High School Stars

You might say it was a glee fest at the Marquis Theater last evening, as 44 of the most talented young performers from around the country competed in the second annual National High School Musical Theater Awards. At the end of the show, a panel of celebrity judges including Scott Ellis, Montego Glover, Bernie Telsey, and others chose two super-talents to receive this year's "Jimmy" Award, named after James M. Nederlander, scion of the famed theatrical dynasty that established the awards in collaboration with Pittsburgh CLO. Here are my pix of this awesome event, which was hosted by Kathie Lee Gifford and Tommy Tune.

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The fabulous opening number showcased all 44 contestants, giving more than a hint of the talent on display.

The bulk of the evening consisted of these amazing young men and women recreating moments from the performances that had earned them the title of "Best Actor" or "Best Actress" in regional competitions. Front and center in this photo is Katie Finan (Miss Sherman, Fame).

Matt Hill (Freddy Benson, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels).

Christian Paris (Fred Graham/Petruchio, Kiss Me, Kate).

Elgin Giles (Sky Masterson, Guys and Dolls).

Alex Field (Tin Man, The Wiz).

Katie Oxman (The Chairwoman, The Mystery of Edwin Drood).

Cooper Rowe (Ren, Footloose).

Andrew Gallop as Peter Pan's Captain Hook confronting Prentiss Mouton as Reverend Shaw from Footloose.

Katie Sapper as Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors.

Rob Gerrold as -- you guessed it -- the title characters in Jekyll and Hyde.

At the end of the ceremony, James L. Nederlander presented Jimmy Awards to Alexandria Payne, who earned an ovation for her performance of "Your Daddy's Son" from Ragtime, and Kyle Selig, who killed with "The Streets of Dublin" from A Man of No Importance. For more information on the National High School Musical Theatre Awards, visit nhsmta.com.

Falling in Love Again

The thing about promises is that if you keep the important ones, you'll probably be forgiven for breaking the little ones. Though the new Broadway production of the Burt Bacharach-Hal David-Neil Simon musical Promises, Promises and its cast recording are not perfect, whatever relatively minor flaws exist are easy to overlook in light of the overall achievement.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Promises, it's based on the film The Apartment and is set in the 1960s -- a time when the idea of high-powered business execs cheating on their wives and sleeping with their co-workers could be treated comically (in the case of the secondary characters) as well as seriously (in regard to the leads). I've always thought the musical might be retitled How to Succeed in Business By Lending Your Apartment to Higher-Ups in Your Company So They'll Have a Place to Screw Their Mistresses. By current standards of sexual politics, it's all rather unseemly, but it ultimately works because we do get to see the unfortunate consequences of such behavior.

As heard at the Broadway Theatre and on the new CD available from Sony Masterworks Broadway, Sean Hayes does a stellar job with the songs that Bacharach and David wrote for the central character, C.C. "Chuck" Baxter. Hayes's voice has a quick, tight vibrato (I believe "lamb's bleat" is the common term) that might take a little getting used to for some listeners but is really quite pleasant and very musical. As Chuck's beloved, Fran Kubelik, Kristin Chenoweth is somewhat miscast in terms of age and type, but that doesn't come across on the recording. What we get here are wonderfully soulful renditions of "Knowing When to Leave," "Whoever You Are," and several other songs, including two interpolations (see below).

Tony Goldwyn is spot-on as J.D. Sheldrake, the executive with whom Fran is carrying on an affair. Not previously known for musical roles, he sings with inflections that call to mind the mid-career Frank Sinatra, a good role model for this character. Tony Award winner Katie Finneran is a riot as the soused and horny Marge MacDougall, whose attempt to pick up our friend Chuck in a bar -- in the course of the tipsily delightful number "A Fact Can Be a Beautiful Thing" -- doesn't turn out as she had hoped. Brooks Ashmankas, Sean Martin Hingston, Ken Land, and Peter Benson as four philandering executives make a strong case for the sort of funny but also kind of creepy "Where Can You Take a Girl?"

