October 2012 Archives

The great composer Alan Menken was honored by Encompass New Opera Theatre on Sunday, October 21 at the National Arts Club in a celebration that featured memorable performances of his songs, as well as tributes by three of Menken's lyricists -- Jack Feldman, Glenn Slater, and David Zippel -- and other notables. Here are my photos of this special event.

The man of the hour, Alan Menken.

Menken with his proud parents. (His mother told me she was "kvelling!")

Karen Mason and Karen Ziemba.

Lindsay Mendez and Farah Alvin.

Klea Blackhurst.

David Zippel and Jack Feldman.

Glenn Slater with Scott Coulter.

Sheldon Harnick and his wife, Margery.

Angela Lansbury, who played Mrs. Potts and sang the title song in Beauty and the Beast, stopped by briefly at the start of the ceremony. Here she is with Ward Morehouse III.

A highlight of the evening was Menken's own performance of some of his biggest hits.

There's a musical about cats, and there's a musical about frogs, so why not one about bedbugs? True, New Yorkers who went through a big bedbug scare a just a few years ago may not feel there's much to sing about in this subject matter, but composer Paul Leschen and book writer/lyricist Fred Sauter somehow managed to use it as fodder for Bedbugs!!!, a show that was very well received in the New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2008. Now, a revised version of Bedbugs!!! is playing at the ATA Chernuchin Theatre, October 19-November 4. I spoke with Robert Bartley, director and co-choreographer of the production, about this intriguing piece.

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BROADWAYSTARS: It's amazing to think back on the bedbug hysteria that gripped New York not so long ago.

ROBERT BARTLEY: I think it's still alive to some extent. In my neighborhood, Hell's Kitchen, I still sometimes see mattresses in plastic on the street. My partner Danny [Whitman] and I have all wooden furniture in our apartment, and a really comfortable bed. The idea of replacing any of that stuff is very frightening to me. Danny and I used to go to the movies at the AMC on 42nd Street all the time, but we stopped going because the theater had two epidemics of bedbugs.

STARS: Is your show basically a far-out comedy that was written in response to the infestation?

RB: Yes, but it has changed in the development. When I came on board, I really didn't want the show to be a two hour Saturday Night Live skit. I like the true art of musical theater, with people breaking into song and not making fun of that. The show has a terrific rock score, so it has a Rocky Horror feel, but in its theater sensibility it has more of a Little Shop feel. You know, as wacky as Audrey is in Little Shop, you buy into her pathos.

STARS: How did the development of Bedbugs!!! proceed after the show was done at NYMF?

RB: It was very successful at NYMF, but then they had a hard time nailing down a producer, I guess because of the title and the subject matter. Our producer, Dale Joan Young, really loves the story and the score, so she optioned the show. Part of what's helping us ground the piece is that we're trying to find the heart in it. It's raw, it's funny, and it's about bedbugs, but for me it has deeper meanings about self worth and co-dependency.

STARS: Talk to me about the cast.

RB: We wanted to make sure the lead actress was one that we cared about. In came Marissa Rosen, who's fantastic -- sweet, adorable, and a great voice. There's a song in the show called "Silent Spring," and when she sang it at the audition, we all said, "That's it!" We have a cast of nine terrific people, like Trisha Rapier from Sister Act, Christopher Brian Williams from Billy Elliot, Larry Daggett from Ragtime. And we have Chris Hall and Brian Charles Rooney reprising their roles from the NYMF production.

STARS: You're playing the Chernuchin, where Urintetown had a limited run after it premiered in the Fringe festival but before it hit Broadway. Maybe the theater will be a stepping stone for you, too.

RB: We're hoping! I love the catwalk on stage at the Chernuchin, but it's also a challenge because that catwalk became iconic when it was used in the Broadway production of Urinetown. I told our set designer, Clifton Chadick, that I wanted New York City to be a character in this piece, but I wanted it to look a little askew. He took soft goods and sewed them together, so the city skyline is made of bedspreads and the rest of the set is made of mattresses.

STARS: As for costumes, you have the designer from Forbidden Broadway, Philip Heckman. I'll bet that's fun.

RB: Exactly! Phil is great.

STARS: Tell me a little about the plot of the show -- but no spoilers, please.

RB: Sure. There's a girl named Carly who's about seven years old at the start of the show. She has no father, and her mother sells pesticides to foreign nations, so she's away a lot. Mom comes home one night and Carly wants to spend time with her watching TV, but mom is tired so she goes to bed. While Carly is watching TV with her earphones on, mom is attacked by bedbugs; Carly doesn't hear her screaming, and mom ends up falling down a flight of stairs and breaking her neck. This leads Carly to grow up hell-bent on ridding New York City of bedbugs, so she becomes an exterminator.

