Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:32:13 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Theater :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/theater istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us Staff Reporter of the Sun http://www.nysun.com/arts/collective-unconscious-forced-to-close/81162/ Thu, 3 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Collective: Unconscious, the Lower Manhattan group dedicated to experimental and alternative theater, will be forced to close for good at the end of this month when its current lease ends. According to the collective's publicist, plumbing problems in the building are already making it a difficult space to use, and are forcing most of the venue's events for this month's Undergroundzero Festival to find new locations. The group already survived one move, in 2004, when high rents forced it out of... Bloomberg News http://www.nysun.com/arts/broadway-producers-actors-reach-labor-agreement/81161/ Thu, 3 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Wary of reprising a crippling strike that shut down most Broadway shows last year, Broadway producers and Actors' Equity Association this morning announced a tentative 39-month labor agreement. The theater agreement was disclosed in a joint statement by the actors' union and the Broadway League, representing producers and theater owners. It covers shows that play in New York and tour around America. The agreement includes an 11.25% increase in overall compensation through September 2011, and... TOM TEODORCZUK http://www.nysun.com/arts/lincoln-center-festival-lights-up/80894/ Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST The Lincoln Center Festival, which starts Wednesday, has done a bit of a juggling act this year. Ongoing renovations ruled out the New York State Theater and Alice Tully Hall, while Avery Fisher Hall is operational for only one week of the festival's 25-day duration. "The underlying thread this year is that we have had to look elsewhere for performance spaces," the director of the festival, Nigel Redden, said. The original intentions of the festival organizers, such as staging the New York... ERIC GRODE http://www.nysun.com/arts/above-and-beyond-a-three-ringed-affair/80798/ Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST The "Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy" program lists the nationalities of each performer, with seven countries represented among the 28-member cast. That's four fewer than the number of languages included (with accompanying flags) on the promotional posters outside the theater. "Jungle Fantasy," created and directed by Neil Goldberg, is clearly designed to lure the foreign tourists who have of late been lured to wordless off-Broadway fare such as "Jump," "Stomp," and "Fuerzabruta." What will they... Staff Reporter of the Sun http://www.nysun.com/arts/indiaarie-heads-to-broadway/80589/ Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST The Grammy Award-winning singer India.Arie will make her Broadway debut in Ntozake Shange's play "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf," the DreamTeam Entertainment Group announced Wednesday. Whoopi Goldberg will co-produce the play. "For Colored Girls," which will be directed by Shirley Jo Finney, is made up of 20 poems performed by nine women, each identified not by a name but by a color. The poems, written and first performed in 1975, piece together a... Staff Reporter of the Sun http://www.nysun.com/arts/bill-t-jones-to-direct-fela-kuti-musical/80508/ Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST The Tony Award-winning choreographer Bill T. Jones will direct and choreograph a new musical about Fela Kuti, slated to open in September, Variety reported. "Fela!" was written by Jim Lewis and Mr. Jones, who won a Tony last year for his choreography of "Spring Awakening," and is based on the life of the politically active Nigerian musician. Kuti, who died in 1997, spent years as a political prisoner after founding the political party Movement of the People, and is known for bringing huge bands... ERIC GRODE http://www.nysun.com/arts/toil-and-trouble-in-the-tobacco-warehouse/80445/ Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST "There is no smoking anywhere in the Tobacco Warehouse." Not since President Merkin Muffley of "Dr. Strangelove" chastised two Cold War combatants for fighting in the war room has so ludicrous a decree been issued as this preshow announcement, currently on offer at this roofless, Civil War-era structure located in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge. It promises a