My Broadway Review

The subtle comedy play “Is He Dead?” adapted by David Ives and directed by Michael Blakemore, a two time Tony Award winner, is going to be taken off from the Broadway’s Lyceum Theater from March 9th. The new comedy play that was written by the America’s master novelist Mark Twain has opened at the Broadway on Sunday, December 9 and its preview showing at the Broadway began in November 8. “Is He Dead?” is very well adapted by David into a comedy fast paced play that talks about a struggling artist who acts as if he is dead in a bid to sell his paintings at a good price. As this play moves on, there are lots of questions posed by the writer on fame, greed, value of art and he also tries to kindle the minds of everyone present in the theater with his own signature style of reasoning. This story written by Mark Twain was unpublished until a noted Twain scholar Shelley Fisher Fishkin brought it into the limelight in 2002.

Norbert Leo Butz, a Tony Award winner is the leading actor in the play who is ably supported by Marylouise Burke, Michael McGrath, David Pittu, Patricia Conolly and Tom Alan Robbins. Bob Boyett, Jane Bergere, Elizabeth Morten, Daryl Roth and Jacki Barlia Florin are the producers of “Is He Dead?” at the Broadway.

Broadway’s musical comedy “Curtains” is running into the summer of 2008 with success. The book of this play is done by the multiple Tony Award winner Rupert Holmes and the melodious music is prepared by John Kinder. The “Curtain” gets unfolded at the Boston’s Colonial Theatre, where a new musical play is being staged. The leading lady of the play dies on the opening night of the play and Lt. Frank Cioffi was called on the scene as the investigating officer. Now, the Lieutenant falls into an unexpected romance and is determined to solve the mystery of murder.

The cast of this mystery comedy includes David Hyde Pierce, Debra Monk, Erin Davie, Karen Ziemba, Jason Danieley and many other capable artists. The original book and the concept of the play are done by Peter Stone and the director is Scott Ellis. The designing of the set is done, very aesthetically by Anna Louizos and choreography is by the well experienced Rob Ashford. This highly rated play will be staged at Al Hirschfeld Theatre, in New York. The running time for this play is 2hours 40 minutes and the audience can be assured of watching a thrilling mystery and pleasurable comedy which will make them relax.

Many of the people might remember Johnny Depp’s 90‘s first musical film Cry Baby by John Waters and a stage adaptation of this famous musical classic movie is to hit the Broadway theaters on March 15th this year. This is a musical play directed by John Waters and the story talks about the guitar playing rebel and a good girl, who falls in love with the rebel and how their innocent romance blows up into a large mushroom cloud. The audiences are sure to be thrilled to bits by this musical play and it has all the ingredients that will make it a complete comic entertainer.

The Cry Baby musical play will have wayward youth, dirty lyrics, cool music, bizarre rejects as well as sexual tyranny and is one of the most anticipated musical shows to hit the broadways in this season. The show will be on at the Broadway on Tuesday, Wednesdays through to Saturdays and one afternoon show on Sundays. James Snyder plays the main character of the Cry Baby and his lady love’s character, Allison, is played by Allison. The other personalities who arte in the star cast of this Broadway musical are Harriet Harris, Carly Jibson, Richard Poe and Alli Mauzey.

Village playwrights, the Lesbian and Gay play wrights association is planning to celebrate their second year of play production through “March Madness’ which includes seven short plays to be staged at the Wing’s Theatre in Christopher Street, New York, during March this year. The themes for the plays vary from sexual abuse, gay themes, police misconduct and cruelty to the pets. The plays by the village playwrights are believed to attract many spectators, just due to its unique themes that are close to the life. The play Arcadia in Academia is the story of a gay college professor who helps a student to alter the grade just for sex. The play depicts the repercussions the professor’s family and the student had to face.

“Provocateur” reveals the difficulties that a demonstrator of the republican convention underwent in getting the video camera that contained evidences of misbehavior by the police. Kevin Berry’s “suburb” is a comical play about a gay couple who want to shift to the suburbs. The devastative happenings in the life of a husband and wife and how the couple overcome the situation, is clearly shown in “Home”. The play “where is Sin Jin?” is another comedy play with gay theme.

Tranced is the new play created by Robert Clyman, which is a psychological thriller. The play explores the concept of persuasive art along with truth. In the story, a respectful psychiatrist uses a method of hypnotism called “trancing” on his patients to bring out their suppressed feelings and memories. During one of his trancing session with a patient called Azmera, the psychiatrist come across a major truth or secret which will have long term consequences on the lives of many people in Africa. Now the psychologist is in trouble as to what to do with the information he possesses.

The play directed by Jessica kubzansky has Thomas Fiscella as Dr. Philip and Erica Tazel as Azmera. This play is entirely different from the usual plays due to its rare theme and the casts’ ability to portray the characters true to their life. Jessica is successful in pulling the audience with the subtle but appropriate sound effects and the approach in revealing the plot. The theme is a real attention gaining one but is not fully explained and the some characters like that of Logan has treated half- heartedly. This reduces the enjoyment of the spectators to some extent.