Hearing the score again, I was struck by the fact that Bacharach's music is far superior to David's lyrics. From the thrilling overture through the unforgettable title song, Bacharach fills our ears with delicious melodies, harmonies, and rhythms, whereas David's work is often pedestrian, clumsy, and overly repetitious. One example: In "Wanting Things," David has Sheldrake sing, "When will I learn to resist wanting things, touching things that say 'do, do not touch.'" You see, he needed to fill an extra beat of music; but instead of giving the matter a few moments' thought and coming up with "touching things, things that say 'do not touch,'" or maybe "touching things that say 'please do not touch,'" he nonsensically repeated the word "do" and gave us doo-doo. The show is still a winner on the whole because the music and the book are pretty great and because David sometimes managed to rise to the occasion, as in the two most famous numbers from the score: "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" and the title song. But I can't help wondering how much better Promises would be if Bacharach had collaborated with a skilled Broadway lyricist rather than sticking with his pop song writing partner, who was not quite up to the task.

As is the case with the production itself, the most controversial element of the cast recording is the inclusion of two Bacharach/David pop hits, "I Say a Little Prayer" and "A House Is Not a Home," to beef up the score and, in particular, the underwritten role of Fran Kubelik. Neither songs really works in the context of the show when you see the production, and the latter of the two is wholly inappropriate because the situation it describes has nothing to do with Fran and Sheldrake, who don't live together. (In fact, that's a major point of her frustration.)

But I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that adding "I Say a Little Prayer" was not in itself a bad idea, because it does serve the valuable purpose of giving Fran a musical moment in which she's happy -- or, at least, thinks she's happy. It also points up her obsession with Sheldrake and neatly foreshadows the end of their relationship ("To live without you would only mean heartbreak for me"). A little more work should have been done to seamlessly insert the song into the show; as is, it doesn't function well in context because there's no emotional transition to Fran's first big scene with her paramour, where she's terribly hurt and frustrated over the affair. But this isn't an issue on the recording, so one can sit back and enjoy Chenoweth's scintillating performance with spiffy female-ensemble backing.

Phil Reno conducts an exciting performance that features Jonathan Tunick's own savvy revisions of his original orchestrations, complete with those fabulous '60s "orchestra voices." I personally prefer the original version of the overture, but this one is not bad -- and what matters most is that those first few, thrilling bars are intact. Overall, Sony's new recording of this groundbreaking score is a winner.

P.S. If you're waiting for some label to release the original London cast recording of Promises, starring Tony Roberts and Betty Buckley, don't hold your breath. Apparently, there are major licensing problems. Too bad, because while that album has its own set of flaws, it also has its pluses, and it's a better-mixed recording of Jonathan Tunick's original orchestrations than the OBC.

P.P.S. If you want to check out something really exotic but quite wonderful, try to get your hands on the 2002 Italian cast recording of Promises, Promises -- pardon me, Promesse, Promesse. A friend gave me a copy of the disc with no accompanying booklet, so I can't give you the names of the cast or anyone else involved. But it's a fabulous performance of the score with a charming Chuck, a lovely Fran, and a nifty adaptation of the Tunick orchestrations. (I have no idea if he did the job himself.) Viva Italia!

P.P.P.S. If you don't already own the OBC, now is an excellent time to purchase it: Kritzerland is coming out with a new two-disc set that contains the album as originally mixed plus a remixed version which, we are promised (!), corrects the often pitchy singing of several of the principals. (Apparently, it was a rough recording session.) My suggestion is, pounce.

A Meeting of the 'mos (and Their Friends)

If you've ever wondered exactly what the so-called "gay agenda" consists of, now's your chance to find out. The Meeting, a monthly comedy/variety show for homosexuals and their friends, will launch Pride Week with a star-studded session to benefit The Ali Forney Center on Monday, June 21 at 10pm.

The hit monthly series is billed as a gay romp through politics (sexual and otherwise), social news, music, skits, and other life-changing information. The usual site of the festivities is The Duplex Cabaret Theatre on Christopher Street, but this special edition will take place at Le Poisson Rouge (185 Bleecker Street, between Thompson and Sullivan).