level of shrewd self-awareness that remains sadly unmatched in the lead-footed production of "Macbeth" that follows. Director Grzegorz... ERICA ORDEN http://www.nysun.com/arts/starting-over-on-the-american-stage/80450/ Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Actress Meital Dohan has racked up Israel's most prestigious awards and nominations for her work on the stage and on the big and small screens. So the obvious next move might not necessarily be an off-Broadway production in an 89-seat theater. Yet that's exactly where Ms. Dohan finds herself these days. Ms. Dohan may be best known to American audiences for her role on the Showtime series "Weeds," where she played a sexually manipulative rabbinical scholar who is as skilled in the Talmud as she... Staff Reporter of the Sun http://www.nysun.com/arts/new-victory-wins-arts-education-award/80338/ Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST The New Victory Theater, New York's only full-time professional theater dedicated solely to children, will receive the Americans for the Arts's second annual Arts Education Award, Americans for the Arts announced Thursday. The New Victory Theater reaches more than 30,000 students a year by allowing schools and after-school programs access to the theater's performances for as little as $2 a ticket, and sponsors pre- and post-performance workshops for the visiting groups... JOY GOODWIN http://www.nysun.com/arts/a-generation-and-its-discontents/80361/ Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST The paralyzing ambivalence of Generation X is Brooke Berman's subject in her latest play, "A Perfect Couple" (now at the DR2 Theatre, directed by Maria Mileaf). Ms. Berman, who has a keen ear and a sharp eye, is as unflinching as a crash-scene photographer in documenting her characters' alienation from their chronic ambivalence: the unreturned phone calls, the relationships that stretch on for years without a glimmer of commitment, the friendships undermined by mistrust. In this wry and often... Staff Reporter of the Sun http://www.nysun.com/arts/tkts-bklyn-to-open-in-july/80250/ Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST A new TKTS discount ticket booth will open in downtown Brooklyn on Thursday, July 10, the Theatre Development Fund and MetroTech Business Improvement District announced Wednesday. The TKTS booth will offer Broadway, off-Broadway, music, dance, and Brooklyn performing arts events at discounted prices at the corner of Jay Street and Myrtle Avenue. The new TKTS booth will give Brooklynites and visitors to the borough access to shows all over New York, but it is expected to especially broaden the... Staff Reporter of the Sun http://www.nysun.com/arts/labutes-reasons-to-be-pretty-will-move-to-broadway/80245/ Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Neil LaBute's "Reasons to be Pretty" will move to Broadway in 2009. The play, about a man whose girlfriend leaves him after she finds out he called her ugly, has been running at the Lucille Lortel Theatre since May in an MCC Theater production directed by Terry Kinney. The world-premiere production will continue there through July 5. Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel, and Steve Traxler will produce "Reasons to be Pretty" in association with MCC Theater. The play is scheduled to reopen on Broadway... ERIC GRODE http://www.nysun.com/arts/a-hamlet-with-bells-whistles-puppets/80190/ Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Hamlet enters the stage earlier than usual in Oskar Eustis's chock-a-block Shakespeare in the Park mounting. Clutching a beat-up valise and a single red rose, Michael Stuhlbarg's haunted prince sits in front of his father's grave and crumples, nearly paralyzed by grief. He remains in this position as the play's first scene — one of the few that does not require his presence — commences directly above him, atop David Korins's stone-and-metal set. Enjoy this bit of repose, Mr. Stuhlbarg. If this... MICHAEL KUCHWARA http://www.nysun.com/arts/passing-strange-south-pacific-take-early-tony/80028/ Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST The lavish revival of "South Pacific" took five prizes, including director of a musical, and "Boeing-Boeing," a 1960s sex farce filled with slamming doors and eager stewardesses, was named best revival of a play, as the 2008 Tony Awards got under way Sunday. Tracy Letts's "August: Osage County" won best play, and its women made a strong early showing, with director Anna Shapiro winning for best director of a play, and Deanna Dunagan and Rondi Reed winning best actress and best featured actress... Staff Reporter