Brad Oscar - To The Max

The Producers has just entered its fourth year. This musical juggernaut, with music and lyrics by Mel Brooks and choreography and direction by Susan Stroman, starred the redoubtable Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. It received 15 Tony Award nominations, winning 12 - more than any other musical in theater history. [Ironically, in two categories three actors lost to their co-stars.] Brad Oscar was a Tony nominee in the Featured category, at that time playing off-kilter, pigeon-loving, Nazi playwright Franz Liebkind [you know, the nut who wrote "Springtime for Hitler"].

Donny Osmond Sheds His Dreamcoat

After selling out houses across the United States and Canada in the lead role of Livent, Inc.'s touring production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Donny Osmond left the show in Toronto to join the cast of an upstate New York outdoor religious pageant, playing a prophet of the Mormon faith. But he plans a "major return to theater" in a role that might surprise his legion of fans.

Elaine Paige - Broadway At Last

On London stages, Elaine Paige's reputation was heralded. Now that she has assumed the lead in Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black's Sunset Boulevard, a dream to play Broadway has come true. And this tiny dynamo delivers the goods.

Panaro's Panache

Like The Greatest Show On Earth [the circus], The Phantom of the Opera has never been short on hyperbole. But unlike another Andrew Lloyd Webber show, it hasn't gone quite so far as to boast "POTO: Now and Forever." However, 16 years [as of January 26, 2004] and counting on Broadway and, as of February 4, 2004, 6,681+ performances under that dangling chandelier is a sort of "forever" in the world of theater.

Song & Dance & Sexiness: The Allure of Bernadette Peters

Aside from her talent -- and, of course, that's a big aside -- the most impressive thing about Bernadette Peters is how she combines sex and innocence in her persona. Never has there been a performer who exudes such overt sexuality, with prominent bust and revealing necklines, while maintaining an innocent, little-girl character. This is most prominent in her concert appearances, but it also colored her portrayal of Annie Oakley. She certainly had more youthful vulnerability and sex appeal than Ethel Merman.

Pen Pal: Director Lisa Peterson And The Night Governess

The suspense that lurks within the plot of Polly Pen's new musical, The Night Governess, is also active behind the scenes at New Jersey's McCarter Theater. However, the suspense is also marked by hopeful anticipation, as Pen prepares a new musical for the first time without the assistance of her long-time director-collaborator Andre Ernotte, who died last Spring.

Phantom on Philm - The Phorgotten Ones

The critics and movie-going public -- and a legion of Michael Crawford fans -- are now weighing in on the fate of the $70-million film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera.Some pans have been especially vicious, so who knows if the piece will resonate with audiences around the world, capturing and enthralling them, making them wishing they were there -- or anywhere else -- again, driving them to the point no return or having them humming the dark music of the night?

Can Phantom Be a Vegas "Spectacular"?

Bets are still being wagered on the Vegas Strip on whether or not the debut of the "all new" reconception of The Phantom of the Opera here, 18+ years after premiering on Broadway and becoming a worldwide phenomenon, will have staying power.

Unfairly Maligned: The Glory Years and Beyond for Philadelphia's Academy of Music

In the summer of 2003 Philadelphia's Academy of Music became a venue for touring musicals. Extensive renovations modernized one of the nation's oldest concert halls, and a Broadway-style sound system was installed in a building once known for its pristine acoustics.

Publicists tell us that the Academy is entering a great new era where it will be home to theater, opera and ballet, and they remind us that this is a return to the original plan. That's true, but only on a technicality, because the Academy was designed before the proliferation of American symphony orchestras.

Listening for Voices in the Dark

Thrillers are the hardest genre to write, even harder than musical comedy," says playwright John Pielmeier. "It's all about the domino effect, and if one domino falls, you have to go back and fix everything."

Could this be the reason why it took almost four years between the world premiere of Pielmeier's play, Voices in the Dark, at Seattle's Contemporary Theater, and the play's second production at the George Street Playhouse?

