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June 2009
- Highs and Lows of the Tonys
  
  Los Angeles Times | Jun 8, 09 9:33 AM CDT
  
  (Newser) - The 2009 Tony awards were not without their laughs—and gaffes. The LA Times outlines the best and worst of Broadway's biggest night. Dolly Parton was a crowd-pleaser during the show's opening number, but later appeared accidentally, and uncomfortably, on the stage when she lost out on the music and lyrics award. More »
- Billy Elliot 's 10 Wins Include Best Actor × 3
  
  Associated Press | Jun 7, 09 11:04 PM CDT
  
  (AP) - Billy Elliot, the British musical about a coal miner's son who burns to dance, won 10 Tony Awards tonight in New York, including best musical and a unique best actor prize for the three young performers who share the title role. David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik, and Kiril Kulish shyly thanked people associated with the show only by their first name. Finally, Kulish told the cheering crowd at Radio City Music Hall: "We want to say to all the kids out there who might want to dance, 'Never give up.'" More »
- Tonys Host Harris: 'I Might Sing. We'll See.'
  
  New York Times | Jun 6, 09 9:00 PM CDT
  
  (Newser) - Neil Patrick Harris will host the Tony Awards tomorrow night, and the New York Times caught up with the actor to talk about him and the show: How involved is Harris? "I have a lot of say in what comes out of my mouth. There are writers on the show, obviously, but the last thing I want is to come across like I walked in the afternoon of, and stand there and read a teleprompter. ... I want the jokes to sound like they’re coming out of my mouth. I might sing. We’ll see." More »
- Broadway Audiences Berated for Bad Acting
  
  Wall Street Journal | Jun 6, 09 3:51 AM CDT
  
  (Newser) - Boorish audience members have been around for longer than Shakespeare's plays but veteran theatergoers say bad behavior is definitely on the rise, the Wall Street Journal reports. Audience members have been spotted passing around buckets of chicken, putting their smelly bare feet on the seats in front of them, and even asking actors to delay their monologues while they get settled. More »
May 2009
- Hollywood Hunks Bound for Broadway
  
  New York Post | May 27, 09 4:00 PM CDT
  
  (Newser) - Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman will share a Broadway stage this fall in A Steady Rain , the dark tale of two Chicago cops whose lifelong friendship is tested. This is Craig’s New York stage debut, though the Bond man has performed in London theaters, the Post reports. Jackman is a sought-after Broadway veteran who won a Tony for the 2004 musical The Boy From Oz . More »
April 2009
- White Director for Black Play Puts Race Center Stage
  
  New York Times | Apr 23, 09 10:12 AM CDT
  
  (Newser) - The selection of a white director for the Broadway revival of an August Wilson play has sparked racial tension, the New York Times reports. Before his death in 2005, Wilson refused to let white directors oversee productions of his work, partially out of racial solidarity, partially because he felt black directors best understood his characters. Lincoln Center's choice of Bartlett Sher for Joe Turner’s Come and Gone , though approved by Wilson’s widow, was called "straight up institutional racism” by one black director. More »
- Still Wrestling 'Fat Kid Thing,' John Goodman Returns to Stage
  
  New York Times | Apr 19, 09 12:15 PM CDT
  
  (Newser) - Unlike millions of Americans, John Goodman hated Dan Conner, the beleaguered husband he famously played on Roseanne . “It’s one of those arrogant things that happen to you when you don’t realize the breaks you’re catching,” Goodman tells the New York Times . But the portly actor has moved on, and is readying his first onstage part since 2005—starring opposite Nathan Lane in a Broadway revival of Waiting for Godot. More »
- Decades Later, Hair Still Swings
  
  Bloomberg | Apr 1, 09 11:00 AM CDT
  
  (Newser) - Bursting with energy, the Broadway revival of Hair , recently moved indoors from Central Park, has wowed critics—though there are a few gripes. What they had to say: “ Hair , for all its references to hippies, Vietnam, free love and the revolution, feels utterly of the moment in its exuberance, its power to involve and, in Diane Paulus’s entrancing production, to move us,” writes Jeremy Gerard for Bloomberg. More »
March 2009
- New Bilingual West Side Story Tender, Uneven
  
  New York Times | Mar 20, 09 11:44 AM CDT
  
  (Newser) - The highly anticipated revival of West Side Story on Broadway opened last night to solid reviews, with critics applauding an unusually tender interpretation in which the women rule. Highlights: “Even when they’re flashing switchblades and kicking people in the ribs, the teenage hoodlums who maraud through Arthur Laurents’s startlingly sweet new revival of West Side Story seem like really nice kids,” writes Ben Brantley in the New York Times . More »
- Heathers Musical Bound for Broadway
  
  Hollywood Reporter | Mar 12, 09 1:57 PM CDT
  
  (Newser) - The high-school comedy/murder cult film Heathers is set to be reborn—as a Broadway musical, the Hollywood Reporter notes. Readings have already happened with the likes of Kristen Bell, and much of the original production team is on board. “‘I love my dead gay son,’” the producer quoted from the 1988 original. “If you can get that into a song, then that is just perfect.” More »
February 2009
- Producers Press Case Against Piven
  
