They’re in the money: Connecticut theaters and spoken-word venues benefited from the National Endowment of the Arts “Art Works” grants announced earlier this month:
Goodspeed Musicals was given $25,000 to support the new musical “Chasing Rainbows: The Road to Oz.”
Westport Country Playhouse got $25,000 to help produce the Ayad Akhtar play “The Invisible Hand” and related events.
The East Haddam-based I-Park nature preserve was awarded $20,000 to install “site-specific environmental works” (which may include performance-art projects).
The Elm Shakespeare Company got $15,000 for its annual show in New Haven’s Edgerton Park.
The Hill-Stead Museum Farmington was granted $10,000 for its famed Sunken Garden Poetry Festival.
Connecticut received 15 NEA grants altogether, totaling just over a million dollars. The Connecticut State Office of the Arts, part of the Department of Economic & Community Development, was awarded $745,800.
‘Buyer’ Revealed
Westport Playhouse took a while announcing who would star in “Buyer and Cellar” at the theater June 14 through July 3. It’ll be Michael Urie, who played Marc St. James on the ABC series “Ugly Betty” and, despite an extensive TV resume, has never forsaken the live stage.
Urie has done this multi-character one-man show multiple times in multiple cities, including New York City, Chicago and San Francisco. Stephen Bracket, who directed the off-Broadway production of “Buyer and Cellar,” also helms this one.
“Buyer and Cellar,” by Connecticut-based playwright Jonathan Tolins, was seen earlier this year at TheaterWorks, starring Tom Lenk and directed by Rob Ruggiero. It’s about a guy who’s hired to work at the private shopping mall in Barbra Streisand’s Malibu home.
The Bikinis Beckon
The Long Wharf Theatre will once again host a summer production of the jukebox musical “The Bikinis — A ’60s Musical Beach Party.” The show, by Ray Roderick and James Hindman, with additional music and lyrics by Roderick and Joseph Baker, was developed at Goodspeed Musicals in 2012, and last played the Long Wharf in 2014.
The plot is simple: a ’60s girl group reunites in the present day to do a benefit for a New Jersey trailer park. “The Bikinis” runs July 13 through 31. It’s not the only show this summer to feature “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)”; that ditty’s also in “A Sign of the Times,” which runs July 29 through Sept. 4 at Goodspeed’s Norma Terris Theatre.
Sightings
Paul Giamatti visited the city of his birth, New Haven, to see Dianne Wiest and Jarlath Conroy perform in “Happy Days” at the Yale Rep a few weeks back. Giamatti also reportedly spoke to Rep Artistic Director James Bundy about returning to the Rep stage himself, possibly in a Shakespeare play.
Giamatti starred as Hamlet at the Rep in 2013 (with Conroy as the Gravedigger), and trod numerous Yale stages as a student in the 1980s and ’90s.
French pop star Charles Aznavour, 91 years old, traveled from his Paris (the one in France) to see rehearsals and performances of the musical “My Paris” at the Long Wharf Theater. Aznavour wrote the songs for the show, about the artist Toulouse-Lautrec. It’s Aznavour’s voice you hear in the show’s pre-recorded pre-show “turn off your cellphones” announcement.
Novelist Eleanor Bergstein, who wrote both the screenplay for “Dirty Dancing” and the script for its popular stage adaptation, attended a performance of “Dirty Dancing — The Classic On Stage” when it played the Bushnell this week.
We Love You Conrad
Say hello to the cast of “Bye Bye Birdie,” June 24 through Sept. 4 at the Goodspeed Opera House. Songwriter Albert Peterson will be played by George Merrick (Broadway’s “Honeymoon in Vegas” and “South Pacific”), and his fiancee/associate Rosie will be played by Janet Dacal (Broadway’s “Wonderland”).
Kim Afee, the lucky teen chosen to be kissed by famed rocker Conrad Birdie, is Tristen Buettel. Birdie is Rhett Guter. Alex Walton plays Kim’s jealous boyfriend, Hugo, while Ben Stone-Zelman is Kim’s bratty brother, Randolph. Kristine Zbornilk is Albert’s mom Mae.
The McAfee parents will be played by Warren Kelley, remembered locally for the dozens of roles he played for the River Rep summer seasons in Ivoryton, often sharing the stage with “Birdie” director Jenn Thompson; and Donna English, fresh from playing Toulouse-Lautrec’s mother in the Long Wharf and Goodspeed engagements of “My Paris.”
Dorcas Leung plays Birdie fan Ursula Merkel. Joining director Jenn Thompson on the creative team are music director Michael O’Flaherty, choreographer Patricia Wilcox (“Motown the Musical”), scenic designer Tobin Obst (“Newsies”), costume designer David Toser, lighting designer Philip Rosenberg, sound designer Jay Hilton and hair/wig designer Mark Adam Rampmeyer. Information: 860-873-8668 or goodspeed.org.
A Russian Rush On Tickets
Hartford Stage has added yet another performance to its hot-selling wintry musical “Anastasia” — a 2 p.m. matinee on June 15. It’s the ninth extra performance added to the run since the show was announced. “Anastasia” runs through June 19.
‘My Paris’ Microphones
When Broadway-scale shows have tryouts at regional theaters, the sound design can be overblown and oppressive. “My Paris,” at the Long Wharf Theatre through May 29, is impressive in its subtlety and clarity, especially considering how it has to gauge the singing voices against an onstage four-piece band. I looked hard for body mikes and couldn’t see them, but I’ve been assured they’re there, deftly hidden in wigs or hats.
Obie Honors
Carmen de Lavallade and A.R. Gurney received special Obie Awards for Lifetime Achievement earlier this week. Gurney’s plays have been seen throughout Connecticut, including at the Bushnell (“Love Letters”), Hartford Stage (“The Snow Ball”), Long Wharf (“Sylvia”), and Westport Country Playhouse (“Love and Money”). De Lavallade danced with the Alvin Ailey and American Ballet Theatre companies, was a member of the Yale Repertory Theatre in the 1970s, and presented her autobiographical one-woman show “As I Remember It” at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas last summer.
Hartbeat Hire
The socially conscious theater ensemble Hartbeat Ensemble company on Farmington Avenue in Hartford has found its new managing director: Suzan Bibisi. The search was nationwide, but Bibisi was already working in Connecticut, as executive director of the Tabor House, development director at the Prudence Crandall Museum and at Mercy Housing, and assistant state director for AARP Connecticut. Bibisi also has worked as a journalist at the Waterbury Republican-American.
Bibisi starts at Hartbeat this month. Jennifer Yanko, who was serving as managing director, will become Hartbeat’s new general manager.
Hartbeat recently staged the original musical “Gross Domestic Product” and presented the latest of its “Neighborhood Investigate Projects” in May.