“Next to Normal” directed by Michael Grief shows all the traumas that Diana (Alice Ripley) had to go through in her life. The drama deals with the problem of depression and the probable ways of treatment to overcome it. The character played by Alice Ripley suffers from Hallucinations due to a past traumatic incident and Dan, her husband (Brian d’Arcy James) take her to various doctors for treating her. She goes through tiring treatment regimes including electroshock therapy. The play shows how imprecise the medical science is in some cases and at the same time is glorifying the efforts of genuine medical practitioners.

Tom Kitt’s music and Brian Yorker’s lyrics has made the music very resonant and appealing. Ripley has given an extraordinary performance in humorous as well as tragic scenes. Brian James has done justice to his role but the duet with his son (Aaron Tveit) is areal flop. A subplot involving the love story of Diana’s daughter is utter failure as the couples portrayed by Jennifer Damiano and Adam Chanler- Berat lacks chemistry. Tveit has put his heart in to the play and is very vibrant in his songs. So, all the characters and the music make this play watchable but not a relaxing experience to the audience.

The play “Lion King’ of Disney is creating history as it is one of the spectacular show ever occurred in Broad way. This has already played in 63 cities of 11 countries and more than 45 million guests have already watched the show. Lion King has completed 10 years in Broad way and the freshness of the theme and exhilarating performance by the artists make it a spectacular and most sought after show even after these 10 years. The cast of the play includes a list of able artists like Dan Donohue as Scar, Dashaun Young as Simba, Jim Ferris as Pumbaa. Nathaniel Stampley as Mufasa etc. Though many where skeptical about creating “lion King “as a play, the Chairman of Walt Disney, Michael  Eisner, producers of the Disney Theatricals Peter and Thomas were confident about the success of “Lion King”. Julie Taymor was assigned the direction and designing of the play and she made “lion King unique by mixing the animals with the humans in an awesome way. The play “Lion King” is far from its cartoon version as it has used African masks, fibers, wood and other organic materials to make it look as natural as possible

The line –up for the Williamstown Theatre festival for the year 2008 was announced by the new artistic director of the theatre Nicholas Martin. The season at the main stage will start with “She loves me” a musical by Bock and Harnick from June 28th to July 13th. Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters is going to be staged by Michael Greif from July 16th -27 on the main stage. A Flea in Her Ear will be staged by David Ives which is an adapted version of George Fedeau’s work. This will be on show from July 30th to Aug, 10th.

The concluding show of the main stage season will be with “Home” a play by David Storey staged by Joseph Hardy the winner of Tony Award. Richard Easton along with Dana Ivey and Paxton White head acts in this play. The Nikos stage at the Williamstown’s theater will be showing the solo play of Ronan Noone “The Athiest” from June 25th which is directed by the artistic associate of Williamstown Justin Waldman. Lydia Diamond’s “Harriet Jacobs” is the next in the row to be performed in Nikos. Theresa Rebeck’s “The Understudy” is scheduled for world premiere on July 23rd.

The Walt Disney Company in association with Broadway Theater is inviting you to come and enjoy their most successful musical play Mary Poppins that is a joy for the youth, a treat to musical ears and one that will rekindle lost memories of the world’s most famous nanny Mary Poppins. Now rated as one of the most popular shows to have hit the Broadway Theater, Mary Poppins has all the ingredients needed to keep you hooked on to the musical play for about 2 hours and 45 minutes.

The Mary Poppins Musical will be shown from Wednesdays through Sundays at 8 pm and on Sundays at 1 pm and 6:30 pm at the Broadway Theater. The story of the Banks family and the adorable and affectionate nanny is brought to light by the artists on stage and you will be in for some musical surprises during the show. Richard Eyre, an Award winning director directs his team of Artists and stage personnel with utmost dedication and his efforts are clearly visible in the musical play. The Mary Poppins play is based on the stories by P.L. Travers as well as the Walt Disney film and the songs in this play are from the film by Sherman brothers.

The musical , which is based on P.L. Travers’s stories that became a popular Walt Disney film in 1964, proved to be a hit in Broadway. It is known to have been aired on November 16, 2006 at the New Amsterdam Theatre where it became a success, even becoming the biggest hit in 2006-2007. In 2007, Mary Poppins was awarded seven Tony Award nominations which were inclusive of awards such as Best Musical. Mary Poppins has also earned several other types of awards for itself, including the Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical (for Gavin Lee) and Outstanding Set Design of a Musical (for Bob Crowley) at the Drama Desk Awards. It also won a Theatre World Award. In musicals the directors usually aims to discuss the role of the story and the score in the Mega-musicals of Lloyd Webber the actors should refer to and provide examples from specific pieces of music in your answer. The other topics discussed were those such as what extent can the functions and uses of music and narrative in early twentieth century Broadway musical theatre works be seen as directly influencing musical theatre at the start of the twenty-first century. Sondheim himself concedes that his shows are ‘caviar for the General’ rather than a regular diet for the masses” (Geoffrey Block). Discuss this view with reference to Sondheim’s treatment of plot, music and lyrics.