Posts from — May 2011

Three current tuners epitomize Off Broadway’s culture

These days, you can’t hurl a head mic without hitting an Off Broadway musical. For the next few weeks, nonprofit theatres are serving a smorgasbord to audiences that love a song and dance.

But how does a new musical land in a nonprofit, Off Broadway house? What are the benefits of producing on that level? What are the challenges?

In short, what constitutes the “culture” of a new Off Broadway musical?

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2011 Tony Nominee Derek McLane’s approach to set design

What you notice first in Derek McLane’s studio are not the scale models of his theatrical sets—he has designed almost two dozen Broadway shows since 1994—but an entire wall covered floor to ceiling with books.

“Every show is an excuse to buy a new book,” he says.

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The two stars camp it up in the new musical “Lucky Guy”

Welcome to Building Character, TDF Stages’ ongoing series about actors and how they create their roles

It takes a lot of work to be so trashy. Leslie Jordan and Varla Jean Merman (a.k.a. Jeffery Roberson) play the villains in Lucky Guy, a campy new musical about big hair and big dreams in the world of country music. But while their performances are deliciously over the top, they’re not just goofing around. In a recent conversation at the Little Shubert Theater, the actors explained what it takes to be playful on stage… and what Jordan’s sisters have known all along.

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How Mackenzie Crook Mastered His Tony-Nominated Role

When award season comes around, playing giants among men (and women) is often good for one’s mantelpiece. Hamlet, Medea, Max Bialystock, Mama Rose, Miss Jean Brodie, Roy Cohn: These are the sorts of roles that traditionally win Tonys.

But playing a man among giants has also paid off, at least in the supporting categories. The three Billy Eliot kids won the Tony Award, but so did Gregory Jbara, for playing their dad; same with Boyd Gaines alongside Patti LuPone’s formidable Rose in Gypsy. An especially pronounced case came last year, when Eddie Redmayne won for his supporting turn opposite Alfred Molina’s Mark Rothko in Red.

Now another sallow Englishman has been nominated for his work alongside another unstoppable force.

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It’s almost summer, and that means it’s almost time for summer theatre festivals. New York will host almost a dozen major fests this year, from FringeNYC to the New York Musical Theatre Festival, and other great events will appear around North America, including the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts, the San Francisco Theater Festival, and the summer season of Canada’s Stratford Shakespseare Festival.

We want to know: What’s your favorite theatre festival? Large or small, in New York or Kazakhstan, we want to hear about it. Even if it doesn’t happen in the summer, or even if it hasn’t happened in fifteen years, we want to know why your favorite theatre festival is special to you.

Share your thoughts in the comments section of this post. (We’ll write back.)  In a few weeks, we’ll publish a feature right here in TDF Stages that highlights your responses.

We look forward to hearing from you!