Great Performanceson PBS will broadcast Sondheim The Birthday Concerttonight, Wednesday (11/24) at 9 pm ET/8pm CT. The concert honors musical theatre's greatest composer, Stephen Sondheimon his 80th birthday. Filmed at Lincoln Center, it features several talented actors on the same stage: David Hype Pierce (the host), Laura Benanti, Matt Cavanaugh, Michael Cerveris, Victoria Clark, Jenn Colella, Jason Danieley, Joanna Gleason, Nathan Gunn, George Hearn, Blaine Hoven, Patti LuPone, Marin Mazzie, Audra McDonald, John McMartin, Donna Murphy, Laura Osnes, Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Maria Riccetto, Bobby Steggert, Elaine Stritch, Jim Walton, Chip Zien, and Karen Olivo. For more info or to check local listings, please click here.
Lin-Manuel Miranda and Karen Olivo sing Empire State of Mind at the finale of Broadway On Broadway 2010 which was held yesteday. For more videos of the event, please check out the links below from BroadwayWorld.com:
A brilliant video from the very creative Lin-Manuel Miranda introducing the new In The Heights Tour cast. Video also features Kyle Beltran (the Tour's Usnavi), Karen Olivo plus Robin De Jesus towards the end as Lil Mama. Tons of theatre and pop culture reference keeping you on your toes! For list of cities and to order tickets, click on the link above.
Well, last night was the Superbowl for theatre geeks like me......the Tony Awards! And it was a great and efficient show! We also had a great Tony party but that's another story.
I started watching the show online which had the Creative Arts Tony Awards. It started with a surprise!. For the first time in Tony history, Next To Normal and Billy Elliot tied for the Best Orchestration award. What a great way to start the night! It was great to see and hear loud cheers for Hunter Bell (Title Of Show) when the nominees for Best Book were announced. And he had co-creator Jeff Bowen right beside him! I was actually hoping he would win but alas Lee Hall of Billy Elliot did. Tony Award winner last year, Laura Benanti was the co-host for the Creative Arts awards and she was really funny. Even referencing bad audience behavior and what might happen to you (clearly referencing the Patti Lupone incident last year when she stopped the show because someone in the audience was taking flash photography). Too bad TV viewers didn't get to see that.
The broadcast then moved to CBS. They had a glittering opening number (see above)! It stretched for 11 minutes with every nominated show featured as well as well known performers like Elton John, Dolly Parton and Poison. It makes you want to see a show doesn't it?
For the presentation of the awards, I love Frank Langella's candid musings about not being nominated complete with print ad of Man for All Seasons! And I had heard that he did that off prompter! Amazing! It was really touching to see Broadway royalty Angela Lansbury winher 5th Tony for Blithe Spirit. She was so classy and visibly overwhelmed with the win. I digress but wasn't it amusing to see Shrek, Princess Fiona and Donkey sitting behind her? Karen Olivo's emotional speech was also poignant. And I must say I like her dress! It was also so charming to see the very talented boys from Billy Elliot speechlessafter they won. It was so adorable! I was so glad for Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey's win for Best Score in Next To Normal as well as a Best Actress award for Alice Ripley. Her speech, although with a great message...... kinda scared me a bit ha ha! I still think she was great though.
I loved the production numbers but the best was from Next To Normalwho sang You Don't Know. I didn't think that would translate well on TV but it did! It was so intense and emotional but what great music! Aaron Tveit has such a beautiful voice. I was dissappointed with the choice from Billy Elliot which was Angry Dance. If I hadn't seen the show yet I would have just thought the boy had tantrums. It didn't showcase the show well, although, Trent Kowalik, as the Billy was wonderful. I wished they did Solidarity instead. I also loved West Side Story's Dance at the Gym. It featured the intricate choreography of the show. Very energetic! Though I haven't seen it yet, Hair's numbermade me excited that I'll be seeing it soon!
I did like it that the plays, and there were a lot of critically acclaimed ones this season, were featured too! Scenes from each play were shown with the cast introducing them. Nice way to honor them.
