The Past Week In Theatre History (Dec. 5 - 9)

The Past Week In Theatre History: December 5 -9

By Robert Viagas, David Gewirtzman, Sam Maher

Christopher Reichheld and Anne Bradley

1896 Birthday of Ira Gershwin (1896-1983), one of Broadway's most sterling lyricists, mainly in collaboration with his brother George. Ira's musicals will include Porgy and Bess; Of Thee I Sing; Lady, Be Good; Funny Face; Oh. Kay!, Girl Crazy, Lady in the Dark and in adaptations after his death, My One and Only, Crazy for You and Never Gonna Dance.

1902 Birthday of actress Margaret Hamilton, who will appear on Broadway in plays including The Farmer Takes a Wife, The Dark Tower, Goldilocks and a revival of Our Town, but who will forever be remembered as The Wicked Witch of the West in the MGM film The Wizard of Oz.

1903 U.S. premiere of George Bernard Shaw's drama of the Life Force, Candida, starring Dorothy Donnelly and Arnold Daly at the Princess Theatre.

1911 Birthday of actor Lee J. Cobb (1911-1976), who will create many memorable roles in the 1930s to 1950s, most notably Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman.

1918 It's a Scandal at London's Strand Theatre. This Cosmo Hamilton comedy exposes a woman pretending to be married to a gentleman. Kyrle Bellew and Noel Coward star.

1925 "Why a duck?" The ineffable question is first asked on Broadway today, the opening night of the George S. Kaufman/Irving Berlin musical The Cocoanuts at the Lyric Theatre with four young stars who overshadowed even the august writing team: The Marx Brothers, Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo. The anarchic nonsense about the Florida land rush runs 377 performances and is made into a classic film (minus most of the songs).

1925 Also: Birthday of entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. (1925-1990), who will begin in small clubs and rise to become a Las Vegas headliner, film star and member of the "Rat Pack" of 1950s swingers. His Broadway work will include starring roles in Mr. Wonderful and the musical Golden Boy.

1930 Cole Porter scandalizes Broadway with the streetwalker's lament, "Love For Sale," in the musical The New Yorkers, which opens tonight at B.S. Moss's Broadway Theatre for a run of 168 performances. Included in the huge cast are Jimmy Durante and Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians.

1931 Birthday of Ellen Stewart, whose LaMama Experimental Theatre Club will serve as one of the cornerstones of the Off-Off-Broadway movement.

1946 Laurette Taylor dies today. Her career spanned almost 40 years. Two of her more memorable performances were in Peg O' My Heart, created by her husband J. Hartley Manners; and Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie.

1949 Carol Channing blinks her big round eyes and warbles "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" on the opening night of the musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes at the Ziegfeld Theatre. It will run 740 performances and make Channing into an icon.

1979 Today's Saturday matinee of Grease is the 3,243 performance, making it the longest running show in Broadway history to that point. Grease passes Fiddler on the Roof, which had overtaken Life With Father in 1972, when this production of Grease was 128 performances into its pre-Broadway run. The long-run title is now held by Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera.

1996 The epic musical Ragtime, with a book by Terrence McNally and a score by Ahrens & Flaherty, has its world premiere in Toronto. Reviews are strong for the show's subsequent Broadway mounting, but the show's high cost, coupled with other financial woes, would eventually wreck its producing organization, Livent. SFX Productions would buy what remained of the company, only to be taken over itself by Clear Channel.

1999 Ann Hampton Callaway, Everett Bradley and Laura Benanti star in Swing!, a musical revue featuring swing music by various composers such as Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman. The lively show opens tonight and will go on to run for a substantial 461 performances and receive six 2000 Tony Award nominations including one for Best Musical.

2001 Less than three months after the 9/11 attacks, the downtown Manhattan Bat Theatre Company opens a new play about a fire chief trying to compose eulogies for his dead men. The Guys will become a long-running hit, and be adapted for film.

