Thursday, March 13, 2014
“Harmony” confirms Barry Manilow’s musical theater chops. The pop legend invests this biotuner of the Comedian Harmonists — a real-life German male sextet, pre-WWII toasts of two…
SOURCE: Variety at 03:47PMIf you haven’t come across George Takei lately, you might be living under a digital rock. The former “Star Trek” actor has, over the past five years, morphed into one of social media�…
SOURCE: Variety at 01:00PMWednesday, March 12, 2014
Blythe Danner and scribes Donald Margulies and David Auburn have lined up world premieres as part of the Manhattan Theater Club’s 2014-15 season, a lineup that sees the Gotham nonprof…
SOURCE: Variety at 04:00PMTuesday, March 11, 2014
Meet Tyrone, the dirty-minded, foul-mouthed sock puppet who steals the show in “Hand to God,” Robert Askins’ pitch-black comedy about a teenage boy (a sensational perf from…
SOURCE: Variety at 05:48PMThe Drama Desk has tapped Laura Benanti, the Broadway fave (“Gypsy”) whose TV credits include “Go On” and “The Sound of Music Live,” to host the org’…
SOURCE: Variety at 03:00PMMonday, March 10, 2014
The movie adaptation may be a nonstarter, but John Kennedy Toole’s novel “A Confederacy of Dunces” has taken its first steps toward the stage as producers announced a legit…
SOURCE: Variety at 06:13PMIdina Menzel and Denzel Washington flexed their box office muscle on Broadway last week, as Menzel topliner “If/Then” and Washington starrer “A Raisin in the Sun” each posted impress…
SOURCE: Variety at 05:19PMThursday, March 6, 2014
Commercial producers aren’t just commercial anymore. At least not all of them — not since the divide between the commercial theater industry and the not-for-profit legit sector has crumb…
SOURCE: Variety at 01:00PMThe 2014 Tribeca Film Festival has filled out its 2014 feature slate with a starry Spotlight section as well as midnight and special screenings, a group that taken together includes a new mo…
SOURCE: Variety at 12:00PMWednesday, March 5, 2014
“Wolf Hall” and “Bring Up the Bodies,” the Royal Shakespeare Company’s hit staging of Hilary Mantel’s Booker-winning novels, has lined up a commercial West End run that will open…
SOURCE: Variety at 11:00PMTuesday, March 4, 2014
It was a best-selling novel and a profitable film, but Iris Rainer Dart’s tear-jerker, “Beaches,” struggles to find a footing as a compelling musical in its premiere at Arlington, Va.�…
SOURCE: Variety at 08:00PMMonday, March 3, 2014
“Elliot: A Soldier’s Fugue” began the cycle of plays by Quiara Alegria Hudes about a young Marine’s re-entry into the land of the living after a soul-destroying tou…
SOURCE: Variety at 10:00PM“Les Miserables” stormed back to Broadway and “Aladdin” made a little box office magic of its own last week, with the two big-name tuners beginning previews in a seven-day frame that…
SOURCE: Variety at 05:27PMJohn Travolta memorably mangled Idina Menzel’s name during the Oscars on March 3 and that may have been rough for Menzel right before she belted out the hit tune from Disney’s &#…
SOURCE: Variety at 03:07PM“Old-fashioned” is most often a derogatory term, but it can also mean traditionally well-crafted. That’s definitely the case with “Versailles,” Peter Gill’s highly articulate, le…
SOURCE: Variety at 01:02PM“Tuck Everlasting,” the tuner that had been targeting a Broadway run during the 2013-14 season before getting detoured, and the world preem of the musical adaptation of “Bull Durham”…
SOURCE: Variety at 11:52AMA new musical adaptation of “Made in Dagenham,” the 2010 British indie that starred recent Oscar nominee Sally Hawkins, will premiere at the Adelphi Theater on the West End this …
SOURCE: Variety at 10:56AMFriday, February 28, 2014
Commercial and not-for-profit theatres can’t do without each other, but hooking up can be as problematic as it is profitable
SOURCE: Theatre Communications Group at 02:00PMA movie helps a Broadway show. But will the film version of “Les Miserables” give a leg up to the new Main Stem revival of the title that inspired it? Beginning previews March 1, “Les …
SOURCE: Variety at 12:00PMThursday, February 27, 2014
Who says a matinee has to be on a Wednesday afternoon? Well, Broadway does, and has for years. But later this spring, a concerted push to institute a Thursday matinee option will bring the M…
SOURCE: Variety at 01:00PMWednesday, February 26, 2014
The Broadway-aimed revival of “Can-Can” and the world premiere of the musical version of 1998 Cinderella redux “Ever After” are among the titles on the 2014-15 slate …
SOURCE: Variety at 05:37PMDiane Ladd and Eden Brolin have been tapped to topline “I Dream Too Much,” an indie feature to be exec produced by Richard Linklater. Danielle Brooks (“Orange is the New Bl…
SOURCE: Variety at 11:52AMTuesday, February 25, 2014
Most movies are regenerated on stage for one reason alone: No matter how unwieldy the material, familiarity breeds box-office contentment. But there’s a solidly theatrical reasoning behind…
SOURCE: Variety at 06:09PMAsk anyone in the theater industry with a horse in the awards-season race, and they’ll tell you that the Tony category for best musical — or any of the four major awards for over…
SOURCE: Variety at 03:27PMTony favorite Audra McDonald will topline “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill” in a last-minute addition to Broadway’s 2013-14 slate, confirming an expected move t…
SOURCE: Variety at 02:12PMMonday, February 24, 2014
Looks like “Kung Fu,” David Henry Hwang’s reverential homage to Bruce Lee, should have been a musical after all. Cole Horibe, Taekwondo Olympic medalist (and finalist on …
SOURCE: Variety at 10:00PMIs “Rocky” a Broadway box office contender? Too soon to tell, but sales for the large-scale new musical’s initial string of previews suggest audiences are at least showing a steady cur…
SOURCE: Variety at 05:36PMAt its fiercest, Ayad Akhtar’s “The Who & the What” bares some of the same teeth as his riveting, 2013 Pulitzer-copping “Disgraced.” Both explore Pakistani-American tensions ar…
SOURCE: Variety at 03:00PMFriday, February 21, 2014
With Broadway’s spring season barely begun, is it too soon to start worrying about the Tony races? Well, yes. But that hasn’t stopped legiters from forecasting an awards-season c…
SOURCE: Variety at 05:00PMThursday, February 20, 2014
Everybody knows that playwrights shouldn’t direct their own plays. But composers might also think twice about doing their own orchestrations. In an intimate house, Jason Robert Bro…
SOURCE: Variety at 10:00PMYankees play “Bronx Bombers” has struck out at the Broadway box office, with dismal sales prompting producers to post a closing notice for the end of this week. The play, a fanta…
SOURCE: Variety at 04:12PM 