Directed by Christian Coulson, the show will feature Jeffery Self and Cole Escola (Logo TV's Jeffery and Cole Casserole), the fabulous drag king Murray Hill, Bridget Everett (At Least It's Pink, We've Got Tonight), Erin Markey (Puppy Love: A Stripper's Tail), and Molly Pope (The Diva-lution of Molly Pope, Our Hit Parade), with other special guests to be announced.

The Meeting makes comic hay of the mythical "gay agenda" and is structured as any organizational meeting for homosexuals would be. Business of the day -- from politics to prophylactics -- is discussed and interwoven with comedy sketches, musical numbers, and other "homo-hijinks." The show is hosted by actor/comedian Justin Sayre (pictured above), who has assumed the title of "chairman of the I.O.S., The International Order of Sodomites -- the centuries-old secret organization of homosexuals and their friends."

What sort of subject matter is fodder for the performers? "Well," says Sayre, "we've done a series of sketches on the breakup of the gay penguins at the San Francisco Zoo. Did you know they broke up? Zoologists were baffled! We also play games. In this version, we're going to play Celebrity Match Game; Murray Hill will be the host, and we'll have people playing the ghosts of Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly. Oh, and each month, we celebrate a gay icon -- everyone from Bea Arthur to Bette Davis."

What else? "HBO is making a movie about the life of Anita Bryant, so we've had people 'audition' for the role. And we always end with a segment called 'New Rulings from the Board,' which is kind of a roundup of what's in the news with a lot of jokes about where we are and where things stand."

Sayre is very pleased that Ali Forney Center will benefit from the June 21 performance: "Our show is all about community, so we wanted to end our season during Pride month with a charitable event. When I was thinking of really great gay charities in the city -- and there are so many -- Ali Forney stuck out, because the work they do is so, so important."

The center provides housing and other services to homeless LGBT youth. Financial and moral support of the organization is particularly vital at the moment, since one of its shelters was recently defaced by vandalism including the words "We don't want gay people here" graffitied on the shelter wall.

"The fact that this happened in Astoria is mind-boggling to me," says Sayre, who happens to live in that neighborhood. "It's such a melting pot here -- and there are so many actors! There was a big rally in Union Square Park on Monday to protest the hate crime. I'm told the kids were upset by the graffiti incident but they weren't really freaked out about it; they said they felt safe, and they just looked at it as some idiot trying to take a stand on something. I think the fact that these kids are so confident and so proud says a lot about the Ali Forney Center."

Tickets for the special edition of The Meeting are available at LPRNYC.com. There is a $25 cover charge and a two-item per person minimum at tables, and you must be 18+ years of age to attend. For more information, visit facebook.com/TheMeetingWink and www.aliforneycenter.org.

The 2010 Phony Awards

Well, kids, it's time for the third annual Phony Awards -- a name I've borrowed from my friend and colleague Gerard Alessandrini, with his blessing. I've tried to come up with categories that are specifically tailored to this season's shows and artists, yet I was once again able to recycle a few categories from the past two seasons and simply plug in new winners.

Because these are the Phonys and not the Tonys, Off-Broadway shows and artists are eligible for consideration. Please understand that the awards are "phony" only in the sense that they don't actually exist and most of the categories won't be found in other awards competitions, but certainly not in the sense that they're undeserved.

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Most Energetic Cast:
The company of American Idiot. Yes, I realize their average age is somewhere around 24. Still, it's amazing that they're able to perform this show's frenetic staging and insanely intense choreography full-out, eight times a week (see photo above). Truly awesome.

Most Auspicious Broadway Debut by a Film Star:
Scarlett Johansson, A View from the Bridge.

Most Welcome Return to Broadway After a Long Absence:
Barbara Cook in Sondheim on Sondheim.

Most Fearless Performance:
Elizabeth Marvel in Suzan-Lori Parks' The Book of Grace at The Public Theater.

