Entries Tagged 'Arts & Entertainment' ↓

Good, interesting, live theatre always captures my attention and right now there’s enough going on to even get me to blog again!

First, if you haven’t already, run to the Manhattan Theatre Club and see the brilliant production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Ruined, by Lynn Nottage. I admit to being late to the dance on this one, having attended a performance only a few weeks ago, but it is about as gripping and moving a story as you are ever likely to see. Set in a small mining town in the Democratic Republic of Congo, this haunting work about the resilience of the human spirit during times of war follows Mama Nadi, a shrewd businesswoman. Is she protecting or profiting by the women she shelters? Drawn from real-life accounts that Nottage researched on a visit there, acts of brutality which lay a foundation for this tale continue to this day, leaving no one unscarred.

Writer/performer Daniel Beaty (Emergence-See) gave select audiences here in New York a sneak peak last week at a new one-man play he is developing, Through The Night. Beaty masterfully performed six characters ranging in age from a small boy to a 65 year old man, weaving together an interesting story about the many challenges facing African-American males today and the ways in which we seek solutions. He presented it this week in North Carolina at the National Black Theatre Festival and hopefully soon, a more formal staging will take place. It is one not to miss.

Three theater companies which serve as an able training ground for new and emerging playwrights, will unveil new productions soon.

Freedom Train Productions stages new political theatre that challenges audiences to see character and human struggle from new perspectives — black queer protagonists. This week they open Fire! New Play Festival 2009 which runs throughout the month.

Lark Play Development Center has announced the list of plays and playwrights for Playwright’s Week 2009 and it looks to be an interesting mix. Keep a check on their website for the festival schedule and ticket information.

Diverse City Theater Company announced its 2009 Mainstage production of “Race Music” by Warren Bodow. Performances will run September 3rd thru September 19th at The Beckett Theatre. Set in a metropolitan Midwestern city in 1999, the play takes a hard and nuanced look at prejudice, race relations, and social politics. It examines how racial stereotyping informs our opinions, stirs our emotions, and conflicts with our instinct to appear unbiased.

Finally, the 2008 all-Black Broadway production of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof will be staged in London. Tony Award Winners Phylicia Rashad and James Earl Jones reprise their roles and are joined by Olivier Award Winner Adrian Lester (Girlfriends, As You Like It, Primary Colors) and Sanaa Lathan (Nip/Tuck, Out of Time, Love & Basketball). Debbie Allen once again directs. Performances begin November 17, 2009. Cat will run in limited engagement December 2009 until April 2010 at the Novello Theatre in the West End.

In the music industry, a “standard” is a popular song that almost everyone knows, a classic that has been recorded or sung by numerous performers who each put their own spin on it. In a previous era, they were often songs first composed for a Broadway show (think anything written by Cole Porter) that migrated to the pop charts thanks to someone like Frank Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald, who’d give them a new uptempo or ballad treatment.

Few singers today sing the standards, those songs are perceived as too old. But Sunday night at Joe’s Pub in New York, the genre itself got a whole new interpretation.

Singer Billy Porter returned to that venue for the first time since his 2005 one-man show Ghetto Superstar with an inventive new program of music he called The Contemporary American Standard.

Selecting numbers by singers or songwriters better known to today’s audiences like Stevie Wonder, John Legend, Donny Hathaway, India Arie, Bonnie Raitt and James Taylor to name a few, Porter sang inspired neo-soul, rock, pop and hip hop arrangements of songs that collectively mined feelings of love, desire, loss and inner strength.

These were not mere note-for-note covers of other people’s songs, but rather reinventions, in Porter’s own gospel/soul/Broadway-stage-infused style. Faithful to the meaning of the “standard,” everyone knew these songs but marveled at the unique approaches. Porter brought the house to its feet with a slower, funkier take on Elton John’s “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” then later dropped a few original rap lyrics into a remix of the Beatles “Got to Get You Into My Life.”

In conceiving the whole show, Porter assessed the state of the recording industry and the ways in which consumer spending on music has changed. “People want comfort music,” he said, “Music they are already familiar with.” No one was releasing anything new, he noted, “Unless you’re Beyonce.”

Backed up most ably by a three piece band and assisted by his musical collaborators James Sampliner and Michael McElroy, Porter gave the capacity crowd more than its money’s worth. Scheduled for only one more evening, Monday night, hopefully he’ll either book a longer stay in the near future or record an album of these songs for those unfortunate enough to miss this show.

New York’s Signature Theatre Company continues its season-long tribute to the Negro Ensemble Company with another revival from the latter theater’s repertoire of excellent works. Samm-Art Williams’ Home, a Tony Award nominee for Best Play when it debuted on Broadway in 1980, is getting a new Off Broadway staging that is every bit as enjoyable as the original.

With a three-person cast that features Tracey Bonner, Kevin T. Carroll and January LaVoy collectively portraying more than 25 characters, this play is storytelling at its entertaining best.Home follows the life of Cephus Miles (Carroll) an amiable North Carolina farm boy who struggles to stay true to himself amidst a rapidly changing and turbulent America. The play spans a period from his adolescence in the 1950’s to his senior adulthood in the present, weaving in his experiences during the Vietnam War and Civil Rights era as he leaves behind his family’s farm to seek refuge and prosperity up North.