  Variety | Feb 28, 09 9:26 AM CST
  
  (Newser) - The producers of Speed-the-Plow haven't given up their legal pursuit of Jeremy Piven, Variety reports. They plan to seek independent arbitration, which could result in serious fines for the actor. A panel of actors and producers failed to reach consensus on a possible penalty last week, leading to the producers' new decision. Piven bailed on the Broadway play citing mercury poisoning. More »
- Money Woes Ground Spidey, Other Musicals
  
  Bloomberg | Feb 27, 09 11:48 AM CST
  
  (Newser) - Financial woes are forcing more musicals to face the music: Spider-Man’s Broadway appearance has been delayed until next January, while Stephen Sondheim’s latest couldn’t raise the cash for tryout performances, Bloomberg reports. Spidey’s show, with tunes by U2’s Bono and the Edge, costs a record $31.3 million to perform, while iSondheim ’s $4.5 million tryout is steep for a musical revue. More »
- Piven Avoids Penalty for Broadway Absence
  
  Playbill | Feb 26, 09 9:54 PM CST
  
  (Newser) - Jeremy Piven has escaped punishment—at least for now—for bailing on the Broadway play Speed-the-Plow , reports Playbill . Piven insists he had to leave because of mercury poisoning, but the producers aren't buying it. The actor appeared before representatives of the Actors' Equity Association and the Broadway League at a grievance hearing today, and the panel failed to reach a unanimous vote needed for punishment. The producers can move ahead with an arbitration hearing, but they haven't said whether they will. More »
- Rent for Kids Too Risque, Blast Parents, Schools
  
  New York Times | Feb 20, 09 10:43 AM CST
  
  (Newser) - The long-running Broadway musical Rent has been edited for the school stage, but the truncated version retains themes of drugs, AIDS, and homosexuality that have some administrators running scared, the New York Times reports. High school productions around the country have met with administrative and parental resistance, forcing organizers to cancel some productions, at least temporarily. More »
- U2's $31M Spider-Man Musical Hits Delays
  
  Bloomberg | Feb 19, 09 4:01 PM CST
  
  (Newser) - Spider-Man has hit more snags en route to its debut as a Broadway musical, Bloomberg reports. Rehearsals for the U2-scored production, set to begin this spring, have been postponed indefinitely. With its budget currently at $31.3 million, the Spidey musical is the most expensive Broadway show ever, and costs could balloon to as much as $40 million. More »
- No Misunderestimating Ferrell as Dubya
  
  New York Times | Feb 6, 09 1:05 PM CST
  
  (Newser) - It’s not quite a landslide, but critics mainly agree that Will Ferrell gets his mission accomplished in lampooning the 43rd president with his Broadway show, You’re Welcome America. A Final Night With George W. Bush . Though Saturday Night Live viewers will see the “retread” in Ferrell’s “loopy extrapolation” on Bush, Ben Brantley writes in the New York Times , “the show feels freshest when he goes off on surreal tangents that transport his blundering hero into the ether of pure absurdism.” More »
January 2009
- Jacko Plans Broadway Thriller
  
  E! Online | Jan 26, 09 9:08 PM CST
  
  (Newser) - The Gloved One is planning a comeback on Broadway, E! Online reports. After years of promising a return to showbiz, Michael Jackson has agreed to stage a musical based on his smash record, Thriller . He will supervise "every aspect of the creative process," a rep says, allowing producers to use songs from his 1982 pop masterpiece and his 1979 album, Off the Wall. More »
- Virginia Woolf Gets Silly in 'New' Play
  
  NPR | Jan 25, 09 8:03 PM CST
  
  (Newser) - A satirical play by Virginia Woolf received its professional premiere today in New York, NPR reports. Featuring figures like poet Alfred Lord Tennyson and painter George Frederic Watts, Freshwater lampoons "high-falutin', oldish, long-bearded Victorians," the play's producer said. Woolf wrote the hour-long farce as a fun project for her free-spirited, Bloomsbury circle friends. More »
- Plow Producers File Grievance Against Piven
  
  BroadwayWorld.com | Jan 16, 09 6:21 PM CST
  
  (Newser) - Producers of David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow have filed a grievance with Actors' Equity against Jeremy Piven, who left the production with what his doctors called mercury poisoning, BroadwayWorld.com reports. No date for the arbitration proceedings has been set. Piven has gone to another set of doctors for a second opinion, but details have not been revealed, TMZ reports. More »
- Mercury Illness Was Real: Piven
  
  People | Jan 12, 09 2:29 PM CST
  
  (Newser) - Jeremy Piven has taken a lot of flak since leaving the Broadway production of Speed-the-Plow due to unhealthy amounts of mercury in his body—including anonymous sources who said medical reasons were a cover for the fact that he was fired—but the condition was real, the actor tells People . “I was brought to my knees by this illness,” Piven says. More »