A Man, A Plan, A Plano

When Mark Fleischer became artistic director of Plano Repertory Theater in 1993, it was an all-volunteer community theater. As a graduate of Plano Senior High School in 1987 and Austin College in Sherman, Texas in 1991, and with a stint as intern at Dallas Theater Center in 1988 under the direction of Adrian Hall, Fleischer was recruited to take the reins at Plano Rep. In nine years he has taken the theater to the status of an SPT-Level 4 (Small Professional Theater) organization.

The Long Dance of Polanski's Vampires to Broadway

Tanz der Vampires or Dance of the Vampires premiered in October 1997 at Vienna's 1,000-seat Raimund Theatre. A $4-million spectacle, this musical spoof proved unlike anything Vienna had seen. Adapted from Roman Polanski's 1967 film, "The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are In My Neck," (in which the director co-starred with his late wife, Sharon Tate), the show was the closest any home-grown stage show had come to "Broadway" or "West End."

Gary, Roger, Brad & Cady

Roger Bart, Gary Beach and Brad Oscar of The Producers have bonded as if they were Broadway's three musketeers. The actors in the Mel Brook/Susan Stroman juggernaut are up against each other for the Tony Award for Featured Actor. Backstage, at the St. James Theatre, there's anything but an atmosphere of competition. It's all for one and one for all -- unless, of course, there's a tie. [Editor's Note: Ultimately, Beach won the 2001 Tony for Best Featured Actor in a musical]

A Majestic Proof Comes To Dallas

As a critic I see many plays, though the number has diminished drastically since I began reading plays prior to their opening. Most I can hardly get through without an ample supply of chocolates and diet Dr. Pepper, and the reading often serves in lieu of attending a performance. So imagine my surprise when I read Proof by David Auburn, opening a limited run, March 5-10, 2002, at the Majestic Theater as part of the Dallas Summer Musicals' Broadway Contemporary Series.

The Hero of Q.E.D.

Who is this guy Alan Alda is playing? Who is the hero of Alda's virtually one-man show, Q.E.D., playing at Lincoln Center til mid-December?

Physicist Richard Feynman, who won a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 and was profiled on a PBS Nova program as "the finest mind since Einstein."

Stage And Movie Music For Modern Times

David Raksin returned to his roots, or very close to them, when he appeared April 19, 2001, as singer and pianist of his own compositions in Joe's Pub at the Public Theater in Manhattan. At age 88 he performed the romantic song "Laura" and excerpts from the scores he composed for films such as "Laura, The Bad and the Beautiful" and "Forever Amber."

A Christmas Present From Tony Randall

Audiences, young and old, absolutely adore him. A sentiment he quickly credits to his years starring opposite Jack Klugman, still a close friend, in TV's "The Odd Couple." So how does one of theater's most loved actors end up starring (at the Theater at Madison Square Garden) as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol? "I have to pay the rent!" laughs Tony Randall. Actually, he means the theater rent and actors and directors' salaries for his "first love," the National Actor's Theater, which this spring will revive The Gin Game.

Saluting Scofield

If you ask the British public who the foremost actors of the 20th century were, you will likely get the names of Sir John Gielgud, Sir Ralph Richardson, Sir Laurence Olivier (later Lord Olivier), and Sir Alec Guinness. You are not likely to hear the name of Paul Scofield, who died last week of leukemia at the age of 86.

Remembering an Actor With a Dream

Tony Randall loved theater -- "better than anything in the world," he said. After many years of success onscreen in Doris Day/Rock Hudson romps and series TV, he not only returned to his first love but also created the National Actors Theater (NAT). "The main reason I wanted to make a go of a repertory theater," he said, "was to provide work opportunities for underemployed actors, which, alas, happens to be the majority of us, and to give a break to those attempting to break into the business."

Mega-Merger

When I saw the item on the financial pages that the Bertelsmann music group from Germany was merging with the Sony Corporation from Japan, I assumed it was just another power play among big businesses that had no relevance to those of us with artistic interests.