Williams uses a series of highly amusing and colorful vignettes to string together stories within the story. It is often like sitting at your granddaddy’s knee while he recounts some of the life lessons he picked up along the way. Hearing Cephus tell how he learned to “speak Indian” for example, is simply a brilliant piece of writing.

Director Ron OJ Parson maintains a lively pace throughout and makes skillful use of his cast. Bonner and LaVoy in particular carry not only the load of transforming themselves into multiple characters but provide music and sound effects as well at times.

Cephus’s journey takes him from found love to lost love, jail for draft evasion, a downward spiral into drugs and depression and final redemption. Right before our eyes, Carroll evolves from an innocent youth to a jilted lover, from confused victim of the system to a beaten down survivor.

Home parallels the northern migration experiences of countless African Americans who throughout the early part of the last century left the South in search of something better, only to be disappointed. But it should also have broader appeal to anyone wondering where they truly belong and what it takes to find happiness.

The play opens officially Dec. 7 and is scheduled to run through Jan. 4, 2009.

New York City is always a cultural oasis and the summer time seems to be when arts and entertainment events, or the announcement of future happenings, are in abundance. With gas prices being what they are, and “staycations” the new, less expensive way to enjoy time off, venturing around town seems the best bet.

Here’s a peak at some upcoming entertainment options:

The Tony Award-winning choreographer Bill T. Jones will direct and choreograph a new musical about Fela Kuti, slated to open in September.

“Fela!” was written by Jim Lewis along with Jones, who won a Tony last year for his choreography of “Spring Awakening” and who is also artistic director of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. The play is based on the life of the legendary Human Rights activist and Nigerian Afrobeat musician, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, who died in 1997 of AIDS-related illness. Fela spent years as a political prisoner after founding the political party Movement of the People, and is known for bringing huge bands to the stage, including many singers, dancers, percussionists, brass musicians, and guitarists. His music, which blends jazz with African beats and lyrics that demanded change and equality in his country, will be performed in the show by the Brooklyn group Antibalas.

The show will run at the 37 Arts theater in Manhattan from September 4 to September 21.

Joe’s Pub, the intimate nightclub performance space at The Public Theater, is celebrating its 10-year anniversary with an unprecedented 300 shows from September through December. During that time, Joe’s Pub will welcome back many of the artists who have had their US debuts at Joe’s Pub, recorded live albums there, or got their break in the music industry through showcases at Joe’s Pub.

Among the returning stars is one of our favorites, Billy Porter, who will do two shows there, December 7 and 8. Porter calls his show The Contemporary American Standard, and will do songs made famous by Stevie Wonder, Anita Baker, Donnie Hathaway, Oleta Adams, John Legend, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, India.Arie and others.

10th Anniversary tickets go on sale Thursday, July 17, 2008.

Ntozake Shange’s powerful mid-’70s “choreo-poem,” for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf, is getting a Broadway revival at the Circle in the Square Theatre. Previews start August 19, with a scheduled opening on September 8. India.Arie is set to star and three time Tony Award winner Hinton Battle will choreograph this play which dramatizes the struggles and journey toward self respect experienced by black women in America.

Another 1970’s black theater revival, The First Breeze of Summer, by playwright Leslie Lee, is being staged by the Signature Theatre Company, August 5 to September 28.

Signature Theatre is celebrating the historic Negro Ensemble Company, which originally staged this play in 1975 on Broadway. The show takes place over the course of one sweltering weekend in June, as the struggles of three generations of the Edwards family collide. Gremmar, the Edwards family matriarch, recalls her past and considers its legacy for her children and grandchildren as they confront the choices that will define their futures. Leslie Lee’s Obie-Award winning play is a timeless portrait of family bonds and coming of age. Ruben Santiago-Hudson will direct.

Although a long way off, another revival of another classic theatre piece was announced this week, to some considerable interest. A new Broadway production of the landmark musical West Side Story, directed by librettist Arthur Laurents, will begin previews Feb. 23, 2009. This production will introduce the unprecedented element of selectively weaving Spanish throughout both the book and songs.

Laurents, who earned solid reviews (and a 2008 Tony nomination) for staging the current Broadway run of Gypsy, stated, “This show will be radically different from any other production of West Side Story ever done. The musical theatre and cultural conventions of 1957 made it next to impossible for the characters to have authenticity. Every member of both gangs was always a potential killer even then. Now they actually will be. Only Tony and Maria try to live in a different world…”

West Side Story has music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Laurents. The staging will retain the original choreography of late director Jerome Robbins, who conceived the project by transposing Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to the turbulent streets of the Upper West Side in 1950’s New York City.

Casting information and on sale date for tickets will be announced later.

If eating out is more your style, New York City Restaurant Week—which is actually two weeks–runs July 21 through August 1. Over 200 restaurants will offer three-course prix-fixe dinners for $35.00 and lunch at $24.07.

Finally, jazz trumpeter Jeremy Pelt has released a new CD, November on the MAXJAZZ label. Possibly the most cost effective staycation you can have. Just stay at home and listen to music.

