The Yale Institute for Music Theatre has assembled some accomplished casts for the two new musicals it is workshopping this month. The shows receive public readings June 24 and 25 as part of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas.
“Blessing,” with music and lyrics by Andrew R. Butler and book by Andrew Farmer, is about a small town in Alabama. The cast includes Ben Anderson, Stephen Bienskie (“The Last Session” on Broadway), Emma Galvin, Leah Hocking, Tim Jerome (M. Firmin in “Phantom”), Kaia Monroe, Heath Saunders and Andy Tayler, and recent or current Yale School students Jenelle Chu, Sydney Lemmon (who just starred in “Alice in Wonderland” at Yale Summer Cabaret) and Stephanie Machado.
“The White City,” a mystery by Avi Amon (music) and Julia Gytri (book and lyrics) set at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, will feature Jenni Barber (a Broadway Glinda in “Wicked”), Robin de Jesus (Sonny in “In the Heights”), Alexander Gemignani (Jean Valjean in the 2006 “Les Mis”), Caissie Levy (Fantine in the 2014 “Les Mis”), Jared Joseph, Krysta Rodriguez (a YIMT alum who was in TV’s “Smash” and Broadway’s “The Addams Family”), Thom Sesma and Bobby Steggert (who just starred in “My Paris” at the Long Wharf).
The Yale Institute for Music Theatre is a two-week intensive “summer lab” for “emerging composers, book writers and lyricists.” The “open rehearsal readings” for “Blessing” are June 24 at 1 p.m. and June 25 at 5 p.m. in Yale’s Off-Broadway Theater, 41 Broadway, New Haven. Info at 888-ART-IDEA or artidea.org.
The Critics Circle Asserts Itself
I dislike competitive arts awards on principle, and thus have never joined the Connecticut Critics Circle. That august body held a party at Hartford Stage on June 13 and declared that Hartford Stage’s “Anastasia” was the best musical of the 2015-2016 season, had the best director (Darko Tresnjak) and contained the best choreography (Peggy Hickey), lighting (Donald Holder) and projections (Aaron Rhyne).
The CCC considered the Yale Repertory Theatre production of Paula Vogel and Rebecca Taichman’s “Indecent” to be the best play of last season, directed by the best director (Taichman) and performed by an “outstanding ensemble.” A special award was bestowed on the show’s klezmer music composers, Lisa Gutkin and Aaron Halva.
Long Wharf Theatre musical “My Paris” won awards for lead actor Bobby Steggert and featured actress Mara Davi. The best costumes award was a tie between Linda Cho of “Anastasia” and Paul Tazewell of “My Paris.”
Best Lead Actor in a Play: Rajesh Bose for “Disgraced” at Long Wharf; Best Lead Actress in a Play: Erika Rolfsrud for “Good People” at TheaterWorks; Best Featured Actor in a Play: Charles Janasz, “Romeo and Juliet,” Hartford Stage; Best Featured Actress in a Play: Birgit Huppuch, “The Moors,” Yale Rep; Best Featured Actor in a Musical: Teren Carter, “Memphis,” Ivoryton Playhouse; Set Design: Alexander Dodge, “Rear Window”; Sound Design: Darron L. West, “Body of an American.”
The Circle gave its annual Tom Killen Award for lifetime achievement to Anne Keefe.
You may have noticed that, with the exception of Bose, Carter, Cho and Tazewell all the awardees here are white. Take that, Tonys!
Hartford Stage Is On Cloud Nine
Hartford Stage has nailed down the final show of its 2016-17 season. It’s Caryl Churchill’s classical sociopolitical comedy/drama “Cloud 9,” directed by the theater’s Associate Artistic Director Elizabeth Williamson. Long a favorite of college theaters (Yale School of Drama did the play in 2013, UConn in 2014), when “Cloud Nine” was first done in 1979, its second act was a sardonic of-the-moment snapshot of Margaret Thatcher’s England. Now both acts (the first takes place in colonial Africa during Victoria’s reign) are nostalgic. “Cloud Nine” is an actor’s dream: Members of the ensemble cast switch ages, genders, races and performance styles from one act to the next. In her introduction to the play, Churchill says she meant to explore “the parallel between colonial and sexual oppression.” That may not sound amusing, but “Cloud Nine” is very funny, and even has a song in it.
“Cloud Nine” will run Feb. 23 through March 19. It joins a wide-ranging, issue-laden Hartford Stage season that also includes T.D. Mitchell’s “Queens for a Year” (Sept. 8 through Oct. 2), August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson” (Oct. 13-Nov. 13), Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors” (Jan. 12-Feb. 12), James Lecesne in his one-man show “The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey” (March 30-April 23) and George Bernard Shaw’s “Saint Joan” (May 4-28). Now that Churchill’s joined the lineup along with “Queens” and “Saint Joan,” there’s a decidedly feminist slant to half the season. Season subscription info is at 860-527-5151, hartfordstage.org.