Red Pear Theater Company Closes in France

On its tenth anniversary, the Red Pear Theatre Company in Vieux Antibes, folded. It was the only production company on the French Riviera devoted to performances in the English language. Hilary King, President and Artistic Director, disbanded the theater she cofounded with husband Roy in January 1995, due to his illness. The last performances, January 21 and 22 2005, featured Kit and the Widow doing Tomfoolery, with Dillie Keane.

Enter The Super Woman: An Interview with Dana Reeve

Dana Morosini Reeve is on her lunch break during rehearsals for Enter the Guardsman. Possibly because she is feeling the effects of a slight cold, Reeve suggests we have our chat on a bench outside the F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theater, where the grassy expanses and winding paths are sun-drenched and comforting. Reeve is cast in the leading female role of the "Actress" in the American premiere of the musical based on the early 20th century boulevard comedy, The Guardsman, by Ferenc Molnar.

Do I Hear a Rewrite?

An impressive group of America's most celebrated playwrights, composers, and lyricists will be at New Jersey's professional stages this season to rewrite, improve, or—to quote one theater's artistic director—"tweak" old versions of their plays and musicals. Expect such notables as Sam Shepard, David Mamet, Arthur Laurents, and Stephen Schwartz, among them.

Chita Keeps Movin'

I don't know why Chita Rivera and I got on the subject of fate and the "what if" principal before her rehearsal of Venecia, the play by Argentinean Jorge Accame that Arthur Laurents has adapted and is also directing for its American premiere at the George Street Playhouse (previewing Feb. 10, opening Feb. 14, 2001). Perhaps an aura of fate still lingered in the air George Street from last season's premiere of Anne Meara's Down The Garden Paths, in which we saw how the lives of its characters would be different if....

Chita Rivera: Nine Lives and Counting

Chita's hot!

When many stars her age are sitting by the phone waiting for that call from their agent, Chita Rivera is in top form on Broadway, dancing an erotic tango with Antonio Banderas in the hit Roundabout Theater Company revival of Nine. And, now hear this: she's about to embark on a daring new musical by Kander and Ebb, The Visit, set to open in January 2004 at New York's Public Theater.

Chita Rivera: Visiting in Chicago

On September 11, 2001 as the terrorist events unfolded in New York, Chita Rivera and company were already at Chicago's Goodman Theater, deep in rehearsals. "We couldn't believe what we heard," says Rivera. "The horrible thing was that I was so far from my family. Lisa (Mordente), my daughter (from her marriage to Tony Mordente, Action in the film adaptation of West Side Story), is living in California, but my brothers, sisters and friends were in New York.

Remembering Romberg

The music of Sigmund Romberg has faded into disfavor. His once-popular shows, The Student Prince, The Desert Song and The New Moon are rarely performed anymore, although Manhattan's Encores! series will revive The New Moon next season. When Romberg's works are reissued on disc, intelligent critics such as Steven Suskin are dismissive, saying "It was all the rage in 1924, but I think that even then I would have found it outdated...stodgy...old-fashioned."

Roz Ryan Keeps Delivering The Old Razzle Dazzle

Roz Ryan has a spectacular vocal magic. When combined with her quick wit, boisterous laugh and saucy sassiness, you get quite a package. The evidence is onstage at the Ambassador Theatre, where she's playing Matron "Mama" Morton in Kander/Ebb and Fosse's long-running Chicago revival. In addition to stopping the show with her renditions of "When You're Good To Mama" and "Class," Ryan says she's "right at home and having one helluva good time."

Everybody's Father

Emanuel Sacks modestly said that he was "strictly a no-talent guy." He kept himself out of the public eye when he built the careers of big-name performers as a vice president at Columbia Records and, later, of RCA Victor and NBC. Despite his staying out of the limelight, Sacks was a very strong presence at both companies and in the lives of everyone who knew him. When he died at age 56 in 1958, a remarkable array of stars performed on a television memorial tribute.