2001 Also: A little-heralded in-development new musical called Hairspray begins open casting calls in -- where else? -- Baltimore. It will go on to win the 2003 Tony Award as Best Musical.

2002 Baz Luhrmann's staging of the opera La Boheme opens on Broadway today, with a directorial concept that makes it resemble a Broadway musical. The show will run 228 performances and win a special Tony honor for its three rotating casts of leads.

2002 Also: One of the most memorable flops of the new century opens at the Minskoff Theatre: Dance of the Vampires, a campy musical about vampires stalking the European village of Lower Belabartokovich. Jim Steinman, who wrote many songs for rocker Meat Loaf, rolls out his first full Broadway score. The production had been a long-running hit in Austria and Germany, but after six weeks of previews on Broadway it will stagger on for 56 performances after critics hammer stakes into its heart. The show marks the (brief) return to Broadway of Phantom of the Opera star Michael Crawford as the bloodthirsty Count von Krolock.

2007 Mark Twain's 1890's farce Is He Dead? gets its LONG-delayed Broadway debut after the manuscript is rediscovered by a researcher, and playwright David Ives does a contemporary adaptation. Norbert Leo Butz, Jenn Gambatese, Byron Jennings, Michael McGrath and John McMartin are featured in the cast.

2008 The Olivier Award-winning Slava's Snowshow, already an Off-Broadway hit known for its climactic blizzard and its wordless clowns who roam a wintry landscape, opens at the Helen Hayes Theatre. The show features a cast of ten, including creator Slava Polunin.

2009 Playwright David Mamet confronts the issue of racial prejudice in America with his drama Race, which opens on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. James Spader, David Alan Grier, Kerry Washington and Richard Thomas star in the play about a law firm with one white partner and one black partner who take the case of a white man charged with a sex crime against a black woman.

More Birthdays: William S. Hart 1864. Lynn Fontanne 1887. Agnes Moorehead 1900. Quentin Crisp 1908. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. 1909. Broderick Crawford 1911. Wally Cox 1924. Dina Merrill 1925. Dick Van Patten 1928. Bobby Van 1928. Eli Wallach 1931. Ellen Burstyn 1932. David Carradine 1936. Buck Henry 1939. Judi Dench 1934. A.J. Antoon 1944. Michael Nouri 1945. James Naughton 1945. John Rubinstein 1946. John Malkovich 1953. Donny Osmond 1957. Mario Cantone 1959.

This is by no means a comprehensive list of everything that happen this week in theatre history, that post would be WAY longer than this one. To see more check out the "Today in Theatre History" blog posts on Playbill.com.

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New show reviews for the week of Dec. 5

Bill Hirschman, who has penned (Typed?  Keyboarded?) most of the reviews found this week, gives us his review of Shrek at the Adrienne Arsht Center, a show that never seems to find the magic of the Dreamworks film. Posted on Florida Theater On Stage.

Streaks of imagination and wit surface frequently, But this fairy tale theoretically designed to enchant children and tickle adults doesn’t cast much of a magic spell because the creators simply haven’t found the winking subversive alchemy that was innately part of the 2001 romp.

And here also is Christine Dolen's review of Shrek run in both The Sun-Sentinel & The Miami Herald.

"Shrek the Musical," which visits the Ziff Ballet Opera House at Miami's Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts this week, is based on the first movie in the four-film "Shrek" series, the highest-grossing animated franchise of all time. But this stage adaptation goes places that the "Shrek" the movie didn't.

New Theatre offers up Twain and Shaw Do Lunch but doesn't quite hit the mark. Reviewed for Florida Theater On Stage by Bill Hirschman

An intriguing premise (but) with no dramatic conflict, no character development and no narrative arc, Stevens’ 90-minute comedy is primarily a procession of the title characters telling each other funny anecdotes and plying each other with witticisms.

 Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, which somehow seams like it's been done to often, seams to be this weeks gem according to Bill Hirschman over at Florida Theater On Stage.