The In Memoriam segment introduced by Bebe Neuwirth with the Broadway Inspirational Voices singing What I Did For Love was lovely. It reminded me how much great talent theatre has lost this year.......Natasha Richardson, Bea Arthur, Paul Newman, Estelle Getty and Ertha Kitt just to name a few. It was beautifully done.
As much as I enjoyed the show's production, I was so frustrated with the CBS TV broadcast. There were horrendous audio problems specially during the opening number and some performances. I mean not hearing lyrics but instead hearing people talking backstage??!!! Plus you couldn't hear the Jets and the Sharks facing off nor Trent's taps during Angry Dance. For a network that has produced the show before, I mean, common CBS this it the Tonys! How can you have horrible sound during the musical numbers! The camera angles and shots too were dizzying! It also didn't help that they had touring shows like Mamma Mia, Legally Blonde and Jersey Boys perform individual numbers. Those were just stale for me. I could have done without that. Plus it took time off from the last few award presentations which were major awards! The presentors had to hurry off reading the nominees list!
And last but not the least, the gem of the evening, Neil Patrick Harris! He was a great host! He was witty, acerbic and just plain charming. I love his sushi-gate dig at Jeremy Piven! As he said in an earlier interview, he didn't want to take anything away from the featured shows but his main role would just be a facilitator. I hope they get him as a host again. His show stopping closer was one of the highlights of the night (see video below)! Kudos to Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman of Hairspray fame for last minute lyric switches! It was.......wait for it........LEGENDARY! Read about how they did it here.
What a great season! For a full list of winners, click here. Now I'm off again to watch my DVD of the broadcast. So get out there and go see a Broadway Show!
I love dance. And I am always in awe of people who dance well and make it seem really easy. So it's not so surprising that I loved this show. In fact, I love it more than the movie. The choreography and staging of the dance sequence is so dynamic I found myself riveted. I don't think you get a sense of that in the movie. Just the prologue where the audience is introduced to the Jets and the Sharks and their ethnic war had them dancing all over the urban jungle set grabs your attention immediately. It's full of energy and very kinetic. That, and the score is the beauty of this production.
I did feel that the show's love story plot, taken from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, is a bit "forced" since Tony and Maria fall in love immediately after meeting at the dance (or maybe that's just me being jaded). But I'm willing to overlook that because of the phenomenal dancing in the show. Special mention made to Cody Green (who plays Riff). I first noticed his talent in the reality show Step It Up and Dancewhere he ended up winning the competition. Even then his dancing is so masculine and yet very graceful. It's even more evident in this production. I found my eyes being drawn to watch him during the dance sequences. Also equally quite impressive is Curtis Holbrook (who plays hot head Action) and George Akram (who plays Bernardo). For the girls it's scene stealer Karen Olivo (who plays Anita) that was remarkable. She doesn't only have a very impressive voice but lovely lines when she dances. My favorite number is America and Cool. Both are very exciting. I must also say that the chorus seemed to be enjoying performing together and dancing Jerome Robbin's intricate choreography.
Now to Tony and Maria. Josefina Scaglioni (who plays Maria) has a beautiful angelic voice and Matt Cavenaugh (who plays Tony) has a voice that could have one melt. They were good actors but I think the characters they play are the least developed in the story. Their characters seem one dimensional to me compared to Riff or Anita. I do agree with Lani that the age difference between the two is evident even where we were sitting high up in the mezzanine.
The set is stunning. It's an urban jungle. During the rumble part, wire fences came down to separate the stage from the audience and enclosed the cast. At the same time, a silhouette of the bridge overhead also descends from the rafters. It does take the audience to that setting or at least that was my experience.
Go see it. It's only once in a while an iconic piece such as this is produced. Hopefully you'll enjoy it as much as I did. For more info, check out the West Side Storysite.
For those who missed it, here's Karen Olivo and the cast of West Side Story performing America on Dancing with the Stars. Show them how it's done girls!
Karen Olivo(Anita) and the cast of the current revival of West Side Storywill perform "America" on Dancing With The Stars tonight. The program airs on ABC at 9 pm ET/ 8pm CT.
On a side note, I love the photo (from LaTimes.com) above! Just look at those lines!
