In his pre-show remarks on opening night of “The Sound of Music” March 7, Waterbury Palace CEO Frank Tavera let drop the titles of the five shows on the theater’s 2017-18 Broadway series: “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder,” “Phantom of the Opera,” “Jersey Boys,” “Rent” and “Motown the Musical.” With the exception of the previously announced “Phantom” (a major new Cameron Mackintosh-produced tour that the Palace has been touting for a year), all these shows have already played Connecticut.
This will be the second time “Jersey Boys” has played Waterbury, and the ninth time it’s been in the state. “Rent” will be at the Shubert next month. “Gentleman’s Guide” (which was birthed at Hartford Stage) and “Motown” were part of the 2016-17 season at The Bushnell. So, not new, but welcome returns. These are all swell shows, and give the Palace credit for such a modern selection: the ’60s pop hit scores of “Jersey Boys” and “Motown” notwithstanding, the oldest musical of the six is “Phantom” from 1986, and three of the others are less than 5 years old.
Performance dates and other details have yet to be announced. The Palace is also known for adding short runs of other touring musicals to its schedule with little fanfare. For subscription deals and more info, call 203-346-2000 or visit palacetheaterct.org.
The Gavel Drops In NYC
“Beneath the Gavel,” the art-themed performance piece by Hartford’s Bated Breath Theatre Company, gets an audience in New York City this month. The four-week off-Broadway run begins March 15 at 59E59 Theaters.
“Beneath the Gavel” was conceived and directed by Bated Breath founder Mara Lieberman, and is partly inspired by the experiences of Barbara Strongin, who worked at the Christie’s and Sotheby’s auction houses. The show offers an “immersive” live art auction (with the audience actively bidding) as well as scenes about art history, what artists can be like, and how art is perceived by the general public.
I saw “Beneath the Gavel” when it had its premiere a year ago at the New Britain Museum of American Art. In my review for the Courant, I wrote, “‘Beneath the Gravel’ is studded with some striking images, grand performances and several simple, yet startling stage effects. Objects are thrown, unfurled, batted about. There are balloons.”
Missy Burmeister, Gabriel Aprea and Debra Walsh remain from the original cast. They are joined by Corey Finzel, Sean Hinckle, Mia Hutchinson-Shaw and Moira O’Sullivan. For tickets: batedbreaththeatre.org.
Two Strikes
I own a smart black bowler hat, purchased at the DelMonico haberdashery in New Haven. I find it a fine fashion choice for theatergoing (and yes, I take it off when I am in my seat). But I wish I hadn’t worn it to “Waiting for Lefty” at Connecticut Repertory Theatre or to a screening of Disney’s “Newsies” musical at a cinema in Waterbury. Both those shows are set in the early part of the 20th century, when apparently men only wore bowlers if they wanted to be identified as evil and corrupt — the kind of guys who would keep disgruntled and downtrodden union workers from going on strike.
CT Rep’s “Lefty” was remarkable. Director Michael Bradford gave Clifford Odets’ unapologetically agitprop firecracker of a play something it doesn’t often receive: respect. He tempered the calls to action with reflective moments. He let all the dialogue be heard.
To bring “Lefty”‘s voice into the present day, Bradford also commissioned a new play, “Severance,” by recent UConn grad Levi Alpert, which dramatically deconstructs big-business practices of the modern age. “Severance” was less physical than “Lefty” — if a five-person chorus dubbed “The Board” didn’t deliver their lines with elaborate choreography and grand gestures, there wouldn’t have been much action in it at all. (It also didn’t feature a single bowler hat.) Yet “Severance” delivered exactly what’s being asked of it: something else to get worked up about.
Amarakoon Behind The Scenes
A successor has been found for the esteemed Bronislaw Sammler, who has been chair of the Yale School of Drama’s Technical Design and Production Department for more than 35 years and will be stepping down from that and his other post, head of production at Yale Repertory Theatre, in June. Both those titles will go to Shaminda Amarakoon, who graduated from the Yale School of Drama in 2012 and has been worked on several Broadway shows and as the Production Manager at New York’s Second Stage Theatre.
Still Seen in ‘Indecent’
“Indecent” isn’t all about the Yalies. Yes, the show will mark the Broadway debut of longtime off-Broadway and regional theater icon Paula Vogel, who headed the Yale School of Drama’s playwriting department for a few years. Yes, the play grew out of the YSD thesis project of Rebecca Taichman, who is directing Vogel’s script and gets a “co-creator” credit. Yes, “Indecent” had its world premiere at the Yale Repertory Theatre.
Yes, YSD alums Max Gordon Moore and Adina Verson are in the cast. But the show will also mark the Broadway debut of David Dorfman, who chairs the dance department at Connecticut College in New London. Dorfman has choreographed all three renditions of “Indecent”— at Yale Rep, at the Vineyard Theatre off-Broadway and now at Broadway’s Cort Theater, where the play will begin performances in mid-April.
Maggot Merch
Complete the wardrobe: When “Book of Mormon” played The Bushnell last month, you could have bought a pair of boxer briefs emblazoned with “I have maggots in my scrotum,” which you could wear proudly with your “Children are Maggots” T-shirt from the tour of “Matilda” at the same venue a few months earlier.
‘Cool, Cool, Considerate Men’
Last year I couldn’t help noticing the lack of a strong female presence in Westport Country Playhouse’s 2016 season (where there were no women at all in the first four shows of the six-show season) and in Connecticut Repertory Theatre’s 2016 Nutmeg Summer Series (where I calculated that male performers outnumbered female ones 42 to 22). Both those theaters have announced their 2017 seasons, so has the male dominance changed?
It certainly has in Westport, where every show in the season has at least one big leading role for a woman, whether it’s the shouty matriarch of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ family drama “Appropriate” or the tragic teen heroine of “Romeo and Juliet.” The season-opening “Lettice and Lovage” centers around two elderly woman characters, “Grounded” is about a female fighter pilot and “Sex and Strangers” is an even-handed emotional tussle between male and female writers.
As for the Nutmeg series, there are two overwhelmingly masculine musicals —”1776″ (which has only two women among the 16 main roles) and “Newsies” (where there are six roles for women — three of them unnamed “nuns”—and around 30 for men). The comedy “Noises Off” has more of an even balance: five men, four women, with a couple of the women usually earning star billing and getting some of the funniest gags.
Progress?