The Maltz Jupiter Theatre’s almost profligately lush, unflaggingly energetic and totally  winning edition of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat will thankfully make you forget any of the dozen high school, church or amateur productions that may be polluting your memory.

Onelia Collazo Mendive for the Miami Theater Examiner writes about  The Santaland Diaries by Zoetic Stage at the Adrienne Arsht Center.

This cult classic, based on the outlandish and true chronicles of David Sedaris’ unique experience during the holidays working as “Crumpet,” a Christmas elf in Macy’s Santaland display, examines the desperation of unemployment, while celebrating the insanity of Christmas shopping and the ineffable "cheer" of the holiday spirit.

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The Santaland Diaries

Zoetic Stage Presents
at Adrienne Arsht Center
The Santaland Diaries
Written by David Sedaris
Adapted by Joe Mantello
Dec 8 – Dec 23

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JACOB MARLEY’S CHRISTMAS CAROL

Actor's Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre Presents
Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol
Book by Tom Mula
Dec 7 – Jan 1

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Current Productions for the week of December 5, 2011

All My Sons
at The Palm Beach Dramaworks Until Dec 11 18

This morality play about the cost of lying and the price of truth-telling examines a troubled family and a father who placed duty to his family above the lives of others, and now must face the consequences.


RED by John Logan
at The Gable stage at the Biltmore Until Dec 11
It is 1958 and abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko has just landed the biggest commission in the history of modern art; a series of murals for New York's famed Four Seasons Restaurant. Raw and provocative, this 2010 Tony Award-winning play is a searing portrait of the ambition, vulnerability and agony inherent in the art of making art.


Shrek: the Musical
at Adrienne Arsht Center
in The Ziff Ballet Opera House Until Dec 11
Shrek: The Musical is part romance, part twisted fairy tale and all irreverent fun for everyone!  Based on the Oscar®-winning DreamWorks film that started it all. In a faraway kingdom turned upside down, things get ugly when an unseemly ogre shows up to rescue a feisty princess. Throw in a donkey who won't shut up, a villain with a SHORT temper, a cookie with an attitude and over a dozen other fairy tale misfits, and you've got the kind of mess that calls for a real hero.


Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat 
at The Maltz Jupiter Theatre Until Dec 18
This colorful, family-friendly retelling of the story of Joseph, his coat of many colors and his amazing ability to interpret dreams is a musical blockbuster of Biblical proportions! Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s award-winning musical parable features a delightful array of musical styles, from country-western and calypso to bubble-gum pop and rock 'n' roll, entertaining your entire family.


Twain and Shaw Do Lunch
at New Theatre Until Dec 18
This witty and based-on-truth play is set in 1907 when the world's two greatest living writers, Mark Twain & George Bernard Shaw, had lunch together. This, their first meeting, was monumental. It would be Mrs. Shaw's job to make sure they didn't destroy each other.


Avenue Q
at The Area Stage Compnay Until Dec 18
AVENUE Q: part flesh, part felt and packed with heart. Don't miss out on this chance to see this long-running Broadway hit! AVENUE Q is a laugh-out-loud musical that tells the timeless story of a recent college grad named Princeton who moves into a shabby New York apartment all the way out on Avenue Q, where he meets Kate, Rod Trekkie, Lucy the Slut and other HELPFUL characters who help him discover his purpose in life! If this were a movie it would be rated PG-13. 


Irving Berlin's - I Love A Piano
at Broward Stage Door Theatre Until Jan 8
Join us for a nostalgic journey that spans seven decades of American history as seen through the eyes of legendary songwriter Irving Berlin. Including timeless classics such as “White Christmas,” “God Bless America,” “Puttin’ On the Ritz,” and “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” I Love a Piano does more than define the music of a generation - it defines the music of our country.

