims a new play, Constance, set to open on Friday at London’s King’s Head Theater is not Wilde’s “final play” as the theater company boasts, the Guardian reports. “It is dishonest to foist this on the public,” Merlin Holland says, calling the play “a pretty appalling piece of work” that is “marginally altered in order to sound a bit like Oscar Wilde.” The problem is that, although Wilde sketched the plot for Constance, it was actually written by several other playwrights before it became the play that is about to open.
“I’m completely comfortable calling it a play by Oscar Wilde,” says Adam Spreadbury-Maher, the artistic director of the theater. He adds that the production is careful to credit the lineage of the play and the various hands it passed through. But he isn’t doing himself any favors when he says the production is similar to how Damien Hirst “doesn’t paint all his paintings.” Probably not the best analogy to use when trying to convince people to pay good money to see Oscar Wilde’s last play. [via ArtsBeat]
Lately, the idea of rock stars bringing their material to Broadway has become a bit of a trend, with mixed results. Apparently not put off by Bono’s recent experiences on the Great White Way, Sting is collaborating with Brian Yorkey (the multiple prize-winning book writer and lyricist of the very excellent Next to Normal), on a new musical called The Last Ship, that will begin table readings in New York this October. While there’s no plot summary at the moment, based on the musical’s characters and setting (1980s Newscastle), it sounds like the show will be at least semi-autobiographical.
“I won’t say the score is complete, because the score’s not complete until God knows when,” Yorkey told ArtsBeat. “But he’s written a couple dozen, maybe 20, 24, amazing new songs for the show. He’s writing great theater music. It’s very, very distinctly Sting but it also is theater music. It’s not just pop music transposed into the theater.” What do you think? Does the softer, New Age yogi Sting have a rock musical in him? Or would you be more excited to hear what the Sting of an earlier era would have come up with?