Best Performance by a Star in an Unworthy Vehicle:
Valerie Harper in Looped, by Matthew Lombardo.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Role Previously Thought of as Thankless:
Tie: Ron Bohmer as Father in Ragtime; Michael Cristofer as Alfieri in A View from the Bridge

Collective Award to Four New Musicals That Were Presented Off-Broadway But Were Superior to Most if Not All of the New Musicals on Broadway:
The Scottsboro Boys (Vineyard), Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (The Public Theater), The Kid (The New Group at Theatre Row), Bloodsong of Love (Ars Nova).

Best Fully Staged, Off-Broadway Revival of a Musical:
Tie: Ernest in Love at the Irish Rep; Children of Eden at the Astoria Performing Arts Center.

Best Bare-Bones, Off-Off-Broadway Revival of a Musical:
Is There Life After High School?, presented at the Duplex by Opening Doors Theatre Company. Runners-up: The Rink and Stop the World -- I Want to Get Off, presented by Musicals Tonight! at the McGinn-Cazale Theatre.

Special Achievement Award for Proving that Even a Highly Problematic Show Can Make for a Thrilling Night of Theater if the Talent and the Production Are First-Rate:
To everyone involved in the City Center Encores! presentation of Anyone Can Whistle.

Most Negligible Book of a Musical:
Million Dollar Quartet. Even people who love this show for the thrilling performances of rock and roll standards by its triple-threat cast will have to admit that the book is an unfortunate amalgam of clunky exposition, tepid drama, and lame humor.

Most Rudderless Direction of Any Show On or Off Broadway:
Robert Longbottom, Bye Bye Birdie.

Sexiest Female Performer:
Karine Plantadit, Come Fly Away. Her dancing is to die for, and she avoids the pitfalls in playing what might have been a stereotypical "fierce black woman" by bringing a great deal of humor to the part, which only makes her performance all the more sexy.

Sexiest Male Performer:
Austin Peck, The Irish Curse. His role of a hyper-masculine gay cop stretched credulity, but Peck was hotter-than-hot in it. Runners-up: Benjamin Walker in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Sahr Ngaujah in Fela!.

Cutest Onstage Straight Couple:
Jan Maxwell and Anthony LaPaglia, Lend Me a Tenor.

Cutest Onstage Gay Couple:
Three-way tie: Christopher Sieber and Lucas Steele, The Kid; Patrick Heusinger and Patrick Breen, Next Fall; Kelsey Grammer and Douglas Hodge, La Cage aux folles.

The Janus Award to the Best/Worst Broadway Revue I've Ever Seen:
Sondheim on Sondheim boasts many wonderful moments, thanks to a great cast that includes Barbara Cook, Vanessa Williams, Tom Wopat, and Leslie Kritzer. But it also has some major flaws, nearly all of them the responsibility of James Lapine, who conceived and directed this production. The nadir comes when the hauntingly beautiful song "Happiness" from Passion is staged and performed as a comedy number -- an astonishingly bad idea.

The Arthur Laurents Award for Most Lugubrious Pacing of a Show:
Tie: The Glass Menagerie, directed by Gordon Edelstein; A Little Night Music, directed by Trevor Nunn. The normal running time of each of these shows is about two and a half hours. Here, each runs much closer to three hours. In the manner of Arthur Laurents' snail-pacing of his Gypsy and West Side Story revivals, Edelstein and Nunn slow down the action of Menagerie and Night Music to the point where the shows really drag, despite the considerable merits of these productions.

Best Sound Design of a Musical:
Promises, Promises. The Broadway Theatre is a barn that has pushed some sound designers into ridiculous over-amplification, but for Promises, Brian Ronan has managed to make the voices and the orchestra sound both terrifically exciting and completely natural.

Worst Sound Design of a Musical:
American Idiot. I understand that ear-splitting volume is supposed to be part of the punk rock experience, but the sound of this show is so incredibly loud and distorted that the experience is borderline painful and at least 50 percent of the lyrics are unintelligible. That's a huge problem, not a plus.