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Known Auditions Through January 3

Auditions for "Home Exchange" at The Waterfront Playhouse

HOME EXCHANGE by Hy Conrad
A WORLD PREMIERE MYSTERY COMEDY

AUDITION DATE:  Tuesday, January 3, 2012, 5-8 PM (Callbacks on January 10, 2012, 5-7 PM).
WHERE: Waterfront Playhouse, Mallory Square
DIRECTOR: Bob Bowersox
NEEDED: 2 women and 3 men
LOOKING FOR: Experienced actors. All roles require excellent (yet subtle) comic timing. Please note the characters of Patrick Dobbs, Mrs. Weaver and Constable Greely require convincing British accents.
WHAT: Auditions will consist of cold-readings from the script. Perusal copies availability TBA.
PRODUCTION DATES: May 3 to May 26 (4 weeks, performances are Thurs. to Sat.)
REHEARSAL DATES:  Rehearsals will start sometime in early April.



Auditions for "The Unexpected Guest" at The Lakeworth Playhouse

THE UNEXPECTED GUEST by Agatha Christie

AUDITION DATE:  December 5 & 6, 2011, 6:30 PM (Callbacks on December 7, 2011).
WHERE: Lakeworth Playhouse
DIRECTOR: Patty Storch-Goodrich
NEEDED: 3 women and 7 men
WHAT: Auditions will consist of cold-readings from the script.
PRODUCTION DATES: March 1 to March 18, 2012



Auditions for "Rapunzel" at Sol Childrens Theatre Troupe

Rapunzel 

AUDITION DATE:  December 10 (2-4pm) & 11 (10am-12pm) by appointment only
                                    Call 561-447-8829 or email solchildtroupe@aol.com
WHERE: Sol Childrens Theatre Troupe, Boca Raton, FL
NEEDED: actors aged 10 and older for a cast of 5
WHAT: 1 minute prepared monologue...must be from a published play or classical literature
PRODUCTION DATES: March 16 to April 1, 2012
REHEARSAL DATES:  Rehearsals will start in January...schedule available upon request
NOTES: If new to Sol Children theatre please bring a brief bio and a headshot (can be a photo, does not need to be professionally done)



Auditions for "Hamlet" at Ft. Lauderdale Childrens Theatre

Hamlet 

AUDITION DATE:  December 6 (4:30pm) Callbacks on December 7, 2011 (7-8:30pm)
WHERE: Fort Lauderdale Childrens Theatre, Galleria Mall, Third Floor
NEEDED: young actors in grades 7-12
WHAT: 1-2 minute Shakespearean Monologue
PRODUCTION DATES: March 

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Shrek: the Musical

Adrienne Arsht Center Presents
Shrek: the Musical
in The Ziff Ballet Opera House 
Dec 6 – Dec 11

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Blog Watch for the week of Nov. 28, 2011

In this weeks batch of blog nuggets is an article about what theaters will look like in the future, what keeps people marching on through troubled times, and how to get a more engaged audience for a "Talk-Back" performance series by asking attendees to bring food. Maybe not as crazy as it sounds.

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The Past Week In Theatre History (Nov. 28-Dec. 2)

Today In Theatre History: NOVEMBER 28 - December 2
By David Gewirtzman
and Robert Viagas, Steve Luber, Anne Bradley and Sam Maher


1895 Birthday of legendary film choreographer Busby Berkeley (1895-1976), whose career will be launched with a 12-show burst of creativity on Broadway between the end of 1926 and the beginning of 1930 (including A Connecticut Yankee and Good Boy) before being whisked off to Hollywood to do films like the original 42nd Street. His Broadway swan song was 1971's No, No, Nanette.

1926 Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein II's The Desert Song, one of the last of the blockbuster operettas, opens. The mysterious and romantic Red Shadow and his rebel band ride over the dunes of North Africa in this musical, which runs 471 performances at the Casino Theatre and tours for much of the next two generations.

1929 In London, actors and actresses vote unanimously to form the British Actors Equity Association. Rules and the constitution will be adopted in May of the following year.

1932 Fred Astaire has his final Broadway opening night in Cole Porter's Gay Divorce, which bows at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre and lasts 248 performances. When it is filmed, the Hollywood Hayes Office rules that divorce can not be gay (as in cheerful)... so the title is changed to Gay Divorcee.