of the Sun http://www.nysun.com/arts/new-guare-play-to-anchor-publics-2008-09-season/79898/ Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST "A Free Man of Color," the first new play by John Guare in seven years, will anchor the 2008-09 season of the Public Theater, the organization announced Thursday. Directed by George C. Wolfe, the play, set in tense 1802 New Orleans, will star Mos Def and Jeffrey Wright. The actors previously worked with Mr. Wolfe in the 2002 production of Suzan-Lori Parks's "Topdog/Underdog." The downtown season will open in October with Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's musical "Bounce," directed by John... Staff Reporter of the Sun http://www.nysun.com/arts/osage-county-to-tour/79792/ Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Director Anna Shapiro will take Tracy Letts's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, "August: Osage County," on national tour in August and September 2009, it was announced Wednesday. The current Broadway production of the play, directed by Ms. Shapiro, is up for seven Tony Awards on Sunday, including Best Play, Best Actress, and Best Director. "August: Osage County" will begin its tour at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco. The cast has not yet been confirmed... Staff Reporter of the Sun http://www.nysun.com/arts/royal-shakespeare-company-sets-london-lineup/79605/ Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST The Royal Shakespeare Company will stage performances of "Hamlet" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream," both directed by RSC chief associate director Gregory Doran, and "The Taming of the Shrew," directed by Conall Morrison, in its winter 2008-09 London season, artistic director Michael Boyd announced Monday. The three productions will open at the Novello Theatre in December and close in March. Two new plays, commissioned by the RSC, will have their world premieres at London's Wilton's Music Hall in... Staff Reporter of the Sun http://www.nysun.com/arts/neil-wechsler-wins-yale-drama-award/79614/ Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Neil Wechsler's "Grenadine" has been named the winner of the 2008 Yale Drama Series Award, the school announced Monday. As part of the award, established last year to support emerging playwrights, Yale University Press will publish Mr. Wechsler's play and Yale Repertory Theatre will host a reading of it. The award comes with a $10,000 cash prize. Mr. Wechsler, who lives in Buffalo, graduated in 1996 from Yale, where he studied philosophy and psychology. The judge for the 2008 award was the... LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES http://www.nysun.com/arts/a-dazzling-finish-to-ests-marathon/79621/ Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Whimsy is the top note in the last of the three series that make up Ensemble Studio Theatre's 2008 marathon of one-act plays, an installment that feels somewhat less firmly anchored than the first two but finishes with a soft, exquisite dazzle. The program begins with Frank D. Gilroy's sitcom-ish "Piscary," in which a guy (Mark Alhadeff), mere weeks before his wedding, dumps his fianc้e (Diane Davis) on grounds of intellectual incompatibility. Based on his 57-13 record of Scrabble victories... JOY GOODWIN http://www.nysun.com/arts/albees-occupant-a-portrait-of-the-artist-by/79536/ Mon, 9 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST In their day, estimable portrait photographers such as Richard Avedon, Arnold Newman, and Robert Mapplethorpe all tried to capture the elusive Louise Nevelson on film. Now Edward Albee, a friend of Nevelson's for 25 years, takes his shot at immortalizing the late Expressionist sculptor in "Occupant," a 2001 play now belatedly receiving its world premiere production at the Signature Theatre Company. Between Mr. Albee's expert characterization and Mercedes Ruehl's ferocious incarnation of the... KATE TAYLOR http://www.nysun.com/arts/a-pair-of-hit-makers-moving-to-the-west-side/79531/ Mon, 9 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST No matter what happens at next Sunday's Tony Awards, you can bet that Kevin McCollum and Jeffrey Seller will be back at work on Monday morning. They are among the busiest and most successful theatrical producers, with a knack for finding musicals that resonate with contemporary audiences. The two produced "Rent," which will close in September after 12 years on Broadway; "Avenue Q," which is still running after more than 2,000 performances; and, most recently, the ebullient hip-hop musical "In... JOY GOODWIN http://www.nysun.com/arts/august-director-poised-to-join-broadways-most/79532/ Mon, 9 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST In the 61 years since the Tony Awards began, only four women have won Best Director honors: Julie Taymor ("The Lion King") and Garry Hynes ("The Beauty Queen of Leenane") in 1998, Susan Stroman ("The Producers") in 2001, and Mary Zimmerman ("Metamorphoses") in 2002. This Sunday night at Radio City Music Hall, Anna Shapiro is poised to become the fifth. For her work on the Pulitzer Prize-winning "August: Osage County," Ms. Shapiro has already won the coveted Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle... Bloomberg News http://www.nysun.com/arts/macbeth-pays-off-big-time/79510/ Mon, 9 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Playing just 63 performances on Broadway, an acclaimed, brutal production of "Macbeth" starring Patrick Stewart earned its producers a cauldron full of money. "Macbeth" made a profit between about $350,000 and $450,000 on an initial investment of $1 million, producer Emanuel Azenberg said in an interview. He said he'll have a final tally when he receives all the bills. "I'm really pleased," Mr. Azenberg said. "Only once in a while do we see a Shakespeare that's accessible." Mr. Azenberg, part... ERIC GRODE http://www.nysun.com/arts/when-a-baby-bump-does-more-than-rock-the-boat/79251/ Wed, 4 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Musical theater and evangelical Christianity have traditionally been uneasy bedfellows, as one recent "American Idol" contestant learned to her peril. (She sang a song from "Jesus Christ Superstar," with its mildly revisionist take on the Gospels, and was promptly given the hook by the voting public.) While composers are happy to send audiences out the door with a tambourine-shaking gospel number, they tend to shy away from the complexities of faith, let alone its more virulent manifestations... LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES http://www.nysun.com/arts/neil-labute-finds-reasons-to-be-nice/79132/ Tue, 3 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Neil LaBute has spent his career in the company of men, and generally these have not been nice men. The guys who have made their way out of Mr. LaBute's imagination, onto the page, then onto the stage or the screen, have not tended to be the sort that another guy would want his sister or daughter to end up with. These men have been creeps, mostly. Lowlifes, lots of them: physically violent, nasty, unfaithful, bigoted, vaguely criminal, cowardly, homophobic, shallow, reflexively dishonest... Staff Reporter of the Sun http://www.nysun.com/arts/stoppard-mendes-bring-chekhov-to-bam/79011/ Mon, 2 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST A new version of Anton Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard," adapted by Tom Stoppard and directed by Sam Mendes, will inaugurate the 2009 season of the Bridge Project, a transatlantic collaboration between the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Old Vic, and Neal Street Productions. The season will also include a production of Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale." The plays will run at BAM between January and March 2009, then continue on an international tour that will run between March and May. The tour... LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES http://www.nysun.com/arts/est-marathon-a-grab-bag-with-a-boldface-anchor/79029/ Mon, 2 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Ensemble Studio Theatre's 2008 marathon of one-act plays isn't a trilogy, of course; no single theme unites the grab bag of works on any of its three programs, let alone in the festival as a whole. But as in many a trilogy, the second of the three parts shows signs of weakness. Series B of the marathon involves rather a lot of slogging between moments of fierce engagement — and in this case, the ferociously pitched battle that is the high point arrives in the middle. That apex comes courtesy of... JOY GOODWIN http://www.nysun.com/arts/in-dublin-an-all-male-lonely-hearts-club/76861/ Thu, 22 May 2008 00:00:00 EST The three men — one young, one middle-aged, one old — waiting in the antiseptic bus terminal barely acknowledge each other's existence. Yet each man's story evocatively echoes the others' in "Port Authority," the slender but affecting play by Conor McPherson that closes the Atlantic Theater Company's season. Written in 2001, a few years before Mr. McPherson's "Shining City" and "The Seafarer" (both recently produced on Broadway), "Port Authority" is steeped in loneliness. Even the format is... Staff Reporter of the Sun