Poorest Excuse for an Orchestra:
Tie: Sondheim on Sondheim, A Little Night Music.

Most Underrated Broadway Play of the Season:
Enron, by Lucy Prebble.

Most Cringe-Inducing, Shockingly Graphic Sex Scene:
Blind, at the Rattlestick Theater. Seth Numrich and Veanne Cox each deserve a special award for going through with it.

Best Performance by an Audience Member:
Mike Nichols at Wishful Drinking. There was a talk-back with Carrie Fisher after the performance I attended, and Nichols and his wife, Diane Sawyer, stayed for it. The fellow running the talk-back said something like, "Hello, I'm So-and-So, and I work for the Education Department at the Roundabout." When he called on Nichols to ask his question, the legendary director-writer-comedian began by saying, "Hi, I work for the Education Department for the Shuberts, so I don't have a lot to do." Nobody else in the audience seemed to know who he was or why that was funny, but I laughed hysterically. Thank you, Mr. Nichols!

Best Performance in a Special Event:
Doris Eaton Travis, the amazing former Ziegfeld girl who brought down the house with her appearance in the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS Easter Bonnet show in April, just two weeks before her death at age 106.

Most Justifiable Omission from the Tony Award Nominations List:
Even in a somewhat fallow year, David Mamet's Race was not nominated for Best Play, and with good reason. It's obvious, derivative, and light years short of Mamet's best work.

"It Was Grand Knowing You" Award to Three Wonderful Shows That Closed Quickly But Deserved to Run Far Longer:
Brighton Beach Memoirs, Finian's Rainbow, and Ragtime.

Every One a Winner

One of the nicest things about the Theatre World Awards is that there are no nominations, so no one "loses." And since past honorees are chosen to present these annual awards to actors who have made their first big splash on the New York theater scene, it's accurate to say that everyone on stage is a winner. Here are my photos of the 66th annual Theatre World Awards ceremony, held on Tuesday, June 8 at New World Stages.

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Here's Scarlett Johansson, the beautiful young film star who made a smashing Broadway debut in an excellent revival of Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge.

Sahr Ngaujah, honored for his amazing performance in the title role of Fela!

Presenter Brian Stokes Mitchell, who won his Theatre World Award in 1988 for his performance in Mail.

Presenter Viola Davis, a 2010 Tony Award nominee for her performance in Fences and a 1996 Theatre World Award winner for her performance in Seven Guitars.

Michael Urie was honored this year for his work in The Temperamentals.

Urie's award was presented by his Ugly Betty co-star Vanessa Williams, a 1995 Theatre World Award winner for Kiss of the Spider Woman.

Here's Bill Heck, who was honored this year for his performance in The Orphans' Home Cycle.

I caught some of this year's winners in the lobby at New World Stages before the ceremony began. Here's Jon Michael Hill (Superior Donuts).

Here's winner Stephanie Umoh with her Ragtime castmate Bobby Steggert, who won this year's Dorothy Loudon "Starbaby" Award.

Nina Arianda, who earned across-the-board rave reviews for her performance in Venus in Fur.

Winner Eddie Redmayne with his Red co-star Alfred Molina, a 1996 Theatre World Award honoree for his work in Molly Sweeney.

Keera Keeley, a winner this year for her performance as Laura Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie.

Chris Chalk (right), honored for his performance in Fences, with Condola Rashad, who won a Theatre World Award last year for her work in Ruined.

In addition to the presentations and acceptance speeches, the fast-moving ceremony featured some entertainment and special appearances. Since the event was held on the set of Avenue Q, it was great to have original cast members Jennifer Barnhart and John Tartaglia on hand.

I leave you with this photo of Jonathan Groff, a 2007 Theatre World Award winner for Spring Awakening, who wowed the crowd with his rendition of "Only in New York" from Thoroughly Modern Millie.

