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Vanessa Williams and Matthew Morrison announced
the 2016
The Drama Desk Nominations at Feinstein's/54
Below. Like the OCC Nominations, She
Loves Me (9)
and American
Psycho (8)
garnered the most nominations. It is an interesting
list, and on Sunday, June 5 at Town Hall, we will
know the winners. I am a member of Drama Desk and a
voter and I will be there.
A one man show belongs Off-Broadway.
At the high prices charged for a Broadway show, the
audience deserves more than a one man cast and more
than a 90-minute show. That said, Fully
Committed, by Becky Mode,
at the Lyceum Theatre, directed by Jason
Moore, and starring Jesse
Tyler Ferguson, is a mildly amusing show about
taking reservations at a fancy restaurant. This was
previously presented Off-Broadway, where it belongs.
Ferguson works hard to portray many unimportant
customers, who feel it is important to dine at a
restaurant, where a table is difficult to get for,
at least, three months in advance. Ferguson is a
likable actor, and to memorize this 90-minutes of
nonsense deserves credit, but it comes at a cost. Do
you really want to listen to phones ringing
constantly for all that time? Also, his repeated
impressions of fatuous women becomes tiresome.
Sara Bareilles is
popular singer/songwriter, nominated for five Grammy
Awards. She has now written the music and lyrics for
her first Broadway show, Waitress,
book by Jessie
Nelson, based on a film by Adrienne Shelly with
the same title, at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. The
music is pleasant, not memorable, and the lyrics are
banal. It is story about an unhappy, pregnant
waitress (Jessie
Mueller), with a talent for baking pies, working
in a diner in a small town. Keala
Settle and Kimiko
Glenn work
with her, and the three sing well. Her husband (Nick
Cordero) is fired from his job and verbally
abuses her. He also smashes her guitar. However, the
story turns sick, when she begins having sex with
her doctor in his office. The excellent Christopher
Fitzgerald steals
the show as the lover of one of the other
waitresses. The rest of the cast are dull and
boring, and for a musical, it has minimal
choreography. Diane
Paulus directed
the show.
Tuck Everlasting,
book by Claudia
Shear & Tim
Federle, music by Chris
Miller, lyrics by Nathan
Tysen, based on the novel with the same title by Natalie
Babbitt, is
fairy tale musical that will delight family
audiences. Directed and choreographed by Casey
Nicholaw, it has a wonderful cast of
actors, singers and dancers, including a superb Carolee
Carmello, a humorous Terrence
Mann, and, introducing a very talented
11-year-old Sarah
Charles Lewis. Like all fairy tales, it has a
silly plot about drinking water to become immortal,
but it is entertaining, and a family audience will
leave the theater happy. At the opening night party
at Tavern on the Green, the guests included Bernadette
Peters, David Hyde Pierce, Ron Howard, Michael
Urie and
many more too numerous to name.
A revival of Long Day's Journey
Into Night, by Eugene
O'Neill, at the American Airlines Theatre,
features Jessica
Lange, Gabriel Byrne, Michael Shannon and John
Gallagher, Jr. Jonathan
Kent directed
the five member cast. It
is an almost four hour semi-autobiographical play,
that takes place in a summer home over one day. The
mother is addicted to drugs. The father is a miser.
The older son is an alcoholic and the younger son
(supposedly O'Neill) needs to be treated for his
weak lungs. Unfortunately, it is not a happy family,
and they bicker endlessly throughout the play.
However, the acting is first rate, and even though
one has to suffer the endless repetitions (O'Neill
never knew when to cut some of his dialogue), it is
worth while to watch four fine actors at their best,
especially Gabriel Byrne, who gives an outstanding
performance.
The final show of the season is Shuffle
Along or the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921
and All That Followed,
music & lyrics by Noble
Sissle & Eubie
Blake, original book by F.E.
Miller & Aubrey
Lyles, book by George
C. Wolfe, at the Music Box. It features five of
the brightest stars on Broadway; Audra McDonald,
Brian Stokes Mitchell, Billy Porter, Brandon Victor
Dixon and Joshua
Henry.
