Long Wharf Theatre always nabs interesting acts to headline its annual gala summer fund-raising events. In recent years, Mandy Patinkin, John Lithgow, Audra McDonald and Kelli O’Hara have performed. This year’s performance will be on par with those: “Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs.” The gala will be on June 5, starting with a cocktail reception at 6 p.m.
Cumming has been doing solo cabaret shows since 2009, and this particular one since 2012. Of course, he’s also known for another “Cabaret” — after a decade of success in the UK, the Scottish actor’s international breakthrough role was as the Emcee in the Kander/Ebb musical “Cabaret” in productions at the Donmar Warehouse in London and at Studio 54 on Broadway. He revisited the role on Broadway in 2014. Cumming has appeared in dozens of movies (I adore him in “Josie and the Pussycats” and “Spice World,” and in the gay-adoption drama “Any Day Now”). He was Eli Gold for seven seasons of “The Good Wife” and Austen Clarke for four seasons of “Web Therapy.” Cumming has also written three books: “Not My Father’s Son: A Memoir,” “Tommy’s Tale: A Novel of Sex, Confusion, and Happy Endings” and “You Gotta Get Bigger Dreams: My Life in Stories in Pictures.”
“Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs” has been released as a CD, recorded live at the Cafe Carlyle in New York City. A different performance, in Las Vegas, was filmed and broadcast on PBS in November. The show’s sappy songs include Noel Coward’s “If Love Were All,” Billy Joel’s “Goodnight Saigon” and an Adele/Lady Gaga/Katy Perry medley. For details of the Long Wharf Gala, contact Kathy Cihi at kathy.cihi@longwharf.org or 203-772-8234.
Crystal Clear
Billy Crystal will be at the Oakdale in Wallingford on March 25 as part of his “Spend the Night with Billy Crystal Tour.” Crystal started as a stand-up comic and impressionist in the 1970s, and in 2005 won a Tony Award for his autobiographical theater show “700 Sundays,” which later became a book and a HBO special. His film career is impressive by itself: “When Harry Met Sally…,” “City Slickers,” “Monsters Inc.,” “Analyze This”…
The “Spend the Night” tour apparently touches on all aspects of Crystal’s show business career: he’ll make jokes, tell stories, screen clips from his films and be interviewed onstage by actress/comedian Bonnie Hunt. Tickets for the March 25 show go on sale Jan. 27 at 10 a.m. at oakdale.com and Ticketmaster (800-745-3000).
Thrones And Cranes
The hit British stage show “Graeme of Thrones,” a self-described “parody/farce/show-within-a-show/loving-homage” for “Game of Thrones” obsessives, will be at the College Street Music Hall in New Haven April 6. The show concerns a low-budget amateur version of the George R.R. Martin mythos that gets the attention of big producers, “Waiting for Guffman”-style. It was written by Toby Park of the comedy group Spymonkey, Andrew Doyle (who turned a different fantasy novel, Terry Pratchett’s “Soul Music,” into a musical) and comedian/crime fiction writer Dan Evans.
Another vaguely theatrical event coming to College Street Music Hall in April: the return of The Decemberists. Several of the band’s CDs are plot-heavy concept albums, including the one that this tour marks the 10th anniversary of: “The Crane Wife.” Among the band’s famous fans is “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, who contributed a foreword to the booklet for the deluxe anniversary reissue of “The Crane Wife.” collegestreetmusichall.com 203-867-2000.
August, Tarell and Oscar
Connecticut theatergoers rejoiced Tuesday when the movies “Moonlight” and “Fences” each got multiple Oscar nominations. “Moonlight” is based on a play by Tarell Alvin McCraney, who graduated from the Yale School of Drama and will become the head of that school’s playwriting program later this year. “Fences” is based on the recent Broadway revival of a play by August Wilson that was originally developed in the mid-1980s at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford and had its world premiere at the Yale Repertory Theatre.
Both films received nominations for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress (Naomie Harris in “Moonlight,” Viola Davis in “Fences”). Denzel Washington was nominated as Best Actor for “Fences,” while “Moonlight” garnered nominations for Supporting Actor (Mahershala Ali), Director (Barry Jenkins), Original Score, Cinematography and Film Editing.
Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Wesleyan-educated of creator “Hamilton” and “In the Heights,” was nominated for Best Song, as the writer of “How Far I’ll Go” for “Moana.”
Playhouse 90
Last week I saw three 90-minute long, intermissionless shows in a row: “Endgame” at TheaterWorks, “Sunset Baby” at TheaterWorks and “The Comedy of Errors” at Hartford Stage. “[title of show],” currently at Playhouse on Park, and Hartbeat Ensemble’s “Jimmy and Lorraine,” Jan. 27 to 29 at the University of Saint Joseph’s Autorino Center, are similarly unbroken and economical.
An hour and a half, it’s generally believed, is as brief as a show can be yet still considered a full evening’s entertainment. It’s also as long as it can be without needing to offer a break. February may be the shortest month, but January has the shortest plays.
What different shows, to be sure! One is an absurdist masterpiece from 1957. One is the shortest script by Shakespeare, who was capable of writing shows more than twice its length. One is a contemporary urban drama, another is a modern musical and yet another is a biographical play about famous writers.
If I were grading them simply by length and impact, I’d wish “Sunset Baby” (with its riveting arguments about revolution, crime and practicality) could be longer, and that “[title of show]” (which jokes at its own expense about how lightweight some of its own scenes are) could be shorter. I’ve seen much longer “Endgame”s, and appreciate that Gordon Edelstein’s production is so sensibly paced. “The Comedy of Errors” is a special case. It sets a furious pace, trying for at least a laugh per minute. With 22 performers — eight more than are in all the other shows combined — “The Comedy of Errors” may be the most intense piece of theater you can measure by the minute.