STARS: Are the bedbugs actually portrayed on stage?

RB: Yes, they're portrayed in several stages of their development. They're pretty terrifying.

STARS: This may sound like an odd question, but have you seen the play Grace on Broadway?

RB: No, why?

STARS: Ed Asner plays an exterminator in it.

RB: Seriously? That's so funny. I want to see that!

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[For more information on Bedbugs!!! or to purchase tickets, visit www.bedbugsmusical.com]

Fade Out - Fade In has a book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, music by the great Jule Styne, and the original production was directed by George Abbott and starred Carol Burnett. The show opened to rave reviews on Broadway in 1964 but had a short run because the box office plummeted when Burnett began to miss performances after suffering whiplash in a taxi. (It's a sad, fascinating story, too long to recount here but definitely worth researching.)

A hilarious tale of Hollywood in the 1930s, the show is almost never revived, but now audiences have a chance to sample its delights in the current Musicals Tonight! production at Theatre Row. Vanessa Lemonides as the plucky Hope Springfield (the Burnett role) and Bill Coyne as the vain actor Byron Prong (!) head a cast that also includes Joan Barber, Oakley Boycott, Terrence Clowe, Matthew Couti, Christie Dabreau, Peter Davenport, Matt DuMont, Preston Ellis, Jeanette Fitzpatrick, Judah Gavrah, Robin Haynes, Steel Jo Johnston, Vanessa Lemonides, Rob Lorey, Allison Maldanado, Peter Mills, Aaron Ricciardi, Jacob L. Smith, Jeffrey Arnold Wolf, and Chris Woods. Thomas Sabella-Mills is the show's director/choreographer, and David H. Bishop is the musical director. For more information, visit www.musicalstonight.org. Here are my photos of the production.

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One of the several excellent reasons why you should see Gayby, a new indie film written and directed by Jonathan Lisecki, is that most of the actors involved are young New York theater veterans. The two leading roles are played by Jenn Harris, acclaimed for her performance as Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling in Silence! The Musical; and Matthew Wilkas, who's the Peter Parker understudy in Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. As for the supporting cast, it boasts such familiar stage names and faces as Mike Doyle, Louis Cancelmi, and Adam Driver. I recently talked with Wilkas about the film, which opens for a run at Cinema Village in Manhattan on Friday, October 12.

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BROADWAYSTARS: Gayby has excellent buzz, Matthew. Was it written directly for the screen, or is it based on pre-existing material?

MATTHEW WILKAS: Jonathan and Jenn and I had done it as a short, about 11 minutes long, in 2010. I think it played over 100 different festivals, and it got great reviews and awards. So we decided to make the feature because there was so much interest in it, and there were some producers already on board.

STARS: Can you talk a little about the plot of the film for the benefit of our readers?

MATTHEW: It's about two best friends, a man and a woman; he's gay, she's straight. They've known each other since college, but now they're both in their thirties and they feel their biological clocks ticking. They had made a pact years ago that they would have a baby together, so she comes to him and asks him if he wants to go through with it. He agrees, but she wants to do it the old fashioned way. That's where the comedy begins! We have a lot of awkward sex scenes. And it's all complicated by the fact that, while we're trying to conceive, we're both continuing to explore our separate sex lives.

STARS: Sounds edgy. Are both of your characters coming off of relationships?

MATTHEW: I'm coming off a relationship. She hasn't been in one for a long time.

STARS: And Mike Doyle plays a new guy that you become interested in? And he has a kid?

MATTHEW: That's right. My character works in a comic book store. It's funny, I have all these lines about Spider-Man. That was before I went into the show, and I don't think I really knew what I was talking about. But I know now!

STARS: I guess you've probably known most everyone in the cast for some time.

MATTHEW: Jenn and I actually did go to college together, at Boston University. I think we have great chemistry because of that. I've known Mike Doyle about 10 years now; we met at Williamstown. But I met Louis and Adam on the film.

STARS: Jenn is so great in Silence! I'm sure you've seen it.

MATTHEW: Yes. I was in it for a hot second, when it was playing at Theater 80. I went in for a week because they needed a vacation replacement for Jeff Hiller. Jenn is amazing in the show. It's a dream part for her.

STARS: Even though Spider-Man is no longer front page news, I must ask you about that. How long have you been understudying? Were you in the show from the beginning?

MATTHEW: No, I've been in it for about nine months now.

STARS: Have you gone on as Peter Parker?

MATTHEW: Yes, about six times. There's one alternate for Peter Parker, Matthew James Thomas, who does two shows a week. And there's one understudy, me.

STARS: What role or roles do you play when you're not on as the lead?

MATTHEW: I play Flash Thompson, the high school bully, and a couple of other characters.

STARS: Well, it's steady work, right?

MATTHEW: Yeah!