Doug Sills Gets the Hook

His musical theater roles have ranged from the dashing pretend-fop Percy Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernel to the strutting peacock Carl-Magnus in A Little Night Music to the over-the-top-theatrical Oscar Jaffee in On the Twentieth Century. He also played a villain, in the creepy person of the masochistic Orin Scrivello, D.D.S. in Little Shop of Horrors. And now, Douglas Sills is taking on the iconic mantle of the villainous Captain Hook in Peter Pan at the Paper Mill Playhouse, opposite the wonderful Nancy Anderson in the title role. During a break in rehearsals for the Charlap-Leigh-Styne-Comden & Green musical, I chatted with him about this juicy assignment.

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BROADWAYSTARS.COM: I guess you're a little too young to have grown up watching the Mary Martin version of Peter Pan on TV.

DOUGLAS SILLS: I don't know if I'm too young for it, but I have no recollection of ever seeing it.

STARS: My memory is that it used to be shown annually, then there was a long break. And then -- I'll never forget this -- they aired the show one more time in the mid '70s. Everyone was so excited. A high school friend of mine hosted a viewing party, and everybody had to bring a jar of Peter Pan peanut butter.

SILLS: It's amazing how the name Peter Pan is inculcated so deeply in our culture. Everybody has some reference that comes to mind, whether it's the peanut butter or those Peter Pan buses, or whatever.

STARS: The original story by J.M. Barrie is beloved in itself, and there have been so many popular stage, film, and TV adaptations.

SILLS: Yes. And everyone loved the Johnny Depp film about Barrie, Finding Neverland. I hear that's being musicalized.

STARS: What are some of your thoughts on Captain Hook?

SILLS: I feel like so many of our villains emanate from him. He's sort of the prototype for all who came later -- the whole idea of hating children, losing a body part and having it replaced by a hook. Barrie tapped into old fears about crocodiles, pirates. And it's so interesting, the idea of a boy teetering between childhood and adulthood. "I don't want to grow up! I don't want to go there, it's scary, there's too much responsibility." It's a very Freudian fulcrum. In a lot of ways, becoming an adult is cataclysmic for all of us.

STARS: One of the great moments in all of theater comes when Tinkerbell is dying and Peter turns to the audience and begs them to save her by clapping if they believe in fairies.

SILLS: Some people laugh when Peter says that -- at least, the adults do. But they clap. They want to believe. The play was originally written for adult audiences, and I understand there was a big to-do over that moment. Barrie was told, "You can't do that. This is England. You can't ask the audience to interact like that." But he insisted, and it turned out to be the most memorable moment in the play.

STARS: You actually play two roles in the show, Captain Hook and Mr. Darling. Can you talk about that duality?

SILLS: It's a fascinating premise. Why wouldn't you have two different actors play those roles? Barrie did it purposefully. There's something about a male adult authority figure that threatens childhood. In Neverland, the Lost Boys want a mother -- but they don't want a father.

STARS: What's your take on Hook?

SILLS: When I came into this, my image of him was more towards the genuinely evil. I think of the Grimms' fairy tales, and how they've been so whitewashed, at least in this country. The original tales are very dark and frightening; they're meant to teach lessons, and I think children can take it. With Hook, I thought: "Since there's so much lightness and comedy written into this show, I'll play him very dark and try to provide a counterweight." Then I saw the sets and costumes for this production, and I thought, "Maybe that's not going to work." So the character is still not completely there, but the director [Mark Hoebee] and I are definitely working to balance the lightness and darkness.

STARS: As originally played by Cyril Ritchard in the musical, Captain Hook was quite effeminate. What's your opinion on that interpretation?

SILLS: I think some of that is written into the part. The original Peter Pan story dates from the 19th century, and we have a very different association today when we see men behave in that iconically foppish, effeminate way. You look at those old Biblical movies, and the villains -- Herod, Caesar, Pilate -- are always played by these fey British guys. They're both powerful and impotent. I'm not scared of the effeminacy in Hook. If it seems appropriate and grounded in the reality of the part, I'll do it. I mean, everyone knows Douglas Sills is not exactly Lee J. Cobb or Sam Shepard. I am what I am.