Just before catching a plane back to South Florida, I was able to squeeze in one final play -- a matinee of David Ives’ kinky, amusing Venus in Fur, starring Broadway’s latest “it” girl, Nina Arianda. Last season, she made her Broadway debut in Born Yesterday, filling the legendary shoes of Judy Holliday quite credibly. Now, she returns to a new work, a darkly comic … [Read more...]
Archives for April 2012
Silence helps abstract masterworks reveal themselves
No matter what museum in the world one visits, there is always a crowd and with it comes murmuring. The museum experience then becomes like watching a movie with the director’s commentary on. Some weeks ago something highly unusual happened. I found myself alone with three creations by two American masters of painting: Clyfford Still and Joan Mitchell. The miracle took … [Read more...]
Postcard from New York No. 7: A visit with an Idol, and ‘Other Desert Cities’
Having spoken with composer Frank Wildhorn about his upcoming tour and Broadway revival of Jekyll & Hyde, I met Friday with the show's star, Constantine Maroulis, the American Idol sensation who went on to headline Rock of Ages (and has a small role in this summer's film version with Tom Cruise). We met at an Eastside diner and while we chatted, I could see out of the corner … [Read more...]
Postcard from New York No. 6: Frank Wildhorn, and wild ‘Guvnors’
Thursday morning, I schlepped way downtown, near the former site of the World Trade Center where a steady stream of people arrived to view the new 9-11 memorial, for an interview. In a nearby high-hrise apartment lives composer Frank Wildhorn, whose cult hit Jekyll & Hyde is about to get a re-conceived major revival starring Constantine Maroulis (American Idol, Rock of Ages) … [Read more...]
Peter Lord and his band of merry stop-action pirates
Grown men don’t usually play with clay, but Peter Lord has made quite a tidy career doing exactly that. A co-founder of Aardman Animations, the Bristol, England studio that gave the world the Wallace & Gromit series, Lord co-directed and co-wrote the 2000 feature Chicken Run and directs The Pirates! Band of Misfits, in theaters today -- all in playful stop-action. Fascinated … [Read more...]
News briefs: Four Arts extends Koch’s Old West exhibit again
PALM BEACH – The Society for the Four Arts has extended its current exhibit, Recapturing the Real West: The Collections of William I. Koch, for a second time following an unprecedented response from the public. The Koch exhibit will remain open at the Society’s Esther O’Keeffe Gallery through May 13, officials said this week. More than 20,000 people have seen the exhibit … [Read more...]
Postcard from New York No. 5: Magnificent ‘Porgy,’ listless ‘Once’
Most of my theater-obsessed friends here in New York are pretty depressed by the state of this season's crop of musicals. And it is easy to see why, based solely on the two shows I saw Wednesday. At the matinee, I saw a superlative production of Porgy and Bess, one of the great "they-don't-write-em-like they-used-to" pieces of musical theater, hailing from 1935. And … [Read more...]
‘Lazhar,’ thankfully, avoids school-movie platitudes
If the American education system is waiting for a Superman, then so, too, are American movie audiences clamoring for a film that correctly represents education as it really is. Our school-centric films are typically besotted with hokey, artless hyperbole, from crusading educators dodging bullets as they turn inner-city gangbangers into Shakespearean scholars to prep-school … [Read more...]
Postcard from New York No. 4: The Easter Bonnet show and ‘Leap of Faith’
I had a busy day yesterday, seeing two shows and doing two interviews. Finally feel like I'm up to speed with the pace of the city. First stop was lunch with multiple Tony Award-winning director Jack O'Brien (Hairspray, The Coast of Utopia, Henry IV) at a reliable and convenient theater district joint, Angus McIndoe's. He's very smart and articulate, has lots of projects in … [Read more...]
Postcard from New York No. 3: ‘Newsies’ has legs
Being the conscientious reviewer that I am, I spent Monday morning watching the 1992 movie Newsies, in preparation for seeing the much-touted stage version Monday night. Having revitalized its core business of animated features with such Alan Menken musicals as The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, Disney tried a live-action musical 20 years ago with this fact-based … [Read more...]