How sets and costumes survive the Broadway farce

Whether it’s Venice in 1743 or the British seaside in 1963 or Broadway in 2012, you’ve got to have doors. Two of them. And not just any doors, at least when you’re staging a farce.

“They need to be on opposite sides of the stage, and they need to slam both ways offstage as well as onstage. And they have to withstand any number of bodies caroming into them.”

That was the first of many tasks faced by Mark Thompson, who designed the sets and costumes for one of London’s more unlikely recent hits: One Man, Two Guvnors, Richard Bean’s chaotic revamp of Carlo Goldoni’s commedia dell’arte staple The Servant of Two Masters. The Evening Standard Award-winning adaptation made its way from the National Theatre to the West End, and now it’s on Broadway at the Music Box Theatre.

[Read more →]

In “You Better Sit Down,” the company interviews their own parents

The Civilians wanted to write a play about divorce. That much they knew.

“I remember being incensed by the movie Stepmom because I was like, ‘That’s not what it’s like,’” says playwright-performer Jennifer R. Morris, whose parents got divorced when she was young. “I felt like there was a dearth [of good material]. As a subject matter, it seemed like something that affected so many people.”

What began as a concept took over five years to translate into You Better Sit Down: Tales from My Parents’ Divorce, the latest project from Civilians that uses the real words of real people to explore a major social theme. (Pervious works have tackled Evangelical Christianity, climate change, and gentrification.)

Often, the story of a Civilians production reveals itself as the company interviews experts, figureheads, and everyday people. This means the company members are passionate outsiders looking in, and while their shows are always emotional, they also contain a thoughtful detachment.

But You Better Sit Down, now playing at the Flea Theatre through May 6, springs from a much more personal place.

[Read more →]

Why his new play Judith of Bethulia is more than just camp

—

There’s something Mickey-and-Judyish about Charles Busch’s stage comedies. Granted, the prolific playwright/performer is usually in drag and much of his humor is risqué. Yet all of his star vehicles—from the 1980s hit Vampire Lesbians of Sodom to last year’s long-running The Divine Sister—have a let’s-clear-the-barn-and-put-on-a-show quality. The cast members seem like giddy kids, and there’s palpable sincerity underneath their spot-on send-ups of old Hollywood clichés.

Without that sincerity, Busch’s shows would never work so well. While other drag performers go for easy gender-bender laughs, he wants the women he plays to be complex characters. “I’m a film and theatre historian, so I take parodies very seriously,” he says. “I want to achieve the same goals as the movies I’m evoking: a strong narrative with genuine feeling and tenderness. It’s not all done on a spoof level.”

That comes through in his latest play, Judith of Bethulia, which is loosely based on the biblical Book of Judith. Busch plays the title role, a rich Jewish widow who saves her people by seducing and slaying a villainous general. For the show, now running at Theater For the New City, he took inspiration from multiple sources: old, over-the-top Cecil B. DeMille epics; Mae West’s oeuvre; and a 1904 play called Judith that was the basis for D.W. Griffith’s 1914 film Judith of Bethulia. There’s also a slew of cultural references and a couple of stunning gowns. It’s funny, silly, and even kind of moving as the self-made Judith sheds her undeserved gold digger reputation and becomes a protofeminist heroine.

[Read more →]

Why less is more in Dan LeFranc’s hit play

—-

The less authentic it looks, the more authentic it feels.

That’s not a Zen riddle: It’s what Dan LeFranc learned about his play The Big Meal, now at Playwrights Horizons.

Superficially, the play sounds realistic: An extended family gathers for a series of meals throughout their lives, and between courses, they grapple with birth, death, and marriage.

But there’s magic in the way the story’s told.

Take the couple Sam and Nicole: When we meet them, they’re flirting at a restaurant, and they’re played by twentysomething actors Phoebe Strole and Cameron Scroggins. For a while, the scene feels like a traditional romantic comedy, but then—bang—Nicole jumps to their second date in the middle of a sentence. Time shifts, and suddenly, we’re in a new scene.

Soon, Sam and Nicole are married, and they’re at a restaurant with their kids. Only now, Sam and Nicole are played by thirtysomething actors Jennifer Mudge and David Wilson Barnes.

That’s how it goes for the entire show: As characters age, older actors play them, and younger actors eventually play the children of characters they played in earlier scenes. The conceit suggests we all become our parents and we all leave pieces of ourselves in our children. Life stops momentarily when we die, but then, somehow, the dead get resurrected in later generations.

LeFranc has been refining that vision for several years, and at this point, the play is remarkably lean. Actors barely change costumes, they use only a few props, and the sets and lighting are subtle suggestions, not literal interpretations.

[Read more →]

Stephen Schwartz in front of his current Broadway shows

A Q&A with the superstar composer on Godspell, Wicked, and more

—
Stephen Schwartz is one of the most influential forces in contemporary musical theatre. As a composer and lyricist, he’s created classics shows like “Pippin” and expanded the American songbook with tunes like “Meadowlark” and “Day By Day.”

At the moment, two of Schwartz’s defining works—”Godspell” and “Wicked”—are running next door to each other on Broadway, and he’s collaborating with Aaron Sorkin to create a musical about Houdini. Since Hugh Jackman is attached to play the legendary magician, there’s a good chance Schwartz will be celebrating yet another hit in just a few months.
Last week, Schwartz joined me for lunch in midtown Manhattan. We discussed his lengthy career, his thoughts on his current Broadway shows, and how being a team player doesn’t always mean what you think.

I’m delighted to present the highlights from our conversation.

– Mark Blankenship

—

TDF Stages: Godspell, which stages the teachings of Jesus with a rock-pop score, has been produced thousands of times since it premiered Off Broadway in 1971, but until the current revival opened last fall, it hadn’t been on Broadway in over thirty years.

What’s it like to have your first hit back in the spotlight?

[Read more →]