Clearly the Hollywood contingent of the television industry has no respect for the non-formulaic, innovative and just absolutely-superior-to-their-crap-in-every-single-way cutting edge production that was taking place in Baltimore for the past five years. The Emmy Award nominations were announced this morning and once again, The Wire, the best show on television, got shut out.

The final list of nominees was determined with the help of some sort of bullshit blue-ribbon panels that screened submitted episodes for the top vote-getters.

Nominees in the top categories were announced at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences by Kristin Chenoweth, Neil Patrick Harris and TV academy chairman John Shaffner.

The Emmy ceremony will be held Sept. 21 and broadcast on ABC. Other Emmy honors, including those for technical achievement and guest actors and actresses in series, will be given at the creative arts ceremony on Sept. 13.

The same old list of tired, boring network shows I’ve never had any interest in watching list of nominees follows:

Outstanding Drama Series

Boston Legal
Damages
Dexter
House
Lost
Mad Men

Outstanding Comedy Series

Curb Your Enthusiasm
Entourage
The Office
30 Rock
Two and a Half Men

Outstanding Miniseries

The Andromeda Strain — A&E

Cranford (Masterpiece Theatre) — PBS
John Adams — HBO
Tin Man — Sci Fi Channel

Outstanding Made for Television Movie

Bernard and Doris — HBO

Extras: The Extra Special Series Finale — HBO
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter — Lifetime
A Raisin in the Sun — ABC
Recount — HBO

Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series

The Colbert Report — Comedy Central
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart — Comedy Central
Late Show With David Letterman — CBS
Real Time With Bill Maher — HBO
Saturday Night Live — NBC

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series

Tony Shalhoub, Monk
Steve Carell, The Office
Lee Pace, Pushing Daisies
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Charlie Sheen, Two and a Half Men

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series

James Spader, Boston Legal
Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad
Michael C. Hall, Dexter
Hugh Laurie, House
Gabriel Byrne, In Treatment
Jon Hamm, Mad Men

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie

Ralph Fiennes, Bernard and Doris
Ricky Gervais, Extras: The Extra Special Series Finale
Paul Giamatti, John Adams
Kevin Spacey, Recount
Tom Wilkinson, Recount

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, The New Adventures of Old Christine
Christina Applegate, Samantha Who?

Tina Fey, 30 Rock
America Ferrera, Ugly Betty
Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series

Sally Field, Brothers & Sisters
Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer
Glenn Close, Damages
Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Holly Hunter, Saving Grace

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie

Catherine Keener, An American Crime
Susan Sarandon, Bernard and Doris
Dame Judi Dench, Cranford
Laura Linney, John Adams
Phylicia Rashad, A Raisin in the Sun

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series

Jeremy Piven, Entourage
Kevin Dillon, Entourage
Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother
Rainn Wilson, The Office
Jon Cryer, Two and a Half Men

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

William Shatner, Boston Legal
Ted Danson, Damages
Zeljko Ivanek, Damages
Michael Emerson, Lost
John Slattery, Mad Men

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie

David Morse, John Adams
Stephen Dillane, John Adams
Tom Wilkinson, John Adams
Denis Leary, Recount
Bob Balaban, Recount

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series

Kristin Chenoweth, Pushing Daisies
Jean Smart, Samantha Who?
Amy Poehler, Saturday Night Live
Holland Taylor, Two and a Half Men
Vanessa Williams, Ugly Betty

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series

Candice Bergen, Boston Legal
Rachel Griffiths, Brothers & Sisters
Chandra Wilson, Grey’s Anatomy
Sandra Oh, Grey’s Anatomy
Dianne Wiest, In Treatment

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie

Eileen Atkins, Cranford
Ashley Jensen, Extras: The Extra Special Series Finale
Alfre Woodard, Pictures of Hollis Woods
Audra McDonald, A Raisin in the Sun
Laura Dern, Recount

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series

Shelley Berman, Curb Your Enthusiasm
Rip Torn, 30 Rock
Will Arnett, 30 Rock
Steve Buscemi, 30 Rock
Tim Conway, 30 Rock

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series

Stanley Tucci, ER
Glynn Turman, In Treatment
Robin Williams, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Robert Morse, Mad Men
Oliver Platt, Nip/Tuck
Charles Durning, Rescue Me

Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series

Polly Bergen, Desperate Housewives
Kathryn Joosten, Desperate Housewives
Sarah Silverman, Monk
Carrie Fisher, 30 Rock
Edie Falco, 30 Rock
Elaine Stritch, 30 Rock

Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series

Ellen Burstyn, Big Love
Diahann Carroll, Grey’s Anatomy
Cynthia Nixon, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Anjelica Huston, Medium
Sharon Gless, Nip/Tuck

Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program

Jon Stewart, 80th Annual Academy Awards
Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report
David Letterman, Late Show With David Letterman
Don Rickles, Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project
Tina Fey, Saturday Night Live

Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program

Ryan Seacrest, American Idol
Tom Bergeron, Dancing With The Stars
Howie Mandel, Deal or No Deal
Heidi Klum, Project Runway
Jeff Probst, Survivor