A Saint in the City

Here's to a great time for the both of us, David. I know that we can still change the face of theater. If not us who? Love, Jonathan. David Saint reads these words from a note written to him by his close friend and theater collaborator, the late Jonathan Larson. A few months later, the composer would be dead, but his show, Rent, would be running, winner of the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize. A year later Saint expresses the significance of the note in a press conference as he prepares to take the reins as artistic director of the George Street Playhouse. Saint succeeds Gregory F.

Wild Sounds: Jay David Saks Goes On Record

All right, everyone. Get ready. We're going to do some wild things, says Jay David Saks to the crew assembled in the control room at The Hit Factory.

Pages From A Miss Saigon Chronicle

If she was nervous on the eve of making her debut in what may have been the biggest musical of all time on the West End, Lea Salonga didn't show it. Nor did she quake when it came to Broadway. In fact, a semi-old pro at theater from the Philippines, Lea seemed unfazed by all the pre-production hype and technical activity swirling around her.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson's Ode to the 50s

“With all the turmoil going on, I hope my voice will be the voice to hear, to soothe restless souls and individuals,” says Ruben Santiago-Hudson during a rehearsal break for his autobiographical one-man play Lackawanna Blues. We spoke by phone just minutes after news came that America had begun military action in Afghanistan. McCarter Theater invited Santiago-Hudson to bring his acclaimed one-man play to Princeton as a replacement for the previously scheduled Vienna Notes by Richard Nelson. Soon after the terrorist attacks of Sept.

Tony-Winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson Directs a Wilson Classic

Ruben Santiago-Hudson is laughing. He's calling himself a "doting father," referring to the fact that he's directing August Wilson's Seven Guitars, the revival of which is kicking off the Signature Theater Company's season of Wilson plays.

New Theater to "Honor" Sarasota

Sarasota Actor's Workshop, a new company of actors honing their craft, begin group explorations in October 2004 at the JABU Center, a Sarasota gallery. Six plays on the theme of honor will be staged in the round on three successive weekends, starting October 1-3.

The Many Weills of Helen Schneider

When thinking of the music of Kurt Weill during his centennial year of 2000, the name of Helen Schneider naturally comes to mind. The American singer-actress has performed even more frequently in Weill's country of birth, Germany, than in the USA, and she is closely identified with Weill's work. In fact, she headlined at the Dessau Festival in Weill's home town during the centennial celebration in August 2000. In October and November she's starring in a double bill of Weill's Mahagonny Songspiel and Seven Deadly Sinsin Vienna.

May the Schwartz Be With Us

Two themes run repeatedly through the songs of Stephen Schwartz. One is magic, the other is family.

Stephen Schwartz has continually, and pointedly, written about parent-child relationships. Think about Pippin and his father, Charlemagne, in Pippin. Geppetto and his puppet-son, Pinocchio, in the TV musical "Geppetto." Judge Frollo, the surrogate father of Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Marian Seldes -- First Lady?

In a note in the program of his play, Dedication or The Stuff of Dreams, Terrence McNally writes that the work was completed in 2002. The other night, following a preview performance, he said he didn't write the role of wealthy matron Annabelle Willard with a particular actress in mind. "But now that I've seen Marian Seldes in the part," he said, "I can't imagine anyone else in the role." He went on to say that he wasn't smart enough to see her in the role until director Scott Ellis suggested the part had her name written all over it.

Danny Burstein on the Wall

I've known Danny Burstein since he was 15 or 16, when he played Og the leprechaun in an amateur production of Finian's Rainbow as I ran the follow spot. I'd be lying if I told you that I jumped up and shouted, "That kid is going to be a star!" But I sure could see that Danny was exceptionally talented -- and I would have probably bet that, with any luck at all, he'd have a fine career as a professional actor.

Selyabration

When you see Movin' Out, Broadway's dance musical built around Billy Joel tunes that enters its third year Tuesday, you might think John Selya is superhuman. He soars through the air faster than a speeding bullet and does dizzying, whirling-dervish spins, suspending audiences in a state of disbelief.

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