Entries Tagged 'NY Sun' ↓

Richard Monette, the longest-serving artistic director of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, has died at the age of 64. Monette died Tuesday of a blood clot in his lung in a London, Ontario, hospital, the festival confirmed Wednesday. Monette served as artistic director at Stratford, the largest repertory theater in North America, from 1994 to 2007. During his tenure, he improved the theater’s economic stability and shepherded it to record levels of attendance. At a tribute to Monette held a…

Maybe it’s all those decades of being condescended to as the “Fabulous Invalid,” but the New York theater world has long had a soft spot for the runts of the litter, particularly those that can (sort of) carry a tune. Two long-running series of staged musicals (City Center’s Encores! and the York Theatre’s Musicals in Mufti) pay tribute to the almosts, not-quites, and what-were-they-thinkings that have littered the Great White Way. A series of CDs hail memorable songs from “Unsung Musicals,”…

No good can come to a dog in a hunting play, especially if the play is named after the dog. This much is obvious in the first seconds of Craig Wright’s provocative and nuanced dark comedy “Lady,” when headlights illuminate the blackness of Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and the young dog runs off. “Lady, heel!” Kenny (Michael Shannon) yells, to no avail. It’s 5 a.m. in the fogbound woods somewhere in the middle of Illinois, and there’s no way the day is going to end well for Kenny and his dog…

Playwright Edward Albee is the first recipient of the Pennsylvania Academy of Music creativity award, the institution announced Monday. The award “recognizes artists and innovators who have challenged conventional notions to positively impact humanity.” Mr. Albee is slated to accept the award in person at a ceremony on October 15. The dramatist has won numerous Tony Awards, Pulitzer Prizes, and Drama Critics Circle Awards for his plays, including his best-known work, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia…

The risk of a playwright’s note in a program — that little message penned directly to the audience, no actors or script to get in the way as the writer imparts some context for what the spectators are about to see — is that it can come across as a disclaimer. In the case of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s note outlining the genesis of his “King of Shadows,” which is making its world premiere in a Working Theater production at Theater for the New City, the seeming disclaimer goes something like this…

Broadway prepared to say goodbye Sunday to “Rent,” 12 years and 5,124 performances after it first became a rock musical with a message for theatergoers of all ages. The show, book, music, and lyrics by Jonathan Larson, was born off-Broadway in triumph and tragedy. Larson died of an aortic aneurysm after its final dress rehearsal in January 1996. He was 35. Larson’s tale of free-spirited artists and street people in a gritty drug- and AIDS-plagued East Village of the early 1990s touched several…

If any musician were to warrant a jukebox musical right now, it would be the one with the moxie to release an album called "Black President" and the chops to back it up. That record came out almost 30 years ago, and it's one of many scorching titles by Nigeria's Fela Anikulapo Kuti, he of the 27 wives and the 200 arrests and the martyred mother. Kuti's Afrobeat sound may have drawn liberally from other musical giants, among them the Chairman of the Board and the Godfather of Soul. But as the...

The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization is aiming to sell its entire music catalog to a major record company, Reuters reported Tuesday. The organization is said to be seeking more than $250 million, though several analysts who spoke to Reuters expressed skepticism that the price would rise much above $200 million. The 3,000-song catalog features not only the works of legends Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, but also songs by 100 other artists, including Irving Berlin and Lorenz Hart…

Christmas arrives ahead of Thanksgiving on Broadway this season. “Irving Berlin’s White Christmas” has announced it will officially open November 23 — four days before Thanksgiving. Preview performances for the stage version of Berlin’s celluloid classic begin November 14 at the Marquis Theatre. No word yet on who will be in the cast, but the production will be directed by Walter Bobbie. “White Christmas” features a book by David Ives, who adapted Mark Twain’s farce “Is He Dead?” for Broadway…

The New School for Drama announced Monday that John Turturro will be its “distinguished artist-in-residence” for the 2008-09 academic year. “We are fortunate to have such a versatile and accomplished artist on hand to mentor our students,” the director of the school, Robert LuPone, said in a statement. “John’s extensive background and the variety of roles he has mastered speak to the type of well-rounded actor we are training. His first-hand accounts of the intellectual, emotional, physical…