Abby Mueller in Beautiful. Douglas McGrath, film director (Emma, Infamous), screenwriter (Bullets Over Broadway, Nicholas Nickleby) and occasional actor (The Insider, Small Time Crooks), was skeptical when first approached about writing Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. But then so was singer-songwriter King. “I didn’t want to do it,” he says bluntly, sitting on the couch … [Read more...]
Director of ‘Marguerite’ explores themes of self-delusion, celebrity
Catherine Frot in Marguerite. French screenwriter-director Xavier Giannoli knows precisely when the idea for his latest film occurred to him. “Fifteen years ago, I heard on the French radio the voice of an opera singer, completely off-key,” he recalls. “And it was incredibly funny, but I felt embarrassed too. Because it was very ridiculous.” He learned that the voice … [Read more...]
Director finds joy in bringing Gordy’s story to stage in ‘Motown’
As even Charles Randolph-Wright concedes, he was hardly the logical choice to direct Motown, the Musical, the tale of how Berry Gordy created the Detroit rhythm-and-blues empire that brought Diana Ross, Michael Jackson and so many other superstars into the international spotlight. A member of the original cast of Dreamgirls — the fictional history of The Supremes — … [Read more...]
Veteran Broadway musical director Paul Gemignani offers insight at Dramaworks
Palm Beach Dramaworks takes its motto, “Theater to think about,” seriously, as seen in its current mainstage production, The History Boys. But it also likes to slip in some entertaining education in its ancillary programs, like Dramalogue, a series of live interviews, lectures and roundtable discussions that introduces the audience to some of the behind-the-scene artists who … [Read more...]
Smart reset, fine voices make for delightful ‘Barber’ at FGO
Since 1990, Florida Grand Opera has revived Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville about every five years, and for this 75th anniversary season, the company has brought the opera back again on the eve of the work’s bicentenary. This most popular of Rossini’s operas (to the unfortunate general neglect of his more important dramatic operas, such as Otello) remains a marvelous … [Read more...]
‘Love & Mercy’ director Pohlad kept the ‘Brians’ independent
Although crippled by mental illness throughout much of his career, Beach Boys’ lead singer/songwriter Brian Wilson was not diagnosed as schizophrenic. Yet in the musical biopic, Love & Mercy, opening locally this weekend, he is portrayed by two very different actors — Paul Dano as the unstable, volatile Wilson in the 1960s and John Cusack as the later, near-catatonic Wilson in … [Read more...]
Director Jacquot explores love, with obstacles
French writer-director Benoît Jacquot’s work was little known outside his country until three years ago, when his Farewell, My Queen, a period-perfect look at Marie Antoinette and her reader servant, became an international hit. His follow-up is the contemporary Trois Coeurs (Three Hearts), which opened locally this past weekend, a melodramatic tale of a romantic triangle … [Read more...]
Director Boorman unveils long-awaited sequel to ‘Hope and Glory’
Englishman John Boorman has directed 22 films, and is probably best known for Point Blank and Deliverance, two of his early, violent dramas. But in 1988, he earned three Oscar nominations — best picture, best direction, best screenplay — for Hope and Glory, his autobiographical memoir of growing up amid the shelling of London during World War II. Now, 26 years later, comes a … [Read more...]
Director of ‘The Gambler’ offers a tale of outsider redemption
English-born filmmaker Rupert Wyatt is well aware that there was a 1974 movie called The Gambler, starring James Caan and Lauren Hutton, but to his mind he was never doing a remake. “I remember it being specifically a study of addiction,” he says of the earlier film. “So when I read the script that Bill Monahan had written, I knew immediately that we weren’t making the same … [Read more...]
The big noise from Naples: Bob Stone’s jazz band plays Delray
Bob Stone, the founder, musical director and drummer for the Naples Jazz Orchestra (www.thenjo.com), gained renown by leading his popular self-titled big band from 1976-1989 in Chicago. Yet he didn’t exactly move to the west coast of Florida 25 years ago intending to do the same thing. “I was hitting the road with some major artists then, and flying out of O’Hare International … [Read more...]