1947 Birthday of playwright David Mamet, who will write hard-bitten plays that capture the unique rhythms of speech of working people, including real estate salesmen (Pulitzer-winner Glengarry Glen Ross), movie makers (Speed-the-Plow), academics and feminists (Oleanna) and small-time thieves (American Buffalo).

1951 John Van Druten's play I Am a Camera stages the story of Sally Bowles, the Berlin cabaret singer first introduced in Christopher Isherwood's stories, and who would later be musicalized in Cabaret. Julie Harris stars as Sally in this non-musical drama which runs 214 performances at the Empire Theatre.

1952 Birthday of fierce actor Mandy Patinkin who will create a series of intense characters in musicals Evita, The Secret Garden, Sunday in the Park With George and The Knife before turning to TV, and a concert and recording career.

1957 Anthony Perkins plays the sensitive young man in Ketti Frings' Look Homeward, Angel, which opens today at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, and runs 564 performances.

1968 Morning, Noon, and Night, three avant-garde plays by Israel Horvitz, Terrence McNally, and Leonard Melfi respectively, opens at the Henry Miller Theatre. Theodore Mann directs what will be 52 performances. The cast includes Robert Klein and Sorrell Booke.

1972 Via Galactica opens at the new Uris Theatre with a $900,000 price tag. Peter Hall directs, Galt McDermot provides the score for what will be a run of seven performances.

1979 Martin Sherman’s play about homosexuals in the Nazi concentration camps, Bent, opens at the New Apollo Theatre. Richard Gere stars as a gay man who is also a Jew. Other cast members include David Marshall Grant and David Dukes. The show will run for 240 performances.

1985 The Mystery of Edwin Drood, adapted from the Charles Dickens novel by Rupert Holmes, opens on Broadway tonight at the Imperial Theatre. The show ran for free in Central Park over the previous summer. Dickens never wrote an ending to his novel, and because of this, the responsibility of choosing an ending falls to the audience each night. The cast included Betty Buckley, George Rose, Donna Murphy and George N. Martin.

1987 The Ritz (now the Walter Kerr) Theatre plays host to Penn Jillette and Ray Teller, whose Penn & Teller opens tonight and will go on to run for 130 performances.

1997 Lyric Opera of Chicago presents the world premiere of Amistad, by composer Anthony Davis, opening tonight. George C. Wolfe, producer of The Joseph Papp Public Theatre/New York Shakespeare Festival and famed director, will direct the opera; the cast includes Mark S. Doss and Thomas Young. The opera, based on an 1839 slave uprising aboard a Cuban chartered ship, will precede Steven Spielberg's film version of the same story (also titled "Amistad"), which is set to open Dec. 10.

2000 In a collaboration, Moisés Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project travel to Wyoming and interview folks about the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard. The show created, The Laramie Project, will be presented in Laramie, opening tonight. Gay university student Shepard was beaten to death on the outskirts of town. The crime sparked outrage, debate and mourning around the world. This  will be the first time the documentary-like staging has played Laramie. Many residents are represented in the show and are expected to show up to see how Kaufman, his co-writers and actors present them.

More Birthdays: Louisa May Alcott 1832. Mark Twain 1835. John Willard 1885. Mary Martin 1913. Ray Walston 1914. Adolph Green 1915. Ezra Stone 1917. Efrem Zimbalist Jr. 1923. Jonathan Frid 1924. Woody Allen 1935. Robert Guillaume 1937. Bette Midler 1945. Ed Harris 1950. Treat Williams 1951.S. Epatha Merkerson 1952. Hinton Battle 1956.


This is by no means a comprehensive list of everything that happen this week in theatre history, that post would be WAY longer than this one. To see more check out the "Today in Theatre History" blog posts on Playbill.com.

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Madeline's Christmas

Actor's Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre Presents
Madeline's Christmas
November 29 – December 24, 2011

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