http://www.nysun.com/arts/passing-strange-wins-best-play-obie/76748/ Wed, 21 May 2008 00:00:00 EST "Passing Strange" won the Best New Theater Piece category at the 53rd annual Village Voice Obie Awards on Monday night. Horton Foote, for "Dividing the Estate," and David Henry Hwang, for "Yellow Face," took playwriting honors, while Krzysztof Warlikowski, for "Krum," and David Cromer, for "Adding Machine," scored directing honors. Rob Ashford received the Fred & Adele Astaire Award for Best Choreography on Broadway for his work in "Cry-Baby," and Spencer Liff won an Astaire Award for Best Male... ERIC GRODE http://www.nysun.com/arts/summer-stages/76758/ Wed, 21 May 2008 00:00:00 EST The faux-naive ethos of the era found perhaps its most enduring stage ambassador in 1971 with Stephen Schwartz's pop-pastiche pageant "Godspell," which ran for most of the decade. A Broadway revival has been tentatively slated for August. That makes it the first major revival of Mr. Schwartz's work since he wowed a new generation of youngsters with "Wicked," which had its premiere in 2003. Also due in August is "Hair," a show that had an even larger impact on the musical-theater landscape when... Staff Reporter of the Sun http://www.nysun.com/arts/katie-holmes-comes-to-broadway/76700/ Tue, 20 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Katie Holmes will make her Broadway debut this autumn in a revival of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons," Reuters reported Monday. The actress, best known for her role on the WB melodrama "Dawson's Creek," and, more recently, for marrying Tom Cruise, will star alongside Oscar winner Dianne Wiest and Tony winner John Lithgow. Based on a true story, "All My Sons" details the life of a successful businessman who knowingly sold the government defective airplane parts during World War II, possibly... JOY GOODWIN http://www.nysun.com/arts/well-manicured-meltdown/76706/ Tue, 20 May 2008 00:00:00 EST In his few short years on the New York scene, the playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has proven to be a natural entertainer. Good actors like to sink their teeth into his dialogue, and his hard-charging stories proceed with the speed and verve of television. But he takes a leap forward with his latest drama, "Good Boys and True," displaying a new deftness in layering troubling moral questions under a smooth, entertaining surface. The play goes down easy, but its aftertaste is sharp. The story is... LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES http://www.nysun.com/arts/short-slices-of-life/76624/ Mon, 19 May 2008 00:00:00 EST A lineup of short plays demands the balance and momentum of a musician's set list. Segues have to be smooth, breaks need to feel natural, the peak shouldn't come too soon, and, of course, every piece on the list has to be good: no duds. In series A of its 30th annual marathon of one-act plays, the first of three programs in the festival, Ensemble Studio Theatre gets all of that just right. An upright piano plays as the lights go up on Willie Reale and Patrick Barnes's three-song musical, "A... LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES http://www.nysun.com/arts/translations-and-mistranslations-in-damascus/76477/ Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 EST People have a habit of talking past one another in David Greig's plays. Willfully or with the best of intentions, they mishear and fail to hear each other; they misunderstand and fail to know each other. The longings of the human soul, laid bare for acknowledgment, go unnoticed or ignored. In "Damascus," a heart-bruising comedy that is the Scottish playwright's second entry in this year's Brits Off Broadway festival at 59E59 Theaters, Mr. Greig's subject is the failure of entire regions of the... Staff Reporter of the Sun http://www.nysun.com/arts/yale-rep-establishes-center-for-new-theatre/76473/ Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 EST New-play commissioning and development are about to ramp up at Yale Repertory Theatre, which is establishing the Yale Center for New Theatre with a $2.85 million grant from the Minnesota-based Robina Foundation. With the center, which Yale Rep and the Yale School of Drama announced Wednesday, the theater will up the number of its commissions of plays and musicals, and host residencies, readings, workshops, and full productions of commissioned pieces. The center will also help to establish... ERIC GRODE http://www.nysun.com/arts/tales-from-the-sweet-side/76330/ Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 EST The banged-up hardcover perched invitingly on the stage of "John