Archive for January, 2007
Blind Item: A Different Track for Dinah
January 31, 2007 5:52 pmPhoto Tease: Legend at the Bee
12:43 amFor Kids’ Night on Broadway last night, stage and screen legend Julie Andrews (along with her fellow Kids’ Night Ambassador, daughter Emma Walton Hamilton) served as a guest speller at The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. How’d she do? Not so good! Her first word stumped her: “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”!! Photo by Bruce Glikas for Broadway.com
Emma and Julie pose with the cast after the show. (Say hello to Jared Gertner over on the right, who made his Broadway debut at the same performance as Barfee!)
Photo Tease: Friends of Weissman
January 30, 2007 3:32 pm
Looking at the five very talented theater pros above who are set to star in the Encores! concert of Follies, I wonder, “WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?!” Don’t get me wrong—it’s a GREAT show and they’re all terrific parts, but… are the rabid fans of the show every truly happy? Find out next week when (left to right) Victoria Clark, Michael McGrath, Donna Murphy, Victor Garber and Christine Baranski take to the stage of City Center. For more photos, check out our Photo Op.
Continuing in our unrivaled Legally Blonde coverage, Broadway.com is world premiering footage from the San Francisco pre-Broadway run of the show. Click here to see some great clips from the multi-million dollar production. But be careful–I can’t get the “Bend and Snap” out of my head!
Photo Tease: My Not-So-Little Pony
11:05 amThe mare is glorious and Harry Potter is…naked. Get ready for London’s Equus, starring 17-year-old Daniel Radcliffe of the kiddie films as a disturbed boy who’s got a thing for horses. For more shocking photos, visit Theatre.com.
A bevy of stars gathered at the Rainbow Room last night to raise a glass to the Vineyard Theatre on the occasion of their 25th anniversary. Broadway.com’s Bruce Glikas was there.
Patricia Clarkson and Julianne Moore (The Vertical Hour). God, wouldn’t it be great if these two talented ladies did a movie together? Oh, wait. They did! It was called Far From Heaven and they both nabbed Oscar noms.
Gina Gionfriddo, author of the play After Ashley which played at the Vineyard with Anna Paquin in the lead.
S. Epatha Merkerson with Judy Kuhn, who won an Obie Award for appearing in the Vineyard’s Eli’s Comin’.
Tony Roberts celebrates with Vineyard vets Veanne Cox (The Batting Cage, The Altruists), Penny Fuller (Beautiful Child) and Malcolm Gets (Juno).
You’re the One That I Want Recap: 1/28
January 28, 2007 10:30 pm
Tonight was the first live episode of the NBC competition that is Grease: You’re the One That I Want and I have committed myself to actually caring about the outcome of each show’s voting! So, I’ll be recapping the show every week, choosing my top choices from each episode of live performances. For those of you who’ve been living in a cave, the winners of the show will play Sandy and Danny in the summer Broadway revival of Grease. Some initial comments on the broadcast:
- The opening number, which recreated the opening sequence for the show, in which various Sandys and Dannys fight for center stage while singing “You’re the One That I Want” was stupid. The finale performance of “We Go Together,” however, was pretty terrific and probably sold a good number of tickets for the upcoming Broadway production.
- It was good to see guest judge Olivia Newton-John. Random thought: I hope she has the good humor to embrace the upcoming Broadway staging of Xanadu.
- Critics of this season’s nastier American Idol comments from Simon, Paula and Randy would love the “critiques” of judges David Ian, Kathleen Marshall and Jim Jacobs, who didn’t say much at all negative to the finalists. I think having them comment on two performers at once diluted things in a bad way.
- The 12 finalists became 14 finalists when they brought back two of the performers cut last week (Ashley Anderson and Matt Nolan) for vague reasons.
- The nicknames that the contestants are now saddled with are pretty silly, but how else is the viewing audience supposed to tell all these white people apart?!
- Carole Demas, the original Sandy on Broadway, was mentioned on the show by co-host Billy Bush at the start of his interview with Newton-John. Friends of the Broadway star had been vocal about her absence from the program in the past week and clearly, word got to the West Coast.
- Doesn’t it suck that the show has to be taped in Hollywood? I’m just saying.
- The video at the end of the episode which “revealed” Andrew Lloyd Webber to be next week’s surprise judge was hilariously goofy. Lloyd Webber is seen in a theater staring at the set of what I guess is The Sound of Music in London (although it looks like it could be Sunset Boulevard!) taking a cell phone call from Grease co-creator Jacobs. Needless to say, he accepted Jacobs’ “offer” to judge next week.
- During the final credits, Marshall and Vince Pesce are credited for the choreography on the show and Lorin Latarro (recently seen dancing in The Apple Tree) is assistant choreographer. More interesting is that Georgia Stitt, wife of Tony winning composer Jason Robert Brown, is the vocal coach. Hmm… I wonder if contestant Kevin Greene, who lists Parade as his favorite musical on the NBC website, knows that!
