Newsboys, noises, that other musical about the American Revolution: Connecticut Repertory Theatre has announced its Nutmeg Summer Series.
The company, which presents professional productions of popular musicals and comedies on the UConn campus every summer, announced that it will open its 2017 season with “1776,” the 1969 Broadway hit about the writing of the Declaration of Independence, June 1 to 10. (The show’s cry of “Sit down, John!” is directly referenced, with a curseword attached, in “Hamilton”). The show will be directed by the Nutmeg Summer Series’ new Artistic Director Terrence Mann.
“1776” will be followed by “Noises Off,” June 15 to 25. Michael Frayn’s frenetic backstage farce will be directed by Mann’s predecessor as artistic director, Vincent J. Cardinal, who left CT Rep (and UConn’s Department of Dramatic Arts) last year to become the chair of the prestigious Department of Musical Theatre at the University of Michigan.
The three-show summer season will end July 6 to 16 with the lively Disney musical “Newsies,” about scruffy, tap-dancing newspaper boys who foment a strike against sourpuss publisher Joseph Pulitzer in 1899 New York. It’ll be directed by the accomplished choreographer/director Christopher d’Amboise, whose sister Charlotte d’Amboise is married to Terrance Mann and whose father Jacques d’Amboise has brought his National Dance Institute programs to the University of St. Joseph.
“Newsies” was a Broadway hit in 2012 and toured the country from 2014-16, with Connecticut stops at the Waterbury Palace and The Bushnell. A lot of Broadway shows would likely still be out traveling at this point in their success, but Disney chose not to do other tours and instead released the performance rights to regional theaters. CT Rep’s may be the first regional production of the show in Connecticut.
Three-show Nutmeg Summer Series subscriptions run from $99 to $108, $81 to $90 if seeing preview performances, $90 to 99 for seniors and a true bargain $33 for students. Details at 860-486-2113, crt.uconn.edu.
The Playwrights Are The Thing
Sir David Hare! Arthur Kopit! Donald Margulies! Marsha Norman! A whole bunch of people who are used to being called “among our greatest living playwrights” will be in the same room — Yale’s Whitney Humanities Center Auditorium, 53 Wall St., New Haven — on March 9 at 4:30 p.m. It’s a book launch for the new Yale University Press book “What Playwrights Talk About When They Talk About Writing” by Jeffrey Sweet (a playwright himself, who also wrote the indispensable history of Chicago’s Second City, “Something Wonderful Right Away”). Sweet will be in attendance with his aforementioned interviewees. Also there: Virginia Grise and Neil Wechsler, whose plays won the Yale Drama Series prize. The event is moderated by Yale University Press Director John Donatich.
Turning The ‘Table’
During its years of gestation, the new musical by Adam Gopnik and David Shire has only ever been referred to as “Table.” Last week, the Long Wharf Theatre, which commissioned the musical and is presenting its premiere May 3 to 28, announced that the show’s title has been changed, to “The Most Beautiful Room in New York.” The theater sent around an essay by Gopnik (a staff writer at the New Yorker) explaining the change. Among his points: “‘The Most Beautiful Room In New York’ had long been the name of the most purely thematic song in our show” and “Our show, more than anything needed “New York” in its title.”
“Table” — whoops, we mean “The Most Beautiful Room in New York” is about a fine restaurant facing tough times in Union Square. Details, including Gopnik’s full essay, are at longwharf.org.
‘Millie’ Is Thoroughly Cast At Goodspeed
“Thoroughly Modern Millie” may not be as thoroughly modern as a more recent Jeanine Tesori-scored show, “Fun Home.” But when “Millie”‘s at the Goodspeed Opera House in April it will feature a fresh, young face in the title role, and familiar names from recent Broadway hits in the supporting cast.
Millie will be played by Taylor Quick, who’s worked mostly in Texas and her native Arkansas. Loretta Ables Sayre, the Hawaiian cabaret singer whose Broadway breakthrough was as Bloody Mary in the 2008 revival of “South Pacific,” is Mrs. Meers. Jimmy will be Dan DeLuca, who was Jack in the first national tour of “Newsies” when it played the Waterbury Palace in 2014. Miss Dorothy is Samantha Sturm of Broadway’s “Holiday Inn,” “On the Town” and “Matilda.” Also found in this ’20s Jazz Age flapper frolic (based on the 1967 Julie Andrews/Mary Tyler Moore film): Edward Watts as Trevor Graydon, Ramona Keller as Muzzy, Christopher Shin as Bun Foo, James Seol as Ching Ho and Lucia Spina as Miss Flannery.
“Thoroughly Modern Millie”‘s set will be designed by Paul Tate DePoo III, who did “Guys and Dolls” and “A Sign of the Times” for Goodspeed Musicals and who’s designed “Millie” before, for Dallas’ Prism Theatrics in 2014. The show’s directed and choreographed by Denis Jones (who choreographed Goodspeed’s “Holiday Inn”). Details at 860-873-8668, goodspeed.org.
Honeymoon Elsewhere
A musical based on that grrrreat! golden age sitcom “The Honeymooners” was set to premiere at Goodspeed Musicals two years ago when the producers got whatever the opposite of cold feet is and decided to send the show straight to Broadway, without any out-of-town try-outs. Well, years have past and “The Honemooners” has gone back to the regional realm — not the Goodspeed but that other fine shaper of new musicals, New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse.
Also on Paper Mill’s just-announced 2017-18 season: “Annie” (directed by Denis Jones, who’ll helm “Thoroughly Modern Millie” at Goodspeed next month), the non-musical political comedy “The Outsider” by Paul Slade Smith (the West Hartford native whose “Unnecessary Farce” was recently seen at Playhouse on Park), a new musical based on “The Sting” and yet another premiere: “Half Time,” about senior citizens doing a hip-hop routine at a sports event.
More ‘Moors’
“The Moors” by Jen Silverman is getting an off-Broadway production this month, through March 25, at The Duke on 42nd Street theater. It’s just a three-week engagement — barely enough time to drench the stage with buckets of blood. The profoundly creepy comedy, loosely inspired by the lives and works of the Bronte Sisters, will be directed by Mike Donahue, who did really cool productions of “The Bacchae,” “The Who’s Tommy” and “Peer Gynt” when he at the Yale School of Drama a decade ago.