Lithgow: Stories by Heart" is a prop, but one with a history. Called "Tellers of Tales," it's a much-perused anthology of short stories published in 1939. No less than W. Somerset Maugham edited its 100 stories, which ranged from Edgar Allan Poe to Balzac to Dorothy Parker to Faulkner, and it was "kind of a Lithgow family bible" to the itinerant, close-knit, unapologetically Anglophile family that included an impressionable boy... JOY GOODWIN http://www.nysun.com/arts/champagne-fizz-from-yesteryear/76244/ Mon, 12 May 2008 00:39:14 EST From the moment the curtain goes up on Walter Bobbie's whiz-bang production of "No, No, Nanette," you have the delicious sensation that you're going to get the full old-fashioned works. Chandeliers? Check. A magnificent 30-piece orchestra fanned out upstage, replete with twin pianos and a conductor in a dapper white dinner jacket, presiding from a fetching little terrace? Check. A lushly orchestrated, romantic score, spiced with Jazz Age riffs? Check. Never mind that the book of "No, No... ERIC GRODE http://www.nysun.com/arts/drumroll-please/76241/ Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Broadway has a reputation for clannishness, but a look at the last several years of Tony Award nominations paints a slightly different picture, at least as far as musicals are concerned. For the last seven years, the award for best original score (which includes lyrics) has gone to Broadway neophytes. Stephen Schwartz, Andrew Lloyd Webber, the Kander-Ebb tandem, and Marvin Hamlisch are among the veterans who have come up short during that time. This year's nominations, which will be announced... JOY GOODWIN http://www.nysun.com/arts/above-and-beyond-wedding-night-jitters/76252/ Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 EST How marvelous, at the end of the theater season, to find a gem like "Rafta, Rafta ..." lying in wait. The New Group's production of Ayub Khan-Din's Olivier Award-winner from last year is a near-perfect comedy of family life, where the belly laughs come from painfully honest observations about the trials and tribulations of living under the same roof. In "Rafta, Rafta," family togetherness is even more of a strain than usual, since one of the families's two sons has just brought his bride home... ERIC GRODE http://www.nysun.com/arts/top-marks-for-top-girls/76077/ Thu, 8 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Caryl Churchill's "Top Girls" has been parsed, plumbed, and pondered so thoroughly — it's probably on more college syllabi than any play written in the 30 years between "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Angels in America" — that it sort of hides in plain sight. Its opening act alone, a surreal dinner party made up of centuries' worth of famous women, might as well be known as the Scene That Launched a Thousand Theses. Well, put down your crib sheets and forget all that background (although... ERIC GRODE http://www.nysun.com/arts/failing-to-let-the-good-times-roll/75943/ Wed, 7 May 2008 00:00:00 EST "Via Galactica." "Rockabye Hamlet." "Dude." These names ring any bells? There's no reason why they would, unless you're one of those obsessive collectors of flop-musical arcana, the sort of giddy masochists who cherish their "In My Life" and "Carrie" programs and who should be making a beeline for the tin-eared, thuddingly earnest "Glory Days." Those titles above were among the slew of rock musicals that opened on Broadway in the wake of 1968's "Hair," which threatened to completely upend the... Staff Reporter of the Sun http://www.nysun.com/arts/adding-machine-wins-big-at-lortel-awards/75948/ Wed, 7 May 2008 00:00:00 EST "Adding Machine," a dark and quirky import from Chicago's thriving theater scene, was the big winner Monday night at Off-Broadway's Lucille Lortel Awards at the Union Square Theatre, bagging four trophies, including Outstanding Musical. New Yorker magazine writer George Packer's Iraq war drama, "Betrayed," produced by the Culture Project, won Outstanding Play. "Adding Machine," composer-librettist Joshua Schmidt and librettist Jason Loewith's adaptation of Elmer Rice's 1923 play, also took the... LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES http://www.nysun.com/arts/idi-amin-is-hogging-the-couch/75907/ Tue, 6 May 2008 00:12:48 EST As he slouches into middle age, cigarette and drink in hand, Steve has just been dumped via e-mail by his boyfriend of eight years. His playwriting career is a dying echo of what it once was, and his Brooklyn apartment looks like he stopped decorating sometime in the mid-'90s. Depressed, intensely lonely, creatively and romantically desperate, Steve