OK, onto the good stuff…
I chose my following top picks by considering a lot of different elements: singing voices, looks, song choices, personality…even outfits (overall one-word fashion review for the ladies: yikes!). I hope my top picks change week to week otherwise this will get boring! Based on what I saw tonight, I feel they will. Here goes…
TOP THREE DANNYS
1. Derek Keeling, 26 - “Wholesome Danny”
According to his NBC bio, Derek has played Danny before in several productions of Grease, not exactly a surprising fact. After all, he’s got a great look for the part (I was reminded of John Stamos) and palpable stage presence. Kicking off the live show, he sang Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and worked the crowd expertly. He’s definitely the most obvious choice for the part of the crop of finalists, and if I was forced to choose based on tonight’s show, he’d be the guy.
2. Max Crumm, 26 - “Slacker Danny”
In the early audition episodes, Max seemed like a skinny, nerdy kid completely out of his league but watching him sing Don Henley’s “The Summer of ‘69″ tonight really displayed how talent can transform someone before your eyes. He was nothing short of electrifying. Could he really play Danny Zuko, the ultimate cool guy? I’m not quite sold yet, but he’s definitely not the long shot anymore.
3. Kevin Greene, 22 - “Bellhop Danny”
Kevin positions himself as just a regular guy and I believe it. He oozes boy next door and has a strong, solid voice that he put to good use tonight with “Walking in Memphis.” He also looks almost exactly like Broadway’s Daniel Reichard—knowing how casting agents love copycats, he could probably play Bob Gaudio in Jersey Boys by year’s end if he wants. But if he can turn up the bad boy a bit in the coming weeks, he might be too busy to be a (gasp!) replacement!
TOP THREE SANDYS
1. Ashley Spencer, 21 - “Ballerina Sandy”
Sandy’s supposed to be the ultimate all-American girl and Ashley seems to be the ultimate choice so far. A former ballerina, she formerly played Barbie in the national tour of Barbie in Fairy-topia, an experience I hope to one day get to talk to her about! (On opening night of Grease maybe?!) Tonight, she sang “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)” and proved to be a warm, engaging stage performer. Nice work!
2. Kate Rockwell, 22 - “Serious Sandy”
Kate smartly sang “All By Myself” as if she were Sandy singing “Hopelessly Devoted To You” and the trick worked—I could totally picture her center stage starring in Grease this summer. She’s got a beautiful face and seems assured to make it far in the competition. Two fun facts from Kate’s official NBC bio: she’s got a tattoo of a butterfly on her back (I would have dubbed her “Tattoo Sandy”) and her teenage brother’s name is Bear!
3. Allie Schulz, 19 - “Baby Sandy”
At just 19, Allie is the youngest of the female finalists, which she really should be working to her advantage. Instead, she appeared tonight in a get-up that hardly made her look her age, all legs and cleavage in a tight pink top and black hot pants. She also had leather knee-high pink and black striped booths with heels that made her slip mid-number. But enough of the fashion review—Allie’s vocals on “I Love Rock and Roll” were great…and she cites The Comeback as one of her favorite TV shows on her NBC.com bio. My kind of girl!
Since this is Broadway.com, I feel I should talk about the three finalists who are familiar names in the theater community, none of who made my list tonight.
Jason Celaya - Altar Boyz vet Jason (who now must suffer with the nickname “Boy-band Danny”) has a great energy onstage, but he came off as too contemporary tonight, singing George Michael’s “Faith.” I feel he’ll make my top three in future weeks, but not tonight. I also can’t help feeling that he’s the ultimate Kenickie, not Danny.
Juliana Hansen - Hansen, who appeared in the national tour of Thoroughly Modern Millie a few years back, is a very talented and pretty singer who will definitely wind up on Broadway. But I didn’t like her choice of song (”The First Cut is the Deepest”) and she didn’t really show off any qualities that would make her the perfect Sandy.
Austin Miller - I’m sure confident, strong-voiced Austin, who played Link Larkin in the first national of Hairspray will go far in the competition (he was judge/director Kathleen Marshall’s favorite of the guys tonight), but for me, he danced too much like a Pussycat Doll tonight to pull of the role of Danny.
Enough of me. Who did you like? Comment away!
Photo Tease: Dead Is 100 and Counting
January 27, 2007 8:04 pmThose crazy kids at off-Broadway’s Evil Dead: The Musical reached a milestone last night, celebrating their 100th performance at New World Stages. Broadway.com’s Bruce Glikas was there.
Evil Dead lead Ryan Ward cuts the cake with his signature chainsaw while cast members Amy Shute, Jennifer Byrne, Jenna Coker, Renee Klapmeyer, Brandon Wardell, Darryl Winslow, Tom Walker and Ryan Williams look on.
One more look at that cake.
Photo Tease: Happy B’day, Phantom. Again.
January 26, 2007 10:10 amExactly 19 years ago today, The Phantom of the Opera opened at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway, starting a run of a musical romance that would break records and break hearts nightly. Last night, the cast of the show gathered onstage after the performance to commemorate another golden year for the show.
Michael Shawn Lewis (Raoul) and Julia Hanson (Christine alternate) don’t need forks.
Two aspiring Phantoms made a striking duo at the bash.
The talented ensemble cast of Translations get together for a family portrait at last night’s opening night bash at Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square. Photo by Bruce Glikas for Broadway.com
Stage Notes