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I was eagerly anticipating its
arrival. Unfortunately, it is a disappointing
musical. Directed by a pedantic pedagogue George C.
Wolfe, it proceeds to give the audience a lecture on
the history of black musicals on Broadway. The
highlight is the closing number I'm
Just Wild About Harry, choreographed by Savion
Glover, which closes the first act. At almost
three hours, the show needs judicious editing.
Mario Dell'Anno held
a private party at the Rainbow Room, entitled A
Celebration of Life. It was one of the finest
parties my wife and I have ever attended. The
Rainbow Room is the most spectacular room in New
York, and possibly the world. After cocktails in the
room looking south to the Empire State Building, we
then moved to the bar area facing Queens, where we
had our photos taken. We then moved into dinner in
the glorious ballroom, where a magnificent band,
with wonderful singers, played all the fine songs
from the past nonstop throughout the rest of the
night, while guests danced between courses. The food
was delicious. Actor/singer Dominic
Chianese The
Sopranos, and 4 films with Al
Pacino, accompanying himself with a guitar, sang
Italian folk songs, and singer/actor James
"L.T." Taylor, the lead singer of Kool
& the Gang also performed, including his smash
1979 song Ladies
Man. On large screens Mario Dell'Anno's life was
shown with photographs of all the many celebrities
he has known throughout his 75-years. It was a
memorable, unforgettable night.
The Actors Fund Annual Gala at
the Marriott Marquis Hotel was another glorious
affair, in which Michael Douglas,
Emilio and Gloria
Estefan, Robert Greenblatt, Cynthia Gregory and Casey
Nicholaw were
honored with The Actors Fund Medal of Honor. Among
the performers and presenters were Rosie O'Donnell,
Bebe Neuwirth, Megan Hilty, Tina Fey, James Monroe
Iglehart, Sutton Foster, Annette Bening plus
the On
Your Feet! cast.
President & CEO of the Actors Fund Joe
Benincasa knows how to throw a wonderful,
unforgettable party
We attended a cocktail party for the American
Cancer Society 11th Annual Taste of Hope with
honoree Jean Shafiroff at
the Romona
Keveza Penthose Flagship, One
Rockefeller Plaza, where we saw a fashion show of
elegant gowns, while sipping champagne and nibbling
on macaroons. It was a lovely event. On Wednesday,
May 25, the 11th
Annual Taste of Hope will
take place at the Metropolitan Pavilion.
Jonathan Brielle's I
Love Broadway at
Birdland, 315 West 44th St, was a terrific show,
with guest performers from his Off-Broadway musical Himself
and Nora, at the Minetta Lane Theatre, for which
he wrote the book, music and lyrics, and starring Matt
Bogart and Whitney
Bashor. Also, performing with him, were Rose
Hemingway and Veanne
Cox. It was superb evening of music and song.
The 30th Annual Easter Bonnet
Competition is
always a pleasant event. It raises money for a very
fine cause Broadway
Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. The
performances from the opening number (a tribute to
the Will Rogers
Follies with Cady
Hoffman) to the finale (Help is on the Way sung
by Rachel
York) is a two hour delight featuring many of
the fine talents on the Broadway stage. Among the
judges were Robert
Creighton, Reed
Birney and Jayne
Houdyshell. Among the presenters were Cynthia
Erivo, Kerry Butler, Alex
Brightman and Ben
Whishaw. It was a lovely afternoon.
Sunset Song,
by Terence
Davies, UK/Luxembourg, 2015, is a beautiful
film, one of the finest of this year. The
photography is breathtaking, and the acting of the
entire cast is superb. I was enraptured throughout
the 135 minutes of this glorious production. The
central character is a lovely Agyness
Dyen as
a young girl growing up in a rural community in
Northern Scotland. with a tyrannical father (Peter
Mullan). She is bright, spirited and
intelligent, but is forced to give up her dream to
become a teacher when her mother dies. She is to
become a slave to her father dedicating herself to
housework and the farm. Romance intrudes. It takes
place just before World War I, and we see how that
horrible war destroys a peaceful way of life. It is
a magnificent film, one of the most poetic, lyrical
films that I have enjoyed this year. A viewer will
be entranced.
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