has approximately one thing going for him: a drop-dead view of the Manhattan Bridge out his living room window. Until, that is, Idi Amin bursts... Staff Reporter of the Sun http://www.nysun.com/arts/william-russo-joins-new-york-theatre-workshop/75914/ Tue, 6 May 2008 00:00:00 EST William Russo will be the New York Theatre Workshop's new managing director, effective May 12, the theater's artistic director, James Nicola, and the president of the board of trustees, Heather Randall, announced Monday. The former managing director, Fred Walker, was let go last month, when the theater's entire production staff was laid off due to budget cuts. Mr. Russo joins the theater from Playwrights Horizons, where he had served as general manager since 2000. He is a vice president of the... ERIC GRODE http://www.nysun.com/arts/friendly-funny-skies-of-broadways-boeing-boeing/75821/ Mon, 5 May 2008 00:00:00 EST When was the last time so much physical prowess and comic savvy were brought to bear on material as undeserving as "Boeing-Boeing," a dismal 1960s sex farce receiving a dynamite revival? Actually, come to think of it, it was just five months ago, with Mark Twain's "Is He Dead?" Just as director Michael Blakemore and a terrific cast led by Norbert Leo Butz managed to pull off that creaky cross-dressing affair (with a lot of help from David Ives, who heavily adapted Twain's original script)... TOM TEODORCZUK http://www.nysun.com/arts/paving-the-way-for-playwrights/75825/ Mon, 5 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Off-Broadway may not have the clout of its older cousin, the Great White Way, but it's not exactly no man's land, especially to emerging playwrights. "Off-Broadway has changed in a similar way to the Sundance Film Festival," the playwright Anton Dudley remarked. "There are commercial considerations everywhere. There's less interest in the scrappy, unknown productions and more interest in the future of things." To pave the way for that future is a new theater company called the Playwrights Realm... ERIC GRODE http://www.nysun.com/arts/despots-deathscape/75830/ Mon, 5 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Admit it: Who among us has not tried to alleviate boredom at some point by making funny voices or noises? When humming or whistling just won't do the job, when the laundry room or the long car ride or wherever requires a little extra company, sometimes only a little foolery will do, self-consciousness be damned. Now swap that extra-long spin cycle for eternity in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Those voices would get awfully animated, no? In Andrei Belgrader's respectable if occasionally overripe... ERIC GRODE http://www.nysun.com/arts/wicked-games-watered-down-in-les-liaisons/75749/ Fri, 2 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Baudelaire, no stranger to scandal, was a huge fan of the novel "Les Liaisons Dangereuses." "If this book burns," he said of Choderlos de Laclos's epistolary pulse-racer of 1782, "it burns as only ice can burn." This sinuous tale of libertinism and sexual gamesmanship in late-18th-century France is certainly capable of raising one's body temperature a few notches, and the Roundabout Theatre Company's revival of Christopher Hampton's acclaimed 1985 adaptation continues the ornately decadent... LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES http://www.nysun.com/arts/yellow-moon-boy-meets-girl-and-soon-theyre-on/75656/ Thu, 1 May 2008 01:29:41 EST Stag Lee Macalinden is 17 and a lowlife in training: a sullen petty thief, a source of pain to his depressive single mum. His schoolmate, Leila Suleiman, a quiet, college-bound daughter of immigrants, secretly cuts herself with razor blades. In "Yellow Moon (The Ballad of Leila and Lee)," by the prolific Scottish playwright David Greig, the two meet not at all cute one January night at the local superstore, when Lee (Andrew Scott-Ramsay) unzips his fly and leers at Leila (Nalini Chetty). She... ERIC GRODE http://www.nysun.com/arts/charting-the-path-to-supreme/75657/ Thu, 1 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Nearly every historical monodrama pins its hopes upon its subject's oratorical gifts. These rousing and often transformative passages can come from the page (Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson), a seat of power (Golda Meir, Harry Truman), or even the stage (Paul Robeson, George Burns), but they typically assume the same role that hit songs do in an autobiographical musical revue: This, that, and the other thing happened to me, which led to ... this little number. After an illustrious judicial career...