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Theatre

The Critic Who Smashed a Theatergoer’s Cell Phone Is No Hero

By Tyler Coates on

How do you teach a rude stranger about etiquette and manners? There’s an easy answer: you don’t.

Perhaps you’ve seen the story of National Review writer Kevin Williamson, who achieved Internet hero status this week after grabbing a theater patron’s cell phone during a performance of Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 and throwing it across the room. It struck a nerve with many people: those who attend live theater performances and see movies and who have experienced Williamson’s frustration at the sight (and sounds) of a audience member’s distracting cell phone use. But while many of us have wanted to take physical action in response to our cell phone-induced anger, most of us don’t. The reason is because it would make us as bad — if not worse — than the person using his or her phone so cavalierly during a performance or film. … Read More

New York

30 Seconds With… Wendy Beckett

By Leah Taylor on

In this weekly feature, WCBS culture critic Jim Taylor shares 30 seconds with the theatre stars and upstarts of NYC. From Broadway to Off-off, Jim tracks down the talent and gets them to spill just enough for our collectively shortened attention spans.

You may never think of your therapist in the same way again. We know We won’t! Love Therapy is the play. Wendy Beckett is the playwright. And the shrink?  … Read More

Theatre

Who Should Play Sally Bowles in the Upcoming Broadway Revival of ‘Cabaret’?

By Tyler Coates on

There are two major actors who are most associated with John Kander and Fred Ebb’s musical Cabaret: Liza Minnelli, who won an Oscar for her role as Sally Bowles in Bob Fosse’s 1972 film adaptation of the musical, and Alan Cumming, whose performance as the Emcee in Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival won him a Tony in in 1998. Both actors became associated with their roles. Minnelli performed several of the show’s numbers in her award-winning solo performance, Liza With a Z, and last week it was announced that Roundabout will be remounting their most popular production in the spring of 2014 with Cumming reprising his most famous stage role. But who will play the young English chanteuse Sally Bowles? Here are the five best casting opportunities. … Read More

Theatre

2013 Tony Nominations: The Theatre World Takes Broadway Back From Hollywood

By Tyler Coates on

Like any other award given to popular art, the Tonys can be divisive. The awards, handed out by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League, honor a select number of American theatre performances — productions must take place within the eligibility period (roughly, the Broadway season that runs from June to April) and in a Broadway house, which is defined not by location but by size (a theatre must have 500 seats or more). Considering the limited number of eligible productions, the small nominating committee of 42 theatre professionals, and the continuous commercialization of Broadway productions, it’s understandable that many critics see the Tony not as a respectable award but rather as an internal marketing tactic. … Read More

New York

2013 Tony Nomination Highlights and Snubs From Theatre Critic Jim Taylor

By Leah Taylor on

In this weekly feature, “30 Seconds With…,” WCBS culture critic Jim Taylor shares 30 seconds with the theatre stars and upstarts of NYC. From Broadway to Off-off, Jim tracks down the talent and gets them to spill just enough for our collectively shortened attention spans.

Today we’re talking Tonys: the 2013 Tony nominations. And for an incisive take on the recently announced nominees, we’re talking with theatre critic Jim Taylor. Yup, Jim is interviewing himself. … Read More

Theatre

5 Sports Movies That Should Get the Broadway Musical Treatment

By Tyler Coates on

It might surprise you, but the folks behind some of Broadway’s biggest hits were often sports fans. Before the smash hit Damn Yankees, Jerry Ross and Richard Adler’s 1955 baseball-themed retelling of the Faust legend, there was Good News, a 1927 musical written by Laurence Schwab, B.G. DeSylva, and Lew Brown, which followed a college football star. And last summer’s cheerleader musical Bring It On (based on the ’90s cult classic starring Kirsten Dunst) just earned a 2013 Tony nomination for Best Musical. It’s no shock that another famous sports movie, Rocky, is also headed to Broadway in musical form. One imagines there are plenty of other sports-themed movies that would make terrific Broadway musicals. Here are a few solid suggestions. … Read More

Theatre

The Most Unlikely Film-to-Musical Adaptations

By Alison Herman on

We’ve always known Patrick Bateman was into Journey, but over the weekend we learned that the banker turned serial killer will be the protagonist of an American Psycho musical based on the the hit novel and its movie adaptation. It’s not exactly an obvious choice for the Broadway (or in this case, West End) treatment: will Bateman belt out a power ballad on the trials of scoring an 8:00 dinner reservation? Isn’t Sweeney Todd the end-all, be-all of dramatically scored murder sprees? Still, there have been stranger movies to be retrofitted for the stage, including a rumored transformation of Mean Girls. Here are the most head-scratching screen-to-stage adaptations of beloved movies, from A Clockwork Orange to Silence of the Lambs.  … Read More

New York

30 Seconds With… Amy Herzog

By Leah Taylor on

In this weekly feature, WCBS culture critic Jim Taylor shares 30 seconds with the theatre stars and upstarts of NYC. From Broadway to Off-off, Jim tracks down the talent and gets them to spill just enough for our collectively shortened attention spans.

Amy Herzog is one of the hottest new playwrights of our time, but her latest is a real departure. Hitchcock-inspired Belleville is a thriller set in the eponymous Paris neighborhood. Truths and lies and sexual desire share the air with pot smoke and suspense. … Read More

Theatre

A Brief History of Unconventional Takes on ‘Macbeth’

By Alison Herman on

The Robot Shakespeare Company is apparently a thing that exists, and last week they released The Tragedy of Macbeth, a CGI-animated, fun-for-the-kids version of the classic Shakespeare play, complete with plain-English subtitles. As bizarre as the project, which is available in full on the RSC website, sounds, it’s not the first unconventional twist on the dark story of ambition, murder, and court intrigue. Perhaps that’s because the original play was itself an adaptation: the Bard found his inspiration in the story of Scotland’s King Macbeth, documented in the 1587 historical volume Holinshed’s Chronicles. Or maybe it’s because, like most of Shakespeare’s material, the themes of Macbeth are universal; just as it’s easy to compare Romeo and Juliet to any story of star-crossed lovers, all a Macbeth adaptation needs is a goal, a slightly disturbed protagonist, and a seriously twisted power couple. We compiled the best of Macbeth‘s unorthodox reinterpretations, from the story of a Pennsylvania burger flipper to the choose-your-own-adventure style take of an experimental theater company. … Read More

Theatre

Are You Ready for the Kurt and Courtney Broadway Musical?

By Judy Berman on

Celebrities have become pretty creative about how they choose to announce their new projects in this age of entertainment-news overload. But here’s one platform we’re fairly certain hasn’t been tried before: testimony delivered under oath. And yet, it seems a totally appropriate way to learn about what’s going on in the life of Courtney Love.… Read More